John Steinbeck on Fish and Relativity

Those of us who work with non-sciency things like language and social studies have learnt not just to accept the lack of universal truths and procedures, but to cherish and revel in them. The relativity and the uncertainty of our areas make them somehow more humanly relevant, more personally accurate and liberatingly dynamic.

John Steinbeck also reflected on this issue in his The Log from the Sea of Cortez, and my summer gift to you this year is in the form of his beautiful prose. Let it linger in the back of your minds for the holiday season!

"

We made a trip into the Gulf; sometimes we dignified it by calling it an expedition. Once it was called the Sea of Cortez, and that is a better-sounding and a more exciting name. We stopped in many little harbors and near barren coasts to collect and preserve the marine invertebrates of the littoral. One of the reasons we gave ourselves for this trip–and when we used this reason, we called the trip an expedition–was to observe the distribution of invertebrates, to see and record their kinds and numbers, how they lived together, what they ate, and how they reproduced…

We were curious. Our curiosity was not limited, but was as wide and horizonless as that of Darwin or Agassiz or Linnaeus or Pliny. We wanted to see everything our eyes would accommodate, to think what we could, and, out of our seeing and thinking, to build some kind of structure in modeled imitation of the observed reality. We knew that what we would see and record and construct would be warped, as all knowledge patterns are warped, first, by the collective pressure and stream of our time and race, second by the thrust of our individual personalities. But knowing this, we we might not fall into too many holes, we might maintain some balance between our warp and the separate thing–the external reality.

The oneness of these two might take its contribution from both. For example: the Mexican sierra has “XVII-15-IX” spines in the dorsal fin. These can easily be counted. But if the sierra strikes hard on the line so that our hands are burned, if the fish sounds and nearly escapes and finally comes in over the rail, his colors pulsating and tail beating the air, a whole new relational experience has come into being–an entity which is more than the sum of the fish plus the fisherman. The only way to count the spines of the sierra unaffected by this relational reality is to sit in a laboratory, open an evil-smelling jar, remove a stiff colorless fish from formalin solution, count the spines, and write the truth “D. XVII15-IX”. There you have recorded a reality which cannot be assailed–probably the least important reality concerning either the fish or yourself…The man with the pickled fish has set down one truth and has recorded in his experience many lies. The fish is not that color, that texture, that dead, nor does he smell that way.

…we were determined not to let a passion for unassailable little truths draw in the horizons and crowd the sky down on us. We knew that what seemed to us true could be only relatively true anyway. There is no other kind of observation. The man with the pickled fish has sacrificed a great observation about himself, the fish, and the focal point, which is his thought on both the sierra and himself.

We determined to go doubly open so that in the end we could, if we wished, describe the sierra thus: “D. XVII15-IX A. II-15-IX”, but we could also see the fish alive and swimming, feel it plunge against the lines, drag it threshing over the rail, and even finally eat it. And there is no reason why either approach should be inaccurate. Spine-count description need not suffer because another approach is also used. Perhaps out of the two approaches, we thought, there might emerge a picture more complete and even more accurate than either alone could produce. And so we went.

"

Source: As given, pp. 1-3

A Philosopher, an Economist, a Psychologist and a Physicist Walks into the Unknown - Four Takes on Souls and Soul Mates

With my background from the arts and particularly literature studies, I have been fascinated with the soul. Remember, this is what Faust sold to Mephistopheles or the devil in Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and Goethe's Faust. It is also what Dorian Gray pledges in order for Basil Hallward's picture of him to age and be marred instead of him in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Most religions recognise some sort of human spirit and many major philosophies as well. I follow neither, but I am curious about how the soul works if it exists. Is it, for instance, possible to sell one's soul, making a deal with the devil and what about soulmates? Do they exist or is it true what Emily Dickinson wrote, that "the soul selects her own society, then shuts the door"?

The reason I am writing about this now is that I recently came up with a plan. Atheists do not believe in a soul because it cannot be scientifically proven to exist. So, I figured taking inspiration from the Freakonomics podcast, what's to stop me from buying it off one of them and selling it on in a crossroads at midnight like blues guitarists like Robert Johnson claimed to have done? Imagine, I could get Faust's knowledge and pleasures of the world, Dorian Gray's eternal life and beauty and Johnson's guitar skills and not lose my own soul (if it exists)!

The plan proved trickier than I thought. I couldn't find any Atheists willing to sell their supposedly non-existent souls. I thought it would be like getting money for nothing for them, but no, they seemed reluctant to part with it.

Cue the philosopher and the economist:

The Philosopher and the Economist:

Michael Sandel and Stephen Dubner

Michael Sandel

Sandel: Well, it strikes me…The first thing that strikes me about it is that it’s a very old idea. It’s not new. Think of the indulgences of the medieval period. And it was after all the sale of indulgences, which is pretty close. Is there a difference between selling your soul and buying salvation? If you can buy a person’s soul, it’s pretty closely akin to buying salvation, which was, you remember that was the practice that was carried out in the Catholic Church at the time that Martin Luther rose up against indulgences, against the buying and selling of salvation.


In the above mentioned podcast, economy journalist Stephen Dubner co-author of the Freakonomics blog and books, talked to Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard University. The background was a case where someone had actually managed to buy another person's soul for $50.

Stephen Dubner

Dubner: [...] if I offered to buy your soul for fifty dollars what would you say? [...]Let’s say that I feel that you are not exercising it properly, that you are not taking seriously enough for my taste and my moral code the responsibility of this spiritual entity known as a soul, and I therefore am willing to pay dollars in order to better curate that soul because I do believe in the sanctity of the soul, and rather than see you not tend yours properly I’m willing to pay the price to take over that responsibility.

The two ponders this for a while. If it is possible to buy one soul, why not buy many? I could, for instance, buy a great amount of souls and sell them on to a religious church for a profit. As Sandel pointed out, medieval Christians bought abstract products like salvation. We buy the feeling of safety when we buy insurance and a feeling of self when we buy new clothes or other items. Dubner suggests that when a church converts followers of different faiths, they should pay a fee for each follower's soul.

