I finished Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
I was slightly disappointed in that the book did not cover the Australian effort in the Middle East during WWI in any detail. If I had have been better informed, this should have come as no suprise - given that they were at the other end of the front line.

I will do a write up - review of the novel in the next couple of days. I will start up Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, I have seen the movie and I am curious to see how the book measures up to the cinematic classic.

'Sir Harry' - upon his knighting Henry Chauvel put a special request to King George V that he be knighted as 'Sir Harry' apparently this was an unusual request but given his exceptional service - was accepted by His Majesty.



General Sir Harry Chauvel 1919 portrait by James Peter Quinn (1870–1951)

General Sir Henry George Chauvel, GCMG, KCB (16 April 1865 – 4 March 1945), more usually known as Sir Harry Chauvel, was a senior officer of the Australian Imperial Force who fought at Gallipoli and during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of the First World War. He was the first Australian to attain the rank of lieutenant general and later general, and the first to lead a corps. As commander of the Desert Mounted Corps, he was responsible for one of the most decisive victories and fastest pursuits in military history.


Field Experience

Second Boer War
First World War

Gallipoli Campaign
Landing at Anzac Cove
Battle of Sari Bair
Battle of the Nek
Battle of Chunuk Bair Sinai and

Palestine Campaign
Battle of Romani
Battle of Magdhaba
First Battle of Gaza
Battle of Beersheba
Battle of Sharon
Capture of Damascus Pursuit to Haritan

Second World War


Awards

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Mentioned in despatches (11)
Order of the Nile (2nd Class) (Egypt)
Croix de Guerre (France)

John Anthony Burgess Wilson, FRSL (/ˈbɜrdʒəs/; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English writer and composer. From relatively modest beginnings in a Manchester Catholic family in the North of England, he eventually became one of the best known English literary figures of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Although Burgess was predominantly a comic writer, his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange remains his best known novel.[2] In 1971 it was adapted into a highly controversial film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book. Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and Earthly Powers, regarded by most critics as his greatest novel. He wrote librettos and screenplays, including for the 1977 TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. He worked as a literary critic, including for The Observer and The Guardian, and wrote studies of classic writers, notably James Joyce. A versatile linguist, Burgess lectured in phonetics, and translated Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus the King and the opera Carmen, among others.

Anthony Burgess by Dennis Waugh Color Print National Portrait Gallery London.


Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (German: [ˈjaːkɔp ˈluːtvɪç ˈfeːlɪks ˈmɛndl̩szoːn baʁˈtɔldi]; 3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn,[n 1] was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.

A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family, although initially he was raised without religion and was later baptised as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.



Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Wilhelm Hensel 1847

Wilhelm Hensel (6 July 1794 – 26 November 1861) was a German painter, brother of Luise Hensel, husband to Fanny Mendelssohn, and brother-in-law to Felix Mendelssohn.


The above musical work is cited in the infamously missing final chapter (from the film) of A Clockwork Orange.

Can you recall the famous piece of music that is so often associated with the movie?

Perhaps it was because I slugged my way through Seven Pillars of Wisdom in 6 days at approximately 100 pages a day or being hit with, frankly, incomprehensible English slang at the start A Clockwork Orange but I can't seem to get started reading this evening. Given that I appear to be update with the world of 2+2 - I guess you will have to put up with my meandering thoughts.

I have tried to maintain this blog on a very narrow course of literature and high culture, whilst only periodically indulging myself in personal asides or other drifts off topic. I have a habit of needing to have something else in the background as I read, usually the TV is too distracting, sometimes music works but often it is the chatter of the radio or a youtube lecture that occupies my in-between brain spaces as I read. As followers of my blog might recall, I take the education of myself as my sole ongoing project for the future. Whilst ascertaining full-time teaching employment is a goal - it is secondary to a project of self-improvement. Most people, in my experience, seek to improve themselves physically or spiritually but it is rare that 'we' take our education as a life-long process.

