The archeological museum in Lesvos:
In the old building there are two statuettes of a tumbler doing handsprings. The statuettes are placed in profile, right next to each other, so that the effect is like that of Muybridge's horses, or like two frames from a film. It was moving to think of the lightness, the grace, the liveliness of the gesture, and the extreme age of the statuettes.
I liked the carefree presentation of myth as history in this bit of wall text, in the entrance of the old building:
Lesbos, also known in antiquity as Makaria, Pelasgia, Issa, Imerte, Lasia, Aigeira, Aithiope, and Mytonis, was named after the Thessalian hero Lesbos, who came to the island and married Methymna.
When the Pelasgians, the island's first settlers, came to its shores, they found it deserted, and Xanthos Triopou, their king, named it Pelasgia.
A local tradition in western Asia Minor relates how the Pelasgians came to inhabit the whole of the Ionian coast, north of Mykale, and the nearby islands. More widespread is the view associating or identifying the Pelasgians with the Aeolians.
It is said that seven generations after the coming of the Pelasgians, Lesbos became a wasteland, due to Deukalion's flood. After this came the island's mythical king, Makar or Makareus. Makar was one of the Heliades — son of Helios and Rhodos — and came to Lesbos from Rhodes. Makareus was the son of Krinakos and grandson of Zeus a wise legislator. He came to Lesbos from Holenos in Achaea and subsequently colonized Chios, Samos, Rhodes and Kos. The daughters of this mythical king, Mytilene, Methymna, Antissa, Arisbe, Issa, Agamedes or Pyrra, and his son Eresos, gave their names to the island's cities.
In Homer's Iliad Lesbos is mentioned as the kingdom of Makaras and its name is used to define the geographical extent of Priam's realm. In the Odyssey Nestor tells Telemachos that it was on Lesbos that he, Diomedes, and Menelaos prayed to Zeus to show them the sure way home. A Lesbian variation of this episode of the returning warriors, involving only the two Atreides (Agamemnon and Menelaos), links the most important popular cult on the island with the dynasty of the Atreides, from whom the leading lineages of the Lesbian cities traced their ancestry.
Lesbos is the setting for Homer's struggle between Odysseus and Philomeleides "out of discord," though the poet is particularly vague on how Odysseus came to the island and the identity of his adversary.
One of the secondary campaigns mounted by the Achaeans in the Troad was the destruction of Lesbos. Homer speaks of the taking captive of seven Lesbian women and romantic adaptations of the myth include the tale of the love between Peisidike, daughter of the king of Methymna, and Achilles, and the betrayal of her fatherland.
The myth of the "retribution" of the god Dionysos is also associated with Lesbos. Through his intervention, equity triumphed over the violence and injustice caused by the sacrilege of Makareas, his priest on Mytilene.
Makareas, wishing to misappropriate the gold entrusted for safekeeping in the temple of Dionysos, slew the stranger who had left it. He and his innocent relatives paid for his impious sin with their lives.
On the contrary, Phaonas, an aged ferryman who carried passengers between the city's harbours, was rewarded by Aphrodite for his kindness and humanity. The goddess, disguised as an old woman, asked him to row her in his boat. This Phaonas willingly did and asked no payment, for which she transformed him into a handsome young man.
Myth also links the island music and poetry, Lesbos, with Orpheus. After he was rent apart by the Thracian maenads, his head and lyre were washed up by the sea on its shore, and continued to recite poems, to sing, and to make prophecies. His oracle was near the Bakcheion at Antissa and his lyre hung in the temple of Apollo at Mytilene for many years.
A bronze lion that roamed Lesbos and guarded the island was the work of the god Hephaestus.
In the new building there was a room of heads. One was a clay head of an old man with deep-set prominent eyes; his nose and mouth — the earthlier features — had been rubbed smooth by time. The blankness of the lower half of his face combined with the fierce expressiveness of his eyes gave the whole a haunted, haunting look — as if the eyes had survived two millenia intact by sheer force of will.
There was also a room full of bas-reliefs from graves, all depicting the same thing: the newly deceased on a horse walking towards a tree, presumably at the entrance to the Underworld. In the tree is a serpent, sometimes reaching out to the rider, and, if I'm not mixing the bas-reliefs up with another story, fruits are hanging in the tree. To see this over and over again in glistening white marble, as one walked around the room, was like hearing a line of music that repeats and repeats, and can get no further, full of the contrast between the sad inexorability of the horse's trot and the seductiveness of the serpent, and the mysterious promise of the fruit, the opposite of death. I wanted to ask Eleni what it all meant.
Also in the new building is a large mosaic floor telling the story of Danae and her son Perseus, who were thrown into the sea in a wooden chest by Danae's father Acrisius, and washed ashore unscathed. Eleni helped dig this up.
Neues Grünes Gewölbe, part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlung in Dresden
On display is a part of the royal treasures of the Saxon kings. Some objects are just rich — a huge green diamond — but most are both rich and exquisitely elaborate; one object combines an ordinary material with extreme elaboration: one hundred faces carved on a cherry pit.
The only descendant of this kind of craftsmanship we have is kitsch, so it was illuminating to see precious knickknacks from a time when such things were an admired art form.
Among the most remarkable pieces: a large galleon, with billowing sails, carved entirely out of ivory; the Court of the Grand Mogul, which reminded me of the Met's set for Turandot; Daphne, her sprouting hands and hair made out of coral; concentric ivory spheres on an impossibly thin pedestal; an ostrich whose body is — an ostrich egg! The ostrich's face has that foolishly indignant look typical of its species.
The ivory objects were so exquisite they made me realize that when Jane Austen describes her writing as "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour," she was not being as modest as I'd thought.
There was a room full of little figures of hunchbacks, cripples, beggars, carved in ivory or assembled from mother of pearl and the most precious materials. Even the museum wall text remarked on the strange juxtaposition of wretchedness and treasure. Oddly, though, the little figures evinced compassion rather than cruelty.
Neues Grünes Gewölbe
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Genga di San Vittore
Ten minutes away by foot from where I was staying are the celebrated "Grotte di Frasassi," a cave system in a hollow hill (really a mountain). One of my earliest memories is of visiting caves with my parents. This was in southern France; I was three. I sat on my father's shoulders and thought about how hard it was to pronounce "shoulders" and "soldiers" properly.
In Frasassi we first walked through a long man-made tunnel. It was a bright, breezy day, and the shock of the darkness, the chill, the stillness was disorienting. Then, through a heavy sliding door, we entered the main hall of the cave system. It's hard to give an idea of how huge it is, but here are the numbers: it measures 200 meters at its highest point; the floor is 165 by 110 meters; the Duomo of Milano could fit into it. At the top, through a tunnel, is the crevice through which amateur cave crawlers discovered the cave system in 1971. As for distant objects, they were even bigger than they looked: having no point of reference, we were unable to gauge the size of these extraordinary shapes, but the guide informed us that the largest stalagmites were as tall as a building of 5 storeys. He also warned us not to touch any stalagmites: the grease from our fingers would prevent the dripping water from depositing its minerals, the stalagmite would turn black and "die." I saw a few of these dying formations along the way. (They can be cleaned and restored to life.) At first I thought that was an odd way to talk about rocks, but as we went deeper and deeper into the mountain, as the guide explained how different formations grew, and as I heard the constant drip of water and felt the walls glistening with moisture, I was won over by the metaphor. It was as if the creatures in the cave had simply decided to withdraw to slower time, to draw out every sensation so that each drop of water was an event. Slowly, slowly the shape nicknamed "piccolo Niagara" would flow over its ledge. Fifty years to grow a straw; fifty thousand to grow a giant. Some of the formations were were red (iron), and looked crumbly, but many were white, and smooth, and sparkling (calcium). They looked like warm wax, like cream, like sheets; it was hard to believe that if I threw myself at them I would get hurt.
(There is a website — www.frasassi.com — but even the wide angle shots in the "virtual tour" don't give a sense of the grandeur of the place.)
After an hour and ten minutes the visit was over; we had walked through one kilometer; the whole cave system is 25 kilometers. I didn't want to go back to the hotel right away, so I walked along the road very slowly, and discovered a stairwell down to the river (torrent) Sentino, on the other side of the road from the entrance to the caves, and somewhat down the hill. The Sentino is lined by cliffs on both sides, and its lowering is somehow linked to the birth of the caves, millions of years ago. There was a tiny pebbly beach at the bottom of the steps, and a couple with a baby, and on the other side of the torrent, a man sitting on a rock in swimming trunks, washing mud off a long rope, and then a rubber bag. I wandered around looking for fish, and wondering what he was doing — his things didn't look like fishermen's gear. Then two of his companions appeared around the bend, walking down the Sentino (which is fast-moving, but shallow and full of rocks). They wore helmets, and coveralls, and were covered in mud from head to toe. A-ha! Spelunkers! They too sat on rocks and started washing their things. Then I found a spring that fed right into the Sentino. It was a small cave — big enough for a beaver to explore, at most — and the water gushing out of it smelled of sulphur. I'd never seen a real spring before, so this was very exciting. Just before that on the beach was a puddle, and the water in it was not still. How could that be? And where did it come from? It seemed quite separate from the spring and the torrent. I looked and looked, and laid twigs on its surface, and finally figured out that one end of this puddle was a tiny tiny spring. At most I could fit three fingers into its opening, which was beside a rock nearly covered in pebbles. If I had dug out the rock I would have figured out more, but that seemed disrespectful. The water was coming out rapidly but soundlessly, without any bubbling or gushing or even burbling, and the crevice and its puddle, so modest and quietly serious, seemed fragile and precious.
I came back that night with some acquaintances, and they were as amazed and moved as I was by the little spring. I'll post a picture soon.
Ten minutes away by foot from where I was staying are the celebrated "Grotte di Frasassi," a cave system in a hollow hill (really a mountain). One of my earliest memories is of visiting caves with my parents. This was in southern France; I was three. I sat on my father's shoulders and thought about how hard it was to pronounce "shoulders" and "soldiers" properly.
In Frasassi we first walked through a long man-made tunnel. It was a bright, breezy day, and the shock of the darkness, the chill, the stillness was disorienting. Then, through a heavy sliding door, we entered the main hall of the cave system. It's hard to give an idea of how huge it is, but here are the numbers: it measures 200 meters at its highest point; the floor is 165 by 110 meters; the Duomo of Milano could fit into it. At the top, through a tunnel, is the crevice through which amateur cave crawlers discovered the cave system in 1971. As for distant objects, they were even bigger than they looked: having no point of reference, we were unable to gauge the size of these extraordinary shapes, but the guide informed us that the largest stalagmites were as tall as a building of 5 storeys. He also warned us not to touch any stalagmites: the grease from our fingers would prevent the dripping water from depositing its minerals, the stalagmite would turn black and "die." I saw a few of these dying formations along the way. (They can be cleaned and restored to life.) At first I thought that was an odd way to talk about rocks, but as we went deeper and deeper into the mountain, as the guide explained how different formations grew, and as I heard the constant drip of water and felt the walls glistening with moisture, I was won over by the metaphor. It was as if the creatures in the cave had simply decided to withdraw to slower time, to draw out every sensation so that each drop of water was an event. Slowly, slowly the shape nicknamed "piccolo Niagara" would flow over its ledge. Fifty years to grow a straw; fifty thousand to grow a giant. Some of the formations were were red (iron), and looked crumbly, but many were white, and smooth, and sparkling (calcium). They looked like warm wax, like cream, like sheets; it was hard to believe that if I threw myself at them I would get hurt.
(There is a website — www.frasassi.com — but even the wide angle shots in the "virtual tour" don't give a sense of the grandeur of the place.)
After an hour and ten minutes the visit was over; we had walked through one kilometer; the whole cave system is 25 kilometers. I didn't want to go back to the hotel right away, so I walked along the road very slowly, and discovered a stairwell down to the river (torrent) Sentino, on the other side of the road from the entrance to the caves, and somewhat down the hill. The Sentino is lined by cliffs on both sides, and its lowering is somehow linked to the birth of the caves, millions of years ago. There was a tiny pebbly beach at the bottom of the steps, and a couple with a baby, and on the other side of the torrent, a man sitting on a rock in swimming trunks, washing mud off a long rope, and then a rubber bag. I wandered around looking for fish, and wondering what he was doing — his things didn't look like fishermen's gear. Then two of his companions appeared around the bend, walking down the Sentino (which is fast-moving, but shallow and full of rocks). They wore helmets, and coveralls, and were covered in mud from head to toe. A-ha! Spelunkers! They too sat on rocks and started washing their things. Then I found a spring that fed right into the Sentino. It was a small cave — big enough for a beaver to explore, at most — and the water gushing out of it smelled of sulphur. I'd never seen a real spring before, so this was very exciting. Just before that on the beach was a puddle, and the water in it was not still. How could that be? And where did it come from? It seemed quite separate from the spring and the torrent. I looked and looked, and laid twigs on its surface, and finally figured out that one end of this puddle was a tiny tiny spring. At most I could fit three fingers into its opening, which was beside a rock nearly covered in pebbles. If I had dug out the rock I would have figured out more, but that seemed disrespectful. The water was coming out rapidly but soundlessly, without any bubbling or gushing or even burbling, and the crevice and its puddle, so modest and quietly serious, seemed fragile and precious.
I came back that night with some acquaintances, and they were as amazed and moved as I was by the little spring. I'll post a picture soon.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
A few years ago, Phil A. and some friends of his said that they thought David Brooks was OK, as conservative columnists go. I don't know other conservative columnists, but I loathe David Brooks. At the time I couldn't quite explain why. His column today on Al Gore — "The Vulcan Utopia" — gives me an opportunity.
First, something so obvious it's easy to miss: he doesn't deal with the substance of Gore's book; instead he attacks Gore on style. Gore, we are told, is a "robot." (Haven't we heard that before?) The evidence: he thinks machines are important; his prose style is clunky. Ergo, Gore is not made of flesh and blood, he doesn't understand emotions, passions, relationships. This is as mean, unscrupulous, and spurious (and, unfortunately, as effective) a strategy as questioning someone's patriotism. It's impossible to prove and impossible to refute, and it sweeps away all substantive issues.
Brooks cloaks his essential frivolity in smug invocations of virtue and justice. (He does this in all his columns, or at least all the ones I can bring myself to read.) These are empty catchphrases in his mouth, though I must say I'm surprised he mentions "justice": that brings the conservative doublethink to new heights. "Virtue" of course is an old favorite with them, though Cheney almost ruined it when (in an implicit slap at his predecessor) he sneeringly called conservation efforts a mark of "personal virtue."
To be sure, "family, friendship, neighborhood, and just face-to-face contact" are important, but how is that relevant to public policy? (Brooks once wrote a column arguing that what the poor really need is "connections." Rich and powerful ones, naturally.) Emotions are important too — Brooks mentions fear in particular — but what should be the role of emotions (which emotions?) in politics and civic life? Republicans can't talk about this with any honesty, because they owe too much to fear (and greed, and hatred). Brooks's glorification of emotions is a veiled defence of Republican demagoguery.
And if emotions are important (and they are), why doesn't Brooks go after rational-choice economists?
Does Brooks disagree with Gore's view of television? If so, why doesn't he argue against it, instead of merely holding up Gore's words for ridicule?
It's strange to read a political columnist who, in the first paragraph of every column, negates the premises for rational argument and then descends to innuendo and name-calling on the level of "your mommy dresses you funny" (Gore is "exceedingly strange"), all the while pretending that he's taking the high road. It's strange to hear someone talk about virtue, while heaping scorn on an exhortation to do good. I know Brooks is considered a moderate, a "reasonable" Republican, but I don't think that's a fair description of someone who offers, in column after column, a defence of demagoguery and an attack on Enlightenment values.
