Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

List Compulsion Meme

Considering the haphazard, spotty quality of this list, I definitely don't feel saddened by my haphazard, spotty experience with it. Nevertheless, it is a fun list. Of course, coming from me, that means nothing . . . have I mentioned that I love lists?

Via Scholl.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you own.
3) Underline the books for which you have seen a movie or TV production.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (Really?)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (in-progress, but well over half)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 leak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (Rather a lot Austen . . . and this one's pretty obscure)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Hmmm . . . didn't I pretty much just see this on here?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (The list fails. The end.)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (Also known as Simon Birch)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (Yeah, definitely Austen-heavy.)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (Gattaca should count as a movie version)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (Ick.)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Ad nauseum. Quite a lot of Dickens, as well.)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (C'mon, what gives here?)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Apocalypse Now TOTALLY counts.)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (One of those tiresome "children's" books that was really written for adults.)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (Bunny book!)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (This list seems to lack an awareness of metonymy.)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Farewell, Grand Master

Arthur C. Clarke died today in Sri Lanka, which he has called home for over 50 years. He was 90. Clarke was one of only two dozen currently acknowledged Grand Masters of Science Fiction, an elite group that includes the likes of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. His death leaves Ray Bradbury as the last surviving member of the even more elite "big four" writers of modern science fiction.

I've read several of his books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and the magnificent Rendesvouz with Rama, but not any of the Space Odyssey sequels or his famous stand-alone Childhood's End. His final novel, co-written with Stephen Baxter (their fourth collaboration), was published three months ago.

In any case, he was a great author with a great mind, and he will be missed. However, he certainly won't be forgotten anytime soon. I was very pleased to note that a Rendesvouz with Rama film is currently slated for release in 2009. It will star Morgan Freeman and be directed by David Fincher (of Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac). Fantastic news.

Planet Narnia

Someone made a discovery a few years ago that I completely missed, recounted in great detail in the book Planet Narnia, and in sketchy detail here. The author makes a strong case for each of the seven Chronicles of Narnia having an intentional thematic correspondence with one of the seven medieval planets, that is: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The correspondences, according to this scholar, are: LWW - Jupiter, PC - Mars, VDT - Sun, SC - Moon, HHB - Mercury, MN - Venus, LB - Saturn.

Of course, I'm always fascinated by this sort of thing, and the post is quite interesting. I kind of want to read the book now, and really want to read Lewis's poem "The Planets" (which doesn't seem to exist online, sadly).

The Sharpton Challenge Strikes Back

There are two good reasons for selecting that title for my response to this. The first is that this is a sequel. As to the second, well . . . The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that I don't have many favorite sci-fi characters outside of Star Wars, I have favorite sci-fi authors: Wells, Verne, Asimov, Clark, Bradbury, LeGuin, Zahn, etc.

There are a few exceptions to this: R. Daneel Olivaw (Asimov's epic, multi-series future earth saga), Academician Prokhor Zakharov (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri), Sarah Kerrigan (StarCraft). Then there are movies and TV shows . . . Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Back to the Future, Firefly. But with a few exceptions, what I really appreciate there, too, are the plots (and, it has to be said, the special effects).

So this has to be a list of my favorite characters (pretty much a list of scum and villainy, as it were) from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, as anyone who ever read this post will understand:

1.) Han Solo: Han Solo is, very clearly, the best character from the movies (although generally far cooler before he let a certain princess get his number). So, if you really like that pre-infatuation Solo, you'll love the fact that there are several EU books devoted to that period of his life, and several more that let him go off on his own and really live up to that name. And several of them are pretty good. Favorite moments: Anything involving Han in an asteroid belt. Most notably the chase scene from The Empire Strikes Back and the hilarious attempt to live up to that former glory and best piloting records (set by his own children) in Vector Prime.

2.) Corran Horn: This guy has it all. He's a Corellian fighter pilot who becomes a Jedi, and stars in a significant percentage of my favorite Star Wars books, including the amazing X-Wing series. Favorite moments: His derring-do investigations as a member of CorSec in "Side Trip," revelation of the jaw-dropping twist at the end of The Krytos Trap and unexpected battle against five saber-wielding Dark Jedi in I, Jedi (which Luke has to bail him out of).

3.) Grand Admiral Thrawn: A blue-skinned, red-eyed Chiss alien who managed the rank of Grand Admiral in the extremely xenophobic Imperial Navy by dint of his unmatched tactical genius. He attributed his insight into the enemy to a rigorous study of the art of whatever race he came up against. Whatever works, man. Whatever works. Favorite moment: Pretty much anything he says or does in the Thrawn Trilogy.

4.) Mara Jade Skywalker: Kinda like Han, Mara was much cooler before she married into the Skywalker family. She was much closer to the right idea when she attempted to kill Luke on their first meeting, a holdover response dictated by her days working as a Force-sensitive secret assassin taking orders directly from Emperor Palpatine. Ah, well. She still pulls some pretty sweet stunts from time to time. Favorite moments: Probably the exciting investigation of the Hand of Thrawn complex in the Thrawn duology.

5.) Wes Janson: Janson is actually a character from the original movies, but not many casual viewers could tell you when or where. He's one of the pilots during the Battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. However, his best work is collaborating with Wedge Antilles as part of both Rogue Squadron and Wraith Squadron, as detailed by Aaron Allston. Favorite moments: Three words, "Yub yub, Commander."

Good to Know

In the brown book in my sabretache there was the tale of an angel (perhaps actually one of the winged women warriors who are said to serve the Autarch) who, coming to Urth on some petty mission or other, was struck by a child's arrow and died. With her gleaming robes all dyed by her heart's blood even as the boulevards were stained by the expiring life of the sun, she encountered Gabriel himself. His sword blazed in one hand, his great two-headed ax swung in the other, and across his back, suspended on the rainbow, hung the very battle horn of Heaven.

"Where wend you, little one," asked Gabriel, "with your breast more scarlet than a robin's?"

"I am killed," the anged said, "and I return to merge my substance once more with the Pancreator."

"Do not be absurd. You are an angel, a pure spirit, and cannot die."

"But I am dead," said the angel, "nevertheless. You have observed the wasting of my blood - do you not observe also that it no longer issues in straining spurtings, but only seeps sluggishly? Note the pallor of my countenance. Is not the touch of an angel warm and bright? Take my hand and you will imagine you hold a horror new dragged from some stagnant pool. Taste my breath - is it not fetid, foul, and nidorous?"

Gabriel answered nothing, and at last the angel said, "Brother and better, even if I have not convinced you with all my proofs, I pray you stand aside. I would rid the universe of my presence."

"I am convinced indeed," Gabriel said, stepping from the other's way. "It is only that I was thinking that had I known we might perish, I would not at all times have been so bold."

-The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, Part I of The Book of the New Sun

The Sharpton Challenge

Sharpton wants to know favorite fantasy characters and archetypes. Can't resist that. I've been reading fantasy for as long as I've been reading, and I like a lot of different characters for a lot of different reasons . . . So a request like that took some serious thought.

A younger part of me is drawn to the most crowd-pleasing characters: cucumber-cool swashbucklers (like Inigo Montoya), plucky comic relief (like Puddleglum, although he's so much more), or a combination of both (like Reepicheep, probably my earliest favorite fictional character post-Sesame Street).

On the other hand, from a literary perspective I have a deep appreciation of morally-ambiguous characters who are often wily and unscrupulous, or who struggle with some sort of inner-conflict (Severus Snape and Remus Lupin, for example, are two of my three favorite characters from Harry Potter). In fact, the villains can often be the most fascinating or even likable characters in some stories (like Steerpike, the strangely-charismatic villain of the Gormenghast novels). Magneto is by far the most interesting character of the X-Men movie trilogy. Davy Jones is quite possibly the most colorful movie villain since Darth Vader. Illidan Stormrage, is definitely my personal favorite of the epic-sized WarCraft cast.

But I'll stop cheating and dropping extra names and move on to the characters I chose, in chronological order of origin (newest to oldest):

1.) Jonathan Strange: Central character in Susanna Clarke's amazing 2004 work, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Strange is an extremely intelligent (though frequently unwise) young man with an amazing affinity for magic. He becomes the apprentice of Mr. Norrell, the only magician in early 19th-Century England, and uses his skill on the battlefield to help the Duke of Wellington defeat Napoleon Bonaparte (though this accounts only a fraction of the massive and intricate 800-page novel).

2.) Hermione Granger: The "cleverest witch of her generation," Hermione is clearly the greatest character of the "Terrible Trio." She always has the answer if anyone does, and if they don't, she'll be the first to get it (this doesn't always work out for her, though, cf. Chamber of Secrets). Impossible to dislike, I guess she's a bit of an obvious choice, but that's why she's a favorite.

3.) Sparrowhawk: Central character of Ursula K. LeGuin's magnificent Earthsea series which, on top of being beautifully written, is the next best thing to reading a backstory for Gandalf. Sparrowhawk (whose true name is Ged) is an extremely gifted wizard, though his skillful arrogance led to big trouble in his youth. However, he eventually matures into one of the greatest archwizards the Earthsea archipelago has ever seen, becoming almost as wise as he is intelligent along the way.