Sandel: A market economy is a tool; it’s a valuable tool. It’s an instrument for achieving economic wealth, affluence, and prosperity. It’s a tool that we use, that we put to our purposes. But as markets and market thinking come to inform all aspects of life, as everything becomes available for sale, we become a market society, which is a way of thinking and being, an unreflective way of thinking and being that just assumes that all the good things in life can in principle be up for sale. And that, I think diminishes a great many moral and civic goods that markets and market relations don’t honor, and that money can’t or shouldn’t buy.

So, the morality of buying and selling on a soul would be problematic. What, then, if I knew someone really lonely and wanted to give him or her a soulmate? Imagine I had bought a guy's soul and I found someone who I thought would go really well together with him. Could I make him fall in love?

Cue the psychologist:

The Psychologist

Jeremy Nicholson

Jeremy Nicholson, M.S.W., Ph.D, is a doctor of social and personality psychology who focuses on persuasion and dating and calls himself "The Attraction Doctor". He writes for Psychology Today:

Jeremy Nicholson

Nicholson: [...]according to a January 2011 Marist poll, 73% of Americans believe that they are destined to find their one, true, soul mate. The percentage is a bit higher for men (74%) than women (71%). The notion is also higher among younger individuals, with 79% of those under 45 believing in soul mates (as opposed to 69% of those over 45).

Nicholson refers to the researcher Knee, who found that people who believe in romantic destiny or soul mates almost never finds what they are looking for. They think they do, though, and for a while all is well.

Nicholson: In all relationships, however, disagreement, conflict, and incompatibility will arise. Ultimately, no one is perfect - or a perfect fit for a partner. It takes work, growth, and change to keep a relationship going and satisfying over time. When that happens, soul mate believers often become upset, disillusioned, and uncommitted.

They then break off the relationship and goes on in search for the next, "real" soul mate. In other words, I wouldn't have much luck pairing them up, at least based on the idea of soul mates. This idea is beginning to look more and more like a fallacy. Maybe the Atheists are right and the soul doesn't exist, or perhaps souls just don't match.

Nicholson: People who believe in romantic growth primarily look for someone who will work and grow with them, resolving conflicts as they arise. [...]they are motivated to solve them and stay committed to their partner. As a result, their relationships tend to be longer and more satisfying over time. Rather than rejecting a partner for minor disagreements, they work together, evolve, and grow a satisfying relationship. In the end, it is a bit of a cruel joke. A belief in soul mates may prevent individuals from finding the very relationships they think they are destined to have.

In any case, what is the likelyhood of finding two souls to match? Are the soul mate fans really doomed?

Cue the physicist:

The Physicist

Randall Munroe

Looking for a soul mate

Munroe: For starters, is your soul mate even still alive? A hundred billion or so humans have ever lived, but only seven billion are alive now (which gives the human condition a 93% mortality rate). If we’re all paired up at random, 90% of our soul mates are long dead.

Randall Munroe is an introvert physics graduate from CNU who used to work for NASA. He figures that in addition to most of your soul mates being dead, many of them aren't born yet, not of your sexual preferance or in your target age group. Munroe calculates that that leaves you with around half a billion potential matches. Then, of course, you will have to meet.

Munroe: Let’s suppose you lock eyes with an average of a few dozen new strangers each day. (I’m pretty introverted, so for me that’s definitely a generous estimate.) If 10% of them are close to your age, that’s around 50,000 people in a lifetime. Given that you have 500,000,000 potential soul mates, it means you’ll only find true love in one lifetime out of ten thousand.

 So, you will need a lot of time to find the soul mate. In addition, they will need a lot of time to find you. Therefore, if you believe in soul mates, the chance of finding yours before you die is 1: (10.000*10.000) or ONE IN 100 MILLION! 

What to do with insubstantial property?

This means that if I bought a soul, assuming it exists and assunimg has a mate, I would have to try to pair it with a hundred million times more souls that I would ever meet in a lifetime. It seems that the idea of a soul mate is fundamentally flawed, unhealthy and should be buried. No use in buying a number of souls and setting up a dating agency. In the end, it turns out that Wilde and Goethe were right. It seems it's only the good and bad forces of religion and their representatives here on Earth who would find any value in a soul. If I ever get a few to spare, it seems I would be best off selling or donating them on to whichever I find most deserving.

Rembrandt's Faust having a bad idea

The danger is that if there should happen to be an afterlife and I would get there after I die, I would be saddled with whatever souls I couldn't sell off for all eternity. 

Alternatively, if reincarnation is the thing....

I might get merged!

Cue dramatic suspense music.

What do you think? 

Do you believe in souls and soul mates and do you think belief is a central element here? If souls do exist, should we have moral qualms in buying and selling them like Sandel suggests? Also, soul mates aside, both the psychologist and physician are fairly dismissive of short, frequent relationships. Are they right in being so? 

Comments on The Tale of Sir Bob are always welcome!

Sources: 1, 2, 3, images as given

First Editions and Other Marvels of Bibliophilia

During the summer vacation I succumbed to my bibliophilic streak and bought a monstrous number of books. In the course of this quest for literature, I visited many exciting bookshops. I went to Oxford and found a fantastic bookstore. Blackwell Rare Books in Broad Street seemed, in this bibliophile's opinion, to be able to cater to my every need. With a seemingly infinite number of departments spanning a number of buildings, a small café and an allegedly wonderful at ordering what they might not have they met my every need. Also, G. David Bookseller in Saint Edwards Passage in Cambridge proved to be a gold mine for old and rare books. I wish I had been able to spend more time there. Once you have held the first ever printed copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped in your hands there you know there are no limits to what you might find. Finally, The Haunted Bookshop in the same alley deserves to be mentioned not because of the staff, which was less than obliging, but because I spent quite a lot of money there.

