aednan: an epic

 

Aednan: An Epic is a long form poetry saga by Linnea Axelsson, translated into English by Saskia Vogel. We're going to stick with the theme of exploitation and subjugation of natives that we started in Typee, although I didn't know that when I picked up this book at my local library. When I picked it up, what I thought was: Epic poetry? Hell yeah!

Its always great to read books written in other cultures, and from different perspectives. If I had all the time in the world I would learn multiple languages, so that I could read in different languages. That would be grand, but for now, I will continue to rely upon translators.

The story follows the lives, and is told from the points of view, of multiple generations of a Sami * family, from the 1910s until the present. At the beginning of this story, the protagonists and their tribal families, raised reindeer and followed their herds across all of their native land, Sapmi, * which stretched across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and into a part of Russia. At the the time they moved freely across their land, with little thought given to the national borders which had grown up around them. In a word, they were nomadic.

In time, the governments of these countries began to rope the Sami in, excluding them from areas where the various governments determined was off limits to their ranging due to things the Sami didn't recognize, such as private property, public works project, and other developments and exclusions they needed to learn to live with. Eventually, the Sami in this family were isolated in a part of Sweden, and their ranging was completely cut off. This was hard for the Sami, because their culture had grown up around following the natural ranging of the reindeer herds. But that was now curtailed, and hemmed in as well. Think Native American reservation. They even went through the a forced assimilation process that many aboriginal peoples were forced to endure.

Its clear that the assimilation process worked in many ways, and many Sami became the neighbors of other ordinary Swedes, but what Axelsson shows us is that there are many, that still suffer from that process, and others who fight for reparations for what was done to their people. 

An an epic, it was a little slow, and in some cases, a little hard to tell who was narrating. Its epic in its scope, but this isn't Beowulf or The Iliad, nor is it trying to be. This is an epic of suffering and injustice, which should be read, lest we let it happen again. The Sami have begun to regain and rebuild their cultural heritage and have won recognition from the Swedish government.

* The words Sami and Sapmi are both properly spelled with an acute accent mark over the A, ( a straight line pointing at 2:00 o'clock, rather than a grave accent mark, which points at 10:00) but in my experience, those things don't always render properly on Blogger, so I've left them off rather than taking the chance that you'll see question marks or gray boxes in their place.

on-the-fringe

Sweeney On-the-Fringe is a short, sweet little novel by Dave Robinson, which states on the cover that it is "Based on the notes of Owen Kivlin" <--you can see it right there * who is the narrator of the book, and the 'compiler' of the various stories about Sweeney, and poems written by Sweeney, which were either either left around, or more often mailed to the narrator by Sweeney, from some exotic local where Sweeney was invariably surfing and relaxing. The motivation behind the telling, is that no one has seen or heard from Sweeney at the time Owen Kivlin begins to try and figure out both where Sweeney may have gone, and why he left. He attempts to figure out the mystery of Sweeney by trying to discover more about him; a folk tale of their fictional Massachusetts, seaside town of Seawell, located at the mouth of the Merrimack River. 

The small town, we soon find out, is actually a small city, and the name, its location--and the author's home town--all point to Seawell being inspired by Lowell, Massachusetts, combined with some other small, New Englandy towns. The Merrimack River actually meets the Atlantic between Newburyport and Salisbury, Massachusetts. Neither of which is a city, nor has a university, and I don't think either has an airport [nope, hold it, looks like Plum Island has a small airport.] Plum Island is a pretty big island that runs north-south along the coast of Newburyport, and apparently, you can surf there, as well as north of the river's mouth, at Salisbury Beach.

Sweeney is the story of a local legend. That guy from a few years ago, who always seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted, and no one could figure out how, and most couldn't figure out why. The story is told through a series of transcribed interviews with, and letters from, people who knew Sweeney; interspersed with Sweeney's own poems. The interesting part is that Sweeney knew a lot of people, from different generations and walks of life, and they all knew different parts of his story, but none knew his whole story. And even by the end of the novel, Owen Kivlin still doesn't know all there is to know about this enigmatic man who touched all of their lives, in profound and subtle ways.

In the 'About the Author' blurb in the backmatter, the author indicates that this 2007 novel is the first in a trilogy. A quick look around the interwebs turns up only this: Sweeney In Effable, which is a single volume containing five books, one of which is Sweeney On-the-Fringe. The description of Effable on it's Amazon page includes this line:

"This contemporary protagonist is based on the ancient Irish legend from Trevor Joyce's translation, Sweeny Peregrine, with a nod to Seamus Heaney's Sweeney Astray." 

So there is a tradition for this slippery, Loki-esque or Pan-like character. This one was a fun ride.

Read this Book.

* Another thing you can see on the cover, is the horrible font they used for the title, which unfortunately, follows us throughout the book. I was thinking, what does on-the-Frince even mean?

gawain and the green knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl & Sir Orfeo are three poems translated from Middle English by J.R.R. Tolkien. The first two were discovered contained in the same manuscript, along with two other poems, written in the same hand, around the year 1400, according to the introduction, edited by Christopher Tolkien from a number of sources which original with his father, including notes, transcripts from broadcast interviews, etc. Sir Orfeo is contained in three extant manuscripts, and the one Tolkien used is dated to the 1330s, inscribed, probably in London. The original authors are unknown.

Tolkien worked on the translations a number of times from the1920s up through at lest the 1950s according to the preface by Christopher Tolkien, and in some case in collaboration with other experts in the field. In some cases, Christopher found multiple versions, and made an effort to use the most recent updated forms for this publication. The copyright is dated 1975 and held by Tolkien's long time publisher, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. and published in 1980 by Ballantine Books, of New York.

