tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52450355366551949912024-03-23T03:13:50.320-07:00TSorensen 1001 book blogTSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-8435695391195410142024-02-22T12:49:00.000-08:002024-02-22T12:49:28.456-08:00The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper (1826)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR932SIDtk9GDB3GVT8BipvQAgWB6bxOa2DFbifoWYJYO6zJ0LynZlU6UBgKe1Eerz0cg_4Sxjy2tUgVHFR1i1hMv6JcYFZrNnhcpcT4QPkUmSDvTY7KXoNi-xchp-AyxOzCI4ebcnLGGBdFuXpRLVXpkFvw0iaAkaQa4q8sIs73GPtODHzSjp_ROr5_Kl/s466/The%20Last%20of%20the%20Mohicans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR932SIDtk9GDB3GVT8BipvQAgWB6bxOa2DFbifoWYJYO6zJ0LynZlU6UBgKe1Eerz0cg_4Sxjy2tUgVHFR1i1hMv6JcYFZrNnhcpcT4QPkUmSDvTY7KXoNi-xchp-AyxOzCI4ebcnLGGBdFuXpRLVXpkFvw0iaAkaQa4q8sIs73GPtODHzSjp_ROr5_Kl/w258-h400/The%20Last%20of%20the%20Mohicans.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>The Last of the Mohicans</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One of the
most famous early American novels, “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore
Cooper, helped paint a picture of the frontier that has lasted through the
centuries. Although a contemporary audience typically will associate the
American frontier with the prairie or the sunbaked southwest, there was a time
before where the frontier was in the woods of New England.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Fort
William Henry on the southern edge of Lake George in what is today the state of
New York, is the host of a British detachment under the command of Colonel Munro.
It is the year 1757 and the British and the French are at war. Rumor has it
that the French are approaching with what may be superior numbers. At this very
moment Munro’s daughters, Cora and Alice decide to pay their father a visit. Cora
and Alice are escorted by Major Heyward and a singing master David Gamut. Their
guide is an Indian named Magua.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On their
way to Fort William Henry, they encounter the band of Hawkeye, the scout and
the Mohicans Chingachgook and Uncas, father and son. They see Magua is up to
something and takes control of the party. True enough, before long they are
besieged by Magua and a band of Huron Indians, aligned with the French. Cora,
Alice, Heyward and Gamut fall into the hands of Magua, but are eventually freed
by the Hawkeye’s band just as the ritual torture was about to start. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Although
the band arrives safely at Fort William Henry, the peace is short lived. The
fort is attacked by the French and their Huron allies. Badly outnumbered and
outgunned Munro is forced to surrender. Although granted free passage, the Hurons
fall onto the train and massacres the women and the infirm. Cora and Alice are
again captured by Magua. He is leading them north to his own tribe with sinister
plans for the girls. Tracking him a few days behind, Hawkeye, Chingachgook,
Uncas, Heyward and Munro must catch up with Magua if they want to see the girls
alive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I read “The
Last of the Mohicans” as a child and although I remember liking it, I quickly
realized I had forgotten everything else. Poor memory is sometimes a blessing
and it felt like a first read. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When “The
Last of the Mohicans” is good, it is really good. This is especially the case
in the chase scenes, whether the band is chasing Magua or being chased. There
is a fast pace to these scenes and a level of detail just enough to keep me
riveted and being able to visualize the chase. The chase across Lake George
stands out in particular. Cooper was a good action writer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Cooper is
also good at writing on the wilderness itself. You get the feeling he has seen
these places and has some experience with outback life, if not life on the
Frontier itself. The skills of Hawkeye and the Mohicans are described in
convincing detail, and I can imagine generations going out into the forest to
emulate Chingachgook and Uncas with the book as their guide.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Cooper
obviously have a lot of respect for the Native Americans, their skills and
their culture and he deserves a lot of credit for that, yet he is also a
product of his own time where racial differences were a very real and insurmountable
barrier between people. The Indians are frequently called savages and not just
the Hurons and you can hear the regret that these are just Indians and thus cut
off from being something better. Hawkeye for all his praise and respect for his
Indian friends must mention in every second sentence that he is a man without a
cross, meaning pure white origin as if that somehow makes him a better person.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is such
a pity that Cooper does not dare to bridge the gulf. There may be some
adherence here to the actual separation, also in the period of the narrative,
but I sense that Cooper wants to bridge it. There is a budding romance between
Uncas and Cora that would have been beautiful if it had been allowed to unfold,
but Cooped seems afraid to go that far. Cooper also laments the fate and plight
of the Indians, besieged and forced to make way for the whit people as they
are. He places word in the mouth of some of the Indians that demonstrates his understanding,
but he does not finish the step. Their fate is lamentable but it is just too
bad, he seems to think.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The real
problem with “The Last of the Mohicans” however is in the plot. As others
before me have pointed out, Cora and Alice’ visit to their father is hopelessly
unmotivated and ill-timed, but without it, there would be no story. The same with
the singing master Gamut, his presence is unexplained, and he has not function
but comic relief except he is not funny at all. While these may be the most glaring
plot holes, there are numerous decisions and actions throughout the story that
feel contrived or unmotivated but the only thing I can do as a reader is to
just to accept and flow with it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you take
into account that Cooper was not a modern writer, nor a contemporary writer of
the times he writes about, he did do an amazing job with “The Last of the
Mohicans” and the millions of readers worldwide are testament to that.
Wikipedia lists 11 different movie or serial versions of the story in a
addition to a number of German versions of the story! I am dying to see Bela
Lugosi as Chingachgook in Der Letzte Mohikaner from 1920!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Hugh!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-66992507399261641122024-01-20T08:51:00.000-08:002024-01-20T08:51:20.682-08:00Life of a Good-For-Nothing - Joseph Von Eichendorff (1826)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmHuVm9nDqOGKdlbpS-rvRR-tBb79xm6Yv5QyFlTEKWWjB6pMSFb1JPJNFw9y2W4L2Lsf0gSvXu5J6inXeN2WzFGf04-POCgyb6XNAL8LoZgZTJ18O4BXkPt1uLc5I-ktoSYdZagsZOB7BFXMGYgrgmCE_h-REasjz0k61ZJIE2JI-_kN1ELOYSDcjiIm/s1000/memoirs%20of%20a%20good-for-nothing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="623" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOmHuVm9nDqOGKdlbpS-rvRR-tBb79xm6Yv5QyFlTEKWWjB6pMSFb1JPJNFw9y2W4L2Lsf0gSvXu5J6inXeN2WzFGf04-POCgyb6XNAL8LoZgZTJ18O4BXkPt1uLc5I-ktoSYdZagsZOB7BFXMGYgrgmCE_h-REasjz0k61ZJIE2JI-_kN1ELOYSDcjiIm/w249-h400/memoirs%20of%20a%20good-for-nothing.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Lately, the
books on the List have been having a dark streak with the possible exception of
“Tomcat Murr”, though even that had some sinister sides. “Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing”
(“Memoirs…”) is the direct opposite. It is light and easy in every sense. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A (very?)
young man leaves his village carrying only the cloth he wears and his fiddle.
He gets a ride with two ladies and plays for them so nicely that they offer him
a job in the palace gardens. Soon he is even promoted to be a tollkeeper. The
young man, whose name we never learn is hopelessly in love with one of the
ladies, whom he keeps referring to a “my lovely lady”, but as he assumes she is
a countess, he never approaches her. Instead, he plays his fiddle and put
flowers for her wherever he can. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One night he
discovers that the other lady is the one looking for him and that his own “lovely
lady” is together with another man and his hope shatters. He immediately
embarks on a journey to Italy, gets kidnapped by bandits, are taken to a castle
in the mountains, where he is treated as a lord, barely escapes and hang out in
Rome. In Rome he thinks he has found his girl again and indeed he is told she
is looking for him, only to find out she already left for Austria, so now he
needs to get back home and find her there.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
conclusion, which I shall not reveal here, includes so many revelations and
mistaken identities that I am entirely confused myself, but, happy ending, the
end.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
super light and super short, 120 easy pages, and anything that resembles a
crisis is resolved within a page or two. Our hero is never really in any
danger, or rather, no danger he cannot easily escape from, and he usually gets
by simply by playing some music. People are really nice to him and those that
are not, are just pretending. Meanwhile, the sun is always shining, people are
happy and well-fed and dancing is only just one song away. It actually sounds
very much like a Hollywood golden age musical.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is so
brief, rushed and light that I cannot really say it made a lot of impression on
me. It is like a piece of candy, nice and sweet and gone in minutes. It is
difficult to be upset with it because it is so harmless, but at the same time,
the novel feels more like a synopsis of a much larger and deeper book. My guess
is that I will have forgotten about it in a few weeks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet, this tiny
novel is praised as a masterpiece of late German Romanticism and apparently it presents
a lot of elements hailed as typical of this movement. Classless love, the
freedom, the appreciation of beauty, both natural and human made such as music
and painting. Eichendorff was a celebrated poet, and a lot of his poems are
included in the book, though I am not qualified to tell if the appreciation is
deserved.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I suppose
it is nice to also get some lighter and happier fare than the gloomy stuff of
late but there is simply not enough meat on this for me to truly recommend it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-15269549634071765152024-01-09T08:13:00.000-08:002024-01-09T08:13:11.663-08:00Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg (1824)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gEcr2ADYdYDsg1XrrVrYgMEF00swEeWaH-gOLd7-6EDFpbgyIJoFbjsu_5zTyDDLGXqgoSg9bcHkU3G0BU9AgyjeXLiQuc53U6r4YJS0vaVG_yMfq6-FYTkJ9HJR6dvb8FdD8i0IyzMGLTnORYA6nHO-SYQmTjOHrG5a6oZvHy9UEjwdOXHhPB3I0nVR/s1000/Confessions_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="653" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7gEcr2ADYdYDsg1XrrVrYgMEF00swEeWaH-gOLd7-6EDFpbgyIJoFbjsu_5zTyDDLGXqgoSg9bcHkU3G0BU9AgyjeXLiQuc53U6r4YJS0vaVG_yMfq6-FYTkJ9HJR6dvb8FdD8i0IyzMGLTnORYA6nHO-SYQmTjOHrG5a6oZvHy9UEjwdOXHhPB3I0nVR/w261-h400/Confessions_.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is a
case of a novel that is more interesting from a technical point of view than
from its subject matter. Not that this is entirely uninteresting, but the
technical devices of “Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner”
(or “Confessions…” as I will shorten it to from now on) are both very advanced
for its time and used in a very interesting manner and this alone is good
enough reason to read it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Confessions…”
is divided into three segments. The first is “the editor’s” description of
events that happened a little more than a hundred years in the past. A Scottish
nobleman was briefly married to a fiercely religious woman and managed to have
two sons before she moved out to live with her priest, the Reverend Wringhim.
George, the older stayed with the nobleman, while the younger, Robert stayed
with the mother. Though never explicitly stated, it is implied that the
Reverend is the actual father of Robert, though for such religious people that
would be absolutely unheard of.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">George and
his father are jovial types and George is well liked and described as a fairly
ordinary young nobleman. Robert, on the other hand, is a dark, brooding type
and very religious. During a game of tennis, he seeks out George and starts
interfering in everything George does, presumably to convince him to see the
light. Eventually George is murdered. His father’s housekeeper investigates and
eventually finds out Robert did it after which Robert disappears.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second
part takes the form of a found manuscript written by Robert. It essentially
tells the same story, but instead of the third-party objectiveness of the first
section, this is a highly subjective first-person account and as such
dramatically different. For once, Robert is not only deeply religious, he is
also righteous and convinced that he is among the elect who can do no wrong because
they are already admitted to heaven. This gives him a free ticket to do
whatever he wants and a conviction that whatever he believes is correct and
everybody else is wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Robert also
meets early on a person who never really introduces himself, but acts as Robert’s
friend and supporter. Together they hatch a plan to eliminate people who are in
the way of the true faith and start off with a minister. Successfully done,
George is the next on the list. The impetus for these murders seems to be from
Robert’s friend and he does seem to have uncanny abilities such as assuming the
voice and looks of other people. Slowly it is implied that this friend is some
sort of demon or devil haunting Robert and when Robert starts to suffer lapses
in memory after which it appears he has been conducting unspeakable crimes, he
has to flee. Not only the law, but also his supernatural friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The third
part is again the editor explaining how he found the manuscript in a grave,
somehow giving credence to the story as a “found manuscript”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The technique
of telling a story from two different perspectives is novel in the early
nineteenth century and is particularly interesting because it highlights the
unreliable narrator. Who do we trust more, the impartial third-party narrator
with limited access to the details or the first person narrator with full
access but also personally invested in the story? Not to mention, severely religiously
biased.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then of
course there is the almost satirical portrait of a person so convinced of his
religious doctrines that his views, actions and morality are far outside what
we would consider the norm, even in a more religious age than today. I suspect
this is the real agenda of the author and it certainly does make these cultist types
highly suspicious. Most dangerous seems to be how completely impervious they
are to other opinions and common sense. This is something that can frustrate
even in our current day and age.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In my opinion,
however, the most interesting element is that of the demon. With twenty-first century
glasses on, Robert is schizophrenic and suffering from a split personality. An
invented friend that feeds him with subconscious impulses he might otherwise
have suppressed and leaves him with blank periods in his memory are typical
schizophrenic symptoms. Though for an author in the early nineteenth century to
describe a schizophrenic case sounds unlikely. Psychiatry was not that developed
at the time, but we are really close here. The other possibility is the
religious one that this pious type is haunted and corrupted by the devil and
simply fails to recognize it because hellish and strict orthodox dogma are so
very similar. In this understanding, Robert is suitably punished for his religious
intolerance and arrogance. This is far more down the line of a nineteenth
century writer and, of course, supporting the satirical agenda, but I cannot
help reading a mental patient case story into this and that ambivalence is
super interesting. Maybe it is implied that demonic intervention is causing schizophrenia?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Confessions..”