First, something so obvious it's easy to miss: he doesn't deal with the substance of Gore's book; instead he attacks Gore on style. Gore, we are told, is a "robot." (Haven't we heard that before?) The evidence: he thinks machines are important; his prose style is clunky. Ergo, Gore is not made of flesh and blood, he doesn't understand emotions, passions, relationships. This is as mean, unscrupulous, and spurious (and, unfortunately, as effective) a strategy as questioning someone's patriotism. It's impossible to prove and impossible to refute, and it sweeps away all substantive issues.
Brooks cloaks his essential frivolity in smug invocations of virtue and justice. (He does this in all his columns, or at least all the ones I can bring myself to read.) These are empty catchphrases in his mouth, though I must say I'm surprised he mentions "justice": that brings the conservative doublethink to new heights. "Virtue" of course is an old favorite with them, though Cheney almost ruined it when (in an implicit slap at his predecessor) he sneeringly called conservation efforts a mark of "personal virtue."
To be sure, "family, friendship, neighborhood, and just face-to-face contact" are important, but how is that relevant to public policy? (Brooks once wrote a column arguing that what the poor really need is "connections." Rich and powerful ones, naturally.) Emotions are important too — Brooks mentions fear in particular — but what should be the role of emotions (which emotions?) in politics and civic life? Republicans can't talk about this with any honesty, because they owe too much to fear (and greed, and hatred). Brooks's glorification of emotions is a veiled defence of Republican demagoguery.
And if emotions are important (and they are), why doesn't Brooks go after rational-choice economists?
Does Brooks disagree with Gore's view of television? If so, why doesn't he argue against it, instead of merely holding up Gore's words for ridicule?
It's strange to read a political columnist who, in the first paragraph of every column, negates the premises for rational argument and then descends to innuendo and name-calling on the level of "your mommy dresses you funny" (Gore is "exceedingly strange"), all the while pretending that he's taking the high road. It's strange to hear someone talk about virtue, while heaping scorn on an exhortation to do good. I know Brooks is considered a moderate, a "reasonable" Republican, but I don't think that's a fair description of someone who offers, in column after column, a defence of demagoguery and an attack on Enlightenment values.
Monday, May 28, 2007
February
Sense and Sensibility (Austen)
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, with selections from the Journals, Sermons, and Correspondence (Sterne)
Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Passing (Larsen)
The Thieves of Ostia (Lawrence)
March
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families (Gourevitch)
April
Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (Gadda) (took me forever to get through)
The Scarecrow and his Servant (Pullman)
May
A History of the Roman World 753-146 (Scullard)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Baum)
The Marvellous Land of Oz (Baum)
Sense and Sensibility (Austen)
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, with selections from the Journals, Sermons, and Correspondence (Sterne)
Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Passing (Larsen)
The Thieves of Ostia (Lawrence)
March
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families (Gourevitch)
April
Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (Gadda) (took me forever to get through)
The Scarecrow and his Servant (Pullman)
May
A History of the Roman World 753-146 (Scullard)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Baum)
The Marvellous Land of Oz (Baum)
Friday, April 27, 2007
I'm attending some lectures on the Inferno, and I'm forced to confront, yet again, my dislike of this masterpiece. It reminds me of Paradise Lost, which (hem, haw) I dislike for similar reasons:
The constant tone of denunciation, the pressure of hatred. I understand that there's genuine political passion and intelligence behind it, but I find it wearying, page after page of something at once diffuse and oppressive. (The fact that the first work by Milton that I read cover to cover was his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano may have colored subsequent experiences.)
A pomposity that pervades the whole and that makes even the good parts seem hollow and graceless. (Maybe if I read them out of context I'd appreciate them more; but I feel like a failure if I don't read works cover to cover.)
Some of Milton's word choices just make me grit my teeth. In a Milton lecture I once muttered under my breath, "atrocious," just as the lecturer was saying, "It's wonderful, isn't it?"
(this just for Dante) The thinness of the format — characters drift onto the scene, have their little outbursts, and then disappear for good. It all seems third hand.
Reading ancient epics throws into relief the poverty of these Christian epics. In the Æneid, for example, Virgil is able to inhabit so many different characters; even bit characters come to life and seem to speak as themselves, not through some editorialist's puppet. (And I actually find Virgil's Latin easier than Dante's Italian.)
Or take the battles in the Iliad: yes they're tedious, but the monotony seems meaningful; all the details of blood and sweat are so idiosyncratic and finely observed, at once so random and so revealing that I don't doubt it all happened exactly as Homer describes it. The battle scenes in Paradise Lost look like videogames next to the Iliad.
Another thing I don't like are the long explanations of astronomy or topography, which I can never follow (because I get so bored). It's like reading instruction manuals for home appliances, or pages and pages of stage directions. The fact that scholars are so taken with these passages, and spill so much ink debating the most mechanical points makes me suspicious. ("They must have nothing better to talk about"... "If they find this interesting, we'll probably disagree on everything.)
Another epic I don't like is The Faerie Queene. Don't even get me started on that!
I complained to Beatrice about Dante, and she tried to explain why she liked it. I found her more convincing than the lecturer (partly no doubt because she has no professional stake in the matter; and because she hasn't been preaching these things for 50 years, so she can conceive of disagreement). She recited her favorite bits and it was then that I thought if I only read excerpts I might conceive a fondness for the Inferno at least.
She says I should read Orlando Furioso. He's been on my list for years.
I loved Faust, so it's not as if I hate every modern epic. Or even every Christian epic: I liked Paradise Regained.
The constant tone of denunciation, the pressure of hatred. I understand that there's genuine political passion and intelligence behind it, but I find it wearying, page after page of something at once diffuse and oppressive. (The fact that the first work by Milton that I read cover to cover was his Defensio pro Populo Anglicano may have colored subsequent experiences.)
A pomposity that pervades the whole and that makes even the good parts seem hollow and graceless. (Maybe if I read them out of context I'd appreciate them more; but I feel like a failure if I don't read works cover to cover.)
Some of Milton's word choices just make me grit my teeth. In a Milton lecture I once muttered under my breath, "atrocious," just as the lecturer was saying, "It's wonderful, isn't it?"
(this just for Dante) The thinness of the format — characters drift onto the scene, have their little outbursts, and then disappear for good. It all seems third hand.
Reading ancient epics throws into relief the poverty of these Christian epics. In the Æneid, for example, Virgil is able to inhabit so many different characters; even bit characters come to life and seem to speak as themselves, not through some editorialist's puppet. (And I actually find Virgil's Latin easier than Dante's Italian.)
Or take the battles in the Iliad: yes they're tedious, but the monotony seems meaningful; all the details of blood and sweat are so idiosyncratic and finely observed, at once so random and so revealing that I don't doubt it all happened exactly as Homer describes it. The battle scenes in Paradise Lost look like videogames next to the Iliad.
Another thing I don't like are the long explanations of astronomy or topography, which I can never follow (because I get so bored). It's like reading instruction manuals for home appliances, or pages and pages of stage directions. The fact that scholars are so taken with these passages, and spill so much ink debating the most mechanical points makes me suspicious. ("They must have nothing better to talk about"... "If they find this interesting, we'll probably disagree on everything.)
Another epic I don't like is The Faerie Queene. Don't even get me started on that!
I complained to Beatrice about Dante, and she tried to explain why she liked it. I found her more convincing than the lecturer (partly no doubt because she has no professional stake in the matter; and because she hasn't been preaching these things for 50 years, so she can conceive of disagreement). She recited her favorite bits and it was then that I thought if I only read excerpts I might conceive a fondness for the Inferno at least.
She says I should read Orlando Furioso. He's been on my list for years.
I loved Faust, so it's not as if I hate every modern epic. Or even every Christian epic: I liked Paradise Regained.
Miranda Gaw is reading Northanger Abbey, on my recommendation, and liking it. When I saw this I ran to get my own copy, so that I could relive the experience at the same time that it was all happening to her. (That's how badly I want to be reading books with people.) My copy fell open to this page:
'My horse! oh, d— it! I would not sell my horse for a hundred. Are you fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?'
'Yes, very; I have hardly ever had an opportunity of being in one; but I am particularly fond of it.'
'I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day.'
'Thank you,' said Catherine, in some distress, from a doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer.
'I will drive you up Lansdown Hill to-morrow.'
'Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?'
'Rest! he has only come three-and-twenty miles to-day; all nonsense; nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing knocks them up so soon. No, no; I shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day while I am here.'
'Shall you indeed!' said Catherine very seriously, 'that will be forty miles a day.'
'Forty! aye, fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up Lansdown to-morrow; mind, I am engaged.'
'How delightful that will be!' cried Isabella, turning round; 'my dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will not have room for a third.'
'A third indeed! no, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters about; that would be a good joke, faith! Morland must take care of you.'
This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other two; but Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. Her companion's discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch, to nothing more than a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject by a question which had been long uppermost in her thoughts; it was, 'Have you ever read Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?'
'Udolpho! Oh, Lord! not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do.'
Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her question, but he prevented her by saying, 'Novels are so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except the Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.'
And so it goes for pages, one long drawn-out dissonance after another, delicious and painful and funny but also — poor Catherine — a bit sad too.
'My horse! oh, d— it! I would not sell my horse for a hundred. Are you fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?'
'Yes, very; I have hardly ever had an opportunity of being in one; but I am particularly fond of it.'
'I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day.'
'Thank you,' said Catherine, in some distress, from a doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer.
'I will drive you up Lansdown Hill to-morrow.'
'Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?'
'Rest! he has only come three-and-twenty miles to-day; all nonsense; nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing knocks them up so soon. No, no; I shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day while I am here.'
'Shall you indeed!' said Catherine very seriously, 'that will be forty miles a day.'
'Forty! aye, fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up Lansdown to-morrow; mind, I am engaged.'
'How delightful that will be!' cried Isabella, turning round; 'my dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will not have room for a third.'
'A third indeed! no, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters about; that would be a good joke, faith! Morland must take care of you.'
This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other two; but Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. Her companion's discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch, to nothing more than a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject by a question which had been long uppermost in her thoughts; it was, 'Have you ever read Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?'
'Udolpho! Oh, Lord! not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do.'
Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her question, but he prevented her by saying, 'Novels are so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except the Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.'
And so it goes for pages, one long drawn-out dissonance after another, delicious and painful and funny but also — poor Catherine — a bit sad too.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
I'm reading L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon with a long-term student, a middle-schooler. (My assignment: to teach whatever I want. She's a very good student, so it's not a question of remediation.) We take turns reading out loud. I read it when I was in middle school, and it made a huge impression on me. It's sentimental, and there are frequent patches of purple prose (which I thought very fine back in the day), but on the whole I'm delighted and astonished by just how good it is — much better than Anne of Green Gables, which is saying a lot — the Anne books, at least the first two or three, deserve their reputation. The descriptions in Emily of New Moon may be too rich, but they're very imaginative and well-written, and the dialogue is great — especially the way Emily tries to redefine terms in arguments in which she's being bullied. And her eagerness to make friends, her interest in underdogs and outcasts, her curiosity about old family stories and town legends — it's all very good. Last but not least, she wants to be a writer, and there's a lot on the impulse to write and the process of writing, all of which is accessible to a middle school student without being in the least condescending.
Maybe I'm getting carried away, but I think the Emily books offer an education in Romanticism: I have in mind Emily's appreciation for natural beauty, her fascination with fragments and unfinished things, again her sympathy for misfits, her constant fight against the philistines of Blair Water. I think it was under the influence of the Emily books that I sought out anonymous poetry. (In fact for about a year I scorned poetry by known authors.)
And she's a free thinker: I remember that in Emily Climbs she boards with a very strict Presbyterian aunt who's active in her church, and a local newspaper assigns her to review the new pastor of her aunt's church. She thinks his sermons are incoherent and formulaic invective, but of course she can't say that. So she writes both a dishonest review, and (for her own satisfaction) an honest review, and by mistake sends in the honest review, which gets published. Her aunt is incensed, etc etc. It's very funny.
When I read her father's deathbed farewell I coughed and sniffed and all but burst into tears, until my young student said gently, "Maybe I should read."
Maybe I'm getting carried away, but I think the Emily books offer an education in Romanticism: I have in mind Emily's appreciation for natural beauty, her fascination with fragments and unfinished things, again her sympathy for misfits, her constant fight against the philistines of Blair Water. I think it was under the influence of the Emily books that I sought out anonymous poetry. (In fact for about a year I scorned poetry by known authors.)
And she's a free thinker: I remember that in Emily Climbs she boards with a very strict Presbyterian aunt who's active in her church, and a local newspaper assigns her to review the new pastor of her aunt's church. She thinks his sermons are incoherent and formulaic invective, but of course she can't say that. So she writes both a dishonest review, and (for her own satisfaction) an honest review, and by mistake sends in the honest review, which gets published. Her aunt is incensed, etc etc. It's very funny.
When I read her father's deathbed farewell I coughed and sniffed and all but burst into tears, until my young student said gently, "Maybe I should read."
I went to hear André Schiffrin, the editor, talk about his new book, A Political Education. He said some interesting things about Yale and Cambridge in the 1950s, and some things about what's happening to publishing (which I'd heard before, but he made it sound very dire). At one point he said that independent publishing was a key — perhaps "the key" — to democracy. Now I'm all for independent publishing houses, but I felt a twinge of resistance: surely other things are more important, like intrepid journalism, civic associations, and, of course, schools that produce curious, skeptical, articulate citizens. I felt a bit churlish for taking exception, but afterwards I was able to put my finger on the reason for my resistance. Schiffrin thinks we need new ideas in order to make political progress, and how would those new ideas be propagated if not through books? I don't agree; I think the pursuit of new ideas is a huge diversion. The ideas are all there, we just need the will, the energy, and a healthy capacity for indignation.
But we all try hard to justify what we do.
But we all try hard to justify what we do.
A piece of very good news:
A middle school student I tutored pro bono for almost a year between 2005 and 2006 won a full scholarship to one of the best New England boarding schools!
!!!!
She's homeless, so (as Kaveri says) two birds with one stone.
The first essay she wrote for me was on the topic "The best things in life are free. Agree or disagree." (I did not choose it! It was randomly assigned!) She agreed, and adduced the example of public libraries. Still, it was a cruel assignment.
A middle school student I tutored pro bono for almost a year between 2005 and 2006 won a full scholarship to one of the best New England boarding schools!
!!!!
She's homeless, so (as Kaveri says) two birds with one stone.
The first essay she wrote for me was on the topic "The best things in life are free. Agree or disagree." (I did not choose it! It was randomly assigned!) She agreed, and adduced the example of public libraries. Still, it was a cruel assignment.
Whenever my cleaning lady crosses the threshold I feel sheepish about the state of my apartment, and worry that I'm her messiest client. But today she told me about an apartment she once cleaned in which the refrigerator was full of maggots, the walls were crawling with cockroaches, and the floors covered with thirty years of papers and dust. She ended up carrying forty bags of trash out of the place. But the worst was this: the woman who lived in this house of horrors said, "I think my cat is dead, but I don't know where it is. Probably somewhere under all those papers." And so it was.
And I was worried about a few dusty piles of junk mail!
And I was worried about a few dusty piles of junk mail!
I went to an awful talk a few weeks ago. I hesitate to publicize this, because in the grand scheme of things, who cares? How much harm can a lecture for graduate students and faculty do? On the other hand, life is short, and I wasted two hours. And I worry about what kind of teacher someone who thinks along these lines might be.
So, the paper was prefaced by this observation: "My scholarship is inspired by Derrida's insight that we don't know what it is to read, and we don't know what it is to write." You may as well say, we don't know what it means to eat a ham and cheese sandwich, we don't know what it means to look into a human face. "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar that lies on the other side of silence." But never mind. This bit of pretentious nonsense was laid down and never mentioned again. (Thankfully.)