The trickiest part of the translations, according to the front matter, is the rhythm, not the strict iambic metrical foot used in other forms, such as Shakespeare, but a more loose rhythm of stressed and less stressed syllables, more closely matching natural speech, combined with alliterative sounds within many of the lines, such as this example given in the Appendix (also credited to J.R.R. Tolkien, and edited by Christopher):

Tirius went to Tuscany         and towns founded*

In this line, I've bolded the stressed syllables in red, and obviously, Tirius, Tuscany and Towns alliterate. I've added the break in the line, as the example in the aforementioned appendix did, to illustrate that each line is composed of two chunks, according to Tolkien.

The trick is apparently finding the words in moderns English that both tell the same story, give the same intended meaning, maintain the meter and rhythm, and don't damage the structure of the poem or its speech patterns so much that it is no longer a worthy representation of the original.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the longest poem, at about 80 pages, Pearl is about 33 pages, and Sir Orfeo is shortest at about 15 pages. Each seems designed to be spoken aloud, as one assumes that not many in the 1300s and 1400s could read, and they each seems to be focused on a story that is both exciting, and includes lessons on life and strong moral. They each extol the glory of God and being good, and the rewards that come from keeping both of those aspirations close at heart. Each also has a sprinkling of magic, often dressed as dream or phantasm brought on by sleep, drink, or love. All of the ingredients for that which Tolkien was trying to restore to England, its lost native mythology, which he imagined was as rich and diverse as the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or any other ancient civilization that didn't suffer the losses brought on by England's northern, damp climate, which is so hostile to things like old parchment manuscripts.

What I found most fun was the similarities in some of the themes from the adventures themselves that were clearly the inspirations,** at least in part, for some of Tolkien's fiction. That itself, is worth the price of admission.

* Sir Gawain, stanza 1 

** Tolkien fans out there will have heard the comparisons between The Lord of the Rings and Wagner's Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen) which Tolkien denied, and still many try to say that it is at least partially inspired by Wagner, regardless of the author's dismissal. But Wagner was himself inspired by an old Middle High German poem from around 1200, called Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs), which is in turn, based on oral traditions that likely go back to Old Norse sources, which Tolkien did study. In his 2011 essay on this comparison, Jamie McGregor provides a quote from Tom Shippey's work on Tolkien, indicating that Tolkien has a distinct dislike for Wagner (and other authors, including Shakespeare) and felt that they "had got something very important, not quite right." That, to me, explains why the similarities are present, i.e., they used the same source material, but Tolkien's inspiration, and what he took from the texts and traditions he studied, could be his own.***

*** One of Tolkien's friends--and a member of the Inklings, which they founded with their literary friends--C.S. Lewis, was described by Roberts Giddings, again, according to McGregor's essay, noted above, as a "rabid Wagnerite" and in his mind the source of the Wagner "taint" in Tolkien's work. Not having read Giddings work myself, I can't tell you if that theory is supported by any evidence, but in absence of that, I'll only add that it may be that Lewis saw these associations himself, and may have even brought them up to Tolkien himself, and if he did, I assume that Tolkien's response was the same to Lewis as it was to more public comparisons, altho, I also assume, perhaps more pointed.

identical

Identical is a novel written by Ellen Hopkins--in verse--for the teen lit market, based on the labeling from the library (weeded and discarded by my local library) the tone of the blab on the back cover, and the front matter, the subject matter, and feedback from my oldest. Some of that feedback included a summary of books chosen by school departments for students, usually being centered on teen suicide, drug use, Nazis, or all of the above.

No Nazis in this one. but just about every other horror

I picked this up from the library book sale for two reasons. The first, and most import reason is that I needed something to read. The second reason is because a quick flip through this told me it was a novel written in poetry. I mean, come on, sign me up for the crazy stuff. What's this, Beowulf up in here? hwæt!

I can imagine middle school kids reading this for English class, thinking: Why do I have to read this? That's not to say this isn't any good, just seems a little grim for the young adult market. Now, will the harsh realities and horrors described in this story help some kids who have to deal with things like this to feel better, or at least better understood? I guess so. Will it help some dealing with the things described here--or knows someone who is--to get up the strength to ask for help? I guess that may be true as well. But is it worth it to expose the rest of the young population to this, I'm not sure. But, is any kind of discussion about these awful realities which helps to drag them out of the shame and silence that typically surrounds them, and into the light, better than the traditional response of ignoring them. I think the answer to that is a clear yes.

This is an interesting way to spin a tale, and the twists and turns this story takes because of that, makes it worth the read alone. The layering and symmetrical construction of the verse in this story adds to the charm and depth of of the story, in spite of the subject matter.

Silmarillion

Sweet, sad, Silmarillion. 

The Wikipedia entry refers to The Silmarillion as a mythopoetic collection of stories. I had to look that one up; and I kind of like it. The tone the stories are told in is a little reserved. Some of the early ones, chronologically speaking, read like bible entries. But when you’re talking about the birth of the Earth—or Ea, Tolkien calls it—then I guess biblese seems appropriate. 

As I understand it, Tolkien felt the absence of a traditional English mythology beyond the tall tales of Arthur Pendragon and his ilk. Something of the scope and depth of the kind the Greeks, Romans, and Norse cultures have; stories that underlay their culture and belief systems, and tie them to their spiritual past. A careful look at what Tolkien has done shows that. From his proto-nursery rhymes, to the linguistic underpinnings of English, present in the early languages of the Quendi, the Elves. 