could easily be made into a horror movie today and I would not be surprised to
learn this has already happened. Wikipedia mentions a Polish movie and several
screenplays, but the big Hollywood production seems to be pending. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Apparently,
it was the inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and I can definitely see
that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Certainly,
an interesting read. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-64231357129083333702023-12-31T03:54:00.000-08:002023-12-31T03:54:29.233-08:00Happy New Year 2024<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTSpnlwikDQf_-o_8ZYh8m9UgHgxI5NECJeekUMKFmDs-wNSM_vYL4Fpo64JRN63XlFJIIo-j_xa2E7KO4D0CbG4o9NGBGBc924EI4Br6LvySGHgPOprsDPDabGivM8kLXFKJ-1wUx2BqiGefOTfISMwb-P-Xlvt1s-G07JeZyYY9C8IGqNvobJgFVezl/s300/2024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTSpnlwikDQf_-o_8ZYh8m9UgHgxI5NECJeekUMKFmDs-wNSM_vYL4Fpo64JRN63XlFJIIo-j_xa2E7KO4D0CbG4o9NGBGBc924EI4Br6LvySGHgPOprsDPDabGivM8kLXFKJ-1wUx2BqiGefOTfISMwb-P-Xlvt1s-G07JeZyYY9C8IGqNvobJgFVezl/w400-h224/2024.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Happy New Year 2024</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is New
Year’s Eve again. I would have loved to have been able to say that the past was
a great year, but, alas, it was not. Personally, I am doing alright, life
carries on as it usually does, but the world looks bleaker than it has done for
quite some time. It is no secret that my six years living in Israel make me
take special interest in what happens there, but although it is hard not to, I try
to keep politics out of the blog. Cannot say I am always successful at that, after
all, my blog is my window to say what I want, but I want this to be about
movies and books and not about politics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This year
was also the craziest weather I ever experienced, and I think most of us know
what that means for the future. Let me just say that I have never felt this
good about working in renewables. To actually be able to make a difference on
something this important is special. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I could
list up a lot of terrible things going on, but today is supposed to be a
celebration, a good riddance to the old year and the best of hopes for the
coming year. I do sincerely hope there will be good things in store for us all.
If there is one particular wish for the new year from me, it is responsibility.
That people, high and low, governments and organizations, take on
responsibility themselves instead of blaming everybody else. Half the problems
in the world could be solved if everybody took a hard look at themselves rather
than blaming somebody else for their misery.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Anyway,
during 2023 I watched and reviewed 62 movies, which is more than I have done in
a while. 12 of these were off-List movies, leaving 50 movies on the List. I
went from 1978 to 1982 and I am now well into what I consider the golden era of
cinema: the eighties. The past two months I have been through a streak of
classics that would please me any day and although I am looking into a series
of more mundane movies, there are lost of highlights to look forward to.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On my book
blog I have done 9 titles this year, which I consider an acceptable achievement,
considering my target is just five books per year. I have gone through the
period 1811 to 1822, a period known for romanticism and the post Napoleonic
years. Jane Austen was a wonderful acquaintance and I really liked E.T.A.
Hoffmann’s book about his cat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I wish
everybody a happy new year and all the best for the time ahead. May 2024
finally be a good year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-78752121593629278382023-12-05T03:14:00.000-08:002023-12-05T03:14:36.610-08:00The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr - E. T. A. Hoffmann (1822)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWFzGj80n_NRsPqrYC18M873korPeBaHUyWkZ1gkzqVQ6bh0sQ6GiPxhWDPfp6dOVOsA2QmDeofvGZw7uHkafEK8aVg6ypeems8bkpTo0dV-ImCF-UtxLZkX3SR7GgPmKUropYkLSrF-2pk2o7zGPzgF4Gk8YWoAnQENLRg8Fz5XcDw2xHnlZK6gHaWAV/s466/Tomcat%20Murr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="304" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWFzGj80n_NRsPqrYC18M873korPeBaHUyWkZ1gkzqVQ6bh0sQ6GiPxhWDPfp6dOVOsA2QmDeofvGZw7uHkafEK8aVg6ypeems8bkpTo0dV-ImCF-UtxLZkX3SR7GgPmKUropYkLSrF-2pk2o7zGPzgF4Gk8YWoAnQENLRg8Fz5XcDw2xHnlZK6gHaWAV/w261-h400/Tomcat%20Murr.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“The Life
and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr” is one of the more bizarre books on the List,
at least at face value. It pretends to be the memoirs written by a cat, Murr,
but in the publishing process the manuscript got mixed up with a story about
Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler with whom Murr was staying for a while. Amazingly,
it is actually this second story which is the wild one.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The actual
author, E.T.A. Hoffmann, uses the two stories both to tell an amusing tale, but
also to make a thinly veiled satirical portrait of the world he himself lived
in. The context is the fragmented world of the German mini-states after the
Napoleonic wars. On the one hand there was the traditional polite society where
noble birth and polished mannerism still survived from before the wars and on
the other hand the upheaval and sense of opportunity in society, politics and
science caused by war and revolution. The juxtaposition is a source of friction
but also of hilarity and Hoffmann uses the latter to get to the former.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murr is a
very literate cat, staying as he is with the learned Master Abraham. He is also
very much a cat, which means that he is absolutely convinced of his own
brilliance and genius. Although he grudgingly has admit that not all his
affairs have been the smartest, in fact more often than not he blunders
abysmally, his self confidence is unshakable and he must be admired by
everybody. I am very much a cat-lover myself and this description fits practically
every cat I have ever known. With the exception that none of them were able to
write. That I know of…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Murr tells
his life story, how he was adopted by Master Abraham, his affair with Kitty,
how he joined the brotherhood of cats and finally how he attempted to join the polite
society of dogs. In this respect the cats represent the progressive liberals,
students and artists and the dogs are the conservative society, the nobles and
the police. Murr looks with scorn at the empty life of the poodles when they
obey their masters and spend a life full of nothing, yet he is also drawn to it
to get that flattering attention. The same with the brotherhood of cats, representing
the revolutionary student fraternities of the time. The playing with fire is
gratifying but also very dangerous.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
Kreisler story centers on a music composer, Hoffmann’s alter ego, who gets
involved in the affairs of the court of a principality that does not even exist
anymore, swallowed up as it is by the larger neighboring duchy. Yet, Prince Irenaeus
insists on maintaining the illusion and pretense of a court although he rules
nothing more than the lands of his castle. It is of course a mockery of the myriad
and complicated German mini-states of the period and ridicules the strict adherence
to past glories. Kreisler’s friend is Master Abraham (yes, Murr’s master), who
taught him music as a child. Abraham is a man of mechanical arts and sciences
which makes him a bit of a wizard, something the Prince is absolutely fascinated
by having at his court. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Johannes
Kreisler is a modern character, like Murr, but with much less confidence. Yet
his presence at court as a music teacher and composer is a bomb to the stiff
and ridiculous formalities there. His refusal to avert his eyes from the Prince’
gaze convinces him that he must be of noble birth which earns him the respect
of the Prince. The court adder, Madame Benzon, is less impressed. Her schemes
to control the court is thrown to pieces by Kreisler’s presence, not least because
a romantic affair blooms between Kreisler and her daughter, Julia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The intrigues
and escapades reach new levels with the arrival of the playboy, Prince Hector
of Naples and it gets both very confusing and immensely amusing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I
appreciate the unconventionality of the format and style of this novel, it is
truly refreshing and while I can see the point of the cat biography, it is the
Kreisler story that captivated me. It is fragmented so we never get any
resolutions, but it builds up with mysteries and intrigues and absolutely
hilarious characters throughout that I just wanted more. This may also be the
biggest problem with the novel. It consists of two volumes and a third was
planned, but never written as Hoffmann had the audacity to die before writing
it. We will never know how it ends, if Kreisler gets his Julia, if Abraham
finds his Chiara and if Madame Benzon succeeds in taking over the principality
entirely. The book ends as each section ends, with a cliffhanger that will
never be resolved, and we are left to just enjoy the ride. Fortunately, it was
a very enjoyable ride indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-12823938134405583592023-10-22T02:40:00.000-07:002023-10-22T02:40:02.675-07:00Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Robert Maturin (1820)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw0tWXy9_Y23AB3dPLbHNM7n1iGrLG01BrmxhiMPnLKa7LJw_K90vnVwpaqvkJqorjv9llx7NOi3oWWZtnF3ZqzWUlWVs3ueJjBMBodgg0cmemQKIpcWGVn46IN3DeY2CDr2KU6LNrktm2yI5xPimIkrpUmzzzJZVCQ9KOWqHDQ1qedss4YBbmaliz0BKV/s466/Melmoth%20the%20Wanderer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="301" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw0tWXy9_Y23AB3dPLbHNM7n1iGrLG01BrmxhiMPnLKa7LJw_K90vnVwpaqvkJqorjv9llx7NOi3oWWZtnF3ZqzWUlWVs3ueJjBMBodgg0cmemQKIpcWGVn46IN3DeY2CDr2KU6LNrktm2yI5xPimIkrpUmzzzJZVCQ9KOWqHDQ1qedss4YBbmaliz0BKV/w259-h400/Melmoth%20the%20Wanderer.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Melmoth the Wanderer</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is
entirely fitting, though also totally coincidental, that the book I am
reviewing so shortly before Halloween is a ghost story. I did not plan it that
way, but the timing is pretty good.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Melmoth
the Wanderer” by Charles Maturin is a gothic novel and very much so. It is a
book that takes the genre tropes and gives them that extra push to top
everything that came before. Yet, it is also a rambling, chaotic novel that
only barely is tied together, almost as if Maturin wanted to tell five-six
stories and wondered how he could fit it all together in one book. My opinion
is that he was not very successful at that. The one thing that does (almost)
tie the whole thing together is Maturin’s denouncement of the Catholic church.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">John
Melmoth is a young man in Ireland. His uncle is dying and as the heir to his
estate, John is attending his uncle in his final days. Turns out his uncle is
very much afraid of a family ghost, a member of the Melmoth family who has been
wandering around for centuries, always a harbinger of disaster. When the uncle
dies, John reads an old manuscript in a backroom of the house concerning a
fellow called Stanton who once met Melmoth and spent his life looking for him,
eventually ending up in a madhouse. This is followed closely by a storm during
which John saves a shipwrecked Spaniard, Moncada, who proceeds to tell his
story to John.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Alonzo Moncada
was an illegitimate son of an important aristocratic family who was forced into
a monastery against his will. We get a lengthy story about his futile attempts
to escape the monastery with a clear, underlying tone that the Catholic church in
their attempt at usurping the power and wealth of the Moncada family tries to
pacify and get rid of the heirs. The suffering of Moncada takes no end and even
his eventual escape lands him in the custody of the Inquisition. There he is
tempted with escape by Melmoth. Ultimately, the prison burns down and Moncada
gets away. He finds refuge with the Jewish community who lives a hidden life
underground. Here he becomes a secretary, copying a story about a girl,
Immalee, who has grown up, lonely, on a deserted island off the Indian coast.
Immalee is befriended by Melmoth with whom she falls in love. Eventually, she
is “rescued” from the island, and turns out to be the long lost daughter of a
rich Spanish merchant. The life of a such in Spain is, however, not compatible
with Immalee’s free mind. When Melmoth finds her, she resumes her love for him
and eventually they marry in secrecy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Immalee’s (now
Isidora) father is finally on his way home, having never met his daughter. At
an inn he is told a story about the Walberg family. A German protestant family
cheated and plundered by the Catholic church, who at the cusp of dying from
starvation is tempted by Melmoth. He then meets a stranger who tells him a
story about the English Mortimer family who fell into ruin through inheritance
schemes. On the brink of their ruin, they are also tempted by Melmoth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At some point
you would think that all these stories within stories will have to come
together in some conclusion, but that is hardly the case. While we do learn the
fate of Immalee/Isidora, we never learn how Moncada got out of Spain and ended
on a ship. We do get a final rendezvous with Melmoth, but how or why the story
ends for him here is entirely unclear.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
impression I am left with, reading this book, is that Maturin himself did not
really know what was the idea with Melmoth the Wanderer. Not the character, nor
the book. Maturin seems to have started in one place and then just wrote to see
where it took him. He may also have had a number of separate stories that he
somehow wanted to string together and badly needed some skeleton to carry it.