There followed an extremely detailed discussion of "flowers," known to font fans as "ornaments" or "fleurons." (Most word processing programs come with one such font.) They became extremely popularly in the sixteenth century. Typesetters sometimes made mistakes in assembling the patterns. Did they take apart flower forms after having printed an edition, or did they preserve the forms for use in another book? The speaker had gone through countless volumes, trying (by keeping track of "mistakes" in patterns) to see if the forms were used in different books. Results inconclusive. Then: what did these decorations mean? Were they associated with a particular author? A genre? No, no. After twenty minutes of fruitless speculation (and many, many overhead transparencies), a half-conclusion: at most one might say that the books of members of the same coterie on occasion might have shared the same pattern of decoration. (An acquaintance remarked, "It sounds like cinema of the absurd.")
Last point: editions of sonnets often had a strip of flowers at the top and bottom of the page. It was put forth that sonneteers wrote with this frame "in mind." Ergo —? With what consequences? None were suggested. (Not one poem was mentioned in the whole talk.) Why adduce a cause for an imperceptible — a nonexistent — effect? (Marcel Duchamp: "If no solution, then maybe no problem.") In the Q&A a grumpy old professor asked if the speaker "had any evidence" for this assertion. (Uncomfortable laughter from the audience. But I felt relieved.) Of course not. "But when I write a 1000-word review, I'm acutely conscious of the word limit." Surely a sonneteer is acutely conscious of the fourteen-line limit, and the restrictive rhyme pattern. Once one has signed on with poetry's most demanding form, what difference could a strip of flowers in the header and footer possibly make?
Kaveri tells me about the harsh comments people make in MFA critiques. (Sometimes too harsh: "Your art is nothing.") And I can't help thinking, "Why aren't people a little tougher in humanities seminars?" I don't want anyone to run to the bathroom in tears, but this is ridiculous. Then I realized: maybe people aren't just being polite: I'd half-assumed that the laudatory (fulsome) comments and questions were less than sincere, but one listener assured me (on another day) his admiration was sincere. One man's medicine, another man's poison. I guess.
So, the paper was prefaced by this observation: "My scholarship is inspired by Derrida's insight that we don't know what it is to read, and we don't know what it is to write." You may as well say, we don't know what it means to eat a ham and cheese sandwich, we don't know what it means to look into a human face. "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar that lies on the other side of silence." But never mind. This bit of pretentious nonsense was laid down and never mentioned again. (Thankfully.)
There followed an extremely detailed discussion of "flowers," known to font fans as "ornaments" or "fleurons." (Most word processing programs come with one such font.) They became extremely popularly in the sixteenth century. Typesetters sometimes made mistakes in assembling the patterns. Did they take apart flower forms after having printed an edition, or did they preserve the forms for use in another book? The speaker had gone through countless volumes, trying (by keeping track of "mistakes" in patterns) to see if the forms were used in different books. Results inconclusive. Then: what did these decorations mean? Were they associated with a particular author? A genre? No, no. After twenty minutes of fruitless speculation (and many, many overhead transparencies), a half-conclusion: at most one might say that the books of members of the same coterie on occasion might have shared the same pattern of decoration. (An acquaintance remarked, "It sounds like cinema of the absurd.")
Last point: editions of sonnets often had a strip of flowers at the top and bottom of the page. It was put forth that sonneteers wrote with this frame "in mind." Ergo —? With what consequences? None were suggested. (Not one poem was mentioned in the whole talk.) Why adduce a cause for an imperceptible — a nonexistent — effect? (Marcel Duchamp: "If no solution, then maybe no problem.") In the Q&A a grumpy old professor asked if the speaker "had any evidence" for this assertion. (Uncomfortable laughter from the audience. But I felt relieved.) Of course not. "But when I write a 1000-word review, I'm acutely conscious of the word limit." Surely a sonneteer is acutely conscious of the fourteen-line limit, and the restrictive rhyme pattern. Once one has signed on with poetry's most demanding form, what difference could a strip of flowers in the header and footer possibly make?
Kaveri tells me about the harsh comments people make in MFA critiques. (Sometimes too harsh: "Your art is nothing.") And I can't help thinking, "Why aren't people a little tougher in humanities seminars?" I don't want anyone to run to the bathroom in tears, but this is ridiculous. Then I realized: maybe people aren't just being polite: I'd half-assumed that the laudatory (fulsome) comments and questions were less than sincere, but one listener assured me (on another day) his admiration was sincere. One man's medicine, another man's poison. I guess.
I went to hear Christopher Ricks at the Y. I like him a lot! His books, of course, and now I can say I like him as a speaker. He apologized for the scruffiness of his talk, but it didn't matter. On the level of insights and sentences it was a treasure chest. The older I get the more I think, "To hell with essay structure. Sentences are what really matters." (Within limits — the conclusions of Hazlitt's essays are sometimes so flat I wonder if he was doing it on purpose.)
A two-part anecdote:
Last spring my supervisor (one of them) left a message on my voicemail: "You should read your student evaluations, which were very positive. I always read them after a term is over — it's heartening."
In spite of this friendly encouragement, I was too afraid to read them. (Asking one of the secretaries to find my file seemed, conveniently, like an imposition.)
Then last October I was in the computer room and happened to read this entry "On being observed." In the sixth paragraph White Bear begins to describe "That One Bad Evaluation." It sounded like every single evaluation I got in the PGCE. For example: "She went on to give advice like how to turn all my difficult, open-ended questions into yes-or-no questions. She said I should make each of them "especially those immigrant kids" give a response to one question per class, going around the room. She said I shouldn't read aloud... "
By the time I finished reading the entry I was shaking. "I must see those evaluations!" I thought, and raced up the stairs. But both the secretaries were out to lunch. As I dashed past my pigeonhole I noticed something. What's this? A big envelope. I sat on the floor and poured out its contents. The first thing I saw was a smiley face. ("Do you have any additional comments?") Then I read them. They were good. They really were. In one class all the students (as if by agreement) had ended their evaluations with "I [heart] her!" I nearly wept with gratitude and relief.
(I still can't believe the coincidence.)
I know, according to the observer, it doesn't matter what students think. But it does, of course.
I wonder how many positive evaluations it will take to undo the damage of the PGCE.
Last spring my supervisor (one of them) left a message on my voicemail: "You should read your student evaluations, which were very positive. I always read them after a term is over — it's heartening."
In spite of this friendly encouragement, I was too afraid to read them. (Asking one of the secretaries to find my file seemed, conveniently, like an imposition.)
Then last October I was in the computer room and happened to read this entry "On being observed." In the sixth paragraph White Bear begins to describe "That One Bad Evaluation." It sounded like every single evaluation I got in the PGCE. For example: "She went on to give advice like how to turn all my difficult, open-ended questions into yes-or-no questions. She said I should make each of them "especially those immigrant kids" give a response to one question per class, going around the room. She said I shouldn't read aloud... "
By the time I finished reading the entry I was shaking. "I must see those evaluations!" I thought, and raced up the stairs. But both the secretaries were out to lunch. As I dashed past my pigeonhole I noticed something. What's this? A big envelope. I sat on the floor and poured out its contents. The first thing I saw was a smiley face. ("Do you have any additional comments?") Then I read them. They were good. They really were. In one class all the students (as if by agreement) had ended their evaluations with "I [heart] her!" I nearly wept with gratitude and relief.
(I still can't believe the coincidence.)
I know, according to the observer, it doesn't matter what students think. But it does, of course.
I wonder how many positive evaluations it will take to undo the damage of the PGCE.
Beatrice's figures of speech from nature:
"Lo so che sono un po' orsa." = "I know I'm a bit of a bear,"
orsa: an unsociable woman. (orso: an unsociable man.)
"Cosa farei, lì come un carciofo?" = "What would I do there, like an artichoke?"
carciofo: a silly, useless, incompetent person.
These are dictionary definitions. The bear idiom makes sense, but how did artichoke get to mean "silly, useless, incompetent"?! I always thought of it as a mysterious, elegant vegetable. But then I thought of the way an artichoke stands on its stalk — once in my life I saw a thicket of artichokes — like a stumpy, fat, too-earthly flower, and the way it seems (naturally) so unconscious of its ridiculousness. It began to make sense.
"Lo so che sono un po' orsa." = "I know I'm a bit of a bear,"
orsa: an unsociable woman. (orso: an unsociable man.)
"Cosa farei, lì come un carciofo?" = "What would I do there, like an artichoke?"
carciofo: a silly, useless, incompetent person.
These are dictionary definitions. The bear idiom makes sense, but how did artichoke get to mean "silly, useless, incompetent"?! I always thought of it as a mysterious, elegant vegetable. But then I thought of the way an artichoke stands on its stalk — once in my life I saw a thicket of artichokes — like a stumpy, fat, too-earthly flower, and the way it seems (naturally) so unconscious of its ridiculousness. It began to make sense.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Tony Nuttall has died. I just found out. It's hard to believe. I wish I had studied with him! Something, anything. I went to one of his lectures at the beginning of the term and loved it — so concentrated and so lively. I resolved to attend them regularly, but in the end couldn't because of some schedule conflict. (I think it was the PGCE — God help me) I thought nonchalantly: "I'll audit some time in the future." Then he retired, and now he's gone. He was so friendly and approachable.
I've seen The Lives of Others twice, and highly recommend it. I'm haunted by Sebastian Koch's face, a face that holds, that withholds, so much. And by his manner, which is such a canny mixture of caution and innocence. Canny's the wrong word: it seemed completely unconscious, an aura of divine favor. Consider, for example, the way so much of he said was not really offensive to the regime, and at the same time not hypocritical either. He was always honest, and he never compromised himself.
The face of Ulrich Mühe also gained depth at a vertiginous rate, even though his expression never changed. Depending on where you let your eyes focus, you saw in their faces a blank wall, or infinitely complicated reserve.
And the first time you see them you think you have their measure: smug egotist; sadist.
I was reminded of:
Divided We Fall: the man whose job it is to spy and persecute turns by imperceptible shades, almost without knowing what's happening to him, into a saviour.
The White Rose: for the chessboard interrogations in German.
and, maybe because I'm reading We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, Hotel Rwanda, again for the tightrope negotiations with an evil power.
The face of Ulrich Mühe also gained depth at a vertiginous rate, even though his expression never changed. Depending on where you let your eyes focus, you saw in their faces a blank wall, or infinitely complicated reserve.
And the first time you see them you think you have their measure: smug egotist; sadist.
I was reminded of:
Divided We Fall: the man whose job it is to spy and persecute turns by imperceptible shades, almost without knowing what's happening to him, into a saviour.
The White Rose: for the chessboard interrogations in German.
and, maybe because I'm reading We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, Hotel Rwanda, again for the tightrope negotiations with an evil power.
I read Sterne's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy and "The Brahmine's Journal." They're not masterpieces — the Journal lacks his usual verve, is in fact boring and repetitive — but I found them both very moving, and when I finished, I would have straightaway started re-reading Tristram Shandy, if I'd had my copy.
That's not quite fair: the Sentimental Journey, which reads like a supplement to Tristram Shandy, has some brilliant passages. It's almost entirely set in Calais, Paris, and Versailles (shades of Shandy, in which the protagonist is born only in the second half of the novel). Sterne did in fact make it to Italy, but the book was published two weeks before his death; perhaps he had given up on finishing it, or needed the money. (He was in the enviable position of knowing that anything with his name on the cover would be lapped up in several countries.) It reminded me a bit of Hamsun's Hunger for the comical hypersensitivity of the narrator, adrift in a large city, to every gesture, expression, and modulation of tone — a kind of grasping at straws, because the city itself is unreadable. And for the way in which the author and narrator are indistinguishable, and for his bursts of love for all mankind, which are always so hard to express. (They both try.) In Hamsun these effusions are balanced by bouts of misanthropy and misogyny, and an inability to communicate. Not so in the Sentimental Journey — it's as joyful and exuberant as Tristram Shandy.
There's a very funny episode in which — but here it is:
The Passport — Paris
When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur [Yorick's French valet] told me I had been enquired after by the Lieutenant de Police — The duce take it! said I — I know the reason. It is time the reader should know it, for in the order of things in which it happened, it was omitted; not that it was out of my head; but that, had I told it then, it might have been forgot now — and now is the time I want it.
I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter'd my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there without a passport. Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less bear the thoughts of it; so hearing the Count de *** had hired the packet, I begg'd he would take me in his suite. The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty — only said, his inclination to serve me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass'd there, I might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I must make friends and shift for myself — Let me get to Paris, Monsieur le Count, said I — and I shall do very well. So I embark'd, and never thought more of the matter.
When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring after me — the thing instantly recurred — and by the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I had one — Not I, faith! said I.
The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected person, as I declared this — and poor La Fleur advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to succour a distress'd one — the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single trait, I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.
Mon seigneur! cried the master of the hotel — but recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it — if Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (apparemment) in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one — Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. — Then, certes, replied he, you'll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet, au moins. Poo! said I, the king of France is a good-natur'd soul — he'll hurt nobody. — Cela n'empeche pas, said he — you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning. — But I've taken your lodgings for a month, answer'd I, and I'll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.
Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens tres extraordinaires — and having both said and sworn it — he went out.
The Passport — The Hotel at Paris
I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly; and to shew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talk'd to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the opera comique. …
As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation. —
— And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which pass'd twixt us the moment I was going to set out — I must tell it here.
Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburthen'd with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for; upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull'd out his purse in order to empty it into mine. — I've enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I. — Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius — I know France and Italy better than you — But you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expence. I beg pardon, said Eugenius, drily: really I had forgot that resource.
Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity — or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word — Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower — and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of — Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year — but with nine livres a day, and pen and ink and paper and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within — at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.
I had some occasion (I forgot what) to step into the courtyard, as I settled this account; and remember I walk'd down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning — Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I vauntingly — for I envy not its power, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them — 'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition — the Bastile is not an evil to be despised — But strip it of its towers — fill up the fossé — unbarricade the doors — call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper — and not of a man which holds you in it — the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.
I was interrupted in the hey-day of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out." — I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage — "I can't get out — I can't get out," said the starling.
I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity…
I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; [n]or do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walk'd up stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I — still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.
…
The count de B****, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke[n] so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind — And why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de B****, who has so high an idea of English books, and English men — and tell him my story?
…
I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B***. The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over. I walk'd up close to the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were — I told him I had come without anyone to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me — it is my countryman the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works — et ayez la bonté, mon cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet honneur-la.
The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing I look'd a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-chair: so I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller's shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France — And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count. So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader. — And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I should be sent to the Bastile — but I have no apprehensions, continued I — for in falling into the hands of the most polish'd people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at their mercy. — It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to shew it against invalids.
An animated blush came into the Count de B****'s cheeks as I spoke this — Ne craignez rien — Don't fear, said he — Indeed I don't, replied I again — …
The Count heard me with great good-nature, or I had not said half as much — and once or twice said — C'est bien dit. So I rested my cause there — and determined to say no more about it.
The Count led the discourse: we talk'd of indifferent things — of books, and politics, and men — and then of women — God bless them all! said I
…
The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion; and added, very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for making me known to him — But, à propos, said he, — Shakespeare is full of great things — he forgot a small punctilio of announcing your name — it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.
There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am — for there is scarce anybody I cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often wish'd I could do it in a single word — and have an end of it. It was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to any purpose — for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon YORICK, and advancing the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the name — Me voici! said I.
Now whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account — 'tis certain the French conceive better than they combine — I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first in our own church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case, — "He could not bear," he said, "to look into the sermons wrote [sic] by the king of Denmark's jester." Good, my lord! said I; but there are two Yoricks.