It is somewhat shocking, to my mind, when I walk into educational environments like schools or universities and you encounter attitudes that do not have a consious mode of intellectual development at their forefront. Now that is not to say that I have not had that attitude myself - certainly when I first undertook my BA it was only periodically did I take my learning seriously. But when I came back to do my teaching qualifications in my mid 30s - I was taken aback that fellow students would be so unenthusiastic about the opportunity to learn about teaching. Breathtaking, when they had set themselves on a path of being a teacher which presumably would occupy alot of their life.

I think it has more to do with presuming that we know enough as opposed to apathy towards education. Of course, I come across that attitude everywhere I go....knowing it all or enough to make a judgement about any topic. It is pervasive in media - the shouting media types, ranting and raving about some small piece of minutiae within our priviledged part of the world, or super-serious types pontificating and drawing extra-ordinary conclusions upon swirling unstable and complex social, political or economic situations or politicians with their inane repetition of focus group derived jargon all designed to make believe that every little thing that they have done constitutes "great reform".

It is so refreshing when I hear the words - I do not know.

"the more I know, the more I know I don't know"
Words to live by.

Speak to you tommorrow.

/endmeander rant

For Whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

A Poetic re-iteration of John Donne's Meditation 17

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

"No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee...."


I have read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, although I have never read it critically.
When I mentioned above that I liked having lectures on "in the background" - I will be immersing my reading of A Clockwork Orange with Professor Wai Chee Dimock lectures on Hemingway's novel.
It is in 4 parts - link to part 1 below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKqRw...C3A4DD9C263D79



Joan Miró. Help Spain (Aidez L'Espagne). 1937

The wonders of the 21st century and generiosity of Yale and Prof. Dimock should be borne in mind - if you enter through this gateway.

Definitely my last post tonight.

Evening.

The Seven Pillars of the Ismaili Shia

Walayah “Guardianship” denotes love and devotion to God, the prophets, the scripture, the imams and the du'āt "missionaries".

Taharah "Purity": The Ismā'īlī lay special emphasis on purity and its related practices, and the Nizari consider this in a more esoteric sense too and apply it to purity of mind, soul and action, the Musta'lis also apply it to ritual practices related to prayer and cleanliness.

Salat "Prayer": Unlike Sunni and Twelver Muslims, Nizari Ismā'īliyya reason that it is up to the current imām to designate the style and form of prayer, and for this reason the current Nizari practices resemble dua and pray them three times a day.

Zakah "Charity": with the exception of the Druze, all Ismā'īlī madhāhab have practices resembling that of Sunni and Twelver Muslims with the addition of the characteristic Shī'a khums: payment of 1/8th of one's unspent money at the end of the year to the imām.

Sawm “Fasting”: Nizari and Musta'lī believe in both a metaphorical and literal meaning of fasting. The literal meaning is that one must fast as an obligation, such as during the Ramadan and the metaphorical meaning being that one is in attainment of the Divine Truth and must strive to avoid worldy activities which may detract from this goal

Hajj “Pilgrimage”: For Ismā'īlīs, visiting the imām or his representative is one of the most aspired pilgrimages. There are two pilgrimages: Hajj-i-Zahiri and Hajj-i-Batini the first is the visit to Mecca, the second, being in the presence of the Imam.

Jihad "Struggle": The definition of jihad is controversial as it has two meanings: "the Greater Struggle" and the "The Lesser Struggle", the latter of which means a confrontation with the enemies of the faith.


The Sunni variant of Islam has only 5 Pillars of Islam.
As it is not specifically stated what the seven pillars of wisdom are by TE Lawrence one only can speculate and presume that they refer to the above. All are alluded to in some of the reflections of the narrator throughout the text although the narrator explicitly states that he does not convert to Islam.

Can you recall the famous piece of music that is so often associated with the movie?

A Clockwork Orange

Did you choose

a) Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Second Movement

b) William Tell Overture

c) Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement

The Answer I had in mind was:

(c)

Why?

