The Ark and The Dove

What I Did This Summer: Literature Edition

What I read...

Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, (then) Cardinal Ratzinger – Interesting to get a glimpse at his domestic life under the rise of Nazism; more helpful to get the inside scoop on what happened during Vatican II. The man is a teacher, though, and can’t turn his brain off—he barely pulls his punches when he gets to theology (gives a distilled rundown on his understanding of revelation). Highly recommended, especially if you find yourself surrounded by liberals or ultra-conservatives.

Gammer Gurton’s Needle – Tudor comedy in which a town trickster causes mischief when an old woman loses her needle. Yep. It’s a big deal about something very little. That’s the point. Get it? Point? See what I did there. It’s pretty funny, but probably funnier to see than to read. Fairly entertaining, but I don’t recommend seeking out a copy unless you are really into Tudor drama.

 

The Four Ps – A Tudor entertainment in which four characters each of whom has a career that begins with “P” (Pilgrim, Pardoner, Pedlar, Pedant) have a conversation. To make things interesting, the Pedlar challenges them to tell the biggest lie. It’s pretty slow going until the misogynistic humor kicks in towards the end. I got by without reading it by now, you could probably skip this.

 

Friar Bacon, Friar Bungay – Isabel sold me on the amazing talking brass head...which ended up being a pretty brief scene. Anyway, this is about a Friar who challenges the world’s necromancers and scholars to outdo him in magic. To be honest, I don’t really remember much besides for the brass head. I’m pretty sure there was a distracting love plot between an aristocrat and a farm girl that seemed forced in there to pad out the magic bits. A fun gem for Renaissance enthusiasts and scholars.

 

Tom Thumbe – The story of Tom Thumbe, a teeny-tiny boy who, for the most part, repeatedly gets eaten and excreted since everything is bigger than him. Possibly a social satire. Not recommended for general consumption.

 

The Prose Edda (selections) – So I knew Tolkien used the Prose Edda...but I didn’t realize that just about every name from the Hobbit came from the Prose Edda. Check out the list of Dwarf names. Fortunately, my used edition had handwritten margins that even translated some of the untranslated names so that I could recognize the appearance of Oakenshield. Oh, and Thor gets seriously smacked around. Highly recommended.

 A Death in the Family – This trade paperback collected the infamous death of Robin story arc in the old Batman comics. It’s not Shakespeare, but it did create a little time capsule of late 20^th Century society. Batman confronts Ethiopian hunger and takes down Shiite terrorists. The Joke meets the Ayatollah and becomes Iran’s UN Ambassador. Robin finds out his mother fled the country after performing back-alley abortions. Holy relevance, Batman! Recommended, but only for pop culture enthusiasts.

 Usagi Yojimbo, Vol. 1 – A trade paperback of the early U.Y. comic appearances. It was a bit uneven, possibly because it hadn’t quite figured out the tone for voice for this cartoon-animal samurai Western. It was a bit like reading storyboards if Akira Kurosawa had direct animation for Walt Disney. Get it on sale if you are curious.

 

Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago..., Vol. 4 – If you think Star Wars got bad with the prequels, try reading this collection of 80s comics. They make George Lucas look like freaking John Milton. The stuff gets really weird when what was more a less a kids’ series introduces an entire race of crimson-skinned nymphomaniacs (who make Jar Jar Binks look like Sidney Poitier). Recommended for historical value.

Transformers Armada Omnibus – These are not comics about my Transformers. These were comics about Transformers for kids growing up in the early 21^st Century. This iteration of Transformers featured the minicons, which were basically the robot equivalent of Pokemon—you had to catch ’em all. The plot got really rushed and confused. Characters seem to drop in and out. Artists would change, and all the characters would look different. By the end, I had no idea what was going on and no idea why I should care. It did make me run to eBay to see if I could find any mini-con toys cheap, though. I couldn’t. Not recommended.

Literary parallelism

For those who have read Brideshead Revisited, it occurred to me that Bridey's childlessness - despite being married - is a symbol of his spiritual sterility.

In the spiritual life, he is very devout, moral, and knowledgeable about the faith.  Yet he is absolutely useless as a lay apostle.  If you want to know what the real meaning of "rigid" is - the real meaning, not how people who don't care for morality try to smear faithful Catholics - read Brideshead and pay attention to Bridey.  He will never inspire anyone to come to the Faith; he is more likely to scandalize them by making it appear that the requirements of the Faith are incompatible with the human heart.

Telemachus as Hamlet

One of the things that's neat about James Joyce is the parallels he drew between Homer's and Shakespeare's stories.  Peter and I were talking not too long ago about the famed supposed "indecisiveness" of Hamlet, which is the "indecisiveness" of someone who would know exactly what his duty was - if only he what his situation was.  But he doesn't, because the reports he's getting are in need of verification (i.e. he can't run off and kill Claudius or try to have him executed and then say "a ghost told me to do it," particularly when he himself isn't sure whether that apparition is from God or the devil).