The Silmarillion is Tolkien’s unfinished backstory, the framework of his world building upon which he built the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. But it’s more than that; it’s his notes on dozens of other stories that he didn’t get the chance to finish. Christopher Tolkien did a great job, organizing, editing and releasing many of these work in the decades after his father’s death. Working, as he says he did when his father was alive, as a kind of amanuensis. One can only imagine what kind of works Tolkien may have produced had he had access to modern word processing or even speech-to-text technology. 

Tolkien described the creation of the world as the first collective music of the Ainur, made manifest by the one god Illuvatar, with all of the good, the bad, and the ugly of a first run, still in there. It’s like a proud papa pasting his kid’s first crayon drawing on the fridge... and then asking us all to live there for eons. augh, I don't wanna live in a first draft. Melkor is licking his finger and touching me! But don’t worry, says Eru, the big man, this is like a dry run. We’ll work out the bugs then bang out a fresh one all fixed up!*

What? Yeah, this ones probly gonna suck, for you guys and everyone else down there, but screw it, right? You guys made it, let’s see what happens!**

In here we find everything from the beginning of the world to the creation myths of the sun, the moon, and the stars; from the origins of elves, dwarves, and men, to the flat world theory; from the flood story to the making of dragons; and from the invention of war, to the making of rings. That last one was inspired, by the way, by the same fables and myths that inspired Wagner and his Der Ring des Nibelungen, "The Ring of the Nibelung," often referred to as the Ring Cycle. Tolkien was also inspired by the Edda, as was Wagner. 

 

This isn't the first time I've read this book, and it won't be the last. My last time through was nearly ten years ago. That review is maybe better than this one. If you want to know why you should read The Silmarillion, or even some pointers on how to read it, check out my earlier review.

Either way, read this book.

 

* I'm paraphrasing, nerds

** Yep, paraphrasing again

 

 

lost things

The title of this book gives a pretty good idea about the kind of story you're about to get into, but its also the title of a mysterious book in the story. The Book of Lost Things is, like many of those stories where young people find a doorway into a magical place, is presumably written by the main protagonist after his adventures in the alternate universe he has discovered. The place our young man has found, is decidedly darker and more grim than the more familiar Narnia, Wonderland, or Neverland. The door to this place opens when the when the land of stories begins to bleed into our world.

And that only happens when a young person begins to suffer from sorrow and loss, which can sometimes bring on envy, and even hatred of another young person they've come to blame (wrongly) for their losses. Hmm... if that kind of child on child hatred is something that helps to crack open the door between the worlds, then whatever is drawn to it from the other side can't be good. yeah, its not

John Connolly has put together a pretty creepy book, that reads a little like a young adult story written for adults. Its all the creepiest parts of Grimms Fairy Tales (and other old stories) reimagined as the even nastier 'real' stories that inspired the fairy tales. David brings these stories with him into the world of stories, along with his own demons, and they blend together in a series of adventures that seem to be leading him toward some kind of conclusion.

As David makes his way through this world, meeting, heroes, monsters, witches, and wolves if he's actually heading back toward home, which he says that he wants, or if he is actually being drawn further into an imaginary world he may not be able to escape.

This story is creepy (as I said) wild, funny, satirical, sweet and sometimes sad. Its a lot like the fairy tales that inspired it, as I guess you'd expect. Connolly has done a great job of spinning a yarn that is both familiar and new.

Bonus: The backmatter in this book includes Connolly's analysis of the various fairy tales he used in the story, what he took from them, and then the text of the original fairy tale itself.

oresteian trilogy

The Oresteian Trilogy consists of three plays, translated from ancient Greek; Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides. These plays, written by Aeschylus (525 - 456 BCE) tell of the tragedy that befalls Agamemnon and his family shortly after his return from the 10 year battle in Troy. Paris has been defeated, Troy sacked, and Cassandra taken as spoils of war back to Argos (Mycenae) and his wife Clytemnestra, sister of Helen.

You'll recall that Agamemnon went to Troy at the request (demand) of his brother Menelaus, King of Sparta, whose wife, Helen was stolen by Paris during a visit to Sparta for a wedding. Menelaus was obviously pretty peeved to lose he wife like this, and demanded the armies join him in marching on Troy to punish Paris and retrieve his queen. This bit is told in The Iliad, and because that story was as well known then as it is now, Aeschylus could skip to the days before Agamemnon arrived home.

Why is it, that after 10 long years beneath the walls of Troy, watching countless other men die in battle, including his brother Menelaus, Agamemnon has to travel all the way back home in victory before tragedy catches up with him? Well, that has to do with the curse on his family, that extends back to his grandfather Tantalus, who feasted with the gods, and then betrayed their secrets to mortal men. And it doesn't end with him, but with his children; Iphigenia, Electra, and his son Orestes, for whom the trilogy is named.

Because this story is so well known, is apparently why Aeschylus chose it to teach the populace about justice. Not the eye-for-an-eye justice of the ancient gods, but the modern justice of the emerging Greek democracy. Aeschylus weaves the ancient and modern ideals together, and like any persuader worth his salt, uses the believes of the people as a bridge to a new way of thinking. Conscripting Athena herself as the voice of justice, forming the very first court of justice, with 12 citizen jurors to decide the fate of Orestes, and finally bring an end to the family curse.

Because Aeschylus has an agenda, he's had his with the story and the characters to suit that agenda, so the stories in these three plays do not align with much of the popular Greek myths concerning these characters. 3000 year old fan fiction?

Translated from Greek by Philip Vellacott, who also wrote the introduction.

loving a woman

This small paperback book of poetry was given to me by my wife more than 20 years ago. She marked the poems she wanted me to read in particular with small bookmarks, which are still in my copy. This time around, I read through the whole collection. Its only 75 pages or so. It didn't take long. Many of Robert Bly's poems are short; just a stanza or two.