I bought the following:

A first edition of Mulliner Nights by P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse -
Mulliner Nights
(London 1933)

This set me back £50, but it was worth it. I had considered buying a number of Wodehouse books, but there is something special about a first edition. This one, from 1933, would have cost ten times as much with its dust jacket which is fortunately missing. There is something relic-like over a first edition by your favourite author; imagining how it was first read by eager eyes in the interbellum years, how reader after reader inherited and enjoyed the book until it finally, surprisingly, is bought and soon to go international.

The plot revolves around Adrian Mulliner, a private detective who has not smiled since he was twelve. However, re-learning how to smile he finds that his smile has a most astounding effect on those with something to hide. As the book is packed with these individuals, hilarity, in the colloquial lingo, ensues.

I am looking forward to being the latest in a long line to enjoy exposure to the Wodehouse wit. In the end, many years from now, I will pass on the book. As the antiquarian said, "we do not own books, we borrow them."

Three More Wodehouse First Editions

P.G. Wodehouse -
Ice In the Bedroom
(London 1961)

P.G. Wodehouse -
Mr. Mulliner Speaking
(London 1929)

P.G. Wodehouse -
If I were You
(London 1931)

Of these three, only Ice in the Bedroom has still got its dust jacket. It turns out that the reason why first editions of Wodehouse books with their dust jackets are much more valuable than those without is because they have generally been popular enough for the dustjackets to get worn away. However, my reasons for buying them were not financial. These books were highly anticipated. People with bobs queued up to buy them and then passed them on to people they thought well of. The last in this line of vehemence is me.

P.G. Wodehouse -
The Heart of a Goof
(London 2008)

P.G. Wodehouse -
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
(London 2008)

And...

just to prove that I am not judging books solely by their covers, these are two other books I bought. Incidentally they were both bought at G. David's for half their original price although they were perfectly, crisply new.

Virgil - Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1-6 translated by H.R. Fairclough (New York 1925) 

Printed in 1925 and immediately bought by one J.W.D. Calman this is the first of two volumes covering Virgil's works. The other volume could not be found, neither could the dust jacket, which might explain the price of £3. Professor Fairclough of Harvard University spent the First World War years translating Virgil into English and the book nicely displays the original Latin text on the left side and the translated English text on the right.

The Eclogues is a set of text where herdsmen in a pastoral setting discuss and consider political, moral and even eroticist questions. They can be read as propaganda texts for Virgil's patron Augustus augmenting the political mythology he built for himself. The Georgics is a collection of four books in which a treatise on society and man is disguised as a handbook on agriculture. Analogically reminiscent of Hesiod's Erga the Georgics compare man to bees and emphasises the virtue of labour. Finally, the book contains the first six books of the Aeneid, the analogue of Homer's The Odyssey. Like The Odyssey the Aeneid begins with the fall of Troy and follow Aeneas, the mythical forefather of all Romans on his flight from Troy to Italy. I am especially looking forward to reading the better half of the epos, as I have not looked at it for 8 years now.

Edmund G. Gardner - The Story of Florence (London 1928)

St. Zenobius resuscitating a child
who has been hit by a runaway cart
(Domenico Veneziano - St. Zenobius Performs a Miracle (c. 1445))

I take a special interest in Florence and especially Renaissance Florence. This is where the Renaissance started and whence what I consider to be the most seminal works of art and literature of the period came. This is where Petrarch was born, where Michelangelo, Donatello and Botticelli made their David, Annunciation and Primavera, where Brunellesci built the first Renaissance dome atop the Santa Maria del Fiore. It is also where Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his The Prince and the setting of Dante's Divine Comedy and Boccaccio's Decameron (all available here). All this was funded by wealthy banker patrons such as the Medici who controlled Europe's largest bank. Culture flowed forth from Florence together with textiles and florins, which because of their purity became the standard coinage of Europe. Thus, Florence was the hub of Renaissance culture. For an astonishingly visual and appealing visit, play through the video game Assassin's Creed II. For a more toned down but still interesting approach, seek this book.

The book I have bought is not Machiavelli's Florentine Histories from 1532 although it refers to it. His style is unfortunately rather erratic and not fit for a travel guide such as the one I actually bought. However, it seems informative and I have already found the guide useful: during a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, I came across a painting of Florence's St. Zenobius and recognised the motif from what I had read. In seeking to understand human nature, such links are always most gratifying.

Christian is fed up with
the "City of Destruction"

John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress (London, date unknown)

This must be the weirdest box of frogs I've ever probed my nasal appendage into. The text can best be classified as a Christian allegory. John Bunyan wrote it while serving several consecutive jail sentences in 17th century England for preaching weird stuff. Like Hitler he found it necessary to write down his strange ideas while imprisoned and this book is further proof that pen and ink should be prohibited for those incarcerated, as weird or dangerous products are the result (Marco Polo excepted). It was published in installments between 1678 and 1686. The allegory's plot consists of the main character, Christian, who travels from the "City of Destruction" to the "Celestial City" (the pious Christian's ascension). On his way through "Plain Ease", "The Delectable Mountains", the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" and , interestingly, "Vanity Fair" he meets personifications like Mrs. Bat's-Eyes, Madame Bubble, Mr. Wordly Wiseman and even Beelzebub. The book certainly makes you both bewildered and uncomfortable but it is still curiously fascinating. For the full text, click here.

Gender and 18th Century Literature

Charlotte Lennox -
The Female Quixote
(My ed. London 1970)

Henry Fielding -
The Adventures of
Joseph Andrews
(My ed. London 1912)

This coming fall I will try to write posts about a number of 18th century novels offering different views of gender in contemporary England. I bought two of these in Oxford: Charlotte Lennox' The Female Quixote and Henry Fielding's The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. My edition of The Female Quixote has a special history attached to it. I had already bought a recent edition, but at Blackwell's in Oxford something happened which made me buy another edition. Having browsed for some hours, I came over all peckish and bought a scone with butter and jam and a cup of tea in the in-store cafe. An elderly, Ernest Hemingway-looking gentleman was seated all alone in a group of comfy chairs, so I asked whether one of them was taken to which he replied in the negative. We ended up conversing on this and that, as he turned out to be "a semi-retired professor". I told him what I was planning on reading, pointing to a second-hand edition of the above mentioned book on a nearby shelf. He told me that this was rather a happy coincidence as he knew the previous owner. He was a fellow at Merton College and had signed his name, unintelligibly for mere mortals, in the cover. So, obviously, I picked up the thing following our little conference and brought the Oxford Press product, formerly owned by an Oxford fellow.