4.) Gandalf the Grey: Gandalf is the fantasy wizard, and the fantasy character I've probably come closest to straight-up worshipping. In fact, he may just be the greatest fantasy character ever. Note that I say "the Grey" rather than "the White" or simply "Gandalf." I always kind of preferred him before his rebirth, not only because grey is my favorite color (probably because of Gandalf, so chicken and egg) and white is boring, but because Gandalf the Grey was a lot more fun. Death took a lot of the perpetual twinkle out of his eye. Also, Gandalf the Grey was a great deal more fallible, which made both him and his adventures more interesting, if not quite as uber.

5.) Merlin: If Gandalf is the wizard of modern fantasy then Merlin is simply The Wizard. Not only is he the ultimate source of pretty much all fictional wizardkind, but in many ways he is a large percentage of the wizard population. Featured in fiction for centuries by everyone from Mark Twain to C.S. Lewis, Merlin stars under his own name in countless series and incarnations, popping in musicals, movies, video games . . . you name it. My personal favorite depiction is the lovable humanist Merlyn from T.H. White's Once and Future King. An often comedic, but deeply compassionate, version of the wizard, Merlyn lives his life backwards in time, with simultaneously amusing and confusing results.

Favorite archetype (pretty obvious by now):
Wizard - Even when they don't know everything, they know a lot more than everyone else. Their characters often arc from Smart Young Man to Wise Old Man, with all sorts of fantastic happenings along the way. Their abilities, beyond being extremely cool and powerful, possess an almost infinite variety. No offense, but there are only so many ways to swing a sharp object (and George Lucas ran through them all quite exhaustively in his Star Wars prequel trilogy). I love a good sword fight as much as the next guy, but a writer has to work pretty hard and be pretty thick to get magic to appear stale and boring.

And there you have it. As long as we're talking about fantasy, have a look at this fantastic trailer for Harry Potter and the Chronicles of the Lord of the Golden Compass of the Jedi.

Too Gay or Not Too Gay

If you're reading this here now, chances are good that you already read elsewhere a few days ago that J.K. Rowling stated that Albus Dumbledore, beloved headmaster of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books, is gay. You may not have heard, but four days before Rowling outed Dumbledore, she also declared that the content and imagery of her books is, indeed, explicitly Christian. What do these revelations have in common? Neither of them can change what has already been written.

And yet, I can't help but feel a little irritated at the level to which discourse about the books will now be permitted, nay forced, to sink. I'm not irritated at Rowling, mind you. She revealed her thoughts on Dumbledore in response to a direct question from an audience member. I don't think she was trying to drop a bombshell. What I do think is that sexual orientation doesn't play a role in the books, therefore it shouldn't play a role in the already muddied and inane waters of public discourse about the books. Insofar as the series is a prolonged argument for diversity and tolerance, there is an implicit acceptance of homosexuality, but the subject simply does not come up.

I am no great respecter of authorial intent. I have long believed that, as interesting and even illuminating as an author's insight can be, a work of fiction will speak for itself in ways that even the best writer could never have foreseen. I've been arguing for over three years that Harry Potter is Christian fantasy. It's obvious. It's in the books. That's the way Rowling wrote it, and nothing that she says can make it any more or less true. As gratifying as it was to hear it confirmed, I was surprised that she felt that she needed to. On the flip side, Dumbledore's alleged homosexuality flew so far under the radar that not even Rita Skeeter nosed it up in one of her muck-raking columns about him in book 7. It just wasn't in there.

Take a look at this rather good pair of articles by John Mark Reynolds, philosophy professor at Biola (is Martinez familiar with that name, I wonder?). I'm not sure I agree with everything he says, or perhaps I just don't agree with how he says it, but it's a good, level-headed piece of writing. "Taking Stories More Seriously Than the Author: Dumbledore is not Gay, Dumbledore is not Hetero."

This is a non-issue masquerading as an issue. If you pick a side, you automatically lose. Whether you happily accept Dumbledore as a gay character or disgustedly condemn Rowling for her declaration it says something about you, and nothing about Harry Potter, either as literature, entertainment, or anything else. As someone who understands that homosexuality is a highly-charged and deeply-complicated issue involving real people, I resent the assumptions produced by holding either opinion about Dumbledore. You know what I mean . . . If you think it's okay that Dumbledore is gay, you hate children and family values. If you think it isn't okay that Dumbledore is gay, you're a bible-thumping homophobe . . . that sort of thing.

Guess what? I don't care whether Dumbledore is gay or not. I realize (and resent) that making a big deal out of this makes me sound like I do, but I honestly couldn't be less interested. He is a fascinating and wonderful character, and I love him as I love everything else about the Harry Potter books. What I do care about is the irrelevancy of the topic to anything important in Harry Potter and the lack of maturity that results from its introduction.

On the one side, seriously, what's to be so giddy about? Check this out. Stop dancing around like you've just scored a victory that you can rub the other side's face in. On the other side, there is the equally childish "ewwy" reaction . . . particularly annoying when it comes from long-time fans of the series who now find themselves "turned off" by something that they didn't even catch while they were reading (because it wasn't actually there).

And, moving from childish to juvenile, we've got the people snickering in the back about Dumbledore wanting to hold Harry's "wand" and how now it makes sense that he never left Hogwarts to become Minister of Magic. Grow up. Isn't it funny how no one ever thought Dumbledore stayed for the little girls, but as soon as someone says he's gay he must like the little boys? When did homosexuality become a synonym for pedophilia? In any case, this is precisely why the subject should never have come up. It denigrates the discourse rather than elevating it. Our society simply isn't mature enough to talk about this like adults yet. It may never be mature enough.

I rewatched an old favorite last night: Anatomy of a Murder. It's a courtroom drama starring Jimmy Stewart. The movie was made in 1959, and there's one scene in particular that's always just blown my mind. The trial involves a murder and an alleged rape, and the rape victim's panties play a key role. When the subject first comes up, the judge makes a point of standing up and announcing that panties will be part of the discussion. The whole courtroom cracks up, and he tells them he wanted them to get their chuckles out now so the trial could continue.

It's hard to believe that a mere 50 years ago, a roomful of people older than the age of 12 could find the mere mention of the word "panties" so hilarious . . . and yet, watching the furor over "Dumbledore is gay" I realize I shouldn't really be surprised. We haven't progressed all that much. I think that may be what gets to me most of all . . . even participating in this discussion as though it were important makes me feel like I'm in junior high.

It Is Finished

Potterheads rejoice! The 7th book is out, most of you have finished it (if you haven't . . . spoiler warning!), and it is a worthy final chapter in an epically-good series that I will relish sharing with fellow readers for some time to come. Rachel, having seen the first five movies and heard the first book read aloud (by me), wormed a partial summary of book six out of me so I could read Deathly Hallows out loud to her. Not what I would have done, but this is the girl that normally reads the ends of books first. I was just glad she didn't immediately jump to the epilogue and then tell me all about it.

I read about half of it aloud, and the rest we read separately. I finished on Sunday and she finished on Monday. Now she's started over . . . she read Sorceror's Stone and about half of Chamber yesterday. She probably would have read more, but I got irritable at about 2 in the morning when she kept exploding with shrieks of hysterical laughter and thrashing about while I was trying to sleep right next to her. I'm such a grump.

Anyway, back to Deathly Hallows. My expectations for this book were absolutely through the roof (no way to keep them down), and they were satisfied. This book has everything: weddings, funerals, high-speed, high-altitude chases, riddles, mysteries, sudden reversals, disguises, duels, a bank job, a battle . . . even a Grail quest! And it fills in perfectly all the gaps that were left in the story and backstory, all the way back to Dumbledore's early career. Awesome.

And, perhaps most important of all, I hope that anyone still saying these books cannot and do not speak profoundly and meaningfully of key Christian truths feels a right stupid git now. Harry selflessly walks to his death at Voldemort's hands and then finds himself in King's Cross for a discussion with Dumbledore about the deeper magic that Voldemort doesn't understand. He then returns to life where Voldemort is all ready to proclaim his triumphant victory, performing the cruciatus curse on Harry's limp body and lifting him into the air three times. Voldemort declares his supremacy to the still-defiant good guys, but they can't be hurt by him or his followers. They are protected from harm by Harry's blood sacrifice. Harry and Voldy then duel and Harry wins the final Hallow from him, becoming the "master of death."

Pretty blatant stuff.

As soon as I finished the book, I started combing the interwebs in search of others who "got it." I particularly wanted to see what John Granger had to say, but he's not covering the symbolism exhaustively just yet. If you start over at his blog, you'll find a fun list of 20 discussion points to look over. I commented on #12 (the Horcruxes and Hallows) because no one had mentioned the Grail aspects of the Quest.

In the meantime, while I await a more complete discussion of Deathly Hallows from Granger, I also discovered this. It's an outrageously long discussion of the Christian elements of Half-Blood Prince that Granger posted on a Barnes&Noble forum. Good reading, but sadly he eventually allowed himself to be drawn down into a rather silly and petty side-debate over the origins of Christianity (and came off rather badly, IMO) before the thread was locked by a moderator a few weeks later. But the initial post is interesting.

"Christianity Today" (long a bastion of enlightened reason regarding Harry amidst a sea of evangelical inanity and insanity) dove right in with a discussion of the latest books Christian elements. Good article.

And they aren't the only ones that noticed. "The Wall Street Journal" commented on it in their review, as well. (Thanks, Martinez.)