It is the music that Alex has on in the most important transformative scenes - the use of very different instruments in the soundtrack - suggests that it is far from an "Ode to Joy" that we are listening to.

The Unabridged fourth movement.



In the book Alex sings to himself in a dream the choral section of the fourth movement of beethoven's masterpiece which uses Schiller's Ode to Joy: pg 55 A Clockwork Orange

Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven,
Slaughter of Elysium,
Hearts on fire, aroused, enraptured,
We will tolchock you on the rot and kick
your gahzny vonny bum.


Ode To Joy by Schiller

First Stanza


Joy, beautiful spark of the divinity,
Daughter from Elysium,
We enter your sanctuary, burning with fervour,
o heavenly being!
Your magic brings together
what custom has sternly divided.
All men shall become brothers,
wherever your gentle wings hover.

Full text with two versions and the German.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ode_to_Joy

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (German: [ˈjoːhan ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈfʁiːdʁɪç fɔn ˈʃɪlɐ]; 10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.

F Schiller by Anton Graff

Review of Seven Pillars of Wisdom By TE Lawrence

This is a substantial auto-biographical account of TE Lawrence and his thoughts and actions throughout the "Arab Revolt" during the Middle Eastern Campaigns of the First World War. It provides a great depth of description of the travels by Lawrence as well as the intracacies of organising disparate Arab Tribes under Feisal in the Arabia peninsula.
It is a difficult narrative to follow as there are in excess of a hundred locations and Lawrence repeatedly provides desciptions of every nighttime negotiation and daytime trek from place to place. This will disorientate all but the closest and most discerning of readers. Whilst there is compensation in the personal reflections on the personal toll of war, aesthetic reflections on conflict and the conflicted 'self' and beautiful depictions of Arabia - I do not think they offset the labour of managing the plot.

It is of its time - in the values that it espouses that are abhorrent and there are descriptions of slaughter and summary judgement that would have Lawrence and his band up before The Hague.

There are significant historical lessons to be learnt from the insurgency, the tenuous hold of 'nationalism' (I would argue still today) and important background to the current state of the region - that can be drawn from this account. These can all be drawn from the account without accepting some of the mythologising, that almost certainly is taking place, by the narrator of his own role.

Whilst I have gained some personal sense of achievement from reading this text. I would not recommend this to anyone who does not have a deep and abiding interest in the history of the Middle East or Colonial policy of the British in the Middle East.

A hard toil with few but very bright spots.

I am about 65pages into the novella sized A Clockwork Orange and I am confident of finishing this before the start of March. Alex, the botherboy narrator, has yet to enter the program and is still in gaol having been betrayed by his droogs.

To give you a flavour of Burgess' writing I will transcribe a section from pg 65 - which is the prison chaplain upon the efficacy of the rehab program that 6655321 (Alex) is keen to enter.

'It's not been used yet,' he said,'not in this prison, 6655321. Himself has grave doubts about it. I must confess I share those doubts. The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.'


I think the technical term for what takes place is known as operant conditioning...one example of this is shown below


Purpose of Operant Conditoning
An operant conditioning chamber permits experimenters to study behavior conditioning (training) by teaching a subject animal to perform certain actions (like pressing a lever) in response to specific stimuli, such as a light or sound signal. When the subject correctly performs the behavior, the chamber mechanism delivers food or another reward. In some cases, the mechanism delivers a punishment for incorrect or missing responses.

Schemata of Skinner's box

Burrhus Frederic (B. F.) Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.[2][3][4][5] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[6]
Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box.[7] He was a firm believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action. If the consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be repeated; however if the consequences were good, the actions that led to it would be reinforced.[8] He called this the principle of reinforcement.[9]



Gioachino Antonio Rossini[1][2] (Italian: [d͡ʒoaˈkiːno anˈtɔːnjo rosˈsiːni]; 29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces.
His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola and the French-language epics Moïse et Pharaon and Guillaume Tell. A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname "The Italian Mozart".

