tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21756684045780444722024-03-14T03:41:22.359+00:00The EponymistEponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.comBlogger215125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-82512694558748535352024-02-01T02:54:00.000+00:002024-02-01T02:54:36.909+00:00Books on Film: The Dead<p><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFvKKaqGm803K3W58L-U63UXB85OsXMezZaKKpjhKtxlaGE85waidy6qHEdAUGY4xFTDBlXfuO72t6xm8GQhBxFAoQ8SDMmLkLne8SCLZjlVVH05Ie-0nB6Z6lRIkE6iBjY6ti3iDFVVjdsS0g1LAfnacs4XSqYArDWtnqNt8_Zd3N894Tic8oUTg7Bc8/s1000/The%20Dead%20DVD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="722" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFvKKaqGm803K3W58L-U63UXB85OsXMezZaKKpjhKtxlaGE85waidy6qHEdAUGY4xFTDBlXfuO72t6xm8GQhBxFAoQ8SDMmLkLne8SCLZjlVVH05Ie-0nB6Z6lRIkE6iBjY6ti3iDFVVjdsS0g1LAfnacs4XSqYArDWtnqNt8_Zd3N894Tic8oUTg7Bc8/s320/The%20Dead%20DVD.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>Having recently completed a reread of James Joyce’s
Dubliners, I decided to rewatch The Dead, John Huston’s film adaptation of the
story of the same name. Although I have seen the film at least twice before and
read Dubliners countless times, this is the first time of experiencing them in
close proximity to one another. Which makes comparing them considerably easier.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Dead is the final story in the series of fifteen
that make up Dubliners. It is easily the longest of the set, running to more
than fifteen thousand words, and revisits many of the same themes found in the
rest of the collection. Paralysis. Jealousy. Youthful folly. Alcoholic excess.
Simmering resentment. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest short
stories ever written.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The 1987 film adaptation of The Dead was the last film
completed by director, John Huston, before his death later that year. It is the
denouement to a career that spanned forty six years, including such films as,
The African Queen (1951), The Misfits (1961), Casino Royale (1967), The Man Who
Would Be King (1975) and Escape to Victory (1981). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, it is Huston’s debut feature, The Maltese
Falcon (1941) that, for me, remains one of the greatest films ever made. It is
a movie so engrained in my consciousness that even when I return to the novel
(which I have read almost as many times as Dubliners), I visualise it in black
and white, despite the rich palate of colours described by Dashiell Hammett’s
prose. Sam Spade’s yellow-grey eyes shine through the greyscale like a
character in a Sin City movie.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFeH-g1Emw3uEv5jOtNn0bQjN8ZPya3xBrOBJbpKR6q93yGuTxjTvCEE-h8bTpGH8w7SjmKQ6oH3P72C9KIDSav7uJvowa5tsLVY2vP3W7aRGJtkMDRj6ZzoVwxe0CV5LnyNeqXxhzC9Ydb7EIdqo7WMW3ydXqXgva99YxSFP5ghDF0ytnOqBsj067GE8/s980/maltese-bogart-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="980" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFeH-g1Emw3uEv5jOtNn0bQjN8ZPya3xBrOBJbpKR6q93yGuTxjTvCEE-h8bTpGH8w7SjmKQ6oH3P72C9KIDSav7uJvowa5tsLVY2vP3W7aRGJtkMDRj6ZzoVwxe0CV5LnyNeqXxhzC9Ydb7EIdqo7WMW3ydXqXgva99YxSFP5ghDF0ytnOqBsj067GE8/s320/maltese-bogart-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Yellow-Gray Eyes<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The Dead is about as far removed from The Maltese
Falcon as one can get. The action takes place during a Christmas party attended
by the main characters, Gabriel and Greta Conroy. The party is hosted by
Gabriel’s aunts, Kate and Julia Morkan. Along with their niece, Mary Jane
Morkan, Gabriel refers to the women as The Three Graces. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The party actually takes place on 6 January, the Feast
of Epiphany, also known as Little Christmas, or Nollaig na mBan in Gaelic,
meaning Women’s Christmas, when the Christmas period was over (6 January is
also Twelfth Night) and it was the turn of the women of the household to
celebrate. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">During Little Christmas, men would take on the duties
traditionally assigned to the women in a variation on the Lord of Misrule
Christmas traditions, where the masters serve the servants. It should be noted
that in neither the story or the film adaptation of The Dead is there much
evidence of the male characters taking on these roles, or contributing much to
the preparations. They are too absorbed by their own petty concerns.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI0XsO38vc3zZsxYyn31DotXLdvYiQy6GlvY9sNiaqAEjq3tM9gfR4zZYoNOx999BQu0FghGIOlHONsPaAn5CqcxeeQhQPlfoOY7aUh5kMiJajM4s_vCAKC2RqKN31ftXJCNa20mpraOl9mtuM87Xv3wDq7fbCP5Zr8R5HZzQbhD-hNTk-SdTIIPkYRfg/s500/Dubliners.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI0XsO38vc3zZsxYyn31DotXLdvYiQy6GlvY9sNiaqAEjq3tM9gfR4zZYoNOx999BQu0FghGIOlHONsPaAn5CqcxeeQhQPlfoOY7aUh5kMiJajM4s_vCAKC2RqKN31ftXJCNa20mpraOl9mtuM87Xv3wDq7fbCP5Zr8R5HZzQbhD-hNTk-SdTIIPkYRfg/s320/Dubliners.jpg" width="198" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My 1st copy of Dubliners</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>On the surface, the story of The Dead is fairly simple.
Gabriel and Greta arrive late. Gabriel is to give an after-dinner speech, as he
has done at the annual gathering for a number of years. Gabriel works as a
teacher and part time journalist. He fusses over the details of his speech, rejecting
sections for being too high brow for the tastes of his audience. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Gabriel is teased by Miss Ivors for being a ‘West
Briton’, a term of abuse used for those more interested in European rather than
Irish culture. She tries to convince him to make “a trip to the west of
Ireland.” He refuses. Greta tries to convince him to go, so she can return to
Galway, where she grew up, but Gabriel tells her she should go on her own, or
with Miss Ivors, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if she so wants.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is dancing and music recitals. The character,
Freddy Malins, shows up drunk, to the chagrin of the hostesses and his mother,
who is visiting from Glasgow. Dinner is served and Gabriel gives his speech to
universal acclaim. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As the Conways are preparing to leave, Gabriel finds
Greta listening to the tenor singer, Bartell D'Arcy, sing ‘The Lass of Aughrim’
(a traditional Scots/ English ballad), as if lost in thought. When he asks here
about it at the hotel where they are to spend the night, she tells him about
Michael Furey. Furey used to sing ‘The Lass of Aughrim’ for her when she was a
girl and they were courting. He died when he was only seventeen. Greta believes
he died because of her, after he showed up to her house in the pouring rain on the
night before she was due to leave Galway for Dublin. He refused to leave and
already being sick, passed away several days later.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2foRd0PVAwuBIwez6Ga0UKNIl4hkUmuLvXbSDBF5aXM2N-Mo9MA_DGKzcbfnmQcJQ5ryNALm84P9vxd-NkH-_-11ICeIq1Sn3cxmvr6JlBRU5FSwrfw1bfknNWaWH2PBJ6jGHpKrjJn0Vp_AY9AqRvDaZy37zUCYBq0Kh_ZDyXZJZHIkqNiDjVJIWyE/s1243/dead-movie-john-huston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1243" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2foRd0PVAwuBIwez6Ga0UKNIl4hkUmuLvXbSDBF5aXM2N-Mo9MA_DGKzcbfnmQcJQ5ryNALm84P9vxd-NkH-_-11ICeIq1Sn3cxmvr6JlBRU5FSwrfw1bfknNWaWH2PBJ6jGHpKrjJn0Vp_AY9AqRvDaZy37zUCYBq0Kh_ZDyXZJZHIkqNiDjVJIWyE/w400-h276/dead-movie-john-huston.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br />Greta becomes distraught as she tells Gabriel about
Furey and cries herself to sleep. The story and film end with Gabriel standing by
the window as he laments never having loved anyone enough to die for them. Snow
is falling outside and Gabriel’s consciousness sweeps across the whole of
Ireland, from the ‘dark central plain’ to ‘the lonely churchyard on the hill
where Michael Furey lay buried.’ Gabriel’s inner-monologue ends the film in a voice
over largely taken verbatim from the closing words of the story (with changes
from the third to first person).</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A simple story it might be, but the power and the
glory of The Dead and Dubliners in general is often what is left unsaid. What
is hinted at and alluded to between the words. It is no wonder Ernest Hemingway
adored Dubliners and used the stories as touchstones for his own short fiction.
If anyone could rival Joyce in leaving things unsaid, it was surely Hemingway.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, the film loses some of the subtlety of
Joyce’s prose. Which is always the trade off when adapting the written word for
the screen. What this means in practice is that the film version contains a lot
that is essentially padding to bulk out the story to a running time of eighty
minutes (John Huston’s son, Tony, who wrote the script notes that the first
draft, an almost verbatim rendering of the story, came in at about a forty five
minute runtime). Some of it works and some of it does not. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Watching the film with the story fresh n my mind, the
elements I find most superfluous and more than a little hammy are in the
treatment of Greta. In the story, Greta is pretty much caught unawares in
hearing ‘The Lass of Aughrim’ after so many years. This plummets her into the black
mood that renders her mute during their journey back to the hotel. In the film,
however, there are several moments where something someone says causes her to
remember Furey and primes her for the moment on the stairs. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Angelica Huston as Greta is fabulous in the role, but
I find all the wistful looks a little grating as they lay it on thick for the
audience. It’s not like the audience knows what’s going on, unless they are
already familiar with the story. This somewhat dilutes the impact of the moment
on the stairs. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Moreover, the depiction of the key scene is a bit on
the nose with the way Huston is lit. In the story, Gabriel doesn’t recognise
his wife for a moment, standing there in the semi-darkness. The film version leaves
no-one, not even Gabriel, in any doubt as to who is on the stairs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsmibsOTq9z00nIJDY0S1l5wcJLfl-KrGcwVRlgtSoY9ZzIDmKjzB-VhQmb9XPL7rWI1sMwESfs6fWfegYpZkTjYXiDkeJW-gnO8tOuP_cc6h8teA-FTH1elHTT3lRqE3yKzdQzewDmXxWtQsSTWJV_Kmi4NYjKsEw-HfUp1HqIpD0btCNn5CpQJ0r2w/s1280/The%20Dead%20Angelica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsmibsOTq9z00nIJDY0S1l5wcJLfl-KrGcwVRlgtSoY9ZzIDmKjzB-VhQmb9XPL7rWI1sMwESfs6fWfegYpZkTjYXiDkeJW-gnO8tOuP_cc6h8teA-FTH1elHTT3lRqE3yKzdQzewDmXxWtQsSTWJV_Kmi4NYjKsEw-HfUp1HqIpD0btCNn5CpQJ0r2w/w400-h225/The%20Dead%20Angelica.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Where? There on the stair. Where on the stair? Right there.<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>The film also alters Miss Ivors reason for leaving. In
the story, she leaves before dinner, but no reason is given, other than she
feels she has outstayed her welcome. In the film, she is leaving to attend a
union meeting, having already confessed to being an Irish nationalist. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Given the time in which the film was made and the
febrile political situation in Northern Ireland at the time, as well as the financial
support the IRA received from America’s Irish population, this is surely
deliberate. A nod to nationalism: Of which, I think it is safe to say, Joyce
would not have approved. One has only to read the Cyclops episode of Ulysses to
find a clue to his opinion on such matters.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Indeed, there are these odd moments that seem to play into
an idealised theme park version of Ireland found in the United States. It’s not
quite leprechauns stealing me lucky charms and dying everything green, but the
score can’t help but include strains of the kind of diddly-dee ‘Irish music’
you find in many tired, clichéd depictions of Irish life, from John Ford’s The
Quiet Man to divers episodes of Star Trek. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The irony that Colm Meaney, who played Chief Miles O’Brien
in both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space 9, appears as Raymond
Bergin is worth mentioning in passing. The familiar Star Trek trope known as,
O’Brien Must Suffer, includes Meaney being made to suffer through many of those
tortuously clichéd Star Trek scenes (see The Next Generation episode, Up the
Long Ladder, for instance, which is painful to watch). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Dead is the epitome of refinement by comparison.
Meaney’s performance is understated. He is very much a secondary character, but
no true Star Trek fan can help but follow him as he dances in circles around
the room in the background. As a Joyce and a Trek fan, I am always happy when
the two intersect (as with the Deep Space 9, Quark, who, like the fundamental
particle, takes his name directly from Finnegans Wake).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsyUWiBx_One05E3VztgQVic0Cztkpj-CkaAR02URGf6MvjquhhUwBIEKbLNUKJV-59DgIRo4uBpq6iaBeQnc4bYopjpd-4-CYwo45CrFZVYt5fuPdzxpWhjHbzbo74nDrrtn0B3nbiwEcG6VFoBHc47f7DqywrR8CT5qh5QuNSRwiMwVP8H6YLRqllW0/s600/The%20Dead%20Colm.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsyUWiBx_One05E3VztgQVic0Cztkpj-CkaAR02URGf6MvjquhhUwBIEKbLNUKJV-59DgIRo4uBpq6iaBeQnc4bYopjpd-4-CYwo45CrFZVYt5fuPdzxpWhjHbzbo74nDrrtn0B3nbiwEcG6VFoBHc47f7DqywrR8CT5qh5QuNSRwiMwVP8H6YLRqllW0/s320/The%20Dead%20Colm.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chief (right), what are you doing here?<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Mr Grace is the one character added to film who
doesn’t appear in Joyce’s story. It has been suggested he was partly included
to give him some of Mr Browne’s lines and make the latter<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a more overtly comic character. Browne is the
only protestant character in the story, which might also have something to do
with it, making him more a more scornful character to play to the predominantly
Catholic Irish American audience.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Mr Grace performs one of the set piece of the film, a
poem he says is called, ‘Broken Vows’ (which facilitates one of Greta’s moments
of misty eyed wistfulness). Sean McClory, who played Mr Grace, coincidentally, appeared
in The Quiet Man as Owen Glynn.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Another set piece comes when Aunt Julia sings a
warbled voiced version of ‘Arrayed for the Bridal’, and the camera sweeps the
rooms of the house, alighting on various items, from photos and needlepoint, to
vases, candlesticks and porcelain angels.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I feel these are the additions that Joyce would
appreciate. Music was always a part of Joyce’s life. He might have been a successful
opera singer if he hadn’t chosen writing (and his terrible eyesight hadn’t
precluded sight reading). His books are filled to the brim with music and the
moments of recital feel as much a nod to Ulyssean episodes like Sirens as anything
else. It is easy to see how much John Huston was influenced by Ulysses (his mother
smuggled him a copy of the book out of France when it was still banned in the
US).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The other main criticism one might make of the film
adaption is that it somewhat diminishes Gabriel’s place in the story. He is
still the most important character in the film, but Joyce’s story is much more
focused upon him. For the most part, he is as much a point of view character as
others found in Dubliners (cf. Eveline, After the Race, A Painful Case, etc.).
The comic elements around Browne and Malins, as well as the set pieces, defocus
Gabriel centrality to a large extent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, Greta is much more present in the film
version. Despite the hammy elements of her various reminiscences, Angelica
Huston’s portrayal makes Greta all the more sensual than the rather staid woman
found in Joyce’s story. Joyce wrote better female characters later in his
career, most notably Molly Bloom in Ulysses. As Joyce largely based both
characters on his wife, Nora Barnacle, it is apt that Huston plays Greta closer
to Molly than the actual character in The Dead. <br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhucFqzWVl19vvmRZh1-cTu91lt14urUlxavXOwUR2nKCWJ327FZ4lbgY82YOxdccwElWURSWPUVP2vnGT1bHvNMSnKow2xXe6blLqtd08V1Im4GnCSe1RqGmCou0rCbSVkde1HC3_-MqtahFrsqDI5TbQtu0wuWmxQWnlcagCZfg7vsCNHCJoOlgRiyG4/s266/Nora.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="216" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhucFqzWVl19vvmRZh1-cTu91lt14urUlxavXOwUR2nKCWJ327FZ4lbgY82YOxdccwElWURSWPUVP2vnGT1bHvNMSnKow2xXe6blLqtd08V1Im4GnCSe1RqGmCou0rCbSVkde1HC3_-MqtahFrsqDI5TbQtu0wuWmxQWnlcagCZfg7vsCNHCJoOlgRiyG4/s1600/Nora.jpg" width="216" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Nora Barnacle</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Joyce very much based Gabriel on himself with Gabriel’s
cycling trips to the continent to brush up on his French and German. Joyce’s
degree was in modern languages (French, German and Italian). He and Nora lived
on the continent for all but the first few months of their relationship. Though
I can’t quite imagine Joyce on a bicycle. His eyesight was too bad for that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Donal McCann as Gabriel isn’t very Joyce like. Joyce
was tall and skinny. McCann is shorter and stocky. Although both Joyce and
McCann died tragically young in their 50s.Yet McCann is perfect in the role and
it’s as difficult to imagine Gabriel as anyone else as it is to imagine anyone
but Humphrey Bogart being Sam Spade. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It has its issues, but the film version of The Dead is
still satisfying to watch. To those of us who read and reread Joyce, study him
and learn at his knee and who lament his reputation as being difficult and
opaque and not more widely read as a result, any cinematic representation of
Joyce’s world is gratifying. It would be nice if someone would produce an
anthology from the rest of Dubliners, with different directors tackling one
story each. However, it seems unlikely. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So other than Joseph Strick’s 1967 version of Ulysses,
which I still haven’t seen, The Dead is about the best we are going to get.
Joyceans celebrate Epiphany as the first date in the Joyce calendar and some
even hold a recreation of the meal and celebration featured in The Dead. I will
settle for reading the story and watching the film. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then again, I was born on </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2
February, which is </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Candlemass, Groundhog Day, and also James Joyce’a birthday. Which is a pretty good birthday to have. And a damn good celebration.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><u>Other Books on Film</u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2021/11/books-on-film-scanner-darkly.html">A Scanner Darkly</a><br /><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/books-on-film-drive-my-car.html">Drive My Car</a><br /><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2023/01/books-on-film-dune.html">Dune</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvg6IS6y7lG-wxclb1EebgrNp2W4oEcPt-zobWkSUYfrcGK2pJUrHPLoc1-dnGmud5xVLRtldzRVCacf6fH-mhK4KytnKBv8kt9U3yVjwfO5ikJBESYt5tbkL7pp9kcj3RBScFnJKwTNyOIp8eLUhq9D5YPWG4yVNDbZTPJ-cefNa5kUqeB7OqexKtCKQ/s500/James%20Joyce%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="500" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvg6IS6y7lG-wxclb1EebgrNp2W4oEcPt-zobWkSUYfrcGK2pJUrHPLoc1-dnGmud5xVLRtldzRVCacf6fH-mhK4KytnKBv8kt9U3yVjwfO5ikJBESYt5tbkL7pp9kcj3RBScFnJKwTNyOIp8eLUhq9D5YPWG4yVNDbZTPJ-cefNa5kUqeB7OqexKtCKQ/w400-h210/James%20Joyce%201.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">James Joyce, about to perform Dirty Old Town (niche humour)</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </span></p>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-89286246296213017872023-04-01T19:34:00.001+01:002024-01-18T01:44:19.538+00:00We Haven’t Met But You’re a Great Fan of Mine: Iain M Banks’s Culture Series<p style="text-align: center;"> (spoilers and trigger warnings apply)<br /></p><p>The eight, nine, or ten books of Iain M Banks Culture series (depending on how you count them – see below) are some of the most important science fiction novels published in the last forty years. Variously called space opera, utopian futurism or anarcho-techno-syndicalism, the Culture goes beyond the standard sci-fi typified by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke and their contemporaries. Here there are big ideas, even if some of those ideas are not explored in any great depth, but they are the backdrop to each stand-alone novel. Character, rather than science, takes centre stage in the Culture.</p><p>The Culture refers to an utopian, post-human society in which biological life and general AI (‘Minds’) exist and work together. Not that this is a human society. Although the Culture is located in the Milky Way, the novels take place as much as fifteen hundred years apart. The titular story of The State of the Art collection does take place on Earth, but humanity is otherwise not featured. That said, the majority of the main characters in the Culture books are humanoid in appearance. Banks, after all, is writing for other humans.<br /><br />Post-human in this sense refers to the various genetic and technological advancements that augment the people of the Culture. They live for hundreds of years, with many using a ‘neural lace’ grown around the brain to protect them against unexpected death, uploading the consciousness to a lab-grown replacement body. Many in the Culture switch between genders and raise children as both men and women. They also employ various glands in the body to secrete drugs for sleep, alertness, time dilation or enhanced memory, to name but a few examples.<br /><br />The majority of Culture inhabitants no longer live on planets. Instead, the Culture has constructed great rings (‘Orbitals’), millions of miles in diameter, on which cities are built on plates on the inner ring. Each of the billions of inhabitants are in communication with the central Mind that controls every aspect of their environment. Humanoid Avatars act as the Minds’ representatives on the surface.<br /><br />The other main population density are found on the various spacecraft of the Culture that whip around the galaxy at speeds many times faster than light. The larger General Systems Vehicles (GSVs) can be home to billions of people, although the average GSV is about the size (or volume) of a large city and house millions rather than billions. These ships are also managed and operated by a central Mind and its Avatars.</p><p></p><p>The ships of the Culture are perhaps the most well known element of the series, due to the comical names the Minds choose for themselves. Just Read the Instructions, No More Mr Nice Guy, The Anticipation of a New Lover’s Arrival, Poke it With a Stick, Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life's Rich Tapestry, the list is extensive<sup><a title="A complete list is available at: https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft - hyperlink at the end of the article.">1</a></sup>. <br /><br />There are also ships named in honour to other sci-fi and cultural items. The Someone Else’s Problem seems to be named after the SEP field from Douglas Adams’s Life, the Universe and Everything<sup><a title="Similarly, the five year long party held on a floating platform in The Hydrogen Sonata appears to be based on a similar one in Life, the Universe and Everything, which, in that book, has been going on for four generations.">2</a></sup>: Minority Report after the Philip K Dick short story (and the schmaltzy Hollywood adaptation): Clear Air Turbulence after the Ian Gillan Band album, which bears a resemblance to the yellow striped ship on the LP cover.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8GKTYm7dCttYS86u9g9xE9JRpDpc4O-1OC_Hnu6u1dAK3V4j26XDccT2EcGd0z3e5kb-f6w_cPgJo_6M74JoAvVkfUuc4jQj_aYnJ1itwgqzJrCeU8fA5dwdvIkrz5g2cobqqO9zhuMZNnoKaHAEjI8s2sMB_gFGKwDs01JywxnnFDuDGodZASi2/s1000/Clear%20Air.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8GKTYm7dCttYS86u9g9xE9JRpDpc4O-1OC_Hnu6u1dAK3V4j26XDccT2EcGd0z3e5kb-f6w_cPgJo_6M74JoAvVkfUuc4jQj_aYnJ1itwgqzJrCeU8fA5dwdvIkrz5g2cobqqO9zhuMZNnoKaHAEjI8s2sMB_gFGKwDs01JywxnnFDuDGodZASi2/s320/Clear%20Air.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Many people know the names of Culture ships thanks to Elon Musk. In an act of typical small-mindedness, Musk named a number of Space X rocket platforms after GSV ships, including Of Course I Still Love You and A Shortfall of Gravitas. Which is a bit like naming a paddle boat after the Titanic. It’s further evidence that Musk might have read a lot of science fiction, but he doesn’t seem to have understood much of it. <br /></p><p>The other main occupants of the Culture are Drones. Anything from the size of a fingernail to as large as a dustbin, drones are robotic life. Like R2D2 hovering in the air. The electrical field around them, which presumably allows them to hover, glows in different colours depending on mood. Although entities in their own right, Drones usually accompany a main character on their journey or mission (just like R2D2 in fact). A subset of Drones are Knife Missiles, which are a more overtly weapons-grade Drone. For the most part, Knife Missiles are to Drones what Avatars are to Minds.<br /><br />The controversy over how many Culture novels there are and what constitutes a Culture novel is complicated by two entries in the series. The aforementioned The State of the Art is a collection of short stories that features two, possibly three, stories set in the Culture universe, including the title story. However, the book also includes a number of non-sci-fi, Earth based stories. Banks published science fiction as Iain M Banks and regular fiction as just Iain Banks. While The State of the Art is a hundred pages long, more than half the book’s length, five of the eight stories included are normal fiction. <br /><br />Moreover, the novel Inversions is set entirely on a world equivalent to Earth’s medieval era. While there are two moments of Deus Ex Machina that seem to be caused by Culture-esque technology, possibly a Knife Missile, the narrator, Oelph, is a native of the planet, where electricity has yet to be invented, The incidents in question are not witnessed by him directly and he speaks about them as miraculous events (any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic). Alternating chapters focus on The Doctor and The Bodyguard<sup><a title="‘The Doctor’ chapters are narrated by Oelph and ‘The Bodyguard’ by a more general narrator.">3</a></sup>, who both seem to be Culture citizens in disguise, but the book is routed in medievalism. It’s more The Name of the Rose than The State of the Art.<br /><br />As such, I will focus mainly on the remaining eight books that make up the Culture series. Luckily there is more than enough material to consider.<br /><br />Preference is subjective and comes down to personal choice, but I think most people will agree that The Player of Games is the first great Culture novel. The first book in the series, Consider Phlebas, is good, but its follow up is on another level and is arguably the best of the first four Culture books (five, if you include The State of the Art).<br /><br />All of the Culture novels feature Special Circumstances, the Culture’s equivalent to the CIA or MI6. Many main characters are officers of Special Circumstances, but in The Player of Games, Jernau Morat Gurgeh is a master board game player recruited by Special Circumstances to travel to a civilisation in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The journey takes years, during which time Gurgeh learns to play a game so complex that no one, not even Special Circumstances, expect him to last beyond the opening rounds of the tournament he is about to enter.<br /><br />The Azad, to whose homeworld Gurgeh is travelling, are a species that base their entire society on this one game. The most skilled players become generals and professors. Even emperor. The Azad spend their entire lives learning the game in order to rise through the ranks of their society. Gurgeh has only a few years to learn the game during his journey out of the galaxy, but hides and underplays his understanding of the game, even from Flere-Imsaho, the Special Circumstances Drone sent to accompany him. <br /><br />The Player of Games has some similarities with Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game. In both books, the central game is complex and neither is described in any great detail. The Glass Bead Game requires expert knowledge of music, mathematics and philosophy. The Azad game involves mini games played using cards or dice, but the main game is played on a board large enough for players to walk around it and interact with the pieces.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi407cPoe63xqGH9cVqHLa4ZtjLWOJ7zSydCRMmrY6TQZaHIzUIzpO31bJdPw6gDeZ_pIf70TH_l_cjoELAOXB8ZN9FPLqmAYKfzkKj_RrBjJ51COnilRiHa_1Oc1um4SMbHaIWSxT8bA4kzZHWLrPbY5gzWBC5iCJj_4ZodzgEo12dZrFsDpdUEERP/s500/Glass%20Bead%20Game.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="289" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi407cPoe63xqGH9cVqHLa4ZtjLWOJ7zSydCRMmrY6TQZaHIzUIzpO31bJdPw6gDeZ_pIf70TH_l_cjoELAOXB8ZN9FPLqmAYKfzkKj_RrBjJ51COnilRiHa_1Oc1um4SMbHaIWSxT8bA4kzZHWLrPbY5gzWBC5iCJj_4ZodzgEo12dZrFsDpdUEERP/s320/Glass%20Bead%20Game.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><p></p><p>Both the Azad and the fictional European country of Castalia are authoritarian in nature. The Glass Bead Game takes place at some unspecified time in the future. The Player of Games takes place a century after The State of the Art, which is set on Earth in the 1970s. Mastery of the game in both The Player of Games and The Glass Bead Game allows for social advancement in their respective societies. How much, if any, knowledge Banks had of Hesse’s novel is unclear, but the books are at least connected in spirit to one another.<br /><br />Indeed, The Player of Games is the most unique of the Culture novels. There are more accomplished books later in the series, but The Player of Games is a true stand-alone novel in the sense that it has a tone and a style that Banks’s didn’t really use again. Consider Phlebas is similar in the way it follows one POV character for the majority of the narrative, but Bora Horza Gobuchul is a more self-possessed character than Gurgeh. Gobuchul is a mercenary and a survivor. Gurgeh is a civilian and a pawn in the Culture’s plan to destabilise Azad society. <br /><br />Consider Phlebas is in its way also unique, in that it is the only book that focuses solely on a character from outside the Culture. In this first entry in the series, most of what we know about the Culture is gleaned from what their enemies in the Idrian War think of them. Though, to be fair, they are not exactly wrong. The Culture might be a utopian society, but its dealings with rival empires are Machiavellian in the extreme. Their treatment of the Azad, who live in a dwarf galaxy and lack the capability to cross into the Milky May, demonstrates this. It’s safe to say the Culture do not abide by any equivalent of Star Trek’s Prime Directive.<br /><br />Consider Phlebas takes place about seven hundred years before the events of The Player of Games and five hundred years before any other book in the series (although there are flashbacks in Excession that take place more than a thousand years earlier). Rather like Asimov’s Foundation and its connecting series, events in The Idrian War become the subject of rumour and folklore in later Culture novels. <br /><br />After The Player of Games, Banks never again concentrated entirely on one character. Each subsequent book is either a duet of dueling narratives, like Inversions and Use of Weapons, or we find a true space opera of competing stories, all focused on one event or plotline. Excession, Matter, Surface Detail, in fact most of the later novels, are all examples of this second kind of storytelling.<br /><br />Again, preference is subjective, but for me the best of the Culture novels is Look to Windward. More of a dueling kind of narrative with some elements of space opera, Look to Windward swirls around its main protagonist. Major Quilan is another character from a species external to the Culture, the Chelgrian. Quilan’s wife, also a soldier, is killed during a civil war the Culture instigated (part Machiavelli, part CIA). He is offered the chance to take revenge on the Culture, although the true nature of his mission is kept from him until the end of the book.<br /><br />Look to Windward is a kind of sequel to Consider Phlebas, in that they both take their titles from lines in TS Eliot’s The Waste Land (although there is little else to connect them). I think what elevates Looks to Windward is its treatment of grief and PTST and survivor’s guilt. Quilan’s motivation, ultimately, isn’t about revenge but death-wish and an inability to carry on without his wife. He is vulnerable and, like Gurgeh, used as a pawn by more powerful forces manipulating his grief. <br /><br />The resolution is bleak but it is honest and not muddied with high-minded rhetoric about the human condition. The best novels offer no resolution because life itself is unresolved. Every life ends in tragedy of one sort or another, if only for the people left behind. Science fiction, it is worth repeating, is about taking contemporary human concerns and placing them at some sufficient remove in time or space in order to examine them with greater objectively. In that sense, Look to Windward is the most human of all the Culture novels. It is melancholic and dark, but it is also the book to which most people should be able to relate.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0tXzI-84RarcAI7Y8gWKGxJinb2rfaLEkXAAm26G8bFoZHpTUCVc6cXlCjBL_fHtHULGMZ9DCE3-bJOXeRG679ocxJbCI-FKOITou6Z-bg-_3E_g1ZBgSXPgiMJ5tPuQGreouTWstMLcxEYEhFnXphb_ADCtvcTPyVzPQ-5D5gY2rOyJ0Sls6SJu/s387/IainMBanksLooktoWindward.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="257" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0tXzI-84RarcAI7Y8gWKGxJinb2rfaLEkXAAm26G8bFoZHpTUCVc6cXlCjBL_fHtHULGMZ9DCE3-bJOXeRG679ocxJbCI-FKOITou6Z-bg-_3E_g1ZBgSXPgiMJ5tPuQGreouTWstMLcxEYEhFnXphb_ADCtvcTPyVzPQ-5D5gY2rOyJ0Sls6SJu/s320/IainMBanksLooktoWindward.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Banks wrote the Culture novels as a riposte to the dystopian science fiction of the day<sup><a title="I always find it funny that when Blade Runner was released in 1982, it was considered a bleak vision of the future - today it looks almost naively optimistic.">4</a></sup>. Yet for supposedly utopian science fiction, the Culture series is shot through with all of the most extreme forms of violence, including rape, cannibalism and dismembered bodies fashioned into household furniture. True, most of this violence is committed by non Culture species, but the eponymous society has just as much blood on its hands. The Culture is a model of the western world, where opulence and comfort have been achieved at the expense of colonialism, slavery and bloodshed.<br /><br />Nowhere is the violence more evident than in the penultimate Culture novel, Surface Detail. Here the two main female characters, Lededje Y'breq and Chay, are both victims of sexual violence. Lededje is killed by her abuser as she tries to stab him to death and is resurrected tens of light years away by a neural lace grown in her skull without her knowledge or consent. Chay is an operative in a digital hell, created to control the native population, who becomes trapped and is repeatedly tortured, raped and tricked with visions of escape, before being made into an angel of death, able to kill one person a day and release their souls from hell.<br /><br />In the meantime, the Culture are going about their usual machinations. They seem to be trying to protect Veppers, the operator of the various digitals hells, who also happens to be Lededje’s abuser. The Culture, though, are plotting against him. A rouge Culture Mind, Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints, helps Lededje return to her homeworld, but prevents her from exacting revenge on Veppers when confronted with him. It is another act of duplicity by the Culture and with the servers destroyed that maintain digital hell, Veppers is ripped to pieces by tech implanted in Lededje’s regrown body.<br /><br />A fitting end perhaps, but it once again shows the darker side of utopia. In a future where we could upload and resurrect ourselves at the flick of a switch, what value would we place on life itself? Like being able to download a book or an album in an instant and then leaving it unheard or unread because it has no physical presence or intrinsic value. To a species obsessed with ownership, would life become equally worthless when it is so easy to download and retain? Another throwaway commodity, like single use plastic. And what protection would we afford peoples lacking similar means to save and download themselves? The history of colonialism and globalisation give hints of a worrying conclusion.<br /><br />What most utopian science fiction writers quickly learn is that perfection is boring<sup><a title="It’s why Dante’s Inferno is enthralling, Purgatory interesting and Paradise dull as dishwater. It’s why Dante’s Inferno is enthralling, Purgatory interesting and Paradise dull as dishwater.">5</a></sup>. The original Star Trek series (TOS) from the 1960s was an optimistic, utopian vision of the future, produced against the backdrop of the Summer of Love and the civil rights movement. By the time The Next Generation aired in 1987 (coincidentally the year Consider Phlebas was published), the cynicism of the 70s and 80s Reganomics had made that vision seem as naïve as it ultimately was. The imperfect world of Deep Space 9 (1993-1999) was both a more honest view of the world and an accurate prediction for many of the issues still facing us to this day. The narrative limitations of utopia had given way to boundless imperfection and dystopia, creating one of the best science fiction shows in TV history, as well as leading to the Battlestar Gallactica reboot, which plumbed the depths of dystopian science fiction in the years following 9/11. <br /><br />There was an attempt to return to utopia in later Star Trek series, but Voyager needed the introduction of Seven of Nine to create conflict and as good as Enterprise became, it’s main human characters often come off as arrogant and self-serving evangelists for the American way of life above all other ideologies. People denounce modern Trek for being a betrayal of Gene Rodenberry’s vision but that vision turned out to be kind of bunk. It was of its time and has not aged well. The idea that no-one in the future would use slang or idiom or more than the most mild of swearwords is a white, educated, middle class view of the world. Every indication is that these things will increase as society becomes more tolerant of colourful language and embraces language outside of the ‘norm’. English in particular has always appropriated words from other languages. The English of the 23rd and 24th centuries will probably sound nothing like 21st century English. If English survives at all.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tA1qxR0-7CA_-afez405sKEj_FwBK0zxEji4EcZUhURgYZygCJSG2y011YGN8p7n4yx1PJ6cbMNENgX_Rm5X7CCx2saGB16WtV_97YZzcKr7RqG1iL9L3nKfyAqoOINXx4d1bOLQpNR324wW6pTrU-IjyZFzESNQio_DYwKFHiiL_G2l6fbLzWTQ/s1920/DS9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tA1qxR0-7CA_-afez405sKEj_FwBK0zxEji4EcZUhURgYZygCJSG2y011YGN8p7n4yx1PJ6cbMNENgX_Rm5X7CCx2saGB16WtV_97YZzcKr7RqG1iL9L3nKfyAqoOINXx4d1bOLQpNR324wW6pTrU-IjyZFzESNQio_DYwKFHiiL_G2l6fbLzWTQ/s320/DS9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>Science Fiction reflects the time in which it was written. TOS is a reflection of the 60s and second generation Trek a reflection of the concerns of the 80s and 90s. Modern Trek is a reflection of today. People swear in new Trek because characters are allowed to swear on mainstream TV today in a way they couldn’t in 1966 or 1987. In the same way that same sex couples exist in modern Trek in a way TV executives were intolerant (and openly homophobic) towards in the past.<br /><br />Much of this is also true for the Culture series. It might be a utopian society, but watching normal people going about their ordinary, comfortable lives isn’t very interesting. Hence the main characters of the Culture novels are soldiers and mercenaries and sex slaves and exiled war criminals. Banks argued that the Culture has lived in relative peace for thousands of years and the few episodes depicted in his novels are the exception rather than the rule. The Culture, he said, only interfere in the development of other societies when they absolutely have to, or when a threat to the Culture is identified. <br /><br />This seems like a conceit. All the evidence from the Culture books indicates they interfere more frequently than either they or their creator would like to admit. Special Circumstances has a lot in common with Star Trek’s Section 31, the covert organisation introduced in Deep Space 9. As we see with their treatment of the Azad and the Chelgrian, Special Circumstances often interfere in the affairs of other planets and societies not because they must but because they can. Section 31 are prepared to commit genocide against the Changelings in order to win the Dominion War. Like all science fiction tropes, these are reflections of our own covert organisations overthrowing democratic governments (or bombing civilians in revenge for crimes of which they are not guilty and had no power to prevent) in order to maintain western global hegemony. We do it not because we have to, but because we want to. After five hundred years of colonialism and empire building, it has become a destructive habit. We just can’t help ourselves.<br /><br />The Culture novels show that all the technological advancements we can imagine won’t save us from ourselves. People still suffer from boredom and depression and post traumatic trauma. People still cheat and lie, especially to themselves. People still die, despite their best efforts at preservation, and people still grieve for those they have lost. Despite the most advanced general AI working in concert with one another, the Culture is still deceived and bested by individuals and other societies alike. We can’t solve all of life’s little problems and the more we do, the more new problems will blink into existence in unpredicted ways. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t try.<br /><br />Maybe this is why Banks became more and more interested in medieval societies in the later Culture novels. As well as Inversions, Matter and Surface Detail feature worlds with societal levels roughly equal to the Middle Ages. Amusingly, Banks at one time became so obsessed with the game, Civilisation, he hadn’t done any writing in three months and had to delete the game from his computer and smash the CD to avoid missing another deadline. Although Inversions predates this incident by several years, Matter appears to be the book he was working on at the time.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwNoCoVa_10j_JB2UbpfsAyMO2-oIJIS41ow0P93kbMnXnA5a0o_sZsh5KELyiSpuyAICQ4j2udoj2lQ_huBgnMXCZxC91LX0w7hkp_cOoxo_FU67BHKsE66xuapgd9l193RTKtHEbaQspmRiHyYQ4Gm5R5hbkX4yRq1uqX2V4_ZELcku1Zy_Rr_1Y/s336/Iain_banks_matter_cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwNoCoVa_10j_JB2UbpfsAyMO2-oIJIS41ow0P93kbMnXnA5a0o_sZsh5KELyiSpuyAICQ4j2udoj2lQ_huBgnMXCZxC91LX0w7hkp_cOoxo_FU67BHKsE66xuapgd9l193RTKtHEbaQspmRiHyYQ4Gm5R5hbkX4yRq1uqX2V4_ZELcku1Zy_Rr_1Y/s320/Iain_banks_matter_cover.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><p>The main focus of Matter is a feudal society on the eighth level of the Shellworld, Sursamen. The plot centres on palace intrigue. The king is murdered by his adjunct under the cloak of a battlefield injury. His son, Prince Ferbin, witnesses his father’s slaying and flees through the various levels that make up the Shellworld, each an environment in itself, as he attempts to reach the planet’s surface and recruit mercenaries to help him defeat his father’s killer. His younger brother is declared heir to the throne until such time as the regent can arrange the boy king’s death. Meanwhile their sister, Djan Seriy Anaplian, who left the planet fifteen years earlier to became a Special Circumstances agent, hears of her father’s death and makes the journey home. </p><p>Despite the usual elements of space opera, Matter has as much in common with Game of Thrones as it does Foundation or The Expanse. How much of the plot developed from Banks’s addiction to Civilisation and how much he played the game as ‘research’ for the book is unclear<sup><a title="Ironically, given Banks’s issues meeting his deadlines, Matter is the book I read quicker than any other. I managed to read all six hundred pages in two days, while holding down a full time job.">6</a></sup>. Yet it clearly affected the structure of the book, albeit containing some good science fiction world building. The denouement is as violent and incident packed as any Culture novel, relying on every iota of Culture technology. Yet the final scene of the book returns to the simple life of feudal Sursamen. <br /><br />War is a common feature of the Culture novels. The Idrian War. The civil war of the Chelgrian. The medieval conflict in Matter. The War of Heaven being waged in Surface Detail. The various internal wars in which Cheradenine Zakalwe is embroiled in Use of Weapons (another non-Culture citizen recruited by Special Circumstances who conceals the true nature of his origins). <br /><br />Indeed, the lion’s share of the Culture series is about military engagement and covert operations. Other than the first act of The Player of Games, it is not until we get to Look to Windward that we spend any extended period of time in the Culture itself, where much of the main narrative takes place on the Orbital, Masaq’. More time is given over to travel on one GSV or another, but these seem to be the hedonistic, pleasure cruise, party bus division of the Culture and more atypical than life on the Orbitals.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, utopia is boring, narratively speaking, and little focus is placed on the sedate regions of the Culture, except as a force pulling at the hero as they the resist the Call to Adventure. In Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle, the Culture might be viewed as the immature state we are destined to reject in setting out to become adults. The majority of the Culture’s unseen citizens are in a state of arrested development as a result of extreme luxury and the guiding hand of the Minds and Special Circumstances. Eden, like all utopias, is stultifyingly boring, which is why Adam and Eve couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. Yet the Culture has not one omnipotent being watching over it, but countless numbers of them, patrolling Eden’s gates and sending angels down to issue their proclamations (and avenging angels to defeat their enemies). This perhaps explains why the Culture is involved in so much war and conflict on and beyond its borders. Sheer, unmitigated boredom.