Do you know how to hop
About with just one leg?
Harder than you’d think.
Muscles grab that you didn’t
Know you had. Meanwhile
Josh waits while Jessica
Barks her permission
For him to go out back to
Mow, edge. Edgy when I read
Barrie wrote Robert Louis
In Samoa. Imagined things
Which more or less became
The boy who never grew who
Instead hit his train head on.
One needs to grow is the lesson
Here, even if it means growing
Old. How old can one grow you
Ask? He’s mowing now. Jessica
Seems to be chewing a wall.
Walls surround. No chewing
Anyone’s way through any.
Someone will tell us when
We’re to be shot. Someone
Is always shooting. Wars
Are endemic. Shouting, too
When regimes change. Clouds
Descend bringing rain.
I hop up on one leg to see.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
While the Gardener mows
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Hardy compared to Homer as having written a “classic”
Hardy’s The Return of the Native is being advanced as a
“classic.” Most critics I’ve read consider it his best novel.
But how does he stack up against Homer? Homer writes about
heroes at the dawn of civilization. His heroes deal with gods
and goddesses and possess enormous courage and prowess.
Hardy’s Clym Yeobright was born on Egdon Heath, a spread out
primitive farming community. He left it to become a successful
diamond merchant in the city (Paris) and then returned to teach
the village children of Egdon Heath. The confused Eustacia Vye hates living on
the heath and wants to move the city. She hopes Clym will take
her there. Meanwhile Clym’s cousin Thomasin, content to live on
the heath but in love with the flashy Wildeve hopes he will stay
with her on the heath. Wildeve however is in love with
Eustacia, and is willing to take her to the city but she is by this time in
love with Clym. Clym studies night and day to become a teacher,
and nearly blinds himself in the process. Not being able to see well enough to study, he takes up a job as a
furze-cuter. Eustacia has married Clym hoping to convince him
to take her away from Egdon Heath, but not only is he unwilling to leave. Now he is unable to. Confusion ensues, Eustacia agrees to run off with Wildeve but can’t go through with it
and throws herself in Shadwater Weir. Wildeve jumps in to save
her and they both drown. Clym settles back into the local
community and becomes a lowly preacher. Thomasin marries
a local dairy farmer and is happy with him. He is
very happy with her. Clym has no one.
It is only because of his publisher’s urging that Hardy allows
Thomasin to end up happily married to Diggory Venn. Hardy wanted
her to end up a solitary widow.
Just as Homer wrote about heroes at the dawn of civilization,
Hardy wrote about village life perhaps not a the literal dawn of
large cities, but something like that. Clym went off to the
city but wished to return to his village. Eustacia had heard
about the city and wants to live there. Thomasin is happy in
her village. This in effect, according to Hardy is a pitiful
situation. Hardy writes well, but he isn’t interested in
warfare or heroes. He is very much taken with pitiful people,
Tess, Jude, the Mayor of Casterbridge.
So can anything of Hardy’s be considered a classic? Surely not
in a Homeric heroic sense, but his novels compare well with some
of the tragedies of the citified Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus
which were based upon Homeric themes. The Greek playwrights
however are constrained to write on Homeric themes. Hardy on
the other hand has no Homeric thoughts and sees only the pitiful
effects of an unjust and uncaring civilization.
Classics as War Literature
Unarguably, Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aeschylus were the only classics for centuries. In Western Europe,
the Renaissance consisted of rediscovering these classics. And
key to these classics was the Trojan War. The method for
fighting that war changed little in succeeding centuries.
Even by Napoleon's time there was only a marginal difference.
His soldiers had bullets, but tactical attacks were made with
bayonets. In the midst of the American Civil War it was
demonstrated that bayonet attacks against entrenched troops
using rifles that could be reloaded quickly were destined to
have unacceptable casualties. Though this lesson should have
been well understood by the First World War, it was not.
British, French and German soldiers were ordered to fix-bayonets
and charge entrenched enemies equipped with machine guns. Most
had learned this lesson by World War Two, but the Japanese were
famous for their banzai charges which were successful against
poorly equipped Chinese, but suicide against the Marines who
island-hopped using machine guns and rapid firing
M1's.