Melmoth as a character is oddly diffuse. What I seem to understand is that he
was a researcher of the occult who tried an experiment that would leave him
physically dead, but give him 150 years as a ghost. This seems to have come
with the price tag that he would be an agent of the devil to offer people in
need a resolution at an unspeakable price, presumably at the expense of their
soul. Still, the details are very unclear and although he is the recurring
character, he seems strangely undeveloped. Except for the story of Immalee, he
also only shows up at the end of the various stories.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To my mind
Melmoth is actually a minor element to this book, a necessity for tying it
together. Maturin seems to have been a lot more interested in going after the
Catholic church. In his stories, there is no end to the greed and viciousness
of the Catholic church, and they come about as the very antithesis of what
Christianity is supposed to stand for. Compared to their crimes, Melmoth looks like
an amateur and by setting them up against each other just emphasized the depth
to which the Catholic church will go.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This position
of Maturin may be explained by him being a Protestant clergyman in an otherwise
predominantly Catholic Ireland. Even today there is a festering divide there
and two hundred years ago, this would have been even worse. This is very much a
part in a religious feud.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Isolated,
the stories work surprisingly well. Moncada’s plight in the monastery draws
heavily on Lewis’ “The Monk” and Diderot’s “The Nun”, but takes the gothic
elements to the next level. I would love to learn what further happened to
Moncada, but Maturin ran out of steam on that story and left a lot of threads
in the air. Until that point though, this is a really good story.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Melmoth
the Wanderer” leaves a mixed impression of moments of excellence, of a sharp
wit, but also of a haphazard construction with little point except to shock and
poke at the Catholics. It is spooky, but not so much because of the ghost, but
from what people will do out of greed and in the name of their church.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-89829273800435446442023-08-20T07:25:00.003-07:002023-08-20T07:25:37.936-07:00Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (1820)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTBw6e0to-haTuF5pQCvruCyDw9b2zrGknvDt3DWbJh7X2IPMC-NJcBF0L3xuQ5bhJd1yVdWNWRjIN4rvSrbwNVVkAv_Kf8i2zSSOTTlI4QTmJ2RqC4pikUd404_kY-kkd1jstDGLt6Wool2Q-oGbjQIQt1nD9qY2Q-mJRjAuGlLp4QdOI3UgWdilnpP4/s499/Ivanhoe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTBw6e0to-haTuF5pQCvruCyDw9b2zrGknvDt3DWbJh7X2IPMC-NJcBF0L3xuQ5bhJd1yVdWNWRjIN4rvSrbwNVVkAv_Kf8i2zSSOTTlI4QTmJ2RqC4pikUd404_kY-kkd1jstDGLt6Wool2Q-oGbjQIQt1nD9qY2Q-mJRjAuGlLp4QdOI3UgWdilnpP4/w260-h400/Ivanhoe.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Ivanhoe</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I grew up
with “Ivanhoe”. That is, I grew up with the movie “Ivanhoe”. Danish television,
back when we had only one channel, would have an afternoon showing of “Ivanhoe”
every year on Christmas day. I also remember reading it as a child. Then it fell
out of my scope, and it must be twenty or even thirty years since my last contact
with the story, until now. The images I have are therefore scattered and
confused, some clear, others blending into a mish-mash. Approaching the story
again, so many years later, is a strange mix of a familiar and a new experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Scott’s “Ivanhoe”
is a classic knight’s tale and in a British context there can only really be
two such scenarios: King Arthur or Robin Hood. “Ivanhoe” takes place in the latter
but manages to infuse it with a lot of the spirit and mythology of the former.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These are
dark times in Britain. King Richard has disappeared, presumably imprisoned in
Austria, and Prince John is contemplating usurping the crown. In the power vacuum,
it is the jungle law. Feudal lords are abusing their power, and nobody is safe.
In this environment, Scott introduces an additional conflict between the
conquering Normans and the native Saxons, a conflict which historically would
have ended at least half a century earlier. Cedric, the Saxon, is a minor lord
who schemes to marry the heir apparent to the Saxon throne, Athelstane, with a descendant
of King Alfred himself, his ward Lady Rowena and present this as a rallying
point for a Saxon uprising against their Norman lords. To further this scheme
Cedric has disowned his own son, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who has gone into Norman
service with King Richard in the Crusades and, his biggest crime, declared his
love for Lady Rowena. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now Wilfred
is back in England, challenging the Norman lords at the grand tournament at
Ashby and he will need all the support he can get from the outlaws in the Sherwood
Forest and the mysterious Black Knight. Yet, his most important ally turns out
to be the luckless Rebecca.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Ivanhoe” can
of course be read as a regular adventure story, the stuff boy’s dreams are made
of, and this is presumably why this novel was a big hit in the nineteenth
century. It can also be credited with an immense cultural influence, forming or
shaping many of the public images of the entire scenario around Robin Hood,
Richard the Lion-hearted and the despicable Prince John. As such a story it is
quite readable even today, though fairly dated in places. Scott had a real
issue with pacing, must blatantly in the storm of Torquilstone where we get the
same scene played out four or five times from different viewpoints, a delay
that was seriously taxing my impatience.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">From my present
point of view as an adult and modern reader, I find two different angles to the
story that I consider more interesting than the simple adventure.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For Scott,
turning to writing a medieval tale seems like quite a departure from his
Scottish novels, until you dig into the Saxon-Norman conflict. The conflict
Scott had repeatedly dealt with, and which I reviewed in “Rob Roy” is that of the
Jacobite movement and the healing of it. It is not difficult to see a parallel between
that and the Saxon-Norman conflict. An ousted elite trying to restore their
former glory by overthrowing the new regime despite their claim being
increasingly tenuous and futile. The solution, Scott suggests, is to give up
the struggle and the division and instead accept that the future is a merger
between the two groups, and only that merger will be the new Britain.
Translated to Scott’s own time, the Scottish need to give up their Jacobite
dreams of independence, while the English should abstain from lording it over
the Scottish and instead embrace them as equals. Some might say that two hundred
years later we are not quite there yet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second
reading is that of the Jewish cause. Here Scott appears strangely ambiguous. He
goes a long way to describe the Jewish moneylender, Isaac of York, with all the
stereotypic and antisemitic libels available. He is avaricious of wealth and a sniveling
coward. He has no concern for people outside his own wealth and is a usurer to
everybody but his friends. You can almost hear the Nazi propaganda. Yet, the
incrimination of the Jews is put in the mouth and actions of all the Gentiles
around the Jews. Their antisemitic views and actions are presented by Scott as
completely unjustified, based on religious superstition and bigotry. Add to
this that Isaac’s daughter, Rebecca is the true heroine of the story. She is
proud to be Jewish and is portrayed contrary to all the stereotypes as a
generous, intelligent and courageous woman. This portrayal is not made as an exception
but in defiance of prejudiced stereotypes, and Scott lets both her and Isaac
and their plight take up a very large portion of the story. Rebecca with her
character shames the proud templars and their bigotism and I cannot but read a
lot of sympathy from Scott. At some point near the end Scott lets Rebecca say
that her people will never be safe in the lands of other people. And this is
seventy years before Theodore Herzl. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Am I the
only one who felt that Wilfred should have ended up with Rebecca rather than the
bland and one-dimensional Rowena? Maybe that is the provocation Scott wanted to
make, it his readers would have been up for that, challenging their prejudices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sir Walter
Scott’s “Ivanhoe” is both a bold medieval adventure and commentary on his own
time. It is antiquated and modern at the same time, it had immense cultural
influence and offers the reader something today. For all, and despite, these
reasons it is still recommended reading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-62922207866984405122023-07-11T11:49:00.004-07:002023-07-11T11:49:51.499-07:00Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1818)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid1i0a6MTpGa9lLlNYphzX_gDhnWJnvk6BZ4wxJ2_vfD2AiyLwM7w-sfLYbpYC3mjxOa75uYVbp4Wx4bx3WGcgwTldc8jW3uUBDI1YTAMKTPsn91CpCHvIEXRtQXKb93SSmSaZMc0v4DeIe8lSLSPihumAQKpEBIz0WUKQQA4ogsJYvGFCSkpPWsJxzntx/s466/Frankenstein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="303" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid1i0a6MTpGa9lLlNYphzX_gDhnWJnvk6BZ4wxJ2_vfD2AiyLwM7w-sfLYbpYC3mjxOa75uYVbp4Wx4bx3WGcgwTldc8jW3uUBDI1YTAMKTPsn91CpCHvIEXRtQXKb93SSmSaZMc0v4DeIe8lSLSPihumAQKpEBIz0WUKQQA4ogsJYvGFCSkpPWsJxzntx/s320/Frankenstein.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Frankenstein</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Frankenstein
is iconic. You say the name and what everybody thinks of is James Whale’s movie
from 1931. The actual novel, I have now learned, is quite different from the
movie, as in a completely different story.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Mary
Shelley’s version is a bit of a babushka doll and starts somewhere rather
unexpected. It starts as a series of letters from a Robert Walton to his
sister. Walton is travelling to Northern Russia (Archangelsk) to embark on an
expedition to discover the north-east passage to the Pacific Ocean. Whalton is
starving for male friendship to the extent that he is likely gay and out there
on the ice, his wish appears to come true. They spot first a mysterious sledge
carrying a giant and then a second sledge with a frozen and starving man on it.
This fellow they bring aboard and as he recovers, he tells a strange tale.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
stranger is Victor Frankenstein. As a young man he studied at the university of
Ingolstadt and there discovered the key to life itself. He explored this to
create a gigantic living being, the monster, but as it came alive Frankenstein
turned his back on it in disgust and wanted nothing to do with it. Sometime
later Frankenstein’s very young brother is killed and when Frankenstein on a mountain
climb encounters his creation, we get the third layer of the story, that of the
monster.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The monster
woke up knowing nothing at all. Everything it had to find out by himself. By
secretly moving into an outhouse of a family, he learned about virtue and all
the good things in life only to find out that from his shear appearance people
abhorred him and wanted to share nothing of the good stuff with him. He came to
despise his creator and wanted to find him to hold him accountable. In their
meeting in the mountains, Frankenstein is moved by the story and promises to
make a female companion for the monster, but again he turns away, this time
before the second creation is ready and now the monster is on the warpath. If
he cannot have his support, he must have revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There are
so many differences to the movie version that it does not even make sense to
compare the two. I do understand though why the story was changed so much. The
novel as it stands would have been impossible to make into a movie.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There are
many interesting themes here. The immediate message seems to be that science is
dangerous and some knowledge should remain off-limits. As any scientist would
know, that is nonsense, and such a sentiment could only come from someone
outside science. Actually, it is the application of science that requires
responsibility and without responsible application, it becomes dangerous. Think
of nuclear bombs in the hands of madmen. I think that is also the actual
message here. Frankenstein refuses repeatedly to take responsibility for his
own creation and that makes it dangerous.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is
also the question of who is right and who is wrong. Depending on who Shelley
makes the narrator the right shifts to that person. Frankenstein sees himself
as a victim and his only responsibility is to kill the monster to save the
world from its monstrosity. He is on a divine mission to clean up after himself
when rescued on the ice. The monster on the other hand wants to be virtuous,
but is met with only hostility and hatred from humankind. Is it any wonder it
feels no gratitude towards people this prejudiced? And who is responsible for
this gross injustice but Victor Frankenstein, his creator? Hence his reaction
is natural and just and Frankenstein is the monster.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have been
playing with two ideas of additional interpretation. One is that this may be a
story of man and God. Of the imperfect creation left alone to fend for itself
in a cruel world by an uncaring God. Whose fault is it when life turns bad? Another
idea is that the story of Frankenstein and his monster is actually a story schizophrenia,
a personality split. Sort of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. That all this is
Frankenstein battling with a monster inside himself. Unfortunately, this theory
gets debunked when Walton sees the monster on the ship, but until then it would
work. Maybe a little advanced for 1818 though.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is a
surprisingly hard book to read. After the excellent novelists I have recently
encountered this one I felt was written with less skill. It is easy to become
impatient with the narrative, it just does not flow that well. But that aside,
it is a book with a lot of interesting and novel ideas and in many ways feels very
modern. 130 years before “Rashomon” we have an early unreliable narrator novel.