I'm not sure I'm smart enough to know what two worlds Bly speaks of when he talks about Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, but if I had to guess, I'd say they are the modern world, and the natural world, and as you can imagine, sometimes the two overlap. Often, Bly speaks of love, and sex, and caring through the anthropomorphism of animals and natural objects. And the subject matter seems to often stray to himself and his wife, with whom it appears, he has had a long, but sometimes rocky relationship, which seems always to return to love.

Bly's poems are sparse, subtle, evocative, and tinged with rawness of feeling, and underlain with animal lust in all its natural glory. Bly lays it all out there in his poems, and their honesty is compelling. The language is both simple, and complex: the vocabulary is very accessible--Bly isn't digging through the thesaurus for just the right word--but the meanings, how the words are used, seems to slip and shift as I read.

It was a lot of fun to come back to this one, and relive the feelings I had when I first read these poems, as I also looked at them, and my relationship with my wife, with the perspective of the intervening years.

Read this book.

return of the king

The Return of the King is the last volume of The Lord of the Rings. I've already read a large portion of this book, when I read the Appendices ahead of time. Of the three volumes, the first is the largest by far. The last is also large, but there are a lot of pages in the appendices; The Return is about the same size as The Towers.

As a closer, Tolkien crushed it with The Return of the King. This is especially obvious when you read about how he got there (which is what I'm reading right now.) There are so many other ideas he had as he wrote this novel, and while I think many think he took too long to write it, the slow thoughtful process is what resulted in the wonderful story we have now.*

While The Two Towers followed two different story tracks in two separate books, The Return brings the storyline (and the fellowship) back together in a lot of ways. Each member of the fellowship also experiences growth as the story progresses. It would have been easy to have supporting characters that act as straight men, or foils to help the author answer questions the readers may have, or to simply add depth (or entourage) to the story, but Tolkien didn't do that, there are no wasted characters here.**

The ring is a bad thing, its pretty clear. What to do with it is the central theme of the book. What do we do with evil when we encounter it? Bury it, overcome it, or destroy it? Each of these options is examined, but also examined are the consequences of each, including the unintended consequences. What if--this book asks--evil things end up spawning wonderful things, should those things be destroyed with the evil if uncoupling them proves impossible?

That's a hard question. And its ultimately what differentiates The Lord of the Rings from other books in this genre. In every era of Middle-earth, since its making, there has been an evil, brought from without, and balanced by a power for good, set firmly against it. At the end of the third era, when that final bit of the original seed of evil is finally rooted out, so also ends the power that was set against it. Which leaves men alone; inheritors of the fourth age, and all the rest of time, with nothing but mythologies, and the intangible but lasting effects of that original evil, to remind us.

Its not just the sorrow of the elves that pangs, its our own as well.

Read this book.


* There are those who think--and I was one of them years ago--that if Tolkien had written quicker, he would have gotten to more of the stories that he contemplated writing. I read somewhere that Tolkien considered The Lord of the Rings the 'end' of the story, essentially, and there was also a beginning story and a middle story (or stories) that could be told.† Many of these stories were ultimately released in The Silmarillion, and various other books Christopher Tolkien edited and published, such as Unfinished Tales, but if we had his father for longer, perhaps he would have completed these stories himself. I guess that's true, but I don't wish that he'd hurried through the LOTR. If he had, we wouldn't love it the way we do, and perhaps wouldn't care if he'd had the chance to finish the other stories he thought about, if they weren't going to be as good as this book ultimately is.

**Those of you that want to argue about Bombadil can do it outside, before I turn the hose on you. I'm talking about the members of the fellowship, who all have a roll to play, big or small. And each character is fully formed. And no I'm not sure how both he and Treebeard can both be first and oldest. Maybe one's first and the other is oldest; does that fix it? 

†  Please don't. Peter Jackson, I'm looking at you.


 

fellowship

I'm still playing catch-up from my vacation; I read a few books while I was away and I haven't written about them all yet. One of the things I did do is finish The Hobbit, and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings. This is about the first one.

The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, and it contains the first two books. There are six books in all; often broken down into three volumes,* other times, contained in a single volume. The last time I read it, I read a single volume copy. Its a little cumbersome in size, and is slightly different in very minor ways from the three volume version. There are no synopses** necessary in the single volume, as there are at the beginnings of the second and third volumes. When reading the separate volumes, there is no easy access to the Appendices, which are included at the end of the third volume only. And there is also no easy access to the introductory matter, which is included at the front of the first volume.

If you're strict about spoilers, be forewarned that I'm about to mention some elements of the storyline, but there won't be any dramatic reveals of information.

Fellowship begins by catching us up on what Bilbo Baggins has been up to since his adventures chronicled in the Red Book, titled: There and Back Again, better know as The Hobbit. Bilbo's adventures have left him rather well off, and quite comfortable. His old friend, Gandalf the Grey continues to visit him, being concerned as ever with the doings in the Shire, the small, quiet country tucked away on the East-West road, on the way to the Havens. But in the years since their adventure to the Lonely Mountain, Gandalf has been concerned about a quietly rising menace in the world, and it takes a number of years before things actually begin to move in ways that raise his concerns, for not only the Shire, but for all free peoples, everywhere.

Fellowship tells the story of how those feelings of dread finally break upon the sleepy Shire, and Gandalf, and his hobbit friends find themselves in terrible danger, seemingly far beyond their ability to cope with, but as Gandalf has always asserted, hobbits are made of far tougher stuff than their outward appearance may convey.