Dara Ó Briain - Tickling the English (London 2009)

For those poor souls unfamiliar with the wit and down to earth sense of Irish stand-up comedian Dara Ó Briain, now is the time to expand your horizons. He is sharper than a carpet tack; he studied maths and theoretical physics, audited the local debating society, founded a newspaper, wrestled killer whales, won debating championships and is fluent in Irish. Also he makes sense. Funnily. Just look:

Dara Ó Briain -
Tickling the English
(London 2009)

He has been host and/or participant on most of the good panel shows on the British airwaves, perhaps most notably on Mock the Week, and has toured the isles with several stand-up shows. The book was written while doing this.

One of his routines involves asking the audience for adjectives that describe people from obscure countries. This resulted in highlights like "the Azerbaijanis are Crazy and Bouncy [...] the Bhuthanese are Happy and Unwashed [and] the people of Fiji are Well-read and promiscuous" (p.15). However, the audience could never do the same with the British and so, throughout his tour and book, Ó Briain tries to find his adjectives.

Tom Bryant (ed.) - Debrett's Guide for the Modern Gentleman (Richmond 2010)

From its beginnings in the 1780s, Debrett's has produced a who is who of British nobility and peerage. Originally the official publisher to the East India Company, they were well suited to gather material for their most famous 20/21st century products; their books on etiquette. The Guide for the Modern Gentleman informs such an individual on subjects as diverse as dress code, how to survive a plane crash, how to buy underwear and bed basics. Try, for instance, to find whether one should wear silk, satin or cotton in bed at their homepage. If you do, should the same material be worn at all seasons?



Lewis Carroll - The Hunting of the Snark (London 1928)

Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark or agony in eight fits is a delightful read. Being a mathematician and a wordsmith the poem is a metrical delight as well as a lexical one. In its absurdity the poem is highly reminiscent of the Alice books and even incorporates some of its characters (though unfortunately not my fravourite, the Red Queen). What is a snark, then? As Carroll explains in his preface:

"take the two words “fuming” and “furious.” Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. [...] if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say “frumious.” (p. xi-xii) 

Is it a snail, snake or a shark? The mind boggles. It does not really matter, of course, as long as the snark is not a boojum.

A crew of ten, all with occupations beginning with "b" apart from the lace-making beaver of course, departs on a fantastical journey to capture a snark. Throughout the poem, different situations arise with hilarious effects:

"He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
 When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only kill Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
 And was almost too frightened to speak:

The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,
 Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
 Could atone for that dismal surprise!" (p. 9)

"Whenever the Butcher was by, the Beaver kept looking the opposite way and appeared unaccountably shy"

Some of the characters such as the Baker also have hidden phobias:

"“For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
 Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums —” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
 For the Baker had fainted away

They roused him with muffins — they roused him with ice —
 They roused him with mustard and cress —
They roused him with jam and judicious advice —
 They set him conundrums to guess." (p. 24-27)

For the reader who is into absurd literature or who simply likes the beauty and pleasantness of delectably metric poetry, the poem is available here in its entirety. You are welcome!

Saul David - Victoria's Wars (London 2007)

Having read George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series I was delighted to find Victoria's Wars at Waterstones in Cambridge. It was one of those books that tagged along. The book gives a reader friendly insight into some of the major conflicts of the British Empire while keeping a second focus on the responses of the monarch herself. Quotation from sources and numerous anecdotes make narration flow nicely and captivate the reader to such an extent that one tends to be reminded of the memoirs of the notorious cad himself. Indeed, the book covers much the same area as the Flashman books do; The Opium Wars (Flashman and the Dragon), The First Afghan War (Flashman), The Sikh Wars (Flashman and the Mountain of Light), The Crimea (Flashman at the Charge) and The Indian Revolt (Flashman in the Great Game).

Saul David -
Victoria's Wars
(London 2007)

Sir Harry Paget Flashman
VC, KCB and KCIE

The book includes all the central heroes, villains and incompetent fools of the era including respectively George Broadfoot, Sir Campbell and Toughguy Napier, Sher Singh and Akbar Khan and finally Macnaghten and Elphinstone. It also provides some analysis of the role of each of these personages perhaps a bit less subjective than the Honorable H.P. Flashman, although both are wonderful and vivid presentations of some of the most fascinating aspects of Britain's imperial history.

A Final Curiosity: Alexander Pope's Last Letters and Will (London 1776)

The WORKS of ALEXANDER POPE, Esq.
VOLUME the SIXTH.
Containing
The last of his LETTERS, and WILL
(London 1776)

Feast your imagination on this, dear reader! Not only does the book contain Alexander Pope's letters to his friend John Gay and his will but it is a historic relic as well a work of art in its own right. The pages are beautifully textured, the pages are wonderfully composed (like the title page above) and the book is old enough for the words to have modern "s'es" only at the ends of words and "f's" in their place otherwise. Also it is intriguing to imagine previous readers. The person who bought this book would probably not live to see the Napoleonic Wars, perhaps he would even have relatives fighting across the sea in America. Perhaps he also bought the first volume of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Perhaps he mourned the death of Edward Wortley Montagu or rejoiced in that of David Hume or Nathan Hale. Perhaps he expressed outrage in the House of Lords at the loss of the thirteen colonies on 4th of July or at the madness of the regent.