Rossini - artist not cited


I cannot exactly Recall when the William Tell Overture is used in the soundtrack for the movie A Clockwork Orange.....Can you?

Metaphors of a Magnifico

Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges,
Into twenty villages,
Or one man
Crossing a single bridge into a village.

This is old song
That will not declare itself . . .

Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are
Twenty men crossing a bridge
Into a village.

That will not declare itself
Yet is certain as meaning . . .

The boots of the men clump
On the boards of the bridge.
The first white wall of the village
Rises through fruit-trees.
Of what was it I was thinking?
So the meaning escapes.

The first white wall of the village . . .
The fruit-trees . . .

Wallace Stevens




What does the above mean?




What does the above mean?


Just by looking at the two 'images' or signs or texts - How do they differ from one another?

I have finished A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and will write a review sometime in the next 24 hours, perhaps later tonight. I am going to begin reading Silas Marner by George Eliot.

Talk: An unintended irony.

Double checking my recollection of an urban myth, I typed into Google 'How many words a day does the average human speak?' It confirmed the scope of my memory - that humans speak somewhere from 7000 to 24000 depending upon gender. This particular study appeared to be interested in the difference in gender; the fancy that drove me to re-enquire was merely the scale of utterances per day. Why, you may think?

I have thought about whether I am becoming anti-social, not hostile toward people and behaving impolite or violently but merely if I am becoming hermetic and withdrawn. Now, I do not have a particularly active social life to begin with, which might be prima facie evidence, but I thought to experiment about how few words would I be forced to use without being rude or absurd in my daily routine. It totalled to less than 50...I did not actually talk to anyone without being asked a question or requesting a service.

7000 words which was the lower end for men, appears to me to be an endless stream of utterances - but it is on average ten words each minute of a 12 hour period. As I was thinking about the what my memory of the quantum of words would be, as I had not yet come home to check, I was somewhat listening in on a conversation between two women. Well not precisely listening in, as I was not interested or hearing exactly what was being said and it implies that I was doing so intently, but merely periodically observing them from a distance. With that having been said, it was a constant stream of communication, between the two women, often overlapping each other. Apparently it was meaningful and enjoyable given that it went on for a sustained hour without pause or reflection and each participant appeared thoroughly satisfied with the production. So, upon reflection, the study might be realistic, which in turn focussed my mind more intently on my possible drift toward hermithood.

Which led me to think, how many words would I speak if I had an acquaintance here with me? Would it be a lot? I know I like to talk and I like spreading my ideas about. Although this is slightly but noticeably declining in enthusiasm for I fear that I get tired of repeating myself in two ways. Firstly, explaining exactly what I mean requires endless qualifications and re-iterations to provide a precise description of what I mean. As well as that feeling that I have had this exact conversation before perhaps not so much exactly with the same words but the intent, sentiment and effect.

This led me to think, that everything that I say is ironic. What I say, what I mean and what I expect is understood by another, are three very different things. The very thought of which, in turn, deflates my motivation to say anything at all let alone repeat again something that is not likely to be precisely what I mean to someone who either does not listen, does not understand and likely cares very little about what might be meant or said.
A truly sad state of affairs, indeed.

Meditation. Or maybe that silent in between the spoken words, that space in between written words.

I remember this beautiful passage in The Tarter Steppe, by Dino Buzzati, where the sound of dripping water - slowly but surely from one drop to the other - drove the character anxious. But it wasn't the specific sound of the drop that drove him nuts, but that interminable silence before the next one fell.

I feel we are often trying to cover this silence. To deny it. By words, actions, desires, constant thoughts.

Anyhow, just wanted to share this.