And yes, it is science fiction even if the science is very toned down, but I
think most of all it is a moral story. As most good science fiction really is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-35055299034285312922023-06-11T06:14:00.002-07:002023-06-11T06:14:49.179-07:00Rob Roy - Sir Walter Scott (1817)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEukAzoGwtA1DcRC55BsFraGUAHchOUSOvxeiZQRBFS3Xmq7K1fIR9yK00wRgysM_-OchUzCopFQL_2_VGjGlYRPVSBsLtpFMo1KCmF-MMBo4zrhJm1LdKh6sQp_MGMRORAaS0Pno-yhWtDZM1aoT-4M9p53b-ovTBGkysL9NK4-pncwMs_gEBFWyUtw/s346/Rob%20Roy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="229" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEukAzoGwtA1DcRC55BsFraGUAHchOUSOvxeiZQRBFS3Xmq7K1fIR9yK00wRgysM_-OchUzCopFQL_2_VGjGlYRPVSBsLtpFMo1KCmF-MMBo4zrhJm1LdKh6sQp_MGMRORAaS0Pno-yhWtDZM1aoT-4M9p53b-ovTBGkysL9NK4-pncwMs_gEBFWyUtw/w265-h400/Rob%20Roy.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Rob Roy</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Before Sir
Walter Scott wrote “Ivanhoe”, he had a hit with “Rob Roy”. While I am quite
familiar with the former, this is the first time I encountered the latter.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In “Rob Roy”
we follow Francis Osbaldistone, a young man who protests against training as a
merchant in his father’s thriving business. Francis has romantic dreams and
counting pennies has no place in those. Mr. Osbaldistone is not to be trifled
with, so he disinherits his son and sends him up to his brother, Sir Hildebrand
Osbaldistone, on the Scottish border, who in return is invited to return one of
his sons to take over the inheritance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At
Osbaldistone Hall, Francis falls in love with Diane Vernon and learns that the whole
bunch there are Catholic Jacobites. He also learns that the sons of the house
are all imbeciles except for Rashleigh, the one sent south, who is a cunning,
self-serving intrigant. Oh, and he meets a mysterious Scotsman, Mr. Campbell.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Soon enough
Francis learns that Rashleigh has driven Mr. Osbaldistone’s business to the
brink of ruin and has escaped with the only papers that may save the company. Diane
instructs Francis to find the solution is Scotland and so he ventures there
with a Sancho-like Scottish gardener, Andrew Fairservice in tow. Thus begins
Francis’ Scottish adventure that takes him across the Highland line where the
lord and master is Rob Roy aka. the mysterious Mr. Campbell.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Rob Roy”
is an adventure story in the form of an odyssey. It is a journey that takes
Francis Osbaldistone to distant regions where people and customs are as strange
and wild as the landscape. There is a romantic element, especially concerning
Diane Vernon, one of the very few women in the story, but also in regard to Rob
Roy himself. He is presented as a Robin Hood-like character, a gentleman thief in
a rough outfit, a noble savage, who is fighting a noble but hopeless cause to
protect the outlawed McGregor clan.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is
also an underlying narrative involving a Jacobite rebellion, not the famous one
in 1763, but a just as ill fought uprising in 1717. According to Scott’s story,
the Osbaldistones and Rob Roy had a hand in that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Curiously,
our hero, Francis Osbaldistone, is not very much involved in what is going on.
He just happens to be there when it happens, observing but taking very little
action. It is always someone else who is doing, fighting, taking action, so as
a hero, he is rather impotent. Even in his most personal affair, involving
Diane Vernon, he is unable to interfere with her destiny that will take her
away from him. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rob Roy, on
the other hand, is a man of action, sense and courage, the image of everything
Francis admires but fails to be. Next to Francis though, he is just a side character.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This kind
of adventure has a natural appeal to the boy in me and I really wanted to like
it. It is not bad, but it is not an outright winner for me. I found it
difficult to follow the narrative. Of course, it involves mysteries that should
remain mysteries until the reveal, but even then, I do not understand all that
was supposed to happen, or rather, why these things led to what happened. For
people around Francis, I sort of understand the story, except that I cannot entirely
connect the McGregors and the Jacobite cause, but why Francis needed to be
involved everywhere baffles me. It also does not help that Scott makes the
Scottish dialects become visible and almost audible by using phonetic spelling.
Sure, there is a glossary at the end of the book, but I soon tired of going there
all the time and just accepted that I missed a lot of the meaning every time
they spoke.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I can
understand why it is “Ivanhoe” and not “Rob Roy” that has survived in the
public consciousness. Where the themes of “Ivanhoe” are timeless, “Rob Roy” is
far more rooted in its time. The Jacobites are long forgotten, if even known
outside Britain, and the transition of Scotland from its wild past to being an
industrial and mercantile powerhouse was very much in process when Scott wrote
the book, but is now a thing of the past (unless lawlessness is still thriving
on some outlying islands…). Today, “Rob Roy” works as an adventure, an exciting
tale of travelling into the unknown to meet people and dangers unimaginable. I
just wish it worked better at that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Not to be
confused with the movie of the same name from 1995…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-65339268241939455082023-04-19T09:10:00.004-07:002023-04-19T09:14:22.120-07:00Mansfield Park - Jane Austen (1814)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2cv0PnLUJ6JzLjRQh3L3GTu9qWo7VcQt7JYhlc6c5t2c56EXphC1toxfEXV1noWUE0T11M_3X6qhi-z7MZVg3DpfyLji2GqKtmG0XcJqhLTALxb2XWmhXEoEflKks6jJeIfurT-MRIRdRoQ2e7kVNfyTcCqF1lzP5dD3oXdWfxxFGPW7dow7SA18bw/s293/Mansfield%20Park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="191" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm2cv0PnLUJ6JzLjRQh3L3GTu9qWo7VcQt7JYhlc6c5t2c56EXphC1toxfEXV1noWUE0T11M_3X6qhi-z7MZVg3DpfyLji2GqKtmG0XcJqhLTALxb2XWmhXEoEflKks6jJeIfurT-MRIRdRoQ2e7kVNfyTcCqF1lzP5dD3oXdWfxxFGPW7dow7SA18bw/w261-h400/Mansfield%20Park.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Mansfield Park</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Mansfield
Park” is the fourth and last of this round of Jane Austen novels. It is also
the most tricky one to get a grip on. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The setting
of Mansfield Park is the manor of same name. Sir Thomas Bertram has two sons,
Tom and Edmund, and two daughters, Maria and Julia with his wife Lady Bertram. Lady
Bertram has two sisters, Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Price. All three have their flaws:
Lady Bertram is indolent and uninterested, Norris is… a terrible person and
Price fell in love with a seaman and lives in quasi-poverty with a horde of
children. The oldest of these, Fanny, arrives at Mansfield Park at the age of
10 to be raised by the Bertrams and she is our heroine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It is
important to Aunt Norris that Fanny understands that she is inferior and that
the Bertrams must always come first. She must also show gratitude, especially
to Norris, for everything the Bertrams are giving her. As a result, Fanny, already
a timid girl, remains a very humble and shy girl, more interested in the well-being
of those around her than herself. When things start to unravel at Mansfield
park, instigated by the two visitors from the city, Mary and Henry Crawford,
siblings, Fanny finds herself in the center of a whirlwind challenging her
moral compass.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Mansfield
Park” is very much a moralistic tale. Fanny represents good and moral behavior
and the Crawfords, coming as they are from the city of vice, London, represent
the challenge to moral behavior. With them as catalysts, the Bertram children
are losing restraint and drift into vice. Even Edmund, the most “proper” of the
four, falls in love with Mary and is tempted to participate in events he knows
are wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The challenge
for the reader is to recognize right from wrong, something that is not made
easier by two hundred years of moral evolution. When the Bertrams and the
Crawfords want to set up a theater at Mansfield, this is considered highly improper,
especially as the play is “Lover’s Vows”, a slightly daring piece. It is
difficult to see how this should be the road to Hell, but there you have it.
When Henry Crawford openly flirts with both Julia and Maria, it is easier to see
this as problematic, especially since Maria is engaged to Mr. Rushworth, and
his indifferent abandonment of both shows him as unreliable to boot. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For Fanny
the challenge reaches its peak when Henry insists on courting herself and everybody
pressure her into accepting his proposal. Only Fanny is not convinced and
insists on refusing him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I am torn
on “Mansfield Park”. Fanny is often blamed as being the most boring and
colorless of Austen’s heroines, but I do sympathize with her. A lot of her
sentiments are things I can recognize in myself, her fears and her hopes and
her finding refuge in a rich internal life. However, Fanny is a saint and I am
not so there are limits, but I do feel I understand her. Similarly, I recognize
the type of Mrs. Norris. Although she is intended as a caricature, I can see
real people with many of her qualities and I understand how absolutely
obnoxious they can be. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Where the
chain jumps off is on two accounts. The distinction of what is proper and what
is improper is exceptionally prudish. By any standards, the proper life,
according to Mansfield Park is a very dull life. Anything resembling normal,
youthful behavior is frowned upon and we are to think that a retired life of
boredom is bliss. Austen simply goes too far here.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My other
problem is that for all Austen’s insistence of doing the right and proper thing,
apparently it is okay for cousins to fall in love and marry. The idea makes me
gag, and it breaks some huge taboos of mine, but Austen seems to find no
problem at all with that. Well, wait till she sees what sort of children this
will produce…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The net
result is a book I am not certain how to rate. There is so much quality Austen
stuff here that it cannot be ignored, but also so much prudish moralizing that is
difficult to accept. Reading felt like a curve, I loved getting into it, it was
better than expected, but as it unfolds it gets increasingly difficult to take
in. I am hesitant to endorse it, but how can you not recommend an Austen novel?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-9574286732558909152023-03-18T03:56:00.001-07:002023-03-18T03:56:15.329-07:00Emma - Jane Austen (1816)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ62CWOELTVtfk0Wi-M2Ybv78ciQRCp4k8EwxgrsC6kepHI9jDNHIueC5fbTMVSWD7kaNZdlf9OIKX6kn5HS-wO41b7Au2oHdqR4U0Z1eYfOvmFH8_a_YggkMlw1GhANOAqh9CHtW4WDmIPtYKuHc3KsH2qfWvZEF1W680vtGaYFjEu-sErvGuul3yAw/s499/Emma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ62CWOELTVtfk0Wi-M2Ybv78ciQRCp4k8EwxgrsC6kepHI9jDNHIueC5fbTMVSWD7kaNZdlf9OIKX6kn5HS-wO41b7Au2oHdqR4U0Z1eYfOvmFH8_a_YggkMlw1GhANOAqh9CHtW4WDmIPtYKuHc3KsH2qfWvZEF1W680vtGaYFjEu-sErvGuul3yAw/w261-h400/Emma.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Emma</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The third Jane
Austen novel in this marathon of mine is “Emma” (never mind I accidentally
switched the order of this and Mansfield Park) and while there is a lot of
familiar Austen here, it does feel like a departure from the previous two novels.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">First off,
the heroine of the novel is as usual a young woman, but not the lower genteel,
almost impoverished girl I am used to from Austen. Neither is she the cynical
observer to portrait gentility from the outside, the Austen alter ego. Instead,
Emma is all that Austen is usually skeptical about: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rich, unfocused, arrogant and busy running other
people’s life. The only concession Austen gives Emma Woodhouse is that she is
intelligent and at heart a good person. Austen famously mentioned that she had
created a heroine that nobody would like.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Young Emma
lives with the hypochondriac, but friendly, father at the Hartfield Estate in
the fictional village of Highbury, south-east of London. This is a local
community with a limited amount of people qualifying to be of interest to Emma.
Regular farmers and tradesmen are simply below her interest. What she is
interested in is matchmaking. She takes credit for the marriage of her former governess
and friend with Mr. Weston and she spends a good third of the book trying to
setup her friend Harriet with the vicar, Mr. Elton, rather than, God forbid,
the successful, but not genteel, farmer, Robert Martin. It is no spoiler to say
that this blows up spectacularly in Emma’s face, which indeed most of her
schemes do.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When first
the quiet Jane Fairfax arrives in the village to stay with her aunt and shortly
after the dashing Frank Weston Churchill to visit his father (Mr. Weston from
an earlier marriage), Emma gets more fuel for her imagination. Only the old
family friend, George Knightly seems able to rein Emma in.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is a
development of several characters in “Emma”, as there usually is in Austen’s novels,
and good for that. The Emma of the opening of the story is really not that sympathetic.
Far too conceited and busy arranging the lives of others. We all know the type
who is trying to arrange your life, convinced they know better, and I frankly have
very little patience for that sort. Maybe a gender thing. Emma, however, grows
out of it. Not through an epiphany, but as a process, partly guided by the
disasters her interfering causes and partly by the horrendous example of Mrs.