<br /><br />Curiously, for a gender fluid utopia, relationships depicted within the Culture are for the most part hetero-normative. There is the relationship between Genar-Hofoen and Dajeil in Excession, in which they both pass through a number of sex changes and impregnate each other, as well as living for a time as a same sex couple. But even this ends in infidelity and infanticide. Yet in a gender fluid society, wouldn’t this be the most interesting kind of romance? One that places no limit or importance on gender or sexuality, but only the love of one sentient being for another over the centuries as they navigate the interpersonal dynamics with each change in gender that seeks to keep things fresh. There is of course the conversation about sexuality as genetics rather than a choice, but one can imagine in a future where one’s gender can be so easily switched, one’s sexuality becomes equally fluid. Life as not only post-human but post-genetic and post-gender. Sexual evolution facilitated through technology.<br /><br />This is perhaps the biggest criticism of the Culture novels. That Banks built a world of interesting possibilities and then didn’t follow through with its many potential thought experiments. It is true that the Culture books are space opera and each concentrates on some crisis point within the galaxy, but these are also character studies and the sex lives of the characters are for the most part hetero-normative. Whatever the mainstream distaste for such considerations, it seems a lost opportunity to create a world of gender fluidity and then only shine a light on the most frozen regions where men love women and women love men. Other than Genar-Hofoen and Dajeil, the only other kinds of same sex coupling are in the orgiastic parties of the hedonistic GSVs. Or the affair between Gilt President Geljemyn and her underling in The Hydrogen Sonata, which is still a hetero-normative cliché.<br /><br />To Banks’s credit, the Culture novels are filled with strong, self-possessed, fully realised female characters. They are often the main protagonist in a cavalcade of characters, particularly in the final three books in the series (Matter, Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata). Even in the duelling, two character novels (Use of Weapons and Inversions), female POV characters take up half of the narrative. I’m not sure the Culture ever crosses the threshold for passing the Bechtel Test. The nearest two named women come to having a conversation about something other than a man is in Surface Detail, where Culture agent Yime Nsokyi is sent to prevent Lededje from killing Veppers. The closest we come is with Nsokyi being in conversation about Lededje. The two women never meet and the Nsokyi subplot is perhaps the least important of the novel. <br /><br />However, it is again a curious kind of redundancy to talk of male and female characters in a gender fluid society. There are no trans characters and the only kind of androgyny is found in the Avatars that represent the Minds. I don’t think we can judge Banks too unfairly, as this is a problem inherent in all science fiction. In shining a light on the rest of the universe, we really only reflect our own personal experience and preference (and prejudice), in the same way that alien races in Star Trek are indentified as ‘other’ by slightly different nose, forehead and neck ridges. Aliens always conform to human expectations. Klingon women still have cleavage and even reptilian women are identified with prominent bosoms, despite not being mammalian. Even lizard women must conform to an adolescent male idea of sexuality on which much of entertainment is still based.<br /><br />Indeed, many of these issues come down to the simple fact that science fiction was for the longest time the sole preserve of male writers and directors. Just as progress on Earth moves slowly because white, male, hetero-normative power structures are reluctant to relinquish power and increase diversity, so do we see a mainstream view of society reflected in our science fiction. <br /><br />If you want a vision of something outside of the conventional, waspish view of the universe, you have to step outside the white-male-centric world and read science fiction written by women and people of colour. Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, with its species of non-binary peoples, was considered revolutionary when it was published in 1969 (though it seems fairly tame by today’s standards, which is a testament to progress made in the last fifty years). Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy (aka Lilith’s Brood) presents visitors to Earth who are so truly alien that humans become nauseous at the mere sight of them<sup><a title="Butler’s Patternmaster series does explore elements of the gender fluid relationship of long lived entities, but that relationship is for the most part patriarchal and domineering.">7</a></sup>. Or Afro SF (published 2012), a collection of short science fiction stores written by African writers, which reflects the issues facing the continent, from post-colonialism to political corruption, in the same tradition of all science fiction. There are myriad other examples, all of which get buried beneath the foundations of classic science fiction, which is, for the most part, entirely white and entirely male. This is starting to change. Albeit slowly.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTmmAlrc1Cq8Y74zbRbO6FES6VAKkb8NgacYW-xCOnI7Tbk31qRIO8x5JPjfxrZJqEe26zIZHv6p84vyDO3K9pqIfjfAuegv4JZXFN8bqNNj5rzAvKt_NI-KOdVNmjQvTvDA0AJO_67jhIiRsiA-5kukrYyqmgV3WOCv4aWlKt3RKAsmU1HLjG7Hpc/s499/51klO3PCd-L._SX311_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTmmAlrc1Cq8Y74zbRbO6FES6VAKkb8NgacYW-xCOnI7Tbk31qRIO8x5JPjfxrZJqEe26zIZHv6p84vyDO3K9pqIfjfAuegv4JZXFN8bqNNj5rzAvKt_NI-KOdVNmjQvTvDA0AJO_67jhIiRsiA-5kukrYyqmgV3WOCv4aWlKt3RKAsmU1HLjG7Hpc/s320/51klO3PCd-L._SX311_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>These criticisms are perhaps a little unfair and overly harsh, because I am a massive fan of Iain M Banks (and Iain Banks) and of the Culture in particular. They are all better than average novels, well written and well executed. What’s more, there is incredible variety in their structure. No two books are exactly alike. Consider Phlebas is a series of adventures. The Player of Games is one contiguous narrative. Use of Weapons is the first dueling narrative, one story moving forwards, the other backwards in time. Excession is the first of the space opera books. The dueling narratives of Inversions are lock-stepped in time. Look to Windward mashes everything together. Matter and Surface Detail are perhaps the most similar, but still significantly different.<p>I think what Banks’s science fiction represents is a bridge between the classic 20th century science fiction that runs from Asimov to Philip K Dick and the emergent 21st century worlds of Liu Chixin, Arkady Martine and the countless modern science fiction writers I have yet to read (I have a pile I am working my through). I don’t know if or how much James S. A. Corey’s Expanse series was inspired by the Culture books, but it seems a kind of natural successor. For all its utopian pretensions, the Culture introduced a grittier, darker kind of universe to science fiction and the Expanse definitely leans into that. Both series employ a similar level of casual violence (though the TV adaptation dials it up somewhat). I like the Expanse books, but the prose seems a little terse at times. Could do with a few more run on sentences. A minor criticism.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vjcdOnJCwj4Zb5U0rIzZ7nisk5TYpjgdjArygCF1XSb0IzmldDOmTb0zN4xrJ8dr05AvfVoR00zqgfJsTVSc649lr9ev3qDQ1HHSboGNhWjDvbAvxMnD1JYaktq1WMY6T_tzEjzM4Qt75kr3ilRRy49Fb5JVfAdVNAkkV2MikBHURyw1gbQXvj9B/s1144/Memory%20Empire.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1144" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vjcdOnJCwj4Zb5U0rIzZ7nisk5TYpjgdjArygCF1XSb0IzmldDOmTb0zN4xrJ8dr05AvfVoR00zqgfJsTVSc649lr9ev3qDQ1HHSboGNhWjDvbAvxMnD1JYaktq1WMY6T_tzEjzM4Qt75kr3ilRRy49Fb5JVfAdVNAkkV2MikBHURyw1gbQXvj9B/s320/Memory%20Empire.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There are features to Banks’s final Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, that make it seem like a book written by a man who knew he was dying. The Gzilt are preparing to Sublime, an activity which had been alluded to in other Culture books, but not enlarged upon. To Sublime is to enter a higher state of reality and leave the physical world (the Real) behind. The book is written as a sequential narrative, counting down to the day on which most, if not all, of Gzilt society will Sublime. Though the reality of Subliming might not be as concrete as many believe. The search for this truth drives the book’s narrative.</div><p>All good metaphors for death and the beyond. In fact, Banks wrote the book before his final diagnosis. His final non-fiction book, The Quarry, is the one he completed as he was dying and is structured around a son and his terminally ill father. However, if Banks was going to write a final Culture novel (it was the last book released before his death), the themes addressed in The Hydrogen Sonata are a fitting and ironic way to conclude the series. It is one of the best of the series: The conclusion feels like Banks accepting death and the uncertainty of what lies beyond. No matter the circumstances under which he wrote it, The Hydrogen Sonata always reminds me of Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, the final two TV series written by Dennis Potter in the mid-90s as he was dying of pancreatic cancer. The desolation of the final scenes of The Hydrogen Sonata play out like a metaphor for a world without Iain Banks living in it. Which is a sadder and more impoverished place to be.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljlcB2rZf7dWIf2zHOUdtXe4F4lNozYMCPOfzpg7-cZy96cBpRgzPwHIYww2mfOrGWnHaBcFjsvR5uCi16hm7dkWIanZ1chM-jRDHsHlA28vIiR0ZZa8H-Y1AjJ1oZjREW5GhHG3PKhVi0KKtZSRUZW_3cohR8tlJqKEYADzR7FEfIrdT3zGbKmux/s309/HydrogenSonata.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="200" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljlcB2rZf7dWIf2zHOUdtXe4F4lNozYMCPOfzpg7-cZy96cBpRgzPwHIYww2mfOrGWnHaBcFjsvR5uCi16hm7dkWIanZ1chM-jRDHsHlA28vIiR0ZZa8H-Y1AjJ1oZjREW5GhHG3PKhVi0KKtZSRUZW_3cohR8tlJqKEYADzR7FEfIrdT3zGbKmux/s1600/HydrogenSonata.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />Banks died ten years ago as I write and as a committed socialist and humanitarian, I can only imagine what he would make of what has happened to the UK and the world in general in the decade since he left us. Brexit, Trump, Ukraine, the cost of living, Partygate, anti-Wokeness, transphobia, the refugee crisis: Utopia rarely seemed so beyond our reach. We could do with a few Minds about now to save us from the mindless. And the heartless. And ourselves.<br /><br />The Culture showed that science fiction novels can embed themselves in a common world without the need for a continuous narrative featuring recurring characters. Which is still something of a radical idea. Even the great world building books of science fiction and fantasy are concentrated on a common theme, whether it be the forging and destruction of the one true ring in the Lord of the Rings, or the formation and concealment of the various incarnations of the Foundation in Asimov’s novels. The actors might change, but the goal remains the same. Either that or authors create new worlds with each new novel<sup><a title="Three other Iain M Banks novels, The Algebraist, Feersum Endjinn and Against a Dark Background are non-Culture books, but nonetheless just as good.">8</a></sup>. Few authors other than Iain M Banks use world building as a background to a series of single arching, single use narratives. <br /><br />The moving finger writes. And having writ, moves on. And we must move on. To the science fiction inspired by the Culture. And to the books that follow in its wake. Iain M Banks smoothed the way. His pioneering work should not be forgotten.<p></p><p></p><p><u>Footnotes:</u></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><sup>1</sup>A complete list is available at: <a href="https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft">https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft<br /></a><sup>2</sup>Similarly, the five year long party held on a floating platform in The Hydrogen Sonata appears to be based on a similar one in Life, the Universe and Everything, which, in that book, has been going on for four generations.<br /><sup>3</sup>The Doctor’ chapters are narrated by Oelph and ‘The Bodyguard’ by a more general narrator.<br /><sup>4</sup>I always find it funny that when Blade Runner was released in 1982, it was considered a bleak vision of the future - today it looks almost naively optimistic.<br /><sup>5</sup>It’s why Dante’s Inferno is enthralling, Purgatory interesting and Paradise dull as dishwater.<br /><sup>6</sup>Ironically, given Banks’s issues meeting his deadlines, Matter is the book I read quicker than any other. I managed to read all six hundred pages in two days, while holding down a full time job.<br /><sup>7</sup>Butler’s Patternmaster series does explore elements of the gender fluid relationship of long lived entities, but that relationship is for the most part patriarchal and domineering.<br /><sup>8</sup>Three other Iain M Banks novels, The Algebraist, Feersum Endjinn and Against a Dark Background are non-Culture books, but nonetheless just as good.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSAawCK5qBTqIzLTiBw3VDR4s65x-nCWEeElU8KjtIyjH6toc9LbasLAZwGXhJTUgIyFMcVvhskpH-slvbDNw-l2Z2eNKad7b-1gKNv2GvrKR1Aen9kV9izrwJuV_xB86muyqfN0Vw3Qje1u6txZNSrM8YPj8cb-9YWlyHq4EDdn0LNHp6okmnCRp5/s1024/IainBanks2009.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="770" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSAawCK5qBTqIzLTiBw3VDR4s65x-nCWEeElU8KjtIyjH6toc9LbasLAZwGXhJTUgIyFMcVvhskpH-slvbDNw-l2Z2eNKad7b-1gKNv2GvrKR1Aen9kV9izrwJuV_xB86muyqfN0Vw3Qje1u6txZNSrM8YPj8cb-9YWlyHq4EDdn0LNHp6okmnCRp5/w301-h400/IainBanks2009.jpg" width="301" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br /> </span><br /><br /><p></p>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-8132280749392878072023-03-25T13:06:00.001+00:002023-03-25T13:06:12.282+00:00My Book<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx22EEF4HISLNw7Dh_vXnM7daiClC2I3BlJY3EHOti0nz-ID387hW0KgjKjOxvBge--PBA9LUGCT72VTu4AHMItbbavAZUsJl3bJyB3wyeeosKo6KBqmpeKl8bSFOunGBs1W287WbSX7nPUlivkyVKBCxMGcFH-dIDgVEc3RZ7J1DeDdopKuxRCi1F/s800/My%20Book.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx22EEF4HISLNw7Dh_vXnM7daiClC2I3BlJY3EHOti0nz-ID387hW0KgjKjOxvBge--PBA9LUGCT72VTu4AHMItbbavAZUsJl3bJyB3wyeeosKo6KBqmpeKl8bSFOunGBs1W287WbSX7nPUlivkyVKBCxMGcFH-dIDgVEc3RZ7J1DeDdopKuxRCi1F/w475-h356/My%20Book.jpg" width="475" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-46617967141412694582023-01-03T02:23:00.001+00:002023-01-03T02:24:45.308+00:00Books on Film: Dune<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>He is the Kwizatz Haderach </i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>He is born of Caladan</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>And will take the Gom Jabbar</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>He has the power to foresee</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Or to look into the past</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>He is the ruler of the stars.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <span style="font-size: 11pt;">Iron Maiden, To Tame
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhauVs2OYe02RGpVt10NX2yhcmGOgDdMEK35STEPtSwemxQCWRk1-_1T2efJhOHGH1wMkvxrXXWYF1ja7aVBQ31HgKN-i84tgOgoKHfMJLqv9OZK9RRc_x0qG8xkYd9By1tr95O62G9wUDYHhfYlOyksdXOzCzds8EyqubiyW6u0oQ3dwTUSCY_CGy/s1050/Dune.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhauVs2OYe02RGpVt10NX2yhcmGOgDdMEK35STEPtSwemxQCWRk1-_1T2efJhOHGH1wMkvxrXXWYF1ja7aVBQ31HgKN-i84tgOgoKHfMJLqv9OZK9RRc_x0qG8xkYd9By1tr95O62G9wUDYHhfYlOyksdXOzCzds8EyqubiyW6u0oQ3dwTUSCY_CGy/s320/Dune.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span>Dune, as Frank Herbert’s son, Brian, observed, is to science
fiction what the Lord of the Rings is to fantasy (Arthur C Clarke agreed with
him). And as with Christopher Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, Brian Herbert
continued the Dune books after his father died. <br /></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">As with Tolkien and fantasy, science fiction existed long
before Frank Herbert entered the scene. Yet no writer before or since has done so
much to enrich the genre. Every futuristic film or TV series released since
1965 carries at least trace amounts of Dune DNA. George Lucas ‘borrowed’ so
heavily from Dune and other sci-fi worlds for his first Star Wars film that
Frank Herbert created a tongue in cheek organisation called, We’re Too Big to
Sue George Lucas. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Tatooine, the Jedi, the Sith, the Empire and Imperial
forces, as well as the Pit of Salaccc (a barely disguised sand worm) are all
repurposed elements from the first Dune novel. Even more of it was apparently included
in the original drafts for A New Hope, including reference to a shipment of
Spice and liberal use of Imperial Houses, a la House Atreides. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The idea of imperial houses did eventually find its way into
the various incarnations of Star Trek, through the Klingon Empire. There would
be no House of Mogh, Martok or Duras (to say nothing of the House of Quark)
without the influence of Dune. Moreover, the Klingon language draws
significantly from the influence Arabic as used by Herbert in his world
building depictions of the Fremen and their desert culture. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Star Wars notwithstanding, various attempts have been made
to bring Dune to the screen, big<br /> and small, over the years. Before Denis
Villeneuve’s 2021 film covering the first half of the novel (Part 2 is due for
release in 2023), there was David Lynch’s 1984 big screen adaptation, as well
as the miniseries made by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2000. Both fail to do justice
to the book. The Lynch film is a mess, partly because the studio imposed its own
edit on the film (though personally I find most David Lynch productions to be equally
incoherent), partly because it was made to conform to a standard of 1980s
sci-fi films (compare Lynch’s Dune with Blade Runner, The Terminator, or Return
of the Jedi, for instance, not to mention later films like Robocop). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xWvbHIr9AiUQ_3GrN2q1CTF2rG2fxsdsO7YdpjIgH0RVTOEwfq8o0ttllOeurV5TjPit52AgkIXf3gdGVKI3v2MLXaOQsH6371iriXZEDi12bBWJgYomBxxeIA8fwqXDtp8HE2Lqhg_NJlHeB8MrUXtTrIabhcryaa6nBN-3JK59WEw4nb3tzncQ/s394/Dune_1984_Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="252" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xWvbHIr9AiUQ_3GrN2q1CTF2rG2fxsdsO7YdpjIgH0RVTOEwfq8o0ttllOeurV5TjPit52AgkIXf3gdGVKI3v2MLXaOQsH6371iriXZEDi12bBWJgYomBxxeIA8fwqXDtp8HE2Lqhg_NJlHeB8MrUXtTrIabhcryaa6nBN-3JK59WEw4nb3tzncQ/s320/Dune_1984_Poster.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The ‘84 film, however, is a masterpiece compared to the version
made by the Sci-Fi Channel at the turn of the millennium. While it manages to
stick pretty closely to the plot of the book, it fails in almost every other regard.
Despite a number of accomplished actors lending their considerable talents to
the production, the whole thing plays out like an amateur dramatic society’s
attempt to act out the novel while suffering through a series of hallucinations
brought on by food poisoning. It doesn’t help that the sets and special effects
are kitsch as kitsch can be. Like off cuts rejected by Babylon 5 for looking
too cheap. It manages to make the Star Wars prequels for a moment (and only a moment)
look professional and well thought out, rather than another fevered dream
created by someone who’d apparently never seen the original films. <br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">All of which makes the prospect of creating a new version of
Dune daunting, if not a little insane. This book, which many consider
unfilmable (though come on, it’s not Ulysses or Infinite Jest), has resisted
cinematic fidelity for more than half a century. Why should it reveal its true
self now? <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Yet this version (at least the first part released so far)
is a masterpiece and an instant classic of science fiction cinema. There are
some changes to the book, which cannot be avoided in lifting a book from the
page, but it hits all the main beats of the original narrative and far more is
retained than one would expect. It is, for instance, a minor plot point that
Paul Atreides mother, Jessica, is not married to his father, Leto. That fact though
is included in the dialogue despite making little difference to the plot one
way or another. It is such minor attention to detail that makes this seem like
a film made with fans in mind. It’s possible to watch the movie without having
read the book, but this feels, finally, like a love letter to Dune and its
readers. Though like 2001: A Space Odyssey, a reading of the novel helps to
flesh out the film. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">While the 1984 version might have been weighed down by
contemporary 80s science fiction, the 2021 update instead luxuriates in its
homage to science fiction and fantasy from the last half century. The opening
scenes on the planet Caladan seem to nod to the landscapes of Peter Jackson’s
Lord of the Rings films and to the TV adaptation of Game of Thrones. The sleek,
tall ships that land on Arrakis (aka Dune), clearly take their influence from
the Imperial craft found in Star Wars (Dune perhaps returning the favour and
stealing back from George Lucas). And who can witness the central structure of
the Atreides stronghold on Arrakis and not see the Tyrell Corporation pyramid from
Blade Runner rendered in sandstone? <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Beyond even cinematic homage, however, are the references to
recent world history. A Hollywood blockbuster about an imperial power
overtaking stewardship of a desert world and its Middle Eastern inspired
inhabitants can hardly avoid weaving into its tapestry elements of the invasion
and occupation of Iraq. House Atreides brings with it an invading force and if
the stronghold is not actually under siege (not by the indigenous population at
least), the obvious analogue is with the American Green Zone established in
Iraq following the 2003 invasion. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Again, it is hardly important to the plot, but the attention
to detail contributes to the world building and continues a fine tradition in
science fiction of taking contemporary human concerns and transporting them to
a sufficient remove in space or time so we can consider their implications from
a distance. Even cinematic war tropes are threaded in, with Stellan Skarsgård’s
portrayal of Baron Harkonnen borrowing so heavily from Marlon Brando’s
portrayal of Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, you expect him to moan, “The horror.” at
any moment. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dune is perhaps more depressingly relevant than ever,
written as it was by a man concerned with the environmental issues of his day.
The desert might be seen as a metaphor for the slow erosion of the natural
world. Even today, we see China building defences to prevent the encroachment
of the Gobi desert into its towns and cities and sub-Saharan countries planting
acres of trees along the desert for the selfsame reason. While the omnipresent
threat of nuclear war might have abated somewhat since the 1960s, climate
change is just as real and disrespectful of public opinion or political
bargaining. Dune and Arrakis are manifestations of a world reclaimed by nature
and rendered all but uninhabitable without survival equipment. We should heed
the warning, but probably we never will. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The inclusion of many actors of colour and of Middle Eastern
heritage to the cast of this Dune is important, though I’m sure the usual
suspects were crying, “Woke!” like a nervous tick. Yet when we consider one of
Herbert’s influences for the plot of Dune was the life of T E Lawrence,
particularly the film, Lawrence of Arabia, where most of the Arabian characters
are played by white actors in black face (most notably Alex Guinness, who
would, of course, go on to play Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars), it is a step in
the right direction. I always think we should take a tally of all the non
Caucasian people who have been played by white actors in the history of movies,
TV and theatre and when that amount falls into arrears with all the white
characters played by people of colour, then the anti-woke brigade can have
cause to complain. Even then, we should probably ignore them. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Villeneuve adaptation isn’t entirely perfect. Jessica is
a little too passive a character in the first half of the film and unlike the
ideal for a witch of the Bene Gesserit. Paul likewise is a little too Emo. Though
as he is fifteen in the book, his portrayal by Timothée Chalamet is perhaps a
closer approximation to a sulky teenager than either Kyle MacLachlan or Alex
Newman in the film and TV series respectively. Chalamet seems closer to the
character described in the novel, although in reality he is only the same age MacLachlan
and Newman were when they played the role. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">No film is ever going to be an exact replica of the book.
Nor should it be. Screen and book have different grammar and syntax associated
with them. Like the difference between mainstream music and jazz. Though in
rereading the novel, Frank Herbert was obviously influenced by the visual
language of cinema. Dune is a book that moves from scene to scene more like a
film than the fluid narrative structure of many novels, where one chapter
blends seamlessly into the next. Dune often jumps in place and time with barely
a mention of what happened in the interim. Like Ishmael’s journey from
Manhattan to New Bedford, that is dispensed with in a sentence in the second
chapter of Moby Dick<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>,
so House Atreides are on Caladan one moment and already arrived at Arrakis in
the very next chapter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">It is therefore odd to think how long Dune has resisted a
truly faithful big screen adaptation, given its cinematic construction. We can
only hope this year’s sequel sticks the landing as gracefully as Part 1 managed
the takeoff. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I am perhaps lucky in the sense that I have avoided watching
previous versions of Dune until very recently and only after seeing the
Villeneuve film for the first time. Both the Recency Fallacy and First Love
Fallacy come into play. There are no previous versions to erase from my memory.
This version of Dune is the definitive one. All other versions are poor
imitations. Vive la Villeneuve. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: arial;">Read More (Books on Film Series)<br /></span></u></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2021/11/books-on-film-scanner-darkly.html">A Scanner Darkly</a> <br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/books-on-film-drive-my-car.html">Drive My Car</a><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSxejPw-C4cDLeE4UPFdS8FRE6wDgAfMfQnQxmK8T2i4GCig4f3xfaiG1iyAYO_0WN8RLNk6IsGykE-3GvYPd9U9Lp0znQWxZou3pgUlga-FPlmz0JCkWNFqn_deXzm1k-JgENKy1iKI6LRFlrLpAO6EZvIIGPM5L00oa7Y68Dqhi6-mt5nltundH/s1600/dune-covers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="1600" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSxejPw-C4cDLeE4UPFdS8FRE6wDgAfMfQnQxmK8T2i4GCig4f3xfaiG1iyAYO_0WN8RLNk6IsGykE-3GvYPd9U9Lp0znQWxZou3pgUlga-FPlmz0JCkWNFqn_deXzm1k-JgENKy1iKI6LRFlrLpAO6EZvIIGPM5L00oa7Y68Dqhi6-mt5nltundH/w400-h161/dune-covers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br clear="all" /></span>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
“Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford.”<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span></p>
</div>
</div><span style="font-family: arial;"> <span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span></div>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-45813949648814753032022-11-11T06:49:00.000+00:002022-11-11T06:49:13.008+00:00In Praise of Penguin Books; or How to Build a Private Library<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When I think of how and when I first read some of my favourite books;
some of my favourite authors, more often than not those initial experiences
came through a Penguin Books edition. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Reading Frankenstein in the custard yellow £1 Popular Classics edition.
Reading The Raven and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 60 pence Penguin mini
booklets. The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, bought
as a student from a second hand bookshop for £10 of precious food money; the
orange spines of the four mouldering volumes bound together in a crisscross of
elasticated rubber.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have an aversion to all kinds of marketing and brand loyalty and yet
Penguin Books have probably had a greater influence on my development as an adult
than any other corporate entity. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I wasn’t much of a reader as a child. I had phases and obsessions like
everyone else, but it never seemed to last very long. I was twenty eight before
I even finished The Lord of the Rings, having read The Hobbit at the age of
eleven, which was to all intents and purposes the first real book I ever read.
An edition borrowed from a neighbouring child, shocked I hadn’t read it. I want
to say it was a Penguin or Puffin edition, but I don’t think it was. I don’t
really remember. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Partly because of the Hobbit, partly because of that childhood friend,
my first real obsession was Choose Your Own Adventure books, especially the
Fighting Fantasy series. During the time that I read them, those books were
published by Puffin, the children’s wing of Penguin. I collected the first two dozen
FF books in the series, as well as the guides and special editions, all of them
displayed in a glass fronted bookcase in the same way that adults display
commemorative plates. I still have my original copy of House of Hell, having still
not completed it after nearly forty years of trying. I was never very good at
computer games either. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Into my late teens and early twenties, I read fewer Penguin editions
than any time before or since. For a time I was obsessed with horror novelists,
reading Pan edition James Herbert novels bought from local market stalls,
before progressing to the superior Clive Barker books bought new. The James
Herbert novels are since consigned to charity shops. The Barker novels,
however, are still an important part of my collection. My Harper Collins
paperbacks are in serious state of disrepair. The opening pages in some cases are
held together by sellotape, I have read and reread them so many times over the
years. Yet they retain a prominent place on my bookshelves. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Having read little as a child, I stared to read more and more as I
progressed into adulthood. Moreover, I began to collect (some might say hoard)
books. Those custard yellow classics become an important and cheap source of
reading material. As well as Frankenstein, I read Edgar Allen Poe, Gulliver’s
Travels and Mrs Dalloway in similar volumes. Penguin published a parallel
series of poetry books in power blue covers. Through those editions I first
read Keats and Blake, as well as the war poets and the romantics. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One December, home from university, I presented my mother with a list of
seven or eight Charles Dickens novels I wanted as Christmas presents, expecting
her to choose two or three from the list. I received the lot, made up of the
custard yellow editions. Not bad for a total outlay of less than I had recently
spent on the collected Orwell. Those books stayed with me for years, until they
were replaced by my great uncle’s centenary edition of Dickens’s complete works,
passed on by relatives who knew I would take care of them. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At university, I developed a true collecting obsession borne out of
sentimentality and gratitude. Penguin Modern Classics book were at the time printed
with mint green covers. In those editions, I first read all of Orwell’s novels,
as well as his trilogy of socialist non-fiction: Down and Out in Paris and
London, The Road to Wigan Pier, and Homage to Catalonia. I bought my first copy
of Ulysses from a second hand bookshop in Cardiff on the way home from lectures
and my first copy of Finnegans Wake brand new from the local Waterstones, both
in those mint green editions. I ate up Ulysses in no time, but it would be more
than a decade before I finished Finnegans Wake (which still makes it an easier
read than House of Hell). <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBZ7TjBd-CrodqNoBOVKl8qcJyC-pt-ZpO86jaHxf4jNvc6knOX_PGCIGKscdnaPEkLvG1ikquhJ5ueicQ5O_P663m_Qt6UKVc-kK2V3LyGfG_ybTQ_UROyBOp-AiC1-mXk1JYOjru08qtUq-tgCEZTLaGvEI1VF9nrVF1VqGeRmNVspapXdhK0tS/s450/Penguin%20Ulysses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="293" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBZ7TjBd-CrodqNoBOVKl8qcJyC-pt-ZpO86jaHxf4jNvc6knOX_PGCIGKscdnaPEkLvG1ikquhJ5ueicQ5O_P663m_Qt6UKVc-kK2V3LyGfG_ybTQ_UROyBOp-AiC1-mXk1JYOjru08qtUq-tgCEZTLaGvEI1VF9nrVF1VqGeRmNVspapXdhK0tS/w208-h320/Penguin%20Ulysses.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><p></p>
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</xml><![endif]--><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In those same mint covers, I read Kafka’s The Trail, Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, and three of Raymond Chandler’s Philip
Marlowe novels in one volume. Penguin replaced the mint green editions more
than twenty years ago, but I still rescue copies from secondhand bookshops,
even if I don’t know the book or the author. As such, I have read Collette’s Collected
Stories, the Letters and Journals of Katherine Mansfield, and Tadeusz
Borowski’s darkly comic holocaust stories, This Way for the Gas Ladies and
Gentlemen, when each might have been missed in favour of books and authors more
well known to me. Even now, a collection of DH Lawrence’s short stories in mint
green sits on one of my many To Read piles.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The silver editions that replaced the mint green Penguin Modern Classics
seem less romantic, but it is less to do with aesthetics as it is personal
history and the rosy tinted view with which we regard first experiences. Like
first love or the particular incarnation by which we are introduced to a film
franchise, how we experience anything for the first time leaves a indelible imprint
on the imagination. The First Love Fallacy. </span><br /><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The mint green editions hold a special place in my heart and yet it was
in the silver editions that I first read East of Eden, which remains my
favourite Steinbeck novel (and one of my favourite novels of all time). I own
most of Steinbeck’s fiction and non-fiction and the books that aren’t in old
Pan or Grafton editions are all silver Penguins. See also, the second volume of
Philip Marlowe novels. Allen Ginsberg’s Deliberate Prowse. Philip K Dick’s, The
Man in the High Castle. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Over the years, I’ve also picked up older Penguin Classics and Modern
Penguin Classics from secondhand bookshops across the country. Before mint
green, the modern classic novels were grey and white with the only colour
coming from the cubist and modernist cover artwork. These were my introduction
to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the second and third volumes of Sartre’s Road
to Freedom the trilogy (the first part, The Age of Reason, sits among the mint
greens), and Brave New World. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While collecting secondhand books, I began a trend that started out as
an accident but has become something of a superstitious habit. One of my
favourite authors is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I own copies of most of his novels,
shorter and non-fiction, but I do not own any two books that are published by
the same publisher and in the same edition. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Like the modern classics, the regular Penguin classics have changed over
the years, so that I have a copy of Notes from the Underground and The Double
printed together in a black Penguin Classics edition; a copy of The House of
the Dead in the previous black and yellow covers; and several other books in
earlier editions. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My copies of The Brothers Karamazov and Demons are published by Oxford
University Press, but in subtly different editions. My version of the Idiot is
printed by Wordsworth. I also have various other novels and short story
collections in paperback and hardback from a hodge podge of publishers. It has
become something I take far too seriously. That I cannot obtain a new
Dostoyevsky book unless it is from a publisher or in an edition I don’t already
own. No reason for it. Just because. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In arranging my books, I organise by publisher first, then edition, then
alphabetically from right to left (some weird quirk of being left handed). It
is the Penguin editions that occupy the central bookcase in my library, with classic
and modern classic box sets sitting on top. I have collected so many Penguin
books, there isn’t room for them all on the shelves and they overspill to lie
sideways on top of the other rows. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Other publishers are available. Yet the default for any book available
from multiple publishers will always be Penguin. I once bought a copy of War
and Peace in a Wordsworth edition from a charity shop. However, the text was
far too small and the font and paper quality used by Wordsworth always seem to
cause me problems. The Count of Monte Cristo in a similar edition took months
to get through, forever delaying the reading for something with better quality
print. Which is a pity, because The Count of Monte Cristo is a masterpiece. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As such, I replaced the War and Peace Wordsworth with a two volume
Penguin edition from a secondhand bookshop. Then I was able to read all 1,666
pages in four days over a long weekend. More impressively, I didn’t get through
even a hundred pages on one of those days. More than five hundred pages a day
over the other three. A personal record. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Other than Penguin, I have constructed what I consider an impressive
library over the years. Books bought brand new and from charity and secondhand
bookshops. Some special editions from the likes of Folio Book that cost a lot
at the time but which have only accumulated in value over the years. In a
charity shop in Sunderland in 2000, I bought a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea for
25p. From what I can tell, the book is part of an early print run of the first
edition and worth a couple of hundred pounds. <br /></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Such finds are rare and in the Internet Age less likely to be missed by
booksellers. But everyone can build a private library for relatively little
money, if you know the right places to look. In one place where I lived, there
were two places within walking distance that were practically giving books
away. Five books for a pound in one charity shop that was only open on certain
weekends. I found so many books there I would often throw them money on the way
past even when I wasn’t buying anything. There I got a massive French
dictionary for 20p. Also, a Penguin classics boxset, including Wuthering
Heights, Pride and Prejudice, and Robinson Crusoe that was mine for £1. It sits
like a monolith on top of the Penguin bookcase.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The other place was even better (or worse). Essentially a junk shop with
boxes of books of which the owner just wanted to get rid. My housemate found it
and dragged me there to pan through boxes, looking for gold. I would take a
backpack with me to fill up with on Pan Agatha Christie books and come away
with change from a £2 coin. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When I used to visit family in Liverpool, I had a walk planned out where
I could visit four or five bookshops in a one hour circuit. One of my nine
copies Moby Dick (the correct number of Moby Dicks one should own) came from
those foraging expeditions. Also, Jason Burke’s excellent history on Al-Qaeda. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One birthday in 2005, I took myself on a trip to Hay-on-Wye. A cold,
dark February. Largely deserted. Spending two days wandering around the town’s
plethora of bookshops. So many options. So many choices to make. Buying the
first Foundation books. Schindler’s Ark. Chandler’s final, unfinished Philip
Marlowe novel, Playback. Seeing books like Brenda Maddox’s biography of Nora
Joyce that I would buy online many years later. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A strange trip. Getting the train to Hereford. Sat reading the
introduction to the Cambridge Press edition of Hamlet in a café, waiting for
one of the handful of buses a day that go to Hay-on-Wye. Filled to the gills on
Full English Breakfasts and my ear talked off by the landlady of the bed and
breakfast where I was staying. Meaning to go back some day. A day yet to come. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">How many other books have I bought on similar trips? Da Vinci biography
from Clos Lucé. Chomsky in Florence. A Griel Marcus book on Dylan from
Greenwich Village. Not to mention the many bookshops to be found in Amsterdam. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUaCtZO6sBYJY1eZ-LnGxbv3B5MfmHCyviOFaR5q27AmTjQ4qFpsN5EvXiifGo9nqPOrLxwyCQTy3-Or_XV6bi2zHUn9EgJpowMTWGiNBdGlMx1XjDjAlT3plNeEnnN4o6ZbC92s5yJg_EnkCQF8y_WeJ1HEaCdZ_Y-QcayLW8YZLOltG7A5jmLVqi/s500/Pengiuin%20Auster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUaCtZO6sBYJY1eZ-LnGxbv3B5MfmHCyviOFaR5q27AmTjQ4qFpsN5EvXiifGo9nqPOrLxwyCQTy3-Or_XV6bi2zHUn9EgJpowMTWGiNBdGlMx1XjDjAlT3plNeEnnN4o6ZbC92s5yJg_EnkCQF8y_WeJ1HEaCdZ_Y-QcayLW8YZLOltG7A5jmLVqi/s320/Pengiuin%20Auster.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>I remember one place I stumbled upon, which consisted mainly of Dutch
language books. However, there was one lone bookshelf of English language
editions. One shelf was almost entirely filled with Paul Auster novels. I was
distraught. I wanted them all, but only had limited space in my backpack. I had
to make do with a sole copy of Leviathan. <br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In Amsterdam’s American Book Exchange, many an American edition can be
found. American and Canadian backpackers bring them with them from across the
Atlantic and swap them out for newer books from the same shop. A treasure trove
of secondhand books, replete with basement repository of science fiction and
horror novels. One of my favourite places to idle away an afternoon, racked
with indecision and guilt for those I leave behind. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of course, the Mecca of European bookshops is the Parisian Shakespeare
and Company, opposite Notre Dame cathedral. Not the original Shakespeare and
Company, but baring the same name as Sylvia Beech’s shop that stood on the rue
de l’Odéon until it was closed in 1941 following the Nazi invasion of France. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From that original location, Ulysses was first published, Beech
financing its printing and publication. Not only a bookshop, but a lending
library, Beech’s Shakespeare and Company was a familiar haunt for many writer’s
of the so-called Lost Generation. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, all
borrowed books from<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beech with varying levels
of diligence about returning them on time. Hemingway was apparently one of the
worst. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The original location is now a boutique, but George Whitman opened the
current Shakespeare and Company in 1951 and continued to run it until his death
in 2011. Part of the ritual of a transaction is to receive a Shakespeare and
Company stamp on the flyleaf of the book you have bought. I have a few such
books, but my copy of Campbell and Robinson’s A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake takes
pride of place. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As well as physical bookshops, there are many places that sell books
online. Although Abe Books is unfortunately owned by Amazon billionaire, Jeff
Bezos, it is undoubtedly a valuable source for finding rare books that are
otherwise out of print. As a reader and amateur scholar of James Joyce, I have
found many reference books via Abe Books that I couldn’t have found anywhere
else. I own three glossaries of the Gaelic, German, and Scandinavian words in
Finnegan Wake, each of which are former library books and which had over the
decades been borrowed a total of eight times between them before being
withdrawn and put up for sale. I have also been able to find cheap, well
preserved copies of most of the standard academic texts on Finnegans Wake from
the same site. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My father was a great reader, though our tastes are somewhat divergent.
He had a large collection of books on the kings and queens of England and was an
avid collector of books on Horatio Nelson. Still, I did inherit from him my
first copies of the collected Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, as well as two
copies of the collected Sherlock Holmes stories. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Many of his books were given to his local model building society after
he died, but a few remained. Among these was a handful of Time Life Seafarers
books that had stood on the bookshelves since the late 70s. Large black
hardbacks, filled with glossy pictures. I often flipped through those books as
a kid, enjoying the books on pirates and Vikings the most, like any boy with a
vivid imagination. At some point I set out to actually read those books. Being
more than forty years old, the veracity of the text has slipped somewhat, if it
was ever very accurate to begin with. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Still, they are enjoyable for what they are and I wondered how many more
there were in the series other than the ten we owned. A little research revealed
a total of twenty two volumes. With the help of Abe Books, I set out to
complete the set. Most were bought for a few pence plus postage and packaging
from places like Tallahassee Public Library. All in remarkably good condition.