John Mark Reynolds at Scriptorium Daily soberly discusses his impressions of the final book and the series as a whole, as a reader who enjoyed them but is unsure of their literary merit or staying power. Here's more of the same from "Rafting the Tiber." Lots of good commentary out there, and I hope to stumble across some more as people have time to articulate.

Meanwhile, two more links: Remember those raving lunatics from "Exposing Satanism" that I discovered a few years back? No? Well, they're still around, but a lot of the stuff from their site isn't around anymore . . . this article is, though. It's good for an outraged laugh (sexual congress with goats?!), and there's some very clever (if self-defeating) symbology work. Reminds me of Dan Brown, oddly enough. And, finally, courtesy of Uncle Doug, here's an interview with Rowling in which she reveals some information that didn't make it into the epilogue. If you're feeling like you need some more closure, definitely check it out.

Reading Again

And wow, does it feel good.

I finished The Children of Hurin. Fantastic book . . . and I'm in awe of the amount of effort it must have taken to piece this book together so seamlessly. Without adding any significant prose of his own (I forget how he put it, exactly . . . but the claim is that essentially everything was written by the man himself) Christopher Tolkien has managed to turn a jumble of notes and half-written ideas, some of them conflicting, and make it look like it was composed in adeveloped and ordered fashion to begin with.

This would probably be a great gateway book for anyone having trouble transitioning from The Lord of the Rings to The Silmarillion. The book has a much less mythological/fantastical feel about it, I think, and more of literary/historical feel. I can really see Middle Earth here as a very ancient Britain full of things and events that history has forgotten.

And of course Tolkien uses this story to great effect as an exploration of the tragic flaw of pride and the many ways, foreseeable and unforeseeable, that it can bring us down, with a heavy undercurrent of fate vs. free will. Is Turin's doom inevitable, or necessitated only by his stubborn, prideful choices? Is his very nature an element of the curse that is on him, or could he change? And, on a deeper level, how responsible are we for our own sin nature, inescapable since the Fall? Fascinating questions wrapped up in an action-packed epic . . . Tolkien always delivers.

Speaking of Tolkien, and Inklings in general, I just heard about a few things; namely this and this. The gist: The former is a comic book, the latter is young adult fiction. Different authors, same premise: That Tolkien, Lewis, and Charles Williams didn't just write some of the greatest fantasy literature ever, they lived this stuff. The comic book has them squaring off against Aleister Crowley in 1938, while the other finds them meeting for the first time in 1919 and traipsing through all sorts of magical lands together.

The book is #1 in a proposed series of 7, and it has already been nabbed by Warner Bros. for the big screen. The concept is strangely horrifying and compelling all at the same time, but I'm gonna check it out. Perk of the job: I can just locate the book and go pull it for myself, or in this case, note that it is due back in four days, put it on reserve, and wait for it to appear on my desk next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I also read through The Children of Men. Wow, what an amazing book. This is so beautifully written and deeply felt, quite possibly the best apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic that I have read. And what a stunning, effective premise! In 1995, human males lose the ability to impregnate women, and the book takes place in England in 2021, beginning on the day the youngest person in the world dies at the age of 25. Half of the story is narrated in the third person while the other half consists of excerpts from the diary of Theo Farron (the main character).

Children of Men, the film adaptation, was one of my favorite movies of the spring, and now this is certainly one of my favorite books of the year. I recommend both, with one sidenote: See the movie first, like I did. The two share absolutely nothing but the central premise and the names (but not necessarily roles) of major characters. These are very different stories with very different purposes, and I think the book deserves the final say. As a film, the movie version is great. As an adaptation, it is nothing.

Oh, and I finally finished Madame Bovary yesterday. And, while portions of it were very much like watching the grass grow, it was by equal turns absorbing and hilarious. The cast of characters was especially memorable, my favorite (of course) being the pompous windbag parody of Voltaire and his ilk, Monsieur Homais. While at first I wished the book had had the decency to end after its title character did, I found that I rather liked the ending after all.

I had gone to get Reading Lolita in Tehran, being determined to re-read it as previously mentioned, when I found something else to read first; an even better follow-up to Madame Bovary. The book is Little Children by Tom Perrotta, on which my surprise favorite movie of the Spring was based. I started it in the evening and, although I had to put it down almost immediately, I did so with great difficulty. The book began, in fact, with a brief quote from Madame Bovary, and then dove right in. I think I'm going to like it. Let's see . . . What else?

I'm reading Star Wars books again.

Yeah, yeah. Don't ask me what prompted it, I dunno . . . but I'm going through them all. I haven't opened one since before Episode III came out, and a lot of things have changed since then for various reasons. I want to survey (and re-survey) the territory and, in particular, discuss it . . . That's right, I know at least a few of you people have read heavily (or at least dabbled) in Star Wars novels. If you're really interested, read and re-read along with me. If you're only moderately interested, just read some, or discuss off of what you know or remember. I've started at the very beginning, with Darth Bane: Path of Destruction. I have a feeling none of you own it, either . . . there should be a copy kicking around at your local library. Go get it. We'll have fun.

The Troubling Redemption of Wise Blood

Reading Flannery O'Connor's stories is exhilarating. Writing about the experience is intimidating. Wise Blood was O'Connor's first novel. It took her five years to write (and me five months to read, although it is rather short). With any luck, I'll have finished a post on it in less than five weeks. O'Connor wrote slowly and with an eye to perfection. She edited and rewrote obsessively. When Wise Blood was almost complete, she suffered her first attack of lupus. This was 10 years after the same condition had killed her father, and 13 years before it killed her.

Wise Blood is the story of Hazel Motes, O'Connor's original "Christ-haunted" Southern man. Haze is a veteran returning home to Georgia after serving in World War II. We meet him on the train to Taulkinham, where he is travelling after discovering his old home abandoned and his family gone. People continually mistake him for a preacher, dressed as he is in a distinctive blue suit and black hat.

This infuriates him. His grandfather was a travelling preacher and Motes has come to the conclusion that the only way to escape from Christ (who he sees as a sort of bogey man) is to escape from sin, and the only way to escape from sin is to have no soul. This is his goal. Nevertheless, he still finds himself pursued in dreams by a "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree" through the back of his mind. He still carries his Bible with him, hidden beneath all of his other belongings where he won't have to see or touch it.

Arriving in Taulkinham, Haze embarks on a rather peculiar spiritual journey. He doesn't need a job (he lives quite well off the government), so at first he wanders aimlessly. Eventually he meets Asa Hawks, a blind street preacher, and his virginal daughter, Sabbath Lily, neither of whom are what they seem to be. He also meets (and cannot rid himself of) Enoch Emory, a stupid, lonely lump of a teenage boy, abandoned by his father, who supports himself by working as a guard at the local zoo.

Enoch is a creature of impulse and an archetypal innocent. Left to his own devices, he behaves as the mood takes him. But every now and then his daddy's "wise blood" takes over, directing Enoch's actions toward some greater purpose that Enoch can seldom see the end of. He is strangely drawn to an assortment of the city's attractions, visiting many of them daily in between stops motivated by his carnal and easily distracted nature. The daily rounds might include visits to the gorilla cage at the zoo, the women who frequent the public pool, a man hawking potato peelers on a street corner, and especially a mysterious building in an isolated section of the park with the enigmatic word "MVSEVM" carved into it.

Enoch is fascinated and disturbed by this building, and especially by the weird, shrivelled figure displayed inside. The card near the figure informs him that this was once a man very much like Enoch himself before some "A-rabs" did this to him. Enoch knows this figure is somehow terribly important, and he is burdened with the need to show it to someone else. He simply doesn't know who.

Enoch latches onto Hazel Motes from the moment he meets him, seeking him out at every opportunity despite the other man's obvious attempts to avoid Enoch. He takes him to see the mummy in the museum, and convinces Haze to visit the local whorehouse with him. Haze, meanwhile, has taken to trailing Asa Hawks. He has decided to seduce Sabbath Lily, but unbeknownst to him, Hawks is encouraging Lily to seduce Haze in an effort to rid himself of her. Hawks is not really blind at all, and he is certainly not a Christian. He is a petty charlatan who ekes out a living off of his false persona.

Haze's suspicions of this, his desire to somehow compete with Hawks, and his desperate efforts to rid himself of the haunting feeling of being pursued by Jesus Christ, lead him to buy a car and set up the "Church Without Christ" where "the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way." He begins passionately preaching his new doctrine of non-salvation outside movie theaters (where he can draw the largest crowds after a show lets out).

After several weeks, the only disciple he manages to attract is Hoover Shoats (or Onnie Jay Holy, as he calls himself at first). Shoats is nothing but a common shyster who wants to manipulate Haze's message in order to turn a profit. Motes, of course, is deadly serious about his message, and turns Shoats away. But soon, Shoats has found a Hazel Motes lookalike, Solace Layfield, (who even wears blue suits and a black hat), a "false prophet." Shoats sets up shop nearby under the label "The Holy Church of Jesus Christ Without Christ," where you can believe whatever you want according to your own interpretation of the Bible.

Meanwhile, Enoch can't stop thinking about Haze's statement the his church needs "a new jesus." Eventually he sneaks into the museum, steals the mummy, and delivers it to Haze and Sabbath Lily (who has moved in after Hawks left town). Enoch then proceeds (in an intensely comical sequence) to follow a man in a gorilla suit around town as he makes appearances in front of movie theaters, shaking hands as part of a film promotion. Enoch finally slips into the back of the truck and beats up the actor in the suit on the way out of town, donning the gorilla outfit himself. He approaches a young couple in the woods, hand extended, and they flee in terror. We leave Enoch alone and dejected, head bowed, in a gorilla suit.