Febuary Reading

10. A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens
11. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
12. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
13. In the Winter's Dark by Tim Winton
14. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
15. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (non fiction)
16. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
17. Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence
18. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

9 + half books

Approx. 20 poems
Metaphors of Magnifico by Wallace Stevens
For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne
Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens
Al-Mutanabbi poem
The Adhan Call to Prayer
Sonnet 227 Petrarch
Madrigal Altri canti d'amor, tenero arciero by Monteverdi
The Voice of Authority: A Language Game by Kingsley Amis
Pines of Rome by Peter Porter
A Homeric Hymn: The Abduction of Persephone by Hades
Dreams by John Dryden
Lycidas by John Milton
From Blank to Blank by Emily Dickinson
Stars Emily by Bronte
Nature is what we see by Emily Dickinson
In an Artist's Studio by Christina Rossetti
She Walks beauty like the Night by Lord Byron
If by Rudyard Kipling
The Whiteman's Burden by Rudyard Kipling
Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson

Stubbornly on shelf list
Madame Bovary by G. Flaubert
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Plus
Virgil The Aeneid spotted that one aha you're one I have on my shelf but have not read.

I was also given recently:
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor and Another non-fiction An Illustrated History of Medieval Europe -by ..... I am not sure because I lent it out to a friend.
Three men in a boat Jerome K Jerome

Need to find
Pourtnoy's Complaint by Roth
Faulkner
Chekov
Rasselas
Voltaire? Candide
+buy some criticism by Johnson and Bloom
Recommendations from Feb
If on a Winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino
Froth on the Daydream, by Boris Vian.
How to make Love to a Negro, by Dany Laferriere
+
The Captain and The Enemy by Graham Greene
Lolita by Nabokov

March List
Silar Marner by George Eliot
Cat's Cradle by K Vonnegut
Labyrinths by Borges
Madame Bovary by G. Flaubert
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor

+ A Shakespeare play

Year to date
18 Novels, 17 Reviews, 30+ poems, 0 Shakespeare plays
- Improved my exposure to classical music, improved my understanding of Renaissance, Baroque Art.
- Exposed myself to some classical works I have not seen before, exposed myself to some parts of Islam I was not familiar with
- Knocked off to of my conceit books - Seven Pillars and One Hundred Years

March Goals:
Improve my written English grammar within the blog.
Try and use shorter sentences within my blog posts.
Include more personal reflections within the blog.
Try and read the poems I post more closely.
Order some of the books on the recommended list.

A Review of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

A Clockwork Orange is an intriguing novel on the origins of, impact of and social responses toward violence. Through the recollections of his youthful narrator, Alex, Burgess enters into a conversation with his readers about our attitudes towards youth, violence and crime.
We observe Alex's passionate embrace of violence within the youth culture of urban England and are drawn into his primordial struggle for sensual satisfaction in violence, brotherhood, sex (or more accurately violent rape) and chaos. We follow his brutalisation in the school of prison and its innovative psychological 'reformation' program. Finally, we become witnesses to his re-birth and struggle to adjust to his newly transformed 'self'.
The art of Burgess is to develop an arc where we initially are horrified by, then sympathise with and ultimately are disappointed by the character Alex - seemingly all of this is done with little or no fault assigned by us to Alex. Before we have a chance to rationalise the senseless violence being perpetrated by Alex, by establishing a reasonable cause for it - we are confronted with the very delibrate and 'rational' brutalisation of Alex by the State. This confusion allows for Burgess to leave his reader open to reassessing notions of guilt, complicity, rehabilitation to name just a few.

The use of youth slang and Cockney patois creates a distance between the narrator and the intended reader. Although this lends an authenticity to the voice of the narrator - the experience of reading can be difficult and frustrating. This is delibrate because our literal difficulties of understanding Alex is mirrored by our lack of comprehension of his actions. Alex is a foreigner in his own land - he is the most insightful of all of the droogs yet he ultimately rejects 'rehabilitation' which I think he is entitled to do given the treatment he has received. Which leaves open the question as to our own complicity in the creation of this violence.