Of course, one cannot know these things but such a book can trigger quite a nice bit of intellectual exercise or plain imaginative pleasure through its content and its existence. As with all books, one can and should be somewhat awestruck.

Sources:
http://www.theoi.com/image/book_virgil_lg.jpg

http://www.lamdhabooks.com.au/large%20pix/37348.jpg

http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/florence.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/images/021209_catherine150.jpg

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=230496173698

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vMwdarNGL.jpg
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu:8080/DQIIMAGES/largeimages/472/1752-London-Millar-01-001-t.jpg
http://www.offthekerb.co.uk/images/artists/dara-obriain/Tickling-The-English-304.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/22/article-1059756-02C1C4FB00000578-479_233x307.jpg
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2008/01/03/flashman460.jpg
http://www.sauldavid.co.uk/photos/victoria%27s-wars.jpg
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/images/snark3.jpg

Other images from Wikimedia Commons

It's Good to be Bad - The Appeal of the Villain

Recently I went to the cinema to watch Tim Burton’s ”Alice in Wonderland”. The film was visually astonishing and very Burtonesque but all the while I felt there was something amiss. It might have been the notion that all the 3D graphic splendor was obscuring something lacking, perhaps an erratic and unclear plotline or possibly an ad hoc, disconnected and irrelevant ending. Be that as it may, and granting Burton some leeway due to some rather erratic source texts, I came away with a newfound fondness for another literary character.

Two weeks later, the only character from the film that really sticks in my mind and retains its puzzling appeal is the Red Queen. In the film, she is a waterhead combination of Helena Bonham Carter, who portrays her, and Elizabeth I. In fact, for those with some knowledge of the British monarchy a study of the Red Queen’s family, castle and its décor in the film should add to the experience of the film. I spent the two weeks reading Lewis Carroll’s books and became further enchanted with the character after which it was promply initiated into my pantheon of literary exclusifs.

What characterises this exclusive society is that its members are all on the morally wrong side of their respective texts. The Red Queen joins Emily Brontë’s Heatcliff, Shakespeare’s Iago and Victor Hugo’s Javert, neither of whom would be asked to be the best man or expected to bring an apple for the teacher in class. None of the members can be said to have made their worlds better places by their sunny disposition or by their souls’ overflow of the milk of human kindness, which begs the question; why are bad guys so much more interesting, not to mention appealing, than the good guys?

Samuel Johnson meant that authors had a moral obligation to make the good seem rewarding and pleasant and the evil abhorrent. However, he seems to have been disregarded. To seek an answer to the question above I will take a closer look at the three members, starting with the first member accepted, Heathcliff. Heathcliff holds the peculiar position of being the protagonist of his text but embodying many of the characteristics generally attributed to the antagonist. Not only does he bring death and damnation to his rural Yorkshire community, but he probably does not do any good for anyone at all apart from himself. Probably as a result of a bad childhood, being abandoned by his parents and bullied by his foster family, Heathcliff spends 30 years getting his own back and succeds in doing so. (For those interested in Brontë’s motivation for this elaborate and time consuming revenge, I will soon be posting one of my papers discussing that very topic.) Heathcliff’s appeal is for me twofold; firstly, he is tenacious and consistent and secondly, he is justified. The commitment with which he exacts his revenge without losing sight of his goal and the effort he puts into achieving what he think is right is exemplary. This and empathy we have for him as he sets the record straight gives him an appeal which his actions, or rather the surface actions of the supraplot, don’t directly communicate. Perhaps it is the combination of doing something consistently bad, being able to justify it and getting away with it that is appealing for those of us who do neither.

It is suprisingly easy to find modern echoes of Heathcliff, especially in Hollywood movies. Beatrice Kiddo in Quentin Tarrantino’s “Kill Bill” shares many of Heathcliff’s characteristics, although her revenge is swift by comparison. John Travolta’s character in “Swordfish” similarly lives by the creed that to deter acts of terrorism one should respond to them by doing something so terrible that other acts of terrorism would be unthinkable. This also bears an eerie resemblance to the attitude of certain neo-con White House advisors and a certain ex-Vice President.

The Original and Three Copycats

Iago’s forte is his ability to lay great plans and to understand the personality, response and behavioural pattern of the pawns in his play. Even though his ends are foul the tenacity and the skill with which he creates appearances and steers the other characters of “Othello” towards their doom are astonishing. Thus, you might call him a Heathcliff with social skills.

Javert also shares the tenacious character of Heathcliff. His animosity with Jean Valjean, like Heathcliff’s to his foster family and neighbours, spans several decades during which his drive for what he sees as justice never diminishes. He is the only credible character, the others being flat; either too idealistic or too villainous. Javert, cold as he may be, is a man determined to do his duty even though he is a diametric foil to the angelic protagonist Valjean. There is a liberation in having a task to stick to irregardless of moral considerations which, I think, the reader envies Javert. This is not to say that one would like to be one of the many anonymous henchmen in literature, who do their duty without too much hesitation. Javert has an established and in the novel clearly presented view of his world and has a conscious relationship to his task. The crisis for Javert occurs when this understanding is rocked with Valjean’s mercy disproving the infallibillity of the law Javert follows. However, up to this point, Javert seems a force larger than life, as reliable a friend as an enemy or employee and in a world of constant distractions his doggedness and efficiency when on the case appears admirable.

"You'll Wear a Different Chain"

The Red Queen is a bad guy of a different sort. She is a mad bad guy. Her appeal lies in her mad and for her consequence free impulsivity. Her catch-phrase “off with her head” is uttered in an offhand manner as if resolving the most trivial requests rather than matters of life and death. In Carroll’s books, these sporadic death sentences are never carried through due to the Red King pardoning the unfortunate convicts. In the film, however, Alice has to jump across a moat using heads as stepping stones.

Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen

Perhaps the allure of the Red Queen is her whimsical use of her absolute power. Both man and beast bows for her often childish whim and she is allowed to act unquestioned by anyone but Alice. The Red Queen can do as many bad things as she like without having to face the consequences while we seldom can. Even if we avoid the judgement of our peers, there will always be some part of us which reacts to our transgression. However, all the characters above seem devoid of such qualms and, as they evade punishment from without, they appeal to an aspect of us which craves this freedom of action, possibly originating in our childhood.

We may trace the appeal of the villain way back, to Milton and further. Milton’s Satan in “Paradise Lost” serves to exemplify the allure of the villain. While God is aloof and rather flat, an unforgiving, immovable character, Satan is a dynamic force which overcomes obstacles and struggles to achieve. I think we are able to identify with bad guys because we recognise this struggle as our own justifiable existence. What we find sufficient reason for our actions can often be reflected in that of the villain. While the good guy’s actions get their virtue from being performed by the good guy, the bad guy’s actions are driven by more familiar motivations. Very few would consider “I’m a good guy” a valid reason for any action, but they might find zest and zeal for one’s job, pursuit of personal happiness or setting the record with your childhood bullies straight mitigating. As for the Red Queen, that might be a question of personal freedom and independence from social standards which is to some extent what the Alice books are all about.

In addition, it is easier to be really bad than to be really good…



Sources: http://blog.pennlive.com/pennsyltucky/2008/01/AP080123017792.jpg,
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs49/f/2009/237/2/c/Heathcliff_by_Vestergaard.jpg,
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b73/wingman735/Favorite%20Movie%20Characters/swordfish1.jpg,
http://buldra.altervista.org/immagini/beatrix_2.jpg,
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/students/Kelly-E-Buttermore/images/javert.jpg,
http://www.shockya.com/news/wp-content/uploads/alice_in_wonderland_helena_bonham_carter_red_queen.jpg

What Is Success?

If you google "What Is Success" and "Ralph Waldo Emerson" you should sooner or later find this poem:

What is Success
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and love much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the approval of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one’s self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived…
This is to have succeeded.

Bearing in mind Emerson's transcendentalist tendencies you probably would not think twice about its origin, in fact; very few seem to have done so lately. However, lovely and flowery powery though he was, a closer study would suggest that he was not the origin of this poem.

Not the author of "What Is Success"?

What seems to have happened is something like this. One Saturday in early November 1905, Elizabeth-Anne Anderson Stanley was sitting at the cleared dinner table in the house she shared with her husband A.J in Lincoln, Kansas. History seems to have forgotten the man behind these initials. Let us for all intents and purposes call him Adam.

She had just been outside preparing her Isis garden for the winter. She felt a certain commitment to her neighbours who were often visiting and complimenting her on her horticultural touch. However, at the moment she was exercising another of her talents. Pen in hand she was re-reading the article in "Brown Book Magazine". The George Livingston Richards Co. of Boston, Massachusetts would pay $250 for the best essay on "What constitutes success". Elizabeth-Anne, or Bessie as most of her friends called her, knew that she should at least try to win the prize. After all, she considered herself to be quite deservedly successful and she loved poetry, so if she could keep within the limit of 100 words she could do with the extra money. She started with one of her own experiences: "He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much ..."

Bessie Stanley

It was Saturday the 25th and a couple of weeks since Bessie had submitted her essay. Adam had had to help her with the length and some of the words, but the poetic rythm and the patriotic sobriety to the essay were all hers. Despite this, she had never really considered herself a likely candidate for the prize. Hundreds of other submissions had reportedly poured in from all parts of the country and there was probably someone out there with a more extensive career as an essayist than her. Just as she resigned herself to reading up on the reported turmoil in Russia and the newly established monarchy of her grandfather's native Norway there was a knock at the door.

The man at the door was wearing a tweed suit and gave them his card to verify his association with the "Brown Book Magazine". He said that her 96 word essay had won the prize and would soon be published in the magazine. At first she thought it some kind of trick; her husband was known to play practical jokes on her, and she laughingly offered him half the prize money in appreciation. However, when the man reproduced the draft she had submitted, reality dawned.

The following Thursday one of her local newspapers printed her essay:

"Lincoln Sentinel, Nov. 30, 1905
"What Constitutes Success"
A $250 Prize Story by a Lincoln Woman

[...]
Below we give Mrs. Stanley’s essay on "What Constitutes Success."

"He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.""

A month later, the Lincoln Republican added:

"Lincoln Republican, 21 December 1905

Mrs. A.J. Stanley not only won $250 by her prize essay, "What Constitutes Success"; but has won considerable notoriety. Her name and her essay has already been published in a large proportion of the newspapers of Kansas, as well as in papers of other states, and doubtless will be published in half of, if not in every state in the Union before the incident is closed."

Bessie and A.J. Stanley reportedly used the prize money to pay down their mortgage.

25 years later, in the 30's the a poetic version of the essay was included in the esteemed "Bartlet's Familiar Quotations" under "success". On the oppsing page, a quotation from Emerson was printed. Yet some years later, Bessie's entry had been removed from Bartlet's but was frequently quoted in Ann Landers' advice column in the "Chicago Sun-Times". However, as one of Bessies legal-minded decendant would later have rectified in "The Ann Landers Encyclopedia", the "What Is Success" poem was consistently misquoted and attributed to Emerson.

One of the Ann Landers'es

As an ironic twist of fate, he poem owes much of its popularity and survival to the Ann Landers column even though Bessie seems to have got the bad end of the deal. Ralph Waldo Emerson would never know what a lovely poem he had supposedly written, but irregardless of copyright, the poem lives on and inspires young and old 100 years after its genesis.
 
 
Sources: http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/lincoln/success.htm,
http://www.robinsweb.com/truth_behind_success.html,
http://www.transcendentalists.com/success.htm,
http://middleschoolpoetry180.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/55-what-is-success-ralph-waldo-emerson/,
http://media.tbo.com/photos/trib/2007/july/0707stanley2.jpg,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Landers,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Stanley, last visited 26.3.10
 
(Please note that this is my artistic renering of events as percieved and developed from the above material. Apart from the assumed verity of the above sources, I can hold no claim to have presented the objective truth and have adapted the story for continuity and appeal. Therefore this article makes no definite claim of the origin of the poem "What Is Success")

Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" is probably Tom Stoppard's most famous and popular play. Drawing on Shakespeare and Beckett, the play is a study in theatrical wit and appropriation. The play has been made into a film featuring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth number of audiobooks which all follow the play more or less closely.