Haze, when he sees the "new jesus," grabs it, dashes it against a wall, and throws it violently out the window as it crumbles into dust. That night, he follows Layfield home from his preaching endeavors and runs his car off the road. He commands Layfield to take off the blue suit, but before he can finish, Haze runs him over. The next day he sets out in his car for another town. Before long, though, he is pulled over by a policeman, who instructs him to step out of his vehicle before pushing it off a cliff where it is dashed to smithereens. Hazel has no choice but to return to town.

Before long, he blinds himself with lime and spends his days walking around with rocks in his shoes and his nights trying to sleep with barbed wire wrapped around his chest. When his landlady eventually tries to marry him some months later (unable to shake the feeling that he knows something important that she doesn't), he takes off and is discovered in a ditch by the police. They return him to his home and he dies on the way. No one notices. His final words are, "I want to go on where I'm going." The novel ends as the landlady converses with his corpse as it lies on the bed, trying with all her power to discover what has been put over on her. What is it that Hazel Motes has that she doesn't?

This is an extremely difficult novel, widely misunderstood upon its initial release in 1952. Stories of redemption in the O'Connor style (see The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) tend to shock and distance the audiences that should find their message most appealing, and to be misinterpreted by everyone else. Ultimately it boils down to Hazel Motes' inability to escape from God's grace. As O'Connor herself said of those who had come at the book the wrong way:

"For them Hazel Motes’ integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel’s integrity lies in his not being able to."

There are some definite and obvious parallels between Haze's journey of faith and the Apostle Paul's. Haze begins by actively persecuting Christ and his Church. He sets off for another town to continue his work and has an important experience before ending up blind but spiritually enlightened. The most troubling part for me was in his actions after he blinds himself: the penance. Haze still feels himself indebted to Christ and he is determined to pay that debt (as if he could). I found it difficult to pinpoint what level his spiritual renewal had reached by the time he died.

Part of the problem, I suppose, is the difference between the novel and O'Connor's short stories. Most of the short stories lead their characters along in sin or stubborness until a (usually violent) event strips away the scales from their eyes and they experience an epiphany which is usually very painful for them. The story generally ends immediately thereafter, with the character bathed (either joyously or despairingly) in the light of their redemption.

The first problem with Wise Blood was my attempt to pinpoint the epiphany. Was it the murder of Solace Layfield? The destruction of the new jesus? The wrecking of the car? Any of these seem like good candidates, but in the end I think I am wrong by attempting to pick just one. Furthermore, the novel carries on much longer past the arrival at grace and redemption than a short story would (or could).

When a short story ends, it is easy to assume that the main character is a new person whose spiritual struggles are more or less over (particularly if they are dead, which they often are). In Wise Blood, Haze is still working things out right up until the moment he dies, and we no longer have the benefit even of watching from his perspective, as this entire section of the novel is told from the point of view of the landlady.

The power of O'Connor's vision of modern man's struggle against his own salvation in Wise Blood has continued to grow on me in the days since I finished it. It's no wonder people immediately realized upon the novel's release that this was something entirely new and noteworthy. Now, over 50 years later, it continues to baffle, challenge, and convict its readers . . . at least, it did this reader.

Purgation

DESCENDING THEOLOGY: THE RESURRECTION

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,
cold inched in--black ice and blood ink--
till the hung flesh was empty. Lonely in that void
even for pain, he missed his splintered feet,
the human stare buried in his face.
He ached for two hands made of meat
he could reach to the end of.
In the corpse's core, the stone fist of his heart

began to bang on the stiff chest's door,
and breath spilled back into that battered shape. Now
it's your limbs he longs to flow into
from the sunflower center in your chest
outward--as warm water
shatters at birth, rivering every way.

--Mary Karr, Sinners Welcome

Literature and the Libido of the Lifelong Learner

As I was mulling over my recent reading last week, I bethought me of an interesting trend in the way a particular type of character is often portrayed which struck me as being worth a little extra thought. Not worthy of a major paper, perhaps, but more of a journal of sorts.

I've been reading some Nabokov lately, mostly during my break at work. I'm working on the third of his novels that I've picked up, and I've begun to notice a bit of a recurring theme which called to mind another of my favorite authors: Mervyn Peake.

I've written both frequently and at great length about the first Nabokov novel I read, Lolita, since I first encountered her a few years ago (most notably here). I'm not particularly interested in her right now, but in her revolting and sympathetic immortalizer, Humbert Humbert.

HH's career path is, essentially, "intellectual academic." He is a brilliant writer who falls back on teaching university courses when the creative well runs dry . . . or when it is too consumed with "extracurriculars" to be of any other use. By all accounts (well . . . at least, by his own account), Humbert is extremely smart, well-read, widely-traveled, a man of refined artistic tastes and delicate sensibilities, articulate, knowledgeable . . . and a pedophile and sexual predator.

He is not particularly ashamed of it (at least, for most of the novel), wandering easily into detailed descriptions of the exact numeric specifications that make up his tastes (age, build, size, personality, disposition, and so forth). His character seems to flow quite naturally from brilliant into deviant, with no marked contrast between these aspects of his personality.

The second Nabokov I picked up, fairly recently, is the lightly comical Pnin. A more different book from Lolita can hardly be said to exist. Timofey Pnin is the charming, bumbling antithesis of Humbert Humbert. He teaches a few extremely unpopular Russian courses, is widely lampooned by students and fellow faculty alike, and maintains his position at the University only through the benevolence of the head of the German department (under whose jurisdiction he somehow falls).

His English is abominable, his skill in the classroom dubious, and his skills outside the classroom virtually nonexistent. Timofey is extremely kindhearted, but intolerably timid and fussy (very like Mr. Norrell, in fact, although that is neither here nor there). He is also (of course) quite, quite impotent (sexually and in most other respects). He was married, decades earlier, to a mediocre poet named Liza who abandoned him for a mediocre psychologist (a profession which Nabokov particularly despised).

She returns, months later, pregnant and feigning reconciliation just long enough for the hapless Timofey to pay her passage to America, then revealing that she will be living there with the father of her child. Years later, she visits Timofey again to gouge money out of him for her son's education. She has him wrapped tightly around her little finger, but their relationship brings him nothing but pain in return. His subservient role in their relationship is quite possibly at the core of his lack of success and happiness.

And then, finally, there is Pale Fire . . . a very odd and interesting work indeed. I can't even pretend to come up with a brief and coherent summary of the book on my own, so I'll swipe one:

John Shade is a homebody poet in New Wye, U.S.A. He writes a 999-line poem about his life, and what may lie beyond death. This novel (and seldom has the word seemed so woefully inadequate) consists of both that poem and an extensive commentary on it by the poet's crazy neighbor, Charles Kinbote. According to this deranged annotator, he had urged Shade to write about his own homeland--the northern kingdom of Zembla. It soon becomes clear that this fabulous locale may well be a figment of Kinbote's colorfully cracked, prismatic imagination. Meanwhile, he manages to twist the poem into an account of Zembla's King Charles--whom he believes himself to be--and the monarch's eventual assassination by the revolutionary Jakob Gradus.

Charles Kinbote aka (maybe) Charles Xavier aka King Charles II is an even more difficult character to get at than Humbert Humbert. (Side note, in case you were wondering: Pale Fire (1962) came out the year before the first X-Men comic book (1963). I have no idea if Professor X's name owes anything to this book. I doubt it, but it does seem like a rather astounding coincidence.)

Anyway, putting aside all questions of whether Kinbote even exists, whether he is insane, whether he is hallucinatory, schizophrenic, and paranoid, whether the poet he idolizes exists, and so on . . . Putting all of that aside and taking Kinbote at face value (dangerous from a Nabokovian first-person at the best of times), what do we have?

An extremely obsessive academic (Professor of literature, actually); a compulsive liar; unbearably arrogant, sneeringly superior, pretentious (but then, he might be royalty, after all); and an unabashed sodomite to the most hedonistic degree, frequently indulging in oily digressions to drool over the lithe form of some young buck.

Humbert is certainly a slimier character than Kinbote, but Kinbote lacks Humbert's charisma. Poor Pnin is just pathetically pitiable.

In Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, there are a plethora of extra-special characters, but few are as special as the castle's professorial staff: Bellgrove, Cutflower, Perch-Prism, Opus Fluke, Throd, Shred, Shrivell, Splint, Spiregrain Flannelcat, and the rest. One of the most memorable and entertaining sequences in the novel (although it has little or nothing to do with any of the central plot threads) takes place when Irma Prunesquallor, Gormenghast's only eligible spinster, invites all of the professors to a party with the intention of marrying one of them.

The professors are immediately thrown far outside of their comfort zones at the prospect of encountering even one member of the opposite sex. No one knows quite how to react, but they all agree to go. The opening minutes of the party are excruciating, but it takes the reaction of one in particular to really freeze things over:

And it was then, at her third convulsive stride in the headmaster's direction that something happened which was not only embarassing but heart-rending in its simplicity, for a hoarse cry, out-topping the general cacophony, silenced the room and brought Irma to a standstill.