Books that I will probably never read again, but like collecting mint green
Penguin Modern Classic editions, the endeavour was done for entirely sentimental
reasons. If nothing else, they serve as ballast at the bottom of one of my myriad
bookcases. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I dislike brand loyalty and yet more of the books on my shelves are
Penguin than of any other publisher. I drink out of a Bonjour Trieste cup. I
have a cupboard full of similar Penguin Books mugs. I have boxes of postcards
displaying Penguin covers that are affixed to the exposed sides of my
bookcases. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Penguin were the first company in the UK to print cheap paperback
editions of the classics and make them accessible to mainstream audiences. In
1960 they dared the wrath of the UK censors by publishing Lady Chatterley’s
Lover and went to court to defend the public’s right to read it. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">British and international readers owe Penguin an enormous debt of
gratitude, not only for printing all kinds of paperback novels, but for filling
the secondhand bookshops of the world with books that are in constant state of
recycling. For hoarders like me, who are not rich and yet want to read and
display the books twe have read, Penguin are an invaluable resource. As such,
anyone can build a private library on a budget, should they so desire. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><u>Read More </u><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/le-rayon-vert.html">Le Rayon-Vert</a> <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2013/08/time-life-seafarer-series.html">Time-Life Seafarer Series</a> <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4_OOGRObcAe06uCCvfLMCVcu-c_SKd7-M0VgAS9o6e8fOraj2YEyohN7rJIL5ZNu96skaCoiZzBpUhQER8L9HT3q1EG-UelL5o_i99lnIqWm6ziMVrdSsd4KZeIpbJaD65RxMgm9LyGerKAbVaKZQLM0h8l0t1EK9mhFbpcU9hTtP5HGnWDsldCFR/s714/Penguin%20LCL.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="458" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4_OOGRObcAe06uCCvfLMCVcu-c_SKd7-M0VgAS9o6e8fOraj2YEyohN7rJIL5ZNu96skaCoiZzBpUhQER8L9HT3q1EG-UelL5o_i99lnIqWm6ziMVrdSsd4KZeIpbJaD65RxMgm9LyGerKAbVaKZQLM0h8l0t1EK9mhFbpcU9hTtP5HGnWDsldCFR/w256-h400/Penguin%20LCL.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
<p></p>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-12665371462816768722022-11-11T06:05:00.001+00:002022-11-11T06:06:33.188+00:00Le Rayon-Vert<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKaI0Hlt9UtwsKvwx7uHRnTFhUUY4PWlR0NeO4Gs1k0Kqve8dACaF3MVYqAZ3_hPjOQVzCRHpLsZlDGBoC42owugy6X6uctQ0KmVg5xApITPT8qY0-KF9EbHB7M6r3olq5Fd9CEdB39eSFRXXmlZToTpetqOmdEtepjUluyAgxM-tzU3-2RJVSuarH/s2266/Le%20Rayon%20Vert%20JV.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2266" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKaI0Hlt9UtwsKvwx7uHRnTFhUUY4PWlR0NeO4Gs1k0Kqve8dACaF3MVYqAZ3_hPjOQVzCRHpLsZlDGBoC42owugy6X6uctQ0KmVg5xApITPT8qY0-KF9EbHB7M6r3olq5Fd9CEdB39eSFRXXmlZToTpetqOmdEtepjUluyAgxM-tzU3-2RJVSuarH/s320/Le%20Rayon%20Vert%20JV.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>History, as historian, Howard Zinn, noted, is an infinite series of
events. In order to tell any story, real or imagined, one must cherry pick from
those individual moments to form a coherent narrative. How one decides which
events to depict and which to omit is ultimately a choice based on demographics
and the background noise of commonly held mythologies in which our tribe is placed
at the very centre of things. There are no objective voices. All of human
existence and experience is subjective. Or as Zinn reflected in the title of
his memoir: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. <br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet as Douglas Adams remind us in one of his typical aphorisms
masquerading as comic wit: </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"">if
life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot
afford to have is a sense of proportion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or perspective. In a chaotic,
non-deterministic world, it takes a sentient mind to find patterns amongst the
randomness. We create meaning in the meaningless. We find shapes in signal
noise like faces seen in clouds. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"">Such cherry picking can
bring purpose or it can send us chasing shadows of conspiracy. All of us at
some time lose our sense of proportion and our sense of perspective. It can be
humiliating and disheartening when a long held belief is shown to be erroneous:
When the fleeting cloud face deforms into a new shape, or the grotesque in the
shadows resolves into something benign and mundane: To realise that the
Universe never thinks about us and will neither mourn or even notice our
passing. Our relevance is limited to the time in which we exist. It is fleeting
and when it is over it quickly fades, like an afterimage of the sun. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"">Yet what can we do? We
must find meaning in order to thrive; in order to survive. The following
history (apt, given the double meaning of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">histoire</i>
in French) is of no significance or importance to anyone but me. Which is
exactly the thing that gives it meaning. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I grew up on naval estates. Eight of the first twelve years of my life
were spent living in and around Helensburgh in the west of Scotland, down the
coast from the Faslaine Naval Base where my father was stationed. We lived
there on three separate occasions, as well as stints in Plymouth, Birmingham
and Barrow in Furness, where my brother was born. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_9ak4uFc4y4ByX1BMcpUWAs2QAUiOoHJ2AjTIFss4xJCXP9FViTN2nVgI42Int9rvy_sgrjYlwCrmsWtvD0KPG5gjFI0Z2hJ0iklGq5HH8zhypIgPzpXNgzJRU9CfoesZCQag15CizUTcdrS0Z30NrSkVGth3lPnMzEbf0B_UUftPDlkcw1bouZs/s1200/Helensburgh,_looking_west_from_the_pier.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="1200" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_9ak4uFc4y4ByX1BMcpUWAs2QAUiOoHJ2AjTIFss4xJCXP9FViTN2nVgI42Int9rvy_sgrjYlwCrmsWtvD0KPG5gjFI0Z2hJ0iklGq5HH8zhypIgPzpXNgzJRU9CfoesZCQag15CizUTcdrS0Z30NrSkVGth3lPnMzEbf0B_UUftPDlkcw1bouZs/w400-h115/Helensburgh,_looking_west_from_the_pier.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Helensburgh</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I began my life in this area, born in the Vale of Leven hospital in
Alexandria by the banks of Loch Lomond. Year later in Balloch, next to
Alexandria, we would take our dog, Boomer, for long walks in the park where he
could tire himself out. And, inevitably, throw himself into the waters of the
loch at every opportunity. </span><br /><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span>
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is where many of my formative experiences took place. I first read
the Hobbit here. I first heard Queen here. Owned my first computer here (a
Spectrum 48k+). Here I watched Live Aid. I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark at
one friend’s house and saw pirated copies of Ghostbusters and Gremlins at
another’s. I learned about new films from watching Film ’84, Film ’85 and all
of its subsequent incarnations. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At the beginning of 1986, my father left the Navy after more than twenty
years and we found ourselves in Eastbourne, on the south west coast of England.
More formative experiences. Sea Cadets. Sailing. Visiting Herstmonceux
Observatory with Astronomy Club. Seeing the Hobbit play at the local theatre.
Discovering the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for the first time. Also
discovering Jules Verne. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It happened because of watching Film ’86 or Film ’87. Barry Norman’s
review for a film called, Le Rayon Vert. The film came out in 1986, but it
might not have been released in the UK until the following year. The film
itself was of little interest to me. What did interest me was the background
details. The film was named after the Jules Verne novel of the same name. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The title was what fascinated me. Le Rayon Vert. Translated as, The
Green Ray, it refers to the very final particles of light that radiate out from
the sun at sunset. The phenomenon is rare and can only be seen under certain
conditions and in certain parts of the world. On very calm stretches of ocean
or incredibly flat stretches of desert. From high and dry mountain planes or in
fight with no cloud cover obscuring the view. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is an old legend that anyone who sees the green ray will start to
make sense of their life. The idea beguiled me. I went to the library to try
and find a copy of the book, but it is not regarded as a major work from the
dozens Jules Verne wrote and our small, local library was unlikely to carry a
copy. What I did find was a copy of Five Weeks in a Ballon, which I withdrew
and took home. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Jules Verne has been with me from that time until now. I don’t remember
if I even finished Five Weeks in a Balloon that first time. The text was small and
in a book that fitted easily in my squat palm. I remember struggling through it
and the memory is clouded as to whether I finished it or not. I think it’s
likely that I kept renewing the loan period in the hope of completing it, but
gave up at some point and returned it to the library in favour of something
less challenging. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What I did have was a collection of abridged versions of the classics,
cut down for adolescent readers. The Old Curiosity Shop. Tom Brown’s School
Days. Ivanhoe. There were many others, as well as what are perhaps Jules
Verne’s three most famous novels: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the
Centre of the Earth and Around the World in Eighty Days. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These books I did complete. There was a sponsored reading week or
fortnight in which they formed the core of the books I read in that time. It
was a struggle. I was not a natural reader at that time. Amazing when you
consider that as an adult I read between one and two hundred books a year
across a breadth of genres. But if any writer laid the foundations on that long
journey from faltering to accomplished reader, it was Jules Verne. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Verne was for a long time considered a children’s writer in the English
speaking world. This is mainly the fault of terrible translations from the
French in which he wrote. Yet if one considers for instance, 20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea, there is much scientific detail included. It doesn’t quite go to
the extent of Moby Dick, where Melville was essentially copying out, verbatim,
oceanic and biological passages from textbooks, but it’s not far off. The
abridged, children’s edition that I read in Eastbourne obviously excised much
of these technical passages. Which is probably for the best. They’re hard enough
to understand as an adult. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I guess the light soon faded on my interest in Jules Verne, as do all
such fleeting childhood obsessions. It was only as an adult, inspired by
Michael Palin’s Around the World in Eighty Days, that I returned to Jules
Verne. Yet by this point in my life, I had become a literary magpie, fascinated
by every new shiny object. Graham Greene novels. George Orwell’s fiction and
non-fiction. Maya Anjou autobiography. Frankenstein. His Dark Materials. Jane
Eyre. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books read again and again and again. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As such, my re-acquaintance and deep dive into Jules Verne’s novels has
been slow. I reread 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the
Earth and Around the World in Eighty Days in their unabridged versions. I read
From Earth to Moon and Around the Moon in a single edition. I struggled through
the overlong The Mysterious Island. But there wasn’t much else to choose from.
Despite writing many novels during his lifetime, very few are commonly
available in English translation. Even once popular books like Une Ville
Flottante, or A Floating City, are these days hard to find. So I did the only
thing I could do. I turned to versions in their original French. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Actually, it was the other way around. My French has always been
middling, despite studying it on and off since Eastbourne. But I had started
trying to read more in French, having hoarded second hand Folio editions since
university. Satre. Camus. Zola. All far above my level, but you can’t expect to
go any higher unless you’re prepared to climb. So I read them. And reread them.
And looked up the words I didn’t know. Which in the modern world, with access
to resources like Wiktionary, is easier than ever. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the meantime, I acquired other French language editions. Flaubert.
Simone de Beauvoir. More Zola (I love Zola). A translation of Ulysses
(difficulty level: God) brought back for me from France. I found online
resources. I recommend ebooksgrauit.com, which has open source copies of many
copyright expired books, including Verne, Zola, George Sand, Alexander Dumas
and many others in a number of different formats. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Somewhere online I found a download of more than fifty Jules Verne
novels and short stories and dove in. At the beginning I decided to go though
hem in order of publication. Which meant the first book on the list was,
ironically, Cinq Semaines en Ballon, or Five Weeks in a Balloon. Nearly twenty
five years later, I finally finished reading it. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Along with the next book in the series, Voyages et Adventures du
Capitaine Hatteras, you find a key feature of Verne’s writing in Cinq Semaines
en Ballon. As much as his novels are about the adventure or voyage being
depicted, they are also about the history of adventure and exploration. Cinq
Semaines en Ballon is about travelling across Africa in a balloon, but it is
about the history of European exploration in Africa (with the destructive consequences
of colonial exploration glossed over with depressing predictability). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Voyages et Adventures du Capitaine Hatteras is
about the journey to reach the North Pole, but is also about Arctic and
Antarctic exploration in general. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I soon abandoned the chronological reading order. Many of Verne’s
earlier novels were serialised in magazine form and are long books as a result.
My French remains middling and I need shorter books to retain the concentration
levels. So I read some of his shorter novels in between Madame Bovary and Le
Deuxième Sexe and a couple of books by Senegalese writer, Fatou Diome. At some
point I remembered Le Rayon Vert and routed through the download folder but
couldn’t find it. It is such a minor story that it wasn’t even included with
fifty nine others freely available for download. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet Le Rayon Vert is out there. I found a .pdf copy of the book and
downloaded it. I knew I would get around to it, but opened the file to check it
wasn’t corrupted. And what did I find on the very first page, but reference to
Helensburgh! The damned book that stared my interest in Jules Verne, that paved
the way to my love of reading, takes place in the place where I began. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Why I didn’t abandon everything I was doing and read the book there and
then, I don’t know. I was reading too much as it was. I was probably already
reading something else by Jules Verne. So I closed the file down and forgot
about it for a year or two. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When I did read it, a week ago as I write, the book featured so much
more than Helensburgh. The bulk of the story takes places in and around Oban
and the Hebrides. Yet it opens and ends on the outskirts of Helensburgh, close
to Faslaine. But more than that, Verne makes reference to Leven, when I was
born, and Balloch, where we took Boomer to run himself ragged. Clearly Verne
visited the area. People living in Glasgow, twenty miles away, are barely aware
of these places. To think that Jules Verne came to these places and was
inspired to write a novel, even a minor one, is of great significance to me,
even, and because, it means so little to anyone else. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The book itself is fine. It contains scattered references to the works
of Sir Walter Scott and it seems to be a pastiche of Scott and other early 19<sup>th</sup>
century romantic novelists. Scott was at one time the most famous novelist in
the world, although his influence had declined by the end of the century. He
had a huge influence on the likes of Alexander Dumas, who was a contemporary
and good friend of Jules Verne. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Le Rayon-Vert is the age old tale of a woman, Helena Campbell, being
compelled to marry one man, but the man is a prize tool. She won’t agree to
marry him until she has seen the green ray, which is a bit like wanting to find
the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She sets off in the direction of
Oban, where conditions might be right to witness the phenomenon. On the journey
from Helensburgh, she meets the man who she will actually marry. When the green
ray finally appears at the end of the novel, the couple are instead looking at
each other, the faint reflection seen in each other’s eyes. They are each
other’s green ray, where meaning has been found all by itself. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Le Rayon-Vert is a very different novel from most of the others that
Verne wrote (certainly of the ones I have read). Perhaps that’s why it’s not
included with his common cannon. There is no race across the world, or balloon
ride over Africa, or journey into the bowels of the Earth. There are no
futuristic submarines or space rockets shot out of a giant cannon. The journey
Helena Campbell makes from Helensburgh to Oban is one that can be made by
anyone today. Although Le Rayon-Vert is included in Verne’s Voyages
Extraordinaires series, it is as much a romance as it is an adventure novel.
The voyage is commonplace rather than being in any way extraordinary. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Moreover, Le Rayon-Vert is rarely mentioned in reference to Helensburgh.
The town’s website makes no mention of Jules Verne. Neither does its Wikipedia
page. None of the people I know who have lived in Helensburgh or been there had
even heard of Le Rayon-Vert until I mentioned it. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Where Le Rayon-Vert is mentioned is in the film of the same name. I did
watch it ten years ago when renting it from Love Film during the brief period
when receiving DVD rentals through the post was a thing. I watched it again
after finishing the novel. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAl-pwwBeR8o_ZNOZNQUTssyvvc3JlPwjli4fhof9cvwPWpmsNywxgAGhkG9pxJvVlUFCnNxLfVykkni4Hw-YI3xjFj_e0_Ne3FXditJ3QidfjMjszdIJLQsFf1r_FQnvCRfypEOa4RXcXkGLgCltmS3nM7KI9MqQKGnjz1L2L-YRCPm_cQVqDeTsm/s1024/Le%20Rayon%20Vert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="771" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAl-pwwBeR8o_ZNOZNQUTssyvvc3JlPwjli4fhof9cvwPWpmsNywxgAGhkG9pxJvVlUFCnNxLfVykkni4Hw-YI3xjFj_e0_Ne3FXditJ3QidfjMjszdIJLQsFf1r_FQnvCRfypEOa4RXcXkGLgCltmS3nM7KI9MqQKGnjz1L2L-YRCPm_cQVqDeTsm/s320/Le%20Rayon%20Vert.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It’s an odd film. Largely made up of scenes of improvised dialogue.
It was apparently shot using a crew of four. In several scenes, the actors are
caught glancing at the camera, which is impossible to conceal or style out. I
haven’t seen any other films by director, Eric Rohmer’s, but it appears to be
typical of his style. Glacial storytelling. Little in the way of scored music
but lots of ambient noise. From what little I have read, Rohmer is a
love-him-or-hate-him director. Le Rayon-Vert is one of a series of films that
he made in the 1980s that are similar, thematically. I’d like to watch the
others in the series. </span><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Film and book have little in common narratively speaking, but share some
of the same themes. Both feature women as their main characters with Delphine
the analogue to Helena Campbell. Yet while Helena is a force of nature,
Delphine is introverted and defensive against the efforts by her friends to
talk with her. She spends the whole film on her own, even as scuzzy men follow
her down the street. At Biarritz train station she meets Jacques,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who’s only marginally less sleazy, but the
two end the film sat on a hilltop at sunset, waiting for the green ray. Unlike
Helena, she sees the ray for herself (a terrible post-production effect), which
suggest Jacques will be a fleeting acquaintance. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I’d forgotten the scene where Delphine happens upon a book club sat on a
wall, discussing Verne’s Le Rayon-Vert and the phenomenon in general. She sits
on a bench beneath them to listen. It might have even been one of the clips
Barry Norman showed on Film ’86 or Film ’87. It’s a patchy film, but somewhat
beguiling. Ten years after seeing it for the first time, there was much I
remembered and even anticipated. It’s one of those films where you look up the
actors on IMDB to see where you know them from and it turns out where you know
them from is this film. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I prefer the book to the film, but it’s not a fair contest. The film
doesn’t feature even one scene set in Helensburgh. Yet without the film, I
would never have arrived at the novel. I would certainly have turned to Jules
Verne eventually. I am too much of a sci-fi nerd not to have done so. But Le
Rayon-Vert would have been a long way down the line. I might have stumbled upon
it eventually, having finished all the other Jules Verne novels. Which would
have meant missing a novel that is minor to the world, but more significant than
the sum of its parts. The film is an essential link in a chain that leads back
to the book and into personal history. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We find meaning in meaninglessness. Find patterns among the randomness.
There is nothing mystical about Verne’s Le Rayon-Vert beginning and ending in
Helensburgh, nor a chance reference in a Barry Norman program setting me on my
literary way. I have seen the green ray in two different incarnations, but
nothing has been brought into focus or the meaning of the universe revealed. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As with in English, I have become a magpie of French language novels. I
will continue to plough through forty or fifty more Jules Verne stories, in
between books by Zola, Sand, Rousseau, Camus, </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"">Irène Némirovsky, Stendhal, Dumas and a dozen other
authors besides. Perhaps the path was always laid out before me. If it hadn’t
been La rue Jules Verne, another route would have led me in the same direction.
Yet in a world of such size, we cannot afford to think about roads not taken.
This is where we find ourselves. This is where I am. Le Rayon-Vert has been my
guiding star.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2lf-V2ZeZU45_3-luem9u07Qxkz03lNCBwDImXHsk79bng9kQz27OoRroeeFhRfuyxNwtixhueyfR4e-D-7ADWEF-9eZsiksARARGKNOxGRJiW16ugqPBGMu5hiPLA-pSM_wcZPiVIuK8-PYfbO7qroUPlnS7YlS9Ob1wTIvMGjJvfxkHuDJcOUEn/s640/Green%20Ray.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="640" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2lf-V2ZeZU45_3-luem9u07Qxkz03lNCBwDImXHsk79bng9kQz27OoRroeeFhRfuyxNwtixhueyfR4e-D-7ADWEF-9eZsiksARARGKNOxGRJiW16ugqPBGMu5hiPLA-pSM_wcZPiVIuK8-PYfbO7qroUPlnS7YlS9Ob1wTIvMGjJvfxkHuDJcOUEn/w400-h269/Green%20Ray.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><p></p>
<p></p>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-69011979332141435952022-11-11T05:10:00.000+00:002022-11-11T05:10:26.097+00:00Drive Wheel<p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
heaven, she thinks. Flashing lights. Bass pounding in her chest. Several
hundred writhing bodies all moving to the beat. Sweat pouring off of her body.
Hips moving. Arms flailing. Booty shaking. Everyone cheering in pauses of the
relentless rhythm. Who needs the gym when this the only cardio vascular activity
you will ever need? This is vital. This is living. This is all there is. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Time loses
meaning here. Who cares how she got here? This is where she is. And if you are
happy with where you are at any moment, you can’t regret any decision that put
you there. It’s the wrong turns that take you to unexpected places. She had
always lived for the moment. The moment that seems to last an eternity. Like Sartre’s
idea of the perfect moment. Like now. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Worshipping
at the church of sound. That’s what someone called it once. And she had bourne
witness to the beat all over the world, on every continent, even a party boat
off the coast of Antarctica. Now the bright lights have led her here. To the
apotheosis of rave culture. Ibiza has nothing on this place. She loves it here.
She could stay here forever. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I hate it
here. Why am I here? I hate clubs. Clubs are the crystalisation of everything I
despise. Enclosed spaces. Bright lights. Noise. Sweaty herberts. Other people’s
music. Other people. Not to mention dancing. The sight of people dancing makes
my genitalia retreat inside my body. Someone asked me why I wasn’t dancing.
Self-awareness, I replied. Dignity. Basic self-control. Take your pick. No-one
looks good dancing. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Why am I
here? It can’t have been my choice. Too much to drink perhaps. I don’t remember
drinking anything, but the aftertaste of lukewarm lager from the half empty
plastic pint glass on the sticky table in front of me seems to contradict that memory.
Did someone drop something in my drink and drag me here? Don’t remember being
in the pub. Last thing I remember, I was driving. Undipped headlights on the
road ahead of me. Then nothing. Then here. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So many
regrets. So many wrong choices. So many wrong turns. So busy closing myself off
to new opportunities; new experiences. And for what? To end up here, sat alone
in the worst place I can imagine, while people enjoy their lives all around me.
This is sadistic. This is torture. This is hell. <br /></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> This is heaven, this is hell.<br />
This is living, this is tale to tell.<br />
This is drive wheel, this is cog.<br />
This is master, this is snarling dog.</i> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Chumbawamba, Bad Dog,
Good Girl<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6LLG1XkNhTcvgmS2NUKgdurzf_vxdNMFuaA0AxqWiNni38EsQynP7imMVqgkaTzGwp-f6LAJUO8pRlI77VPRgi5XDJoQcrgyrQcp2DzWwkvhXLQUJTpceIR2uJGsUCd3Fr4rSlIPAPgfF6JPDUIRvEKYhXf3n80a0180l0Hno-jc3SPWoNe_nXRK/s612/istockphoto-486420378-612x612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="612" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY6LLG1XkNhTcvgmS2NUKgdurzf_vxdNMFuaA0AxqWiNni38EsQynP7imMVqgkaTzGwp-f6LAJUO8pRlI77VPRgi5XDJoQcrgyrQcp2DzWwkvhXLQUJTpceIR2uJGsUCd3Fr4rSlIPAPgfF6JPDUIRvEKYhXf3n80a0180l0Hno-jc3SPWoNe_nXRK/w400-h266/istockphoto-486420378-612x612.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-38294686624275128512022-11-11T04:59:00.001+00:002023-01-03T02:17:27.269+00:00Books on Film: Drive My Car<p> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*spoilers*</span></i>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s
2021 film, Drive My Car, is based on the Haruki Murakami short story of the
same name. Actually, the film takes sections from three Murakami stories
included in the 2014 collection, Men Without Women (</span><i>Onna no inai
otokotachi</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">). Elements from Scheherazade
and Kino complete the triptych. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The original story is no longer
than forty pages and yet the film adaptation runs to nearly three hours. So how
much of the film is derived from its source material? The short answer is, not
much. Yet, as we shall see, what Drive My Car lacks in fidelity of translation,
it makes up for by creating a cinematic landscape faithful and familiar to much
of Murakami’s writing. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murakami’s version of
Drive my Car can be summarised as follows: Stage actor, Kafuku, is forced to
hire a driver to take to and from rehearsals of The Cherry Orchard after being
convicted of drunk driving. His driver is 24 year old </span>Misaki Watar.
During the journey, <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kafuku</span>
practices his lines by way of a tape recording and tells Misaki about his wife,
who died of cancer many years before. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Kafuku’s wife had had a string of affairs during their marriage. After
her death, he befriends her final lover in hope of finding a weakness by which
he can emotionally torture the man. Yet he comes to like him and after six
months of drinking together in bars, Kafuku breaks off the friendship. Watar
tells him that his wife’s affairs probably had nothing to do with her love for
him one way or another. The story ends with Kafuku falling asleep on the back
seat of the car.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3fki9ZVj6EzW5m8jpMs2Cus9pAUCDxEhnObGg0LuqTsov4b8NYHHMr6XAMCYyMha3H_LSe_qLNQBrHBWPIOVskfD4gY-E_2uPeOIs7mxv0i07pJ0tdn2xybBZK3ZVFa9V0Rc08wAJvp-81gOTQCAjjAqz1kmjS88WICkbSiQ6N6fl0V764MR-uAt/s2339/Men%20Without%20Women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2339" data-original-width="1524" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3fki9ZVj6EzW5m8jpMs2Cus9pAUCDxEhnObGg0LuqTsov4b8NYHHMr6XAMCYyMha3H_LSe_qLNQBrHBWPIOVskfD4gY-E_2uPeOIs7mxv0i07pJ0tdn2xybBZK3ZVFa9V0Rc08wAJvp-81gOTQCAjjAqz1kmjS88WICkbSiQ6N6fl0V764MR-uAt/w130-h200/Men%20Without%20Women.jpg" width="130" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The most glaring
difference between story and film is that the story takes place almost
exclusively in the car. Other than breaking off halfway through to tell in flashback
the barroom meetings between Kafuku and </span>Takatsuki, the action is
confined to the inside of Kafuku’s Saab. Despite retaining the title of the
story, the scenes inside the car are only one small part of the film. <br />
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Indeed, it is more than forty five minutes before Misaki makes an
appearance. The first act focuses on Kafuku relationship with his wife, Oto,
leading up to her demise. The cause of her death is changed. Three quarters of
an hour elapse before the opening credits roll (delayed credits are apparently
a trend in cinema at the moment). A different rationale is presented for Kafuku
being driven to rehearsals, having to do with insurance premiums on the production,
of which he is the director. The rehearsal tape playing in the car had been
recorded by his late wife. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The film extends on the short story by drawing the rehearsal sessions
into the action. It is a multi-lingual production, employing actors from China,
Korea and Japan, including a Korean actor who speaks only in sign language. Moreover,
Oto’s lover is brought into the present day, being cast in the part of Boris.
As much as in the story, his inclusion in the production is an act of masochism
on the part of Kafuku. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Takatsuki is younger than the Murakami version. More brash and
arrogant. He is the one who instigates the drinking sessions with Kafuku,
making the scenes more combative than in print. Kafuku is reticent to engage
Takatsuki and give him the acting advice he craves. He is more generous with
his direction towards others in the production. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Kafuku had walked in on Takatsuki and his wife in bed together, which
is the main element taken from the story, Kino. Although unlike Kino, Kafuku
leaves without being seen by the lovers and never reveals to his wife what he
saw. Later we hear Oto had many affairs, but unlike the story it is unclear
whether this is true or whether he tells Takatsuki this to wound the man and
reduce the importance of their relationship in his mind. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Takatsuki has his revenge of sorts on Kafuku. Like the woman known only
as <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Scheherazade in the story of the
same name, Oto tells her lovers stories during and after sex. One of the final
stories she tells to Kafuku is unfinished and almost identical to the main one Scheherazade
tells. How Scheherazade broke into the house of a boy she was at school with. How
she stole small items from his bedroom and left things like tampons hidden in
his drawers. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Oto tells Kafuku she could
never finish the story and yet </span>Takatsuki knows how it ends, further
highlighting the intensity of her relationship with the latter over the former.
Yet the story does not end in the way it does in the book. The denouement is
more intense and other worldly. It too is culled from another Murakami book,
but at the moment I can’t remember which one. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Meanwhile, the relationship between Kafuku and Misaki evolves
throughout the film. Like the story, Misaki is roughly the same age as the
daughter Kafuku and Oto had had together but who had died very young and been
the cause of their estrangement to one another for many years. Kafuku sees
Misaki as a daughter figure. Misaki’s backstory is filled out to give her a
character arc that intersects with Kafuku, both of them believing themselves to
be responsible for the deaths of loved ones. The film’s final act sees them
take a road trip to the remains of the house in which Misaki grew up. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Much of the core of the story is scooped out and refilled for the film,
but this is fine. In writing a short story, a writer has to limit themselves as
to the scope of what is included. The more complicated the narrative threads,
the harder they are to all pull together into a tight weave. Although
Murakami’s stories are often ambiguous, there still has to be enough from which
the reader can draw their own meaning and conclusions. Drive My Car as a story
is self-contained and narrow in scope. This is in contrast to <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Scheherazade and Kino, which are each opened
ended and unresolved. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">In extending the story to
three hours, the details and stakes of the narrative necessarily have to be
changed in order to fill a three hour run time. Therefore much of the detail
and minutiae of the plot is altered. Yet that which is introduced is mostly all
in keeping with the themes one finds running through Murakami’s fiction. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">The only obvious omission is
the supernatural elements that are a feature of much of what Murakami writes.
There are other worldly threads within the film, but these are restricted to
the stories Oto tells her lovers. The action we see is entirely routed in the
real world. It is therefore more like Norwegian Wood, which is the only
Murakami novel to date which is entirely based in reality. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Kafuku is a markedly different
character in the film as compared to the story; more morose and isolated. Yet
in many ways he is a more typical Murakami archetype than the Kafuku found in
Murakami’s own story. Misaki is also given more pathos than the pencil-drawn
outline of the story. Her fleshed out film persona is a combination of the
tragic and the self-possessed women found in Murakami’s novels. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The film is, at times, glacially slow. This will inevitably put some
people off watching it, coupled with its three hour run time and being, for the
most part, subtitled. Personally, I found it a peasant change to watch
something shawn of all noticeable special effects. As a sci-fi fan, special
effects are fine as long as they are used to advance a narrative rather than
replace it. Sadly, too many blockbuster movies these days seem to resemble a
video game on demo mode. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Drive My Car is a film for Murakami fans, but it is also a film for
readers in general. A film for people who enjoy a story well told. A story
revealed through character and the things that are understood but left
unspoken. As story where the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Indeed the final scene of the film, like any good Murakami story, is
ambiguous (although a little digging helps glean a few details that might be missed
by a western audience). The main threads have been pulled together and tied
off. Chekhov’s gun has been fired. Yet like <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Scheherazade’s truncated tales, there is always a little narrative left
over for another day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><u>Read More</u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"></span><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2021/11/reading-murakami-or-what-i-think-about.html">Reading Murakami (or What I Think About When I Read Haruki Murakami)</a> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><a href="https://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2021/11/books-on-film-scanner-darkly.html">Books on Film: A Scanner Darkly</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4RU9yY8FGlqqQFp0QCzmgINYLi7rf-XhRXXvC0oJi0jVFj43nNsh_UHyNdfloAr64Ka5v5k0zXYVI_S2o2bjLwp5H7hy0ACd3Ct0Ul7ln-DM0rTyha-4wEt-FwglhGc3onfL9KY15W2MLRqkAIfFtMeWa7fU4CsxSBNi8PipCa8DVms1nGKGjykSK/s2048/Drive%20My%20Car%20Film.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4RU9yY8FGlqqQFp0QCzmgINYLi7rf-XhRXXvC0oJi0jVFj43nNsh_UHyNdfloAr64Ka5v5k0zXYVI_S2o2bjLwp5H7hy0ACd3Ct0Ul7ln-DM0rTyha-4wEt-FwglhGc3onfL9KY15W2MLRqkAIfFtMeWa7fU4CsxSBNi8PipCa8DVms1nGKGjykSK/w283-h400/Drive%20My%20Car%20Film.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p>
<p></p>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-15198540406090145752021-11-26T13:30:00.001+00:002022-11-11T04:52:45.796+00:00Books on Film: A Scanner Darkly<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Book: A Scanner Darkly, Philip K Dick, 1977</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Film: A Scanner Darkly, Dir. Richard Linklater,
2006</span></i></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Richard
Linklater‘s 2006 rotoscoped film, A Scanner Darkly, remains the most faithful cinematic
adaptation of a Philip K Dick (PKD) novel to date. But then the competition for
this accolade is hardly fierce. Few authors, it seems, have been so poorly
served by Hollywood as PKD.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Both
versions of A Scanner Darkly, novel and film, tell the tale of Bob Arctor (AKA
Fred), an undercover police officer investigating a new street drug being sold in
Los Angeles. The drug is known as Death, or Substance D. As Arctor insinuates
himself into the drug culture of Orange County, he becomes increasingly
addicted to Substance D, leading to his mental collapse and entry into rehab.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Scanner
Darkly is partly based on PKD’s own experience and addictions. In the novel’s
Afterward, PKD states that everything in the book is based on real events,
before going on to give a roll call of his friends who died or were otherwise
debilitated thorough addiction. PKD includes himself amongst the names of the
fallen as having suffered permanent pancreatic damage. The stroke that ended
his life in 1982 may have been a direct result of these earlier excesses. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While
nominally considered a science fiction novel, there is little in A Scanner
Darkly that could be considered futuristic. Other than holo technology and the
Scramble Suits beneath which Arctor and his fellow officers conceal themselves
at work, it is a novel routed in the here and now: Even if it is set in 1994 (or
2013 in the case of the film).</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Indeed, the
relative ordinariness of the landscape is necessary to bring objects in the
foreground into sharp relief. All of what is strange or other worldly in A
Scanner Darkly is brought on by the debilitating effects of Substance-D.
Hallucinations. Paranoia. Characters falling down rabbit holes of wild
conspiracy theories. Arctor’s own eventual aphasia, as he becomes obvious to
the fact that Bob Arctor and Fred are one and the same person.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Richard
Linklater’s aim in rendering the live action with rotoscoping was to make the
film feel more like a graphic novel at a time when the term, graphic novel, was
starting to seep into the public consciousness. Yet the choice of rotoscope is
appropriate to the story. The camera is itself an addict and views each scene
through a disjointed narcotic haze of Substance-D. Moreover, PKD’s book does
contain comic-book elements, like Charles Frick playing out paranoid scenarios
in a thought bubble above his head. In a purely live action movie, this might
come across as naïve or naff. In a comic or graphic novel, it is part of the
narrative language.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7H01gTHj_-DMR6fucxz0St_HZirQViUXqWguMDlcj6XhKlCuraSopLVSZgKACDPwUPKASuiL7jNfuBtM-_HuTCrFHOSczEvjjT4mYlLxoXJY5SkMd8IJoM1QJd2_hmmKZPi3srd2ZjwI/s900/Scanner+film.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7H01gTHj_-DMR6fucxz0St_HZirQViUXqWguMDlcj6XhKlCuraSopLVSZgKACDPwUPKASuiL7jNfuBtM-_HuTCrFHOSczEvjjT4mYlLxoXJY5SkMd8IJoM1QJd2_hmmKZPi3srd2ZjwI/w400-h300/Scanner+film.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The film is
far from a perfect or complete adaptation of the novel. Few films are. Novels
are for the most part a continuous narrative. Cinema, being a direct evolution from
theatre, is a series of set pieces threaded together. Thus scenes are
truncated. Scenes are cut. Scenes appear out of order from the book. Jerry Fabin
is excised from the film entirely and his few scenes given to Frick. Yet what
remains is a fair representation of the original text.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Compare A
Scanner Darkly to, say, Blade Runner. Blade Runner might be the best film adapted
from a PKD novel and one of the best science fiction films ever made (in its
2007, Final Cut version), but its differences to Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep are legion. Even the name is taken from Alan E Nourse’s 1974 novel, The
Bladerunner, adapted into a screenplay by William S Burroughs for a never made
film. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Many, if
not most, of the book’s main narrative threads are cut from Blade Runner. The
replicants<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> are made more menacing. Much
of the comedy is lost. Richard Deckard, a character of low status and low
ambition in the novel, becomes heroically high status when played by Harrison
‘Indiana Jones’ Ford. A great movie, but not a great PKD adaptation.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Worse is
Stephen Spielberg’s 2002 film, Minority Report, based on the 1956 PKD short
story of the same name. The word, ‘based’ here is doing a lot of lifting. The
PKD version is a nuanced evocation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, where
the act of observing an event changes that event. John Anderton is predicted to
murder someone in the near future, causing him to police his own actions and
ultimately defy the prediction.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the film
this nuance is reduced to a clichéd, ten-a-penny Hollywood thriller that could’ve
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(and has) been made at any time since
the invention of sound. The effects are well executed but the futuristic
landscape and technology are ultimately incidental to the plot. In all regards
it is a poor shadow of the original source material. All cinematic adaptations
of the written word are imperfect. Some are more imperfect than others.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Unlike
Blade Runner, Minority Report, or indeed Total Recall, which again diverges
wildly<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a> from PKD’s short story, We
Can Remember It For You Wholesale, A Scanner Darkly does a reasonable job of
capturing the book’s narrative and themes. The main motif is one of paranoia. Everyone
is paranoid, not just the addicts but the police as well. The later are so
paranoid, they hide from each other behind Scramble Suits that generate a
constant blur of fragmented images to render them barely visible to anyone
looking in their direction. The effect is well approximated in rotoscope.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At one
level the Scramble Suit is the greatest flaw in A Scanner Darkly. If no-one
knows who is and who isn’t a cop, how do they know who to monitor and who to ignore?
Which is inevitably what happens. Fred, aka Bob Arctor, is charged with
conducting surveillance on himself. Hs addiction has become such that when he
is unmasked Arctor, it is most a surprise to himself. Even his immediate
superior, Frank, has figured out who he is by that point. Which again seems to
render the Scramble Suit a pointless plot device.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On the
other hand, the Scramble Suit is PKD applying the twisted logic of the junkie to
those supposedly in the know. The brass are so paranoid about their officers
colluding with each other or with the dealers that neither they or anyone else
knows who they are. Given the levels of assumed or actual conspiracy in the
story, A Scanner Darkly resolves into a truth that is anathema to most
conspiracy theories: Those in authority are no more well organised or less
shambolic than the general population.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet there
is conspiracy here. The main dealer among the core group of addicts is also an
undercover agent. The people growing Substance-D’s active ingredient also run
the rehab clinics. In many ways, PKD predicted the recent opioid crisis in the
US. The drug addled Arctor is sent to work on one of the farms on which the
plants grow in the hope that his few remaining brain cells will fire and return
with the evidence. Ultimately, it seems, his undercover mission was not to spy
on Barris, Donna, or even Arctor, but to become so frazzled he can be sent into
places other agents cannot infiltrate.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
perhaps the weak point of the film. In the book, Arctor’s journey through rehab
lasts several chapters. The cinematic version is rushed through in the final
ten minutes. It’s understandable. At one hundred minutes, much fat needed to be
trimmed to make it a lean production. Besides, the rotoscoping took eighteen
months to complete as it was, whereas principle photography was completed in a
few weeks. A longer film would have significantly increased the time to animate
it.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In other
regards, the film squeezes in as much of the book as possible. It didn’t need
to be much longer. It wouldn’t require, say, four seasons of a TV series to
narrate a PKD book of similar length (I’m looking at you, The Man in the High
Castle). A Scanner Darkly introduces little into the narrative that wasn’t
already in the novel. It’s almost as if by employing rotoscope, Linklater felt
little need to impose his own vision or ego upon the story in the way that most
other directors invariably do.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There’s a
nice touch where an preexisting stoned conversation about a man who pretended
to have been a famous con artist (i.e. he faked being an fake) is augmented
with reference to Catch Me if You Can, the 2002 Leonardo DiCaprio movie about a
famous con artist. Although there is also a discontinuity when Hank, states
that Fred could be anyone, including Barris, even though Hank has already seen
Fred in the same room as Barris. In the book this makes sense, as it happens
before Barris appears at the station. In the film those two scenes appear in a
different order and apparently no one thought to amend the script.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In spite of
that, it’s difficult to imagine another cinematic PKD adaptation getting any
closer to its source material than A Scanner Darkly. Nor should they try.