Elton, when she is introduced. She possesses all the poor qualities of Emma,
but a notch or two worse. For me, reading the novel, I believe the development
of Emma into a more understanding and respectful character was what I took most
pleasure in. Austen has a wonderful way of making the process natural and
believable and the Emma of the end is truly likable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Austen is
also as usual an expert on drawing very distinct characters. Almost, but not
quite caricatures. Sometimes amusing, sometimes to serve a point, but always types
we recognize. The host of characters in Emma are very much alive and real to
the reader and not two characters blend together. If there is a miss here, then
it is the strong focus on a particular strata of people, while those below, especially
the domestic, are largely ignored. Part of that may be due to Emma’s viewpoint,
but it is common for all the Austen books I have read.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If there is
a weakness to “Emma” then it is the lack of a progressive narrative. Both “Sense
and Sensibility” and “Pride and Prejudice” had a story that went from A to B,
but although “Emma” also ends in a wedding orgy, it feels through the most part
as if it is not getting anywhere. Part of that can be explained by the
storyline being the character development, but this happens so slowly that you
only really notice it in the end (or I did). I lacked something to drive the
story and that made it a slower read for me than the previous novels. Or maybe
it is just that active matchmaking is does not serve as an interesting plot for
me. A gender thing again, perhaps.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Still, it
was a lovely read and I am actually sorry that I am now done with the life of
Emma Woodhouse. It would have been interesting to follow her further
adventures. Highly recommended.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-23444789735109930872023-02-11T01:53:00.005-08:002023-02-11T01:53:50.536-08:00Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtUK48XyeKft7jskIZ6fiVRx-hsjnvGM5PDAAZy_m43ajg050Q0a40BNB1-ROQOuPcjC_DV6sPN_ZVwU4tnU8sNWGABGD1qacZRj2EpzLbbpk5orpQM-U1mHzdtyRn2uTY9L0bqYezK_Xa4fTQYfQTSbHsdvqgVIx0SyxPexEWlukGxgbHIdK54jvfw/s346/Pride%20and%20prejudice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="226" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtUK48XyeKft7jskIZ6fiVRx-hsjnvGM5PDAAZy_m43ajg050Q0a40BNB1-ROQOuPcjC_DV6sPN_ZVwU4tnU8sNWGABGD1qacZRj2EpzLbbpk5orpQM-U1mHzdtyRn2uTY9L0bqYezK_Xa4fTQYfQTSbHsdvqgVIx0SyxPexEWlukGxgbHIdK54jvfw/w261-h400/Pride%20and%20prejudice.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Pride and Prejudice</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is
supposed to be a re-read, I am positive I read “Pride and Prejudice” some 20
years ago, but except for recalling the names of the main protagonists, it turned
out that I remembered absolutely nothing from first time round. So, this felt
as a first read. I am a bit disappointed with myself, “Pride and Prejudice” is
a good enough book to be recalled even that many years later.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In many ways
“Pride and Prejudice” resembles the earlier “Sense and Sensibility”, but given
that we are dealing with the same period, women from the same station in life
and protagonists with similar traits, that is likely to be expected. Certainly,
I can pour very similar praise onto the books.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Elizabeth
Bennet is one of five sisters being raised by a very liberal gentleman father
and a silly, emptyheaded mother from a lower station. Stations in life is super
important in Austen’s worlds and the Bennet family is well enough off that they
live in a manor with butler and maids, but not considered wealthy or important
as such. Elizabeth is a smart and perceptive woman and her main difference from
Elinor is that she is frank and independent minded. Traits that also sets her
apart from women in general in this book.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The story
revolves around her relations with a gentleman (from a higher station) called
Mr. Darcy. When they meet early on, Darcy’s friend Mr. Bingley starts a
relationship with Elizabeth’s sister Jane, Darcy feels superior to Elizabeth
family and refuse any interaction (pride), and Elizabeth in her place forms an
image of Darcy as a haughty and very unlikable character (prejudice). Although
we as readers sense already in the early pages of the book that there is a
similarity of mind between these two characters, in their heads they could not
be farther from each other.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
development of the story is how these two sentiments are gradually broken down in
a process where both of them learns to check themselves and get a better
perspective on the both themselves and the world around them. The immediate
agency may be a partiality, to use an Austen word, or love to be more vulgar,
but that is way too simple. That is just what sets them in motion. The real
agency is their interaction, how learning about each other and seeing more
sides to the coin breaks down initial perceptions. I think this is the element
that I like the most about “Pride and Prejudice”. Instead of taking the easy
way (a love story) and some melodrama to form a crisis, this is about character
development and not through magic and a friendly writer, but in ways we can
relate to as real people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This would
not be Austen though if the world was not populated with curious characters.
Like “Sense and Sensibility” all principal and quite a few of the secondary
characters have traits so pronounced to be almost caricatures. This makes them
highly entertaining, but Austen never goes so far as to make them unrealistic.
Mrs. Bennet is the fussy and emptyheaded mother, Mr. Collins the pedantic and
servile clergyman, Catherine de Bourgh haughty and arrogant, Lydia Bennet frivolous
and stupid. My favorite character is Elizabeth father, Mr. Bennet who has
decided to enjoy the entertainment value of all the ridiculousness going on
around him rather than being rattled by it. He takes a slightly cynical view,
but is entirely lovable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Beside the character
development theme, there are a lot of currents going through “Pride and Prejudice”.
Again, we have a window into the world from women’s perspective which from my
point of view appears frustratingly limited. Elizabeth however is a pattern
breaker, the beginning of a rebel, simply for forming her own mind and acting
on it, but ever so often the women are left to sit back and worry, leaving the
acting to the men. I sense Austen feels this confinement, but the rebellion
starts from a very repressed point. We also get a lot of insights into the do’s
and don’t’s in the Regency world of gentility. So much is said and done by
hints and mutual understanding of the codes and we are not even talking about
the Victorian era. We get insights into what forms the ultimate in humiliation
and degradation when Elizabeth’s sister elopes with the scoundrel Wickham.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Pride and
Prejudice” feels slightly more mature than “Sense and sensibility” but ticks
all the same boxes. I had a great time reading it and can absolutely recommend
it, although I may be the last person in the universe to discover it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-77852696016046250092023-01-20T06:53:00.005-08:002023-01-20T06:53:52.503-08:00Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (1811)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvBJYcZlm_g6g6NTaNpkVpD1QB9Z6EiMt_yNGQhO5eVW9000R4g7Po0HrPz7SpTfund-08NCZAWdO7M-bxTW3tFD_U_8K2PzKEEEKUrEXIDeOTL6IMR-CwpFMGvVmoimNVeOCGHx13_tUoUVHiirtsUdPR3koZPEMSUG6gcwhjXm8Qcpykc9J9BdZNqA/s499/Sense%20and%20sensibility.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvBJYcZlm_g6g6NTaNpkVpD1QB9Z6EiMt_yNGQhO5eVW9000R4g7Po0HrPz7SpTfund-08NCZAWdO7M-bxTW3tFD_U_8K2PzKEEEKUrEXIDeOTL6IMR-CwpFMGvVmoimNVeOCGHx13_tUoUVHiirtsUdPR3koZPEMSUG6gcwhjXm8Qcpykc9J9BdZNqA/w260-h400/Sense%20and%20sensibility.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Sense and Sensibility</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One of the
major milestones on the book list is to get to Jane Austen. Her books are among
the few classics that are still widely read and the sort of books most people
are supposed to be familiar with. To my embarrassment I believe I have only read
“Pride and Prejudice” prior to the book list, mostly I think because the world
of Austen has never been my go-to literature. Now, though, I am getting the
chance with four Jane Austen novels back to back. First up is “Sense and
Sensibility”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Right off
the bat, let me say that I enjoyed reading “Sense and Sensibility” a lot more
than I expected to. Austen does everything Fanny Burney did, but better. Austen
is witty and clever, but treats her characters with respect. It is a comedy,
not because of a comedic theme or outright silly characters, but because of
that special angle Austen uses when she describes her characters. She nails their
character traits for better and worse and I sit back with a chuckle reading
about them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Elinor and
Marianne Dashwood belong to the gentility, somewhere between lower nobility and
upper middleclass. When their father dies, the wealth of the family fall on
their half-brother John and they are forced to leave the manor with their
mother and little sister Margaret. A distant relative, Sir John Middleton, offers
them a cheap rent at Barton cottage, close to his own manor. Soon the girls are
involved with the Middletons and the people that come and go at Barton Park.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
overriding theme of the novel is that of marriage and the relationships that
lead up to marriage. Elinor, who represents sense, formed a relationship with
Edward Ferrars, the brother of John Dashwood’s wife, Fanny, while they still
lived at Norland, but at Barton she learns he has been engaged for the past four
years to a Lucy Steele, a girl with no money to speak of and poor education.
Proper conduct is to respect such an engagement, but can Elinor control her
emotions enough for that?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Marianne,
who represents sensibility, has a chance encounter with the charming John
Willoughby and falls head over heels in love with him. In a matter of days
everybody is convinced they are engaged, but then Willoughby suddenly leaves,
not to return. When next Marianne sees him, he is about to marry a wealth girl
in London. Can Marianne learn to control her emotional roller coaster and learn
to love men who are not deucebags?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Each of
Austen’s characters have some very dominant character traits. John Dashwood is
obsessing over people’s wealth, his wife is greedy beyond belief, Edward is dutiful
but meek, John Barton is a sportsman, Colonel Brandon is consciousness incarnate,
Mrs Jennings is the ultimate gossip aunt and Willoughby is a certified deucebag.
These traits are painted sharply, maybe too sharply for realism, but most, if
not all of them end up revealing softening character traits that spoils the
image of one-dimensional characters. Mrs. Jennings actually care about the
people under her wings, Colonel Brandon has sensibility as well as sense and
Willoughby does feel remorse.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I cannot
read this book and not feel sorry for the women of Austen’s world. Their entire
being seems to be reduced to a question of who to marry and whether to marry
for love of money. While the men do seem to have a larger agenda, the women’s
is rather insipid beyond the marriage question. Austen seem to agree with me.
Through the eyes of Elinor and Marianne the thoughtless chatter and idle
pastimes are almost painfully thoughtless and pointless. Their only duty is to
look pretty and be respectable and I sense a rebellion in both Marianne and
Elinor and maybe even an urge to actually do things. So, while Austen delves
into the forms and practices of the gentility of the period, she also exposes
the narrowness of that world with pointed remarks and a sense of
claustrophobia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A
reflection of this is also in how narrow a world she describes. The only
mention of characters outside their class are a few remarks on their servants.
The village children are sweet to look at and there are actually people working
in the shops they visit. But that is about it. There is nothing about politics
of the period, economy is only how many thousand pounds each have per year, not
where they come from, and there is absolutely no mention of the societal
evolution Britain was going through in the Regency period, something I find
immensely interesting, but Austen’s women clearly are entirely ignorant about.
Design or flaw, I do not know, but it emphasizes the isolation of these women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Sense and
Sensibility” is a wonderful read nevertheless. I love Austen’s characters and I
cannot wait moving on to the next three novels. Highly recommended.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-2087036508920424692022-12-31T06:23:00.003-08:002022-12-31T06:23:30.708-08:00Happy New Year 2023<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGDCbjeHGGhUkOXSGVk5jR-GnDE3Y78NTcpDbsEv6Wr2YoR5lRycwObX99hh7Q1O3lPsnHFDDU7oJy8ffze8zaJnNcMkRNju1yUoHUU1ZKznqLpMrjfINlmDHAj8af3z9Dhes7DBbATr-6AevdBm29aMFyxiJsGPQErW7H2Erd0MNVTv9qoI8nV82kxQ/s284/New%20year%202023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGDCbjeHGGhUkOXSGVk5jR-GnDE3Y78NTcpDbsEv6Wr2YoR5lRycwObX99hh7Q1O3lPsnHFDDU7oJy8ffze8zaJnNcMkRNju1yUoHUU1ZKznqLpMrjfINlmDHAj8af3z9Dhes7DBbATr-6AevdBm29aMFyxiJsGPQErW7H2Erd0MNVTv9qoI8nV82kxQ/w400-h249/New%20year%202023.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Happy New Year 2023</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Another
year has gone by and again it is time to take stock. I think most people will
agree that 2022 was not one of those years that will be remembered with
fondness. Sure, this is the first new year post-COVID, but that already seems
like such a long time ago and so much have happened since then. There is now
war in Europe again and a bloody one at that and we are looking into an energy
and an inflation crisis on top of all the other crisis’s plaguing us. I have an
app on my phone telling me what the electricity price is over the next 24 hours
so I can plan when to do laundry or use the oven, something I would not have
thought of a year ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All is not
bleak though. One man’s death is another man’s bread as the (Danish) saying goes.
I work with renewables, and this is a field that is booming, as in gold rush
boom times. We are hiring and are very busy and if all goes well, I will be
opening our new Copenhagen office sometime in 23. If you are interested in this
field you may want to check out the <a href="https://ens.dk/en/our-responsibilities/energy-islands/denmarks-energy-islands">Danish Energy Island</a> project, which is
labelled as the Danish equivalent to the Moon project. Truly exciting stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This was
also the year where <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time">Sight and Sound</a> presented their new and updated list of the
100 best movies ever and the number one spot, the best movie ever made, was: “<a href="http://tsorensen1001.blogspot.com/2021/12/jeanne-dielman-23-quai-du-commerce-1080.html">Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080, Bruxelles</a>”. Interesting choice…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have
listed 55 movie reviews on this blog in 2022. Of these 46 were List movies and
9 off-List movies, making this the slowest year so far, but I am in no rush so
never mind that. The period covered is 1975 to 1978 and three List years per calendar
year does seem to be my pace now. A thing I have noticed in this period is how
difficult is has become to limit my off-List movies to only three titles. There
is just so many interesting movies out there that never many it to the List.