As every head was turned in the direction of the sound a movement became apparent in the same quarter where, from a group of professors, something appeared to be making its way toward its rigid hostess. Its face was flushed and its gestures so convulsive that it was not easy to realize that it was Professor Throd.

On sighting Irma, he had deserted his companions Splint and Spiregrain, and on obtaining a better view of his hostess had suffered a sensation that was in every way too violent, too fundamental, too electric for his small brain and body. A million volts ran through him, a million volts of stark infatuation.

He had seen no woman for thirty-seven years. He gulped her through his eyes as at some green oasis the thirst-tormented nomad gulps the wellhead. Unable to remember any female face, he took Irma's strange proportions and the cast of her features to be characteristic of femininity. And so, his conscious mind blotted out by the intensity of his reaction, he committed the unforgivable crime. He made his feelings public. He lost control. The blood rushed to his head; he cried out hoarsely, and then, little knowing what he was doing, he stumbled forwards, elbowing his colleagues from his path, and fell upon his knees before the lady, and finally, as though in a paroxysm, he collapsed upon his face, his arms and legs spread-eagled like a starfish.

While all of Throd's colleaugues and Dr. Prunesquallor gather around him an academic fascination, Headmaster Bellgrove moves in on Irma and whisks her out to the garden to woo her off her feet. Their dialogue is straight out of a third-rate melodrama . . . Naturally, since that is the closest either of them has ever been to genuine romance. In the midst of this, Prunesquallor manages to pull Throd out of his catatonic state and the professor makes a most undignified exit, streaking naked out the window, through the garden and over the wall, never to be seen again.

The point of all this (which I've been such a very long time getting to, I admit) is that the old "nerd" stereotypes from high school and beyond are carried one step further in literary circles. Academics don't get girls, either because they don't want them or because they simply can't. I found it very interesting that, over and over, I see academics in literature imbued with a somehow deviant or defective version of what is commonly viewed as the "normal" sex drive. I'm not entirely certain why this is, but it happens a lot.

A few other examples of this which come to mind: Cecil Vyse (A Room With a View), Frederick Chasuble (The Importance of Being Earnest), Quentine Compson (The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom). With a bit of reaching or speculation, I could spin out a couple dozen more candidates as well. Any thoughts (if you're still here)? Perhaps Wilson could ask that History of Sexuality chick what she thinks . . .

A Fantasy Masterpiece of British Proportions

Every so often a book comes along that just blows me away simply because it does something that I've never seen before, and does it well. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke is just such a book. The first title by this author, it is a massive tome nearly 800 pages long. The story juggles an enormous but memorable cast of multi-dimensional characters and dazzlingly interweaves a dozen intriguing plot threads.

The genre, if it must be defined, is historical fantasy. The novel begins in England in 1806. Magic, once an everyday part of English life and culture, has (to all appearances) disappeared from England entirely. Modern-day magicians are gentleman-scholars who study and write books about magic and its history, but who do not possess any actual books of magic, and do not under any circumstances practice it.

Two members of the The Learned Society of York Magicians, Mr. Segundus and Mr. Honeyfoot, are determined to discover why magic has fallen out of use. Their investigations bring to light the fussy, reclusive bookworm Gilbert Norrell, owner of the largest magical library in history (which no one knew existed) and the only practicing magician England has seen in over a hundred years. Mr. Norrell bursts spectacularly on the national scene when he brings the statues of York Cathedral to life before proceeding on to London to offer his services to the government in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars.

Before long a second practical magician emerges from the woodwork to become Mr. Norrell's apprentice. He is Jonathan Strange, a fiery, intelligent young man who is everything Norrell is not. Where Norrell is cautious and fearful, Strange is brave and impatient. Where Norrell's magic comes only from his books, Strange has an uncanny grasp of the basis of magical theory, and can improvise many of his own spells. And where Norrell is outspoken in his loathing for all things connected with fairy magic, Strange finds himself strangely drawn to fairy lore.

In particular, Strange is fascinated by anything to do with John Uskglass, a human child raised by fairies who emerged from Faerie to become the greatest magician in history. Uskglass established the very foundations of English magic and went on to rule northern England for 300 years during the High Middle Ages before mysteriously disappearing with the promise to one day return and reclaim his throne.

Of course, before long, Strange and Norrell's differing magical philosophies cause relations between the grow increasingly tense, while, unbeknownst to either of them, a unpredictable, sinister force has been awakened and is working mysteriously behind the scenes to ruin both of them.

The novel, however, is far from following the above summary with simply, straightforward storytelling. The entire story is peppered liberally with footnotes containing further fascinating information on the rich and convincing alternate history Clarke has created for England in the form of charming anecdotes, references to magical texts, and explanations of spells and the like.

Clarke draws on a more-than-ample heritage of all things British to create her book. Many of her characters could easily be the beloved creations of Austen, Dickens. Her humor is as dry and hilarious as anything by Shaw or Wilde. Her ability to create new worlds and the originality of her fantasy bring to mind the best of Tolkien, Lewis and Rowling. Her story is as historically grounded and engaging as anything by O'Brian (to name something set in the same period). Her social commentary is as witty, appealing, and incisive as Forster's. Her alternate history and fairy lore are drawn from a vast melting pot of some of the best elements of British folklore and fairy tales, the Arthur legends, and a few bon mots from Shakespeare and Spenser for extra flavor. Her characters encounter and influence history without severely altering it, heightening the realism, and the major historical players who have important roles in the book include figures like the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron.

In short, Susanna Clarke has written a unique book and populated and enlivened it with the best and brightest that British culture, history, literature and mythology have to offer. If matters of Britain appeal to you, or you enjoy storytelling that pulls you inside another world where you can happily spend hours on end, you should probably give Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell a try. If you love both, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy.

And now I should really end this particular review, lest I succumb to the overpowering temptation to quote long passages. Still, perhaps just one minor quote wouldn't hurt:

A lovely young Italian girl passed by. Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion. Dr. Greysteel could only suppose that he was treating the young woman to the Byronic profile and the Byronic expression.

Now, go forth. Read.

The Joy of Four Plays

(This title the product of a snicker-filled brainstorming session with Randy.)

Rachel and I, along with the Scholls, Randy, and Barbour . . . and our good friend Wilson (who drove up from Austin especially for the occasion) did the Texas Shakespeare Festival last weekend. A play Friday evening, two plays on Saturday, and a play on Sunday afternoon . . . a veritable stage marathon of epic proportions. The breakdown:

Friday evening: Coriolanus

This is one of two little-read, little-performed Shakespeare plays put on by the TSF this year. He took his plot from Plutarch's Lives. The "hero" of the story (one of the least sympathetic I've encountered in Shakespeare) is a Roman general of unmatched skill on the battlefield, and unmatched disgust for the common man.

The first wins him great renown and a chance to be made consul. The second not only loses him his shot at being consul, but gets him banished from Rome, whereupon he goes straight to his worst enemy, Aufidius, the leader of the barbaric Volscians, and offers to lead his armies against Rome.

This he also fails to do when his mother comes to beg that he turn back, and for his failure, he is slain by the Volscians. The end. Coriolanus is such a moron that I found him difficult to sympathize with, but the performances were largely quite good, and the play certainly had its moments.

Saturday afternoon: The School for Husbands

One of two non-Shakespeare plays performed at the TSF, this one was written by Moliere. It was probably the most enjoyable of the four, and the best in terms of both material and execution. It was translated from the original French (obviously) and the translator largely preserved the characters' speech in rhyming couplets . . . amusing or painful, take your pick. I enjoyed it despite bad Alexander Pope flashbacks.

It is a farcical piece about two brothers who are the guardians of two sisters. Each brother raises one of the sisters as he sees fit with the intention of one day marrying them. The elder indulges his ward, allowing her to stay out late, attend balls, and shop for fashionable clothing, hoping to win her love through trust and respect. The younger keeps his ward under lock and key, never allowing her out of his sight, hoping to preserve her (loving or otherwise) by ensuring that she has no opportunity to cuckold him.

Of course, the younger brother's ward cleverly schemes and connives to trick him into letting her marry the young man across the street. There was much prancing, posing, witty banter, and slapstick for the enjoyment of all before the final curtain.

Perhaps the funniest moment of the weekend, though, was entirely unplanned. Near the end, the younger brother's mustache began to peel off, and when (in a moment of great distress) he reached up to stroke it while speaking, it came away in his hand. Staying in character, he stared at it for a moment, wide-eyed, then agitatedly plucked off his goatee as well, stared at it, then shoved it at a silent character whose only purpose was to hold a lantern saying, "Oh, take this!" and went right on. When he came out to take a bow (still sans facial hair) he smiled slightly and stroked his bare upper lip, much to our amusement.

Saturday night: Pericles, Prince of Tyre

The second Shakespeare play . . . and what a sprawling, fractured, out-of-control Arabian Nights piece it is. It begins promisingly, with Pericles arriving in a foreign land to answer a riddle posed by the king. If he gets the answer right, he gets the king's daughter (who is in an incestuous relationship with his daughter), but if he gets it wrong, he must be put to death.

The answer to the riddle happens to be the fact that the father and daughter are committing incest, and when Pericles figures it out, he naturally wants nothing to do with her. The king, enraged that his secret has been discovered, wants Pericles dead (turns out it was a lose-lose situation) and he must flee across the Mediterranean, hopping from port to port, pursued by assassins.