Different mediums have different narrative methods and much fidelity is lost in
the transfer process. Despite publishing forty four novels, there aren’t many
remaining PKD books that would translate well onto film. Ubik maybe, which
Linklater was originally going to make before dropping it in favour of A
Scanner Darkly. Flow My Tears the Policeman Said would be interesting. VALIS, probably
PKD’s best novel, would be next to impossible to film, not for anything in it,
but in delaying the final reveal. A bit like trying to film Agatha Christie’s
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The Penultimate Truth would be interesting if
reframed to deal with the climate crisis.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In spite of
its sprinkling of sci-fi elements, A Scanner Darkly is perhaps PKD’s most
personal and autobiographical novel. It’s inappropriate to lump it in with purely
sci-fi books like Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep, or Flow My Tears
the Policeman Said, accomplished as these undoubtedly are. The science fiction
elements in A Scanner Darkly are little more than a veneer applied to the farce
and human tragedy beneath; like the rotoscoping drawn over the film.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Scanner Darkly fits better with PKD’s more
grounded novels, like VALIS or The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Indeed,
those books were written in response to psychological episodes PKD experienced
that were arguably the consequences of his earlier narcotic experiences. A
Scanner Darkly does not quite scale the heights of VALIS, but would still make the
list of many people’s best PKD books. And while A Scanner Darkly, the film,
might not quite reach the heights of Blade Runner, it is still a faithful and
honest attempt to portray and project the world as PKD saw it.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All
cinematic adaptations are unfaithful. Some are more faithful than others.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECFsWe-qYMaFMeQ2tBnpTbLr3gc2YCF1GkN9zwgd9fMN8NVmJODImpI3g0p8xUtenCR6N1vWsKbWdBeTX-UqWxmUR82vLQ2BZXR3OTq-7DG-cZNI9QJD0eSDUw2ke9mdZNnfmtMVlgro/s290/Scanner+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="174" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECFsWe-qYMaFMeQ2tBnpTbLr3gc2YCF1GkN9zwgd9fMN8NVmJODImpI3g0p8xUtenCR6N1vWsKbWdBeTX-UqWxmUR82vLQ2BZXR3OTq-7DG-cZNI9QJD0eSDUw2ke9mdZNnfmtMVlgro/w192-h320/Scanner+book.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br clear="all" /></span>
<p></p><hr size="1" style="text-align: left;" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"><p>
</p><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> A<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> term absent from the novel</span></span></p><p>
</p></div><p>
</p><div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;"><p>
</p><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Essentially the film’s first twenty
minutes is loosely based on the story, after which it goes off entirely on its
own trajectory. <br /></span></span></p><p>
</p></div><p>
</p></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
</span>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-50746003603890162021-11-09T13:11:00.001+00:002022-11-11T04:53:34.639+00:00Reading Murakami (or What I Think About When I Read Haruki Murakami)<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For much of 2019, I found myself consumed <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with reading the novels and other books by Japanese
writer, Haruki Murakami. It is a journey that began, or should have begun, a
decade earlier.</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What happened was that back in December 2009 an
American friend sent me a copy of Murakami’s novel, Kafka on the Shore, as a
Christmas present. It’s a risky business buying me books I haven’t asked for.
Or by authors I don’t know. I have so many books I bought for myself that have
gone unread year after year in favour of newer acquisitions. Several shelves
worth all told. So an unsolicited book is bound to get lost in the wash. I
added it to a pile and read something else. And then something else. And then
something else.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Fast forward to January 2019, more than a thousand
books later. I was flying by then. Reading all the books given to me as
Christmas presents before the new year had barely begun. In a fit of optimism,
I decided to make a list of all the books that had languished on my shelves for
far too many years. Aristotle’s Politics. Machiavelli’s Discourses. Conrad’s
Nostromo. The Decameron. War and Peace. Oliver Twist. Life on the Mississippi<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>. Kafka on the Shore. Over
the course of the year I would read them all, along with one hundred other
books, new or more recently bought. Of those new books, fourteen would be other
works by Haruki Murakami.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I read Conrad’s Nostromo first from the list. I found
it so-so. Nowhere near as good as The Secret Agent, or Under Western Eyes. Over
January I also read books by Agatha Christie, Arthur C. Clarke, Gerald Durrell,
and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as well as Gordon Bowker’s biography of George
Orwell, the Collected Stories of Collette, The Beastie Boys Book, volumes six
and seven of Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, the graphic novel adaptation of
Octavia Butler’s Kindred, the regular novel of The Parable of the Sower, W.E.B.
Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That, and a
handful of other books besides. It was a good month. Unmatched for the rest of
the year.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet of all the books I read that month, Kafka on the
Shore was the highlight in terms of sheer revelation. Did you ever finally do
something and then realise you’d wasted so much time not doing it sooner? That’s
how it felt in finally reading Murakami. That I could have been reading his
books for the last ten years. Or earlier. The man’s been writing since the late
70s after all. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In many ways, Kafka on the Shore is the ideal book
with which to start reading Murakami. It contains many of the tropes and themes
that recur across his body of work. There are the twin narratives, with
alternate chapters concentrating on Kafka Tamura, a fifteen year old boy who
runs away from home, and Satoru Nakata, a mentally disabled elderly man who
supplements his government stipend by looking for lost cats. The characters
come from the same district of Tokyo, but are unknown to one another. For
different reasons and through different routes, they leave the city on separate
journeys that cross in certain places but never actually touch.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The twin, dueling narratives device is reused by
Murakami in what is perhaps his masterpiece, the three volume 1Q84, with the
narratives of Aomame and Tengo Kawana this time playing off against one
another. Parallel, alternating stories are also found in the earlier work, Hard
Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Although here the stories take
place not simultaneously, but at different points in time.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Much of Murakami fiction writing is characterised by
that much maligned phrase, magical realism<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>. All of his books, with
the exception of Norwegian Wood, feature elements of the supernatural,
spiritual, or the profane. Kafka on the Shore contains more than most, with scenes
of UFOs, ghosts of Japanese World War Two soldiers, ghosts of the living seen as
they appeared in the past, abstract concepts that take on physical human form
with Western sounding names like Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders, alternate
realities, and desolate villages that lie behind the living world and act like
waiting rooms or purgatory for the ever after. Satoru Nakata not only finds
missing cats, but has two way conversations with cats. He summons downpours of
fish and frogs at points on his journey away from Tokyo, seemingly without any
understanding of how this is achieved.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As well as the supernatural, there are all the customary
references to the mythical and the theatrical in Kafka on the Shore. Murakami
infuses the narrative with references to Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Southern
European legend. Kafka Tamura runs away from home to escape his father’s
taunting prophecy that he is cursed to become like Oedipus and kill his father
and sleep with his mother. Whether, or to what extent, the reader believes this
prophecy is fulfilled depends on a individualistic reading of the book’s
ambiguous conclusion. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Later, in the private library in which Kafka takes
refuge, Tamura reads Richard Burton’s translation of 1001 Tales of the Arabian
Nights<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a>. One thinks of the
criticisms of Burton’s translation, in part for being over sexualised, and how
influential those stories have been in the west during the last three hundred
years; maybe as early as the time of Chaucer and Boccaccio, although opinion is
divided on this point. The names of Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, and Aladdin
have become as famous to us as Hercules, Odysseus, and Perseus, even if their
tales were added later to the Arabic texts by western translators. Tamura’s own
narrative wouldn’t seem out of place being told by Scheherazade to Shahryar over
one or many of those thousand and one nights: It conforms to many of the same
themes.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kafka is not Tamura’s real first name. We are never
told what it is. At the beginning of the novel, and at various points
throughout, Kafka maintains an imaginary conversation with someone called ‘The
Boy Named Crow’. Kafka is homophone to a Czech work, kavka, meaning jackdaw,
which is part of the corvid, or crow family of birds. Franz Kafka, after whom
Tamura takes his name, was himself born in Prague, the capital of the modern
day Czech Republic. Kafka and The Boy Named Crow are therefore two sides of
Tamura’s personality, each as illusory as the other.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kafka is another recurrent theme within the books of
Haruki Murakami. His works can often be seen as Kafkaesque, in that it is not
always clear what is going on, or for what purpose. Murakami won the Franz
Kafka Prize for fiction in 2006. Kafka is referenced most prominently in the
short story, Samsa in Love, in which Gregor Samsa, the man who woke to find
himself transformed into a giant insect in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, instead wakes
to find himself transformed back into Gregor Samsa, but without any memory of
being an insect. While evidence of what has taken place is evident to the reader,
it remains unexplained to, or realised by Samsa. A textbook case of Kafkaesque
storytelling.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The element that one finds in all of Murakami’s books
is reference to music. Characters are at all times listening to and discussing
classical or contemporary music. Murakami has a seemingly encyclopedic
knowledge of all kinds of music and maintains a large collection of vinyl
records. He owned and ran a jazz bar in the 1970s and jazz bars appear in a
number of novels and short stories, including his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing
and its sequels, as well as 1992’s South of the Border, West of the Sun<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a> and the short story, Kino,
from The Elephant Vanishes collection. <br /></span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxG1NjRUI-EKtQ4_3s1b4EuuTf3b2Hr1-XtMnZ_spWiEeUXY7dWGhBSxwgZDgzhnRwVw1vymiXvbDpkn5oUQuESMMpoauVuVOurD3AwrwA9QlTf3ohVzaX_MOk4llLIWKGyA4gWvaZFWI/s800/Murakami.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="800" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxG1NjRUI-EKtQ4_3s1b4EuuTf3b2Hr1-XtMnZ_spWiEeUXY7dWGhBSxwgZDgzhnRwVw1vymiXvbDpkn5oUQuESMMpoauVuVOurD3AwrwA9QlTf3ohVzaX_MOk4llLIWKGyA4gWvaZFWI/s320/Murakami.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Haruki Murakami pictured with <i>some</i> of his records<br /></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The titles of many of Murakami’s novels and short
stories make direct reference to music. Norwegian Wood, the book that made him famous
when it was released in Japan in the 80s, prompting a period of self-exile to
the United States, is taken from the Beatles song from the album, Rubber Soul.
Short stories like Honey Pie, Yesterday, and Drive My Car also take their names
from Beatles songs. In February 2020, Murakami published a new piece in the New
Yorker entitled, With the Beatles, after the album of the same name.</span>
</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The title of Murakami’s most recent published novel,
Killing Commendatore, refers to a scene from the Mozart opera, Don Giovanni.
The unnamed narrator finds a painting in the attic of the house he is renting, which
depicts a scene from the beginning of the opera. Don Giovanni fights a duel and
kills Commendatore after Commendatore catches Don Giovanni trying to rape his
daughter. In true Murakami form, the two foot high image of Commendatore takes
physical form and holds court over the narrator in his living room. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murakami’s previous novel, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki
and His Years of Pilgrimage from 2013, also makes reference to classical music
in the title. His Years of Pilgrimage, or Années de pèlerinage, is collection
of three suites composed by Franz Liszt in the 1830s. The novel makes
particular reference to a piece from First Year: Swiss (Première année:
Suisse): Le mal du pays, or Homesickness. An apt choice, given the novel’s
eponymous protagonist, Tsukuru Tazaki, who has been frozen out and ostracized
by a group of childhood friends sixteen years earlier and sets out on a journey
to discover the reasons for his unexplained exile. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Greek derived word, nostalgia, has come to mean
the pain and longing we feel for the past, but in its original sense it
referred to a form of homesickness (nostos – returning home + algos – pain). What
we feel when we feel nostalgic isn’t really a longing for home or for an
idealised past that never really existed. Nostalgia is really just a longing
for our youth. Tsukuru Tazaki spends years in pain and isolation after being
rejected by his friends. His girlfriend makes him find out what happened so
they might have a future together. Le mal de pays, which combines the sense of
homesickness and nostalgia, is perfectly chosen to reflect Tazaki’s journey. In
order to look to the future we must first make peace with our past.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We also find classical and operatic references in The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, published as three books in Japan from 1994 to 1995 and
printed in one volume in an abridged English translation in 1997. Each book
takes its name from references to birds in classical music and opera. The Book
of the Thieving Magpie is named after the Rossini opera. The Book of the
Prophesying Bird is named after a piece of piano music by Schumann. The Book of
the Bird-Catcher Man is named after Papageno, a character in Mozart’s The Magic
Flute. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kafka on the Shore is itself named after a fictional
pop song that appears in the novel. Yet the title combines elements and
coincidences that coalesce across time. The song in question is itself named
after a painting showing a boy facing away on the shore of a lake: A future
echo of Killing Commendatore, once again combining music and art into one
title. The painting might or might not depict Kafka Tamura, who was not born
until years after the picture was painted. Then things like cause and effect have
little agency in the world of Kafka on the Shore. Or in the fiction of Haruki Murakami
in general.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kafka on the Shore also features real world music.
Tamura listens to Prince, Radiohead, and John Coltrane on his walkman while
exercising at the gym or hiding out in a cabin in the mountains. The histories
of Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, and Schumann are discussed at various points by
various people to varying levels of detail. If the book has a real world theme,
it is Beethoven’s Archduke Trio. The secondary character, Hoshino, hears the
piece for the first time in a bar (where else?) while waiting for one of Satoru
Nakata’s long, comatosed sleeps to come to an end. It sets him on a journey of
cultural awakening that will continue long after the novel ends.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Wherever we go in Murakami’s world, music is there in
one form or another. Whether it’s Leos Janacek’s Sinfonietta, that serves as a
leitmotif for Aomame’s crossing into an alternative reality in 1Q84<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a>, to Bob Dylan’s A Hard
Rains Gonna Fall, which soundtracks the denouement of Hard Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World, to Tetsuya Takahashi, the trombonist who recognises
Mari Asai in Denny’s at the beginning of After Dark, setting her course for the
rest of the night, music is all things to all characters in the work of Haruki
Murakami. Someone (someone else) should compile a list of all the music
referenced in his body of work.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murakami also appears in music. The same year he won the
Franz Kafka Prize, the composer Max Richter released Songs From Before, which
features Robert Wyatt reading passages from Murakami’s novels. This hits me
where I live and, like the title of a Murakami novel, combines three things in
one: the novels of Haruki Murakami, the music of Max Richter, and the Soft
Machine’s Robert Wyatt. The only thing that matches this is Gillian Anderson
reading Virginia Woolf’s suicide note on Max Richter’s 2017 album, Three
Worlds: Music From Woolf’s Works. Although for obvious reasons, the latter is
not something one can listen to very often.</span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhdYpajWoW4X1bDRWyudeXE9Lb-WpmLBzwwfKmsDwauVbvLk0slJNFTlXGSaV-kMgo_FQfMdg162KcneMmEXx8Jdiy2uhgMONq7LkCd7y2akEQVvu7P9tk8AqXem30UW1GBrKOpsrHzWw/s1200/Songs+From+Before.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1176" data-original-width="1200" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhdYpajWoW4X1bDRWyudeXE9Lb-WpmLBzwwfKmsDwauVbvLk0slJNFTlXGSaV-kMgo_FQfMdg162KcneMmEXx8Jdiy2uhgMONq7LkCd7y2akEQVvu7P9tk8AqXem30UW1GBrKOpsrHzWw/w200-h196/Songs+From+Before.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">So after taking ten years to get around to Kafka on the Shore, I read it in two days. It is certainly in the top tier of Haruki Murakami’s fourteen published novels (sixteen if you count the three volumes of 1Q84 as separate books<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#_ftn6">[6]</a>). However, being an American translation, the version I read has some curious elements to it. The front cover proclaims the books a ‘National Bestseller’, which tells you all you need to know about America’s place in the world. Any other country would hail the book an ‘International Best Seller’. Ironic, considering the world’s first international bestseller was Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the book which Abraham Lincoln famously (although apocryphally) described as the book that started the American Civil War. </span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What can you do? This is the country whose sports
teams declare themselves world champions in sports in which no other countries are
invited to compete. What’s national is rendered interchangeable with what’s
international because all other countries are simply removed from the equation.
Which probably explains why all non-American quantities like the Japanese yen
are translated into American equivalents like the dollar. Stars forbid that an
American reader should be asked to consider anything outside of their comfort
zone or outside of their personal frame of reference. Which kind of destroys
the whole point of reading. It’s not the fault of Americans. It’s the fault of
cultural gatekeepers like the publishing industry.</span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB0D_Xv3oJqf9mYlNH2oRBDjYQ1EM2FsAwwBauEaEDqgxlBK4zAdFMaXshl8O74oakwScLJlnlnBnzoexwlqL4k8MHvXXl4KNCvNXb5oo2TLNNGbg5WnYfkvQhHcJyEBejGLasKnE7s7g/s475/Kafka.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="308" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB0D_Xv3oJqf9mYlNH2oRBDjYQ1EM2FsAwwBauEaEDqgxlBK4zAdFMaXshl8O74oakwScLJlnlnBnzoexwlqL4k8MHvXXl4KNCvNXb5oo2TLNNGbg5WnYfkvQhHcJyEBejGLasKnE7s7g/w259-h400/Kafka.jpg" width="259" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">'National' bestseller, Kafka on the Shore<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That being said, the book was a big hit. Albeit a
decade late. A couple of weeks later I spent a weekend with relatives. The trip
included an afternoon in Oxford in the snow. In the local Waterstones I bought
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and the first two volumes of
1Q84 published in one volume<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a>, as well as Kintu by
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. Within twelve months of finally reading Kafka on
the Shore, I would read all of Murakami’s novels, three of his four published
short story collections, and the partial autobiography, What I Talk About When
I Talk About Running<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a>.</span></span>
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Having read all of Murakami’s novels, it’s worth
noting that Kafka on the Shore is also unlike his other books in a number of
ways. His novels had for years been characteristic by being told by first
person narrators. Yet Kafka on the Shore began a run of novels written in the
third person. Or rather, Kafka on the Shore is written in alternating voices.
Kafka Tamura tells his own story. The third person narrator tells the story of
Satoru Nakata. After Dark, 1Q84, and Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of
Pilgrimage are all told entirely in the third person, the narrator focusing on
one or more point of view characters. Only with Killing Commendatore does
Murakami return to a purely first person novel, eighteen years after Sputnik
Sweetheart in 1999, which last used the technique in its totality.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Some have been critical of those Murakami novels not
written in the first person, but then the same people damned Dylan for going
electric. Some people expect creative artists to stay on the same note forever.
To never grow. Constantly recycling the same old hits. Yet the Beatles wrote
songs in different narrative voices and from different points of view (cf. She
Loves You). Murakami’s first person narratives are always told by male
narrators. By writing in the third person, he could introduce female point of
view characters, like Mari Asai and Aomame, where perhaps he felt uncomfortable
writing directly through a female voice. Perhaps that’s why critics are really
upset. Mr Murakami let girls into the clubhouse. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murakami’s characters are usually isolated people,
filled with existential angst or entering a period of change. Lonely students,
unrequited lovers, husbands trapped in loveless marriages, or recently
separated and going through divorce proceedings. Tsukuru Tazaki, the man
rejected by his friends a decade and a half earlier, is perhaps the most
isolated of all. The sadness that Murakami instills in him is almost too much
to bear at times. Yet Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
might be my favourite of all his novels. Even more so than Norwegian Wood, it
is his most human novel. Stripped of almost everything supernatural or other
worldly, but with all the moments of Kafkaesque ambiguity and unresolved
mystery. One is never sure whether to hug Tazaki or shake and scream at him.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murakami’s novels often feel like Edward Hopper
paintings brought to literary life. They have the same sense of emptiness and
silence hanging on the air. Lonely figures staring into space. Couples and
groups of people disengaged from one another. Rarely looking at one another.
Rarer yet looking at the viewer. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Nowhere is this more evident than in the beginning of
After Dark, where we find Mari Asai sitting alone in a Denny’s close to
midnight. She is reading, but we are never permitted to know what. The scene
plays out like Hopper’s 1927 painting, Automat, reimagined by Katsushika
Hokusai in a modern Tokyo setting. The third person narrator watches Asai like
the viewer in Automat, who seemingly sits at another table watching the young
woman in the green fur-lined coat and beige cloche hat staring into her coffee
cup. There it is also after dark, as expressed by the rows of lights reflected
in the window behind her. Other than the lights, the only thing the window
reflects is darkness. Hopper’s subject is frozen in time. Mari Asai, however,
will be nudged out of Denny’s and out of her isolation by events set in motion
by the trombonist, Tetsuya Takahashi, recognising her because of her sister.</span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDLYrXwb5HxzHtpySoozr66rR5Gm-kfeQGP9Y5Gvp6MvkCS-JidKjQ0Eo3th8wlHsoTfcJllFfcRl7nNiyZTd1XqLwsjrmP62wDV8YI2JBg-Z5EdADS051-NL5u8iFnOXGig7gyPlBfA/s357/HopperAutomat.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="357" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDLYrXwb5HxzHtpySoozr66rR5Gm-kfeQGP9Y5Gvp6MvkCS-JidKjQ0Eo3th8wlHsoTfcJllFfcRl7nNiyZTd1XqLwsjrmP62wDV8YI2JBg-Z5EdADS051-NL5u8iFnOXGig7gyPlBfA/w400-h311/HopperAutomat.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Automat, Edward Hopper, 1927<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kafka on the Shore somewhat bucks this trend of
isolated characters making their lonely way in the world. Each is isolated in
their own way, but one finds a greater depth of comradeship and community in
Kafka on the Shore than in most other Murakami novels. Satoru Nakata is helped
on his journey by Hoshino. Kafka Tamura is taken in by Oshima, the young
assistant at the library, and hides him from the police in the family cabin in
the mountains. Tamura is estranged from his father. His mother and sister left
years before. Yet he has The Boy Named Crow for company. Nakata is isolated due
to the nature of his disability, but vocalises his thoughts out loud. He is
unable to read or drive, but manages to get where he wants to go through the
kindness of strangers.</span></span>
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Indeed, the characters in Kafka on the Shore are the
least typical of Murakami’s creations. They read less like avatars for Murakami
himself, compared with Toru Watanabe of Norwegian Wood, or Toru Okada of The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, or the unnamed narrators of Killing Commendatore or the
Trilogy of the Rat<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a>.
The characters of Kafka on the Shore are not ordinary men struggling to find
their way in a society increasingly decentralised from purely male concerns,
but are instead school boys and transsexuals and people with disabilities.
Hoshino is the character perhaps closest to the usual Murakami male archetype, but
even he has previously served in the army and is atypical in this sense. Although
former army men appear in a number of Murakami novels. Usually Second World War
veterans.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If there is anything critical to say about Murakami’s
writing, it is in his treatment of female characters. Women are often treated
as little more than sexual objects by the male characters and sometimes it feels
as if their only purpose within the story is as objects for the male gaze.
Either that or they exist so their actions will serve as a catalyst for change within
the life of the male protagonist. Having read all of Philip K Dick 44 novels, I
started playing a game to count how long after a woman is introduced into a narrative
before Dick makes reference to her breasts (rarely very long). On occasion it
feels like Murakami does something similar. That a female character’s physical
attributes are the most singular thing about her. Although this is more a
criticism of Murakami’s earlier books. Still, it is no surprise to realise that
nether Murakami or Philip K Dick pass the Bechtel Test. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Another recurring Murakami theme is sex taking place
telepathically or through dreams. These sexual encounters often happen without
consent, even if they ultimately only take place in the character’s
imagination. Kafka on the Shore contains one such act of psychosexual rape. It
also features the familiar sight of a character hand washing his semen stained
underwear in the sink. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then again, the women in Murakami’s novels are often
more proactive and well organised than their male counterparts<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>. They take the lead in
romantic or sexual relationships with the insular, awkward men of Murakami’s
world. Tsukuru Tazaki’s girlfriend, Sara, sets him on his journey to find out
what had happened to him all those years ago. It would probably never have
occurred to him without her prompting and questioning (and doing all the ground
work). Aomame in 1Q84 operates as an assassin, targeting men guilty of domestic
violence. She also relieves the stress of her profession by picking up older
men in singles bars. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Midori Kobayashi initiates a friendship with Toru
Watanabe in Norwegian Wood and controls how much information she parcels out to
Watanabe about her family situation and the speed at which their relationship
develops and progresses. Also in Norwegian Wood we see Reiko Ishida go through
a kind of spiritual redemption, set in motion by the tragic events at the end
of the novel, causing her to leave the isolated sanatorium in which she has self-isolated
for many years. Through her guitar playing, the recurring theme of Norwegian
Wood makes many of its recurring appearances. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If there is any recurring criticism of Murakami’s
novels, it is how they end. One often sees criticism of his novels, After Dark
and Killing Commendatore for instance, for concluding ambiguously and ruining
the rest of the book. Yet while some see this as a weakness of Murakami’s
novels, it is in fact one of their greatest strengths. Literature is not TV or
film, where loose ends are all tied up in a nice, neat bow in the final scene.
Murakami empowers his audience by inviting them to draw their own conclusions.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When the English translation of Kafka on the Shore was
released, Murakami gave an interview in which he stated that the book, “contains
several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead several of
these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a
solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for
each reader.”</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is the power of the written word. Reading (and
indeed writing) is a symbiotic relationship between reader and writer that
creates a unique and unrepeatable experience. Good writers give you just enough
information to picture a scene and let you fill in the gaps from your personal
experience, whether you do so consciously or not. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For instance, if I say to you the set up to that
classic joke, a horse walks into a bar, then you will have a different horse
and a different bar in mind from the one that I or anyone else chooses to think
about. You will also picture a different barman asking the horse, what’s with
the long face. This is the power of narrative storytelling, whether on the page
or in the vagaries of a good joke. Or indeed a bad joke. Like a play, no two
performances are ever the same. We can exist in parallel universes with
diverging sets of experiences and yet feel as if we live in the same world.</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">TV and film are fine mediums in which to tell stories,
but here the viewer is at the mercy of the director’s personal vision. Only
between scenes are the audience permitted to exercise their imagination; to colour
in what happens in the gaps. Visual storytelling has more than a whiff of the
totalitarian about it and those who only ever consume passively through a two
dimensional screen without ever engaging with words on a page will always be at
the mercy of another’s personal vision of the world. Reading is freeing because
the experience of reading is unique for every person that reads a particular
book. It isn’t a solution in itself, but if more people read then the world might
not be in such a mess. Reading stretches those parts of the imagination other mediums
can’t reach. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So then to criticise a writer for not leaving
everything tidied up and explained to a tedious level of detail rings somewhat
hollow. Figure it out for yourself. Perhaps it would be nice to see the man who
beats up the Chinese sex worker and steals her clothes in After Dark get his
comeuppance, but After Dark takes place over the course of one night and real life
is not resolved so quickly. In real life bad people often get away with doing
bad things. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Perhaps it would be nice for Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki
and His Years of Pilgrimage to end two chapters later, or for Murakami to tell
us what happens to Toru Watanabe in the intervening years between the events of
the novel and hearing the orchestral version of Norwegian Wood that sets off
the wave of nostalgia upon which the narrative surfs. Perhaps it would be nice
to know how much, if any, of the Kafka prophecy if fulfilled. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Better for the reader to fill in the gaps for themselves
and talk the details through with others. I’ve never been to a book club, but
isn’t that the whole point of their existence? Isn’t that why myths and stories
from the age of oral storytelling have so many different versions? Because each
new teller brings their own perspective to the tale and embellishes it accordingly.
Isn’t that why the New Testament has four different accounts of the life of
Jesus Christ, all of which differ from one other on most of the actual details?
Isn’t that why I read eighteen Haruki Murakami books in the space of twelve
months? Or why I’ve already reread most of them?</span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I am not a critic, nor would I wish to be. One could
sleep four hours a night and spend the rest of the time immersed in any single
form of media (literature, film, TV, music, or gaming) and still not scratch
the surface over the course of a lifetime. One couldn’t even watch all the new
content added to YouTube in a single month in that lifetime. So then to waste
your time engaging with anything that doesn’t appeal to you seems pointless.
And self-defeating. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet a cursory glance through Twitter or YouTube
comments will reveal a plethora of people shouting into the void about the
things they hate and abusing anyone who doesn’t agree with them, rather than
finding something, anything, that makes them feel alive and connected to others.
People who have never created anything of lasting meaning but still feel the
need and the right to critique those who have. Disappointed people wasting even
more of their already wasted lives. In deference to Haruki Murakami, I invoke
the lyrics of The Beatles: Look at all the lonely people. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As such, I can only tell you what I like and why you
might like it too. The books of Haruki Murakami represent all that’s good and worthy
about reading. They aren’t perfect. Nothing is. But they are entertaining and thought
provoking. They take you into different worlds and to a different part of the
world. Like Dickens’s London, or Joyce’s Dublin, they open a window on life in
Tokyo and its environs. </span></span></span>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You’ll learn that even in one of the most densely
populated cities on Earth, people still feel isolated and alone. You’ll also
receive an extension course in musical appreciation. In my year of reading
Murakami, I added Leos Janacek, Albert Ayler, and Curtis Fuller to my already fairly
eclectic tastes. I could write an essay on the music I have discovered through
reading. And the books I have discovered through music.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All of which is a long winded way of saying that
reading Murakami is an immensely rewarding experience. Time spent reading
Murakami is never time wasted. If anything here has piqued your interest, why
not give Haruki Murakami a try? Just don’t waste ten years getting around to him.</span></span><br /><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Haruki Murakami: Where to Start </u><br /><br />Kafka on the Shore</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Norwegian Wood </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">After Dark </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Elephant Vanishes (short story collection) <u> </u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><u>Diving Deeper </u><br /><br />1Q84 (three volumes)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Trilogy of the Rat/Dance. Dance, Dance </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Killing Commendatore </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Men Without Women (short story collection) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (non-fiction)</span></p><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">NB. There
aren’t many books by women or people of colour on my unread shelves, because I
tend to read these straight away. So much of the cannon of world literature is
written by white men that it’s nice to cleanse one’s palate wherever possible.
One of these days I’m going to have a year where I read no books by white men
at all. One of these days.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My friend,
Ehrinn, who sent me Kafka on the Shore, refers to Murakami as existentialist
surrealism. Better. </span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Tamura also
reads the works of Natsume Soseki, cited by Murakami as his favourite author.
Increased interest in Soseki’s work in the English speaking world is said to
have been sparked by Murakami’s endorsement.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Named after
the 1939 song, South of the Border, written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr
and recorded by everyone from Bing Crosby to Willie Nelson.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Japanese word
for 9 is ku, hence the Q in the title to suggest a different version of 1984, the
year in which the book is set.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">18 if you
count The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as 3 books.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> At the time </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I didn’t
realise there was a third volume, published separately.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To date, I’ve
read all of Murakami’s works published in English, including Underground, his
series of interviews with the victims and perpetrators of the 1995 Tokyo
underground gas attacks.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Made up of
Murakami’s first three novels, Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball 1973, and A Wild
Sheep Chase. The sequel, Dance, Dance,
Dance is told by the same narrator but not part of the trilogy.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span><a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif""> </span><span face=""Tahoma","sans-serif"" lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As has often
been noted, women have shit to do.</span></span></span></p>
</div>
</div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>
</span></span>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-88662932286874764492021-11-09T13:09:00.005+00:002021-11-09T13:09:59.029+00:00Somewhere in Venice<div style="text-align: left;"> <i>If you had the time to lose, </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>An open mind and time to choose, </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Would you care to take a look, </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Or can you read me like a book? </i><br /><br /> <u>October 2004 </u><br /><br /> Nighttime. Sea salt and engine oil. Low light above me. Soft chatter and revving gears. Wake waves lapping gently to our port. Maiden. Late. Time is always on my side. <br /><br /> I have no idea where I am. Not exactly. Somewhere in the Venice lagoon. That much is certain. Beyond that I can’t say and I lack the language to ask. <br /><br /> I boarded this waterbus from the airport with some vague idea it would take me to the main island. This is not, I begin to suspect, a direct route. We seem to be going around the houses. Or rather, around the islands. I have a hostel bed booked somewhere in the city, but it’s exact location is also a mystery at present. One problem at a time. <br /><br /> My only anchor in this sea of uncertainty is the music playing from a yellow tape deck hanging from a yellow handle on a rusty nail in the pilot’s small, plastic sheeted cabin. It took me a moment to recognise it. Iron Maiden. Somewhere in Time. <br /><br /> Haven’t heard this album in years. One of the few 80s Maiden albums I don’t seem to own on CD. I wonder why. It’s one of their best. I own most of the others from that decade. Killers. Piece of Mind. Seventh Son. Why not this one? <br /><br /> The only album I don’t like from this era is Number of the Beast, but that’s more about the production than the actual songs. Actually, it’s probably because I heard most of those songs first on Live After Death (also the first Maiden album I heard) and the album versions sound too slow by comparison. It’s like Bring the Noise. It’s impossible to listen to the original once you’ve heard the beefed up version Public Enemy recorded with Anthrax. Yeah boy. <br /><br /> I caught the tail end of the opening track, Caught Somewhere in Time, as I boarded the boat with everyone else. The size of a small bus with the amenities of a third class Victorian railway carriage. Hard wooden benches arranged in rows. Sat perched on the inner edge, rucksack wedged between my knees, one foot spilling out into the aisle. The music penetrated my consciousness, but I felt too disorientated and tired from travelling all day to register it right away. By the time the opening lick of Wasted Years kicked in, I knew where we were.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTL8uJGRanrXhAyG8bjJO4PnjhAnCX0D_nx9F9k3KsdGRJDXZlz4cTEtSs9_WlRFMub4q051nRkX6anMWn1I68jptvrdAqmTtrb2ohBAYI-4TNkWBDFRDhC9hEp6s7vLceclD9kbQ96A8/s1680/Somewhere+in+Time.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="945" data-original-width="1680" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTL8uJGRanrXhAyG8bjJO4PnjhAnCX0D_nx9F9k3KsdGRJDXZlz4cTEtSs9_WlRFMub4q051nRkX6anMWn1I68jptvrdAqmTtrb2ohBAYI-4TNkWBDFRDhC9hEp6s7vLceclD9kbQ96A8/w400-h225/Somewhere+in+Time.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The sad thing is, I know how long these songs run, so I know how long we’ve been chugging along at walking pace through the waters at the tip of the Adriatic. Heaven Can Wait is nearly over, which lasts seven minutes on its own. The two before that are five minutes each. Add that to the end of the opening track and we’ve been moving for at least twenty minutes. <br /><br /> I should have been at the hostel hours ago. But my plane from Gatwick was delayed and then we landed late due to storm weather. Frequent cracks of lightning seen through the cabin portholes. The captain apologised over the Tannoy, declaring it the worst storm he’d seen in years. So we circled Venice Airport for three quarters of an hour; the cloud cover too thick to even catch a sight of the Venetian lights blinking below us. <br /><br /> There must have been a quicker way to get where I need to go. But it’s late and my Italian is limited to ciao and grazie and so I followed the crowd and boarded this waterbus with everyone else. And now I’m stuck here. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner plays with mocking irony. I really don’t want to be still sat here by the time Alexander the Great begins. And yet I kind of do. I’m late anyway. May as well be late to a good soundtrack. <br /><br /> This is the end of a whistle stop tour of three cities. Three days in Dublin, following the trail of James Joyce. Then a couple of days in London with trips to the Tate and an all female production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe. Now four days in Venice. I’ve spent too much money in the capital cities and it’s the end of the working month. Venice is going to be a frugal experience. <br /><br /> If I ever get there. The last whistle-stop tour earlier this year was more successful. Flew into Paris for a couple of days, rolling around the Metro system reading Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden and seeing the sights. Then a long train ride to Zurich on the first day of February. Reading from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at the side of Joyce’s grave on the occasion of our joint birthday. Frustrated by all the museums being closed on a Monday. Tuesday bored in Geneva. Half six flight to Amsterdam on Wednesday morning. Sat in a coffee shop by nine. Finding the American Book Exchange. Spending too much money on second hand books. <br /><br /> I reach into the inner pocket of my green Parker jacket. Nestling there is a Penguin Classics copy of Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground and The Double. Black cover. For a moment I wonder if it’s one of the refugees rescued from Amsterdam. But all of the books I bought there are American press. And second hand. Left there by American backpackers. The Dostoyevsky is new. Must be from Waterstones. Manchester. Deansgate branch. Swapped it out for the Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe anthology I’ve been reading since John Lennon airport. Silver cover. Also Penguin. Also purchased on Deansgate. At least now I can listen to the BBC radio productions of The High Window and The Little Sister that I’ve been saving until I read the novels. <br /><br /> Another stop. People board. People alight. <br /><br /> The album moves on to Stranger in a Strange Land. I remember the video being one of the worst examples of lip synching I’ve ever seen. Not Bruce’s fault probably. Screwed up in post production with the audio track being out of phase with the images. Not by a lot but enough to be noticeable. But then it doesn’t help that it’s a live performance overdubbed with the studio version of the song. Looks instantly fake. Ironic given the lack of live recordings from that tour. Three live albums released from the Fear of the Dark tour (a particularly weak album), but nothing from Somewhere on Tour, which is meant to have been one of the best. A live album from that period would rival Live after Death. <br /><br /> And yet Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the album highlights. Steve’s chugging bass intro. The Smith penned lyrics that contain many of the same themes as Wasted Years (his other main lyrical contribution to this album). Also the notes of Adrian’s soulful guitar solo stretching out like the decades elapsed since the eponymous stranger perished in the Arctic and was preserved in ice (apparently based on a true story and not, as some think, named after the Robert Heinlein novel of the same name – it’s not a Steve Harris song after all). Having sat here for more than half an hour, slowly losing the feeling in my legs as each minute passes like an hour, I know what the slow passage of time feels like. It’s the uncertainty that does for me. If I knew where I was going I could sit back and enjoy the ride. <br /><br /> God I love this album. Next pay day I’m going down to HMV at lunchtime and buy a copy. Slip the naked CD into the CD folder I carry for playing music on my Sony CD Walkman. A far cry from when I first went travelling on my own. An extra bag in addition to my rucksack just to carry around all of the tapes I wanted to listen to. The millennium. Four years since, but seems an age ago. <br /><br />Déjà Vu is starting. Probably the weakest song on the album, but it does always remind me of the Monty Python sketch. At this point Alexander the Great can no longer be avoided. My only hope is that once it starts I don’t end up at my destination before the song ends. At about nine minutes, that is a distinct possibility. Mind you, I could still be sitting here by the time the next album finishes. And knowing my luck it will something by Oasis or Coldplay or something equally hateful. <br /><br /><i>My son, ask for thyself another kingdom, </i></div><i>For that which I leave is too small for thee. </i><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /> I mouth along to the speech that opens the song, wind howling in the background. I wonder who the actor that performs this is. The voice is vaguely familiar but I can’t place it. Wonder if it’s the same guy who did the reading from Revelation on Number of the Beast. Bet it’s some famous Shakespearian who didn’t want to tarnish his reputation with being openly associated with Iron Maiden but secretly a massive fan. <br /><br />This is one of Steve’s book report songs. Like Rime of the Ancient Mariner or To Tame a Land, here Harris does the life of Alexander of Great in Cliff Notes form. I mock, but the aforementioned are some of my favourite Iron Maiden songs. The overlong words and complicated cadences with which Steve likes to torture Bruce. Bruce virtually rapping during the final section of this one. Another great Adrian Smith solo in the middle there. Eastern European mode . 7/8 time signature in places. Immensely silly in places, but metal is silly. That’s why we love it. <br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The song barrels along even as the boat ambles at the same frustratingly glacial pace. It’s over far too soon. See? This is of what I was afraid. The tape ends and the pilot eventually replaces it with a fresh one. Poison. Look What the Cat Dragged In. I have to get the hell off this boat. This now constitutes abuse. <br /><br />I’m about to stand up and attempt the British equivalent of causing a fuss when I notice something in the near distance. An arrow tipped square tower piercing the sky that I recognise from Canaletto’s paintings of Venice. The must be St Marc’s Square. To quote the Cat from Red Dwarf: Hey, hey, hey, we’re moving in the right direction now. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLiH1-EGdU0lzYlgOQ0BLTn0iefXwUCeczm44rgaBLrAgUUM6yL4cUt07XcStEGraLZhp3k93Lvr93V8RA_92uDVXvDc5hxsf1_oRuda4X3_8NC_wGaeeSL2p5jAMxrzF8I03flh05uXk/s1920/Canaletto1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLiH1-EGdU0lzYlgOQ0BLTn0iefXwUCeczm44rgaBLrAgUUM6yL4cUt07XcStEGraLZhp3k93Lvr93V8RA_92uDVXvDc5hxsf1_oRuda4X3_8NC_wGaeeSL2p5jAMxrzF8I03flh05uXk/w400-h225/Canaletto1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />I mount the gangway with my rucksack slung over my shoulders. Humming snatches of Maiden songs, I walk the short distance to the entrance into Piazza San Marco. It’s late and low lit. Water from the lagoon seeps up through grills in the floor. The outdoor seating of the expansive cafes are virtually deserted at this time of night and this late in the season. In my left hand are clutched several sheets of A4 paper, on which are printed my hostel reservation details. I hope that even with a lack of Italian, I can point at the address and ask for directions. I hope it isn’t far. I hope it isn’t too late. Time s always on my side, I hum without much conviction. <br /><br />For the next quarter of an hour I flounder from one café bar to the next in a kind of alcohol-free pub crawl. At each stop some friendly Venetian points me in the right direction, but I understand too little to get much further than the next square and have to start the process all over again. At this time of night the cafes are about the only places still open and the language barrier coupled with the inebriated state of my Good Samaritans make for slow progress. Lots of shouting between the groups of men that huddle around the printed sheets in my hand. No doubt laced with anti-English slurs and graphic insults against tourists. I only hope one of them isn’t sending me down a blind alley. <br /><br />Which is exactly where I find myself. On a street which is apparently the one I’m looking for but I can’t see any sign of a hostel. I wander along the length of the narrow passage of cobble stones that end at the edge of the nearest canal. <br /><br />A shadowy figure emerges from a doorway. I screw my courage to the sticking place and approach him. “Scusi.” The old Venetian points me halfway back down the street. With a little bit of effort I find the place I’m looking for. I ring the bell and answer the soft Italian voice emanating from the intercom. A buzz releases the red painted door to reveal a passage and a staircase. <br /><br />It’s long since midnight as I’m greeted at the top of the stairs by a tall blonde man in his late twenties who instantly makes me feel overweight and underdressed. Marco takes my passport and books me in and before long he is leading me down a short corridor to a dorm room maybe forty feet long by twenty five feet wide. The only light comes from flashes of lighting issuing from the sky. I have made it just in time. Rows of single beds line the room. Everyone else is in bed and asleep. I store my luggage under the bed and quickly undress. Claps of thunder explode in what feels like right above the building. My head rests on the pillow. My eyelids are heavy. <br /><br />A Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation CD plays in one ear, the CD player whirling gently beneath the pillow. Someone snores somewhere below. White light illuminates the back of my eyelids. Tired. Late. My son, ask for thyself another ferry boat. For that which I leave is too glam for thee. I have this terrible feeling of déjà vu. Much ado about nothing really. Time is always on my side. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQ8_BpVyUdXkdVUpYj2dLelYhsDOna_AsD4GcdYeUQ4dUs7vOdzUjcErx1JQ1nD6X4nWRJGx4mXeDCNauJRtiHKIhftxeyE0cl86vdIgDJKk7LRAB5XWM-vYIae_fkti_4goWkCF8m5g/s2048/Canaletto2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1305" data-original-width="2048" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQ8_BpVyUdXkdVUpYj2dLelYhsDOna_AsD4GcdYeUQ4dUs7vOdzUjcErx1JQ1nD6X4nWRJGx4mXeDCNauJRtiHKIhftxeyE0cl86vdIgDJKk7LRAB5XWM-vYIae_fkti_4goWkCF8m5g/w400-h255/Canaletto2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> </div>Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-88426442797402037182018-12-19T22:31:00.001+00:002018-12-19T22:31:18.370+00:00Abstract<i>Hi. Not posted anything for a while. Wrote the following in an hour as an experiment in loose associations and thought it would be nice to stick it up here (if you'll pardon the expresson). If it means anything to you, then that's what it means.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Regards. Rob </i><br />
<br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Blazoned across a purple and golden
sky, the finest arrangement of celestial notifiers announce the limits of human
endeavour, from east to west, right ascending and declining, to admit minds less
incongruous than they. </span>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">The finished effect clings to
creation like a limpid to a sea mine, raising the possibility of no reordering
this side of black. We hope, but ultimately we yield to what we must accept in
a crimson dawn of irrelevance. All myths are self important and inept visions
of where we lie, never at the centre, always at the edge; reacting to reactors,
returning to dust and new light. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Livermorium in memoriam. Tennessine
in </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">tension </span>and </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span>terror</span>. Lithium for lethargy. Arsenic for old lace. Carbon
cannot cancel the concerns of its own insistence on being the most abundant,
the centre of all things, despite its rarity and its irrationalisation. Sands
of time as sand in the dessert, unique and yet everywhere, rendering the very
fact of sand redundant. Out of empty quarter is abundance when factored against
the availability of dust. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">We give it form. We offer it life.