…
The poor Count de B*** fell but into the same error —
— Et, Monsieur, est il Yorick? cried the Count. — Je le suis, said I. — Vous? — Moi — moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monsieur le Comte — Mon Dieu! said he, embracing me — Vous êtes Yorick! The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket and left me alone in his room.
I could not conceive why the Count de B**** had gone so abruptly out of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into his pocket — Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up: 'twas better to read Shakespeare; so taking up Much ado about Nothing, I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro and Benedict and Beatrice, that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the Passport.
…
When I had got to the end of the third act, the Count de B**** entered with my passport in his hand. Mons. le Duc de C****, said the Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman — Un homme qui rit, said the duke, ne sera jamais dangereux. — Had it been for any one but the king's jester, added the Count, I could not have got it these two hours. — Pardonnez moi, Mons. le Count, said I — I am not the king's jester. But you are Yorick? — Yes. — Et vous plaisantez? — I answered, Indeed I did jest — but was not paid for it — 'twas entirely at my own expence.
We have no jester at court, Mons. le Count, said I; the last we had was in the licentious reign of Charles II. — since which time our manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is so full of patriots, who wish for nothing but the honours and wealth of their country — and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout — there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of —
Voilà un persiflage! cried the Count.
***
Isn't it delightful?! It never gets stale.
It would be unfair to judge the Brahmine's Journal, since Sterne conceived of it as therapy, not as literature. It's a journal written for the woman he loved, who had gone to India to join her husband. At first he meant to send it to her; later he changed his mind, and though he still addressed the entries to her, gave free rein to his fantasies about her husband's death. It was written in the last year of his life, when he was very ill. I could call it maudlin, self-indulgent, and obsessive, but that would be like losing patience with a friend because he's ill and unhappily in love, and not as entertaining as his wont. It's amazing that he wrote the Journey, so light and sparkling, at the same time as the Journal. But then we have the author's word that every sentence in Tristram Shandy itself was written "written under the greatest heaviness of heart."
The Journal can't be compared to Keats's letters, or to the letters and journals of Katherine Mansfield, but I was reminded of them because all three writers are dying of consumption, and detailed, happy plans for the future (when you can see "only 30 more pages to live") alternate with desperately needy pleas to the distant beloved.
Sterne, for example, describes in detail a sitting room he's furnishing for the Brahmine.
I particularly like Sterne's fondness for "sentiment." (It's in Tristram Shandy, but it's even more of a leit motif in the Journey and the Journal.) It's not something one naturally associates with his sparkling wit, but only because the word has become debased. A friend of mine once tried to redeem it, in writing and in speech. But we are so addicted to cheap irony that I'm afraid her efforts were unsuccessful.
Sometimes I think he uses the word "sentiment" as Austen uses the word "taste": it's what refined spirits recognize and appreciate.
By the way, Thackeray — a "sentimental" writer in the worst sense of the word — I hated Vanity Fair — penned a vehement denunciation of Sterne. The spirit of one age attacking the spirit of another. ("That's not fair." I know.)
I hope you've all read the brief but moving — sentimental! — exchange of letters between Sterne and Ignatius Sancho, Britain's "first black man of letters," a greengrocer by trade.
The other day someone told me that Jean Paul, Schumann's favorite author and the source of his butterflies, is like a German Laurence Sterne.
That's not quite fair: the Sentimental Journey, which reads like a supplement to Tristram Shandy, has some brilliant passages. It's almost entirely set in Calais, Paris, and Versailles (shades of Shandy, in which the protagonist is born only in the second half of the novel). Sterne did in fact make it to Italy, but the book was published two weeks before his death; perhaps he had given up on finishing it, or needed the money. (He was in the enviable position of knowing that anything with his name on the cover would be lapped up in several countries.) It reminded me a bit of Hamsun's Hunger for the comical hypersensitivity of the narrator, adrift in a large city, to every gesture, expression, and modulation of tone — a kind of grasping at straws, because the city itself is unreadable. And for the way in which the author and narrator are indistinguishable, and for his bursts of love for all mankind, which are always so hard to express. (They both try.) In Hamsun these effusions are balanced by bouts of misanthropy and misogyny, and an inability to communicate. Not so in the Sentimental Journey — it's as joyful and exuberant as Tristram Shandy.
There's a very funny episode in which — but here it is:
The Passport — Paris
When I got home to my hotel, La Fleur [Yorick's French valet] told me I had been enquired after by the Lieutenant de Police — The duce take it! said I — I know the reason. It is time the reader should know it, for in the order of things in which it happened, it was omitted; not that it was out of my head; but that, had I told it then, it might have been forgot now — and now is the time I want it.
I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never enter'd my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there without a passport. Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less bear the thoughts of it; so hearing the Count de *** had hired the packet, I begg'd he would take me in his suite. The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty — only said, his inclination to serve me could reach no farther than Calais, as he was to return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once pass'd there, I might get to Paris without interruption; but that in Paris I must make friends and shift for myself — Let me get to Paris, Monsieur le Count, said I — and I shall do very well. So I embark'd, and never thought more of the matter.
When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been enquiring after me — the thing instantly recurred — and by the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, He hoped I had one — Not I, faith! said I.
The master of the hotel retired three steps from me, as from an infected person, as I declared this — and poor La Fleur advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to succour a distress'd one — the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single trait, I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.
Mon seigneur! cried the master of the hotel — but recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it — if Monsieur, said he, has not a passport (apparemment) in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one — Not that I know of, quoth I, with an air of indifference. — Then, certes, replied he, you'll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet, au moins. Poo! said I, the king of France is a good-natur'd soul — he'll hurt nobody. — Cela n'empeche pas, said he — you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning. — But I've taken your lodgings for a month, answer'd I, and I'll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world. La Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.
Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens tres extraordinaires — and having both said and sworn it — he went out.
The Passport — The Hotel at Paris
I could not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly; and to shew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talk'd to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the opera comique. …
As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation. —
— And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which pass'd twixt us the moment I was going to set out — I must tell it here.
Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburthen'd with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for; upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull'd out his purse in order to empty it into mine. — I've enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I. — Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius — I know France and Italy better than you — But you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expence. I beg pardon, said Eugenius, drily: really I had forgot that resource.
Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.
Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity — or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?
And as for the Bastile; the terror is in the word — Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower — and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of — Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year — but with nine livres a day, and pen and ink and paper and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within — at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.
I had some occasion (I forgot what) to step into the courtyard, as I settled this account; and remember I walk'd down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning — Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I vauntingly — for I envy not its power, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them — 'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition — the Bastile is not an evil to be despised — But strip it of its towers — fill up the fossé — unbarricade the doors — call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper — and not of a man which holds you in it — the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.
I was interrupted in the hey-day of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out." — I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage — "I can't get out — I can't get out," said the starling.
I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity…
I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; [n]or do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walk'd up stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I — still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.
…
The count de B****, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke[n] so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind — And why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de B****, who has so high an idea of English books, and English men — and tell him my story?
…
I found no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B***. The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over. I walk'd up close to the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were — I told him I had come without anyone to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me — it is my countryman the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works — et ayez la bonté, mon cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet honneur-la.
The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and seeing I look'd a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an arm-chair: so I sat down; and to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller's shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France — And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count. So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader. — And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I should be sent to the Bastile — but I have no apprehensions, continued I — for in falling into the hands of the most polish'd people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at their mercy. — It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to shew it against invalids.
An animated blush came into the Count de B****'s cheeks as I spoke this — Ne craignez rien — Don't fear, said he — Indeed I don't, replied I again — …
The Count heard me with great good-nature, or I had not said half as much — and once or twice said — C'est bien dit. So I rested my cause there — and determined to say no more about it.
The Count led the discourse: we talk'd of indifferent things — of books, and politics, and men — and then of women — God bless them all! said I
…
The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion; and added, very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for making me known to him — But, à propos, said he, — Shakespeare is full of great things — he forgot a small punctilio of announcing your name — it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.
There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am — for there is scarce anybody I cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often wish'd I could do it in a single word — and have an end of it. It was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to any purpose — for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon YORICK, and advancing the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the name — Me voici! said I.
Now whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account — 'tis certain the French conceive better than they combine — I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first in our own church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case, — "He could not bear," he said, "to look into the sermons wrote [sic] by the king of Denmark's jester." Good, my lord! said I; but there are two Yoricks.
…
The poor Count de B*** fell but into the same error —
— Et, Monsieur, est il Yorick? cried the Count. — Je le suis, said I. — Vous? — Moi — moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monsieur le Comte — Mon Dieu! said he, embracing me — Vous êtes Yorick! The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket and left me alone in his room.
I could not conceive why the Count de B**** had gone so abruptly out of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into his pocket — Mysteries which must explain themselves are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up: 'twas better to read Shakespeare; so taking up Much ado about Nothing, I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro and Benedict and Beatrice, that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the Passport.
…
When I had got to the end of the third act, the Count de B**** entered with my passport in his hand. Mons. le Duc de C****, said the Count, is as good a prophet, I dare say, as he is a statesman — Un homme qui rit, said the duke, ne sera jamais dangereux. — Had it been for any one but the king's jester, added the Count, I could not have got it these two hours. — Pardonnez moi, Mons. le Count, said I — I am not the king's jester. But you are Yorick? — Yes. — Et vous plaisantez? — I answered, Indeed I did jest — but was not paid for it — 'twas entirely at my own expence.
We have no jester at court, Mons. le Count, said I; the last we had was in the licentious reign of Charles II. — since which time our manners have been so gradually refining, that our court at present is so full of patriots, who wish for nothing but the honours and wealth of their country — and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout — there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of —
Voilà un persiflage! cried the Count.
***
Isn't it delightful?! It never gets stale.
It would be unfair to judge the Brahmine's Journal, since Sterne conceived of it as therapy, not as literature. It's a journal written for the woman he loved, who had gone to India to join her husband. At first he meant to send it to her; later he changed his mind, and though he still addressed the entries to her, gave free rein to his fantasies about her husband's death. It was written in the last year of his life, when he was very ill. I could call it maudlin, self-indulgent, and obsessive, but that would be like losing patience with a friend because he's ill and unhappily in love, and not as entertaining as his wont. It's amazing that he wrote the Journey, so light and sparkling, at the same time as the Journal. But then we have the author's word that every sentence in Tristram Shandy itself was written "written under the greatest heaviness of heart."
The Journal can't be compared to Keats's letters, or to the letters and journals of Katherine Mansfield, but I was reminded of them because all three writers are dying of consumption, and detailed, happy plans for the future (when you can see "only 30 more pages to live") alternate with desperately needy pleas to the distant beloved.
Sterne, for example, describes in detail a sitting room he's furnishing for the Brahmine.
I particularly like Sterne's fondness for "sentiment." (It's in Tristram Shandy, but it's even more of a leit motif in the Journey and the Journal.) It's not something one naturally associates with his sparkling wit, but only because the word has become debased. A friend of mine once tried to redeem it, in writing and in speech. But we are so addicted to cheap irony that I'm afraid her efforts were unsuccessful.
Sometimes I think he uses the word "sentiment" as Austen uses the word "taste": it's what refined spirits recognize and appreciate.
By the way, Thackeray — a "sentimental" writer in the worst sense of the word — I hated Vanity Fair — penned a vehement denunciation of Sterne. The spirit of one age attacking the spirit of another. ("That's not fair." I know.)
I hope you've all read the brief but moving — sentimental! — exchange of letters between Sterne and Ignatius Sancho, Britain's "first black man of letters," a greengrocer by trade.
The other day someone told me that Jean Paul, Schumann's favorite author and the source of his butterflies, is like a German Laurence Sterne.
Patrick was late to class. "Where's Patrick?" I asked. "Probably shovelling snow," a classmate suggested. At these words Richard turned around and demanded, emphatically, "Dude, do you think for one minute that Patrick would let shovelling snow get in the way of his education?" I had to smile. Partly because Richard teases Patrick to his face, so it was nice to hear him stand up for Patrick in Patrick's absence (not that the imputation was so scandalous). And partly because ever since I've known these children, which is to say ever since they were 10, they've shown — nearly all of them — an extraordinary commitment to learning, a kind of patient/eager organized curiosity.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
"A woman of seven and twenty," said Marianne, after pausing a moment, "can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her home be uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of the provision and security of a wife." — Sense and Sensibility
The first time I read anything by Jane Austen, I liked it, but found it a bit insipid. (My excuse: I was twelve.) I read Mansfield Park a few years later, and nearly gave up on Austen. Then when I was nineteen I read Persuasion, and when I was twenty-seven practically everything else, and loved it — especially the poisoned wit, the bitterness, the loneliness of her heroines, and Austen's exploration of all that goes into making moral judgments about about people. And I loved spotting echoes of Samuel Johnson, both in syntax and in the conviction that however awful other people might sometimes be, one cannot be good or useful outside of society. (such an extreme combination of misanthropy and sociability.) When I took up Sense and Sensibility last week I thought I hadn't read it, but I was wrong, as I realized from my notations in the margins. It just hadn't made as deep an impression as Emma or Northanger Abbey.
At first I found that the narrator's misanthropy makes the descriptions verge on the grotesque. It was too much, it was monotonous in spite of its cleverness, and I couldn't sympathize unreservedly with the anti-Romantic polemic. But I was soon drawn in by the depiction of grief and disappointment, and this sustained my interest for the rest of the book. My only gripe is that Austen (predictably) is whole-heartedly on the side of "sense": Elinor is above reproach; the only one who has to learn a lesson, as far as Austen is concerned, is Marianne. But one can indulge in self-control as much as in its opposite; not confiding in one's nearest and dearest can be the consequence not so much of admirable self-discipline as of a paralysis of spirit; there can even be something selfish about it. In making her sister her confidante, Elinor might have drawn Marianne's attention away from her own grief for a minute; the claim on her sympathy would have given her an opportunity to make herself useful. Expecting infinite sacrifices from yourself, and none from others, is a kind of narcissism.
The first time I read anything by Jane Austen, I liked it, but found it a bit insipid. (My excuse: I was twelve.) I read Mansfield Park a few years later, and nearly gave up on Austen. Then when I was nineteen I read Persuasion, and when I was twenty-seven practically everything else, and loved it — especially the poisoned wit, the bitterness, the loneliness of her heroines, and Austen's exploration of all that goes into making moral judgments about about people. And I loved spotting echoes of Samuel Johnson, both in syntax and in the conviction that however awful other people might sometimes be, one cannot be good or useful outside of society. (such an extreme combination of misanthropy and sociability.) When I took up Sense and Sensibility last week I thought I hadn't read it, but I was wrong, as I realized from my notations in the margins. It just hadn't made as deep an impression as Emma or Northanger Abbey.
At first I found that the narrator's misanthropy makes the descriptions verge on the grotesque. It was too much, it was monotonous in spite of its cleverness, and I couldn't sympathize unreservedly with the anti-Romantic polemic. But I was soon drawn in by the depiction of grief and disappointment, and this sustained my interest for the rest of the book. My only gripe is that Austen (predictably) is whole-heartedly on the side of "sense": Elinor is above reproach; the only one who has to learn a lesson, as far as Austen is concerned, is Marianne. But one can indulge in self-control as much as in its opposite; not confiding in one's nearest and dearest can be the consequence not so much of admirable self-discipline as of a paralysis of spirit; there can even be something selfish about it. In making her sister her confidante, Elinor might have drawn Marianne's attention away from her own grief for a minute; the claim on her sympathy would have given her an opportunity to make herself useful. Expecting infinite sacrifices from yourself, and none from others, is a kind of narcissism.
According to the New York Times, the online University of Phoenix is in trouble with regulators. The allegations: papers graded without comment; most courses taught by part-timers; instructors who boasted about how little they taught; misleading course descriptions. I had to laugh when I read that. If the University of Phoenix feels singled out, I sympathize. Who are these regulators, and where do they come from? Where do they get their ideas about universities?? If their standards are really so high, their work will never be done.