Burgess has done alot with this work but I feel that he could have achieved true greatness if he had have expanded upon each part with greater depth. I think he had the pitch of the voice right to carry his readers further down some of these dark passages of the human heart and the modern world.

There is a lot more to say about this novel....but I will leave that to your own imagination.

In its own way it matches the movie experience.


Mr Bungle Carry Stress in the Jaw on Disco Volante

Clockwork Orange has 2 versions. The US version originally missed a redemptive final chapter that was in the UK version, chapter 21, where Alex realises the pointlessness of his ways.

I think all recent editions are 21 chapters. The movie was based on the 20 chapter version.

I will accede to your expertise on that diebitter. I was aware that there was a bitter dispute between Kubrick and Burgess over the film which I think centred upon the final chapter and the marketing of that film image of Alex on his books. I think Burgess resented many aspects of the reception of his book, if my recollection is correct.

(Burgess resented this marketing image of his book.)

In the book - it is a questionable redemption. It is an 18 year old, on the spur of the moment, claiming to have grown up and seeking a new start. We have no substantive reason to believe that this(new start) is grounded in reality.

I think he is 21 in the final chapter. I could be wrong.

I remember getting the distinct impression that significant time has passed between chapter 20 and 21, and the mood of chapter 21 is reflective.

Well, 18 or 21, there has been very little character development to give any credibility to the character's claim that he has been redeemed. It is, I think quite delibrately, an open question.
In fact I think, at least as far as the book is concerned, we should probably deduce that Alex is a long way away from redemption because if it was that easy to choose then his violence earlier becomes frivolous, absurdist. His claim undermines the reliability of all his prior character self-assessments - he is a fool to believe that he can just choose, it is alot harder to live a 'good life' you need to do more than just to choose to have one.

Your thoughts reminded me of a passage from Eliot's Four Quartets:

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres-
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholy new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.


Very impressive so far, Digger! You've done a whole lot in a few months.

I'm also trying to improve my writing via my blog (as I think you know) and am reading some grammar/writing-related books. If you're interested, I'd be happy to pass along the titles. I also have a few Chekhov stories if you're looking for some to start with.

Such an odd and powerful book. This is also my impression--that a lot happens between chs. 20-21 and, if it's included, ch. 21 radically changes the meaning of the book.

March List
Silar Marner by George Eliot
Cat's Cradle by K Vonnegut
Labyrinths by Borges
Madame Bovary by G. Flaubert
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor

Bought today:

Lolita by V Nabokov
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger


Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell.




Aspidistra /ˌæspɨˈdɪstrə/[1] is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Nolinoideae, native to Asia, particularly China and Vietnam. They grow in shade under trees and shrubs. Their leaves arise more or less directly from ground level, where their flowers also appear.

As a popular foliage houseplant (particularly in British boarding houses), A. elatior became popular in late Victorian Britain, and was so commonplace that it became a symbol of middle class values.[citation needed] As such it was central to George Orwell's novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, as a symbol of the need of the middle class to maintain respectability—according to Gordon Comstock, the novel's protagonist. It was further immortalised in the 1938 song "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World", which as sung by Gracie Fields became a popular wartime classic.[11]

Aspidistras were immune to the effects of gas[12] used for lighting in the Victorian era (other plants and flowers withered or yellowed), which might account for their popularity.

"Aspidistra" was the codename (inspired by the above song) of a very powerful British radio transmitter used for propaganda and deception purposes against Nazi Germany during World War II.




Dame Gracie Fields, DBE (born Grace Stansfield, 9 January 1898 – 27 September 1979), was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.