Primrose patterns against a winter sky. Staring into the void for ever and
ever. Amyth. Minotaurs and unicorns like infinity and world weary infants. Potentiality
is not existence. Nothing goes on forever. Nothing ever really stops. Life
lived is life dreamt, a waking dream, sleepwalking through ages and eons, the
passage of past and present in geometric expansion into the ever changing
future. Even stones are not set in stone. Speak actively in the negative, or
passively in the affirmative. Yes. No. Jein. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Inexactitude is the way. Skirting the
shore of our ignorance. Dipping a toe in here or there. Languishing in
obscurity between the devil and the big yellow ball in the sky, zoning out all
endeavour modern, ancient, and to come. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">God says you are important. The Universe
says you are not. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="tab-stops: 174.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Misogyny says you are mono. Flags say
you think only for yourself. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I promise you disappointments say
your social media pronouncements. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I’ll never satisfy another say your blather
and your bluster. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="tab-stops: 174.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">My children will resent me say your twisty
tweeting obloquy. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Will you please engage, say your
anger and your rage. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">I do not know, says everything that you
show. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Mummy didn’t pay enough attention. Or
daddy paid too much. </span>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">Indifference. Indifference. Thrice
indifference. Dotting an invisible i on an invisible i. Departing soon, but yet
to arrive. Farthings to your forebears and for your progeny, pence. Around,
around the circle of life, the circle of death. Into a frothing ocean and back
to the start. Circular yet sinusoidal. Consanguineously in the differentiated wheelhouse
of turning fortune. Be as the base unit. Digitally divide in bits of torrents.
Sing the song that is sung of soon. Paint the pic that punts to pain. Live the
life that lights its loins. Grasp the goal that ghosts the gust. Enjoy the
endeavour that enters extraneously, ex post facto et homo ex machina. Believe
the boast that boots bravado to blazes. Winnow the window that wields the
winch. Arrest all attempts at advocating amazement. Inevitably I inculcate innocence
in ineptitude. I will still remain immortal. And dark.</span></div>
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Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-37881640997645967612018-10-11T00:15:00.000+01:002018-10-11T00:15:04.792+01:00Becalmed Again<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">“I swim in a redundant pool of
crimson despair, mind awash to the bold, barren wasteland of hypodermic nausea,
to cut a swathe through the razor blade precision of isolation and cooled to
the numbing certainty of a yawning chasm, a spiritless void, my curse; my
folly; my existence.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> Becalmed<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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I wrote the above words in the mid-1990s. More than 20 years later and
little seems to have changed. Yet even before I wrote Becalmed, I had been
suffering from one form of undiagnosed mental illness or another for most of my
life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On Monday of this week, I rang in sick and ran away to Scotland to end
my life. It’s been a rough year. 4am found me lying on the floor of a shower unit
in a Glasgow hotel room (on Hope Street, for the comic irony), shirt off, the
sharp end of a pair of scissors wedged between my chest and the tiling. I had
written a note. I had left next of kin details. I even had the presence of mind
to buy some blue tack to leave a note on the bathroom door, alerting the
cleaning staff not to come in. Just because I’m suicidal, I thought, doesn’t
mean I’m a barbarian. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I couldn’t go through with it (in case that wasn’t immediately apparent).
Instead I wandered around Glasgow for the day. My father was a submariner in
the Royal Navy and we spent many years of my childhood living in nearby
Helensborough, where I had visited the day before. I was born not far away. I
guess in my disturbed state I wanted things to come full circle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Then I headed to Sunderland, from where I write these words, to stay
with my brother and sister-in-law. I collapsed in tears as soon as I was
through the door. After days of feeling numb, raw emotion had returned with avengeance.
I had been holding on to it all for the entire day and couldn’t hold it any
longer. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The worst part about depression is not the depression itself. The worst
part about depression is the shame, humiliation, and embarrassment that come
from having to admit to anyone that one is depressed. Which is ridiculous. Does
a runner feel shame at pulling their hamstring? Or a singer feel humiliated when
they get a throat infection? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mental illness is, by its very definition, irrational. Unlike a hamstring
injury, or throat infection, the very thing that is injured is also the thing
that is assessing its reaction to the damage done. Mental illness is circular,
and it is cumulative. One finds oneself trapped in a spiralling loop of bad
thoughts and unhelpful images. Hating oneself for being weak and for negatively
impacting on one’s friends and relatives. It is exhausting, and it is draining.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I would like to say at this point that I am fine, and you don’t need to
worry about me, but that would be a lie. It’s the same denials that I have allowed
myself to believe for far too many years. I’ve always lived too much in my head,
avoiding talking about my issues, living a life of perceived independence, but being
unable to take care of myself properly. I’ve not been to a doctor regarding
anything, let alone my mental state, in nearly fifteen years. I’m drowning in
debt. I’ve been single for a decade to avoid inflicting me on anyone else. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Clearly things can’t go on as they are. The centre cannot hold. I am
now in the process of registering with a doctor to see about getting a proper
diagnosis. I’ve started looking at consolidating the debt. I am even toying with
the idea of actually leaving the house and doing this thing I’ve heard about
called, socialising. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I can also see the funny side of it all, which is often the case in the
immediate aftermath of an ‘episode’. As the fictional Alan Partridge once had a
breakdown and drove to Scotland without any shoes, I ran away to Scotland on the
train without enough socks. I should have fled to Dundee, not Glasgow, and gorged
myself on Toblerone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a person who has lived and worked in Great Britain my entire life, I
have been brought up to believe that it is vulgar to talk about oneself. Which
it is. However, today is World Mental Health Day (if nothing else, my timing for
once is impeccable), and I wanted to write about what’s going on with me,
partly because writing helps soothe the savage beast, but also as a beacon of hope
for anyone else that suffers from the same malfunctioning psyche. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
These things can be difficult to talk about, because depression usually
doesn’t leave any visible, physical symptoms like a torn hamstring, or vocal cord.
The fear is that one will be accused of faking it or being a malingerer. I am
extremely blessed to have family who are supportive and loving. I will always
have somewhere I can go. I will never be forced into homelessness, or destitution.
I don’t drink alcohol. Not everyone is so fortunate. You just have to trust
that there are people who will understand what you are going through, whether
they be family, friends, or organisations such as the Samaritans. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mental illness is like carbon monoxide; poisoning silently when left undetected.
No one should suffer and die in silence. Get the help you need. It’s taken me long
enough to come to this realisation. Be well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u>See Also</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2018/09/je-dirai-enfin-par-votre-bouche.html">Je Dirai Enfin Par Votre Bouche</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://eponymistuk.blogspot.com/2010/10/perceptions.html">Perceptions</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZTbYgdLd3GN5w8PAqq4SF4WnF4v4zG4OcFqBGzw1p-4N_fLspsGdPHvvqI6DDIVZ98Sc9d0_D1SrhKafujfKA_35sNJ9Q3LPvnDQz2Yk8BwJrNingwIbBFe4GuGNR_Ji8b4qh9HCRVA/s1600/Becalmed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="193" data-original-width="262" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZTbYgdLd3GN5w8PAqq4SF4WnF4v4zG4OcFqBGzw1p-4N_fLspsGdPHvvqI6DDIVZ98Sc9d0_D1SrhKafujfKA_35sNJ9Q3LPvnDQz2Yk8BwJrNingwIbBFe4GuGNR_Ji8b4qh9HCRVA/s400/Becalmed.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An English Sloop Becalmed near the Shore - Francis Swaine </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><o:p> </o:p>Becalmed (full version)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
I swim in a redundant pool of crimson despair, mind awash to the bold,
barren wasteland of hypodermic nausea, to cut a swathe through the razor blade
precision of isolation and cooled to the numbing certainty of a yawning chasm,
a spiritless void, my curse; my folly; my existence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
These are my fears, daydreams of grandeur that exist in but the mind
eye, passionate kingdoms where none are to be found, not even I, and what's
left to do when faultless clarity is all that I have and ears bleed from the
silence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
None else swim here and none will, for I am a creature of habit, a
habit of addictive self-destruction, deprived of even the energy to engage this
agony and all that's left to do is sink, drown in the becalmed mistress of
singular euphoric demise. And none being in attendance, none will grieve, none
will care, not even I, for this is the way of things. To achieve but one
terminal ambition, as all others are lost to the black.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-10526009313393375632018-09-27T12:30:00.001+01:002018-09-27T20:12:46.308+01:00InterrogationThe long corridor yawned high above her. The olive green
paint of the imposing walls was cracked and peeled in countless places. A rough
smell of disinfectant hung on the air.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She leaned uncomfortably. They'd made her wait now for more
than twenty minutes. One cheek had gone to sleep from sitting in the remoulded
plastic seating. She heard they did this on purpose. It injected a sense of
sombre reflection into the Attendee. Made them pliant to the intensive questioning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scattered on either side of the never-ending olive peel were
other expectant Attendees, all sat in the same uncomfortable seats in ones and
threes and fours. She furtively checked no-one was looking and rubbed the tender
cheek, shifting the weight to her other side. She readjusted the pattern dress
about her knee and replaced a strand of jet black hair that had come free in
the move. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She touched the corner where her Aye-Budd would usually be.
They made you surrender all electronics as you entered the building. She felt
alone without the constant projection of other people's thoughts and creations
into her field of vision. Naked even. This also served to a purpose.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Ms Meagher?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A woman in a suit stood over here, consulting a DABB in the
crook of her arm. She envied the woman her skin. Her eyes were brown though.
Not green like hers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"That's Meagher."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"If you'd like to follow me."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She followed red pumps and ankle chain down the olive
corridor, through a door in the wall to another olive corridor, smaller and
more foreboding, then through several more doors and corridors, each the same
immutable shade of green and dread.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally they arrived at one door in particular.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"In here please. Mr Strike will see to you." She
made to object. The woman smiled thinly and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Just tell him everything he wants to know and you'll be fine. Ok?" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Ah, Ms Meagher, is it? Take a seat. I'll be with you
in one moment."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A man sat behind a desk. About her grandfather's age. The
way he manipulated that DABB though. Sharp operator.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Now a few preparatory questions. Your name is Serena Meagher,
is that correct?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It's pronounced Meagher."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"And you turn 18 in two weeks."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Wednesday, March 3rd, yes."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It says here that you identify as female. Would that
be a fair assessment?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It would."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It also says that your father is of Irish origin and
your mother Iranian."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Is this relevant?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"In the grand scheme of things, perhaps not. But it
does help to calibrate the results you see."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Fine. My dad is Manchester born and bred from Irish
stock. My mother's people were forced into exile for fighting for political reform
in Iran. They're still at it to this day. They've just moved on from Iran. Does
that answer your question?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He placed the DABB to one side.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"You know, sometimes I get bored with this job. I can
see this one's going to be a lot of fun. Shall we begin? Other Interrogators
have their methods for leading the Attendee into the Interrogation. I find it's
best to just crack on. The sooner we begin, the sooner the unpleasantness is at
an end."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Sure. I'm not arsed." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Now come now. Let's not begin with a lie."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so it began:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Questions about her education, politics, friends,
boyfriends, girlfriends, hopes, aspirations and ambitions. Questions about
policing. Questions about the homeless. Questions about public transport.
Questions about the rate of taxation and the division between education, health
and military spending. Questions about sanitation and refuse disposal.
Questions about sport and the arts. Questions about space exploration. Questions
about space tourism. Questions about immigration. Questions about her attitude
towards other women. Questions about her attitude towards men. Questions about her
attitude towards the trans and pan communities. Questions about her attitude
towards the disabled. Questions about prejudice. Questions about homophobia.
Questions about racism. Questions about paedophilia and paedophiles. Questions
about rape. Questions about sexism. Questions about public works and mass
transportation. Questions about childcare. Questions about provisions for
mental health care. Questions about genetic research. Questions about religion.
Questions about belief in an afterlife. Questions about the many world's
interpretation of quantum dynamics. Questions about technology. Questions about
literature, film, TV and music. Questions about crop rotation, organic and
sustainable farming, and chemical pesticides. Questions about irrigation and
agriculture. Questions about reproductive rights. Questions about justice and
the criminal prosecution system. Questions about punishment. Questions about
the death penalty. Questions about the elderly. Questions about culinary
tastes. Questions about social structure and upwards mobility. Questions about
unemployment support and financial assistance for nascent artists. Questions
about adult literacy. Questions about animal welfare. Questions about meat
eaters, vegans, and vegetarianism. Questions about the countryside. Questions
about cities. Questions about megacities. Questions about the moon. Questions
about Mars and the outer planets. Questions about gynaecology. Questions about
murder. Questions about theft. Questions about guilt, regret, broken promises,
broken hearts, unfinished assignments, and unfulfilled dreams. Questions about
sleep patterns and recurrent themes when dreaming. Questions about colours,
flowers, fragrances, and scents. Questions about alcohol; wine, beer, and
spirits. Questions about drugs; opiate, synthetic, and weed. Questions about
interest rates and the borrowing rate. Questions about reparations for crimes
committed by historic regimes. Questions about disaster preparedness and
prevention. Questions about the nature of reality. Questions about zombie
apocalypse. Questions about precious metals and stones. Questions about language,
spelling and usage. Questions about pornography. Questions about advertising. Questions
about tattoos, piercings, and genital mutilation. Questions about individualism
versus interdependedness. Questions about fight or flight. Questions about
flight versus the hyperloop. Questions about her expectations for life. Questions
about her personal ambitions. Questions about her career aspirations. Questions
about her idea of perfection. Questions about utopia. Questions about nirvana. Questions
about hell. Questions about redemption and self-judgement. Questions about
being a responsible a citizen. Questions about answers given in answer to
questions asked in earlier sessions. Follow up questions about answers given in
answer to questions asked about answers given in answer to questions asked in
earlier sessions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For days it went on like this. Weeks it seemed. How long,
she never knew. Even when they told her. Even later, when she could work it out
for herself, it still seemed unreal. There were no windows. No clocks. Even in
the canteen. Even when they guided her to the banks of cots where Attendees
fell exhausted into instant sleep.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(and even here the
questions followed them, like a continually moving panorama burned onto the
back of the retina from a day spent in continuous travel - questions about the
borrowing rate of child poverty, questions about mauve repatriation to
u-taupia, questions about the way to west a wren with wrath).</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Questions about love. Questions about hatred. Questions
about recycling. Questions about dairy products. Questions about the virtual
word. Questions about imaginary numbers. Questions about printed media.
Questions about IVF. Questions about adoption. Questions about mega
corporations. Questions about self-sacrifice. Questions about suicide. Questions
about guns. Questions about the famous. Questions about passive consumption.
Questions about the Undead. Questions about fascism. Questions about communism.
Questions about socialism. Questions about capitalism. Questions about
anarchism. Questions about Existentialism. Questions about Platonism. Questions
about freedom of choice. Questions about equality of choice. Questions about
social justice. Questions about slavery. Questions about madness. Questions
about eternity. Questions about the abyss. Questions about the past. Questions
about the future.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Finally Ms Meagher, we come to the final question that
I have for you for now." She nodded out of relief and that he'd finally got
her name right. "What do you know of what's gone on here? What do you know
of what this is about?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Is that not two questions?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"No, it's the same question stated in two different
ways." He leant back in his chair. "Still not bowed. I said we'd have
fun. No come. What's this all about?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She thought for a moment. "It's preparing us for good
citizenship."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Good. Go on."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"You test us to see what we like and what we believe in
and then you feed that into the cloud and the cloud makes decisions about
what's best for the country based on the average of whatever everyone
says."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It's a little more sophisticated than that, but yes. Once
upon a time important decisions were left to what were called 'Elected
Representatives'. These Elective Representatives were elected to represent
communities, often tens of thousands at a time, and to vote on important
matters at a centralised location on behalf of those people."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"But how could one person accurately reflect the wishes
and beliefs of so many people?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"They couldn't. The system was open to mass
manipulation and corruption and the majority of elected representatives behaved
in exactly the way in which we now know human beings are programmed to
behave."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"You mean they abandoned the communities wishes in
favour of their own desires?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Often exploiting the people they were meant to be
representing as they did so, yes."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"What changed?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"The cloud. The cloud brought stability, after many a
shaky start. Elected representatives became obsolete once human beings could
transmit their every thought and opinion to the entire solar system in real
time at the speed of light. Earlier versions of Nephocracy (from the Greek,
meaning to rule through the cloud) were stormy. Decisions then were made based
on opinion on social media. The result was pandemonium, and led to at least one
gruesome incident where three men were found guilty and publically executed for the
crime of being what were back then known as 'Hipsters'."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"I've seen people cloud that they used to have
organised groups back then."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"You mean political parties. Yes, well they were a very backward
people. Not nearly as independently minded as today's population. Which is why
the present system was devised. Shortly before a person's 18th birthday they
are brought in for Interrogation and subjected to rigorous questioning in order
to build up a 4-d map of their life choices and moral centres. This is added to
the Wise Owd Cloud, the central map of all preferences across the system, and
it is this master brain that ultimately regulates everything that we do today.
It has maintained stability for more than two centuries, granting freedom of
equality and choice to all, whilst being able to accommodate, facilitate even,
most life choices that don't actively involve harm to others."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"But surely my opinions and interests will
change?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Which is why everyone is retested every nine years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"What if my ideas change so radically that I want to be
retested right away?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"You can request a retest at any time."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"And you'll grant that request?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It shouldn't present a problem. Retests are common.
It's only the vexatious retesters that we have to turn away."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"What if my ideas are subversive?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Subversive? I don't understand. If your ideas are out
of step with the general consensus, they will be too ineffectual to alter very
much. And if they're in step with the general consensus then they can't be
subversive now, can they?"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"No."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"I wouldn't worry. It'll take a few days to get the
results back, but you seem like a good person. Not everyone is so
conscientious; another reason why we drag people in here for days at a time. To
show and remind them that there is quite a bit of the universe that doesn't revolve
around them. That actually water doesn't just fall out of the sky, or spaceships
just rise into the air. Our decentralised society didn't just happen. No one
individual is more important than any other, but it couldn't operate without
those individuals having some sense of the whole and finding their place within
it."</div>
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"So the Wise Owd Cloud is not all."</div>
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"Even the most perfect instrument can only enhance
life, not replace it. All the Wise Owd Cloud can do is store your beliefs and
choices to allow you to travel away from them. It does not abnegate personal
responsibility. It is not a short cut to intellectual enlightenment. All it
really does is tell the Wise Owd Crowd what actions need to be taken to clear a
path for your particular world line to move forwards unobstructed. The rest is
up to you."</div>
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She nodded. "What next?"</div>
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"You go home and get some rest. In a few days the
results will come back and we'll be in touch to make a follow-up appointment to
come in and review the results and see if there's anything with which you
disagree."</div>
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<br /></div>
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"Will it be you reviewing the results?"</div>
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<br /></div>
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"It will."</div>
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"And then I'll be a full citizen?"</div>
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"You will. With all of the rights, responsibilities and
privileges to match." The possibilities were endless. "I'd bring a
night bag. There's still a bit to go, but we're through the worst of it. And
first time is almost always the longest session. Ms Levoulle will show you out.
Oh, and Happy Birthday." </div>
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<br /></div>
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Red shoes and ankle bracelet seemed a lifetime ago from
first crossing these corridors. Personal items returned in a brown legal
envelope. Harsh sunlight. The first in eons. A towering city skyline slowly
resolving into outline. The sheer enormity and complexity of it all. She rolled
the Aye-Budd slowly between finger and thumb, delaying its reattachment to her
cornea for an instant or an eternity as she relished the sound of a single
voice inside her head.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Then with barely a conscious thought it was done and her
left eye felt heavy under the extra weight. She held her breath for a moment, then
closed hers eyes and looked hard down to the left. A shudder in her skull told her
the Aye-Budd was resetting itself. It told her to wait. She waited.</div>
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Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-25081436513030781872018-09-27T12:25:00.000+01:002018-09-27T12:26:02.180+01:00Je Dirai Enfin Par Votre Bouche - Existentialist Visions of Hell, Redemption, and Self-Possession in Albert Camus's La Chute (The Fall)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"Avez-vous
remarqué que les canaux concentriques d'Amsterdam resembient aux cercles de
l'enfer?<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[1]</span></b></span></span></span></a>"
</i>(Have you noticed that the concentric canals of Amsterdam resemble the
circles of Hell?)<br />
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[Warning: Contains spoilers and references to self-harm.
Read-on at your own discretion.]</div>
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Albert Camus's 1956 novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[2]</span></b></span></span></span></a></i>, is an attempt to
weave into a narrative structure the ideas and opinions of the French
Existentialist movement. How well does it succeed in this attempt?</div>
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In order to begin, we must expand our definition. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> is better described as an
attempt to overlay the ideas and opinions of the French Existentialist movement
upon the general landscape of Dante's Inferno. The present-day action takes
place in Amsterdam, which here serves as a metaphor for the Inferno in three
distinct ways. The nested horseshoes of concentric canals encircling the centre
of Amsterdam represent the nine concentric circles that shape Dante's vision of
the underworld. Amsterdam can hardly be said to have the climate or average
annual temperature commensurate to being an apt stand-in for Hell. Yet Amsterdam
also represents a specific location within the Inferno:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"Ici, nous sommes
dans le dernier cercle. Le cercle de... Ah! Vous savez cela? Diable<sup>3</sup>,
vous devenez plus difficile à classer."</i> (Here we are in the final
circle. The circle of... Ah! You know that. Damm it<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a>,
you become harder to classify.)</div>
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The ninth and final circle of Dante's Inferno is the circle
of traitors. Frozen to his waist at its centre is Satan, the ultimate traitor
in Christian mythology. His wings beat the air in torment, chilling the air
about them, turning the River Cocytus to ice and leaving him trapped, together
with all the other traitors to their kindred, country, guests, and lord that
inhabit the ninth circle. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In the eight circles above, everything is as hot, humid, and
hellish as popular culture tends to conjure in its collective imagination. The
ninth circle is Hell's dungeon; the place where are kept all those so beyond
hope or redemption that they aren't actively tortured. Rather their souls are encased
in the ice at varying levels of immobility and ignored. Virgil and Dante can discern
little more than vague shapes in the ice as they pass that way. They move on
down the legs of Satan and up onto the island of Purgatory.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Amsterdam, with its temperate climate, situated on the coast
of the North Sea, is an effective substitute for the cold of the ninth circle. Snow
is falling in the final chapter of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La
Chute</i> and settling on the "dark jade canals" and the 'little
snow-covered bridges". Our narrator idly speculates about second chances
and jumping into the water to save another soul. This would leave him trapped in
the icing over canal, like those frozen in the ninth circle. He goes back to
bed.</div>
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As with the ninth Circle, the characters of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> are anonymous and go unheard
and unseen. The novel's only voice is its narrator, one Jean-Baptiste Clamence.
Even this, he tells us, is not his real name. Clamence's narrative is told to
another man, principally in a bar near the red light district of Amsterdam. All
that we know of this other person's contribution to the conversation is in the
phrases that Clamence echoes back at him ("You are in business, no doubt?
In a way? Excellent reply! Judicious too."). The true nature of this
second presence is obscured until the novel's final page. </div>
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The third and final way in which Amsterdam serves as Hell in
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> is as a personal Hell for Jean-Baptiste
Clamence. At the centre of Clamence's narrative is his confession and profound
regret for a transgression committed when he was younger. For this he cannot
forgive himself, and for which he condemns himself to self-exile as a result.</div>
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Clamence had years before been a lawyer in Paris. One night,
crossing a bridge in the early hours of the morning, he passed the figure of a
woman contemplating the river from the middle of the bridge. He carried on to
the other side, but hadn't gone far down the bank when he heard a splash. This
splash was quickly followed by a scream. Clamence surmised that the woman had
jumped into the Seine to end her life, but changed her mind once in the river. He
had a second in which to take action and jump in and save her. He remained
frozen on the bank. The screams subsided. He carried on walking.</div>
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As Clamence tells it, the incident fades from his mind until
one night, crossing a different bridge in Paris, he hears a laugh that seems to
come from someone on the river, moving along its waters. The laugh haunts him,
as the facade of respectability of his life as a lawyer begins to unravel, like
Nekhlyudov in Tolstoy's Resurrection, faced as a magistrate with the woman he'd
condemned to prostitution by getting her pregnant and dismissed as a maid in the
household of a family friend. In failing to jump into the river and save her,
Clamence wonders what shame caused this woman to take her own life. He comes to
see himself as the last in a long line of men to have failed her. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Nekhlyudov sells his possessions and retreats from
respectable society, as Tolstoy himself did (Resurrection was Tolstoy's final
novel). Clamence closes his practice in Paris, and drifts by accident and by design
to places and situations that represent variations on the upper circles of Hell,
including their infernal heat. He is interned in a North African Prisoner of
War camp during the Second World War. He climbs the active volcano, Mount Etna,
on the Island of Sicily, to look into the heart of the volcano. He travels
around the Greek archipelago, where myths of the underworld were first written down,
becoming the bedrock for western literature for the next two and half thousand
years. </div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"[L]e hasard, la
commodité, l'ironie, et la nécessité aussi d'une certaine mortification, m'ont
fait choisir une capital d'eaux et de brume, corsetée de canaux,
particuliérement encombrée, et visitée par des hommes venus de monde entier."</i>
(Chance, convenience, irony, and also the need for a certain mortification,
made me chose a capital of water and fog, corseted by canals, particularly
crowded, and visited by men from all over the world.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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In moving to Amsterdam, Jean-Baptiste Clamence finds the
ultimate representation of personal Hell, like Room 101 in Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four, laid out across a city. Not only do the concentric canals and
climate of Amsterdam suggest the ninth circle of Hell, but with its innumerable
bridges, Amsterdam is shaped to remind Clamence of his failure in Paris any
time he wishes to travel across the city centre. To cross Amsterdam is to pay a
heavy psychological toll for his sins: So heavy that Clamence will not cross a
bridge after dark. </div>
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The dystopia of Hell is reflected in other ways within <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i>. Clamence draws his companion's
attention to the premises of a former Amsterdam slave trader, complete with
African heads carved into the woodwork. The bar in which much of the action
takes places is called Mexico-City. Its name recalls the Aztecs and their
ritual blood sacrifices on the killing floor. The bar itself is situated in the
old Jewish Quarter that existed before the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the
Nazis during the Second World War, and the deportation of its inhabitants to
the Hell-on-Earth that awaited them at Auschwitz, Belsen<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a>,
and Sobibor<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a>. </div>
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Dante also makes a personal appearance in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i>:</div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"Connaissez-vous
Dante? Vraiment? Diable. Vous savez donc que Dante admet des anges neutral dans
le querelle entre Dieu et Satan. Et il les place dans les Limbes, une sorte a
vestibule de son enfer."</i> (Do you know Dante? Really? Dammit. Then you
know that Dante admits there were neutral angels in the war between God and
Satan. And he places them in Limbo, a sort of vestibule in his Inferno.)</div>
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Here Camus, or Clamence, misspeaks. The Vestibule and Limbo
are very different places in Dante's Inferno, lying on opposite sides of the
River Acheron. Limbo is the first circle of the Inferno, where reside all the
virtuous pagan souls that existed before Christ and were therefore denied the opportunity
to convert to Christianity and be saved. The Vestibule, where we find the
neutral angels, is an anti-circle of hell, encountered before Charon and his
riverboat across the Acheron and into the Inferno proper.</div>
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The name Jean-Baptiste Clamence warrants examination. At
face value, the name is a play on John the Baptist, the pre-cursor to Christ in
Christian mythology. As John the Baptist carried out baptisms in the River
Jordan, Jean-Baptiste Clamence hears confessions near the River Amstel.
Clamence describes himself as a judge-penitent; a title of his own invention. His
method is to befriend the respectable men who come looking for the seedier
parts of Amsterdam. Then he compels them to confess their sins to him by going
through the charade of confessing his own sin, as if for the first time:</div>
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[J]e me tiens devant l'humanitié entiére, récapitulant mes
hontes, sans perdre de vue l'effect que je produis, et dissant: « J'étais le
dernier des derniers. » Alors, insensiblement je passe , dans mon discours, du
« je » au « nous ». Quand j'arrive au « voilà ce que nous sommes », le tour est
joué, je peux leur de leurs véritiés. (I stand before all of humanity,
recapitulating my shames, without losing sight of the effect that I produce, and
say: "I am the lowest of the low," Then brusquely I move from
"I" to "We". When I get to: "This is what we are."
the game is over and I can tell them some home truths.)</div>
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As well as allusions to John the Baptist, the name
Jean-Baptiste Clamence has more than a whiff of sulphur surrounding it. The
initials J.B.C. could be read to spell out some variation on Jesus Bleeding
Christ, or Jesus Bloody Christ<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a>.
The blasphemy inherent in this combination of words and letters once again
suggests the pit, and the inversion of a black mass, twisting Christ into the
Antichrist. During his time in the internment camp, Clamence's fellow prisoners
elect him a kind of mock Pope. The protestant reformer, Martin Luther,
considered Pope Leo X to be the Antichrist, as did Protestants for centuries
after Luther's death. Jean-Baptiste Clamence is as much Mephistopheles as he is
John the Baptist. Clamence collects confessions as Mephistopheles is said to
collect souls. Nightly, Clamence has his fill from the inexhaustible supply of budding
Fausts waiting to be consumed before the bar of Mexico-City. </div>
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What does any of this have to do with Existentialism?</div>
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The origins of the Existentialist movement can be traced to
the writings of the Danish philosopher, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a>.
As noted in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy: </div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"Kierkegaard
rejected the claim, which he took (perhaps unfairly) to be Hegel's<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[8]</span></b></span></span></span></a>,
that we can look forward to a time when the different interests and concerns of
people can be satisfied through their comprehension within an all-embracing
objective understanding of the universe.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[9]</span></b></span></span></span></a>"</i></div>
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Whoever developed the idea, it stated that there will come a
time when individual intelligence and intellectual thought have reached such a
level of refinement and subtlety that all people will think in the same way and
come to the same conclusions. Everyone will work towards the same goals and
follow one path, once they realise what the right path is.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kierkegaard rebuts this by noting that individual concern
will always be the overriding emotion in sentient beings. It might be possible,
through a high level of education and training, for everyone to see their place
within society (and the universe), and act according to some perceived norm, or
within society's agreed limits. Yet self is always nearer than society: Inner
thoughts always closer than the instruction of peer pressure or billboard
advertising. As such, human beings, and by extension human society, will never
achieve a level of equilibrium in thought or in desire. Hegel's idea of
'absolute consciousness' is unattainable in the real world, except through the liberal
use of eugenics, gulags, and concentration camps. </div>
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Kierkegaard's objection to Hegel, however, is religious
rather than metaphysical. Kierkegaard believes that true objectivity can only
be obtained through infinite subjectivity, the ability to see every individual
viewpoint simultaneously. The only entity capable of infinite subjectivity
would be God, by virtue of his being omnipresent, and therefore everywhere at
once. Kierkegaard's objection is not that absolute consciousness is
unobtainable, but that it is only knowable to God.</div>
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The true father of Existentialism is generally held to be
the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>,
with Kierkegaard considered its principal Godfather<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a>.
However, Heidegger's is a metaphysical Existentialism, largely dealing with
existing consciousness as an abstract concept. Heidegger has little advice on
the moral or ethical implications arising from Existentialist thought and its
consequences. The work moulding metaphysical Existentialism into an ethical
Existentialism would largely be conducted in France during the 1930s and 1940s.
Heidegger may have been its progenitor, but one philosopher contributed more to
the sum of Existentialist thought than any other: Jean-Paul Sartre.</div>
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Jean-Paul Sartre<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a>
is to Existentialism what Karl Mark<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a>
is to Communism. While Karl Mark did not invent Communism, he did with Capital
(1867), and The Communist Manifesto (1848 - co-written with Friedrich Engels)
contribute more to Communist thought, and have a farther reaching influence,
than any other Communist writer. Sartre's influence is not to the same
magnitude as Marx, but Sartre can likewise claim to have written
Existentialism's two most important treatises: L'Etre et le Neant (Being and
Nothingness: 1943), and L'existentialisme et un humanisme (Existentialism is
Humanism: 1946). For the purposes of the current thesis, we will concentrate on
the latter work.</div>
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L'existentialisme et un humanisme is based on a lecture Sartre
gave at the Club Maintenant, Paris in the months following the conclusion of
the Second World War<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[14]</span></span></span></span></a>.
Sartre posits an ethical Existentialism by drawing a line between two kinds of
Existentialists: Christian Existentialists (existentialistes chrétiens) and
Atheist Existentialists (existentialistes athécs). The difference between the
two essentially comes down to a belief in which came first: existence
(l'existence) or essence (l'essence). Do we come into this life with our
personality already decided upon and preloaded into the frontal lobe? Or are
personality and personal preference something that only emerge after we come
into being? It's a variation on the nature versus nurture debate. Is who we are
pre-existing, or is our essence shaped by the influence of circumstance and
environment?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The prosaic answer to the question is probably a combination
of the two. The work done on genetics in the seventy or more years since
L'existentialisme et un humanisme was published has revealed certain traits
that we find encoded in our genetic code. These traits set our susceptibility
to particular hereditary diseases, and determine our hair and eye colour and
sexual preference, amongst other things. Yet this is a small part of the
picture. Genetics set sexuality, yet everything else is a free choice and open
to individual interpretation. A person may be born pre-programmed to be a certain
sexuality, but how that sexuality manifests itself and the types of people that
that individual will be attracted to is determined by everything else that
happens to them after their birth. Genetics can only set the starting
conditions for how a person's life might proceed. Until that protean essence comes
into existence, we can no more pre-determine the outcome than we can predict the
path and position of a single elementary particle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">existentialiste
athéc</i>, Sartre is firmly of the belief that existence precedes essence. He
goes to the trouble of rejecting the existence of God, but notes that belief in
a deity is not an answer or panacea to life's ills, as life seems to proceed
whether one believes in a god or not, with all the same risks of famine, disease,
and war. Those who hold to a particular faith get hit by cars and throw
themselves from bridges just the same as those who hold to no faith at all.
Sartre posits that by rejecting the existence or influence of God, all that
remains is oneself and one's actions. These are the only things for which or to
whom an individual can be held responsible ("je suis responsable pour
moi-méme et pour tous..."). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moreover, by rejecting the control of any greater power,
whether it be God, communism, or societal pressure to conform to a restrictive
role in society, we wrestle back control over our life choices. If one believes
that one's path in life is hindered by immigrants, or shadowy world cabals,
then one's path is unlikely to change, as immigration and global politics (real
and imagined) are beyond the range of most people's influence. It is possible
to advise others; nurture them; force our will upon them even, but the
rationalisation to act or not to act is an internal process and it can only be
affected by external influences up to a point. If one is restricted to blaming
others for past mistakes, there is little one can do to redress those mistakes
for the future. If, on the other hand, one takes ownership of past personal
mistakes and takes steps to redress them and prevent such errors occurring in
the future, then progress is made by the mere action. You can't change other
people. You can only change yourself. And this brings us back to Jean-Baptiste
Clamence and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the moment of his paralysis by the riverbank, Clamence
becomes Jean Paul Sartre's concept of existentialism made narrative flesh. Clamence
is a man alone, free from God (for whom he does not expresses a preference), or
the judgement of others. The decision to act or not to is his to make alone. He
cannot externalise the responsibility to anyone else. As Dante serves as an
avatar for all such pilgrims who make the journey towards Christian redemption,
so Clamence is an avatar for the existentialist faced with total autonomy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clamence would appear to be the classic model of an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">existentialiste athéc</i>. He tells no one else
of what happened (not until the confessionals of his later years). He takes no steps
to ascertain if the woman survived, or her body was found. For a time he
forgets the incident, but when the memory returns, Clamence arranges his own series
of punishments. He seeks to blames no one else for his lack of activity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clamence does not offer an explanation for his inaction. Perhaps
it is a variation on the bystander effect, where large groups of people will
stand and watch a violent assault, because the presence of others leads
individuals to assume that someone else will step in. The more people that are
present, the less likely it is that any one person will take charge. As a
lawyer, Clamence will have spent a good part of his life receiving training and
instruction from others, as well as falling into their bad habits and
practices, which is the inevitable consequence of working in any profession of
high institutionalisation. In that instant at the riverbank, Clamence is the
king of his own domain, with power of life and death over this one person. Yet
autonomy is a concept so alien to most people that Clamence baulks at the
responsibility. No one else is compelling him to act through instruction, or
the simple fear of being thought a coward by society, and so he takes no
action. He condemns two people to their fate in doing so. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Considered in reference to its associations with Existentialism,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> is a work of tragedy. Sartre
notes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L'existentialisme et un
humanisme</i> that when faced with two choices, both of which are equally
unpleasant, or have unfortunate consequences, there is no right or wrong
answer:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"La seule chose
qui compte, c'est de savoir si l'invention qui se fait, se fait au nom de la
liberté."</i> (The only thing that counts is knowing if the invention one
makes is made in the name of liberty.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tragedy in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La
Chute </i>comes not from Clamence's lack of action at the riverbank, but his
reaction to his inaction. Clamence embraces the basics of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">existentialisme athéc</i> by accepting responsibility for what happened
and seeking personal penitence for his transgression. Yet the function of
punishment is to force the individual to accept the consequences of their
actions to reduce the risk of similar bad behaviour occurring in the future.
Once the individual has accepted responsibility for their actions, and
demonstrated sufficient remorse to the point where the probability of reoccurrence
is negligible, punishment moves on to rehabilitation. Clamence cannot give a
repeat performance of his act of cowardice, because he refuses to be placed in
that situation again by his prohibition on crossing water after dark, so in one
sense the chances of recidivism are slim. Yet this further cowardice only
compounds on the original act of treachery towards a fellow human being in
need. Clamence is sorry in thought, but not in action. This prevents him from
moving on from the punishment stage. He remains trapped in a cycle of
self-recrimination: An <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">existentialiste
athéc </i>manifestation of hell.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clamence's remorse is manifest, yet he shows little interest
in redemption, unless in his acts of self-confession and contrition at Mexico-City.
His refusal to cross a bridge after dark demonstrates the extent to which the
event has marked and weakened him for evermore. By hanging around notorious
suicide spots and rescuing from the waters the next person that requested help,
Clamence would wipe away his guilt at a stroke. Further acts of kindness could
rescue something worthwhile from a scene of tragic self-destruction. France had
two volunteer lifeboat services at the time: Société Centrale de Sauvetage des
Naufragés, and Hospitaliers Sauveteurs Bretons<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[15]</span></span></span></span></a>.
Another path to redemption. Yet Clamence will not even visit the scene of his
perceived crime, only ossify in regret at its borders. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dante's journey leads away from the ninth circle, towards
the ascension of the island of Purgatory and his emersion in the River Lethe,
which unaccountably flows out of the Garden of Eden<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[16]</span></span></span></span></a>,
and whose waters wash away the memory of sin from all penitent souls that pass
through their flow. Clamence stagnates, despite having less reason than anyone
in the Inferno to remain there. It is a free choice, but it's hardly a constructive
choice. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is also the question of the woman on the bridge. What
about her free choices? We can of course never know what circumstances
motivated her to jump into the River Seine. Had she, as Clamence believes, been
ruined by a man, or ruined rather by her own malfunctioning psyche? Is she
Ophelia, compelled to drown herself by the actions of some rash Hamlet, or like
Virginia Woolf driven to desperation by mental illness and the impact she
thought she was having upon her loved ones:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">"I
feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those
terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I
can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have
given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that
anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this
terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your
life, that without me you could work. And you will I know."</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clamence demonstrates a certain chauvinism by assuming the
woman can only have taken her life through the actions of a man. Virginia Woolf
had died fifteen years before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i>
was published. Albert Camus had written his treatise on suicide, The Myth of
Sisyphus, only a year later in 1942. "There is but one truly serious
philosophical problem," Camus writes, "and that is suicide. Judging
whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental
question of philosophy." It could also be argued that suicide is
Existentialism taken to its extreme, where the individual assumes
responsibility for the their own termination. Although like the choices of
Jean-Baptiste Clamence, it hardly demonstrates Existentialism at its most
positive or proactive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Resurrection, Nekhlyudov is directly and actively
responsible for the destitution of the woman who comes before him as a
magistrate. Clamence, on the other hand, is a victim of chance. Ten minutes
later and he would have had no knowledge of the existence of the woman on the
bridge. He had no hand in her downfall and didn't compel her to jump. Yet he
carries the weight of her action for the rest of his life. Like Satan, if he
only stopped struggling for one moment and recognised that his own actions are
what's keeping him imprisoned, he might break free. If Satan stopped flapping
his wings, the ambient temperature from the circles above the ninth would melt
the River Cocytus beneath him<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a>.