I have to say this sounded exceptionally dreary: "its campuses, most of which are office buildings near freeways."
I have to say this sounded exceptionally dreary: "its campuses, most of which are office buildings near freeways."
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Perhaps you too, dear reader, worry about desertification. If so, here's an article that will cheer you up: In Niger, Trees and Crops Turn Back the Desert.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Scene on a subway:
The other day a man came into my subway car, stood silently as the train swung out of the station (but I knew he was going to speak) and then started telling us his story. A skilled construction worker, he had come from Vermont with his wife and child looking for work. He hadn't known, however, that to work on a construction site in New York you have to belong to a union. He didn't have forty-five days (he didn't elaborate, but apparently this is some requirement for union membership), so he enrolled in a course for security guards, with guaranteed job placement. His first day at work was the next day, but he needed $33 to finish paying for the course. If he didn't come up with the money, he would lose the job and his down payment. He hated doing this; he would be glad to show us the documents.
I have to say, I found this pretty convincing. The long pause before beginning (which spoke of reluctance), the wealth of detail, his appearance (he looked like someone from Vermont) — I believed him. I wasn't the only one. Sitting across from me was a red-haired man who contribued $20 to the cause. After thanking him effusively, the petitioner asked, "Can I show you the documents?" "Don't worry about it. I liked your spiel." The next person gave him $15. And here an argument ensued: "That's two dollars more than I need! Let me see if I can get you change." "Keep it, man! Buy yourself a coffee!" "I can't believe it! I haven't cried since the day my mother died!" He stayed on for many more stops, the whole while exchanging views with Ms Fifteen Dollars on how to make the world a better place: "If only people would…" "Just a little more trust…" "Jeez, wait till my wife hears! She didn't want me to do this!" And: "I still feel like throwing up. I can't believe I did this." And: "I was hoping someone would challenge me, so I could show the documents." And he described a conversation he'd had with the course supervisor, who turned down his request to deduct the $33 from his first paycheck. Everyone was listening and smiling
The fact that he stayed on the train for six more stops added to his credibility — he wasn't looking for a new audience.
The other day a man came into my subway car, stood silently as the train swung out of the station (but I knew he was going to speak) and then started telling us his story. A skilled construction worker, he had come from Vermont with his wife and child looking for work. He hadn't known, however, that to work on a construction site in New York you have to belong to a union. He didn't have forty-five days (he didn't elaborate, but apparently this is some requirement for union membership), so he enrolled in a course for security guards, with guaranteed job placement. His first day at work was the next day, but he needed $33 to finish paying for the course. If he didn't come up with the money, he would lose the job and his down payment. He hated doing this; he would be glad to show us the documents.
I have to say, I found this pretty convincing. The long pause before beginning (which spoke of reluctance), the wealth of detail, his appearance (he looked like someone from Vermont) — I believed him. I wasn't the only one. Sitting across from me was a red-haired man who contribued $20 to the cause. After thanking him effusively, the petitioner asked, "Can I show you the documents?" "Don't worry about it. I liked your spiel." The next person gave him $15. And here an argument ensued: "That's two dollars more than I need! Let me see if I can get you change." "Keep it, man! Buy yourself a coffee!" "I can't believe it! I haven't cried since the day my mother died!" He stayed on for many more stops, the whole while exchanging views with Ms Fifteen Dollars on how to make the world a better place: "If only people would…" "Just a little more trust…" "Jeez, wait till my wife hears! She didn't want me to do this!" And: "I still feel like throwing up. I can't believe I did this." And: "I was hoping someone would challenge me, so I could show the documents." And he described a conversation he'd had with the course supervisor, who turned down his request to deduct the $33 from his first paycheck. Everyone was listening and smiling
The fact that he stayed on the train for six more stops added to his credibility — he wasn't looking for a new audience.
Conversation on a bus:
A middle-aged man came onto a crosstown bus at Fifth Avenue. His scarf was identical to mine, and when he sat catty-corner from me I said, "Merton." "Balliol." It was like getting the wrong password. In some consternation, we compared scarves and found the difference. He had done a second BA in English in the 1970s. Then he did a PhD at Yale. We found out that one of his classmates supervised my senior essay. His one regret, he said, was not having done the PhD at Oxford. "A friend of mine started a PhD at Yale after an MSt at Oxford, and then quit because he hated it so much," I said. "He made the right decision. I should have dropped out.… There were a lot of older genteel types — who were nasty. And then there were the younger deconstructionists — who were about to become nasty." me: ":D! That sounds just like Yale!" By then we were at Central Park West, and I had to get off.
I always feel a kinship with people who hate Yale — this summer, for example, two of my classmates were students at Yale (one graduate, one undergraduate), and they both hated it. "I'm in good company," I thought. It was quite wonderful to agree on the awfulness of Yale with a perfect stranger in the few minutes it takes to cross Central Park, and then to part ways.
A middle-aged man came onto a crosstown bus at Fifth Avenue. His scarf was identical to mine, and when he sat catty-corner from me I said, "Merton." "Balliol." It was like getting the wrong password. In some consternation, we compared scarves and found the difference. He had done a second BA in English in the 1970s. Then he did a PhD at Yale. We found out that one of his classmates supervised my senior essay. His one regret, he said, was not having done the PhD at Oxford. "A friend of mine started a PhD at Yale after an MSt at Oxford, and then quit because he hated it so much," I said. "He made the right decision. I should have dropped out.… There were a lot of older genteel types — who were nasty. And then there were the younger deconstructionists — who were about to become nasty." me: ":D! That sounds just like Yale!" By then we were at Central Park West, and I had to get off.
I always feel a kinship with people who hate Yale — this summer, for example, two of my classmates were students at Yale (one graduate, one undergraduate), and they both hated it. "I'm in good company," I thought. It was quite wonderful to agree on the awfulness of Yale with a perfect stranger in the few minutes it takes to cross Central Park, and then to part ways.
Storia degli Italiani, vol. I: very, very good. I had despaired of finding a book like this, but volume I of Procacci's history is as good as I could have wished. Three things stand out:
One is the tenuousness of men's hold over the land: people have lived in Italy at least since the Neolithic age, but there were ages of retrenchment and ages of expansion (settlement). During the periods of retrenchment the population declined (huddled in towns and castles) and vast regions became malarial swamp. Sometimes the causes of the swamps' expansion were political. I lose sleep over desertification, and it was interesting to come across an analogous circumstance. (But swamps — even malarial swamps — don't scare me nearly as much as deserts.)
Apparently the Venice/Genova dichotomy is a commonplace, but I found it fascinating:
La fortuna di Genova si veniva però sviluppando su basi assai diverse da quelle di Venezia. Il suo armamento era prevalentement privato, i suoi convogli mercantili e, talvolta, le sue stesse spedizioni militari delle "maone" organizzate da privati, i fondachi dei magazzini appartenenti a privati e i suoi viaggiatori degli avventurieri che non esitavano a mettere le proprie competenze al servigio di chiunque fosse to disposto a pagarle. Marco Polo, davanti al khan dei tartari o in prigionia non cessò mai di sentirsi un cittadino veneziano, per Venezia egli combattè e a Venezia si ammogliò e morì. Ma già agli inizi del XIV secolo noi troviamo un genovese, Manuele Pessagno, ammiraglio del re di Portogallo e un altro, Enrico Marchese, costruttore di navi sulla Senna per conto di Filippo il Bello. Essi sono i capostipiti di una progenie di genovesi per il mondo cui appartiene anche Cristoforo Colombo, scopritore delle Americhe per conto del re di Spagna.
Questo "individualismo" genovese, del quale si è tanto parlato e del quale non si può fare a meno di continuare a parlare, si riflette nelle strutture stesse della città. (p. 46)
Rough translation:
The fortunes of Genova developed from very different foundations from those of Venice. Its arsenal was predominantly private, its mercantile convoys and at times even its military ventures were privately organized, its warehouses were privately owned and its travellers adventurers who did not hesitate to put their abilities at the service of anyone willing to pay. Marco Polo, before the khan of the Tartars or in jail, never ceased to consider himself a Venetian citizen, for Venice he fought, in Venice he was married and died. But already at the beginning of the XIV century we find a Genoese, Manuele Pessagno, admiral of the king of Portugal, and another, Enrico Marchese, ship builder on the Seine for Philip the Fair [of France]. They are the forefathers of a line of globe-trotting Genoese that includes Cristoforo Colombo, discoverer of the Americas on behalf of the king of Spain.
This Genoese "individualism," of which much has been said and which we shall go on discussing, is reflected in the very structure of the city.
***
The fates of the two cities seem to be contained in this difference in mentality: after a financial crisis in the fifteenth century, in which many small savers were wiped out, Genova became the fief of an oligarchy — creditors who sat on the board of one single bank; it suffered periodic uprisings, and was a prey to outside intervention — what else could you expect when the whole city was mortgaged? Venice, with its formidable cohesiveness and civic pride, its single-minded mixture of diplomatic cunning and bravery, lasted over three centuries longer. It finally fell to Napoleon in 1797. This is another moment in history that brings my father to tears: "The British navy was around the corner ready to help, but Venice didn't lift a finger in her own defense." It reminds me of what Hans Scholl said about Paris in 1941. I can't help having some sympathy for Venice and Paris: occupiers may come and go (they must have thought), but a city this beautiful happens only once.
I like the neat symmetry of the dichotomy: Venice in the northeast, Marco Polo, China; Genova in the northwest, Columbus, the Americas.
I used to be unsympathetic to Venice because I thought that women were much less free there than in other cities. I think I was misinformed. Now I love it for its cosmopolitanism — its openness to the Byzantine Empire, later the Ottoman, Germany, and everything in between — for Aldo Manuzio's press, for its policy of religious toleration, and for standing up to the Vatican. (The whole city was excommunicated several times, and nearly became Protestant.)
The last thing that struck me was the explanation for place names such as Villafranca, Francavilla, and Castelfranco. I'd always foolishly thought these had something to do with the Franks, but as Procacci explains, towns with these names began as settlements of newly enFRANChised serfs (usually founded around the year 1000). I'll think of those freedmen the next time I pass through a town with "franco" in its name. (There are many.)
This is kind of interesting (from Wikipedia):
The ethnonym has also been traced to a *frankon—"javelin, lance" (Old English franca, compare the Saxons, named after the seax, and the Lombards, named after the battle-axe—the throwing axe of the Franks is known as the Francisca) but, conversely, the weapon may also have been named after the tribe. A. C. Murray says, 'The etymology of Franci is uncertain ('the fierce ones' is the favourite explanation), but the name is undoubtedly of Germanic origin.' [2]
The meaning of "free" (English frank, frankly) arose because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks had the status of freemen.
One is the tenuousness of men's hold over the land: people have lived in Italy at least since the Neolithic age, but there were ages of retrenchment and ages of expansion (settlement). During the periods of retrenchment the population declined (huddled in towns and castles) and vast regions became malarial swamp. Sometimes the causes of the swamps' expansion were political. I lose sleep over desertification, and it was interesting to come across an analogous circumstance. (But swamps — even malarial swamps — don't scare me nearly as much as deserts.)
Apparently the Venice/Genova dichotomy is a commonplace, but I found it fascinating:
La fortuna di Genova si veniva però sviluppando su basi assai diverse da quelle di Venezia. Il suo armamento era prevalentement privato, i suoi convogli mercantili e, talvolta, le sue stesse spedizioni militari delle "maone" organizzate da privati, i fondachi dei magazzini appartenenti a privati e i suoi viaggiatori degli avventurieri che non esitavano a mettere le proprie competenze al servigio di chiunque fosse to disposto a pagarle. Marco Polo, davanti al khan dei tartari o in prigionia non cessò mai di sentirsi un cittadino veneziano, per Venezia egli combattè e a Venezia si ammogliò e morì. Ma già agli inizi del XIV secolo noi troviamo un genovese, Manuele Pessagno, ammiraglio del re di Portogallo e un altro, Enrico Marchese, costruttore di navi sulla Senna per conto di Filippo il Bello. Essi sono i capostipiti di una progenie di genovesi per il mondo cui appartiene anche Cristoforo Colombo, scopritore delle Americhe per conto del re di Spagna.
Questo "individualismo" genovese, del quale si è tanto parlato e del quale non si può fare a meno di continuare a parlare, si riflette nelle strutture stesse della città. (p. 46)
Rough translation:
The fortunes of Genova developed from very different foundations from those of Venice. Its arsenal was predominantly private, its mercantile convoys and at times even its military ventures were privately organized, its warehouses were privately owned and its travellers adventurers who did not hesitate to put their abilities at the service of anyone willing to pay. Marco Polo, before the khan of the Tartars or in jail, never ceased to consider himself a Venetian citizen, for Venice he fought, in Venice he was married and died. But already at the beginning of the XIV century we find a Genoese, Manuele Pessagno, admiral of the king of Portugal, and another, Enrico Marchese, ship builder on the Seine for Philip the Fair [of France]. They are the forefathers of a line of globe-trotting Genoese that includes Cristoforo Colombo, discoverer of the Americas on behalf of the king of Spain.
This Genoese "individualism," of which much has been said and which we shall go on discussing, is reflected in the very structure of the city.
***
The fates of the two cities seem to be contained in this difference in mentality: after a financial crisis in the fifteenth century, in which many small savers were wiped out, Genova became the fief of an oligarchy — creditors who sat on the board of one single bank; it suffered periodic uprisings, and was a prey to outside intervention — what else could you expect when the whole city was mortgaged? Venice, with its formidable cohesiveness and civic pride, its single-minded mixture of diplomatic cunning and bravery, lasted over three centuries longer. It finally fell to Napoleon in 1797. This is another moment in history that brings my father to tears: "The British navy was around the corner ready to help, but Venice didn't lift a finger in her own defense." It reminds me of what Hans Scholl said about Paris in 1941. I can't help having some sympathy for Venice and Paris: occupiers may come and go (they must have thought), but a city this beautiful happens only once.
I like the neat symmetry of the dichotomy: Venice in the northeast, Marco Polo, China; Genova in the northwest, Columbus, the Americas.
I used to be unsympathetic to Venice because I thought that women were much less free there than in other cities. I think I was misinformed. Now I love it for its cosmopolitanism — its openness to the Byzantine Empire, later the Ottoman, Germany, and everything in between — for Aldo Manuzio's press, for its policy of religious toleration, and for standing up to the Vatican. (The whole city was excommunicated several times, and nearly became Protestant.)
The last thing that struck me was the explanation for place names such as Villafranca, Francavilla, and Castelfranco. I'd always foolishly thought these had something to do with the Franks, but as Procacci explains, towns with these names began as settlements of newly enFRANChised serfs (usually founded around the year 1000). I'll think of those freedmen the next time I pass through a town with "franco" in its name. (There are many.)
This is kind of interesting (from Wikipedia):
The ethnonym has also been traced to a *frankon—"javelin, lance" (Old English franca, compare the Saxons, named after the seax, and the Lombards, named after the battle-axe—the throwing axe of the Franks is known as the Francisca) but, conversely, the weapon may also have been named after the tribe. A. C. Murray says, 'The etymology of Franci is uncertain ('the fierce ones' is the favourite explanation), but the name is undoubtedly of Germanic origin.' [2]
The meaning of "free" (English frank, frankly) arose because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks had the status of freemen.
The Borrowers: fantastic. Here's the Sunday Times blurb: 'Beautifully written, poetic and almost always alarming, the Borrowers books have something very mysterious, sad and exciting about them." And the description on the back: "The Borrowers own nothing at all; everything they have is borrowed from the 'human beans,' who don't even know they exist. That is, until Arrietty Clock makes friends with one. And from that moment danger is never far away, for, above all else, they must avoid the great disaster of "being seen."'