This was also the first year without a new release of “1001 Movies You Must See
Before You Die” and while it may bee too early a call, this could be the end of
an era. It does also seem like the host of 1001 bloggers have been thinning over
years, either from abandoning the project or by finishing it and this blog may
end up as an anachronistic artifact, but then, so am I.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On my book
blog I have read and reviewed 13 titles which is almost three times more than
the target I have set for myself, so I can be pleased with that. This took me
from 1794 to 1811, 17 years, and I am now far into the Napoleonic wars, in the
period known as Regency. So, that means I am looking into a lot of Jane Austen
stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I would
like to wish everybody a happy new year with my sincere hope that 2023 will
finally be a better year. I think we all need that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-79398457563224345952022-12-27T06:01:00.003-08:002022-12-27T06:01:29.165-08:00Michael Kohlhaas - Heinrich von Kleist (1811)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqp2JORiLWCuNWwlIX1AZTkP-3hZEk0vO98OE4N7t99-jJa81sWs47GAhjA9eEgz4iCjRX25kAeAe4rbn5BoKWIWFjsbc6_3wht_9mBb3Enc1CekYVA1WuQcBooplVShkww-vbEXoAX_KGESV72nJT7Ys5vTU8zF2LhhuTd7FTkLnelGoREI96OU1kA/s293/Michael%20Kohlhaas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="192" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqp2JORiLWCuNWwlIX1AZTkP-3hZEk0vO98OE4N7t99-jJa81sWs47GAhjA9eEgz4iCjRX25kAeAe4rbn5BoKWIWFjsbc6_3wht_9mBb3Enc1CekYVA1WuQcBooplVShkww-vbEXoAX_KGESV72nJT7Ys5vTU8zF2LhhuTd7FTkLnelGoREI96OU1kA/w262-h400/Michael%20Kohlhaas.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Michael Kohlhaas</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">You do not
need to write a huge tome to point out ethical, moral or legal dilemmas.
Heinrich von Kleist manages to do that very well in little more than a hundred
pages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Michael
Kohlhaas is a horse trader from Brandenburg who usually sell his horses in
Saxony. This is supposed to be the sixteenth century, so Germany is divided
into countless small fiefs, principalities, duchies and what not. Something
that was still the case when Heinrich von Kleist wrote this book. Anyway, the
good Herr Kohlhaas is as usual taking his horses to market in Leipzig, when he
is stopped at Tronkenberg and asked to present a permit to transport horses
through. This is news to Kohlhaas and in the end he manages to get through by
pawning two mares until he can come back with a permit. In Leipzig he finds out
as expected that there is no such requirement for permits. This is just a scam
set up by the new master of Tronkenberg, Junker Wenzel von Tronka. Returning to
Tronkenberg, Kohlhaas finds that his horses have been worked almost to death
and the groom kicked out. Kohlhaas is also kicked out and now he starts his
quest for justice. Junker Wenzel von Tronka must restore his horses to their
previous state and return them with damages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Problem is
that the Junker is nobility with friends in high places who blocks the case at
every turn. When Kohlhaas’ wife offers to bring the case before the regional
ruler, the Elector, she is beaten to death. Kohlhaas, seeing that the opponent
is not obeying the law, decides to force the issue outside the law himself. His
attack on Tronkenburg sends the Junker fleeing and it escalates into a regular
uprising. Only the intervention of a famous cleric (Martin Luther himself, no
less) convinces Kohlhaas to return to a legal track, but now Kohlhaas is also a
vigilante and a criminal in his own right.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
questions asked by Heinrich von Kleist is if you have a moral right to seek
justice outside the law if the opponent is outside the law or protected by a
flawed system and following that, if the purpose condones the means. This is a
timeless question and what makes this book readable and relevant today. Von
Kleist does not answer the question (who can?) but frames it most
provocatively. Kohlhaas is likeable all the way. He has a good and righteous
case, and his only real motivation is justice. Not the monetary value or a
settlement, but proof that the law is for everyone and that a noble scoundrel is
subject to the law the same as everybody else. His extra-legal means of
pursuing this justice is however as villainous as can be: arson, plunder and
murdering, not to mention challenging the policing might of the system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Similarly,
the nepotism and arbitrariness of the power structure with family relations
protecting each other and legal rulings being made by people entirely unfit for
the job, placed their qua noble birth and family relations. It is a system obviously
unfair and biased against the little man in which the law is flexible and apply
less the higher in the hierarchy you are.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If this
sounds vaguely familiar, I am not surprised, and you do not have to go to
fiction to find examples.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the case
of Herr Kohlhaas, he does manage to get justice in the end, but his extreme
means costs him everything and even that resolution is so arbitrary and with so
many byways that it feels random. Meaning that even at the ultimate prize,
justice is no guarantee.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Heinrich von
Kleist was a known provocateur of his day. Anti-Napoleonic, but also liberal
and revolutionary, he seems to have been a critic all round. I can certainly
see “Michael Kohlhaas” as an argument for German unity as well as democratic
reforms, even if the ultimate question of the novel is how far you are allowed
to go to seek justice in an unjust system.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Michael Kohlhaas”
is a short book and even though written in that very complex German style where
you almost forget how the sentence started by the time you reach the end, it is
easy enough to comprehend and it is knife sharp on its moral and ethical
points. If anything, it is too short and brief to get under the skin of the characters,
but I doubt that was the intention anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In my
research of the book, I discovered it was made into a movie in 2013 with Mads
Mikkelsen and Bruno Ganz. I think I will look up that movie. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-10872623787608250252022-12-11T15:12:00.001-08:002022-12-11T15:12:11.542-08:00Elective Affinities: A Novel - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1809)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPquL4pirJmbp7YNLMJ980et3Xu5CBbDm8Vudmk36PYEr-MWUM74LXCsX7-92Tc6k-X-3X08--nPs5MwlLUFxMk01Cfy8XNyPHNTtCp2jvurh1vQPUOEpck_E4Uy2oH14XmqT2bnMsUIiSXTunOYEtbuoGvXAKeshtZCL61W8wn9CJfgzKdshlJO-_9A/s293/Elective%20Affinities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="193" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPquL4pirJmbp7YNLMJ980et3Xu5CBbDm8Vudmk36PYEr-MWUM74LXCsX7-92Tc6k-X-3X08--nPs5MwlLUFxMk01Cfy8XNyPHNTtCp2jvurh1vQPUOEpck_E4Uy2oH14XmqT2bnMsUIiSXTunOYEtbuoGvXAKeshtZCL61W8wn9CJfgzKdshlJO-_9A/w210-h320/Elective%20Affinities.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Elective Affinities</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One of the
best, and likely also worst, things about art is that it is open to interpretation
and not an exact science. In the case of Goethe’s “Elective Affinities” I seem
to have a rather different understanding of the novel than the clever heads who
have formed the official interpretation of the novel and because of the above,
my interpretation may be as good as theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the
German countryside live Charlotte and Eduard. They may be lower nobility, but
their rank is newer spelled out. They have resources enough for some
extravaganza, but not endless funds. Both were previously married but as both
widowed around the same time their infatuation with each other in their youth
can now be realized in a marriage at their not so young age. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Their life
together is in harmony when they get two new lodgers, Charlotte’s niece Ottilie
and Eduard’s friend, the Captain (known throughout as “The Captain” and later “The
Major”). Eduard falls passionately in love with Ottilie and his feelings are
reciprocated. Charlotte and The Captain also develop feelings for each other
but are better able to control them. When Eduard and Ottilie’s affair becomes too
obvious Charlotte decides that Ottilie must be sent away, but Eduard flees and
begs that Ottilie then can stay in the house. Eduard just manages to make
Charlotte pregnant before he leaves but that is not enough to bring him home.
Instead, he goes to war and throws himself into danger (the Napoleonic wars are
raging at the time). When finally he does come home, he is dead-set on getting
Ottilie. His scheme is that he gets divorced from Charlotte and marries
Ottilie, while Charlotte marries the Captain/Major. Except his wild passion
sets off a string of calamities, starting with the drowning of his little son. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now, as I
understand it, the common interpretation of this novel is as a critique of the
institution of marriage as that being what prevents the “logical” pairings of
the characters. Another, slightly more refined interpretation says that it is
not so much the institution of marriage but the inability of the characters to
think out of the box and release their adherence to conventions. In any case,
they seem to think that Goethe meant these people to combine in different ways
and their misfortune was that they were prevented from doing so. The major
argument being that Goethe himself had affairs left and right and did not
really consider marital faithfulness an objective but merely an obstacle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My take on
this story is much simpler. It demonstrates two characters, Charlotte and
Eduard, where one can handle her emotions and weather potential disasters,
while the other is a victim of his passions which unchecked must cause disaster
left and right. Rather than being an advocate of serial monogamy, this story
demonstrate the danger of unruly passions to the happiness and wellbeing of people.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All
characters have potential good futures ahead of them with plenty of reward, both
socially and materially. Charlotte and the Captain/Major demonstrate how to
reconcile passion and reality to both a common and a personal good, even
satisfaction. Eduard on the other hand entirely embraces the romantic idea of
letting his passions run his decision making with no regard for other people’s
feelings and the potential for disaster, personal and to others. This makes him
an egocentric person and his affair with Ottilie is just one example of his
passion driven poor decision making. Charlotte’s daughter, Luciane, is another
example of such a character where the damage she inflicts on others for he own
gratification is obvious.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rather than
being an advocate of free love, Goethe is actually running a critique on the romanticism
that was the rage at the time, asking those free spirits to rein in their
passions a bit. This follows very much in the line of Goethe’s earlier novels, “The
Sorrows of Young Werther” and “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship” which run similar
conclusions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of course,
I could be entirely wrong, but I am entirely entitled to my own interpretation
of art.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Recommendation?