If Clamence would only cross one bridge after dark, it would negate the need to
cross so many during the day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One answer to why Clamence proceeds as he does might be
found in the personal life of Albert Camus. It is known that Camus's second wife,
Francine Faure, on at least two occasions jumped from the upper floor of buildings,
including the second floor of the psychiatric hospital in which she was being
treated for depression. These might have been suicide attempts, and Faure's
state is likely to have been exacerbated by Camus's various affairs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We can therefore read Clamence as Camus, and the woman on
the bridge as Francine. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> is
Camus's partially veiled confession. It is also an act of scapegoating by
conjuration. Camus conjures Jean-Baptiste Clamence, attaches his sins to the
judge-penitent, and condemns him to eternal damnation. Camus, meanwhile, continued
with his life. Francine forgave him, and the couple are buried together in the
south of France. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whether or not one considers its methods wholesome, one
can't deny fiction writing as a prime example of the industry of Existentialism.
Some people blame others for their mistakes. Writers take their mistakes and
turn them into literature, and cautionary tales for the instruction of others.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clamence wants to be punished. In the final chapter his
companion visits him at home, where he is laid up in bed. In his bedroom is
displayed The Just Judges, a panel from a larger work painted by Hubert Van
Eyck, in real life stolen from Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium in 1934.
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> it has been displayed at
Mexico-City, but Clamence has taken it home and is telling all and sundry that
he is in possession of the painting in the hope of being arrested for its
theft. There is a suspicion in the final chapter that Clamence is near the end
of his life and is desperate for some real world punishment because he does not
believe in anything after death. Perhaps this explains the true nature of the
companion to whom Clamence has been speaking all this time:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"Ne sommes-nous
pas tous semblables, parlant sans tréve et à personne... Alors, racontez-moi,
je vous prie, ce qui vous est arrivé un soir sur les quais de la Seine et
comment vous avez réussi à ne jamais risquer votre vie. Prononcez vous-meme les
mots qui, depus de années, n'ont cessé de rentir dans mes nuits, et que <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">je dirai enfin par votre bouche</b>: O
jeune fille, jette-toi encore dans l'eau pour que j'aie une seconde fois la
chance de nous sauver tous les deux."</i> (Are we not the same? Always
talking, and to no-one... Then tell me, please, is it you that arrived one
night at the Seine, and how you managed to never risk your life? I say now the
words that throughout the years have not ceased echoing in my nights and that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I say at last through your mouth</b>: O
young women, throw yourself into the water one more time that I might have a
second chance to save us both.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the book's final moments, Clamence is revealed to be
talking to himself. Whether through idle day dream or hallucination, the person
to whom Jean-Baptiste Clamence tells his confession is the younger
Jean-Baptiste Clamence. Curiously, from the text quoted above, Clamence would
appear to be speaking to a postlapsarian version of himself; one who also
failed to prevent the women's fall. He also regrets his lack of action and
repeats the mantra to second chances. The only difference it seems is that the
mature Clamence has ceased to believe in second chances, despite the words still
echoing through his nights. A regret, which, as discussed, could easily be
remedied by facing the scene of his failure on any bridge after dark. To the
bitter end, he obstinately refuses the call:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Supposez, cher maitre, qu'on nous prenne au mot? Il
faudrait s'exécuter. Brr...! l'eau est si froide." (Suppose, dear friend,
that someone took us at our word. It would have to be carried out. Brr...! The
water is so cold.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Albert Camus's 1956 novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i>, is an attempt to weave into a narrative structure the
ideas and opinions of the French Existentialist movement. How well does it
succeed in this attempt?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The character of Jean-Baptiste Clamence embodies and
embraces many of the elements of Existentialism. However, he is a man caught
between two camps. He adopts total autonomy for his failure to act at the
riverbank, rather than report the incident to the police, or confess and seek
forgiveness from a priest. Yet in deciding his own punishment, Clamence falls
back on Christian ideas of punishment imposed punitively for disobedience, and as
a deterrent to others who wish to challenge the current order. In the end he
embraces the worst from both camps, and becomes neither existentialiste
chrétien, or existentialiste athéc, but existentialiste tragique. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As well as perhaps being Camus's confession and act of
penitence for the impact that his infidelities had upon Francine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> is a cautionary tale on the
dangers of living in the past. For one moment of inaction, Clamence lives a
lifetime of regret. He could, as discussed, look to mitigate the guilt he feels
by putting himself in a position where he can help others. He is stuck, fixated
on that one moment in time. So much so that he wishes or prays through all the
nights of his life for a chance to travel back and save the woman on the
bridge. It is a vicious circle, or time loop, both of which have become staple narrative
devices when referencing the Inferno since the death of Dante in 1321<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clamence is an existentialiste tragique by stagnating in the
failures of the past, rather than seeking to learn from those mistakes. His
attitude towards women develops into something healthier than that of his
prelapsarian state, but he also gives up his practice in Paris, which he says
specialised in securing monies from estates for the widows and orphans of the
deceased intestate. One admires the partial progress Clamence makes in his
attitudes, but it only serves to underpin the tragedy of his character. For all
his hellish associations, perhaps it is the younger, not older, Clamence who is
Mephistopheles here, come to collect his own aged soul. Or like Virgil, come to
lead the dying Clamence down into the Inferno. In his imagined conversations with
his younger self, Clamence to the last embodies the essence of the
Existentialist struggling for their autonomy, principally concerned with
moderating their own actions. The tragedy is in how Clamence handles his
autonomy, and how he burdens himself with the responsibility for the autonomy
of a stranger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jean-Paul Sartre was Existentialism's last great
contributor, although a clutch of French philosophers that came after Sartre,
including Jacques Derrida and Michael Foucaut, could be considered
post-existentialists, like the post-punk bands that emerged out of the wreckage
of punk<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a>
in the late 1970s. And yet, Existentialism, particularly Sartre's model, has
plenty to recommend it, especially in these days of increasing secularism, and
the rising popularity of social media, and the echo chambers of thought and
opinion that they create. Where we once lived in societies where we were forced
to believe in a single truth that benefited a handful of people, increasingly
we come to see our single truth, the one which places us at the centre of the
universe, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as the only truth allowable,
and waste time and energy trying to impose that truth on total strangers in 280
characters or less. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Existentialism speaks to this. We are each one of seven
billion solutions that the planet Earth has found to the problem of
consciousness. We are ultimately only responsible to and for ourselves. If we
behaved in exactly the same manner as anyone else, we would be failing in the
one purpose for which we were created: to be unique. Some of those unique
solutions, of course, malfunction so that they are a danger to others or to
themselves. This is where society has (or should have) institutions in place to
provide remedy or to impose sanction. Individuals have a say in how these are
administered, but apart from a handful of people in positions of high power or super
celebrity, few people's influence extends far beyond the borders of their own fragile
bodies, or short time upon this planet. People seek to interfere in the lives
of others, or simply to find someone else to blame for every misfortune that
befalls them. Ironically, if we paid less attention to other people's failings,
and concentrated more on identifying and fixing our own, we might gain greater
influence beyond our borders. Then the outdated ideas, industries, and
institutions on which much of modern society is still based might give way to
something more beneficial and flexible to the general health of all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We live in an increasingly decentralised world: Facebook,
Instagram,and Twitter are as much nation states as France, India, or Taiwan,
only financed by advertising revenue instead of taxation. Much of our
infrastructure is still highly centralised, the system of elected
representation perhaps the most egregious relic in an age when it is possible
to see and speak to someone on the other side of the world as if they were in
the next room. It should no longer be necessary for 600 or so individuals to
represent and vote on behalf of 6 million people, especially given the poor
record of elected representatives in accurately representing the wishes of the
electorate. Those 6 million people, the ones considered capable at the very least,
should by this stage in our technological evolution be able to vote for
themselves on matters before parliament, either through casting their vote
directly through secure electronic means, or by having some kind of proxy in
place that automatically casts a ballot based on the voter's preferences. The
more individual preferences recorded for as many individuals as possible, the
better regulated might society become to the wishes and needs of its individual
citizens. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“If there were a nation of Gods," wrote Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, the grandfather of all French philosophy since the time of the revolution,
"it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not
suited to men.” The existentialiste athéc of Jean Paul Sartre rejects God in
favour of making the individual God of their own life, reality, and realm. True
democracy is still unobtainable for now, so long as people are bickering over
trivial matters in a million places on line, and women are compelled to write
and rewrite every social media post they make for fear that some male will pipe
in to offer his unsolicited advice. One day we might be ready, and humanity might
come to rule itself not through democracy, but nephocracy: rule by the cloud
(from nephos, the Greek word for cloud). It would require a society of
Existentialists to make it possible. Then might <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i> transcend its place as a novel to become a teaching aid
and cautionary tale on the dangers and pitfalls of autonomous self-control.
Atheist, Christian, or any other types of Existentialism would all be welcome,
so long as they were able to give a better account of themselves than the example
set by Jean-Baptiste Clamence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute </i>also
serves to remind us, like John Donne, that no one person is an island. We can
accept the mantle of Sartre's Existentialism to take responsibility for our
actions, but that is not the same as bearing the consequences of our actions
alone. Even a society of Existentialists is a society. You can't change others,
but neither can you move through life unaided. Society at its best spreads the
load, so that no one individual or group bears too much of the burden. In a top
down society, those on the bottom bear the load and so we see, as in Camus's
time, that there is a long way to go before we approach any kind of happy societal
medium that Existentialist thought might help to facilitate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Albert Camus's 1956 novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Chute</i>, is an attempt to weave into a narrative structure the
ideas and opinions of the French Existentialist movement. How well does it
succeed in this attempt?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Very nicely, thanks. Devilishly clever, one might say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Et quand ils ont bien bu</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Se plantent le nez au ciel</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Se mouchent dans les étoiles</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Et ils pissent comme je pleure</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sur les femmes infidèles</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dans le port d’Amsterdam,</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Dans le port d’Amsterdam<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">[20]</span></b></span></span></span></a></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSrSjWtsfBkt8B6uasTbjA87A8bhBTMrHaMRS8WtpTMIlYnRYizMzde_5gvDdqMStVifHVhTLXlgape39bQYeSNuhxMjdOQ8CgNX00yYqXDvbrYV4NoNz49LqpX67hjVQJqcZQvdyif8E/s1600/La+Chute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="971" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSrSjWtsfBkt8B6uasTbjA87A8bhBTMrHaMRS8WtpTMIlYnRYizMzde_5gvDdqMStVifHVhTLXlgape39bQYeSNuhxMjdOQ8CgNX00yYqXDvbrYV4NoNz49LqpX67hjVQJqcZQvdyif8E/s400/La+Chute.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>
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<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
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<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a> La
Chute, Albert Camus, Editions Gallimard, 1956</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
Published in English translation as The Fall (1957)</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a>
Which my Penguin Modern Classics version curiously translates as "By
Heaven." I am not enough well versed in French or French Algerian idiom to
know if it is a usual to use the Devil's name as a vocative or ejaculatory
expression, but at face value Camus uses Diable here as both a vernacular
expression of surprise and to redouble the hellish overtones. Heaven is nowhere
to be found.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a>
Most notably, Anne Frank.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a> https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005434</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a> As
B is the voiced counterpart to unvoiced P, and where C can be pronounced as a K
or an S, the initials JPS, signifying Jean Paul Sartre can also be seen.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a>
1813-1855</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a>
Georg Wilhelm Frederick Hegel (1770-1831)</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Ted Honderich (Editor), Oxford Universe
Press, 1995</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>
1889 - 1976</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a>
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) to a lesser extent is also considered a
Godfather of Existentialism.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a>
1905 - 1980</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a>
1818 - 1883</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[14]</span></span></span></span></a>
29 October 1945</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[15]</span></span></span></span></a>
They merged into Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer in 1967</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[16]</span></span></span></span></a>
Genesis cites four rivers flowing out of Eden: The Tigris, Euphrates, Gishon
and Pishon. </div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a>
There is something wonderfully Greek about Satan's predicament in the Inferno. One
finds much of Tantalus and Sisyphus in the punishment chosen for him.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a>
See the TV shows, Preacher and American Horror story, or James Joyce's Finnegans
Wake for variations on these techniques. Also, Groundhog Day, Doctor Who, Star
Trek or Stargate for variations on the basic theme.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn19" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Fall and Joy Division to Sartre's Clash. Heidegger would be Joey Ramone in
this analogy. Kierkegaard: MC5</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn20" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[20]</span></span></span></span></a> "And
when they are too drunk, They plant their noses to the sky. They blow their
noses in the stars. And they piss like I cry, On unfaithful women. In the port
of Amsterdam. In the port of Amsterdam." - Amsterdam, Jacques Brel</div>
</div>
</div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-8751677690857232762016-10-09T14:13:00.001+01:002016-10-09T14:13:30.879+01:00Solutions<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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"He not busy being born is busy dying."
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Bob
Dylan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is the plaintive cry of the cynical mind, "So what's
your solution then?" As all communication is an attempt at deception (at
least according to Jeff Winger - see <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/70155589">Community</a>), it's often
instructive to unpack the sense of what a person is really saying. "So
what's your solution then?" roughly translates as, "Well, I haven't
come up with any solutions, and as I can only filter the world through my own
reality and belief structures [see <a href="http://eponymistuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/polyphemus-myths-of-monomania.html">Polyphemus
and the Myths of Monomania</a>], I cannot conceive of anyone else coming up
with anything better than what we have now."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet there is very little that cannot be improved upon. In an
age when the turnover of technology is ever increasing, it's odd that we still
rely on systems that are centuries old. Tradition is a poor excuse. Tradition
is another way of saying that no-one's had a better idea in a while. A friend
of mine worked for a bank. When he threatened to report management to the
Employment Tribunal Service for bullying behaviour, he was told, "That's
the way we've always done things." Habitual poor behaviour leads to financial
meltdown. Insanity, as Einstein reminds us, is doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting different results.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Solutions are there to be had and more people should offer
suggestions, even if they are terrible. A properly functioning society should
work on the same principles as evolution. Myriad solutions are created for
problems that might occur in the future. The ones that are beneficial to the
changing environment thrive and go on to propagate. The ones that don't, die. I
present three solutions. Whether they are good, bad, or indifferent worm food,
only time will tell.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Taxation</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Taxation, as I'm sure most people will agree, is a mess.
It's meant to be that way. How else can companies like Amazon, Apple, and
Google get away with paying so little? My old socialist definition of
capitalism is the free-flow of wealth and resources from the most needy to the
most greedy, but in fairness, that only deals with the form of capitalism that
we have operated up to now. I often wonder how there can be poverty in a
capitalist society. After all, capital is in the name. If there are people
without capital in a capitalist society, hasn't capitalism failed in its one
and only aim? Fundamentalists wish to convert everyone to their way of looking
at the world, whether they be Marxist, Islamist, or Christian missionary. A
true capitalist would want everyone else to be rich.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a functioning capitalist society, taxation should be the
simplest thing in the world. Capitalism is entirely based on financial
transactions. Billions, if not trillions, take place every day. So that is what
is we charge. For every financial transaction that takes place, a small levy is
imposed by the government for the right to conduct that financial transaction within
its borders. The rate of the levy is fixed, non-negotiable, and the penalty for
defrauding the exchequer is severe. For the sake of consideration, let's set
this rate at 5%, although in practice it would probably be even lower.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The advantage to a system of levies against financial
transactions is that the larger an entity is, the more it pays as a result. An
individual may have a job, rent a home, run a car, raise a family, and all of
these circumstance require financial transactions to be made, which incur
levies. You will be charged when you get paid, when you place your pay in the
bank, and when you withdraw it once again. However, these charges will be still
be nominal compared to Income Tax and National Insurance deductions as they are
now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A small business requires stock, which increases the number
of financial transactions its owner has to make over an individual in order to
operate. As a result, the small business owner pays more in the way of levies,
which seems fair given that a business has a larger presence, and a larger
impact on the community than a typical nuclear family. A larger company requires
staff, which brings more revenue into the country's finances. A manufacturing
company requires raw materials, which require transportation, placing increased
strain upon infrastructure. However, this is offset by the additional contributions
made to the economy by the manufacturing company. Companies like Google and Apple
buy other companies. This can hardly be discouraged when it triggers such large
windfalls for the public purse.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is not an entirely new suggestion. However, the innovation
is to make the levy dual-user. For every financial transaction, there is a
seller and a buyer. Each participant in the transaction pays a separate levy, so
that even in international sales each home nation receives payment for its end
of the sale. More importantly, it is an effective way to track criminal
activity by creating a kind of financial quantum entanglement. For instance, a
person goes to a cash machine and withdraws £10. The customer is charged 50p
for the privilege, and a system records the receipt of payment, that the levy
was incurred for withdrawing £10 in the form of one £10 note, and the serial
number of that note.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The individual is now free to spend the £10 note as they
wish without any further charges being incurred. However this is a dual-user
levy, and the transaction is not regarded as concluded until the note has been
tracked to another location, where the other half of the levy is paid when a
sales is made. In the case of card transactions, both seller and buyer pay
their levy at the point of sale. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Crime hotspots, near a local drug dealer say, would show as
areas where money was being removed from local cash machines and not reappearing
anywhere else. At the very least it would require criminal organisations to
launder their money through legitimate companies, which would be required to
pay levies on everything being laundered. We may never be able to eradicate
crime entirely, but we can at least ensure that it contributes to the upkeep of
society the same as everyone else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Levies work because they're fairer and they're paid at
source, making them effectively invisible. We pay Value Added Tax (VAT) on most
commercial products in Britain, meaning that we barely notice it (unless you
smoke or drink spirits). Levies would be the same, except that they would be a
quarter of what VAT is now, applied to everything, and mandatory. No more tax
havens, or expense accounts that could win Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. What's
more, it would be popular, because the world is made up of individuals and
individuals pay the least under this scheme. Individuals also vote, unlike
corporations. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It will require new technology to track all these transactions,
but capitalism loves new markets in which to flog its latest flavour of magic
bean. They rolled out chip and pin and contactless in no time, so it isn't
beyond the realms of possibility to replace all taxation with dual-user levies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Politics</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“If there were a
nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect
is not suited to men.” So said Jean-Jacques Rousseau. All so-called democratic
countries are in point of fact systems of elective representation. Again, this
is a fine system in theory, but in practice it leaves corruption open to
fester. Refer to the antics up on Capitol Hill to see what happens when the
legislative branches of the greatest capitalist nation on Earth are left to
collapse under the weight of personal gain and self-interest. The rise of
Donald Trump gives rise to the very reasonable proposition that just because
anyone can become President, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone should be
allowed to become President.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two possibilities present themselves. One is to recognise
that if we are to have elected representatives, then we should regard the role
as we do any other position of responsibility in society. Not just anyone can
become a teacher, or a doctor, so why should just anyone be allowed to be a
politician? It should be a job that you have to study for, take a degree in
politics, go on to a undergraduate thesis in some area of politics or public
life, before serving in local government as a junior politician over a number
of years. The role of Member of Parliament should be reserved for those that are
the equivalent of a consultant in the medical profession, fellow of a Royal
College of Politicians. Ministers for Education, Health, the Armed Forces etc. would
have to have some form of specialty in those subjects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, the above course severely reduces the number of
people that could conceivably become politicians, which in and of itself might
not be a bad thing. You wouldn't let just anyone cut out your child's appendix,
so why should just anyone decide how much is to be spent on your child's
education over the course of their formative years? The other way is to do as
the Greeks did and return to a system of government by lottery. It would work
much the same as jury service, only for longer. People would be chosen to serve
in government by ballot. They would serve their time for a certain number of
years, after which they would be called before a committee and asked to justify
their actions during office. Any criminal behaviour would be punished. Good
service would be rewarded, with the chance to remain in a similar role for
another term, or serve in a more senior role. Ex-politicians would receive a
full salary for the equivalent time that they were in office and barred from
doing any other paid work during this time. This would severely curtail the
power of lobbyists.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps some happy medium would be more appropriate. In
Britain, England needs to have its own parliament the same as the other home
nations. Then England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales would have their own
elected representatives, and Westminster could become a true House of Commons
by electing its members by popular ballot. The House of Lords would be
abolished, and I suppose we could keep the Queen as a kind of appendix to the
body politic, although I've yet to hear one good reason why a head of state is
required at all, let alone who that head of state should be. The Greek's chose
a different person every day (although their society was also based on slavery,
I'm not saying their theories don't need some modification.). That said, the
Queen's never really impacted my life directly, despite being Queen my entire
life, so as far as unelected heads of state go, I suppose she's fairly benign. It
those further down the political food chain that are the real problem.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Cyberspace</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This one's more of a prediction, and relates to how we
access the internet/world wide web. When there are so many ways to watch or
access paid-for material for free these days, there's going to come a point
where web access will be treated like any other utility and its unit price
hiked. Most things beyond that point will be freely accessible, but the time
that you spend on a particular site will be deducted from the one-off or
monthly fee that you pay and given to the company or individual that runs the
site. It means, for instance, that if you spent an hour and a half watching a
film, ninety minutes worth of the fee you have been charged will be given to
the company that made the film, to be distributed among the other interested
parties.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This isn't necessarily a better system. Indeed, it is open
to all kinds of abuses, but I can see it being the model that large
corporations go for. If people are being charged a flat rate for access anyway,
they are more likely to go to an approved site than a site hosting pirated
material. Moreover, large corporations would have more legal power over pirates
as the pirates would be receiving direct payment for hosting visitors to their
site. It would also allow artists and entertainers to actually get paid
directly for people viewing their work, irrespective of whether or not the
visitor liked the site they were visiting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is great talk of the coming 'internet of things', but
I can see a greater expansion of the internet, where literally every TV show,
film, and video clip has its own webpage. You won't tune in to BBC2 at 9pm to
watch Top Gear anymore (if you even still do), you'll go to the Top Gear page
on your TV and at a certain time on a certain day a new link for a new episode
will appear. This already happens via the BBC iPlayer, but in the 'internet of
all' that link will remain up forever. YouTube and Vimeo may still have some
currency, but they will be hosts to links to unique pages on the web.
Everything that isn't needed for actual sustenance or human interaction will be
freely available on the ubernet, even physical items as 3d printing tech gets
better and cheaper.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you know what? It might just work. However, in order to
make it profitable, it will require a large increase in the cost of what we pay
for web access at present. Most forms of entertainment will be free from that
point on, as your subscription will be divided between those who provide your
entertainment, or other professional assistance. Multiple devices will trigger
multiple charges, the same as separate electrical sockets. It would also mean
that musicians would get paid every time that you listened to their music,
rather than just when it is downloaded to a music player. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other advantage with people actually getting paid for
what they provide is that they will need to be less and less reliant on
advertising. Less advertising is always a good thing (zero would be ideal), but
we have reached a point where some web pages are impossible to scroll through
on a hand held device, thanks to the page hanging every two seconds from embedded
advertising. The idea that anyone should have to prostitute their creativity, or
lend credibility to soulless, non-essential items presented as portals to eternal
happiness, is always a depressing thought. Paying content providers direct
would decimate online advertising at a stroke. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So there you go. There's some suggestions. You be the judge
of their validity. One of the reasons that we are in the mess that we are in is
that too often we are told, we have to do it this way because it is the only
way to get back on track, but few people go, hang on, that can't be right. How
about doing this way instead? Or this way? Or this? There are literally dozens
of ways of approaching this or any problem, and we should give serious
consideration to all options, even the bad ones, so that we can get a sense of
what might be the right direction. Everyone seems to have an opinion on Kim
Kardashian and Wayne Rooney. Politics should be no different. It's no less
important and no more presumptuous on which to offer an opinion. It's just
life.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4PzL9VechbOfIQTlMHoAuLptSDh5s1j8eri_jsR5tSOBpUTjS2987PJ7MubZPp8t4s65MqiiuftV5q9a42SuH1fZu5XV3CgaU1GLYynQn6FZi59YeCKEBrGZDhat0PlHTTQUCd712ZQ/s1600/NewOrleansLevee-82620893-lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4PzL9VechbOfIQTlMHoAuLptSDh5s1j8eri_jsR5tSOBpUTjS2987PJ7MubZPp8t4s65MqiiuftV5q9a42SuH1fZu5XV3CgaU1GLYynQn6FZi59YeCKEBrGZDhat0PlHTTQUCd712ZQ/s400/NewOrleansLevee-82620893-lg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-87162983273689341652016-09-29T16:10:00.000+01:002016-10-06T15:53:01.834+01:00XXXIX Articles: A Partial Treatment of the Concordances with Dante’s Commedia in the Narrative Structure of Moby Dick by Herman Melville<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Abstract</span></u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The narrative structure of Herman Melville’s
Moby Dick is largely informed by its references to Dante’s Commedia. Now, read
on.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Introduction</span></u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"I was riding on
the Mayflower, when I thought I spied some land,<br />
I yelled for Captain Arab, I have ya understand.<br />
Who came running to the deck, said, “Boys, forget the whale<br />
Look on over yonder. Cut the engines. Change the sail.<br />
Haul on the bowline.” We sang that melody<br />
Like all tough sailors do when they are far away at sea."</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Bob
Dylan's 115th Dream<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In writing Moby Dick,
its author, Herman Melville, wove in material from myriad sources. The
references to many of these sources are well documented. There are the biblical
allusions to Jonah, Job, King Ahab, and Father Abraham. There are the
Shakespearian set pieces, where Captain Ahab becomes King Lear in full "blow
winds and crack your cheeks" rage,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
with a retinue of supporting characters to match. There are also nods to Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a major influence in
Melville’s decision to write his masterpiece,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a> as
well as to the Greek myth of Narcissus, upon whose tale the entire story is
hung: Not to mention Melville's own experiences<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a>
and the 1001 fishermen's tales that he must have been told during those long
voyages at sea.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">What are less well
documented in Moby Dick (less well known at the very least) are its<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>many and varied references to the 14<sup>th</sup>
century epic religious poem, Commedia (The Divine Comedy<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a>),
by Dante Alighieri. Yet as this essay will show, the architecture of Melville’s
novel is built upon Dante’s vision of the afterlife. Only by referring to the
Commedia can answers be found to such curious questions as: why, in the second
chapter, are we given no details of Ishmael’s journey from Manhattan to New
Bedford?; why is the Roman philosopher, Cato, mentioned in the opening
paragraph?; and why does Moby Dick contain 135 numbered chapters? All this I
can truly deliver. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The thesis of this
essay is summarised as follows: Ishmael is Dante the Pilgrim, Queequeg his
Virgil, and many (though by no means all) of the features of Moby Dick have
their parallels in the Commedia. These parallels are reinforced by Melville's
sub-textual use of the number 9 and its indices. It is with the number 9 that
we begin.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaea5npzMTNkzDqGEY9GHdWeoKQVeqnWX0zkxkM4y-vkTBAzQ_eiyZM3SBvE9ux_FMK6FZRSbjtoLtK8famGLeaJNnKfMX2twFV56mtCpB_Nq25OXR-8Kd3QT1aam5RbcIYIHkjU40vhk/s1600/Cato.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaea5npzMTNkzDqGEY9GHdWeoKQVeqnWX0zkxkM4y-vkTBAzQ_eiyZM3SBvE9ux_FMK6FZRSbjtoLtK8famGLeaJNnKfMX2twFV56mtCpB_Nq25OXR-8Kd3QT1aam5RbcIYIHkjU40vhk/s320/Cato.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">#9</span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"The number
three is the root of nine, because, independent of any other number, multiplied
by itself alone, it makes nine, as we plainly see when we say three threes are
nine; therefore if three is the sole factor of nine, and the sole factor of
miracles is three, that is Father, Son and Holy Ghost, who are three and one,
then this lady was accompanied by the number nine to convey that she was
nine."</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Dante, Vita Nuova<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The pantheon of
poetic and prose works based on the number 9 has an ancient lineage in western literary
tradition. From Homer's Iliad, set in the ninth year of the siege of Troy, to James
Joyce's Finnegans Wake, with its 36 lines per full page of text (see the
Conclusion), taking in Virgil, Dante, and Melville along the way, the fixation with
9 has a well established pedigree.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">To reference 9 in the
classical world was to invoke the 9 heavenly muses. Virgil invokes the 9 and
their chief, Calliope ('lovely voiced'), muse of epic poetry, in Book IX of the
Aeneid:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Calliope, begin! Ye sacred Nine,<br />
Inspire your poet in his high design[.]"</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Book
IX<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">An
invocation matched by Dante in line 9 of the opening Canto of Purgatory:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"And let Calliope
rise up and play </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Her sweet accompaniment
in the same strain."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The 9 in Book IX is
not an isolated incident. 9s are lightly sprinkled around the rest of the Aeneid:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Where, rolling down the steep,
Timavus raves<br />
And thro' nine channels disembogues his waves."</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Book
I<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Besides, if, nine days hence,
the rosy morn<br />
Shall with unclouded light the skies adorn[.]"</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Book V<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Nine days they pass in feasts,
their temples crown'd;<br />
And fumes of incense in the fanes abound."</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Book
V<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Here his gigantic limbs, with
large embrace,<br />
Infold nine acres of infernal space."</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>Book
VI<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Nine brothers in a goodly band
there stood,<br />
Born of Arcadian mix'd with Tuscan blood[.]"</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Book
XII<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn13" name="_ednref13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The works attributed to
Homer were <em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">probably written by collectives of poets rather
than by a single individual. The Iliad begins with an invocation only to a
goddess, which legend has it is Calliope.</span></em><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn14" name="_ednref14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></a><em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> The Odyssey invokes only a single, nameless, muse.</span></em><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn15" name="_ednref15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> The Homeric contemporary, Hesiod, is the first surviving written
source to state that there are 9 Muses. Before this time, the number fluctuates.</span></em><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn16" name="_ednref16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></a><em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> By the time of Virgil, in the 1st century CE, the number of Muses was
well established as 9.</span></em></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">By taking place
during the ninth year, the Iliad is also a portrayal of the inertia and
futility of siege warfare. The ninth year finds the Greeks at their nadir,
reduced to squabbling over which of the local girls they can safely abuse without
offending the gods and committing acts of increasingly bloody vengeance.
Nothing is resolved at poem's end. The siege goes on. Not even a Trojan Horse
to relieve the monotony.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As well as classical
tradition, part of Dante's fascination with 9 may have come from the simple
recognition, conscious or otherwise, that the Old Testament is made up of 39
books and the New Testament of 27 books<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn17" name="_ednref17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a>:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">3 x 9 = 27.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Romans recast the
Bible for their own ends, so it is hard to know how much this configuration of
books is coincidence, pre-Christian mysticism, or numerical representation of
the perfection of God's creation. Certainly the geometric expansion from Holy
Trinity (3), to Universe (9), culminating in the 27 books of the New Testament
and the one true Christian<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>faith (27),
has been there to see, if only unconsciously, by any reasonably well educated
person in the last thousand years. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Within the 27 books
of the New Testament (27) is contained the Universe (9), as with all multiples
of 9:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">2 + 7 = 9.</span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">To the faithful it is mathematical proof that
God created the Universe for the sole adoration of Christ.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Dante was well
educated for his time. One has only to read the works of his that survive to
appreciate this fact. Quite how religious he was is open to a large amount of
conjecture. Some of Dante's ideas are closer to blasphemy than piety, an idea to
which I will return in the following section. Yet he had recognised the
significance of the number 9 and its associations with heavenly perfection long
before writing a word of his Commedia. To Dante, this perfection was
personified by the lady known as Beatrice.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As he tells it in
Vita Nuova, Dante first saw Beatrice when they were both around the age of 9.
She was the sister of a boyhood friend. For Dante, it was love at first sight.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn18" name="_ednref18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a>
The next time that he encounters her, 9 years later, she is walking between
"two other women of distinguished bearing."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn19" name="_ednref19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a>
Beatrice greets him, which Dante claims to happen at exactly 9 in the morning.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn20" name="_ednref20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[20]</span></span></span></span></a>
That night, he has a dream in which God flies into his bedroom, carrying a
naked Beatrice, "wrapped lightly in crimson cloth."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn21" name="_ednref21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[21]</span></span></span></span></a> Upon
waking, Dante, not for the last time, employs some dubious mathematics to make
the dream fit his theory of numerical perfection:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"On reflecting, I realised at once that the vision
had appeared to me in the fourth hour of the night, that is, the first of the
last nine hours of the night."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn22" name="_ednref22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[22]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Answers on a postcard.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Beatrice is married
off to a Florentine merchant. Dante sees her only a handful more times before
she dies in 1290, in which Dante again finds great significance. By using the
Arabian calendar, he is able to show that she died "in the ninth hour of
the ninth day."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn23" name="_ednref23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[23]</span></span></span></span></a>
Moreover, "according to the Syrian method, she died in the ninth month of the
year."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn24" name="_ednref24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[24]</span></span></span></span></a> rather
than October, as according to the Gregorian calendar. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Dante concludes <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Vita Nuova</span> stating that if God will
"continue my life for a few years, I hope to compose concerning her what
has never been written in rhyme of any woman."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn25" name="_ednref25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[25]</span></span></span></span></a>
This desire became <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">his<i> </i>Commedia</span>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It
is worth noting at this point that the Holy Trinity is a Christian modification
of the Triple Goddess, once worshiped across much of the Mediterranean.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn26" name="_ednref26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[26]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say that Dante's fixation with 9
and its associate numbers is as much the artefact of a wider literary tradition
of appropriation and adaptation of previous writers' tropes as it is anything
else. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thus,
Virgil takes the basic plotlines of the Iliad and Odyssey, reverses their order
and makes them one book. The Iliad is a book of the land, the Odyssey a book of
the sea. The first 6 books of the Aeneid take place during a series of sea
voyages, the last 6 on land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To
the Romans, imitation was the highest form of flattery (and the quickest method
of appropriation). As Odysseus must travel down into the underworld in the
Odyssey, so Aeneas must travel below in the Aeneid. As the Iliad contains the
Catalogue of Ships, that lists all of the Greek nations and their numbers that
came to lay waste to Troy, so the Aeneid contains the Catalogue of Warriors of
the tribes that were pitted against Aeneas and his men in Latium. As Aeneas is
a son of Troy, the Aeneid furnishes Rome with a foundation myth forged in
antiquity. The source material is modified and improved upon. It is only in the
Aeneid that we actually get to see the Trojan Horse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dante
does much the same with Virgil as Virgil does with Homer. Like the Bible, the
Commedia is infused with characters and features of the classical underworld to
pad out the paucity of the Christian material. On his journey into the
underworld, Dante is ferried across the River Acheron by Charon,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn27" name="_ednref27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[27]</span></span></span></span></a>
confronted by 3-headed Cerberus,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn28" name="_ednref28" style="mso-endnote-id: edn28;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[28]</span></span></span></span></a>
and passes down The Well of the Giants, where the Titans that fought against Zeus
are imprisoned.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn29" name="_ednref29" style="mso-endnote-id: edn29;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[29]</span></span></span></span></a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dante
takes the five rivers of the classical underworld, four of which he cites in
his Inferno. The Lethe, river of oblivion, he makes flow from the Garden of
Eden, replacing the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates, cited as flowing from
Eden in Genesis.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn30" name="_ednref30" style="mso-endnote-id: edn30;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[30]</span></span></span></span></a>
Even the journey that Dante's replicates is a late pagan addition to the myth
of Christos. The Harrowing of Hell, where Jesus is said to have travelled into
hell and opened the way to paradise during the 3 days after he was crucified,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn31" name="_ednref31" style="mso-endnote-id: edn31;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[31]</span></span></span></span></a>
was only adopted after Rome became a Christian Empire in the 4th century. It
owes many of its features to similar journeys undertaken by Aeneas, Odysseus,
Orpheus, Hercules, and the goddess, Demeter (one of the forms of the Triple Goddess).
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When
Virgil goes down to the shores of Purgatory to pluck a reed to tie around the
waist of Dante, which will allow him entry through the Gate of Purgatory,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn32" name="_ednref32" style="mso-endnote-id: edn32;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[32]</span></span></span></span></a>
it is a retelling of Aeneas's journey into the underworld. In order to gain
entry to hell, Aeneas must first break off a branch of the sacred Golden Bough.
The Sibyl who is his guide takes the bough to present to Charon in the
underworld.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn33" name="_ednref33" style="mso-endnote-id: edn33;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[33]</span></span></span></span></a>
As Aeneas breaks off the bough, another grows instantly in its place. Likewise,
as Virgil snaps off the reed on the banks of Purgatory, "immediately a
second humble plant sprang up from where the first one had been picked."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn34" name="_ednref34" style="mso-endnote-id: edn34;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[34]</span></span></span></span></a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
only major difference between the journeys of Aeneas and Dante is that they are
moving in opposite directions. Let us choose the ascending path and join Dante.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3lIOm3H4FVIJBflZB0XNzYAvCSbRkeVe796kkmqAGtO_7k42GejXhp5H34SyzNYtfQ-YoxTpbrXzYVuW4CBVjKH2_lQKJDFqGY7Y3pnnza8uFb-GRf0sYxFiAvprPrkijRokroDJn1E/s1600/DAnte+Beatrice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3lIOm3H4FVIJBflZB0XNzYAvCSbRkeVe796kkmqAGtO_7k42GejXhp5H34SyzNYtfQ-YoxTpbrXzYVuW4CBVjKH2_lQKJDFqGY7Y3pnnza8uFb-GRf0sYxFiAvprPrkijRokroDJn1E/s320/DAnte+Beatrice.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Commedia</span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Was the descent of Orpheus,
Ulysses, or Dante into Hell, one whit more hardy and sublime than the first
navigator's weathering of that terrible Cape?"</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Herman
Melville, White Jacket<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn35" name="_ednref35" style="mso-endnote-id: edn35;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[35]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Having
spent some time looking at the history of the number 9, we can now move through
the Commedia fairly rapidly. There are many references to 9 in the structure of
both the poem and the afterlife which it describes. I will deal with these
briefly in this section and look at the Commedia in more detail when turning to
Moby Dick.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Commedia is split into 100 Cantos (verses). Dante sets the action during the
Easter weekend of 1300, when he was 35 years old.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn36" name="_ednref36" style="mso-endnote-id: edn36;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[36]</span></span></span></span></a>
100 + 35 = 135; 1 + 3 + 5 = 9.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
opening Canto takes place in a dark forest or wood ("selva oscura"<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn37" name="_ednref37" style="mso-endnote-id: edn37;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[37]</span></span></span></span></a>),
where Dante is rescued by Virgil and escorted down into hell. From there, the
next 33 Cantos take place in the Inferno, followed by 33 in Purgatory and the
final 33 in Paradise. 3 x 3 = 9. But also 3</span><sup><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">3</span></sup><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> (3 x 3 x 3) = 27. Each of these 3 sections is known as a
Canticle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There
are 9 circles of hell, 9 levels to the island of Purgatory, and 9 heavenly
spheres on the journey towards the Empyrean and the Holy Trinity. 3 x 9 = 27.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
we saw in the previous section, the multiplying of 3 and 9 in the Commedia is
meant to represent the profundity of God's creation. From the Trinity of Father,
Son and Holy Ghost (3) comes the Universe entire (9) in perfect geometric
expansion. Yet Dante presents the reader with a number of alternatives to the
Holy Trinity, some in opposition, some in service to the divine light.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">First
among these anti-Trinities is Satan himself. Encased in ice at the very depths
of hell, the 3 faces of Satan chew upon the bodies of Judas, Brutus, and
Cassius, all fellow traitors to their lord.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn38" name="_ednref38" style="mso-endnote-id: edn38;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[38]</span></span></span></span></a>
The 3 parts of God are complimentary and one in perfect harmony. The 3 faces of
Satan stare away from each other and personify deceit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
the opening Canto, Dante awakes in the forest and tries to make his way up a
hill. His path is blocked by 3 animals, a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. The
opening Canto is really an Overture, the whole poem told in microcosm, and the
hill represents the journey that Dante will make up through the 9 stages of
Purgatory towards Paradise and redemption. Before Purgatory though, he must
brave the Inferno and the 3 animals which arrest his upwards movement represent
the 3 categories of sin that are punished in hell (the sins of fraud, violence,
and incontinence). The wolf which Dante encounters is specifically a she-wolf
to reference the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus in Roman tradition: An
event foreshown to Aeneas in Book VIII of the Aeneid.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn39" name="_ednref39" style="mso-endnote-id: edn39;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[39]</span></span></span></span></a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
rescuing Dante, Virgil tells how he came to be his guide.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn40" name="_ednref40" style="mso-endnote-id: edn40;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[40]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Virgin Mary, witnessing Dante's plight from high heaven, sent Saint Lucia
to the Lady Beatrice and told her to go down into hell and send Virgil out into
the wood to rescue Dante. The Holy Trinity pays no attention to his distress.