Telemachus and Penelope are likewise in a bind.  Not exactly the same situation, but more alike than Joyce's Ulysses and the Odyssey.  Penelope has an extremely important and binding social duty - she just doesn't know what that is.  Odysseus is nowhere to be found.  If he's alive, she has to remain faithful until he arrives (they didn't do divorce in absentia).  If he's dead, she has to marry.  But she doesn't know if Odysseus is alive or not, which makes the situation a little difficult.  Meanwhile, she's being pressed by a horde of Claudiuses (Claudii?) who, banking on the fact that Telemachus is still just a bit too immature to take the throne himself, are jockeying to get hitched to her.  Meanwhile, Telemachus - theoretically he could take over the throne from his father, but there is the problem of his youth.  And then Telemachus has an apparation which purports to give him certitude.  In his case, not his father's ghost (his father, unlike Hamlet's, is alive), but Athena disguised as a man.  Same deal.

But, you may object, doesn't the father being alive instead of dead spoil the likeness?  No, I don't think so.  It's the same sort of thing, just left-handed instead of right-handed; seen in a mirror.  I think Joyce understood this, and this is why so many of the likenesses to Homer in his Ulysses are not straight likenesses, but "anti-likenesses," if you will.  If you've read both of them you know the sort of thing I am referring to.

Kudos to Garrison Keillor

For his new feature "The Writer's Almanac."  TWA has become the highlight of my early morning.  A daily few-minute segment on the radio, Keillor shares facts about authors, poets, or other thinkers born on that day, then reads a poem by a recent poet to finish it off.  Neat facts, presented in his reserved, soothing style, both comforting and feeding my brain on the morning drive.  "Be well; do good work; stay in touch [cue music]."

May 15

That's when this book of Pope Benedict's on our Lord becomes available.

Bet you didn't see this one coming

This Ephemeris news site never ceases to amaze me.

Though it may be in an unfamiliar language, I invite readers (particularly the ladies, who may be more familiar with the original) to try to figure out or guess what book this is from its famous first line before clicking the link and seeing what it is (here's a dictionary if you need some help).

Verum est ubique agnotum quo plus caelebs locuples uxore careat.

Here's the link.

Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten

I know I've posted this before at some point, but I told Therese I'd post it so that she could see what I was talking about.  Here is an online version in parallel German and English.

All flame and internet-argument guides pale in comparison to Schopenhauer's work on how to win an argument per fas et nefas. 

Learn how to annoy your friends and vex your enemies using tricks such as "Defense Through Subtle Distinction," "Putting His Thesis Into Some Odious Category," and "Bewildering Your Opponent By Mere Bombast."

Seriously, though, even if you don't want to sink to any of these, it's a good read because it gives you a good idea of what arguing is likely to be like in real life rather than in the idealized circumstances you hope for. 

It is perhaps not useful within the context of any given debate but certainly an interesting exercise when reading articles or disputes on the internet to recognize instances of the tactics Schopenhauer lists and mentally categorize them.  For instance, here's an example of a combination of Stratagem #1, exaggerate your opponent's argument beyond its natural limits, and #13, make your opponent choose between a proposition and counter-proposition both of your choosing.

Books

I've really managed to find some good books lately, where when I have to stop, I look forward with great anticipation to see what is next.

Most recently, Boethius.  Maybe I'll talk in later posts about specific things I liked.

Jorge Luis Borges.  When was the last time I read such extremely entertaining and thoughtful short stories?

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.  What a well-told story, all around.  Even if the author may not have all that much sympathy for the faith he left, he does a good job of letting the characters be true to it and resists editorializing too much.  Also, even though he thinks that most readers probably won't get all the detail he puts in there about the nuances of the medieval period, the Catholic Faith, historical and philosophical and ecclesiastical controversies, he doesn't content himself with shallow cardboard-cutout people and events, but goes to the trouble to weave those details in anyway - and finding and appreciating them was so much fun for me.  Plus the literary aspects: reading it right after reading Borges was exquisite.  And how entertaining to read a mystery-detective story written by a symbology semiotics expert.

The Arabian Nights.  I have Haddawy's translation of Mahdi's text.  The alternative, apparently, is the more famous in the English-speaking world but oh-so-Victorian Burton translation (of course either one I am likely to get is an edition of selected Nights as the whole thing runs some 16 volumes, it seems).  To be honest, I'm a little bogged down in the middle of The Story of the Slave Girl and Nur al-Din Ali ibn-Khaqan, which is the longest and the least special-seeming so far.  And I didn't know when I ordered the book that to get the stories I've actually heard of - Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor, and Aladdin and the Lamp - I'll have to buy Volume II.  But I'm going to.

The Library of the Double Axe

I think now I understand why a library for Jorge Luis Borges is a type of labyrinth.  Look at the diagram of the Rheims Labyrinth (left) and then look at the diagram of a plain non-labyrinth space with the outer boundaries shaped like those of the Rheims Labyrinth.  Now think of a library, even a one-room library, with the shelves full of books and then think of that same building empty of books, perhaps with a poster on the wall.  Which one is like which?  If necessary, trace the labyrinth with your finger and then mentally trace the path of all the text of all the books in the library.  If you think about it, even one good book would be sufficient for this purpose. 

And then you must consider the wanderings of the intellectual pathways engendered by the reading of those books.  Borges was a librarian as well as a writer.

Hooper rallies, perhaps?

I don't care what it's about; a blog called "The Age of Hooper" gets a click from me.