It is okay, but pales compared to Goethe’s earlier work.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-13993702695455391292022-11-06T05:59:00.002-08:002022-11-06T05:59:22.005-08:00Rameau’s Nephew - Denis Diderot (1805)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnCdNKg2MAlhKrS_wD1BR5v3suhdMr5Kg1frKcbkDO0UfRkq6asvNSNJ9HwHCgMWPUgD2RiCwnbWBcUhibenxY3HfTkuj1vOMef8nZfm9Ebvabj29wUqkVJlPefUhhf9dhEhH-0ZZh6tnJuDMkthGvoSlVs2deNnjs2rAxnJSVJ6CUqiqSBQFHaMuheQ/s499/Rameau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="327" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnCdNKg2MAlhKrS_wD1BR5v3suhdMr5Kg1frKcbkDO0UfRkq6asvNSNJ9HwHCgMWPUgD2RiCwnbWBcUhibenxY3HfTkuj1vOMef8nZfm9Ebvabj29wUqkVJlPefUhhf9dhEhH-0ZZh6tnJuDMkthGvoSlVs2deNnjs2rAxnJSVJ6CUqiqSBQFHaMuheQ/w263-h400/Rameau.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Rameau's Nephew</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet again
we take a step back in time with another one of Denis Diderot’s leftover
manuscripts. As with “The Nun” and “Jacques the Fatalist”, Diderot kept “Rameau’s
Nephew” to himself or at least in very local circulation in his lifetime,
presumably because the political climate did not allow a public release, and it
only found a way to the public in 1805. Even then, it took another 150 years
until a version we can consider Diderot’s own version, was published.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The novel
takes the form of a dialogue between a first-person character (Diderot
himself?) and a character called Jean-Francois Rameau, the nephew of a famous
composer with the same surname. These were real characters, and the conversation
is presented as if it really took place, yet we can assume that although
Diderot and Rameau really had a conversation at a vey specific time and venue,
Diderot used this as a framework upon which to discuss and lampoon a number of
issues that was on his mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rameau is a
scoundrel. A hand-to-mouth swindler and con artist, but also a very self-aware clown,
conscious of his own limitations, who simply do what he does best with what he
has. And what he does best is to entertain and con people by appealing to their
vanity.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">During
their conversation Diderot and Rameau get into a great many topics,
particularly around music, yet the recurrent theme is that appearances matter a
lot more than substance and that people want to be fooled and confirmed. Rameau’s
current situation is that he has just been dismissed from the family who had
sponsored him for the past months. Rameau’s parasitic existence had been to be
around, be amusing and confirm the host family of how amazing they were. His dismissal
was caused by him telling the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">According
to Rameau’s creed, the purpose of existence is to eat, drink, bed women and
empty the bowels. This is the only obligation and purpose of man, and the means
is just whatever works to get there.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Diderot’s
purpose for this dialogue has apparently been discussed extensively, yet to my
mind it is pretty obvious. Diderot was an incredible gossip, and he got a real
kick out of a juicy story. “Rameau’s Nephew” is an outlet where Diderot could
lampoon the entire establishment for their scandals and idiocy. In the buffoon of
Rameau, the ridiculousness of the establishment becomes condensed and very
entertaining and it is a safe space for Diderot as nobody gets to read it. This
is Saturday Night Live for the smallest audience possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I found it
an incredibly amusing read. It is sharp and witty and often caused me to laugh
out loud. Very few of the comedic texts of the eighteenth century have accomplished
that. Rameau is a tragic clown, a complete cynic with a heart and reading of
his exploits is both distressing and highly entertaining. I think Diderot had a
blast writing this and I can feel his need to lampoon his fellow men and women
seeping through the pages. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Rameau’s
Nephew” is an easy, short read and highly recommended from me. I could totally
see such a text being written today. In fact, I got an idea for a novel or
sci-fi movie I would read or watch: What if Diderot was really a twenty-first century
comedic writer for SNL who fell into a time hole and then had to carve out a
life in the eighteenth century? Not so far fetched as you might think. His texts
and his views are incredibly modern. I would love to be credited for that idea.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-26196864103917036812022-10-19T01:51:00.004-07:002022-10-19T01:51:47.660-07:00Henry Von Ofterdingen: A Novel - Novalis (1802)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu0ZyNUo4sySuajzRiqL3Z5p0K3-ahIBeTLFlsvDkbKdJT95ZItILdLX4q_A0k3eXbCya222q7lZZ6xkt-uebWdfkckDWDLa9higV1lC5pvgj3URiYMaK1jyLfrz5HX_Iw9_9jT8KDv5lBBOGKJYjua85E2ZljC61aZECnx2TVuyrSiKG4kAfnwSNZfw/s499/Henry%20of%20Ofterdingen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu0ZyNUo4sySuajzRiqL3Z5p0K3-ahIBeTLFlsvDkbKdJT95ZItILdLX4q_A0k3eXbCya222q7lZZ6xkt-uebWdfkckDWDLa9higV1lC5pvgj3URiYMaK1jyLfrz5HX_Iw9_9jT8KDv5lBBOGKJYjua85E2ZljC61aZECnx2TVuyrSiKG4kAfnwSNZfw/w268-h400/Henry%20of%20Ofterdingen.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Henry of Ofterdingen</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have
never really understood the concept of poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I get it as
far as it being an attempt to condense something, usually intangible, into
verse and that you are supposed to feel it rather than understand it. Which
actually to me sounds like the definition of art as a concept. My problem is
that it usually does not touch me and often strikes me as so much sophism and
form that I find it hard to take seriously. I know, this is a philistine viewpoint,
and I will likely take a lot of heat for it, but there it is. To me, it is like
watching dancing: probably fun to be a part of but leaves me cold and
non-plussed to look at.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is a
problem when reading Novalis’ “Henry of Ofterdingen”. This is a book that seems
to be intended as a manifest for poetry. Novalis tries to describe to role and
search of the poet, and define what poetry is and should do. Not in some
positivistic, practical sense, but by setting up a spiritual framework that
most of all sounds like a cult. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
framework of the story is that of a young man, Henry, who is travelling from
his home in Thuringia with his mother to her father’s court in Augsburg,
Bavaria. This is a boy with poetic aspirations and underway he encounters numerous
characters who tell him instructive stories or instruct him directly in how
poetry work. The stories are rather lengthy and with a clear sense that it is
these and not the real-life voyage of Henry that is the agenda of the book.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The stories
range from fairy tales over real-life stories to mythological fables of which
the last ones are of a nature that I hardly know what is up or down in them and
much less what the point is. Recounting these seem pointless. It is easier with
the real-life stories such as those of the miner and the knight. They do make
some sense, but again, they are supposed to drive a point that eludes me. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I suppose
that if I had been into poetry and really cared for it, this might have been a
gold mine and this is exactly what this text is considered to be. Almost the
defining text on the romanticism of early nineteenth century. I can just imagine
wannabe poets poring over this text and trying to find that spot where it all
makes sense. Proselytes into this mishmash cult of Christianity, Hellenisms,
nature and beauty. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For me
however it comes across as a mess. In terms of catching the ephemeral, the intangible
essence I am far more a subscriber to the Proustian style. Marcel Proust had
much less need for a mythology and mysticism to formulate his images and it
seems to me more straight forward and obvious that the dramatic complexity of
the systems Novalis sets up. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Or maybe I
have just misunderstood the whole thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The ending
is rather peculiar. The story comes to an abrupt stop and in a post-script, a
friend of Novalis tries to summarize what was to come next, hinting that we
only got the first one and a half chapters of a five chapter long epic. For a
while I thought this was an artificial tool of Novalis, like Diderot would use,
but it seems to be genuine enough, making this an unfinished novel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I am not
certain I would need to read the remaining chapters of the story. I get the
picture and think I will leave it to others to use this text. It is not a recommendation
from me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-78981007576839935782022-09-30T11:29:00.000-07:002022-09-30T11:29:31.956-07:00Castle Rackrent - Maria Edgeworth (1800)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLANm9Yt-IjuBRFs4d1TYvSw9degG6kszzjeH2FEHdNzXZJtKR6hLQUuxY67Z4lf30sfz8H4PcY85sogK61Iv8pkQ1oXUGqnHk-J2ZN_K2JLg_AJzRgm5S7sBGeE4u66_A4F3egKrDCSoitzOXH35EEo-TTu8i1k2m9DFIjCPAcpA1X3AfcaHfgh9RZg/s499/Castle%20Rackrent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLANm9Yt-IjuBRFs4d1TYvSw9degG6kszzjeH2FEHdNzXZJtKR6hLQUuxY67Z4lf30sfz8H4PcY85sogK61Iv8pkQ1oXUGqnHk-J2ZN_K2JLg_AJzRgm5S7sBGeE4u66_A4F3egKrDCSoitzOXH35EEo-TTu8i1k2m9DFIjCPAcpA1X3AfcaHfgh9RZg/w211-h320/Castle%20Rackrent.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Castle Rackrent</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">With Maria
Edgeworth’s “Castle Rackrent” I have left the 18<sup>th</sup> century and
entered the 19<sup>th</sup>. Not a major shift there, but it does feel like
rounding a significant corner. It is therefore particularly pleasing that this
book also feels like a novelty compared to my previous reading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is, if
I remember right, the first book on the List to take place in Ireland and it is
also written by an Irish, albeit of the Anglo-Irish landowner class. That in
itself is interesting, I like when these books take me around the world, and I
did my share of travelling in Ireland some twenty years ago. The true novelty
however is that the first-person character who narrates the story is an Irish domestic
who narrates in his own tongue and mannerism. Edgeworth thus takes on a
different persona, which she was likely familiar with, but still a radically
different character from herself, and does it with conviction.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thady Quirk
is steward to several generations of masters on Castle Rackrent (rackrent being
the term used for a cruel method of extorting the tenants on the land). He
tells us the story of four generations of Racrents, one is a spendthrift, a
second sues everybody and their mother over pittances and lose mighty sums in
the process. A third marries a Jewish girl for her wealth and locks her up
until she is ready to part with her diamonds and a fourth… well, the fourth, Sir
Condy Rackrent, takes up the major part of the story. He is well liked, cares
little for how he spends money and takes an interest in people around him.
Unfortunately for him, that means mismanagement of his estate and eventually he
loses everything to Thady’s thrifty son Jason (this is hardly a spoiler).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thady is incredibly
loyal. No matter how absurd or cruel his masters, he is always ready to defend
them. He loves them to a fault and in his eyes, they are never truly to blame
for their error. Yet, it is not difficult to read between the lines that all
these masters of Castle Rackrent are terrible landlords. That they are invested
with a power they do not know how to administer and get away with it because
Ireland is a place of the jungle law, where anything is possible if you have
the means and the will and nobody are protected, least of all from themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In these four
masters, Edgeworth manages to present to us the evils going on in an
uncontrolled Ireland and how unsuited the landed class is to take care of the
country. It is quite a subversive writ really. A plea to the British to step in
and reform the land.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Beside
Thady’s gushing defense of the Rackrents a number of other elements work in the
same direction. The Irish of the text itself are described as conniving
children, but just beneath the surface it is not difficult to see that they are
where the sympathy really lies. Additionally, the novel is equipped with
extensive, original notes which all seem to placate the English reader by
confirming all the demeaning stereotypes of the lazy and backward Irish, but
again, it actually contains a wealth of background information and cultural context
to demonstrate and understand the rich Irish culture.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Castle Rackrent”
is short, barely a hundred pages, but a very entertaining and informative read
and one I quite enjoyed. I would not say it changed my life, but I do feel a
bit smarter for reading it, and that is not a bad thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sadly, as
the novel was finalized, Ireland descended in turmoil and the English grip on the
country only worsened, culminating in the disaster of the mid-nineteenth
century. It is hard to think Edgeworth novel actually helped anything, but it
should have and maybe it did in the very long term.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-10410333370646802382022-09-16T12:12:00.001-07:002022-09-16T12:12:22.617-07:00Hyperion - Friedrich Hölderlin (1797)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkbFdqOYUb3-xYDcbeT_qRFdQZWKFN5c7KWVX5sQ_7xHfsjUnlYyjSu1nexmbVmOkN5051QxtHfYL7GmXK9sEGwGSsasCTks0xYifpAH1hL5LKcYlyKmPAmUYESncuKvcUbRHUjX7jLpvGcQrddIHmrOMywwrjQyezUWE8MZU_GYxtgIwOADJ9ABjAQ/s499/Hyperion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkbFdqOYUb3-xYDcbeT_qRFdQZWKFN5c7KWVX5sQ_7xHfsjUnlYyjSu1nexmbVmOkN5051QxtHfYL7GmXK9sEGwGSsasCTks0xYifpAH1hL5LKcYlyKmPAmUYESncuKvcUbRHUjX7jLpvGcQrddIHmrOMywwrjQyezUWE8MZU_GYxtgIwOADJ9ABjAQ/w268-h400/Hyperion.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Hyperion</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Friederich
Hölderlin’s “Hyperion” is novel written like a poem. Or poetry in the shape of
a novel. Either way it is the sort of reading you are not supposed to blaze
through but read slowly to enjoy the cryptic images it conjures. Unfortunately,
I am a rather plebeian reader on whom that sort of flowery writing is rather
wasted and that heavily influences my opinion on this book.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">While it is
something you are supposed to analyze your way to work out, I understand that
this is a fellow, Hyperion, who has returned to Greece and from there sends
letters to someone named Bellarmin, who I suppose is a friend. This Bellarmin
apparently has talked him into telling his life story. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As a young
man Hyperion met an older man named Adamas whom he loved as a father. Adamas
disappeared and Hyperion met Alabanda whom he seems to have had a homosexual relationship
with. It certainly takes bromance to another level. Hyperion does not like
Alabanda’s friends, possibly he is jealous, so he leaves him. Then he meets
Diotima, and she becomes the love of his life. Though what he loves more than
anything is to set his people, the Greek, free from the Ottomans, because the
Greeks are a noble people who founded civilization. So, when the Russians and
the Ottomans go to war, Hyperion joins a rebellion and becomes some sort of
officer together with Alabanda. Unfortunately, the rebels do not live up to Hyperion’s
lofty ideals and is merely a rabble, so Hyperion gets depressed and wants to
die. So does Diotima. Hyperion changes his mind, but too late to save Diotima.