It is a trinity of women that rescue Dante the Pilgrim, in opposition to the
leopard, lion and she-wolf. God in the Commedia is truly the father, remote and
uncommunicative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is left to the women
to get things moving along ("in action how like an angel, in apprehension
how like a god!"<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn41" name="_ednref41" style="mso-endnote-id: edn41;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[41]</span></span></span></span></a>).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One
recalls that Dante the Poet had committed himself, "to compose concerning
her what has never been written in rhyme of any woman." For all that the
Commedia is meant to be a journey towards Christian redemption and the greater
glory of God, it is Beatrice who is really being worshiped here. Dante saw in
her natural perfection, as to him 9 was enmeshed in her very being.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That
said, God is represented and given his fair share. To all of the 3s, 9s, and
27s that are found in the Commedia, Dante adds one more to each for God,
producing decimal numbers as a result. Before the Inferno proper, before
Charon's ferry across the River Acheron, Dante and Virgil come to the
Vestibule, an anti-circle of hell where atheists and undecided souls shuffle
around like zombies. At the summit of Purgatory is found the Garden of Eden. Beyond
the 9 heavenly spheres is the Empyrean, where the Holy Trinity resides. 9
becomes 10. 27 becomes 30.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Each
Canto is split into 3 line sections of verse called tercets. The rhyming
structure is such that over 2 tercets, or 6 lines of verse, the rhyming scheme
is ababcb, such that the 2nd, 4th and 6th lines rhyme with each other, creating
a triple (3) rhyme. The penultimate line (c) rhymes with the 1st line of the
next set of 6. Dante concludes each Canto with a separate line of verse that rhymes
with the penultimate line of the previous tercet to once again personify the
oneness and aloofness of God. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">God
is also represented by the opening Canto, which exists outside of the
underworld, adding to the 99 other Cantos to make a perfect 100, and telling
the Commedia in Overture, as if divining future events. God may be aloof, but
he still seems to know everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Reflecting
upon everything discussed up till now, we are almost ready to set sail for
Nantucket, the Pequod, and Captain Ahab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet before we can cross the threshold of the sea, we must first find our
pagan guide, our Virgil: Queequeg.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTSYM_Pb5t5ZDIRrEV87Q8oq70lQDcgmKrXum3CyI4ycwzc70VdnE4ISoPZLtwroM73udeAcLDiB6zp_j-auk97IL9RBIo3R75OkleSCnnZQw54N71XSD0t8Gi13MFfD12RzFmyLAbERE/s1600/Blake+Dante.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTSYM_Pb5t5ZDIRrEV87Q8oq70lQDcgmKrXum3CyI4ycwzc70VdnE4ISoPZLtwroM73udeAcLDiB6zp_j-auk97IL9RBIo3R75OkleSCnnZQw54N71XSD0t8Gi13MFfD12RzFmyLAbERE/s320/Blake+Dante.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ishmael
Alighieri</span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Shall I send you a
fin of the 'Whale' by way of a specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked -
though the hellfire in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably
have cooked it all ere this. This is the book's motto (the secret one), Ego non
baptizo te in nomine - but make out the rest yourself."</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Herman
Melville, letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, 29 June 1851<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn42" name="_ednref42" style="mso-endnote-id: edn42;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[42]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"'<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in
nomine diabolis<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn43" name="_ednref43" style="mso-endnote-id: edn43;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[43]</span></b></span></span></span></a>!' deliriously howled Ahab,
as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptisimal blood."</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>Moby
Dick, CXIII: The Forge<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn44" name="_ednref44" style="mso-endnote-id: edn44;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[44]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
previously noted, the opening Canto of the Commedia serves as an Overture to
the rest of the poem and Dante cannot cross the threshold of hell, or begin his
upwards trajectory towards redemption, without the assistance of his pagan guide,
the Roman poet, Virgil. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
Moby Dick, the opening 3 chapters will serve as an introduction, with chapter
3, The Spouter-Inn, being the novel's true Overture. The threshold in Moby Dick
is the sea itself. Until Ishmael encounters his pagan guide, Queequeg, the
reader is permitted to know nothing of travel by water. To demonstrate how
Melville achieves this effect, we can answer the first question posed in the introduction:
Why, in the second chapter, are we given no details of Ishmael’s journey from
Manhattan to New Bedford?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">An
answer starts to emerge when considering what Ishmael tells us at the beginning
of the opening chapter, Loomings:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Some years ago...
having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on
shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the
world."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn45" name="_ednref45" style="mso-endnote-id: edn45;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[45]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Yet
far from their being "nothing particular to interest me on shore" the
following 3 paragraphs concern Manhattan, on which island the novels opens.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn46" name="_ednref46" style="mso-endnote-id: edn46;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[46]</span></span></span></span></a>
The inhabitants come down to the dock to board boats and look out at the
waters, but no-one sets sail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
remainder of Loomings is then removed to some pastoral glade, far away from any
seaside scene. Here we hear the tale of Narcissus, who "because he could
not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it
and was drowned."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn47" name="_ednref47" style="mso-endnote-id: edn47;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[47]</span></span></span></span></a>
The "tormenting, mild image" being the beauty of his own reflection. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
opposition, the loss of Ahab's leg to the White Whale breaks the natural
symmetry on which standards of human beauty are based. The shimmering
reflection of Narcissus is mildly tormenting when compared to Ahab's rage at the
sight of his own ugliness: A rage which expands to encompass all the seas and
oceans in all the world entire.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn48" name="_ednref48" style="mso-endnote-id: edn48;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[48]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At
the start of Chapter 2, The Capet-Bag, Ishmael narrates:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Quitting the good
city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was on a Saturday in
December."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn49" name="_ednref49" style="mso-endnote-id: edn49;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[49]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Having
claimed to want to "see the watery part of the world" with
"nothing particular to interest" him on shore, Ishmael dispenses with
the 200 mile journey in a single sentence, despite it presumably being made partly,
if not wholly, over water. The opening paragraph alludes to it being November,
but Ishmael doesn't arrive in New Bedford until December. He tells us nothing
of what happens in between.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Arriving
late in the evening, Ishmael misses the ferry to Nantucket and has until Monday
to kill in New Bedford. The Carpet Bag ends:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"But no more of
this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to
come."</span></i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn50" name="_ednref50" style="mso-endnote-id: edn50;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[50]</span></span></span></span></span></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
next chapter, The Spouter-Inn, is then nearly twice as long as the first 2
chapters combined. It takes more than 100 pages for the Pequod to even set
sail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Now,
I must confess to making an error when I first started looking at the opening
chapters of Moby Dick. I thought Melville had used a quasi-geometric expansion
to open his novel, i.e. the first paragraph claims no interest in the land,
followed by 3 paragraphs about Manhattan, followed by 9 paragraphs around
Narcissus. 1→3→9. However, I had referred to text in a non-standard edition
that had omitted a paragraph indentation. There are actually 10 paragraphs in
the Narcissus section, not 9. I now only refer to the Penguin Classics edition,
which uses the approved text. It is a cautionary tale against being too eager
to make the facts fit your theory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Yet
an expert, to paraphrase Niels Bohr, is someone that has made all the mistakes that
it is possible to make in a very narrow field of research. In following this
false trail, I found something far more intriguing. Loomings contains 1 + 3 +
10 = 14 paragraphs. The Carpet-Bag is 12 paragraphs long: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">14 + 12 = 26</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Meaning
that chapter 3, The Spouter-Inn, begins on the twenty-seventh paragraph. I make
The Spouter-Inn to be 74 paragraphs long (where individual lines of dialogue
are considered to be separate paragraphs), giving a grand total for the opening
3 chapters as:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">14 + 12 + 74 =100</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
same as the number of Cantos in the Commedia. In the Penguin text, Loomings
begins on page 3 and The Spouter-Inn ends on page 27, although this is certainly
a coincidence (albeit a pleasing one).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
Moby Dick, the White Whale is constantly referred to, but doesn't make his
first appearance until 30 pages from the end of a novel 630 pages in length.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn51" name="_ednref51" style="mso-endnote-id: edn51;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[51]</span></span></span></span></a>
In the Overture that is The Spouter-Inn, Queequeg is the mock whale,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn52" name="_ednref52" style="mso-endnote-id: edn52;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[52]</span></span></span></span></a>
spoken of with awe throughout the chapter, but not seen for the first time
until near the chapter’s end. Days, weeks of travel to New Bedford are
dispensed with in a single sentence. A few hours spent in anticipation in The
Spouter-Inn last an age by comparison, during which time the thing unseen is
mythologised out of all recognition. In reverence to the Commedia, the plot of
Moby Dick is first acted out in microcosm on the land, before transferring to
the high seas for the tragedy to play out for real. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Before
deciding to stay at The Spouter-Inn, Ishmael considers 3 other possible lodging
houses on his way. First are The Crossed-Harpoons and Swordfish-Inn. Ishmael
judges them both too expensive without entering. The Trap he does enter, which
turns out to be an African-American church. These 3 locations are analogues to the
3 creatures at the beginning of the Commedia, arresting Dante's upward journey
and forcing him in the direction of his pagan guide.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Melville
draws frequently from this triple well. Loomings opens 3 times, each way more
expansive than the last ("Call Me Ishmael."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn53" name="_ednref53" style="mso-endnote-id: edn53;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[53]</span></span></span></span></a>
"There is now your insular city of the Manhattoes[.]"<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn54" name="_ednref54" style="mso-endnote-id: edn54;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[54]</span></span></span></span></a>
"Once more."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn55" name="_ednref55" style="mso-endnote-id: edn55;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[55]</span></span></span></span></a>).
The opening 3 chapters correspond to the opening Canto of the Commedia, and the
3 alternate lodging houses correspond to the lion, leopard and she-wolf in the
opening Canto. 3 x 3 x 3.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This
repetition of 3s is again employed when we first encounter the Pequod in
Chapter 16, The Ship. Queequeg is fasting ("I never could master his
liturgies and XXXIX Articles[.]"<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn56" name="_ednref56" style="mso-endnote-id: edn56;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[56]</span></span></span></span></a>).
Ishmael goes out to look for a ship on his own. He learns that there are,
"<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i> ships up for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i>-years' voyages - The Devil-dam,
the Tit-bit, and the Pequod[.]"<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn57" name="_ednref57" style="mso-endnote-id: edn57;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[57]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ishmael names each of the 3 ships in the same order 3 times before boarding the
Pequod. Once there, the other 2 vessels receive no further mention. The Pequod
is mentioned a further 10 times by name during the remainder of the chapter.
Moreover, both Queequeg and his god, Yojo, are mentioned 9 times each by name
before Ishmael leaves for the waterfront. Queequeg and Yojo both receive one additional
mention at the end of the chapter.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Pequot,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn58" name="_ednref58" style="mso-endnote-id: edn58;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[58]</span></span></span></span></a>
as Ishmael reminds us, "was the name of a celebrated tribe of
Massachusetts Indians, now as extinct as the Medes."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn59" name="_ednref59" style="mso-endnote-id: edn59;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[59]</span></span></span></span></a>
The historian Howard Zinn, in, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">A
People's History of the United States</span>, is less euphemistic about the
events of 1636:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"The English developed a tactic of
warfare used earlier by Cortes and later, in the twentieth century, even more
systematically: deliberate attacks on non-combatants for the purpose of
terrorizing the enemy."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn60" name="_ednref60" style="mso-endnote-id: edn60;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[60]</span></b></span></span></span></a> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Captain John Mason
waited for the men to go out hunting, "which would have over taxed his
unseasoned, unreliable troops."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn61" name="_ednref61" style="mso-endnote-id: edn61;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[61]</span></span></span></span></a>
Then he ordered his men to attack the village, setting fire to wigwams full of
women, children, and the old and infirmed, running any and all survivors
through with the sword:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"As Dr. Cotton Mather, Puritan
theologian, put it: 'It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were
brought down to hell that day'."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn62" name="_ednref62" style="mso-endnote-id: edn62;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[62]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">An aptly fiery name to give a hellbound ship.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Having
joined up with his pagan guide (sharing the same bed), Ishmael is now free to
make his way to Nantucket Island, the first circle of hell proper. However,
this is a fishermen's yarn ("It was <this big>.") and so we
have 9 chapters and a Sunday to kill in New Bedford before the ferry on Monday.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn63" name="_ednref63" style="mso-endnote-id: edn63;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[63]</span></span></span></span></a>
Nothing for it but head to church, where we hear a sermon on Jonah and the
whale delivered by Father Mapple in Chapter 9, The Sermon. There is also the
obligatory biography of the pagan guide and his journey to meet his Christian
counterpart in Chapter 12, The Biography.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At
long last, Ishmael and Queequeg board Charon's ferry, the packet schooner, the
Moss. In the Aeneid, Charon is suspicious of Aeneas until his guide, the Sybil,
presents him with the Golden Bough. In the Commedia, Charon is likewise
suspicious until Virgil tells him it has all been arranged up in heaven. In
both cases, Charon is unwilling to take Aeneas or Dante in his ferry because
they are not yet dead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
captain and crew of the Moss are suspicious of Ishmael and Queequeg, until
Queequeg dives in the sea to rescue a crewman swept overboard. It is the only
action we see on the River Ascushnet,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn64" name="_ednref64" style="mso-endnote-id: edn64;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[64]</span></span></span></span></a>
stand in for the River Acheron.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn65" name="_ednref65" style="mso-endnote-id: edn65;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[65]</span></span></span></span></a>
Dante falls asleep on boarding Charon's ferry. Ishmael again dispenses with the
majority of the journey in a sentence in the following chapter, Nantucket.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If
the Captain of the Moss is Charon, Cerberus is "ragged Elijah" who confronts
Ishmael and Queequeg on their way to and from the berthed Pequod. Instead of 3
heads, Elijah has the use of only 3 limbs:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Look ye; when Ahab
is all right, then this left arm of mine will be alright; not before."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn66" name="_ednref66" style="mso-endnote-id: edn66;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[66]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Along
with Captain Ahab and Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby, Elijah is one of 3
3-limbed men in Moby Dick, at least 2 of whom, possibly all 3, lost their limb
to Moby Dick. Each limb is cognate with the 3 traitors chewed upon by Satan's 3
mouths at the bottom of the pit. The Titans from The Well of the Giants are
represented by the 3 harpooners, Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo, each an
imposing pagan giant.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn67" name="_ednref67" style="mso-endnote-id: edn67;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[67]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ishmael
tells us in the opening paragraph of Loomings how he gets depressed being on
land, which is why he goes to sea. "With a philosophical flourish, "
he says, "Cato throws himself on his sword; I quietly take to the
ship."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn68" name="_ednref68" style="mso-endnote-id: edn68;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[68]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Roman philosopher, Cato, upon hearing of Pompey's death, killed himself
rather than submit to the will of Julius Caesar. Ishmael, it seems, has no such
qualms about submitting to the tyranny of Captain Ahab. Reference to "the
ship" foreshadows the name of the chapter in which the Pequod first
appears.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
the Commedia, Cato stands on the shore of the island of Purgatory, berating the
impious for their impropriety. Quite why a divorced, Roman, pagan suicide
should be chosen as a paragon of Christian virtue has been the subject of some debate
during the last 700 years. Herman Melville, by mentioning Cato in the opening
paragraph, establishes a point of intersection between Moby Dick and the
Commedia. As Dante meets Cato when his path finally emerges from the Inferno
and starts its upwards trajectory towards redemption, Ishmael meets him on the
way down into hell, heading in the same direction as Aeneas. The contrast
between Cato and the ship in the opening paragraph contrasts the methods by
which Cato and Ishmael have arrived at precisely the same point in the
underworld. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">On its voyage, the
Pequod encounters 9 other ships. 8 of these ships are referred to by name in
the titles of the 135 numbered chapters. Only that of the Samuel Enderby is relegated
to a sub-heading (Chapter 100, Leg and Arm). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Pequod features in 5 chapter titles, to more
than make up for the Samuel Enderby and again make 9.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Pequot first
encounters the Goney (Chapter 52, The Albatross), named after an old word for
the seabird that is hung about the Ancient Mariner's neck in the Coleridge poem.
Next are the Town-Ho and Jeroboam (Chapter 54, The Town-Ho's Story and Chapter
71, The Jeroboam's Story respectively). Jeroboam, like Ahab, was a king of
Israel. Ishmael claims that the Town-Ho is named after an ancient whaling cry,
although this may be a mangling of a Nantucket Indian word, Townor, meaning, ‘I
have seen the whale twice’.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn69" name="_ednref69" style="mso-endnote-id: edn69;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[69]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Then come the 5 encounters
with other vessels that take the form, The Pequod meets:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chapter 81: The Pequod Meets the Virgin;</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chapter 91: The Pequod Meets the Rose Bud;</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chapter 115: The Pequod Meets the Bachelor;</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chapter 128: The Pequod Meets the Rachel; and</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chapter 131: The Pequod Meets the Delight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A case can be made
for the names of each of these ships having connections with the Commedia. The
Virgin is obviously the Virgin Mary. The Rose Bud is the shape of the Empyrean,
where God resides and around which the heavenly elect sit in rose petal shaped
sections. The Bachelor could be a direct reference to Dante himself. From what
little is known of Dante, he seems to have lived something of a bachelor's
life. In Canto 24 of <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Paradise</span>,
Dante says:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"Just as a bachelor arms his mind with
thought <br />
In silence till his master sets the question<br />
To be discussed but not decided on,<br />
<br />
So did I arm myself with arguments<br />
While she was speaking, that I be prepared<br />
For such a questioner and such a creed."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn70" name="_ednref70" style="mso-endnote-id: edn70;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[70]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Which is a pretty
good description of Ishmael, of whom we know very little. Ishmael keeps almost
entirely silent about himself (he might have been a schoolteacher), but his
mind is as filled with thoughts and questions as a well stocked armoury. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Rachel is named
after the sister of Leah in the Old Testament. She sits next to Beatrice in the
Dantean order of paradise. Finally, the name of the Delight may have a double
meaning. It could have direct concordance with Beatrice ('she who blesses' -
'she who brings delight'). However, delight can also be broken down into de
light, or of light, a reference to Saint Lucia, the intermediary between Mary
and Beatrice. Her name literally means light.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn71" name="_ednref71" style="mso-endnote-id: edn71;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[71]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The most compete example
of how Melville employs Dante's numerology can be found in Moby Dick's
shortest, not so politically correct, chapter, which it is worth quoting here
in full:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Chapter 122: Midnight Aloft - Thunder and
Lightning </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Main-top-sail
yard – Tashtego passing new lashings around it.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too
much thunder up here. What’s the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don’t want
thunder; we want rum; give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn72" name="_ednref72" style="mso-endnote-id: edn72;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[72]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When each individual word is numbered, the
result should by now be fairly obvious:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">1) The 2)
Main-top-sail 3) yard – 4) Tashtego 5) passing 6) new 7) lashings 8) around 9)
it.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“10) Um, 11) um, 12) um. 13) Stop 14) that
15) thunder! 16) Plenty 17) too 18) much 19) thunder 20) up 21) here. 22)
What’s 23) the 24) use 25) of 26) thunder? 27) Um, 28) um, 29) um. 30) We 31)
don’t 32) want 33) thunder; 34) we 35) want 36) rum; 37) give 38) us 39) a 40)
glass 41) of 42) rum. 43) Um, 44) um, 45) um!”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Where, of course:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">4 + 5 = 9</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The opening 3 words
contain a double-hyphenated, triple word at their centre, separated from the
rest of the italicised stage direction by a dash. The stage direction is 9
words long in total. The main section of text is 36 words long and contains 9
clauses, 3 of which are merely the repetition, "Um, um, um." as well
as 2 other 3 word clauses (“Too much thunder” and “we want rum”). Each
"Um, um, um." is separated from its nearest neighbour by 3 other
clauses. Even the number of words and syllables that make up the chapter's
title can arguably be read as multiples of 9 (9 and 18 respectively).<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn73" name="_ednref73" style="mso-endnote-id: edn73;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[73]</span></span></span></span></a> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">By now it should also
be clear why Moby Dick consists of 135 named chapters. In fact, we have already
met this number in the section on the Commedia. It is the number of Cantos in the
Commedia, plus Dante's age at the time that the poem is set:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">100 + 35 = 135: 1 + 3
+ 5 = 9</span></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Melville told Nathaniel Hawthorne in a letter
of November<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1851, "I have written a
wicked book and feel spotless as the lamb."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn74" name="_ednref74" style="mso-endnote-id: edn74;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[74]</span></span></span></span></a> A
final trinity is to be found in Moby Dick. In Islamic tradition, it is Ishmael,
not Isaac, that Abraham takes to sacrifice at the Temple Mount, God sending an
angel to stay his hand at the last moment.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn75" name="_ednref75" style="mso-endnote-id: edn75;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[75]</span></span></span></span></a>
In this context, Ishmael is the son and Captain Ahab, Father Abraham, who takes
his son to sacrifice on the high seas, his hand only stayed when Ishmael is
rescued by the Rachel as the sole survivor at the end of the novel.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn76" name="_ednref76" style="mso-endnote-id: edn76;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[76]</span></span></span></span></a> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Ahab is obsessed with
destroying Moby Dick. Ishmael is obsessed with cataloguing every minute detail
of whales and whaling (135 chapters worth). Herman Melville, in writing Moby
Dick, obsessed over the details. The sections on oceanography and cetology are
largely copied verbatim from scientific books that Melville found in his local
library. Ahab, Ishmael, and Melville are Moby Dick's Holy Trinity: Father, Son
and Holy Ghost. 3 obsessives in one. A wicked book indeed.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I draw this section
to a close with some minor features of Moby Dick that correspond to 9 and its
associate numbers. The novel opens, of course, with 3 words, one of the most
famous openings in English Literature: "Call me Ishmael." The
Epilogue also begins with 3 words, "The drama's done." As well as the
135 numbered chapters, there are 3 unnumbered, ancillary chapters, Etymology,
Extracts and Epilogue. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">There are 3 ways to
calculate the number of separate passages quoted in Extracts. Counting each
citation at the end of each block of text gives 80. However, some passages are
elided, or give multiple quotations from<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the same source. In each case, a break in text is indicated by a set of
asterisks. Taking each break as a new passages gives a total of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>89.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Any theory worthy of
the name should be able to make predictions. 80 is 1 short of 81, and 89 is 1
short of 90, both multiples of 9. This suggests a missing quote for the theory
to hold, and, indeed, there is a final, isolated quote found within Moby Dick. That
quote begins the Epilogue:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Job.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn77" name="_ednref77" style="mso-endnote-id: edn77;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[77]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It is the only part
of Moby Dick that begins with a quotation. It should come as no surprise that
the quotation is 9 words long. However including the citation it is 10 words in
length. As the word Job consists of 3 letters, it can be said here to represent
the trinity.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The final way to
calculate the number of quotations is to simply take each new set of quotation
marks as a new quote. This way does actually give 81, as the explorer Scoresby
is quoted twice under the same citation. Evidence that Herman Melville arranged
his extracts to add up to 81 is shown by the way that they are arranged and
presented. He manages, for instance, to quote twice from Milton's Paradise
Lost, both under separate quotation marks and citations, by marking the second
quote, 'Ibid' (from the Latin, ibidem, "at the same place."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn78" name="_ednref78" style="mso-endnote-id: edn78;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[78]</span></span></span></span></a>).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The numbered chapters
conclude with 3 chapters with almost identical names: The Chase - First Day,
The Chase - Second Day, and The Chase - Third Day. These are the only 3
chapters in which Moby Dick makes an appearance. Then, like Tristram Shandy,
the White Whale is perhaps the least interesting thing about Moby Dick. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Pequod reaches
the bottom of the pit on its third day of pursuit, as alluded to by Ahab:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"[F]rom hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake
I spit my last breath at thee."<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn79" name="_ednref79" style="mso-endnote-id: edn79;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[79]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Moby Dick has become Satan
himself. More properly he is Lucifer, the rebel angel, striking a blow against
the established order of man. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Finally, The Pequod
sets out at Christmas (Chapter 22, Merry Christmas). Well, Dante was already
using Easter.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlkKoa4LH9LSXCXc6hHhQ5cUQEkjIY0ZsNU5cUygUoeZzFYnucng27XCEyscdv65RyhuO6t2XMTqY8EQ_hNE1r09zF85me1buJAn6sewwHj2gdFuj5B6nKXvnTkRmUt9tMhRL3RovQvc/s1600/Call-me-Ishmael.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlkKoa4LH9LSXCXc6hHhQ5cUQEkjIY0ZsNU5cUygUoeZzFYnucng27XCEyscdv65RyhuO6t2XMTqY8EQ_hNE1r09zF85me1buJAn6sewwHj2gdFuj5B6nKXvnTkRmUt9tMhRL3RovQvc/s320/Call-me-Ishmael.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Conclusion</span></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">"Wherry like the whaled prophet in a
spookeerie."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Finnegans
Wake<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn80" name="_ednref80" style="mso-endnote-id: edn80;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[80]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I conclude with some brief
examples of how James Joyce takes this obsession with 9 into the 20th century.
To do so requires little or no reference to the Wake's densely complicated
text. All that is required is a little counting.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As stated earlier,
each full page of text in Finnegans Wake contains 36 lines of text. This page
layout is rigorously enforced. A book like Moby Dick can vary in length by as
much as a hundred pages or more, depending on the edition.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn81" name="_ednref81" style="mso-endnote-id: edn81;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[81]</span></span></span></span></a>
Finnegans Wake is always 628 pages exactly.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn82" name="_ednref82" style="mso-endnote-id: edn82;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[82]</span></span></span></span></a>
This helps to preserve many other references to 9.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">9 of the 628 pages
are blank or contain a single Roman numeral to signify the start of a new
section. The first page of text is on page 3. It contains 3 paragraphs. The
first paragraph is also the opening sentence. It contains 27 words. For reasons
that are beyond the scope of this essay, what Melville takes 3 chapters to
achieve in Moby Dick (see above), Joyce conjures up on the opening page of
Finnegans Wake.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The first chapter of
Finnegans Wake is 27 pages long. The second chapter is 18 pages long, and the
third again 27. Chapter 8, which concludes Part I, is also 27 pages long. The
antepenultimate chapter is 81 pages long, the penultimate chapter 36 pages long,
and the final chapter again 36 pages. Some of the remaining chapters also begin
or end on page numbers that contain combinations of 3 and 9 (see pages 309 and
399 for instance). Finnegans Wake has 17 chapters, placing Chapter 9 at the
centre.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The principal
characters of Finnegans Wake are represented by the acrostics HCE and ALP, more
commonly known as Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker and Anna Livia Plurabelle,
although combinations of 3 word phrases with these initial letters consume the
text. Their children are usually known as Shaun, Shem, and Issy, although they
take on many names in the nighttime. If we assign numbers to the letters of the
alphabet, such that a =1, b = 2, c = 3 etc., then:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Shaun = 63 (19 + 8 + 1 + 21 + 14);</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Shem = 45 (19 + 8 + 5 + 13)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Issy = 72 (9 + 19 + 19 + 25)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">All multiples of 9. The<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>s and h in the names of Shaun and Shem add up
to 27. Shaun is sometimes known as Yawn, which is 63 (25 + 23 + 1 + 14). He is
also known as Jaun, which makes 46 (10 + 1 + 21 + 14), but bearing in mind that
Jesus is a Latinised form of the Greek, Iasus, Jaun can also be Iaun, which
makes 45. Part III, Chapter 2 begins, "Jaunty Jaun[.]" Read as Iaunty
Iaun, it totals 135 (work it out for yourself).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">HCE and ALP combine
to give 45, with their initial letters adding to 9. Finnegans Wake also makes
frequent reference to the 1001 Tales of the Arabian Nights. There are good
reasons for this. One of the very best being that 1001 is binary for 9. Moby
Dick draws from the myth of Narcissus. Finnegans Wake remembers that there was
a second actor in that Greek tragedy, the nymph, Echo, who pined away to
nothing for the love of Narcissus. Echo is heard throughout the Wake ("The
echo is where in the back of the wodes; callhim forth!")<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn83" name="_ednref83" style="mso-endnote-id: edn83;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[83]</span></span></span></span></a>
Even HCE's initials are most of Echo read backwards. A circle is all that's
missing, of which there are plenty to spare in Finnegans Wake.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I have called this a
partial treatment and such it is. For reasons of length, I have not even
touched upon the 3 white mates: Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, and their
relationship to the 3 heathen harpooners: Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo, as
this would require an essay in itself. Moby Dick's underlying, subsurface
concerns are to do with slavery, the Indian clearances, manifest destiny and
the recently concluded Mexican-American War (1846 - 1848) that saw Mexico lose
a third of its land to America. The contrast between mates and harpooners on
the Pequod is a grim allegory of the United States in the interbellum period.
Moby Dick was published in 1851. The American Civil War would start in 1861.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">This is also a
partial treatment as there likely lie many more Dantean allusions beneath the
surface. For now, I hope I have been able to cast some small light on the
influence Dante made on Herman Melville and how this in turn moulded the very
shape of Moby Dick. Its narrative structure is almost perfect as a result. A
true masterpiece.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So, now, let us add Moby Dick to our blessing, and step
from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish;- I have heard of Krakens.</span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Herman Melville<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_edn84" name="_ednref84" style="mso-endnote-id: edn84;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[84]</span></b></span></span></span></a></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt9y-CCTpl9zgUJjA-Tpi136AAj7So5JdpzucxDWYuBabadGEMS6SlGrsvg4vnfTy3X7lLAjsb3UAHkudSIjy8cOcHt31iBvFeT37f5I7Z9k1h2d1INA3Pdl5iydFeE3UYlOS4So_lIIY/s1600/Herman-Melville.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt9y-CCTpl9zgUJjA-Tpi136AAj7So5JdpzucxDWYuBabadGEMS6SlGrsvg4vnfTy3X7lLAjsb3UAHkudSIjy8cOcHt31iBvFeT37f5I7Z9k1h2d1INA3Pdl5iydFeE3UYlOS4So_lIIY/s400/Herman-Melville.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></b></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
Notes</div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span> Bob
Dylan, Lyrics 1962 - 2001, Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
3.2.1, King Lear, William Shakespeare, R. A. Foakes (editor), Arden
Shakespeare, 2003</div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a>
Page 240, The Sea Inside, Philip Hoare, Fourth Estate, 2013</div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Whalers, A. B. C Whipple, Time Life Books, 1979 (see also, Melville's
novel, Typee, amongst others.)</div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a> I
have chosen to preserve the name by which Dante knew his work. The
pre-modifier, Divine (Divina), was added by Giovanni Boccaccio later in the
14th century. I use the commonly accepted English titles for each individual
canticle.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a>
XXIX, Vita Nuova, Dante Aligheri, Barbara Reynolds (translator), Penguin Books,
2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lines 696 – 697, Book IX, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aeneid, John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto I, The Divine Comedy Vol. II: Purgatory, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lines 334 - 335, Book I, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aeneid, John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="edn10" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lines 82 - 83, Book V, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aeneid,
John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span> In
Our Time, The Muses</div>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lines 995 - 996, Book V, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aeneid, John Dryen (translator), Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin
Classics, 1997</div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span></span></span> In
Our Time, The Muses</div>
</div>
<div id="edn12" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lines 806 - 807, Book VI, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aeneid, John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="edn13" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref13" name="_edn13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lines 408 - 409, Book XII, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aeneid, John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="edn14" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref14" name="_edn14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[14]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Iliad, Homer, E. V. Rieu (translator), Guild Publishing London, 1993</div>
</div>
<div id="edn15" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref15" name="_edn15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[15]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Odyssey, Homer, E. V. Rieu (translator), Guild Publishing London, 1993</div>
</div>
<div id="edn16" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref16" name="_edn16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[16]</span></span></span></span></a>
In Our Time, The Muses, BBC Radio 4, 19 June 2016</div>
</div>
<div id="edn17" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref17" name="_edn17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[17]</span></span></span></span></a>
Good News Bible, Collins/Fontana, 1976</div>
</div>
<div id="edn18" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref18" name="_edn18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[18]</span></span></span></span></a>
II, Vita Nuova, Dante Aligheri, Barbara Reynolds (translator), Penguin Books,
2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn19" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref19" name="_edn19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[19]</span></span></span></span></a>
III, Vita Nuova, Dante Aligheri, Barbara Reynolds (translator), Penguin Books,
2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn20" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref20" name="_edn20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[20]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn21" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref21" name="_edn21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[21]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn22" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref22" name="_edn22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[22]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn23" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref23" name="_edn23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[23]</span></span></span></span></a>
XXIX, Vita Nuova, Dante Aligheri, Barbara Reynolds (translator), Penguin Books,
2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn24" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref24" name="_edn24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[24]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn25" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref25" name="_edn25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[25]</span></span></span></span></a>
XLII, Vita Nuova, Dante Aligheri, Barbara Reynolds (translator), Penguin Books,
2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn26" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref26" name="_edn26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[26]</span></span></span></span></a>
See Robert Graves, The White Goddess.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn27" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref27" name="_edn27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[27]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto III, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn28" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref28" name="_edn28" style="mso-endnote-id: edn28;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[28]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto VI, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn29" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref29" name="_edn29" style="mso-endnote-id: edn29;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[29]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto XXXI, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn30" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref30" name="_edn30" style="mso-endnote-id: edn30;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[30]</span></span></span></span></a>
Genesis 2: 10 - 14, Good News Bible, Collins/Fontana, 1976</div>
</div>
<div id="edn31" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref31" name="_edn31" style="mso-endnote-id: edn31;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[31]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto IV, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn32" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref32" name="_edn32" style="mso-endnote-id: edn32;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[32]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto I, The Divine Comedy Vol. II: Purgatory, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn33" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref33" name="_edn33" style="mso-endnote-id: edn33;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[33]</span></span></span></span></a>
See from Line 209, Book VI, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aeneid, John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="edn34" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref34" name="_edn34" style="mso-endnote-id: edn34;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[34]</span></span></span></span></a>Canto
I, The Divine Comedy Vol. II: Purgatory, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn35" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref35" name="_edn35" style="mso-endnote-id: edn35;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[35]</span></span></span></span></a> http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/white-jacket/24</div>
</div>
<div id="edn36" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref36" name="_edn36" style="mso-endnote-id: edn36;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[36]</span></span></span></span></a> Introduction,
The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa (translator),
Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn37" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref37" name="_edn37" style="mso-endnote-id: edn37;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[37]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Divine Comedy, Bilingual Edition, Dante Alighieri, Create Space Independent
Publishing Platform, 2015</div>
</div>
<div id="edn38" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref38" name="_edn38" style="mso-endnote-id: edn38;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[38]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto XXXIV, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn39" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref39" name="_edn39" style="mso-endnote-id: edn39;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[39]</span></span></span></span></a>
Line 836, Book VIII, Virgil’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aeneid,
John Dryen, Frederick Keener (editor), Penguin Classics, 1997</div>
</div>
<div id="edn40" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref40" name="_edn40" style="mso-endnote-id: edn40;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[40]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto II, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn41" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref41" name="_edn41" style="mso-endnote-id: edn41;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[41]</span></span></span></span></a>
2.2.288, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, William Shakespeare, Philip Edwards
(editor), Cambridge University Press, 2004</div>
</div>
<div id="edn42" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref42" name="_edn42" style="mso-endnote-id: edn42;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[42]</span></span></span></span></a>
Stories, Poems and Letters, Herman Melville, R.W.B. Lewis (editor), Dell
Publishing, 1962</div>
</div>
<div id="edn43" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref43" name="_edn43" style="mso-endnote-id: edn43;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[43]</span></span></span></span></a>
"I baptise you not in the name of the father, but in the name of the
devil."</div>
</div>
<div id="edn44" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref44" name="_edn44" style="mso-endnote-id: edn44;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[44]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 113, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn45" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref45" name="_edn45" style="mso-endnote-id: edn45;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[45]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 1, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn46" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref46" name="_edn46" style="mso-endnote-id: edn46;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[46]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ishmaels’ journey into hell moves in the opposite direction to Dante. As Dante
emerges from hell onto the island of Purgatory, Ishmael’s journey into hell
begins on the island of Manhattan.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn47" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref47" name="_edn47" style="mso-endnote-id: edn47;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[47]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn48" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref48" name="_edn48" style="mso-endnote-id: edn48;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[48]</span></span></span></span></a>
Any wonder it took a progressive heavy metal band, Mastadon, to write Leviathan,
an album based on Moby Dick and the soundtrack to Ahab's inner rage?</div>
</div>
<div id="edn49" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref49" name="_edn49" style="mso-endnote-id: edn49;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[49]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 2, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn50" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref50" name="_edn50" style="mso-endnote-id: edn50;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[50]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn51" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref51" name="_edn51" style="mso-endnote-id: edn51;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[51]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ish. 625 pages, to be exact.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn52" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref52" name="_edn52" style="mso-endnote-id: edn52;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[52]</span></span></span></span></a>
See James George Fraser's, The Golden Bough</div>
</div>
<div id="edn53" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref53" name="_edn53" style="mso-endnote-id: edn53;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[53]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 1, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn54" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref54" name="_edn54" style="mso-endnote-id: edn54;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[54]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn55" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref55" name="_edn55" style="mso-endnote-id: edn55;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[55]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn56" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref56" name="_edn56" style="mso-endnote-id: edn56;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[56]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 16, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn57" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref57" name="_edn57" style="mso-endnote-id: edn57;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[57]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid. My italics.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn58" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref58" name="_edn58" style="mso-endnote-id: edn58;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[58]</span></span></span></span></a>
Melville misspells the name of the tribe, i.e. Pequod instead of Pequot. This
may be accidental or it may be a comment on the novels general themes of
slavery and genocide in the New World. The white man cares so little for the
peoples that he slaughters that he can't even get their names right.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn59" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref59" name="_edn59" style="mso-endnote-id: edn59;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[59]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 16, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn60" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref60" name="_edn60" style="mso-endnote-id: edn60;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[60]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 1, Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress, A People's History of the
United States, Howard Zinn, Pearson Education Limited, 1999</div>
</div>
<div id="edn61" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref61" name="_edn61" style="mso-endnote-id: edn61;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[61]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn62" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref62" name="_edn62" style="mso-endnote-id: edn62;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[62]</span></span></span></span></a>
Ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn63" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref63" name="_edn63" style="mso-endnote-id: edn63;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[63]</span></span></span></span></a>
Whilst Dante's journey through the underworld is a series of circular motions,
Ishmael's voyage moves in a meandering parabola.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn64" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref64" name="_edn64" style="mso-endnote-id: edn64;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[64]</span></span></span></span></a>
8.6 miles in length. </div>
</div>
<div id="edn65" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref65" name="_edn65" style="mso-endnote-id: edn65;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[65]</span></span></span></span></a>
In the Aeneid, Charon's ferry crosses the River Styx.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn66" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref66" name="_edn66" style="mso-endnote-id: edn66;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[66]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 19, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn67" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref67" name="_edn67" style="mso-endnote-id: edn67;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[67]</span></span></span></span></a>
"Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage[.]" Chapter 27, Moby
Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn68" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref68" name="_edn68" style="mso-endnote-id: edn68;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[68]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 1, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn69" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref69" name="_edn69" style="mso-endnote-id: edn69;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[69]</span></span></span></span></a> http://www.melville.org/diCurcio/54.htm</div>
</div>
<div id="edn70" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref70" name="_edn70" style="mso-endnote-id: edn70;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[70]</span></span></span></span></a>
Canto XXIV, The Divine Comedy Vol. III: Paradise, Dante Aligheri, Mark Musa
(translator), Penguin Books, 1985</div>
</div>
<div id="edn71" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref71" name="_edn71" style="mso-endnote-id: edn71;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[71]</span></span></span></span></a> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">James Joyce's
daughter was named after St Lucia.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn72" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref72" name="_edn72" style="mso-endnote-id: edn72;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[72]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 122, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn73" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref73" name="_edn73" style="mso-endnote-id: edn73;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[73]</span></span></span></span></a>
By reading 'Chapter 122' as chapter one, two, two.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn74" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref74" name="_edn74" style="mso-endnote-id: edn74;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[74]</span></span></span></span></a>
Stories, Poems and Letters, Herman Melville, R.W.B. Lewis (editor), Dell
Publishing, 1962 </div>
</div>
<div id="edn75" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref75" name="_edn75" style="mso-endnote-id: edn75;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[75]</span></span></span></span></a>
cf. Genesis 22</div>
</div>
<div id="edn76" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref76" name="_edn76" style="mso-endnote-id: edn76;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[76]</span></span></span></span></a>
The Ancient Mariner is also the sole survivor.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn77" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref77" name="_edn77" style="mso-endnote-id: edn77;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[77]</span></span></span></span></a>
Epilogue, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
</div>
<div id="edn78" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref78" name="_edn78" style="mso-endnote-id: edn78;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[78]</span></span></span></span></a> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ibid.</div>
</div>
<div id="edn79" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref79" name="_edn79" style="mso-endnote-id: edn79;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[79]</span></span></span></span></a>
Chapter 135, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Andrew Delbanco, Tom Quirk, Penguin
Books, 1992</div>
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<div id="edn80" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref80" name="_edn80" style="mso-endnote-id: edn80;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[80]</span></span></span></span></a>
Footnote 2, page 307, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, Faber and Faber, 1975</div>
</div>
<div id="edn81" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref81" name="_edn81" style="mso-endnote-id: edn81;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[81]</span></span></span></span></a> I
should know, I own 9 different editions of Moby Dick.</div>
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<div id="edn82" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref82" name="_edn82" style="mso-endnote-id: edn82;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[82]</span></span></span></span></a>
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, Faber and Faber, 1975; Finnegans Wake, James
Joyce, Seamus Deane (Introduction), Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, 1999</div>
</div>
<div id="edn83" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref83" name="_edn83" style="mso-endnote-id: edn83;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[83]</span></span></span></span></a>
Page 126, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, Faber and Faber, 1975</div>
</div>
<div id="edn84" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2175668404578044472#_ednref84" name="_edn84" style="mso-endnote-id: edn84;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[84]</span></span></span></span></a>
Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, 17 (?) November 1851, Stories, Poems and
Letters, Herman Melville, R.W.B. Lewis (editor), Dell Publishing, 1962 </div>
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<![endif]-->Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-53075669705501816722016-09-29T15:45:00.000+01:002016-09-29T15:45:10.230+01:00Comments Are Not Open On This Thread<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Comments are not open on this thread.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I said, comments are not open on this thread.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Honestly, why would I care what you comment on this thread?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ask yourself, why you care to comment on this thread?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now listen, hold your index fingers about an inch apart.