The wise have determined that by power alone, they can not overcome this evil. It now falls to the hobbits, and a fellowship representing the other free peoples of Middle-earth, to take it upon themselves to do what they can to save Middle-earth from the rising evil in the east.

Of course you should read this book. This is just the first volume of course, and when you're done, you should put it on your shelf so you can read it again. and don't say, I saw the movies. if you saw the movies you don't know the lotr


*  Don't call it a trilogy, Tolkien was pretty clear about that, its a single novel broken down into three parts.
** The synopsis in the second volume, actually includes information that didn't yet occur in the story. It actually takes place in the first part of the second volume. If its your first time through, you may want to skip the synopses all together (for this reason alone!) If you're planning to read all three volumes straight through, you probably won't need any reminders.

hobbit

Yes, I've read The Hobbit again.

Its been about 3 1/2 years since I read it. It was probably just before The Hobbit movie came out. I had heard, as most probably did, that the movie would be broken into 3 parts, presumably to cash in on the franchise. What could they possible cram in there to fatten (bloat) this story to three movies, we all wondered? Well, junk is what they crammed it full of. It was good to read it then, before the movies, so it would be more in mind. I hadn't really re-read any of the stories for a while. The Lord of the Rings movies came out about 10 years earlier 2000 to 2003, or so. Whereas, The Hobbit(ish) movies came out in 2012-2014.

So lets get back to the real The Hobbit. Without any Legolas (or his flipping girlfriend!) or Radagast and his stupid rabbit sled. surpised we didn't squeeze Alatar and Pallando in there Pete. feeling blue?

Tolkien's first foray into Middle-earth, is essentially a children's story, or what we might call today a young adult story, but that's just because we coddle our children now, and try to protect them from scary stories. You've all seen copies of fairy tales with the scary bits taken out, right? This is not that story.

The Hobbit or There and Back Again, follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, who leaves his snug little home, in the village of Hobbiton, without out a hat or a handkerchief, to go on an adventure to the Lonely Mountain, with a group of dwarves he's never met, and an old wizard, whom he has met. This story is at its heart, a reluctant hero story in the same vein as those described by Joseph Campbell. Bilbo doesn't want to be a hero, but he can't resist the temptation put upon him by Gandalf.Its his Tookish side coming through, he tells himself. Maybe that's true, and maybe it isn't, in any case, Bilbo has left the life he knows, and has stepped into the very songs he is so fond of.

But why did Gandalf choose a hobbit? Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and even Aragorn, have the gift of foresight, to varying degrees, but exactly what they see and how it will end is a mystery to even them. In Bilbo's case, Gandalf simply saw that Bilbo would have a roll to play before the end. What end was unclear, but it gets back to Tolkien's unshakable belief in God. C.S. Lewis was his friend and contemporary, and both of their stories were ties back to their believes in the end. Tolkien was just better at separating his believes from his storylines than Lewis was. Not sure? Just look at The Silmarillion. And then look at Gandalf's saying to Bilbo, something like: I think you [Bilbo] were meant to find it [the Ring,] and that is a very encouraging thought.

I guess it is. What I find amazing, is that Tolkien didn't have the LOTR is mind when he wrote The Hobbit, and originally, the ring was no big deal. Christopher Tolkien's analysis of the history of the LOTR is pretty clear, when Tolkien started it, he wasn't sure where his characters were going, or what the danger was that was driving them. He had written the sequel to The Hobbit all the way to Rivendell before the ring struck him as a catalyst that he could use.

Read this book. Right Now. And then read it again and again.

haiku meditations

I guess you could say Haiku Inspirations is a coffee table book, although those are usually larger affairs with lots of glossy pictures. This book is much smaller, more of a gift shop book. You know the kind they sell in museum shops.

Tom Lowenstein seems to know his business and tells the story of the history of haiku in a series of short essays about various well known authors, their followers, the political climate they lived in and the other religious and artistic influences on the form. Victoria James is listed as a co-author.

The book does have beautiful photographs and imagery, including yamato-e (painting), shodo (calligraphy) and woodblock prints. At the end of each 2 or 3 page chapter is a double page spread of 3 haiku some calligraphy (presumably related) on suitable background image.

One of the useful pieces of information I came away with is this feeling of aware; melancholy or sadness that permeates haiku. It's a sadness born of joy it seems to me; an understanding or the impermanence of things. A dew drop is lovely mainly because it is so evanescent. Haiku is meant to capture or at least remind one of these precious tiny moments in nature. Another structural concept is kigo which are season words, nearly always referred to either directly or through any number of key words or phrases that refer to the season. Snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring, for example.

As far as inspiration goes, I guess it worked. Here's mine for winter, preceded by three drafts. I left the drafts because I think they help show the progression for where I started--thinking about my favorite imagery from winter--to where I ended up; a very specific moment in time. The rabbit tracks are fleeting and will quickly be covered over by the snow, the branches dip under the weight of the snow.

[Moonlight and snowfall

Snow rests quietly on the

Evergreen branches] draft 1

[Moonlight shines softly

Snow, slipping quietly from

Evergreen branches. ] draft 2

[Snow in the moonlight

Clinging in soft mounds on the

Evergreen branches.] draft 3

Snow in the moonlight;

A rabbit has left her tracks.

Evergreen boughs dip. 

eclipse

I

Perched high above in velvet lair,
With stars like diamonds in her hair.
Glimm'ring dew drops, in hallowed lace,
Shimmer and shine about her face.