Have there been "classics" written about warfare
that is radically different from the way the Trojans and
Achaeans fought? What comes to mind? All Quiet on the
Western Front for example? I see that as an antiwar
novel whose author is pessimistic about WW1 tactics.
Improvements in communications let the people back home
understand the nature of modern warfare and they were critical of it.
British and French populations were so traumatized by the
devastating methods of their generals that they refused to
adequately prepare for Hitler's initiation of WW II. The U.S.
had less excuse for being unprepared, but it had a history of
isolationism as a result of being located between two oceans.
One might see modern warfare in a great state of
flux and think it impossible to write a classic that will be
pertinent for succeeding generations. How would such a thing be
possible when warfare is sure to be different? I read Nelson
DeMille's extremely well-written Up Country. His
protagonist, Paul Brenner thirty years after the Vietnam War in
which he was an an accomplished and decorated combat soldier,
returns for an Odyssey Up Country. Rather than
a Homeric as-it-happens trek, Brenner recalls significant events
as he travels. Rather than Gods and Goddesses thwarting him, he
has a Communist Colonel who dogs him throughout his entire
journey. Odysseus thwarts Penelope's suitors and restores
himself on Ithaca. Paul Brenner thwarts the Communist colonel
as well as corrupt American officials in Vietnam and returns
safely to America.
DeMille has the current advantage of writing in a modern
language understood by English-speaking people everywhere and
potentially translated into any modern language. Homer has been
translated into modern languages, but ancient Greek is
translated into modern languages with uneven results. Scholars
of ancient Greek are regularly expressing unhappiness with
earlier translations and creating new ones. So, is there any possibility of a DeMille’s Up Country being thought equal to The
Odyssey? No. The Odyssey is incomparable. Even if DeMille is easier to read and understand
than Homer, Homer has the prestige. Homer is in a sense the
definition of “classic.”
Imagine a college literature class 500 years from now. It will
still be valuing Homer, but will it value DeMille? What could
they say about him? He may have had Homer in mind when he wrote
Up Country and so isn’t as original. Also, he wrote
about a forgotten war between the U.S. and Vietnam; whereas no
generation forgets the Trojan War. Also, DeMille’s soldiers
fight in a fashion that was used for a short time, but Homer’s
soldiers fought using a method present at the dawn of history and
subsequently used for hundreds of subsequent years.
Will anything being written today be current 500 years from now,
be, in other words a “classic” at that time? I’m reluctant to
say “no,” but at the moment I can’t bring anything to mind.
Miscellaneous thoughts about "the classics" part 2
For the reasons I mentioned in Part 1, I doubt
that Wild Fire will be considered a classic in the
future. On the other hand, the DeMille novel I finished last
night, Night Fall (published in 2004) may. It takes as
its starting point the crash of TWA 800. After an extensive
investigation, as one can read in Wikipedia, this crash was
considered to be caused by a mechanical failure, but many
witnesses said they saw a flash going up toward TWA 800 before
it exploded. Those reports were discounted. ATTF (Anti-Terrorist Task Force) detective
John Corey in Night Fall is warned not to investigate
this five-year-old cold case, but he is tenacious and discovers
a video of the explosion which proves that a missile caused it.
Agents in the CIA and FBI are attempting to keep him from
exposing their cover-up. As I read I couldn’t see how DeMille
was going to manage a suitable ending. I paused to check and
the official cause of the TWA 800 crash is still describe as a
mechanical failure. Several attempts are made to get the
evidence and the witness from John Corey; so to play it safe he
agrees to meet them in a very public and safe location where he
can provide the CIA and FBI with his evidence and ultimatum. He
chooses the Windows on the World for his venue. It was on the
top floors (106th and 107th) of the North Tower (Building One)
of the original World Trade Center. A caravan of cars drives to
Building one. John Corey is in the last car which becomes
separated from the cars in front because of traffic. His wife
FBI agent Kate Mayfield decided to wait for John downstairs.
Thus the tape, witness, and those who want to keep the cover-up
covered (most of them) are tidily killed in the September 11,
2001 attack.
DeMille does a very good job in Night Fall; much better than Ann
Patchett does in Bel Canto using a comparable scenario.
She too uses a real event and sticks to the history, but in her
case the history doesn’t seem integral to her story. In
DeMille’s Night Fall, it does (in my current opinion.)