All sorts of wild things start happening at this point . . . there are multiple shipwrecks, the wicked king and his daughter are struck by lightning, Pericles gets married and fathers a daughter, but loses both wife and child. The wife is presumed dead, but is "resurrected" by a wise doctor (only mostly dead) and becomes a priestess in the temple of Diana. The daughter, left in the care of the king and queen of Tarsus, is nearly killed, but is suddenly rescued by pirates . . . who sell her to a brothel. But she isn't violated because every man who comes to see her is completely charmed by her virtue and goes away to follow the straight and narrow.

Time passes in great and illogical leaps, and the hapless Pericles is eventually reunited with his daughter. Then, just when it seems like the play might go on forever without resolution, Diana appears to Pericles in a dream and directs him to his wife.

Not the best of plays, for sure, but it also had its moments. Most of these moments came when the actors stopped playing the material straight and began to ham it up a bit . . . but such moments were far too few and far between, and the performance suffered for it.

Sunday afternoon: Harvey

I've always been partial to this play . . . well, particularly to the movie version starring Jimmy Stewart, and so I think my expectations caused my experience with this performance to suffer. Nevertheless, it is a charming play, and I still enjoyed myself thoroughly. The way they played some of the parts revealed a few things within the text that I'd never noticed before in the more strait-laced black and white movie . . . that was fun. Harvey was just generally a nice way to end our TSF experience and enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon.

I greatly enjoyed the theater-going experience of last weekend, and I shall certainly look forward to the productions next summer . . . Hopefully they'll choose some better Shakespeare while keeping up the quality of the non-Shakespeare selections. In any case, that's all for now. I'm off.

Enter the Holy Grail

The last Arthurian Romance by Chrétien de Troyes, the 12th century poet who is perhaps the most directly responsible for the Arthur legends as we know them today, was "The Story of the Grail." Chrétien was the first author to introduce the Holy Grail into the Arthur stories, and so for the purposes of a historical and literary study of the identifiable authors of Grail legend, it all begins here.

"Here," in this case, refers to the middle of a forest, where a disingenuous rube named Perceval lives with his mother. One day, as he wanders through the woods, he meets some knights, whom he immediately mistakes for God and His angels. He refuses to answer any of their questions, being so focused on asking them things, and finally they tell him how he may become a knight: by journeying to the court of King Arthur. This he eagerly sets out to do, despite his mother's great sorrow (her husband and other two sons were knights, and are now all dead). She has been trying to keep him from knowing anything about knights, but now that he does she tells him everything, gives him what advice she can, and sends him on his way. As he rides off, she falls unconscious behind him, but he fails to notice or care.

To make a long story short (as many of these tales tend to wind aimlessly from episode to unrelated episode), Perceval takes a snide remark from Sir Kay at face value when he arrives at court and immediately sets out to win his spurs as a knight. After many adventures, including the defeat of the red knight and the rescuing of a besieged castle (and the attached damsel), Perceval decides it is time to go get his mother. On his way to find her, he shacks up in the castle of a wounded king who spends his days fishing in the nearby river, and that night at dinner, a strange ritual takes place.

A procession passes by him bearing a sword, a lance, a dish, and a cup (the Grail). Not wishing to appear simple (he's learned a few things during his adventures), he refrains from asking what it's all about and goes to sleep. Waking up the next morning, he finds the entire castle deserted, and he saddles up and leaves, very confused. Not far away, he meets a maiden who informs him that, not only is his mother dead from the grief of his departure, but his failure to ask the question about the Grail procession the night before has doomed the Fisher King to continue in his wounded state, and his lands and peoples will continue to suffer.

Perceval wanders on, encountering Arthur and his court, and vows to never rest until he has relocated the Grail Castle and had a chance to redeem his mistake. At this point he promptly forgets about God for about five years and has many adventures. One day (Good Friday, in fact), he happens to meet a group of ten ladies and three knights, wandering around on foot dressed in penitential garb. They berate him for riding around in armor on such a day and direct him to a nearby hermit. It turns out this hermit is related to both Perceval and the Fisher King, and he brings Perceval back into the church. Perceval takes communion that Easter Sunday.

At this point, Perceval's story is effectively over, and the rest of the poem is meanders along after Gawain with very little direction. The story is incomplete, basically cutting off in mid-sentence, and it is believed that Chrétien died before he could finish it. Three later authors attempted continuations of it (all quite lengthy), but I have my own idea about the unity of the story.

This is the original Arthur/Grail story, and the Grail plays an almost non-existent role in the story. Furthermore, it seems to me that all that is truly important here is Perceval's story of a journey from spiritual darkness and immaturity to salvation and growth. Once he takes communion on Easter Sunday, everything ought to be over.

Consider: Perceval begins in ignorance of where he comes from and where he is going. His mother sends him out into the world with instructions to attend church and seek God, which he ignores (being so caught up in the drive to become a knight). Arriving in the Grail Castle after many adventures, he fails to ask about the procession, which seems to be obviously connected to some sort of Christian ritual.

The sword might be the Word of God. The spear could be symbolic of the lance that pierced the side of Christ. The dish and cup (or Grail) could bear the body and blood of Christ for the communion sacrament. The fact is, we don't know for sure, and neither does Perceval, because he simply doesn't care enough to ask. Perceval has his chance at this point to bring healing to his soul, to the Fisher King, and to the land and its people, but he misses it because he is not particularly interested in spiritual things. As a result of this, he fails to achieve understanding and is excluded from the building that houses the Grail (the church?). Not long after this, he forgets about God entirely for five whole years. Finally, someone explains everything to him and he is able to take communion, which he was not able to do when the dish and grail passed by years before.

One of the most interesting aspects of the story, as mentioned previously, is how minor the role of the Grail is. In the beginning, it would seem, the Grail was not the most central element of the entire story. Somewhere along the way, something seems to have changed all that, but as yet it is not quite clear what.

Adultery, Incest, & Miscegenation! Oh, My!

I just finished Absalom, Absalom! yesterday (yes, it took me quite awhile), and I find that it is the best book about the South that I have yet read. It captures every important facet of Southern history from the Antebellum period to 1910, although putting it that way makes it seem less incredible than it actually is. Also, I think Faulkner is crippling my ability to form short, coherent, and meaningful sentences.

The novel follows Quentin Compson (one of the four narrators in The Sound and the Fury) as he discovers the dark truth behind the story of Colonel Thomas Sutpen, a local legend. The story comes to him in fragments and out of order, from various narrators with varying degrees of reliability: Miss Rosa Coldfield, Sutpen's sister-in-law and almost-wife, who has hated him with a burning passion for most of her life; Quentin's father, recounting information he has heard from his own father, one of the few men who ever got close to Sutpen; and, finally, from a figure straight out of the legend itself, come back to haunt Sutpen's old plantation mansion.

We hear the story first as Quentin hears it, told, as I said, out of order, in bits and pieces, with many details (both major and minor) completely wrong. Many portions are repeated from different angles. Then, Quentin returns to college in Massachusetts where he stays up late one freezing night with his Canadian roommate, Shreve, and attempts to piece together the details he has collected to tell the true story of Colonel Sutpen, which becomes representative of the true story of the entire South.

Sutpen grows up poor in the western part of Virginia which will eventually break off from the rest of the state when the Civil War begins. This is the backcountry, where all men are created equal and individualism is king. However, when Sutpen's mother dies the rest of his family slowly slips back towards the Virginia coastland, eventually settling on a large plantation where his father assumes a servile position beneath the local cavalier.

One day, Sutpen is sent to deliver a message to the house, and finds himself turned away from the front door by a negro servant. The next day he runs away to Haiti, determined to somehow build himself up to a position equal to that of the plantation owner. In Haiti he succeeds in making his fortune, and marries a woman who bears him a son. His plan seems to be well on track. Then, he makes a shocking discovery. His wife is an octoroon (one-eighth black), thus making his son also of African descent. This will never do. Sutpen sets them up for life in New Orleans and abandons them, travelling to Mississippi.

He comes rolling in with a wagonload of "wild negroes," tricks local Indians out of 100 miles of pristine land, and builds an enormous mansion on it with the help of a French architect that he nabbed from New Orleans. In the meantime, he fathers a daughter, Clytie, with one of the few black women in his bunch. Once his plantation is up and running, he finds himself a wife among the locals: Ellen Coldfield (sister of Rosa). Over the course of the next few years, he has a son, Henry, and a daughter, Judith.

They grow up, Henry grows to college, and meets Charles Bon (who is Sutpen's first son, unbeknownst to Henry). Henry brings him home and he becomes engaged to Judith. Bon is prepared to simply walk away from this engagement, and the family, at any time if Sutpen will merely acknowledge their relationship, but instead, Stupen freaks out which causes Henry to freak out and leave with Bon, giving up his inheritance.

The Civil War happens, and Sutpen, Henry, and Bon all get caught up in it, leaving everything else on hold for four years. Henry and Bon return to the Sutpen home after the war is over and Henry shoots Bon at the front gate, delivering this news to his sister as she is putting the finishing touches on her wedding dress, and then disappearing forever. Ellen Coldfield is dead by this point, and Rosa moves out to the plantation. Colonel Sutpen returns home from the war and proposes to Rosa, who accepts. Then, Sutpen proposes that they perform a "test-run" before they get married, and if Rosa has a son, they will go ahead with the wedding. She is carried back to town on a wave of righteous indignation and never speaks to him again.