Her raiment dusky, luminous gray;
Edged with azure in light of day.
Delicate jacquard embroidered gown.
Our hope, and sight, when sun is down

Ever in eons; evermore!
A sign of love in ageless yore.
Longing pursuit of fiery mate,
Locked within our earth's embrace.

Glory, surely, in thy mien,
From oceans blue and forests green.
Ever there is turned her gaze,
But thoughts of Brightness fill her days.

Blissful is earth in his rapture,
Vies ever her love to capture.
But by our earth, her heart's not won,
Mate of her soul's within the sun.

Ever, anon, love pirouettes,
Just out of reach, and soon begets,
Tumult of fury, jealous rage,
Blinding earth for age upon age.

A plan is hatched in tortured mind,
Result of temper less than kind.
Reckless is he whom love has scorned.
Prudent thought now fettered and shorn.

"Attack!" he cries, with sundering seas,
"Lasting darkness, for thine and thee!"
Blackened veil o'er her face then crept.
In ageless exile then, she wept.

Only after foul deed was done,
Did she her warlike armor don.
Raiment gray was replaced in flood,
With wrathful, churning, tempest blood.

Silent screaming her battle cry,
Enraging champions from on high.
Fiercely they lit about her face,
Demanding redress for disgrace.

Her darkness trumpets their advance.
About her crown, formations dance.
If her honor they can't restore,
Gauntlet is thrown. They march to war.

II

Slowly moves the war of sky
In time not meant for men.
Fleeting crashes the tumults cry,
As men's eyes perceive heaven.

A thousand years within a day the mighty warriors lean.
A thousand more outside our time, with weapons yet unseen.
A moment more--the earth resigns--in black night calls "Parlay!"
A treaty drawn. A wrong redressed. Her face has won the day.

From her countenance, grudgingly,
The shadow slides away.
Retreating sad, but lovingly,
Earth has lost the day.

When battle gear has served its need
Blood then fades to gray.
Earth weeps now in insatiable greed,
Though she agrees to stay.

In dusky raiment again she's donned
More brilliant than afore.
Love's sparkling light upon her mons,
From he whom she adores.

Hung high above, in velvet lair
With diamonds in her crown.
Naught else on earth or in the air
More lovely than her gown.

Wisps of dew create hallowed lace,
Whilst stars shine about her face.
Glorious lantern in night's sky,
Who's love for sun will never die.

Verily now her vict'ry won,
Glory restored, her liege the sun.
With inert cruelty she now taunts
Her scorned lover, who's dreams she haunts.

A thousand, thousand years he'll grieve,
And about the sun a tapestry weave,
With endless streams of love's lost tears,
In avarice dance throughout the years.

-- --

I wrote this is October 2004 for the lunar eclipse then. Originally posted on Lit.org. Seemed like a good time to re-post. Enjoy the eclipse tonight everyone!

metamorphoses

I'm pretty sure I picked up this copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses when I was in Italy. I'm not sure about that but it has a funny price sticker on it and I have spent a fair number of my vacations in and around Ovid's hometown, Sulmona, in the Aquila region, in the eastern Alpines mountains west of Rome.

Publius Ovidius Naso, as he was known in Latin, or Ovidio to the Italians, was born in March, 43 BCE and died in exile in the year 17 or 18, so he was writing at around the same time as Virgil and Horace.

Metamorphoses is a series of related stories of the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, naiads and monsters, who all go through a dramatic physical change or alteration. The theme is a popular one in the Greek and Roman myths, but I had no idea there were so many examples; which begs the question, how many of these stories did Ovid make up himself? there are something like 250 separate stories in this epic poem, and each one includes a metamorphosis! So Ovid's a busy guy. And he was pretty sure that this poem was going to make him famous. He even states near the end that people will be saying his name in thousands of years. point; Ovid

Its pretty well known that authors from this era 'borrowed' from one another and from whereever else they liked. Many of the tales Ovid tells in his Metamorphoses are indeed told by Virgil. But what he is known for is his sense of humor, but after reading this translation by A.D. Melville, I've concluded that either the jokes must be pretty subtle, Ovid must just be humorous compared to his contemporaries (which I haven't read), or Melville didn't do a great job translating the humor. imagine, a classics scholar without a good sense of humor. weird

There is a 20-odd page introduction by E.J. Kenney, and 8 pages of translator's notes in the front matter, along with the table of contents and a Historical Sketch of Ovid. Kenney also prepared the notes to the text. These are highlighted in the text of the poem with asterisks. Find as asterisk go to the 100 pages of notes at the back and hunt for your note by book and line number! There are 15 books, and the lines aren't numbered, just a note at the top of each page noting what numbers it contains. I'm sure if you're a scholar, having a system that doesn't intrude on the flow of the poem is nice, but if you need to read the notes, they're a little hard to manage. Talk about stopping up the flow. The only way to read like this is to read a whole story, and then go read the applicable notes and try to recall where they were. I think footnotes would be fine.

After a quick look around, I think I may look up David R. Slavitt's The Metamorphoses of Ovid which is touted as freely translated by this American poet. According to Eric McMillan, Slavitt's version is supposed to be "Thoroughly enjoyable." saying that "Slavitt manages to capture the sweep of the stories while getting in all the little jokes and aides." Looks like I should have done a little research first. McMillan calls Melville's translation "quite dull." doh!

inferno

What’s a guy like me supposed to say about a guy like Dante Alighieri. Not much, but what I can say is that I didn’t read what Dante wrote. What I did read was small portions of the best guess on what Dante wrote, because his original manuscripts are gone, as is any agreed upon, concise copy of his original work. And of that work--the Italian version, edited by Giorgio Petrocchi in 1966-67 used by the Hollander's for their translation--I only read portions of it for two reasons: my Italian is poor, and Dante’s Italian is even more difficult for me to comprehend.