Of the five DeMille novels I’ve read thus far, The General’s
Daughter might become a classic. The 850 page Up Country
may become a classic as well. Paul Brenner’s trek up through
Vietnam held my interest and I was not in that war. The
downside may be that Paul, like John Corey in Night Fall
is being opposed by those who want to keep the Vice President
(who is sure to be elected President) from being exposed as a
murderer. CIA operative Susan Weber, converted to Paul’s point
of view during their trip up country, claims to have hidden the
evidence against the VP. In actuality, the evidence was taken
from them by a Vietnamese Colonel who harassed them during their
entire journey. Paul leaves Vietnam and flies home. Susan
stays behind to presumably enjoy what will happen when they
learn that a Vietnamese colonel who hates America has the
evidence against the Vice President.
Night Fall is tidier than Up Country, but perhaps
the latter can justify its length by means of Paul Brenner’s
quest. Up Country is based upon DeMille’s knowledge of
Vietnam and his experiences in the war. Night Fall is
based upon the published accounts of the TWA explosion and
crash.
Just as the Iliad described various
battles; so did Up Country. The Achaeans won their war
and took Helen back to Athens. The Americans lost their war and
fled in helicopters.
John Corey is a more humorous
protagonist. Perhaps John Corey is easier for DeMille to write
about. He has thus far written seven John Corey novels.
Miscellaneous thoughts on the "Classics"
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are the earliest Classics. The Iliad
is about a war and the Odyssey is about a veteran of that war
during the process of his returning home. The war was fought with spears, swords and
shields. Virgil’s Aeneid is about another veteran of the Trojan
war. This veteran goes off to found a new nation.
War in Homer’s and Virgil's days was fought from or against city-states
and city-states we learn from archeology were a sociological
advance over villages. Going back further in time we find only
hunter-gatherer tribe and those tribe members didn’t know how to
write and left us no classics.
The Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid were valued as epic poems. Milton
didn’t strive to create a classic, he strove to create an epic
poem that would stand with the earlier three. Others have
striven to write epics. Hart Crane’s Bridge is a recent
example, but no attempt since Paradise Lost has been considered
a success.
The list of “classics” includes more then these epic poems. A
Classic might be a well-told story about a war, War and Peace,
for example. A Classic might also be a well-told story about an
individual, Crime and Punishment for example. It might also be
a story of a great event, Moby Dick and Red Badge of Courage are
examples.
A problem for good novelists, novelists seemingly capable of
writing classics is that the circumstances of our societies
changes rapidly. I’m currently reading Nelson DeMille’s Wild
Fire. In it he has an ATTF (Anti-Terrorist Task Force) agent attempt to infiltrate a
home-grown terrorist organization. The agent is described as taking
with him a very expensive 12 MP Nikon camera equipped with a 300
mm lens. I suspect this is the Nikon D700 camera which was expensive
in its day. It is still an excellent camera, but
most would consider it obsolete. Wild Fire was published in
November 2006. The world of technology has changed dramatically
since 2006. Shall a novelist then play it safe and not mention
technology? Perhaps DeMille thought he was doing that by
not mentioning the Nikon model, but his mentioning 12 megapixels
gives it away. Perhaps he thought 12 megapixels was going to be
as good as it gets. I thought that back then. We were wrong.
Also, from Wikipedia, “As of 2020, right-wing extremist terrorism
accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the
US and has killed more people in the continental United
States since the September 11 attacks than Islamic terrorism.
Thus, DeMille writing about a Right-Wing Terrorist organization
attempting to trick the U.S. government into thinking it has
been attacked by Islamic terrorists is a much-used plot. But
perhaps it was not over-used when DeMille wrote in 2006.
Nevertheless, while I am only 17% through Wild Fire I am not
very excited about reading a novel with a plot that was
subsequently over used. On the other hand this prejudice isn't
fair to a novelist who was the first to use this theme. The Wild
Fire American terrorists seem a bit like some of Ian
Fleming's evil villains.