Sutpen opens a small store on his property, with the help of Wash Jones (a white trash squatter) in order to stay afloat. He eventually seduces Wash's 15-year old granddaughter and fathers a daughter with her. When he discovers that she has not borne a son, he prepares to abandon her, but is murdered by Wash, who then also murders his granddaughter and her new baby before being killed by a posse.

Years pass, and Clytie fetches Bon's son (child of an octoroon mistress, much like Sutpen's) from New Orleans. The child, in a fit of rebellion against his white blood, marries a poor black woman, who bears him a mentally-retarded son. They both die, and Clytie and the son, Jim Bond (great-grandson of Sutpen), take care of what little is left of Sutpen's enormous plantation alone. Finally, a figure from the past returns to the mansion to die, and is discovered by Rosa Coldfield and Quentin Compson. Clytie sets the mansion on fire and dies in the blaze. The only Sutpen left standing is Jim Bond, who continues to haunt the ruins of the mansion indefinitely, wailing and shrieking over Clytie's death.

There is a great deal that could be said about this book, obviously, as it functions on quite a number of different levels simultaneously. Read literally, it is full of questions regarding the nature of memory and history, and the style of Faulkner's prose (the confused, jumbled ruminations and speculations of biased narrators regarding long-gone events) is a theme all by itself. There is the obvious link to the biblical story from which the title of the book is drawn. Many of Sutpen's problems result from his children, both legitimate and illegitimate, and his efforts to sire a suitable heir to what he has created.

Most fascinating to me is the way in which the entire story serves as a metaphorical representation of the South's dark past. I read that Faulkner's original title for the book was "Dark House," a reference both to Sutpen's eerie, foreboding mansion and to the South itself. Just like Sutpen, the Old South had not reconciled its white sons with its black ones, and just like Sutpen's house, it came to ruin. Ultimately, Henry kills his brother not because Bon keeps a black mistress, nor even to save his sister from incest, but because a marriage between Bon and Judith would be miscegenation. This is a horror that no white person in the South will abide.

The other aspect of the story that fascinated me was the role played by Quentin. Quentin is not a Sutpen at all, but it falls to him, as a white child of the South, to receive this story and to try and make sense of it. As the younger generation, this burden of Southern history falls squarely on Quentin's shoulders and he must deal with it as best he can and try to understand why it exists. Late in the novel, as the story of the Sutpens is nearing completion, Shreve and Quentin have a very telling conversation.

"I just want to understand [the South] if I can [. . .] Because it's something my people haven't got. Or if we have got it, it all happened long ago across the water and so now there aint anything to look at every day to remind us of it. We dont live among defeated grandfathers and freed slaves [. . .] and bullets in the dining room and such, to be always reminding us to never forget. What is it? something you live and breathe in like air? a kind of vacuum filled with wraithlike and indomitable anger and pride and glory at and in happenings that occurred and ceased fifty years ago? a kind of entailed birthright father and son and father and son of never forgiving General Sherman, so that forevermore as long as your childrens' children produce children you wont be anything but a descendant of a long line of colonels killed in Pickett's charge at Manassas?"

"Gettysburg," Quentin said. "You can't understand it. You would have to be born there."

"Would I then?" Quentin did not answer. "Do you understand it?"

"I dont know," Quentin said. "Yes, of course I understand it." They breathed in the darkness. After a moment Quentin said: "I don't know."

The novel ends with Quentin lying in bed, trying unsuccessfully to convince himself that he does not hate the South. Anyone who has read The Sound and the Fury knows that within six months of the end of this novel, Quentin will commit suicide. But, of course, that work was published before this one, and this one is set before that one, so the two do not reference each other at all. No literary criticism that I have perused attempts to draw any connection between the events of Absalom, Absalom and Quentin Compson's suicide.

This makes sense from a literary perspective, considering that the two novels were necessarily composed independently of each other. However, if we think of Quentin as a separate entity, a fully realized character with his own, independent existence, the implications of his suicide, and the reasons behind it, become much more interesting.

But I'm not prepared to go into all of that at this juncture. Suffice to say that I have successfully completed my 3rd Faulkner, and loved it. And I'll be sure to read another . . . y'know, sometime.

Biblical Unity Revealed: The Great Code by Northrop Frye

Our final two weeks in "Reading the Bible as Literature" were devoted to The Great Code by Northrop Frye, the famous literary critic. His book is devoted to an examination of the biblical material from a literary perspective. The title comes from William Blake: "The Bible is the great code of art and literature."

I absolutely loved the book, but almost no one else did. Gallagher was my only fellow Frye fan. The response of others in the class ranged from "I haven't read it" to "I don't understand it" to "This guy is retarded." The first two were almost forgivable . . . the book was not short, nor was it an easy read, but . . . Northrop Frye is a genius. I was astounded by Frye's ability, writing as a secular figure, to achieve such balance and sensitivity to the material in his critique of the Bible. Anyway, in honor of my classmates, here is my explanation of the book (as produced for my final exam in the class):

In The Great Code, Northrop Frye begins by outlining his general purpose in the introduction. He will discuss in his book the idea that the Bible is a literary unity and is the most important book in Western history and culture. He will do this by describing general factors under the headings of Language, Myth, Metaphor, and Typology in Part I. In Part II he will apply these factors more specifically within the Bible, returning backwards through them and giving the book a chiasmic structure.

In Language I, Frye notes that Christianity, unlike either Judaism or Islam, has relied primarily on translations for its religious texts since the very beginning of its history. First there was the Greek Septuagint of the early church, followed by the Latin Vulgate in the Middle Ages. Around the time of the Protestant Reformation, translations in English and Germany gained prominence. And today there is a concerted movement to see the entire Bible translated into every language known to mankind.

In examining, in particular, the language of the Bible, Frye describes the three phases of history posited by Giambattista Vico: the Age of Gods, the Age of Kings, and the Age of Men. He also discusses the difference between langue (or different languages like French, English, and German) and langage (or the common experience of living on earth which gives all languages equivalent terms and the ability to be translated into each other). Frye notes that there is a history of langage which moves through three distinct phases. Vico calls them poetic, heroic (or noble), and vulgar. Frye describes them as hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. However, for most of the chapter, he refers to them as metaphor, metonymy, and descriptive.

In the metaphorical phase of language, words carry a great deal of power with them, for they invoke their objects when they are used. A word is the object which it refers to, and all concepts (even those we might consider abstract today) are concrete and real. Thus we see in the Bible how God speaks and Creation begins, how Jepthah’s vow must be kept, how the Hebrew people never say or write out the name of God, etc. At the center of the metaphorical phase is the concept of the “god” of nature and the world. A sentient personality is given to virtually everything, and from this we have a sun-god, rain-god, war-god, and so on.

In the metonymic phase of language, words shift from a state of “this is that” to a state of “this is put for that.” The language becomes capable of sustaining abstract concepts, and the idea of a transcendent “God” (who is outside of and over all things) moves to the center of the language. In metonymy, what was once literal is now much more poetic in nature.

In the descriptive phase of language, words arise out of the need to describe that which we see before us. In this phase, “God” no longer has any linguistic function because the concept cannot be sensed physically or in any way tested or measured empirically. Therefore, in the third phase of language God is said to be dead. However, Frye points out that God “may not be so much dead as entombed in a dead language.”

Once he has described these three phases, Frye states that the Bible does not fall squarely into any of them. The Bible contains metaphorical language, metonymic concepts, and descriptive writing, but it is actually something else altogether. The Bible makes use of a kind of rhetorical oratory which claims to bring revelation from a time outside of time. The Bible, then, is what Frye calls kerygma, or proclaiming rhetoric. Kerygma, he says, is the vehicle of the Bible’s revelation. In turn, the linguistic vehicle of kerygma is myth.

Myth, Frye says (in Myth I), serves to “draw a circumference around a human community.” Myth is communicated in story form, and it delineates the things which a society needs to know about itself. Myth is differentiated from other forms of story in two ways. First, it is part of a larger canon, or a Mythology. Second, it serves to set a particular society or culture apart from all others by forming the basis of a cultural history.

There are two types of history: Weltgeschichte and Heilsgeschichte. Weltgeschichte is authentic, accurate history which recounts events as they actually happened. Heilsgeschichte explains the importance of and meaning behind those historical events. The Bible, Frye asserts, is the latter type of history, and accurate history is usually secondary (and even irrelevant) to the biblical message. The myth of the Bible serves to redeem history by explaining its purpose and meaning.

In Metaphor I, Frye explains that the Bible, in accomplishing the construction of a mythology, uses a great deal of poetic imagery, despite the absence of a literary purpose as such. The reason for that is because of the value a verbal structure has in constructing a corresponding material structure. Frye notes that, when any verbal structure of words is created, it artificially links disparate material elements into a material structure. These material elements are only a minute part of all material reality, and may be totally unrelated without the presence of the linking verbal structure.

The purpose of this sort of structuralization in the Bible is to draw together the various events of the past in the construction of a unified, purposeful history. The Bible at its core consists of a universalized structure which remains open to a variety of theological interpretations. The history of the Bible presents a natural cycle of events which recurs over time, moving us towards a final denouement, or judgment, in which all creatures are divided between paradise and hell. Although Frye states that the Bible cannot be reduced to a single “metaphor cluster,” the guiding purpose throughout this historical movement is embodied in the word of God. The word of God can refer to both the Bible itself and to Jesus Christ.