What I can tell you is, I did enjoy the translation of Inferno by Robert and Jean Hollander, which was complete with copious end notes after each canto. yeah, I read them The end notes give the whole experience a kind of scholarly endeavor feeling, and after I was about have way through, I felt that I should have probably just read through the poem first so I could maintain the story arc with less interruption, then I thought I would go back and re-read the poem by itself when I finished, but gave up on that after spending weeks on this book seemed like enough.

Inferno is the first of the three parts in Dante's Comedia, normally called The Divine Comedy, in English. I don’t have any immediate plans to read the Hollander’s translation of the next two books, Purgatorio and Paradiso, but maybe someday. Because this was a scholarly translation, the Hollander’s didn’t try to rhyme the poem as Dante did. This was one of the main reasons I read any of the Italian, which was printed conveniently on the verso, so I could get a little taste of that. The pronunciation of Dante’s Italian also complicated that little project; his version of Italian is difficult for me to read straight through so the cadence was a little choppy.
Robert and Jean Hollander are the husband and wife team who did the translation. They've worked on a number of Dante translations. Robert is a professor at Princeton and has been working on Dante since I was born, he also has a major hand in Princeton's Dante Project. Jean Hollander is a poet and a professor of writing who has also taught at Princeton as well as Brooklyn College and Columbia.

This book took me weeks to read, as I said. I took a break in the middle of this one to read another book, and since then I've read the third in that series without getting around to writing about this one. I'm glad I read it, but what a slog.

yellow birds

This is the first book by Kevin Powers, who was stationed in Iraq during the second war there, about 10 years ago. Powers has written about what it was like to be there by creating a story of one man's struggle to fight the war, fulfill his patriotic duty, deal with the fog of war, try not to get killed, and do his best to help make sure he also brought his brothers-in-arms home as well. I don't think its a spoiler to say that not all of these things can be accomplished by one man.

The Yellow Birds is told first-person by a private in the American army, fighting in and around a small valley in Iraq* over the course of about one year. This narrative is interspersed with a second narrative of what it was like to be home afterward, dealing with the stress of trying to normalize, and deal with what he and his compatriots had done during the conflict.

Powers is a poet, and his language sings this story of struggle, friendship, duty, and horror; sings to us so prettily, that we can almost overlook the pain, boredom, fear, and stupidity of war, for small moments, then the very language brings us back, dials us in to the story in a way that seems so visceral, that parts of it seem to come alive from inside us, as readers.

The Yellow Birds is a story of a journey one man has to make outside himself, outside what he knows, to where he doesn't want to go, and from which he doesn't know the way home. That journey still goes on when re returns stateside, and like many soldiers, it continues today. Its a story Powers clearly wants us to see from the inside, and I have no idea what war is like, I have a feeling that Powers has given me a peek.

Read this book.

And then keep it around; your kids will need it when it gets assigned in schools.


* Powers uses the name Al Tafar, Nineveh Province, Iraq.  Nineveh Province is in the northwest, where Mosul is located. I don't think there is such a place as Al Tafar, but on the map I see place called Tal Afar, which is green(ish) and has a small river running through it, about 50 km west of Mosul.

tropic of cancer

According to Miller's brief autobiography, he began writing Tropic of Cancer while living in Louveciennes,  a western suburbs of Paris, where he met Anais Nin. He had left his second wife, June Edith Smith, at home during this time and lived on the streets of Paris, and slept, as he says, where he could. This was in 1931-2. During this time he worked at the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune as a proof reader, and taught English for a while in Lycee Carnot. Nin was his lover during this period and kept him housed, fed, and helped finance the first printing of this book. Nin also wrote a short preface, which she ends by saying that Miller digs beneath the roots, for subterranean springs.

By 1933, Miller had visited  Luxembourg with his Clichy roommate, Alfred Perles, and begun work on Black Spring, and also a book on Lawrence which he never finished. His wife came back to Europe briefly, but left again after asking for a divorce. In 1934, Tropic of Cancer was published after a number of re-writes, a a decisive moment, in Miller's words. That was nearly 80 years ago. Tropic of Cancer could have been written yesterday. But if it was, no one would care; it could have only have been written then.

Miller writes with seeming abandon, using language that is both coarse and foul, and beautifully poetic. His prose is in many ways prose poetry. He talks about the underbelly of society and what it is to be a thinking, eating, sexual animal which lives in this society we've made for ourselves. He looks up from his depression-era squalor to the fat cats with 50 cent corona cigars, dripping juice down their faces, but not with hatred as you might expect, but with a journalist's impartiality. If he feels anything about the state of man, as horrible and useless as it all is, you could say its glee. He seems to laugh as he looks on, constantly amused by what he sees, as if he looked on the antics of young children, or dogs frolicking.

Miller lauds the works of those he sees as shinning examples in his prose, he talks of Walt Whitman as a poet who understood what is is to be a man, but worried that Whitman's language was now (in 1931) almost incomprehensible to modern readers. He also went on about Matisse, saying that he was at the very hub of the wheel that was falling apart around us.

One of my favorite lines:

"The wallpaper with which the men of science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters."

There has been so much written about Henry Miller, that you certainly don't need me to go on about it too. What I will say is: if you've read some beat or surrealism and it worked for you, you'll enjoy this. If you're interested in the birth of modern American writing, it seems to me that this is one of the stops. Is it a little odd? Sure. Is the language foul and the treatment of women appalling? You bet. Is it amazing to read such honest writing, from an era before my parents were born? Absolutely.