That's it. Now that's the distance between Sun and Earth. On this scale, the
nearest star is four miles away. There are two hundred billion stars in our
galaxy alone, and we are one of a hundred million galaxies in the known
universe. What's more, there may exist so many alternate universes, that when
this one dies, it will be as a flake of dead skin falling from the backside of
reality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the lifetime of creation was boiled down to a year, there
wouldn't be a unit of measurement small enough to record you. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So really, why would anyone care to comment on this thread?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When there's a hundred million equally futile things you
could be doing instead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like, I don't know, tidy up, call your parents, go sailing,
have a wank, have a hobby, take a nightclass, take the initiative, get drunk, get
a dog: help another human being, completely unrelated to you, for no other
reason than because it is in your power to do so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or, hey, why not forge something in the smithy of your soul,
display it on a public forum, and have it criticised by those who have never
created anything of lasting value, but still feel qualified to pass judgement
on those who have. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yup, comments are not open on this thread.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So run along, keep on heading straight for the land of the
dead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I know you won't pay one blind bit of notice to what
I've said.</div>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">So comments are not open on this thread.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-67612312483204410652016-09-28T13:02:00.003+01:002016-09-28T13:02:53.686+01:00The Responsible Thing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It seems to me that many of the obstacles we human beings
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Ironically, this is not entirely our fault, but learned
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Drug users causes crime, but few dare ask what causes drug use, because then
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We each trace our problems back until we find a comforting version
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we nominate something as the avatar of all our personal misfortune, we give
that avatar immense power over us. For instance, if you consider certain words
or images to be blasphemous or profane, then all that anyone else has to do to
exert influence over is you is to use those words or images in your presence.
No wonder so many people around the world burn the American flag, when it is
the only form of retaliation that they have against the ubiquity of US invasion
and airstrikes. Why bother with a Predator drone, when you can wound millions
of patriotic Americans with little more high-tech equipment than a 50 cent
lighter?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem with blaming anything on any class of people
(women, men, Jews, Muslims, the poor, the young etc.) is that there will always
be more of them than there are of you. It's a simple physics problem: a large
mass exerts a greater force upon a smaller object than the smaller object does
on the larger, proportional to the difference in their two masses. If you're
one person seeing a particular demographic of a million or more as preventing
you from finding work, then you're never going to find work. Not because of
those million others, but from that single malfunctioning thought in your head
that has you beat before you even try.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even worse is what our prejudices tell others about our
inner-lives. Most blame and scapegoating is the externalisation of personal
faults. If you want to know about a person's personal fears and anxieties, take
a look at what they blame on others. Politicians demonise those on benefits,
while crying poor and claiming expenses (politicians should be means tested the
same as everyone else). Homophobic men are scared that gay men will objectify
them in the same way that they objectify women. The guy that tells you certain
ethnicities smell is usually the one who could himself do with forming a closer
relationship to soap and water.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moreover, the scapgoater will always be more afraid of the
scapegoat than the scapegoat is of their persecutor. Hence, American cops are
more afraid of unarmed black men than the other way around, presumably because
African-Americans have been subjected to the worst indignities that white
America has to offer for 240 years in a row, and they have endured. Like the
homophobic man, the racist is ultimately afraid that they will be in treated in
the same way that they have treated their victims. For the same reason, heavily
armed Israeli settlers, with the full financial and military backing of the government
of the United States of America behind them, lose their minds at the sight of a
few Palestinian kids throwing rocks. The downside to loading all of your fears
onto the shoulders of others is that you tend to become mortally afraid of them
out of all proportion to their actual dangerousness. "When you stare into
the abyss," as Nietzsche reminds us, "the abyss also stares into
you."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Inversely, lack of personal responsibility also leads people
to take credit for things in which they had little or no involvement. Look at
the British attitude to the Second World War. To listen to people in this
country, you'd think Britain defeated Nazi Germany all on its own. Yet 80% of
Hitler's forces were defeated by the Red Army, at the cost of twenty million
Russian lives. More Soviet troops died at Stalingrad than Britain and America
lost during the entire war combined, and it was still only the second biggest
loss of life that the Russians suffered (750,000 at Stalingrad, 850,000 at
Leningrad). Most of us alive today would not be here without them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed, if western society was half as civilised as it likes
to think it is, you'd think we'd spend as much time commemorating the lives of
people that we have killed as we do our own sacrifices. We hold silent vigils
to remember the Somme, D-Day, 9/11, but when do we ever fall silent for the
victims of Fallujah, Dresden, or the Irish and Indian famines of the nineteenth
century that left millions dead thanks to British governmental indifference?
The need to shirk our responsibility leads us to dismiss these fallen as enemies
that deserve no respect or remembrance, even when they have become our enemy
through no fault of their own. We celebrate Olympic victories, Shakespeare's
birth, and great British inventions like the world wide web, but when do we ever
bear responsibility for Britain's part in the eradication of the hundred
million people that lived in the Americas, before Europeans arrived with their
guns and their disease? This is not an attitude worthy of a civilised society.
A shirker treats other people as they have treated others. The responsible
person treats others as they would like to be treated themselves. This is why I
could never believe in the death penalty. Isn't one murderer enough? Why should
the rest of us become implicated in the crime?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For Britain, Hitler is the ultimate endpoint to negate all
else. Hitler killed eight million people, but he's dead now, so you don't need
to worry about people like him anymore. That way you can forget that it took
thousands of ordinary people to perpetrate the horrors of the Holocaust (and
definitely forget about any assistance the Nazis may have received from the IBM
corporation). It allows us to sweep all other colonial atrocities under the
tiger skin rug, as well as deferring, indefinitely, any discussion about how
Stalin virtually defeated Hitler single-handedly, having already killed twenty
million of his own people, and what this tells us about the convenient view of the
Second World War as a battle of good versus evil. Hitler is also a convenient
endpoint because he is just about the only one of the various genocidal maniacs
to besmirch the 20th century that Britain didn't support at any point.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am bound to say at this point, because there are many
sensitive and fragile souls that shatter into a thousand pieces whenever anyone
expresses an opinion in any way divergent from their own (see <a href="http://eponymistuk.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/polyphemus-myths-of-monomania.html">Polyphemus
and the Myths of Monomania</a>), that of course I am not belittling anything
that happened back then. Both my grandfathers fought with distinction in the
war. What I am saying is that they had pretty much wrapped it all up 28 years
before I was even born. I therefore find it hard to claim any credit for the
result, any more than I can claim to be a Petty Officer, just because my dad served
in the navy. These are events that occurred independent of my existence. A
football crowd may conceivably alter the course of a football match. Claiming
credit for something that you didn't bear witness to, and over which you
exerted no influence, is tantamount to theft. Or hypocrisy. Either way, the
result is unpleasant.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which only leaves the individual, struggling to make sense
of the world. One way is to make others bear the burden for one's mistakes,
which only leads to increased feelings of nausea and impotence. Another
approach is to recognise that most of what happens in the human sphere of
existence is an admixture of judgement and luck. There is little to be done
about bad luck. Ill-judgement, on the other hand, can be mitigated against, but
it requires the honest assessment of past liability in order to be successful. The
most futile lie is the one that we tell to ourselves. A fault can only be
corrected if it has been traced back to its proper source. If the source is
misidentified, the item will continue to malfunction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuGaPZ-wS_UlSSiFxEl2yPV5I458SJv5IJM37AedtZ9Ye8F18fjBXAZPZUrzpGmeCZsUiZ2XIepojJC8cbQN2FKfdWF3lzh_Lb2b2jKM8hz6Sb4tneAExKqNRfyxBB0VO7T4airpH9uoY/s1600/Wanderer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuGaPZ-wS_UlSSiFxEl2yPV5I458SJv5IJM37AedtZ9Ye8F18fjBXAZPZUrzpGmeCZsUiZ2XIepojJC8cbQN2FKfdWF3lzh_Lb2b2jKM8hz6Sb4tneAExKqNRfyxBB0VO7T4airpH9uoY/s400/Wanderer.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-30749302800586690302016-09-28T12:39:00.000+01:002016-09-28T12:39:21.018+01:00Read→Skip→Jump<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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There is a meditation technique known as the Reading Skip
Jump. In normal meditation, the meditator quietly contemplates the scene before
them, a room, a field, the sky, endeavouring to hold the entire scene in their
field of vision at once. By meditating on the external, silence descends and an
inner peace is attained.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A change comes when one first observes oneself observing. It
can be disconcerting to begin with, to hold the scene before you in your
perceptual range, including oneself and one's own drifting thoughts, and feel
removed from the scene like some form of out of body experience. It takes a little
practice, but this view of the world soon becomes comfortable, even comforting.
The stillness becomes deeper. The meditator becomes the 'Watcher'.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Reading Skip Jump takes this technique to its next
plateau. The adherent adopts a comfortable position and begins to read from a
novel or other descriptive work (there should be no pictures - this is
important). In reading, one starts to visualise the scene being described. The
skill is then to incorporate the imagery into the general framework experienced
in becoming the 'Watcher'. The meditator meditates on the scene before them,
whilst also meditating on the narrative in their head. Some practitioners have
reported catching glimpses of the action out of the corner of their eye in the
real world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But why, I hear you cry, is it called the Reading Skip Jump?
It is said that the true masters of the Reading Skip Jump can flip their
perception at the critical juncture, tricking the mind into thinking that the
fictional is the actual and the actual, fictional. In doing so, they are
propelled, with a skip and a jump, into the fabric of the novel. From there,
any number of new adventures are possible. It is at this stage that the
'Watcher' truly becomes the 'Reader'.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I know this trick as the Reverse Read (aka the
Read Reverse), but what the hell do I know?</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6zHuMxPBJbEXTWvjZowR1Lifxyazykv8uVzCYGiDt-mVB3nWiopO2DVIxL6Dm1evDo6K3i3ajJYc3jAX-0VVPGMjjgId_Z9rtsto2nWGNDQ2J-0YW8mLk2OyZdaCcblYNuVCnnXJQ_o/s1600/Reader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6zHuMxPBJbEXTWvjZowR1Lifxyazykv8uVzCYGiDt-mVB3nWiopO2DVIxL6Dm1evDo6K3i3ajJYc3jAX-0VVPGMjjgId_Z9rtsto2nWGNDQ2J-0YW8mLk2OyZdaCcblYNuVCnnXJQ_o/s400/Reader.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-35706294042310082272016-09-28T12:34:00.000+01:002016-09-28T12:34:28.141+01:00...And Another Thing...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Thoughts on Jeremy
Corbyn</b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected leader of the Labour
Party. Few in the media rate his chances of winning a general election, which is
the sole objective of politics in a system of elective representation. It is
also the antithesis of anything approaching actual democracy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, before we go any further, I should declare my
allegiances. I am a member of the Green Party. I don't necessarily believe in
everything that the Green Party stands for, but I do believe that in a system
of elective representation, where the only choice is to which pre-approved
candidate you hand over your decision making proxy, the only power that a
citizen can reasonably exert is to vote out the current government. And then
vote out the government that replaces them. And the one that replaces them. And
keep voting them out until we get an administration that we actually like. I
vote Green because they are the party at the furthest remove from the
mainstream parties (without actually becoming deranged) and so furthest removed
from the homogenous Lib-Lab-Con hive-mind. Power corrupts, but Westminster
corrupts absolutely. When the Greens get in, I'll probably vote them out too. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I despise the Tories as much as the next person (I grew up
with a soul in the 1980s), but I think I despise the Labour Party just that
little bit more. Hating a Tory is like hating a shark for doing what is in its
nature to do. Under Tony Blair, the Labour Party expended great energy telling
the British public how dangerous sharks were, how they needed to be protected
from sharks, and then gave the contract for constructing shark defences to a
consortium of Great Whites. Hospitals and other Private Finance Initiative (PFI)
projects signed off under New Labour will end up costing the public purse ten
times what would have been spent using only public money. Then, Tony Blair was
always a Tory in sheep's clothing. He was so good at being a Tory that one of
his dead skin cells became the next Conservative Prime Minster.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What politicians don't seem to have worked out is how angry
people are. The governments of the world bailed out the banks involved in the
subprime mortgage scandal, failed to bail out any of their victims, and then
used the doctrine of Disaster Capitalism (see Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine)
to asset strip public resources and public finances of anything that is of
benefit to the public. People are understandably angry at how even richer the
1% became in making everyone else poorer. When their only form of redress is to
occasionally get to vote on something that is ultimately meaningless to them,
they are liable to make irrational choices. We saw this in the EU elections of
2009 and 2014, most council elections since the 2008 financial crash, the 2016 EU
Referendum and, of course, the election (and re-election) of Jeremy Corbyn to
leader of the Labour Party. It's the same reason why Donald Trump is so
unaccountably popular, because people are looking for any alternative to the
political elites that drove us into this ditch. I suspect that many God-fearing
Americans would vote for Lucifer dressed as Rocky Horror's Dr. Frank N. Furter,
so long as he wasn't part of the D.C. elite (or a woman, for that matter).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which brings us back to Jeremy Corbyn. No, he probably can't
win a general election, but then Jesus Christ could be leader of the Labour
Party at the moment for all the difference it would make. So long as the SNP
continue to dominate in Scotland, Labour can't possibly win, because (and
here's the thing), England is a Conservative country. Labour may have pockets
in London, some strongholds in the north of the country, but the principle
colour of England is blue. British media commentators, however, are
overwhelmingly on the left, which is what happens when you are successful and
well off, and every minute of every day isn't a constant battle to survive. It's
easy to be liberal when you don't view every other human being else as a potential
rival. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The media also tends to be a self-reflecting surface that
can only view the world with reference to its own reflection. Jeremy Corbyn is
not a slick media operator like Blair or Cameron and that makes him a bad
politician in the eyes of the Westminster media bubble (most of whom have long
since succumb to full blown Stockholm Syndrome). I don't really care what
Corbyn or any politician has to say. I tend to mute any politician that appears
on TV, something I advise everyone to do. It's irrelevant what a politician
says, as it's usually empty rhetoric, or a distortion or oversimplification of
the truth. By hitting mute, only their body language remains, stripped of any context.
Then you get an idea of what the one speaking wants you to think, like being
able to filter out a magician's misdirections. A politician should be judged on
what they do, not what they say. By this measure, Jeremy Corbyn is doing better
than most.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I take my definition of socialism from Bertrand Russell, as
modified by George Orwell, as modified by me. Socialism is the belief in three
things: freedom of choice, equality of choice, and social justice. If you
believe in those three things then you are, I'm sorry to say, a Socialist. At
least Jeremy Corbyn is honest about his socialism. I'm still unlikely to vote
for him, but less unlikely than any Labour leader in living memory. Which is
progress of a kind. I'd have immersed my scrotum in sulphuric acid before I'd
have voted for Blair: But then I had Blair pegged as a dangerous narcissist
from the moment I became aware of him (and I never get tired of saying, I told
you so.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is possible to change the world without being in
government. If Corbyn's "kinder politics" forces the Tories to adopt
more left of centre policies to even give the illusion of possessing some modicum
of humanity, then it's a step in the left direction. Where there is little
prospect of power, honesty can flow a little more freely. Though the way things
have been going of late, the country might yet make Jeremy Corbyn Prime
Minister out of mere spite. Now that would be a change.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1UlwbHvgErqAEJ-ITEoGSH1KvAe0mX_TBFZ9a-HAyodQL0TM3BtNmLm7LNa1ncorA0RYp6bGMXlfFeHKD4m6X8YphmKah7F7EHt18xytls2iGmxBg8cggsZELHerqxCjGnMBndgjhDo0/s1600/Corbyn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1UlwbHvgErqAEJ-ITEoGSH1KvAe0mX_TBFZ9a-HAyodQL0TM3BtNmLm7LNa1ncorA0RYp6bGMXlfFeHKD4m6X8YphmKah7F7EHt18xytls2iGmxBg8cggsZELHerqxCjGnMBndgjhDo0/s400/Corbyn.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-17308946809282704642016-09-19T17:50:00.001+01:002016-09-19T17:50:35.447+01:00Peak-Tech: An Open Letter to Big Tech <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Hey Guys (I greet you in your native vernacular),
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you think we could tone it down on the software updates a
little please? I mean, I think we have now passed the point of Peak-Tech, the
point at which technology ceased to be a boon to society, and is now
increasingly becoming a hindrance. When you can look up a word in a dictionary
in a book quicker than it takes for the app version to even load up on your
phone, something has gone seriously wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To examine further, let's look at a case study: Apple's
iTunes. I imagine each iTunes Team Meeting begins with the Project Leader
saying, "Ok Guys, let's go around the table and I want everyone to say one
really cool thing about iTunes that we can remove or over-complicate in the
next release." I require a music player to do precisely three things:</div>
<ol>
<li>Show
me my music;</li>
<li>Play
me my music; and</li>
<li>Occasionally
give me access to a store to purchase new music</li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
And
that's it. I really don't understand why this requires a new version of iTunes
every six weeks or so. I tend to download about one update in four, and even
then by accident, because each new version of iTunes only serves to introduce
more and more steps to achieving any of three requirements listed above. It
also removes half of the albums covers, requiring time and energy to reinstall
them all.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Do
you think that we could have a version of iTunes designed for people who aren't
deranged (also Microsoft, Windows 10, same question)? Or maybe someone at Apple
could look up a thing from history called a CD player and take note of its
display panel. This is all that 99 out of 100 people need from a music player.
Oh, and while you're looking up CD players, you might also want to read up on a
thing called the Sega Dreamscape. That's all I can see when I see adverts for
the iPhone 7. Even the biggest company in the world is only ever one naff
product away from oblivion.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Now
Microsoft. You are Big Brother. After all, you have placed screens and cameras
in the homes of every middle class family (the Outer Party) in the country and
periodically report back to the government (the Inner Party) on your data
gathering activities. I imagine even Big Brother had to upgrade his equipment
on occasion. Like Microsoft, I bet he performed these upgrades in the early
hours. Except that Big Brother was fictional, and therefore competent, and so I
bet the people of Oceania never had to re-enter their password when they woke
up, or try to find the work that they left open the night before, or spend the
best part of two hours trying to find out why no sound is coming out of the
jack socket, as I did as a result of the last Windows 'update'.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
I
also now have to enter my password whenever I want to access my external hard
drive, despite not having been asked for a password for the hard drive in four
years previously. Honestly Microsoft, if you want to update something, what
about Internet Explorer? After all, it's hasn't been the year 1998 for ages,
and the only reason that anyone would use Explorer over Chrome or Firefox is
because they don't know how to change it (it's like Bing: I have only ever used
it to look up Google).
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Also,
shouldn't someone by now have figured out a way to install updates without the
need to restart the system? Maybe if someone in Silicon Valley took a day off
from imaging what crazy thing they could be doing and instead spent that time
working out what they should be doing for humanity's greater good, we might get
some shit done around here. Even the great industrialists of the nineteenth
century collaborated in building schools, hospitals, and other great public
works. Tech companies seem only to be interested in acquiring other tech
companies, and collaborating in the general trend towards hoarding the wealth
in ever more tightly controlled circles and viewing the general public as a
commodity to be monetised.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Maybe
instead of pissing millions away on vanity projects like skydiving attempts, you
could, I don't know, provide clean water to an African village, or modernise a
Romanian orphanage, or do something to fight the abuse and hatred that women
face every day in every part of the world by men who call themselves
heterosexuals. Yes, I'm sure you pay lip service to all of these things
already. What I'm saying, do it 50 times as much. That's what would be of use
to me right now. I certainly need that more than I need iTunes randomly adding
albums to my playlist, which seems to be this latest version's trick.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Avast:
If I wanted to pay for anti-virus software, it wouldn't be yours. I use you
because you are free. End of.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Netflix:
Love it, keep doing what you do. If you could make the main screen less busy,
that would be of help though. Not everyone's got a high spec laptop. Thanks.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
It
is said that the Babylonian Empire fell because its bureaucracy became too fat
and bloated, and corruption did for it in the end. I think our society will go
much the same way, only through software updates. I see an orbital defence
system. A large asteroid has been identified as on a collision course with
Earth. The co-ordinates are uploaded. The system is ready to fire. And at the
critical moment, a message will flash up at NASA headquarters: Please wait
while Microsoft installs essential updates.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
For
want of a sustainable system, the planet was lost.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Many
thanks.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
Rob
Maher.
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
PS:
To whoever is in charge of cash machines in the UK, what is the point of
offering the consumer options, if those options are then disregarded? Thanks
for that.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfC2AXyiEm2kXR_jdMxs08FcwXLeYEOo4wobR51NL6YT7kxCi6V2wDdv44fgVpmoYsLJUD7u18z_bKd1zHRd2JwejJxbstBeSO_joZlbKrI6dbnbCGrVaE9c_IdH9hY9juDSJ_LJgTm9o/s1600/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_%2528Vienna%2529_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfC2AXyiEm2kXR_jdMxs08FcwXLeYEOo4wobR51NL6YT7kxCi6V2wDdv44fgVpmoYsLJUD7u18z_bKd1zHRd2JwejJxbstBeSO_joZlbKrI6dbnbCGrVaE9c_IdH9hY9juDSJ_LJgTm9o/s400/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Tower_of_Babel_%2528Vienna%2529_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tower of Babel - Pieter Bruegel the Elder</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-45991720517454566902016-09-09T01:33:00.003+01:002019-09-11T13:49:59.055+01:00Polyphemus & the Myths of Monomania<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]-->"Every clearing was called a grove, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lucus</i>, which meant that it admitted
light, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lux</i>, like an eye... The heroic
sentence, 'Every giant had a grove (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lucus</i>)'
was originally true, but later it was misunderstood, altered, and corrupted. By
the age of Homer, it was falsely interpreted as meaning that every giant had an
eye in the middle of his forehead."<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>Giambattista
Vico, The New Science</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the many problems facing humanity today is the
prevailing belief in a single, objective reality. That is to say, the belief
that one's own ideas and ideals are the only possible reality, and anyone
deviating from this subjective ground state is a threat to civilised society.
To witness this behaviour in action, simply go to the internet, anywhere there
is a comments section, and start reading. Yet like Polyphemus, the Cyclops in
Homer's Odyssey, if one views the world only through a single eye, it is all
too easy for some other bugger to put it out with a well aimed stick. Monomania
will only lead to darkness in the end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our monomania is largely the hangover from centuries of State
imposed monotheism. Constantine converted the Roman Empire to Christianity in
the 4th century in order to do away with elected successors and replace them
with his own hereditary heirs. At one point, six men had claimed the right to
be crowned Emperor, leading to years of civil war. Constantine emerged as the
eventual victor and he set about replacing the various factions aligned around
the various gods and religions with a single, all seeing, all powerful, God.
One all powerful, all seeing God equals one all powerful, all seeing Emperor with
one line of equally omnipotent successors. Constantine himself only converted
to Christianity on his deathbed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Roman Empire split in two, then fell, but monotheism
prevailed. The western half of the Empire became the Roman Catholic Church, the
world's first international bank. As well as lending money to half of European
royalty, Rome exported the idea that one God equals one Ruler, a model imposed
throughout the Middle Ages to horrific effect, especially if you were Jewish,
or a woman. In the 20th century, God is replaced by the State itself, so that
even atheist Marxists can get in on the act, but this rarely works out as well.
God is external, remote, unknowable. Tell someone God is perfect and there is
little they can do to confirm or deny it. Tell someone that the State is
perfect and all they really have to do is stick their head out of the window
for a look see.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From the equality, One God = One Ruler, all else follows.
One God equals one ruler and once line of succession, equals one nation, one
religion, one race, one gender, one sexuality, one culture, one personality,
one trade or profession, one place where you will be born and die. You shall be
one thing, and one thing alone. Any deviation from the norm will be severely
punished. This form of monomania comes from the belief in a static universe
that is immutable and perfect for all time. It is the natural order of things. It
is the way things have always been. Thanks to Hubble and Einstein, we ought to
know better by now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The idea that one should be one thing, and one thing alone,
is pervasive. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Monomania is really an
exercise in dualism and false dichotomy. There is me and mine, and there is
everyone else. Everyone else is wrong and must be made to see the error of
their ways, or be removed (see years 1914 - 2003 inclusive). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The extension to this is the delusion that "I"
represents the archetype example of its demographic group. Again, refer to the
internet. The one that bears their nations flag as an avatar is usually the
least community minded of all. They promote patriotism, denouncing socialism in
the process, failing to appreciate that the one is just a more diffuse form of
the other (How can you have a country without first having a community? You
commit socialism every time you step out the door.). They say things like,
"I'm proud to be British." when what they really mean is, "I'm
proud to be me." They equate the quality of being themselves with the
quality of being British, disallowing anyone that doesn't think and act the
same, disqualifying the rest of Britain in the process. They should revert to using
a selfie as an avatar like everyone else. It would be a more honest expression
of national identity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those on the left are arguably worse. They say things like,
"What we've got to realise is that we're all one." Through the filter
of monomania, this roughly translates as, "Why can't everyone just be
reasonable, like me?" They treat things like unity and equality as
absolutes, rather than approximations towards which we crawl, incrementally,
with many setbacks along the way. I love liberally minded people (I am one),
but too often we complain about the way things should be, rather confronting
the way things actually are. It is a yarn spun by politician and preacher
alike, about how wonderful Utopia will be when we finally get there with a
little self-sacrifice; meantime, Utopia still lies somewhere over the horizon
and the ship is springing leaks all over the gaff. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suggest a modification to this monomania. An inversion, if
you like, away from a single, objective reality, towards embracing one's own
subjective reality, but seen as one bubble in an infinite foam of possible ideas,
ideals, and interests. There are times when it is useful to have a single,
objective reality. The fast lane of the motorway, for instance. Objectivity is
essential for carrying out scientific research, but even Special Relativity
tells us that there are many inertial frames of reference, but that no one
frame of reference is more objective than any other. Most of the time, what a person
does or does not believe is irrelevant. Everyone operates on varying levels of
reality as measured against some agreed social norm, but the measure of where
that average is raises over time. It was once acceptable to leave the bodies of
executed criminals to rot on public display, for instance. Our idea of what
represents acceptable society, or what constitutes acceptable reality, improves
with each passing age. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The internet and social media have altered the world out of
all recognition. Where once emigrating families would hold mock wakes before
departure, because they knew they would never again see those they were leaving
behind, today we can chat with people on the other side of the world as a
matter of course via Skype. The smart phone in our hand has allowed us to
broadcast our thoughts the instant that they occur, whether or not anyone is awake
to hear them at the time. The dramatic reduction in the amount of time that a
modern human needs to spend securing enough calories to survive means the
replacement of such binary choices as friend or foe, food or mate, with more
arbitrary decision trees like cats or dogs, City or United, Blur or Oasis, left
or right, Leave or Remain, but with the same injection of fear as friend or
foe. Which is precisely why you get the internet. A billion limbic systems
bashing against each other, each with its own idea of reality and each hostile
to any deviation from its self-reflecting state of equilibrium.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Racially we can look at ourselves only one of two ways.
Either we are all one race, in that any human can mate with any other human of
the opposite sex and produce offspring that is itself capable of producing
offspring. Either that, or we take the neurological view that the human brain has
become so sophisticated and discerning, immersed in a society now offering so
much choice and diversity, that we have each, essentially, become our own unique
race. And as technology evolves, and the boundaries widen of what society can
provide, and deems acceptable, the process of speciation will only accelerate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can demonstrate this to yourself by thinking of a close friend.
What's their favourite food? Favourite restaurant? Favourite film? Favourite
book? TV show? Artist? Sport? Team? Designer? Label? Car? Colour? Pet? Peeve?
It doesn't take many data points to start to show considerable divergence
between the choices of close friends, family members, even twins. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The behaviour witnessed hour by hour on the internet is
evidence of a prevailing belief that everyone should be one thing and the same.
Except that where once everyone was expected to believe in the one, true
Christian God, now we are all expected to think that 9/11 was an inside job, or
coconut milk is the universal panacea of immortal life, or that this week's
female celebrity hate figure is a bitch, cunt, whore for [insert spurious, inadequate,
self-pitying reason here]. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some gay people view bisexuals in much the same way as some
heterosexuals see the gay community, further evidence of our latent monomania. This
is one of the reasons why I think that if we are going to define someone's
sexual status, we also need to define their social status. For instance,
someone can be heterosexual, but homosocial, in that they spend the majority of
their time in groups of their own gender, only seeking out members of the
opposite sex for sexual gratification. Sexuality is like skin tone. Monomaniacs
over the centuries have tried to reduce humanity to a series of binary moral
judgements like, gay and straight, black and white, wrong and right, rather
than the 8 billion shades of grey that we truly are. No one is one thing all
the time (I am left-handed, but play guitar and use a mouse right-handed).
Everyone has off days, and even the most cautious of person will occasionally
do something that is unexpected, outside of their comfort zone, even dangerous.
To be human is be in a constant state of flux. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are analogue creatures living in a digital world and we
need to learn how to digitise. We've tried the "we're all one"
approach time and time again and all it really leads to is Belsen, Siberia, or
Guantanamo Bay. The ultimate failure of all monomaniacal ideologies is the
failure to realise that there is no one Venn diagram that encompasses all of
humanity. We live in a universe that expands and creates. The yearning to
fragment and diversify is encoded in our DNA. Constantine embraced Christianity
to do away with sectarianism in the Empire, but within a few centuries the
sects of Zeus, Mithras, and Apollo had been replaced with the Franciscan, Jesuit,
and Benedictine orders of monks. Then, first Martin Luther broke with Rome,
then Henry VIII, and sectarianism reasserted itself in Europe with a vengeance.
Monomania seeks only to enforce convergence upon a divergent species. It is
always doomed to fail.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Individuality is an indication of intellect. They are also
proportional. Where one rises, the other is sure to follow. A monomaniacal
order allows for little or no social mobility. Apart from anything else, if one
outsources the decision making process to an external like God, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immigrants, or the State, then the power to positively
affect one's direction in life is severely impaired. The individual becomes
tethered to one station in life. Only by accepting responsibility for one's actions
can an honest assessment of one's strengths and shortcomings be performed. Only
then can we be sure of our true course. Only then can we break free of our
moorings and explore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is also incredibly freeing. I am an atheist. Once, I
would have described myself as a militant atheist, but not since I started to
enjoy floating in my own little bubble of reality. All that I can now say for
certain is that God does not exist in my universe, as I have no need of any
being more supreme than myself. If I were to find out that there were such
things as gods, my only real question would be, "Where do I apply?"
However, I can offer no opinion on who does or does not exist in your reality. I
have no empirical experience of being you. I am happy to discuss and compare
our varying perspectives, but I have no wish to convert you. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moreover, if our beliefs are so at odds that we can really
find no common ground, well, we live in an infinity of cyberspace, where we
need never lay sight on each other unless we really want to. There is more than
enough room to accommodate the realities of all the world's Jews, Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Beliebers, Trekies, Mets Fans, Geordies,
Dungeon Masters, Chefs, Vegans, Transsexuals, Pansexuals, Bikers, Ballet
Dancers, Belly Dancers, Writers, Actors, Gamers, and a billion other
demographics besides. Yes, there are real world problems like climate change to
be dealt with, but this is exactly the kind of thing that monomania
perpetuates. In the monomaniac's world, there are only two opposing views and
they should each be given equal time. In the pan-dimensional order of things,
there are 8 billion opposing sides and most of them are firmly for believing in
anthropomorphic climate change. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Paganism has returned to the world. Actually, it never
really went away, but it's been keeping a low profile for the last thousand
years or so, what with all the persecution, ducking stools, and pyres of
burning bodies. Today we have the potential to build a world that is a broad,
continuous spectrum of happy mediums. There will still be those at the margins
that we will have to take care of for their own sakes, or for the sake of
others, but this is so much easier to achieve when you view people as a standard
distribution of possible personality types, rather than as a flatline. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Obsession and monomania can be a good thing when it's something
that one is passionate about for the thing itself. Without obsessives we
wouldn't have medicine, technology, transport, or most of the rest of the
modern world. Me, I'm in to books: buying books, and reading books, and
thinking about books, and talking about books, and rereading books, and writing
about books. I like society. Society is a fine thing, and I am happy to
contribute to its continued existence. However, what I really want for us to do
is to figure this shit out, so that I might finally get around to reading The
Count of Monte Cristo. At the moment it seems that my only hope is to follow it
on Twitter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having opened with Polyphemus, I can only conclude, once
again, with words taken from the Cyclops chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>But it's no use,
says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women,
insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that
is really life.</b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0s5WtQ4qj_lDV5GawQGzAAO-RGNTBBZGHgltnca3nm8vkQ-H42_ul6xG0XcbnLi9MKs806uiCWpcDgZqfpPzRInLwLKtLdl6Du3hB9OLDBmKg-Yfm6A_LAx1HarrQ0PHPDCtNMI7w0yg/s1600/Cyclops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0s5WtQ4qj_lDV5GawQGzAAO-RGNTBBZGHgltnca3nm8vkQ-H42_ul6xG0XcbnLi9MKs806uiCWpcDgZqfpPzRInLwLKtLdl6Du3hB9OLDBmKg-Yfm6A_LAx1HarrQ0PHPDCtNMI7w0yg/s400/Cyclops.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-6771484650195979912016-09-09T01:33:00.001+01:002016-09-09T02:36:53.720+01:00The Adventure of Crow Crag: Withnail & I as Homes and WatsonRecently, I sat down to watch a double bill of The Big
Lebowski and Withnail & I on my home cinema system (a laptop, plugged into
a projector, plugged into a hi-fi system). The connection between the two films
might not be immediately apparent. However, as The Big Lebowski is said to be
loosely based on Raymond Chandler's novel, The Big Sleep, so Withnail & I
can be seen as the misadventures of Sherlock Holmes and John. H Watson.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It should first be said that The Big Lebowski is based on
the series of Philip Marlowe novels, rather than any particular book. The only
real connection between the plots of The Big Sleep and The Big Lebowski is that
the Dude and Marlowe are both followed, but for different reasons. The
explanation that the "fellow shamus" gives to the Dude is taken from
The Little Sister. The sequence where the Dude is drugged, thrown into the
road, and ends up in front of the Chief of Police in Malibu is straight out of
Farewell My Lovely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Big Lebowski also owes more than a little to Dashiell
Hammett's novel and film, The Maltese Falcon; but then Chandler used Sam Spade
as his model for Philip Marlowe. Both PIs were played to smouldering effect by Humphrey Bogart in
the 1940s. As much as the Dude is meant to be the stoner Marlowe, making a
number of erroneous deductions during the course of the film, he is as much the
stoner Bogart, retaining the same acerbic wit and stubborn refusal to give a straight
answer to any question. And you know what they say about not Bogarting that
joint.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the same token, Withnail and I are the drunk Holmes and
Watson. There is Withnail, the rude, high-functioning, borderline sociopath,
with a love for acting and the overly dramatic. Then there is "I"
(Peter: Withnail refers to him as such when they're at Monty's). He is Boswell
to Withnail's Johnson, faithfully recording his friend's slow decent into psychosis.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The pair go off into the English countryside, a feature of
many a Holmes adventure, especially The Hound of the Baskervilles. At Crow Crag
(the cottage in which they stay), the most dangerous beast to affront Withnail
& I is the farmer's randy bull. Although, of course, the randy bull foreshadows
the appearance of Monty in the night. Like Monty, the bull ignores Withnail,
going straight for Peter. With his unwanted amorous attentions, Monty is the real
hound here. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With a quick blast of All Along the Watchtower, Withnail
& I leave the London of 1969 for a Cumbria that could be 1869 if not for
the farmer's tractor. There are rambles out on the moor and encounters with
local types in the public house. Like the Dude, Withnail & I make a number
of dubious deductions along the way. That Jake is out to get them. That Monty
breaking in at night is Jake coming to kill them. The proper way to cook a
chicken. Peter's paranoia that Withnail is planning to sell him out to Monty,
however, is well founded, leading to a final showdown with the hound in the
dead of night. The beast is slain with several shots to the heart, and Withnail
& I return to the capital and Camden, just on the other side of Regent's
Park from 221B Baker Street.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, I'm not for one moment suggesting that Bruce Robinson,
in writing Withnail & I, deliberately set out to write a comedy based on the
adventures of Holmes and Watson. The high-functioning detective and his
faithful companion is a common trope in thriller writing. It has been used time
and again by crime writers since the time the Holmes stories were first published.
Conan-Doyle modeled Holmes closely on Edgar Allen Poe's detective, Dupin, and
his bespoke biographer, who unlike Watson remains nameless. The Dude has
Walter, even Sam Spade has Miles Archer, at least until the end of the first
act. The only real lone wolf is Philip Marlowe, steadfastly singular and alone,
telling it like it is, straight from the horse's mouth, rather than through an
intermediary. I think that's the reason why I love Marlowe best of all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Few films end as poignantly as Withnail & I, with
Withnail quoting Hamlet in the rain (Act II, Scene II, 278-292). The poignancy
is redoubled if you're familiar with the lines and know that Withnail's rendition
is far from perfect. He misses out bits of the speech and muddles others.
Withnail has ambitions to play the Dane, but understudying Konstantin is
probably a stretch for him at this point. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Watson leaves 221B Baker Street to marry Mary Morstan at
the end of The Sign of Four, so Peter leaves London to play the lead in a play
up north. As Withnail stands, misquoting Shakespeare in the rain, you fear for
him, because you know he will most likely end up as one of the "wankers on
the site" that he derided at the beginning of the film. Much as we enjoy
watching his antics, Withnail is not Marlowe: Neither is he Holmes. There will be no be no bee hives, or retirement to the Sussex downs for Withnail. Only oblivion awaits.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwrcCj4WcjPgtudNcx3mVKxwQqXt44uDq3R_EroHslBv3bBzQn22TtVEyLM0KAwxKuK6jKC0nB7GbDxmZc3o2_K3ZuP-44RfzyoegnRT3HZPBjToxRfu64jas9yqVdse7mZOl5f9J7Yl8/s1600/Withnail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwrcCj4WcjPgtudNcx3mVKxwQqXt44uDq3R_EroHslBv3bBzQn22TtVEyLM0KAwxKuK6jKC0nB7GbDxmZc3o2_K3ZuP-44RfzyoegnRT3HZPBjToxRfu64jas9yqVdse7mZOl5f9J7Yl8/s320/Withnail.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2175668404578044472.post-8422937224903090292016-09-09T01:32:00.001+01:002016-09-09T01:32:38.752+01:00The Paternity Pay Sketch<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
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mso-para-margin:0cm;
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font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]--><u>Scene</u>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An official looking
office with the feel of a scientific institute. Two men are present. One man sits
behind an oak desk. The other stands in front of him, palms on the desk as he
speaks.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Standing Man: I mean they call it paternity leave, but you
don't get paid for it, you just get 2 weeks minimum pay. Women get 6 weeks full
pay. It's unfair. It's unfair to men. Where's the equality in that I ask you?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Man at Desk [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">thinks
for a moment</i>]: No, no you're right, that is disadvantageous to men.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Standing man is
pleased with this decision. The man behind the desk gets up and goes to a
blackboard. Only the right half of the blackboard is initially in shot. Written
at the top of the board is the title: 'Things That Are Disadvantageous to Men'.
Written in chalk are two five bar gates and three single strokes. The man adds
a fourth stroke to the latter group. The rest of the side of the board is
empty.</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The camera pans left,
to the other side of the board, titled: 'Things That Are Disadvantageous to
Women'. This side of the board is full of five bar gates, many written over
others in different coloured chalks. The camera continues to pan left to reveal
two further blackboards and a whiteboard on wheels that have been stacked at
one corner of the room and are full. Someone at some point has started writing five
bar gates on the wall, but quickly discarded this method, in favour of a piece
of paper pinned to the wall that unravels to the floor in curls and continues under
the door and outside into the corridor. Both sides of the paper are crammed
with five bar gates.</span></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<i>
</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The paper reaches the
main entrance and the camera continues outside, following more chalked five bar
gates on the ground, with children adding more. The camera pans up to reveal
two enormous monoliths of stone dominating the skyline, with a third in
construction, each more massive than the rest, each marked with hundreds of
thousands of five bar gates arranged in the pattern of five bar gates. Finally,
markings on the surface of the moon are seen, with a rocket taking off from the
ground.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>End Scene</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-ABF8Q3iLNHpOvOdjZInUulN2wrN5anWy7YxMT_ZMLCGQN65wxYLL9_W-vD6ei5jhyiuRM-Pl4P6s2xOBnT5aqhQ4yUK-jaaaDKrhxaOnGsvMwUfQo0TDA1k29TjF3prwjUceSC-yVE/s1600/Tally_marks-Five-bar_Gate.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-ABF8Q3iLNHpOvOdjZInUulN2wrN5anWy7YxMT_ZMLCGQN65wxYLL9_W-vD6ei5jhyiuRM-Pl4P6s2xOBnT5aqhQ4yUK-jaaaDKrhxaOnGsvMwUfQo0TDA1k29TjF3prwjUceSC-yVE/s320/Tally_marks-Five-bar_Gate.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Eponymisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16672735017941814050noreply@blogger.com0