The setting and basic plot follows that in "Hamlet" closely. The two main characters, minor characters of the original play, are summoned to the Danish court to find out why Hamlet is acting strangely. At times they interact with characters we recognise from Hamlet, but they mostly interact with each other and other minor characters while the events we know from Hamlet are played out in the background. Occasionally meeting with Hamlet they gather that most of the members of the Danish court are mad, are sent to England with Hamlet and meet their anticipated ends.

Cover

The play is a commentary interpolating the plotline focusing on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into that of the original Hamlet play. Occasional snippets of the original tragedy serve as cues for the two characters to comment on the haughtyness and oppressive deterministic qualities of both the court and the original play. Rosencrantz' line "They'll have us hanging about till we're dead" (p.85) is quite exemplary; they find themselves to be mere tools to both the court and the playwright, devalued in their allotted passivity and obscurity. In addition, their dialogue directly targets the audience's notions of determinism, as indeed does the title of the play. A frequent use of idiomatic foreshadow (like "he murdered us" (p.48), "over your dead body" (p.71) and "we're finished" (p.96)) and numerous discussions concerning death works a constant reminders of the audience's premade assumptions. Such a response to assumptions in a play that is to some extent in opposition to the source text causes bewilderment, so much so that in the end the audience will be suprised to find the main characters being hanged.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves are comic characters in a mode reminiscent of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". Both Estragon and Vladimir and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern form pairs with complementary personal characteristics, so much so that each character on his own would seem incomplete (see p.95). One might see the play as a product of two appropriations: the characters from "Waiting for Godot" in the plot, setting and context of "Hamlet". Also, the qualities of each character in one absurd play mirror those of one in another. The characters and their language is, as was the case with "Gertrude and Claudius", approximated to fit a modern audience. They neither speak nor behave in the archaic sense one may expect in a play based on Renaissance drama. The effect of this is that the approximated characters become more appealing and their actions and postulations more acceptable to a modern audience. Thus, a constant renewal of drama and literature is possible. (I similar process was the basis for the Katerina character of Dimitri Shostakovich' "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District". For more on effects similar to those pf approximation, see end paragraph of the above mentioned post).

The characters' humourous dialogue conveys a peculiar commentary on the genre and the seriousness of characters in the original play. Several of their discussions are parodical, such as one of their discussions on death on pp. 62-63. Mirroring the "to be or not to be" speech they discuss life after death and find they "have no control" and should not think about it. "You'd only get depressed". There is a child-like quality to the two friends, their innocence, wonder and ineptitude are qualities fundamental to the dialogue and plot progress of the play. However, the seemingly innocent humour can convey both criticism and an uncanny feeling in relation to the grim subjects under discussion.

Tom Stoppard

"Hamlet" being such a canonical text, appropriation becomes an easier task than it would otherwise have been. As the audience can be expected to know the plot and several of the lines, the appropriating playwright may use any number of tools to comment the source text. In "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", Stoppard transfers focus from Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius to the two marginalised friends. This is done by allocating all the incidents in the original play that did not include them offstage or in the extremity of the play (e.g. pp.28-29, p.43) or by having them comment on the intrusiveness of the original play directly (e.g. pp.65-67). It could also be done through introducing new stage directions into the original text, i.e. by making the characters act in a way not warranted by the source text (e.g. pp.26,28,84) or by reworking the text altogether. As in Updike, numerous references to the source text are given in rewritten lines from the play such as in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's verdict on Hamlet on p.108. In addition to this, by omitting sequences of the play and source text which the audience would surely be expecting (most notably the "to be" speech, the visitations of the ghost and the final showdown), the source plot is either represented as irrelevant for Stoppard's purposes or open to ridicule or critique.

"the characters from

   "Waiting for Godot" in

   the plot, setting and

   context of "Hamlet"

 Through devices such as those above the playwright brings marginalised characters to the front, questioning the priorities within the source text, pointing out missed potential, expands the scope of the source text and by extension gives the original play a modern touch. It is, however, important to note that in order to work as an effective qritique, an appropriation will to some extent have to depend on the object of its critique. The more effective the appropriative commentary would like to be, the more dependent it would be on the source text, thus somewhat undermining its own critique. To exemplify with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", one might consider at least the plot, setting, themes amd genre of "Hamlet" fundamental to the appropriation's effect as a commentary. Could the critical relationship between between what Gérard Genette called the hypertext and the hypotext be dependent on the hypertext's proximity to adaptation (or indeed even the adaptation's proximity to the hypotext)?

I might have to address this issue in a separate blogpost...

All technicalities aside, however, I personally found the play to be very appealing. After a long row of tedious plays ripe with platitudes and infantile theatrical humour I needed a breath of fresh wit. The combitation of the appeal of the characters and the nature of their discussions aided me in my effort to remedy my sense of the fatality of drama, the fatality which ironically is omnipresent in the play.

Gary Oldman's excellent interpretation of Rosencrantz in the film might also have made a contribution...

Sources: Stoppard, Tom: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", London, 2000
Løfaldli, Eli: ""Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" Lecture", Trondheim, Spring 2010
Pictures: http://www.culturefeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/stoppard.jpg,  http://bbashful66.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/03.jpg,
http://www.faber.co.uk/site-media/onix-images/thumbs/5037_jpg_280x450_q85.jpg, last visited 9.3.2010

Notes on John Updike's "Gertrude and Claudius"

Like the Star Wars films, John Updike's "Gertrude and Claudius" continues with the beginning. The novel imagines the life at the Danish court before the action in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", focusing especially on Gertrude. Indeed, Gertrude is fast becoming the most interesting and most written about character in the play (see my earlier article on Gertrude and maternal sexuality). Although the title implicates Claudius, as indeed the cover illustration would suggest, all the three sections of the novel concern themselves mainly with the Queen. Claudius enters the story rather late in the first section, after all the other main characters have been introduced.