Here are some excerpts:
'She thinks my father comes out of the decanter,' said Arrietty, 'and one day when I'm older he's going to take me there and she'll think I come out of the decanter too. It'll please her, my father thinks, as she's used to him now. Once he took my mother, and Aunt Sophy perked up like anything and kept asking why my mother didn't come any more and saying they'd watered the Madeira because once, she says, she saw a little man and a little woman and now she only sees a little man…'
'I wish she thought I came out of the decanter,' said the boy. 'She gives me dictation and teaches me to write. I only see her in the mornings when she's cross. She sends for me and looks behind my ears and asks Mrs. D. if I've learned my words.'
'What does Mrs. D. look like?' asked Arrietty. (How delicious it was to say 'Mrs. D.' like that… how careless and daring!) (p. 54)
Arrietty was glad to see the morning room; the door luckily had been left ajar and it was fascinating to stand at last in the thick pile of the carpet gazing upwards at the shelves and pillars and towering gables of the famous overmantel. So that's where they had lived, she thought, those pleasure-loving creatures, remote and gay and self-sufficient. She imagined the Overmantel women — a little 'tweedy,' Homily had described them, with wasp waists and piled Edwardian hair — swinging carelessly outwards on the pilasters, lissom and laughing; gazing at themselves in the inset looking-glass which reflected back the tobacco jars, the cut-glass decanters, the book-shelves, and the plush-covered table. She imagined the Overmantel men — fair, they were said to be, with long moustaches and nervous, slender hands — smoking and drinking and telling their witty tales. So they had never asked Homily up there! Poor Homily with her bony nose and never tidy hair… They would have looked at her strangely, Arrietty thought, with their long, laughing eyes, and smile a little and, humminy, turn away. And they had lived only on breakfast food — on toast and egg and tiny snips of mushroom; sausage they'd have had and crispy bacon and little sips of tea and coffee. Where were they now? Arrietty wondered. Where could such creatures go? (p. 65)
Shadows danced every way and, in their shouting and scolding, they hardly noticed a sudden, silent thickening of night swerve in on the dusk; but they felt the wind of its passing, watched the candle gutter, and saw the moth was gone. (p. 180)
It was difficult to piece the story together from Spiller's terse sentences, but at last some coherence emerged. Spiller, it seemed, owned a boat — the bottom half of an aluminium soap-case, slightly dented; in this, standing up, he would propel himself about the stream. Spiller had a summer camp (or hunting lodge) in the sloping field behind — an old blackened tea kettle it was — wedged sideways in the silt of the stream (he had several of these bases it appeared, of which, at some time, the boot had been one) — and he would borrow from the caravans, transporting the loot by water; this boat gave him a speedy getaway, and one which left no scent. Coming up against the current was slower, Spiller explained, and for this he was grateful for the hatpin, which not only served as a sharp and pliable punt-pole, but as a harpoon as well. He became so lyrical about the hat-pin that Pod and Homily began to feel quite pleased with themselves, as though, out of the kindness of their hearts, they had achieved some benevolent gesture. Pod longed to ask to what use Spiller had put the half nail-scissor but could not bring himself to do so, fearing to strike a discordant note in so bland a state of innocent joy. (p. 202)
'Why have you got to go?' asked Arrietty suddenly.
Spiller, about to push his way through the screen of leaves, turned back to look at her.
Arrietty coloured. 'I've asked him a question,' she realized unhappily, 'now he'll disappear for weeks.' But this time Spiller seemed merely hesitant.
'Me winter clothes,' he said at last.
'Oh!' exclaimed Arrietty, raising her head — delighted. 'New?'
Spiller nodded.
'Fur?' asked Homily.
Spiller nodded again.
'Rabbit?" asked Arrietty.
'Mole,' said Spiller.
There was a sudden feeling of gaiety in the candlelit alcove: a pleasant sense of something to look forward to. All three of them smiled at Spiller and Pod raised his 'glass.' 'To Spiller's new clothes,' he said, and Spiller, suddenly embarrassed, dived quickly through the branches. But before the living curtain had stopped quivering they saw his face again; amused and shy, it poked back at them framed in leaves. 'A lady makes them,' he announced self-consciously, and quickly disappeared. (p. 216)
'No good being hasty, Pod,' Hendreary said at last. 'The choice of course is yours, but we're all in this together, and for as long as it lasts' — he glanced around the table as though putting the words on record — 'and such as it is, what is ours is yours.'
'That's very kind of you, Hendreary,' said Pod.
'Not at all,' said Hendreary, speaking rather too smoothly; 'it stands to reason.'
'It's only human,' put in Lupy: she was very fond of this word. (p. 287)
'These Borrowers do need warmth. They need fuel and shelter and water and they terribly need human beings. Not that they trust them. They're right, I suppose: one has only to read the papers. But it's sad, isn't it? That they can't trust us, I mean. What could be more charming for someone — like me, says — to share one's home with these little creatures? Not that I'm lonely, of course. My days' Miss Menzie's eyes became over-bright suddenly and the gay voice hurried a little — 'are far too full ever to be lonely. I've so many interests, you see. I keep up with things. And I have my old dog and the two little birds. All the same, it would be nice. I know their names now — Pod, Homily, and little Arrietty. These creatures talk, you see. And just think I'd' — she laughed suddenly — 'I'd be sewing for them from morning until night. I'd make them things. I'd buy them things. I'd — oh, but you understand…' (p. 405)
* * *
"I can't believe she's being set up to marry Spiller!" said Nina, after reading one of the middle volumes. "He's so uncommunicative — it's all wrong!"
Spiller has his good points: he's brave, loyal, and resourceful. And there's this:
'…But he will have kid — says it's hard wearing. It stiffens up, of course, directly he gets it wet, but he soon wears it soft again. And by that time,' she added, 'it's all colours of the rainbow.'
Arrietty could imagine the colours; they would not be 'all colours of the rainbow': they would be colours without real colour, the shades which made Spiller invisible — soft fawns, pale browns, dull greens, and a kind of shadowy gun-metal. Spiller took care about 'seasoning' his clothes: he brought them to a stage where he could melt into the landscape, where one could stand beside him, almost within touching distance, and yet not see him. Spiller deceived animals as well as gipsies. Spiller deceived hawks and stoats and foxes… and Spiller might not wash but he had no Spiller scent: he smelled of hedgerows, and bark and grasses and of wet sun-warmed earth; he smelled of buttercups, dried cow dung, and early morning dew…
'When will he come?' Arrietty asked. But she ran away upstairs before anyone could tell her. She wept a little in the upstairs room, crouched down beside the soap-dish.
To talk of Spiller reminded her of out of doors and of a wild, free life she might never know again. This new-found haven among the lath and plaster might all too soon become another prison… (p. 278)
* * *
But Nina's right: his silence, his disappearing acts, and his illiteracy mean he's really not good enough for dear Arrietty. "Don't worry," I said. "She meets another Borrower: a kind, articulate, well-read young Borrower." And I sang his praises to Nina, without, however, saying his name, which is almost the best thing about him. Here's the scene in which Arrietty first meets him:
Suddenly there was a sound. It was quite a small sound and seemed to come from the library next door. Arrietty stood up and, keeping her body covered by the brick support, peeked her head forward.
All was quiet. She watched and waited. From where she stood, she could see the tap and, to the left of this, the place where the tiles ended and the library floorboards began. She could see a little way into the library, part of the fireplace and the light from the long windows but not the windows themselves. As she stood there under the stove, still as the crumbled bricks which supported it, she could feel the quickening pulse of her own heartbeats.
The next sound was very slight. She had to strain her ears to hear it. It was a faint continuous squeak. As though, she thought, someone was working a machine, or turning some miniature handle. It grew — not louder exactly, but nearer. And then, with a catch of the breath, she saw the tiny figure.
It was a borrower — no doubt of that — a borrower with a limp, dragging some contraption behind him. Whatever the contraption was, it moved easily — almost magically — not like Spiller soap-box which was rather apt to bump. In this case, it was the borrower who bumped. One of his shoulders went right down with each step taken: he was very lame. And fairly young, Arrietty noticed, as he came on towards the tap. He had a soft mop of tow-coloured hair and a pale, pale face. The thing he dragged was on wheels. What a wonderful idea, Arrietty thought: why had not her own family ever owned such a thing? There had been plenty of old toys, she had been told, pushed away in the playroom cupboard at Firbank and some of them must have had wheels. It was these four wheels, she realized, which produced the fairylike squeaking.
When the young borrower reached the drain, he turned his truck so the rear end faced the eye-bath. Then, stooping down, he took a drink of water. Arrietty drew back a little when, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he moved towards the glass door which led to the garden. He stood there for some moments, his back to Arrietty, gazing out through the panes. "He's watching the birds," she thought, "or seeing what sort of day it is…" And it was a lovely day, Arrietty could see that for herself. No wind, pale sunlight, and the birds were starting to build. After a while he turned and limped his way back to the eye-bath. Stooping, he tried to lift it. But it seemed very heavy and was slippery with water. No wonder Homily had had no patience with such an object: there was nothing you could get a grip on.
He tried again. Suddenly, she longed to help him; but how to announce herself without giving him a fright? She coughed, and he turned quickly, then remained frozen.
Their eyes met. Arrietty kept quite still. His heart, she realized, must be beating just as hard as hers was. After a moment, she smiled. She tried to think of something to say. "Hallo!" might sound too sudden. Perhaps she should say "Good morning"? Yes, that was it. "Good morning," she said. Her voice, to her ears, sounded tremulous, even a little husky, so she added quickly, on a brighter, clearer note: "It's a lovely day!"
He was still staring at her, as though unable to believe his eyes. Arrietty returned his stare and kept quite still. She tried to hold on to her smile. "Isn't it?" she added.
Suddenly, he gave a half laugh, and sat down on the edge of the drain. He ran his hand rather ruefully through the mop of his hair, and laughed again. "You gave me a fright," he said."
"I know," said Arrietty, "I'm sorry…"
"Who are you?"
"Arrietty Clock."
"I haven't seen you before."
"I — we only came last night."
"We?"
"My mother and father. And me…"
"Are you going to stay here?"
"I don't know. It depends —"
"On what?"
"On whether it's safe. And nice. And — you know…"
"Oh, it's nice," he said. "Considering —"
"Considering what?"
"Considering other places. And it used to be safe…"
"Isn't it now?"
He gave her a small, half-rueful smile and shrugged his shoulders. "How can one tell?"
"That's true," said Arrietty. "You never know —" She liked his voice, she realized: he spoke each word so clearly, in a clipped kind of way, but the general tone was gentle.
"What is your name?" she asked.
He laughed, and tossed his hair back out of his eyes. "They call me Peagreen," he said, still smiling — as though she might find it ridiculous."
"Oh," said Arrietty.
"It's spelt P-E-R-E-G-R-I-N-E."
Arrietty thought for a moment. "Peregrine," she said.
"That's it." He stood up then, as though suddenly aware that all this time he had been sitting. "I'm sorry…" he said.
"What for?"
"For flopping down like that."
"You had a bit of a shock," said Arrietty.
"A bit," he admitted, and added, "who taught you to spell?"
"I — " Arrietty hesitated: suddenly it seemed too long a story. "I just learned," she said. "My father knew a little. Enough to start me off…"
"Can you write?"
"Yes, very nicely. Can you?"
"Yes." He smiled. "Very nicely.
"Who taught you?"
"Oh, I don't know. All the Overmantels can read and write. The human children used to have lessons in that library," he jerked his head towards the double doors. "It goes back generations. You only had to listen, and the books were always left on the table…"
Arrietty moved forward suddenly from between the bricks, her face alight and interested. "Are you one of the Overmantels?"
"I was until I fell off the chimneypiece."
"How wonderful! I don't mean falling off the chimneypiece. I mean — that you're an Overmantel! I never thought I'd meet a real Overmantel. I thought they were something in the past —"
"Well, they are now, I suppose."
"Peregrine Overmantel," breathed Arrietty, "what a lovely name… Peregrine Overmantel! We're just Clocks — Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock. It doesn't sound very grand, does it?"
"It depends on the clock," said Peagreen.
"It was a grandfather clock."
"Old?"
"Yes, I suppose so." She thought a moment. "Yes, it was very old."
"Well, then!" said Peagreen laughing.
"But we mostly lived under the kitchen."
Peagreen laughed again. "Ah-ha," he said, and there was mischief in his face. Arrietty looked puzzled: had she made some sort of joke? Peagreen seemed to think so.
"Where do you —" she began and then put her hand to her mouth. She remembered suddenly that it was not done to ask strange borrowers where they lived: their homes, of necessity, must be hidden and secret — unless, of course, they happened to be one's relations.
But Peagreen did not seem to mind. "I don't live anywhere just at present," he said lightly, answering her half-asked question.
"But you must sleep somewhere —"
"I'm moving house. As a matter of fact, you could say I've moved. But I haven't slept there yet."
"I see," said Arrietty. Somehow the day seemed less bright and the future more uncertain. "Are you going far?"
He looked at her speculatively. "It depends what you call 'far'…"
He turned back to the eye-bath and laid his hands on the rim. "It's a bit too full," he said.
Arrietty was silent for a moment, then she said, "Why don't you tip a bit out?"
"That's just what I was going to do."
"I'll help you," she said.
Together they tilted the eye-bath. It had a lip on either side. As the water gurgled down the drain, they set it back on its base. Then Peagreen moved to his cart to push it nearer. Arrietty came beside him. "My father would like this truck," she said, running a finger along the curved front: the rear was open like a lorry without a tailboard. "What's it made of?"
"It's the bottom half of a date box. I have the top, too. But that hasn't got wheels. It was useful, though, when they had carpets."
"When who had carpets?"
"The human beings who lived here. The ones who took down the overmantel. That's when I fell off the chimneypiece." He went back to the eye-bath. "If you could take one lip, I'll take the other…"
Arrietty could and did, but her mind was reeling with what she had just heard: the overmantel gone, a whole lifestyle destroyed! When did it happen, and why? Where were Peagreen's parents now? And their friends and, perhaps, other children… She kept silent until they had set the eye-bath down on the lorry. Then she said casually, "How old were you when you fell off the chimneypiece?"
"I was quite small, five or six. I broke my leg."
"Did somebody come down and rescue you?"
"No," he said, "I don't think they noticed."
"Didn't notice that a little child had fallen off the chimneypiece!"
"They were packing up, you see. There was a kind of panic. It was night, and they knew they had to get out before daylight. Perhaps they missed me afterwards…"
"You mean they went without you!"
"Well, I couldn't walk, you see."
"But what did you do?"
"Some other borrowers took me in. Ground-floor borrowers. They were going too, but they kept me until my leg got better. And when they went, they left me the house, though, and some food and that. They left me quite a few things. I could manage."
"But your poor leg!"
"Oh, I can climb all right. But I'm not too good at running, so I don't go out of doors much: things can happen out of doors, when you have to run. It was all right, and I had the books…"
"You mean the books in the library? But how did you get up to the shelves?"
"Oh, it's easy: all those shelves are adjustable. There are notches out in the uprights, it's like climbing a rather steep staircase. You just prise out the book you want, and let it drop. But you can't put it back. My house got full of books."
Arrietty was silent, thinking all this over. After a while she said, "What were they like, those human beings — those ones who pulled down the overmantel?"
"Dreadful. Always pulling things down and putting things up. You never knew where you were from one day to another. It was a nightmare. They blocked up the old open fireplace and put a small grate there instead…"
"Yes, I saw it," said Arrietty. Even she had thought it spoiled the look of the room, with its glazed tile surround painted with writhing tulips — very snake-like, those tulips.