Read this book.

hobbit

The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again was originally published in 1937--seventy-six years ago--yet the story can still delight. Originally written for children; specifically, J.R.R. Tolkien reportedly wrote it for his own children; writing in a style that he felt his children would enjoy. Given the time period, it is not especially surprising that portions of the story where violence comes in, are not watered down as you might see in a more modern 'children's story.'

Image: A ripped off image of the full book jacket artwork. No, I'm not reading a first edition, mine is a reprint from Houghton Mifflin. I'm not sure, but I think its the fourth edition; fifty-ninth printing. hello nerds.

Its clear from the narrative however, that this story is written for children, and there are many nods and side notes given to the reader directly from the narrator. [Speaking directly to the reader is by no means done only in children's stories.] Alexandre Dumas, I'm looking at you.

And just like Dumas, Tolkien tells his readers things like; "Now if you wish, like the dwarves, to hear news of Smaug, you must go back again to the evening when he smashed the door and flew off in a rage, two days before." So begins chapter 14, in case you were wondering what that nasty worm had gotten up to. This type of dialog with the reader, doesn't show up in The Lord of the Rings, unless perhaps in the prologue. I guess I'll have to read it again.

So... Our hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, goes on a journey--accompanied by a baker's dozen of dwarves and a pro tem wizard--only to find that he will end up going further than ever the Lonely Mountain, or a pile of dragon gold, could ever take him. His adventures not only reform his demeanor, confidence and bravado, but will eventually reform Middle Earth itself. Bilbo grows from burden, to companion, to asset, to confidant, and eventually to leader, conscience and friend to the dwarves.

This is a wonderful story to read to younger children, or give to older children to read on their own. Tolkien very consciously avoids talking down to children, dumbing down the story, or flowering up the 'truth' of the story, as he sees it.

You may have heard that Peter Jackson and Co. has made a little film adaptation of this book, and will be rolling it out in three rather than the originally discussed, two episodes. I won't get into the movie here, but you can clickedy on over here to see it lamb basted by Noah Berlatsky for The Atlantic.

Get yourself a copy of The Hobbit and read it. If you have the chance, read it to child. sing the songs! I would look for the hardcover version: the maps are printed on the end papers, and the illustrations are by Tolkien himself. Tolkien has a great hand for stylized landscapes.

Not convinced? Okay, here's my Hobbit story. The Hobbit was assigned reading in my 8th grade English class. In the 8th grade, I was not a reader. The teacher sometimes read aloud in class, we had quizzes, which I tried to complete, but failed; but I found that as I read the questions on the quizzes, and eventually the final test, I still didn't know the answers. But I wanted to. I 'borrowed' my copy of the book at the end of the year, and read it over the summer! The Hobbit helped make me a reader.

Yeah, Read this book. smoke a pipe, drink some ale!

feile na marbh

The fire of autumn,
Raging against lapis skies,
Drains to brown under ashen mist
-- And dies.

The trees slough their reptile skins,
Leaving only tatters and bits.
Clinging; twisting in desperate throes
-- Then fly.

Only the bones remain,
Stripped bare to rub and crack.
Consecrated offerings for Samhain,
Scoured by gray winds.

Quiet now but for the rustle
Of dead skin and broken bone.
Frost and Decay worry and wrestle,
Devour the remains and spit the seeds.

The pines stand in vigil silence
Aside their sleeping brothers,
Brandishing green standards of defiance;
Sentinels in forlorn fields of bone.

wakefield

Wakefield is the first I've read of Andrei Codrescu, that burbling-voiced poet of NPR fame, who can turn a phrase and help you to look at life from a new angle, 33.3-degrees away from where you are used to.  Codrescu has a thoughtful and well read (seeming) view of life, and he brings his deep thought and his poetry to Wakefield, in a way that most reminds me of Tom Robbins.

Codrescu is also the founder of "The Exquisite Corpse", and taught literature and poetry at Johns Hopkins University, University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University where he was MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English. I understand that he is now retired from professorizing and just does the writing and his NPR gig.

Wakefield is a study of the modern, successful, single man in America. Codrescu's Wakefield seems to float through America--he's almost awash in it, as he moves from place to place, following his job as a speaker. Wakefield seems to think about roots, about anchoring himself somehow, making human connections, but it just seems incompatible with his personality. He seems to know that he might be better for it, but just can bring himself to think about anyone as much as he thinks about himself. But in examining Wakefield, or maybe watching Wakefield examine himself, Codrescu gives us a look at what it is to be a wealthy, single and unattached man, floating about like a bit of fluff.

 Codrescu's language is fun to read; and its clear why he is such a force on the radio, from little bits like: "Zamyatin laughs his smoky laugh that sounds like marbles in a tin box." to pure poetry in prose form, as in this riff on a desert Indian casino:

"No one is alive here; he is surrounded by ghosts. Does it matter to anyone that eagles were once sacred? Or even that they once certified real value on gold dollars? Now they are plaster, money is dust, the Indians are smoke, and pain floats about touching maimed bodies, squeezing as hard as it can, without effect. People scream in pantomime, holding whiskey and pretending to drink, laying down fake money, shaking cups full of confetti; their corpses are carried out and more are brought in by tall, thin shadows."

That's pretty awesome. did you read it with a romanian accent?

Wakefield's relationship to the Devil, see him peeking at us on the cover? may be his most powerful connection, with the possible exception of his one friend, Zamyatin. The Devil seems, indeed, to be Wakefield's own, personal demon. And his deal with the Devil, a deal with himself. What else would we expect from so inwardly looking a man.

Read this book.