Cover

The main aspect of the novel, or rather its main contribution to the literary realm, is its characterisations. In the play, most of the characters are only as deep as their alotted space in the play and the restrictions of drama will allow. In the novel, however, each character is given a history and a multi-faceted personality presented through their actions, thoughts and utterences and not least through what is said about them by other characters. Claudius, for one, is seen by most of the characters as a shifty, though resourceful character. He is represented mainly in comprarison with his brother, Old Hamlet. He is characterised, through a combination of fear and respect, by the other characters and also by Updike more directly as the traditional fairy tale hero king, much like in the play. The mediating character here is Gertrude. Although the role of narrator shifts through the novel, the space given her, her intimate relations to both brothers and her position as the only fully developed female character in a court of men modifies the view granted in the play. Also, by voicing the largely silent and appendant female character of Gertrude, Updike can introduce new perspectives and depths of character into the story. Her position and reflections on personality provides an aspect to the characters which Shakespeare in his male dominated environment was unable to provide.

It is also worth noting how Claudius is the only character in the novel whose basic ambitions remain ambivalent to the reader. Whereas the agendas of most of the characters both in the play and in the novel are fairly easy to grasp, we never really know if Claudius really wants the throne, Gertrude or both. We are also never really sure how he sees his fellow characters; is Gertrude the love of his life or just a tool for usurping the throne? The shiftiness of his character is emphasised towards the end where he on one page sees his fate linked to Polonius and on the next more drastically feels the need to remove him. Interestingly, the only other character that comes close to this is Hamlet, who in the novel (which does not offer as mych insight into his mind as the play does) appear haughty and somehow beyond reach for his surroundings.

The nomenclative measures Updike takes is another testimony to his skill. The characters change names through the three sections of the novel; Gerutha to Geruthe to Gertrude, Feng to Fengon to Claudius, Horwendil to Horvendile to Hamlet, Amleth to Hamblet to Hamlet and Corambus to Corambis to Polonius. In the last section, the change of names is partially explained through Fengon and Corambis entering new roles at the court and therefore adopting latin names. However, the changing names are a reference by Updike to earlier versions of Hamlet in which the characters wore different names, the first section to Saxo Grammaticus' "Historica Danica" from around 1200 and the second to Belleforest's "Histories Tragiques" from 1576. (In the First Quarto, some of these names still linger. On the First Quarto see earlier post.)

In the same vein, several textual references are made to Shakespeare's play. Not only the names, but several references to situations and lines from the play figure in direct or rewritten form in the novel. The sensitive relation to Norway, the reason why Hamlet idolises his father and why the crown is so intimately associated with Gertrude are amongst the issues that are built on the play. In addition several lines from the play are repeated in the novel, not necessarily by their original speakers. The last sentence in the novel, for instance, "All would be well" refers both to Hamlet's line "All is not well"(Act I,ii) and Claudius' line "All may be well" (Act III.iii). Elsewhere, Gertrude says "Elsinore has been a dungeon to me" (p.94) which of course reflects Hamlet's "Denmark's a prison", spoken to Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern in Act II,ii. Finally,one of my favourite quotes, indeed the one referred to in the sub-title of this blog, is reshaped on the novel's 38th page. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will" (Act V,ii) becomes "There's a shape in things, fiddle and fuss however we will around the edges."

John Updike (2000), portrait in The New Yorker

Furthermore, Updike seems to have studied his European history. His contextual references are telling and manifold, referring to the Holy Roman Empire, Frankish battles against the Moors in Spain, Crusades, Genoa's struggles with Pisa over Corsica and Sardinia as well as a number of local references to Danish Kings. For someone with more time on their hands the temporal setting in the novel could probably be quite accurately pegged based on these references. Perhaps this is a fitting topic for a future post...

It is worth noticing how Updike not only seems to respond to different versions of Hamlet in his novel, but also to critical approaches to the play. In empowering Gertrude he responds to both Feminist and Psychoanalytic criticism and in incorporating lower social strata as well as contextual signifiers he reflects the attitudes of Marxist and Historical criticism. This testifies to a rigid and extensive pre-productive study process on Updikes part, and one which is surely reflected in the positive reception of this acclaimed novel.

Finally, on a more personal note, having read a number of texts which build on and expand aspects of the original play (such as Tom Stoppard's "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are dead", Matt Haig's "The Dead Fathers' Club" and this novel), I have experienced one of the fascinating properties of literature. Literature seems to me to be but wordly shadows of some eternal stories waiting to be manifested though never fully copied through these shadows. While Shakespeare is widely acclaimed for having written "universal" plays, I find him to be no more than another link in the chain of representations, albeit perhaps a particularly guilded or golden one. Shakespeare, it must be remembered, was only in a limited sense an originator relying on a number of cultural aspects of what I called, rather pompously, an eternal story. I find it not only impossible, but also undesirable to even attempt to make a full, comprehensive and exact copy of this eternal story. However, each attempt to recreate a morsel of it, such as those mentioned above, has an receptively emotional and culturally multiplying value. To put it more bluntly, each new piece of literature or indeed any cultural expression adds to the amount of joy not only of the play but of the general cultural expression of this eternal story. Also, continuing the trend of "bluntness", each new addition creates a basis for new additions, heading like branches on a tree in new directions widening our perception of the eternal story in ways we did not think possible.

This is

for me

part of the allure of literature.

Sources: Updike, Johnn: Gertrude and Claudius, New York, 2001, http://images.indiebound.com/979/006/9780449006979.jpg, http://www.newyorker.com/images/2009/02/09/p465/090209_r18201b_p465.jpg, last visited 25.2.2010