Regarding "Classics" as "novels that matter"
Without an elaboration I have yet to imagine, I
can’t make that definition work, or, can’t make that elaboration
work without having such novels preach; which would seem to
disqualify a novel from being “great.” Years ago in my
left-wing days I read a lot of Communist-oriented novels. Jack
London wrote some – terrible stuff in my opinion, as were all
the others. I recall reading one by Clara Weatherwax called
Marching, Marching. In a 1936 review, Joseph Vanzier, aka John
G. Wright, a Trotskyite, concluded “As for the novel itself, it
is a travesty on literature and a libel against the working
class. Its style is the dregs of the Joyce tradition, drained
off through the worst of Wolfe and Faulkner, combined with
school-essay “straightforward” writing. Its characters are
wooden monstrosities, conceived with a kind of horrible
masochistic delight in repulsive details and an infantile
pleasure in trivial nobilities. The book is liberally
interlarded with long speeches on war, strikes, trade unions,
Fascism, apparently lifted from back copies of the Daily Worker.
“What is tragic is to realize that even in a book so bad as this
there are materials, lost in the morass, for genuine and even
great literature. Not the least in the charges of the indictment
against Stalinism must be the stultification of intelligence and
sensibility to which it condemns its adherents.”
I’d be interested in learning what Vanzier thought “genuine and
even great literature” would be. Would giving it a Trotskyist
emphasis satisfy him?
Moving into the present I can imagine Nelson DeMille’s The
General’s Daughter mattering to those who disapprove of
discrimination against women in the same way that Thomas Hardy’s
Tess of the D’Ubervilles mattered to those who disapproved of
the sexual mores of Victorian England, and before Tess was the
Scarlet Letter which exemplified Hawthorne’s disapproval of the
mores of early Massachusetts.
As to whether The General’s Daughter might one day be included
in someone’s list of Classics (It is only in Franklin’s
collection of “Signed First Editions”), The Scarlet Letter is
included in the Franklin Library’s 100 greatest books of all
time, but Tess of the D’Urbervilles is not.
Franklin also published the 50 volume Oxford Library of the
World’s Greatest Books. Both The Scarlet Letter and Tess of the
D’Ubervilles are included in the 50. I read them years apart,
but my recollection is that Hardy is more heavy handed than
Hawthorne. Tess murders her seducer and is to be hanged.
Hester Prynne is merely shunned for refusing to name her
seducer.
Put in more personal terms I continue to like The Scarlet Letter
whereas while I admit that I was powerfully affected by Tess of
the D’Urberilles I no longer like it; however, perhaps in this
ongoing search Italo Calvino is useful: “In the 1980s, Italo
Calvino said in his essay "Why Read the Classics?" that "a
classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to
say" and comes to the crux of personal choice in this matter
when he says: "Your classic author is the one you cannot feel
indifferent to, who helps you define yourself in relation to
him, even in dispute with him." Consideration of what makes a
literary work a classic is for Calvino ultimately a personal
choice, and, constructing a universal definition of what
constitutes a Classic Book seems to him to be an impossibility,
since, as Calvino says "There is nothing for it but for all of
us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics.”
Alas, even if I agree with Calvino, I won’t be inventing such a
library. I’ve read most of the novels on these various lists
over a long period of time, and I am not willing to go back and
reread novels I no longer like in order to reevaluate my
feelings.
On the value of reading
I'm convinced that we
retain more from our early formative years than we realize -- or maybe
we later realize some of it from the results. In my own case I was
raised by my paternal grandmother until I was ten. She had lost her
hearing in her adolescence for a year or two and so never finished high
school. She made up for it by reading and convinced me that reading was
the most important thing I could do. One could read greater teachers
than our schools could provide. My first library card was a very big
deal for me. I describe my feelings after I got back from Korea as not
liking the peace-time-Marines and list that as my reason for not
shipping over. And yet I spent my free time at the 29 Palms base
library reading "classics," and I supplemented those by subscribing to
Black's "Classics Club" which involved receiving a new book every
month. So perhaps I have deceived myself by thinking I might have
shipped over if I was promised some agreeable duty. Perhaps the books I
carried about in my sea bag counted more than any Marine Corps' promise
could.
And now I am 86 years old, and quite content to be sequestered in my
well-furnished house with my well-furnished library, reading one book
after another. I am pragmatist enough to need a purpose, but I recall
that my grandmother gave me one years ago: keep reading. It will equip
you to do anything you want to do and make you more than a match for any
future that awaits.