In Typology I, Frye reveals that the Bible is able to carry its purpose (to account for the forces guiding all of human history) because it possesses a typology. A typology is essentially a theory of historical process which holds that there is a meaning and a purpose behind all events which transpire. Every event which occurs is a type, pointing to some event in the future which will remain clouded and unknowable until it actually takes place, thus revealing both itself and the manner in which it was concealed in the preceding event. This future event is the antitype of the type that came before.

Frye shows that the Bible consists of Old Testament and New Testament, which are type and antitype of each other, forming a “double mirror” in which each reflects the other but not the world outside. However, not only are the Old and New Testaments type and antitype, but every event in the Bible is in some way the type of what is to come and the antitype of what has already been. In this way, Frye believes, the Bible moves inexorably from beginning to end, carrying a single purpose forward throughout.

In Typology II, Frye discusses the seven specific “Phases of Revelation” which make up the totality of the Bible: five in the Old Testament, two in the New Testament. These phases in order are: Creation, Revolution (the Exodus), Law, Wisdom, Prophecy, Gospel, and Apocalypse. Each of the seven is, as previously discussed, the type of the phase after it and the antitype of the phase before it. Frye carries the reader through each of these phases, describing them and their links with each other. These descriptions serve largely as review material for anyone who possesses previous familiarity with the text.

In Metaphor II, Frye discusses the unity of biblical images. Imagery in the Bible is of two kinds: either Apocalyptic (good), or Demonic (evil). Each of these kinds is further divided, Apocalyptic into Group and Individual, and Demonic into Manifest and Parody. Parody only exists within the Demonic type because everything within Parody is a perversion of something good. Good does not pervert evil, so there is no Apocalyptic Parody. Parody itself is further divided into Group and Individual.

Once the images have been placed beneath one of the above headings, they are further divided into one of seven categories: Divine, Angelic (or Spiritual), Paradisal, Human, Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral. All biblical imagery fits somehow into this scheme, presenting the reader with a unified picture of the world where everything is part of the positive picture or the negative picture, all the way from the divine down to inanimate objects on earth.

In Myth II, Frye discusses the unity of the biblical narrative. He describes the entirety of the Bible as a rising and falling cycle of high points and low points tracing their way throughout history towards a final, ultimate high point. The narrative goes something like this: Garden of Eden, Sin/Wilderness/Cain’s City/Ur, Promised Land I (Pastoral), Sea/Wilderness/Pharaoh, Promised Land II (Agrarian), Philistines, etc., Jerusalem/Zion, Captivity/Babylon/Nebuchadnezzar, Rebuilt Temple, Antiochus Epiphanes, Purified Temple (Maccabees), Rome/Nero, Jesus’ Spiritual Kingdom.

Within this narrative, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, and Nero are all spiritually the same oppressor, and Egypt, Babylon, and Rome are the same place. Furthermore, the Garden of Eden, the Promised Land, Zion, and Jesus’ Spiritual Kingdom are all metaphors for the same place, and Moses, David, Joshua, etc. are all pointing towards the coming Messiah.

In Language II, Frye first addresses the question of the biblical canon which has formed this unity of imagery and narrative that he has just discussed. He believes that it has been formed around the book of Deuteronomy. The other books in the Pentateuch were re-written to conform to it. Earlier prophecy was interpreted according to it. Histories were written in light of it. And, finally, the New Testament books were selected according to their conformity with, and illustration of, Deuteronomy 6:5.

While some might see the question of authorship as integral to the selection of the canon, Frye states that this is not the case. In fact, authorship and the question of inspiration are fairly irrelevant. If inspiration is to be believed, then we must also believe in the inspiration of editors, translators, compilers, and so forth.

As for authorship, Frye states that the Bible was largely composed during a transitional phase between oral tradition (wherein the author is anonymous) and writing tradition (as in modern times, where the author is named). In this transitional phrase we have a great deal of pseudonymous writing, in which the actual authors will attach the name of some famous or important person in order to show the legitimacy of their writings. Frye supplies us with the example of II Peter.

Frye further describes the unity of the Bible as being largely built out of innumerable smaller units, or kernels. Examples of these include the proverbs or aphorisms of Wisdom literature, the oracles of Prophecy, the commandments of the Torah, and the pericope of the Gospels.

Proceeding forward, he discusses the importance of the Bible as a piece of objective (rather than subjective) art. Objective art by Frye’s reckoning consists of works which form an integral part of a society’s cultural history. In our case, this might mean such things as the writing of Shakespeare, Dickens, and, of course, the Bible.

Objective art, he states, has achieved “resonance” with its audience. In other words, particular phrases have achieved their own power and significance within a culture, even when separated entirely from their context within the original text. The example he gives is the phrase “Grapes of Wrath” from Isaiah 63, which has become a famous line in a culturally significant song as well as the title of an important piece of literature.

Next he describes Dante’s ideas of finding multiple meanings within a single passage. Dante classifies these meanings as: Literal, Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical. Literal is the obvious meaning of the actual words. Allegorical is how the words form a picture or symbol of our salvation from a fallen state. Moral is how the words form a picture or symbol of our movement from a sinful to a virtuous life. And Anagogical is how the words form a picture or symbol of our glorification from base, human, earth-bound existence to an existence in the divine presence of God. Frye is careful to note that these varying meanings do not conflict with each other, but rather operate on various levels and are all, in some sense, true.

There are two cautionary notes which Frye provides to the application of Dante’s theory of polysemous meaning, however. First, it assumes the validity of a single worldview through which we interpret (in Dante’s case, Medieval Catholic Christianity). Second, it assumes that the words themselves are not important, but rather some higher meaning which exists behind the words.

However, Frye states that what Dante is trying to accomplish in the search for polysemous (but unified) meaning in a religious or spiritual sense is very near to what Frye is advocating in the application of polysemous (but unified) interpretation in a literary sense. He states that this approach is the most useful in any consideration of the Bible as literature. It must be considered as a unity of narrative and imagery, a product of composition which sought to account for a purpose behind history, and a self-contained work of proclaimed revelation in order to allow for the most useful study of its text in literary terms.

I found that Frye had a great deal of value to communicate in The Great Code. His approach to the Bible was both profound and meaningful. At times his writing could be quite difficult to follow and understand, yet this was not a failing of that writing, for once I understood what it was communicating I could think of no better way to explain whatever he was trying to say. In other words, I found the reading of the book to be a very rewarding and stretching experience. Frye challenged my beliefs without belittling, demeaning, or dismissing them, and I think I came away from the book ultimately strengthened in those beliefs.

Nevertheless, it is a marvel to me that a man with Frye’s obviously intimidating intelligence should be capable of conducting so thorough and knowledgeable a study of the meaning and value of the biblical text without himself believing in the truths espoused within that text. There were times in The Great Code where I felt that he was very close to believing just that, times when he seemed puzzled because something did not quite add up between his own assumptions and the actual situation he found, yet somehow he does not seem to have been capable of making that last leap to faith.

Even towards the end of the book when he is describing the nature of faith so well, there does not seem to be the least spark of any such knowledge or sentiments on his part. This both astounds and saddens me. However, Frye’s lack of faith in the Bible does not in any way affect the importance of what he has to say about it in his book. The Great Code was of considerable value to me in giving me perspective on what exactly the Bible is that I had never before heard or considered on my own.

One Literary Theory to Rule Them All

As anyone could easily tell from the preceding entries, I've had a lot of fun this semester playing around with different perspectives and ways of looking at literature. But through it all I must confess the slightest shade of discomfort. All of the critical theories to which we were exposed were alright in their way, but none of them worked perfectly for me. In particular, I was bothered by the fact that I could not fit my own critical efforts in the past into any of the categories which I was being taught.

I despise New Criticism, as I've mentioned before, for its total rejection of context and its attempt to reduce what I consider art to what it considers science. To me, New Criticism seems cold, dry, boring, and ineffective as a theory.

Reader-Response is fun in its way, and probably allows me the greatest latitude to exercise my opinions . . . but I can't help but feel that it is a cop-out as a serious theory. All you have to do is talk about your feelings while you were reading and voila, you have a piece of textual criticism. It can't be that easy, surely. I can't take myself seriously that way, at least.

Deconstruction is one that I've had a great deal of fun with this semester: presentations, papers, journals, and a lot of serious thought. And I was surprised to find that there is a great deal more to it as a serious approach, even for someone who believes in objective truth, than I might have expected. But unknowability is all you are ultimately allowed to arrive at, and that is far, far too limiting, surely. Certainly the objective reality of the text may always prove to be unknowable, but that doesn't mean that I can't draw a single, most-valid reading out of it which will be of use.

Psychoanalysis I have played with, both seriously and (more often) in jest, for years now. There's just something both quaint and entertaining about looking for sex in everything, just as a purely intellectual exercise. Phallic symbols, sexual frustration, parent-related trauma . . . all very inviting and easy to fall back on in a pinch. And, again, here is a theory that should be applied from time to time as the most useful in a particular case . . . but not always. Sex may well motivate everything, I don't know, but it isn't the meaning of everything, and as such I am not satisfied entirely with psychoanalysis.

Marxism is just flat out-dated, an