Dubnjoy000: I have never heard of that book, The Tartar Steppe. Can you give me an expanded description of it? How did you come to read it?

re: Meditation: I was thinking more in terms of the linguistic mode of writing known as a meditation. We've already written about Marcus Aurelius, Descartes meditation and then, I noticed John Donne meditation 17 known as For Whom the Bell Tolls. An interesting connection I found between the Hemingway book and the John Donne meditation is: Anselmo is one of the names of the characters in the Hemingway novel --->St Anselm is one of the key figures of medieval Scholasticism and used the mode of , you guessed it, meditation.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (/ˈænsɛlm/; c. 1033 – 21 April 1109), also called Anselm of Aosta for his birthplace, and Anselm of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, philosopher, and prelate of the Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he has been a major influence in Western theology and is famous as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and the satisfaction theory of atonement.

bob_124: You must have some kind of memory. What an amazingly apt poetic reference for my thoughts. I am speechless. Bravo, good sir. Take a bow.

Now are you going to force me to find the other poem you referenced?

glad you liked it. Eliot's a poet whom I think you'd enjoy. The first poem is Wallace Stevens's "The Idea of Order at Key West"

As you might be aware, I am interested in literary works of Literature. I rationalise the origin of this interest as being focussed upon important cultural artefacts in the limited amount of time I have to educate myself. One has to have some filtration method and the work having 'literary' merit is mine.

Which begs the question what is literary? The definition I have adopted is a practical one. It is merely a work of Literature that the Academy has shown a sufficient interest in it or has officially authenticated it as such.
A simple shortcut to this is, a form of self-evidence, if it is still in print after a 100 years it probably is literary. But another hint is - when there are numerous texts that surround the actual text of the novel: an introduction, appendix, footnotes, textual variants. The more you see of these ---> the higher it's likely to be held in the Academy's canon.

Silar Marner By George Eliot exhibits all of these. I have avoided reading the introduction but I did read up on the basic story when it was first suggested by Russelintoronto(sp). The writer's style is vastly different from Burgess and I am spending slightly more time on each sentence - not so much to make sense of it but to savour the taste.

p 16
The little light he possessed spread its beams so narrowly, that frustrated belief was a curtain broad enough to create for him the blackness of night.

A simple written metaphor with a very profound observation of her central character.


p15.

Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy becauses its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories.


In Greek mythology, Lethe (Greek: Λήθη, Lḗthē; Classical Greek [lɛː́tʰɛː], modern Greek: [ˈliθi]) was one of the five rivers of Hades. Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe was also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often identified.

In Classical Greek, the word lethe literally means "oblivion", "forgetfulness", or "concealment".[1] It is related to the Greek word for "truth", aletheia (ἀλήθεια), which through the privative alpha literally means "un-forgetfulness" or "un-concealment".
According to Statius, it bordered Elysium, the final resting place of the virtuous. Ovid wrote that the river flowed through the cave of Hypnos, god of sleep, where its murmuring would induce drowsiness.

Submersion in Lethe by Gustav Dore

If you look closely - you can see the almost fully immersed Dante.

"Paul" Gustave Doré (French: [pɔl ɡystav dɔʁe]; January 6, 1832 – January 23, 1883) was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving.
Dore, was an illustrator who was commissioned by many English publishing houses for many great works of Literature. This was from Dante's Divine Comedy:

Then, in XXXIII, Beatrice accuses Dante of having strayed from God’s way, and this bizarre exchange takes place between the two of them:

To that I answered: ‘As far as I remember
I have not ever estranged myself from You,
nor does my conscience prick me for it.’

‘But if you cannot remember that,’
she answered, smiling, ‘only recollect
how you have drunk today of Lethe,

‘and if from seeing smoke we argue there is fire
then this forgetfulness would clearly prove
your faulty will had been directed elsewhere.’

Purgatorio XXXIII.91-99 (tr. Hollander)

http://www.waggish.org/2011/dante-at...nd-forgetting/

The above site was how I came upon the Dante reference...I have a different copy of the Inferno: which also has Canto XIV 130 and Canto XXXIV 130 and notes for each (Penguin Classics ed.) for Lethe.

Make of it what you will - that both Eliot and Dante call upon Lethe as a symbolic referent for forgetfulness in their character's development as opposed to a Christian referent.