"Art-nouveau," Peagreen told her, but she did not know what that meant. "They said the old one was draughty, and it was rather: if you stood inside you could look up and see the sky. And sometimes the rain came down. But not often. In the old days, they burned great logs in it — logs as big as trees, the grown-ups used to tell us…"
"What sort of other things did they do? I mean, those human beings —"
"Before they went, they put in the telephone. And the central heating. And the electric light. Very newfangled they were: everything had to be 'modern'." He laughed, "They even put a generator into the church."
"What's a generator?"
"A thing that makes electric light. All the lights in the church can go on at one go. Not like lighting the gas jets one by one. But all the same…"
"All the same what?"
"They went, too. Said the place was creepy. In this house, you never know what you'r going to get in the way of human beings. But there's just one thing you can be sure of —"
"What's that?" asked Arrietty.
"They may come, — but they always go!"
"Why's that, I wonder?"
"It's because of the ghosts. For some silly reason, human beings can't abide them."
Arrietty swallowed. She put out a hand as though to steady herself on the rim of the date box. "Are there — are there many ghosts?" she faltered.
"Only three that I know of," said Peagreen carelessly. "And one of those you can't see: it's only footsteps. Footsteps never hurt anybody."
"And the others?"
"Oh, you'll see for yourself in time." He smiled at her and picked up the cord attached to his truck. "Well, I'd better be getting along: those Whitlaces will be up by seven."
Arrietty increased her grip on the edge of the truck, as though to detain him. "Can you speak to ghosts?" she asked him hurriedly.
"Well, you could. But I doubt if they'd answer you."
"I wish you weren't going," said Arrietty, as she removed her hand from the truck. "I'd like you to meet my father and mother: there's so much you could tell them!"
"Where are they now?"
"They're asleep in that stove. We were all very tired."
"In the stove?" He sounded surprised.
"They've got bedclothes and everything."
"Better let them sleep," he said. "I'll come back later."
"When?"
"When the Whitlaces have gone out." He thought for a moment. "About two o'clock, say? She goes down to the church and He'll be up in the kitchen garden, by then…"
"That would be wonderful," and she stood there watching as he pulled his truck towards the double doors and into the library beyond. The fairylike squeaking became fainter and fainter until she could hear it no longer. (pp. 565-571)
From the next chapter:
"What's he like?"
"Quite young. Well, at first, I thought he was not much older than me. His name is Peagreen."
Pod was silent. Thoughtfully, he pushed the combed back into his pocket as Homily appeared. She, too, Arrietty noticed, had tidied her hair. She came beside her husband and both stood quietly, looking at Arrietty.
"Your mother tells me he's an Overmantel," Pod said, at last.
"Well, he was," said Arrietty.
"Once an Overmantel, always an Overmantel. Well," he went on, "there's nothing wrong in that: they come in all kinds!"
"Not really —" began Homily excitedly. "You remember those ones in the morning-room at Firbank? They —"
Pod raised a quiet hand to silence her. "Does he live alone?" he asked Arrietty.
"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure he does. You see, it's like this…" And she told him, perhaps a little too eagerly, of Peagreen's accident, his early life, all the troubles and dangers and hungers and lonelinesses she had imagined for him (not that he had ever mentioned these himself) "… it must have been too awful!" she finished breathlessly.
Homily had listened silently: she had not known quite what to think. To feel pity for an Overmantel: that would be a development for which she would need time. (p. 573)
Here are some excerpts:
'She thinks my father comes out of the decanter,' said Arrietty, 'and one day when I'm older he's going to take me there and she'll think I come out of the decanter too. It'll please her, my father thinks, as she's used to him now. Once he took my mother, and Aunt Sophy perked up like anything and kept asking why my mother didn't come any more and saying they'd watered the Madeira because once, she says, she saw a little man and a little woman and now she only sees a little man…'
'I wish she thought I came out of the decanter,' said the boy. 'She gives me dictation and teaches me to write. I only see her in the mornings when she's cross. She sends for me and looks behind my ears and asks Mrs. D. if I've learned my words.'
'What does Mrs. D. look like?' asked Arrietty. (How delicious it was to say 'Mrs. D.' like that… how careless and daring!) (p. 54)
Arrietty was glad to see the morning room; the door luckily had been left ajar and it was fascinating to stand at last in the thick pile of the carpet gazing upwards at the shelves and pillars and towering gables of the famous overmantel. So that's where they had lived, she thought, those pleasure-loving creatures, remote and gay and self-sufficient. She imagined the Overmantel women — a little 'tweedy,' Homily had described them, with wasp waists and piled Edwardian hair — swinging carelessly outwards on the pilasters, lissom and laughing; gazing at themselves in the inset looking-glass which reflected back the tobacco jars, the cut-glass decanters, the book-shelves, and the plush-covered table. She imagined the Overmantel men — fair, they were said to be, with long moustaches and nervous, slender hands — smoking and drinking and telling their witty tales. So they had never asked Homily up there! Poor Homily with her bony nose and never tidy hair… They would have looked at her strangely, Arrietty thought, with their long, laughing eyes, and smile a little and, humminy, turn away. And they had lived only on breakfast food — on toast and egg and tiny snips of mushroom; sausage they'd have had and crispy bacon and little sips of tea and coffee. Where were they now? Arrietty wondered. Where could such creatures go? (p. 65)
Shadows danced every way and, in their shouting and scolding, they hardly noticed a sudden, silent thickening of night swerve in on the dusk; but they felt the wind of its passing, watched the candle gutter, and saw the moth was gone. (p. 180)
It was difficult to piece the story together from Spiller's terse sentences, but at last some coherence emerged. Spiller, it seemed, owned a boat — the bottom half of an aluminium soap-case, slightly dented; in this, standing up, he would propel himself about the stream. Spiller had a summer camp (or hunting lodge) in the sloping field behind — an old blackened tea kettle it was — wedged sideways in the silt of the stream (he had several of these bases it appeared, of which, at some time, the boot had been one) — and he would borrow from the caravans, transporting the loot by water; this boat gave him a speedy getaway, and one which left no scent. Coming up against the current was slower, Spiller explained, and for this he was grateful for the hatpin, which not only served as a sharp and pliable punt-pole, but as a harpoon as well. He became so lyrical about the hat-pin that Pod and Homily began to feel quite pleased with themselves, as though, out of the kindness of their hearts, they had achieved some benevolent gesture. Pod longed to ask to what use Spiller had put the half nail-scissor but could not bring himself to do so, fearing to strike a discordant note in so bland a state of innocent joy. (p. 202)
'Why have you got to go?' asked Arrietty suddenly.
Spiller, about to push his way through the screen of leaves, turned back to look at her.
Arrietty coloured. 'I've asked him a question,' she realized unhappily, 'now he'll disappear for weeks.' But this time Spiller seemed merely hesitant.
'Me winter clothes,' he said at last.
'Oh!' exclaimed Arrietty, raising her head — delighted. 'New?'
Spiller nodded.
'Fur?' asked Homily.
Spiller nodded again.
'Rabbit?" asked Arrietty.
'Mole,' said Spiller.
There was a sudden feeling of gaiety in the candlelit alcove: a pleasant sense of something to look forward to. All three of them smiled at Spiller and Pod raised his 'glass.' 'To Spiller's new clothes,' he said, and Spiller, suddenly embarrassed, dived quickly through the branches. But before the living curtain had stopped quivering they saw his face again; amused and shy, it poked back at them framed in leaves. 'A lady makes them,' he announced self-consciously, and quickly disappeared. (p. 216)
'No good being hasty, Pod,' Hendreary said at last. 'The choice of course is yours, but we're all in this together, and for as long as it lasts' — he glanced around the table as though putting the words on record — 'and such as it is, what is ours is yours.'
'That's very kind of you, Hendreary,' said Pod.
'Not at all,' said Hendreary, speaking rather too smoothly; 'it stands to reason.'
'It's only human,' put in Lupy: she was very fond of this word. (p. 287)
'These Borrowers do need warmth. They need fuel and shelter and water and they terribly need human beings. Not that they trust them. They're right, I suppose: one has only to read the papers. But it's sad, isn't it? That they can't trust us, I mean. What could be more charming for someone — like me, says — to share one's home with these little creatures? Not that I'm lonely, of course. My days' Miss Menzie's eyes became over-bright suddenly and the gay voice hurried a little — 'are far too full ever to be lonely. I've so many interests, you see. I keep up with things. And I have my old dog and the two little birds. All the same, it would be nice. I know their names now — Pod, Homily, and little Arrietty. These creatures talk, you see. And just think I'd' — she laughed suddenly — 'I'd be sewing for them from morning until night. I'd make them things. I'd buy them things. I'd — oh, but you understand…' (p. 405)
* * *
"I can't believe she's being set up to marry Spiller!" said Nina, after reading one of the middle volumes. "He's so uncommunicative — it's all wrong!"
Spiller has his good points: he's brave, loyal, and resourceful. And there's this:
'…But he will have kid — says it's hard wearing. It stiffens up, of course, directly he gets it wet, but he soon wears it soft again. And by that time,' she added, 'it's all colours of the rainbow.'
Arrietty could imagine the colours; they would not be 'all colours of the rainbow': they would be colours without real colour, the shades which made Spiller invisible — soft fawns, pale browns, dull greens, and a kind of shadowy gun-metal. Spiller took care about 'seasoning' his clothes: he brought them to a stage where he could melt into the landscape, where one could stand beside him, almost within touching distance, and yet not see him. Spiller deceived animals as well as gipsies. Spiller deceived hawks and stoats and foxes… and Spiller might not wash but he had no Spiller scent: he smelled of hedgerows, and bark and grasses and of wet sun-warmed earth; he smelled of buttercups, dried cow dung, and early morning dew…
'When will he come?' Arrietty asked. But she ran away upstairs before anyone could tell her. She wept a little in the upstairs room, crouched down beside the soap-dish.
To talk of Spiller reminded her of out of doors and of a wild, free life she might never know again. This new-found haven among the lath and plaster might all too soon become another prison… (p. 278)
* * *
But Nina's right: his silence, his disappearing acts, and his illiteracy mean he's really not good enough for dear Arrietty. "Don't worry," I said. "She meets another Borrower: a kind, articulate, well-read young Borrower." And I sang his praises to Nina, without, however, saying his name, which is almost the best thing about him. Here's the scene in which Arrietty first meets him:
Suddenly there was a sound. It was quite a small sound and seemed to come from the library next door. Arrietty stood up and, keeping her body covered by the brick support, peeked her head forward.
All was quiet. She watched and waited. From where she stood, she could see the tap and, to the left of this, the place where the tiles ended and the library floorboards began. She could see a little way into the library, part of the fireplace and the light from the long windows but not the windows themselves. As she stood there under the stove, still as the crumbled bricks which supported it, she could feel the quickening pulse of her own heartbeats.
The next sound was very slight. She had to strain her ears to hear it. It was a faint continuous squeak. As though, she thought, someone was working a machine, or turning some miniature handle. It grew — not louder exactly, but nearer. And then, with a catch of the breath, she saw the tiny figure.
It was a borrower — no doubt of that — a borrower with a limp, dragging some contraption behind him. Whatever the contraption was, it moved easily — almost magically — not like Spiller soap-box which was rather apt to bump. In this case, it was the borrower who bumped. One of his shoulders went right down with each step taken: he was very lame. And fairly young, Arrietty noticed, as he came on towards the tap. He had a soft mop of tow-coloured hair and a pale, pale face. The thing he dragged was on wheels. What a wonderful idea, Arrietty thought: why had not her own family ever owned such a thing? There had been plenty of old toys, she had been told, pushed away in the playroom cupboard at Firbank and some of them must have had wheels. It was these four wheels, she realized, which produced the fairylike squeaking.
When the young borrower reached the drain, he turned his truck so the rear end faced the eye-bath. Then, stooping down, he took a drink of water. Arrietty drew back a little when, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he moved towards the glass door which led to the garden. He stood there for some moments, his back to Arrietty, gazing out through the panes. "He's watching the birds," she thought, "or seeing what sort of day it is…" And it was a lovely day, Arrietty could see that for herself. No wind, pale sunlight, and the birds were starting to build. After a while he turned and limped his way back to the eye-bath. Stooping, he tried to lift it. But it seemed very heavy and was slippery with water. No wonder Homily had had no patience with such an object: there was nothing you could get a grip on.
He tried again. Suddenly, she longed to help him; but how to announce herself without giving him a fright? She coughed, and he turned quickly, then remained frozen.
Their eyes met. Arrietty kept quite still. His heart, she realized, must be beating just as hard as hers was. After a moment, she smiled. She tried to think of something to say. "Hallo!" might sound too sudden. Perhaps she should say "Good morning"? Yes, that was it. "Good morning," she said. Her voice, to her ears, sounded tremulous, even a little husky, so she added quickly, on a brighter, clearer note: "It's a lovely day!"
He was still staring at her, as though unable to believe his eyes. Arrietty returned his stare and kept quite still. She tried to hold on to her smile. "Isn't it?" she added.
Suddenly, he gave a half laugh, and sat down on the edge of the drain. He ran his hand rather ruefully through the mop of his hair, and laughed again. "You gave me a fright," he said."
"I know," said Arrietty, "I'm sorry…"
"Who are you?"
"Arrietty Clock."
"I haven't seen you before."
"I — we only came last night."
"We?"
"My mother and father. And me…"
"Are you going to stay here?"
"I don't know. It depends —"
"On what?"
"On whether it's safe. And nice. And — you know…"
"Oh, it's nice," he said. "Considering —"
"Considering what?"
"Considering other places. And it used to be safe…"
"Isn't it now?"
He gave her a small, half-rueful smile and shrugged his shoulders. "How can one tell?"
"That's true," said Arrietty. "You never know —" She liked his voice, she realized: he spoke each word so clearly, in a clipped kind of way, but the general tone was gentle.
"What is your name?" she asked.
He laughed, and tossed his hair back out of his eyes. "They call me Peagreen," he said, still smiling — as though she might find it ridiculous."
"Oh," said Arrietty.
"It's spelt P-E-R-E-G-R-I-N-E."
Arrietty thought for a moment. "Peregrine," she said.
"That's it." He stood up then, as though suddenly aware that all this time he had been sitting. "I'm sorry…" he said.
"What for?"
"For flopping down like that."
"You had a bit of a shock," said Arrietty.
"A bit," he admitted, and added, "who taught you to spell?"
"I — " Arrietty hesitated: suddenly it seemed too long a story. "I just learned," she said. "My father knew a little. Enough to start me off…"
"Can you write?"
"Yes, very nicely. Can you?"
"Yes." He smiled. "Very nicely.
"Who taught you?"
"Oh, I don't know. All the Overmantels can read and write. The human children used to have lessons in that library," he jerked his head towards the double doors. "It goes back generations. You only had to listen, and the books were always left on the table…"
Arrietty moved forward suddenly from between the bricks, her face alight and interested. "Are you one of the Overmantels?"
"I was until I fell off the chimneypiece."
"How wonderful! I don't mean falling off the chimneypiece. I mean — that you're an Overmantel! I never thought I'd meet a real Overmantel. I thought they were something in the past —"
"Well, they are now, I suppose."
"Peregrine Overmantel," breathed Arrietty, "what a lovely name… Peregrine Overmantel! We're just Clocks — Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock. It doesn't sound very grand, does it?"
"It depends on the clock," said Peagreen.
"It was a grandfather clock."
"Old?"
"Yes, I suppose so." She thought a moment. "Yes, it was very old."
"Well, then!" said Peagreen laughing.
"But we mostly lived under the kitchen."
Peagreen laughed again. "Ah-ha," he said, and there was mischief in his face. Arrietty looked puzzled: had she made some sort of joke? Peagreen seemed to think so.