Update: approximately 50 pages into Silas Marner.

Coffee in the desert.

My rountine of a coffee and reading in a coffee shop is a centuries old tradition of middle-class men. In the coffee-shops of London hundreds of years ago - you might have witness groups of men discussing politics and culture over a coffee. You might have heard protests by women of the dangers of this caffeinated fuelled sociability - perhaps protesting due to their exclusion but also for our own moral good. Being aware of the latest in politics and culture was a sign of education and civility in these cultural wetlands.
Perhaps reflections like this gives me some solace that in imitation of these ghosts - I am somehow their associate. But this self-image is as much disrupted by the intrusion of other conceptions of myself as by how singularly unique my behaviour is at my coffee-shop. People certainly drink coffee, sometimes they might even indulge in a small bit of reading, maybe a glance at the local tabloid propaganda or a scroll of their own facebook page. But a book or a political or cultural discusson - well I am yet to witness one.
Which led me to another thought....prompted by the reminences of the late great Harold Ramis.
"Print is dead."
Not a particularly original insight by myself, although Ramis was prescient given he siad it in 1985, to mourn the death of good newspapers and the culture of reading. For without a doubt it is dead in my part of multi-cultural Sydney - it is not a critically ill patient - it is dead and I am a literary zombie.
In the off-moments of lack of concentration, the moments of distraction between exertions of focussed reading - I interrupt myself with scanning games of the streetscape searching for a fellow zombie. Monday and not a book in sight. Tuesday - I spotted someone reading a Chinese language newspaper. And so forth...until finally as I rose from my Friday afternoon coffee contemplating Alex's (A Clockwork Orange) future - I spotted something...it was too cool a late summer's afternoon for this to be mirage. As this well-dressed middle aged Asian male strode purposefully his hand clutching an artefact of great import in his near-side hand, hope welled in me. A fellow zombie come to visit this caffeine fuelled oasis of civilisation after all this time.
Much to my dismay, his stride did not break. His gaze did not fall. His purpose clearly brook no interruptions. Well, I thought. Perhaps if I can just catch what book he is carrying - then perhaps that small bloom might give consolation that civilisation in this part of Sydney has some hope. My hopeful eyes furtively caught a couple of words of its title on its thick spine...
"Yada, Yada Management Accounting".

Sigh..
"Check, Please!".

The Motive for Metaphor

You like it under the trees in autumn,
Because everything is half dead.
The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves
And repeats words without meaning.

In the same way, you were happy in spring,
With the half colors of quarter-things,
The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds,
The single bird, the obscure moon--

The obscure moon lighting an obscure world
Of things that would never be quite expressed,
Where you yourself were not quite yourself,
And did not want nor have to be,

Desiring the exhilarations of changes:
The motive for metaphor, shrinking from
The weight of primary noon,
The A B C of being,

The ruddy temper, the hammer
Of red and blue, the hard sound--
Steel against intimation--the sharp flash,
The vital, arrogant, fatal, dominant X.

Wallace Stevens


For those of you desperate for content in your high art of procrastination. You will find a very interesting, although high brow, discussion on the "metaphor". If you are time poor or only want to devote a small amount of time to this blog and its ideas I suggest listening to Prof. Frederick Turner's story about an African Tribe's symbol for symbol and its relationship to our ideas of metaphor as a boundary between the known and unknown **c 30 minute mark. His story goes for about 10-15 minutes. The main discussion goes for about 1hr 10 mins before some 'meh' ordinary questions by psychoanalyst audience members for the balance of the tube.



Enough for now, I have an appointment with Ms Evans as well as the 3rd Test from Sth Africa.

Speak to you soon.

**(Apologies in advance if my timestamp is not exact - I am having ongoing issues with my ISP...and I have been frustrated 5 times to move back and forth through the youtube...I am pretty sure you will find it close to the 30 min mark but buyer (of my advice) beware.)