"Where do you —" she began and then put her hand to her mouth. She remembered suddenly that it was not done to ask strange borrowers where they lived: their homes, of necessity, must be hidden and secret — unless, of course, they happened to be one's relations.
But Peagreen did not seem to mind. "I don't live anywhere just at present," he said lightly, answering her half-asked question.
"But you must sleep somewhere —"
"I'm moving house. As a matter of fact, you could say I've moved. But I haven't slept there yet."
"I see," said Arrietty. Somehow the day seemed less bright and the future more uncertain. "Are you going far?"
He looked at her speculatively. "It depends what you call 'far'…"
He turned back to the eye-bath and laid his hands on the rim. "It's a bit too full," he said.
Arrietty was silent for a moment, then she said, "Why don't you tip a bit out?"
"That's just what I was going to do."
"I'll help you," she said.
Together they tilted the eye-bath. It had a lip on either side. As the water gurgled down the drain, they set it back on its base. Then Peagreen moved to his cart to push it nearer. Arrietty came beside him. "My father would like this truck," she said, running a finger along the curved front: the rear was open like a lorry without a tailboard. "What's it made of?"
"It's the bottom half of a date box. I have the top, too. But that hasn't got wheels. It was useful, though, when they had carpets."
"When who had carpets?"
"The human beings who lived here. The ones who took down the overmantel. That's when I fell off the chimneypiece." He went back to the eye-bath. "If you could take one lip, I'll take the other…"
Arrietty could and did, but her mind was reeling with what she had just heard: the overmantel gone, a whole lifestyle destroyed! When did it happen, and why? Where were Peagreen's parents now? And their friends and, perhaps, other children… She kept silent until they had set the eye-bath down on the lorry. Then she said casually, "How old were you when you fell off the chimneypiece?"
"I was quite small, five or six. I broke my leg."
"Did somebody come down and rescue you?"
"No," he said, "I don't think they noticed."
"Didn't notice that a little child had fallen off the chimneypiece!"
"They were packing up, you see. There was a kind of panic. It was night, and they knew they had to get out before daylight. Perhaps they missed me afterwards…"
"You mean they went without you!"
"Well, I couldn't walk, you see."
"But what did you do?"
"Some other borrowers took me in. Ground-floor borrowers. They were going too, but they kept me until my leg got better. And when they went, they left me the house, though, and some food and that. They left me quite a few things. I could manage."
"But your poor leg!"
"Oh, I can climb all right. But I'm not too good at running, so I don't go out of doors much: things can happen out of doors, when you have to run. It was all right, and I had the books…"
"You mean the books in the library? But how did you get up to the shelves?"
"Oh, it's easy: all those shelves are adjustable. There are notches out in the uprights, it's like climbing a rather steep staircase. You just prise out the book you want, and let it drop. But you can't put it back. My house got full of books."
Arrietty was silent, thinking all this over. After a while she said, "What were they like, those human beings — those ones who pulled down the overmantel?"
"Dreadful. Always pulling things down and putting things up. You never knew where you were from one day to another. It was a nightmare. They blocked up the old open fireplace and put a small grate there instead…"
"Yes, I saw it," said Arrietty. Even she had thought it spoiled the look of the room, with its glazed tile surround painted with writhing tulips — very snake-like, those tulips.
"Art-nouveau," Peagreen told her, but she did not know what that meant. "They said the old one was draughty, and it was rather: if you stood inside you could look up and see the sky. And sometimes the rain came down. But not often. In the old days, they burned great logs in it — logs as big as trees, the grown-ups used to tell us…"
"What sort of other things did they do? I mean, those human beings —"
"Before they went, they put in the telephone. And the central heating. And the electric light. Very newfangled they were: everything had to be 'modern'." He laughed, "They even put a generator into the church."
"What's a generator?"
"A thing that makes electric light. All the lights in the church can go on at one go. Not like lighting the gas jets one by one. But all the same…"
"All the same what?"
"They went, too. Said the place was creepy. In this house, you never know what you'r going to get in the way of human beings. But there's just one thing you can be sure of —"
"What's that?" asked Arrietty.
"They may come, — but they always go!"
"Why's that, I wonder?"
"It's because of the ghosts. For some silly reason, human beings can't abide them."
Arrietty swallowed. She put out a hand as though to steady herself on the rim of the date box. "Are there — are there many ghosts?" she faltered.
"Only three that I know of," said Peagreen carelessly. "And one of those you can't see: it's only footsteps. Footsteps never hurt anybody."
"And the others?"
"Oh, you'll see for yourself in time." He smiled at her and picked up the cord attached to his truck. "Well, I'd better be getting along: those Whitlaces will be up by seven."
Arrietty increased her grip on the edge of the truck, as though to detain him. "Can you speak to ghosts?" she asked him hurriedly.
"Well, you could. But I doubt if they'd answer you."
"I wish you weren't going," said Arrietty, as she removed her hand from the truck. "I'd like you to meet my father and mother: there's so much you could tell them!"
"Where are they now?"
"They're asleep in that stove. We were all very tired."
"In the stove?" He sounded surprised.
"They've got bedclothes and everything."
"Better let them sleep," he said. "I'll come back later."
"When?"
"When the Whitlaces have gone out." He thought for a moment. "About two o'clock, say? She goes down to the church and He'll be up in the kitchen garden, by then…"
"That would be wonderful," and she stood there watching as he pulled his truck towards the double doors and into the library beyond. The fairylike squeaking became fainter and fainter until she could hear it no longer. (pp. 565-571)
From the next chapter:
"What's he like?"
"Quite young. Well, at first, I thought he was not much older than me. His name is Peagreen."
Pod was silent. Thoughtfully, he pushed the combed back into his pocket as Homily appeared. She, too, Arrietty noticed, had tidied her hair. She came beside her husband and both stood quietly, looking at Arrietty.
"Your mother tells me he's an Overmantel," Pod said, at last.
"Well, he was," said Arrietty.
"Once an Overmantel, always an Overmantel. Well," he went on, "there's nothing wrong in that: they come in all kinds!"
"Not really —" began Homily excitedly. "You remember those ones in the morning-room at Firbank? They —"
Pod raised a quiet hand to silence her. "Does he live alone?" he asked Arrietty.
"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure he does. You see, it's like this…" And she told him, perhaps a little too eagerly, of Peagreen's accident, his early life, all the troubles and dangers and hungers and lonelinesses she had imagined for him (not that he had ever mentioned these himself) "… it must have been too awful!" she finished breathlessly.
Homily had listened silently: she had not known quite what to think. To feel pity for an Overmantel: that would be a development for which she would need time. (p. 573)
The Anglo-Saxons looked at the Roman ruins that surrounded them and decided these structures must be the work of giants: mere human beings couldn't have built anything so grand and solid. Mitchell and Robinson write that "In both their poetry and their prose the Anglo-Saxons were very given to reflection on former civilizations and the people who built them, so much so that their language had a word for such meditation: dustsceawung, 'contemplation of the dust.'" I'm reading The Silver Chair to the fifth grade, and it occurred to me that the "ruined city of the giants" owes something to this Anglo-Saxon misapprehension. The same goes for the city of Jadis, in The Magician's Nephew.
Monday, January 29, 2007
A metaphor:
The glory of God no man or angel shall know, preached Thomas Shepard; "their cockle shell can never comprehend this sea"; we can only apprehend Him by knowing that we cannot comprehend Him at all, "as we admire the luster of the sun the more in that it is so great we can not behold it." (in Perry Miller's essay "The Marrow of Puritan Divinity")
"their cockle shell can never comprehend this sea" — I like that.
Around the same time, Andrew Marvell's father wrote, in a request for funds for a school library, "Scholers are like other tradesmen, they cannot worke w'thout tooles, nor, spider like, weave their web out of their own bellyes." (quoted in Nicholas Murray's biography of Marvell)
The glory of God no man or angel shall know, preached Thomas Shepard; "their cockle shell can never comprehend this sea"; we can only apprehend Him by knowing that we cannot comprehend Him at all, "as we admire the luster of the sun the more in that it is so great we can not behold it." (in Perry Miller's essay "The Marrow of Puritan Divinity")
"their cockle shell can never comprehend this sea" — I like that.
Around the same time, Andrew Marvell's father wrote, in a request for funds for a school library, "Scholers are like other tradesmen, they cannot worke w'thout tooles, nor, spider like, weave their web out of their own bellyes." (quoted in Nicholas Murray's biography of Marvell)
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I was reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence over most of the vacation, and specifically The Grey King, the day I went to see The Magic Flute. At first I was struck by the similarities: two boys on a quest, helped by a magic instrument; mazes leading to vast halls where men in robes sit in chairs and ask riddles. (OK, no riddles in TMF; but it feels like an omission.) One boy committed to abstractions, the other not. I could go on, but really the similarities are all archetypes, so (on further thought) they don't seem so striking. But the comparison did make me realize that Cooper's Papageno/Sancho Panza/Dr. Watson is not true to type: he's an orphan, an albino (much is made of his startling appearance), and a prickly character; everyone's slightly afraid of him at first. This means that when he complains that the quest entails too much suffering, his protests have an authority that the protests of the jollier sidekicks lack. (Or maybe not? Sancho Panza is a man of the world compared to Don Quixote, isn't he?) And Cooper allows her hero to be outrageously tactless — it's extraordinary that when faced with the forces of evil he knows exactly what to do and say, but is tone deaf to human grief. Or at least very clumsy. I thought it was well done.
Reading these books I remembered my childhood obsession with Old English and Welsh. There's actually a line of Old English in The Dark Is Rising, and now that I've taken a course in Old English, I can read it!
Reading these books I remembered my childhood obsession with Old English and Welsh. There's actually a line of Old English in The Dark Is Rising, and now that I've taken a course in Old English, I can read it!
Fifth grade sentences:
Agnes:
We exchanged glances as the sub walked in.
Sam:
Wealth can make you cruel.
Fashion is boring and useless.
John:
Patience, little ones.
(That's my favorite.)
(In case you're wondering, "Why are they writing these sentences? Where are the hard words?" This was in an exercise on consonant blends and consonant digraphs. "Isn't that stuff for first graders, not fifth graders?" Yes it is, but occasionally I have to do what the office says I should do.)
Agnes:
We exchanged glances as the sub walked in.
Sam:
Wealth can make you cruel.
Fashion is boring and useless.
John:
Patience, little ones.
(That's my favorite.)
(In case you're wondering, "Why are they writing these sentences? Where are the hard words?" This was in an exercise on consonant blends and consonant digraphs. "Isn't that stuff for first graders, not fifth graders?" Yes it is, but occasionally I have to do what the office says I should do.)
Kaveri subbed for me. When the sixth graders found out that she knows me, they asked, "Have you heard Ms — sneeze?" "Yes." "And have you noticed that she doesn't just sneeze once, but does ten, fifteen little sneezes at a time?" "Indeed I have. Ahem, moving on now…"
(Maybe this is too trivial to mention on this blog. But —.)
(Maybe this is too trivial to mention on this blog. But —.)
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Recommendation:
Cluny Brown, Lubitsch's 1946 film. More playing with forms so familiar that they can be stretched and parodied to ridiculous extremes. Here's the premise:
Lovely Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is the niece of a London plumber; when her uncle is indisposed, Cluny rolls up her sleeves and takes a plumbing job at a society home, where she meets a handsome refugee Czech author (Charles Boyer). Hoping to cure her of her unladylike obsession with plumbing, Cluny Brown's uncle finds her a maid's position in a fancy country home, where she once more meets the Czech author, who is a house guest.
This is accurate, but it doesn't hint at the film's high silliness. Here's an exchange between two men in love with the same standoffish woman and commiserating:
__What are you going to do?
__I'll propose to her once or twice more, and then I'm washing my hands of her!
Many of the jokes revolve around the freedom to be outrageous rubbing against convention, and what happens when convention allows or requires one to be outrageous. It reminded me of Samuel Johnson:
It has been observed, I think, by Sir William Temple, and after him by almost every other writer, that England affords a greater variety of characters than the rest of the world. This is ascribed to the liberty prevailing amongst us, which gives every man the privilege of being wise or foolish his own way, and preserves him from the necessity of hypocrisy or the servility of imitation.
I had to root around in Johnson for a while to find that, and it occurred to me that "A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage" attempts the same kind of trick that Erasmus tried in In Praise of Folly, but is more successful (funnier, more coherent).
In fact it's brilliant, everyone should read it! I hope this link works.
Cluny Brown, Lubitsch's 1946 film. More playing with forms so familiar that they can be stretched and parodied to ridiculous extremes. Here's the premise:
Lovely Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is the niece of a London plumber; when her uncle is indisposed, Cluny rolls up her sleeves and takes a plumbing job at a society home, where she meets a handsome refugee Czech author (Charles Boyer). Hoping to cure her of her unladylike obsession with plumbing, Cluny Brown's uncle finds her a maid's position in a fancy country home, where she once more meets the Czech author, who is a house guest.
This is accurate, but it doesn't hint at the film's high silliness. Here's an exchange between two men in love with the same standoffish woman and commiserating:
__What are you going to do?
__I'll propose to her once or twice more, and then I'm washing my hands of her!
Many of the jokes revolve around the freedom to be outrageous rubbing against convention, and what happens when convention allows or requires one to be outrageous. It reminded me of Samuel Johnson:
It has been observed, I think, by Sir William Temple, and after him by almost every other writer, that England affords a greater variety of characters than the rest of the world. This is ascribed to the liberty prevailing amongst us, which gives every man the privilege of being wise or foolish his own way, and preserves him from the necessity of hypocrisy or the servility of imitation.
I had to root around in Johnson for a while to find that, and it occurred to me that "A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage" attempts the same kind of trick that Erasmus tried in In Praise of Folly, but is more successful (funnier, more coherent).
In fact it's brilliant, everyone should read it! I hope this link works.
Recommendation:
The Met's current production of The Magic Flute. The music is, of course, wonderful, but the costumes and choreography were almost as good. (which is saying a lot!) I haven't been so delighted by visual humor since, oh, I guess since I saw Miyazaki's Spirited Away a few months ago. Many scenes had a quality of sublime silliness, as if to say: "This is obvious," and then, "This is so obvious we can play with it." For example, Sarastro's men wear triangles, circles, and squares to signify their embodiment of reason.
My favorite moments were of Papageno eating: he tries to catch huge fruits, drumsticks, dumplings, etc, which are hovering in the air above him (a bit like Tantalus), and of Papageno singing "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen": a bevy of ballerinas with goose necks and heads ("ein sanftes Täubchen") do a careful, mysterious, ridiculous, awkwardly graceful dance around him. Papageno is almost a bird himself, but a ruffled, garrulous, earthy kind of bird. These stylized Papagenas of his imagination are smooth, white, silent, dainty — a different species from Papageno. Luckily the real Papagena is just as comical and colorful as Papageno.
The Met's current production of The Magic Flute. The music is, of course, wonderful, but the costumes and choreography were almost as good. (which is saying a lot!) I haven't been so delighted by visual humor since, oh, I guess since I saw Miyazaki's Spirited Away a few months ago. Many scenes had a quality of sublime silliness, as if to say: "This is obvious," and then, "This is so obvious we can play with it." For example, Sarastro's men wear triangles, circles, and squares to signify their embodiment of reason.
My favorite moments were of Papageno eating: he tries to catch huge fruits, drumsticks, dumplings, etc, which are hovering in the air above him (a bit like Tantalus), and of Papageno singing "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen": a bevy of ballerinas with goose necks and heads ("ein sanftes Täubchen") do a careful, mysterious, ridiculous, awkwardly graceful dance around him. Papageno is almost a bird himself, but a ruffled, garrulous, earthy kind of bird. These stylized Papagenas of his imagination are smooth, white, silent, dainty — a different species from Papageno. Luckily the real Papagena is just as comical and colorful as Papageno.
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