This makes Hyperion really depressed so he goes to Germany in exile, but the
Germans are terrible people so now he is back in Greece to write his story,
which is the story we have just been reading.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The story
apparent is one about a hyper-sensitive guy who seems to get carried away, even
overwhelmed, by emotions at every turn. Nothing is simple and easy for this guy,
and everything from the morning breeze to the plight of the Greek people becomes
loaded with higher meanings far beyond what reality can answer, hence Hyperion’s
life is one of disappointments. I would say this is a guy with mental health
issues, but for that I would probably be crucified as someone lacking
sensibility for the higher arts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My copy
came with a lengthy analysis of the text of which I understood even less that
the actual novel. This appears to be a very important text from the nascent
German romanticism. Hyperion is supposed to be our priest to teach us… well,
that is not really clear, but my assumption is the beauty of nature and that
the intrinsic value of beauty is all that really matters. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I have to
say that I was not particularly overwhelmed by this text. Or maybe I should say
that it lacked appeal to me because it was actually rather overwhelming. I kept
worrying that this guy would go over the edge and become raving mad and maybe
he should go back to his medication. To me, this sounded like a bad case of
bipolar disorder with each part of the sinus wave making Hyperion lose touch
with reality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It was not
surprising for me to learn that Hölderlin actually was mentally ill and in the
end succumbed to schizophrenia. Poor guy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I could
easily image a lot of people liking, even adoring the poetic nature of this
text and the melancholic suffering it expresses, but I think I passed that
phase some time back in the nineties.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-34810345076705040592022-08-27T08:26:00.002-07:002022-08-27T08:26:11.721-07:00The Nun - Denis Diderot (1796)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5CyblkrmxUsnMZmfue0LQzdBS2X91jVDgqMj4UCaVlQAXTSJbdUHHD0vhJ-yKG-ngYwrMOTc5Ob8u58u7WYssQJQu0cL4xX77iHK2OOB89PCc2LEKb4Fcfyzu1tabDqLbHo8SWiN5yDvl8Qf6rApLbUBSzkhXa12jHPrPY_26NYdzz3u2R5AV3bNGFA/s225/The%20Nun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5CyblkrmxUsnMZmfue0LQzdBS2X91jVDgqMj4UCaVlQAXTSJbdUHHD0vhJ-yKG-ngYwrMOTc5Ob8u58u7WYssQJQu0cL4xX77iHK2OOB89PCc2LEKb4Fcfyzu1tabDqLbHo8SWiN5yDvl8Qf6rApLbUBSzkhXa12jHPrPY_26NYdzz3u2R5AV3bNGFA/w320-h320/The%20Nun.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>The Nun</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We continue
with another book by Denis Diderot, published posthumously decades after it was
actually written. The subject matter and the style of writing is quite
different from “Jacques the Fatalist”, this being a first-person narrative in
the Richardsonian style about the suffering of a nun as opposed to the Sternian
chaos which is “Jacques the Fatalist”, but Diderot being Diderot it also has
very modernist elements.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The main
part of the novel is formed as one, very long letter to a possible benefactor
of the nun Sainte Suzanne. She describes her life story, how as an illegitimate
child, her parents wanted to get her out of the way by placing her in a
convent. In the first convent she flatly refuses to take her wows, causing
quite a scandal, but subjected to enough emotional blackmail she finally
accepts to take her wows in the second convent despite being convinced that the
religious life is not for her. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Mother
Superior of this convent is a saintly woman who actually understands the misery
Suzanne goes through and tries to make her life as tolerable as possible. She
dies, and her replacement as Mother Superior is the exact opposite. She sees in
Suzanne a threat to her dominion and Suzanne is subjected to all sorts of harassments.
Suzanne decides to attempt to be released through a court ruling, which when it
becomes known, makes her conditions in the convent even worse. Torments, taunts,
starvation and theft are just some of the cruelties she is subjected to. She loses
her court case for some reason, possibly because you needed very powerful
friends in high positions to get out of a nunnery, and the torments continue,
now without hope. Her lawyer and a friendly Vicar General do manage to get her
transferred to another, third, convent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The main
problem here is that the Mother Superior is lesbian and abuses her position in
true Weinstein fashion to get sexual favors. When Suzanne refuses, the Mother Superior
goes into self-escalation and, everybody blaming Suzanne, her life again turns
misery.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So far, so
good. This story is fairly straight forward. Diderot presents the convent
system, not as a religious asylum, but as a prison system to put away unwanted
women. A system where compliance is required on pain of torment and a system
that will drive those mad who are not suited for a religious life. Diderot
obviously was not a fan of convents. His sister was driven mad in one, and he
himself fled from a religious career. As a criticism of the enforced convent
system, this story is very effective. Suzanne cannot say what it is she wants
instead on the religious life, it is the lack of choice that is the problem for
her. She has lost her freedom and as intangible as this may be, it is soul-crushing
to her.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then
something really weird happens. In a lengthy preface text after the novel
proper, it is revealed that the text is a hoax, invented to lure a Marquis back
from the provinces to Paris where his friends are missing him. This Marquis was
previously engaged in a case where a nun wanted to be released but could not
and now, through letters pretending to be from a nun on the lam, they are trying
to get him engaged in this story. He consents, so they have to kill her off,
and then send him her full narrative as described above. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Why this
hoax? And why present this story as a hoax? Do we really want to, or need to,
know that this is not just an invented story, but a story invented for crude
laughs and petty motives? And even weirder, the way these letters a presented
with Diderot talking about himself in third person, makes me wonder if not even
this correspondence is a fake, invented for the effect if will have on the
story?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I think the
whole thing is an exercise in false reality, what we today would call fake
news. That the object is to make the reader question apparent truth as
something that may look and feel real but is not. This is my guess of course
and may be inspired by the times I live in as opposed to the eighteenth
century, but if correct, it would make Diderot a far more modern writer than
his contemporaries. And well, that was a conclusion I already drew with “Jacques
the Fatalist”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In many
ways “The Nun” is the better book, if for nothing else then because Sternian
writing tends to annoy me, and beside the modernist mindfuck it also concerns
itself with very real social issues that would surely touch a reader, even
today. Recommended.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-62966560324529059572022-08-02T11:16:00.004-07:002022-08-02T11:16:45.155-07:00Jacques the Fatalist - Denis Diderot (1796)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZigcgealSoBcV120PdIhy55MPQEcvWZCW5Cd6lKaQwB6V-YyBO6pgs4OnDTDdJYz99g3lzJB8C5ezKjoP15iq1keiJHaQZZ7mpL_XcomWYxUBpWemorlNQVmye1vAhZ-AjqHFeYp1g0_1doH_Jgvi08LhJP-YIUhshaI7PK9qB3dN48X1-AlLNyMxA/s499/Jacques%20the%20Fatalist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZigcgealSoBcV120PdIhy55MPQEcvWZCW5Cd6lKaQwB6V-YyBO6pgs4OnDTDdJYz99g3lzJB8C5ezKjoP15iq1keiJHaQZZ7mpL_XcomWYxUBpWemorlNQVmye1vAhZ-AjqHFeYp1g0_1doH_Jgvi08LhJP-YIUhshaI7PK9qB3dN48X1-AlLNyMxA/w261-h400/Jacques%20the%20Fatalist.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Jacques the Fatalist</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A year or
so ago I was reading a lot of “Enlightenment” literature, especially the endless
writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He spent most of his life quarreling with
everybody else and in particularly a character named Denis Diderot. Frankly,
from Rousseau’s telling, Diderot sounded like a far more agreeable character to
be around and as it turns out, he also wrote and a far more delightful writer
he was. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Diderot
dared not publish in his lifetime. Or rather, he stuck to the Encyclopedia,
which was controversial enough as it was. His dabbling into literature was way
more transgressive and subversive and had to wait for The French Revolution to
become printable. Rather promising actually, but also sad for the writer. It
also means that I am now thrown somewhere between twenty and forty years back
in time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Jacques
the Fatalist” has been described as the world’s first post-modernistic novel, preceding
the advent of those by some 160 years. What is meant by that is that Diderot is
playing with the format in a way that is sometimes meta, sometimes explorative
and always playful. Heavily inspired by Laurence Sterne, Diderot is not
interested in a plot. In fact, plot-wise “Jacques the Fatalist” goes absolutely
nowhere. A Master, known only as “Master”, and his servant Jacques travels from
place to place. En route the time is spent telling stories. Some stories are
begun but never finished. Some are picked up repeatedly, only to be interrupted.
I am not quite certain any of them are ever finished and if they were, it is in
an abrupt and not really satisfying manner, as if there is actually more to the
story than is told. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The theme
of the stories is usually around escapades, love affairs, swindles or other
juicy topics. This makes them rather amusing if not very coarse, but also so
much more disappointing when they never finish. I think Diderot is telling us
that the conclusion to the stories is unimportant or the fact that we never
know how they end is a point in itself. Jacques himself constantly drives at
the futility of changing anything. He is a declared fatalist and convinced that
everything that happens is written in the great scroll above. If a thing must
happen, it will, and we are powerless to change it. Exactly how that motivates
the stories I am not quite certain, but they do serve to illustrate how bizarre
and outrageous things can be and that it is virtually impossible to predict
what is going to happen, even if it is prescribed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Diderot
insists that everything is true, in the sense that all his stories did actually
happen in some form or another and it is difficult not to think that Diderot
really just wanted to spread some juicy gossip. Another agenda of his seems to
have been to lampoon and grill all the institutions and notabilities he could
get away with. He was antiauthoritarian in an age where that was a very
dangerous thing to be and he clearly had a lot of things to say about a lot of
people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The upshot
is that “Jacques the Fatalist” is a chaotic and messy book to read but highly entertaining
and playful, teasing you into rethinking what you think a novel should be. It
will never be a favorite of mine, I think, but I am very happy to have read it
and I do think I know both Diderot and his age a little better from reading
this.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I am not
done with Diderot though. The next book is another of his secret novels and
another one will pop up when I enter the eighteen hundreds.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-54602015064758681222022-07-13T00:37:00.000-07:002022-07-13T00:37:08.628-07:00Camilla - Fanny Burney (1796)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicX3NBqYauPWMYJG0ZFtO2q7uIMEzIXhVMLg6KjmFiHVvIUkTB0UgVSE5Fw-q1-p6dOnplDpPoDU8LiYnXVPk4TG7qNY_wOh9zQCbSyrQ-Y2wdUZCUT32OJTikjoBlCfonymUK7KN3bm2_1c0s-9Sfzrl7pYkX58iPfoGO27qF_ozgYC33GppxyVSF4w/s499/Camilla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="328" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicX3NBqYauPWMYJG0ZFtO2q7uIMEzIXhVMLg6KjmFiHVvIUkTB0UgVSE5Fw-q1-p6dOnplDpPoDU8LiYnXVPk4TG7qNY_wOh9zQCbSyrQ-Y2wdUZCUT32OJTikjoBlCfonymUK7KN3bm2_1c0s-9Sfzrl7pYkX58iPfoGO27qF_ozgYC33GppxyVSF4w/w263-h400/Camilla.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Camilla</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It was with
much anticipation I went into “Camilla”. Frances Burney’s first novel “Evelina”
is to this date one of the best books I have read on this List and “Camilla”,
being her third novel, had to be good. “Camilla” is not a bad novel, but it is
in my opinion an inferior novel to “Evelina”, partly due to some plot flaws and
partly because it has not aged as well. Where “Evelina” pointed forward, it
feels as if “Camilla” is pointing backwards.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In “Camilla”
we follow the Tyrold family, the timid and meek Lavinia, the emotional Camilla
and the scholarly but deformed Eugenia. They have grown up in the virtuous and
protected home of Pastor Tyrold and Mrs. Tyrold. Mr. Tyrold is the younger brother
of the country Squire Sir Hugh Tyrold, a generous and not too clever older man
without children himself. His nieces spend a lot of time at his place, Cleves,
together with Sir Tyrold’s other niece Indiana Lynmere, a very pretty, but vain
and vacant girl.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">During the
period of what appears to be one summer the girls are exposed to the
surrounding world and the dangers lurking everywhere. There are two main
plotlines. One is of Camilla and her on/off relationship with Edgar Mandlebert,
the other is the terrible adventures of Eugenia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Camilla and
Edgar are in love with each other, but instead of being candid about it, they
manage to misunderstand each other to an exceptional degree. This is largely
driven by Edgar’s wish to get proofs that 1. Camilla actually loves him (which is
sort of understandable) and 2. That she will be a good wife. As Edgar is a very
old school prude and puritan, this means that Camilla should not see the wrong
people or do any wrong and certainly not be improper in any way at all. Since
being exposed to world means that Camilla will get in contact with all those
things, especially as she is untutored and have grown up in ignorance, Edgar, always
lurking in the background sees plenty of things that convinces him that Camilla
is not up to his standards.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Eugenia is
subjected to blow after blow. At first it was Sir Tyrold’s plan to marry her to
his nephew Clermont (incestuously?!) who were on the Continent studying. For
this purpose, Eugenia received scholarly training for which she has a great
talent. Clermont, when he returns, turns out to be a jackass and a moron and
certainly not interested in Eugenia. Then Eugenia meets the equally scholarly
Melmond, but he sees only Indiana’s beauty and finally she is the prey of
mercenary and brutal fraud Alphonso Bellamy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Camilla”
is a long book, over 900 pages, but we get the outline of these plots rather
early and the bulk part of the volume is mainly Camilla and Eugenia sinking
deeper and deeper into trouble. Their trouble of the heart is supplemented and,
in my opinion, overtaken by pecuniary trouble. None of the younger generation
in the Tyrold household has any sense of economy, especially the brother Lionel
and Clermont, who between them manage to throw away thousands of pounds, threatening
to ruin both Tyrold households. When Camilla through little fault of her own is
preyed on to lose a much smaller amount, she sees herself as the ruin of the
family.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Burney is
very good with characters. Every character is distinct with their own idiosyncrasies.
Sometimes bordering caricature, but they are all alive and real people. Burney
also has a very good sense of the environment into which the characters move.
You get a feeling she was not only an observer but actually was there in these
settings, in the Rooms in Tunbridge or the bathhouses in Southampton. This is
not an imagined world as much as a real world with imagined characters. She is
also good at setting up the drama. The trouble Camilla and Eugenia get into is
very real trouble, especially the pecuniary trouble and the hole they find
themselves in is very deep indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Unfortunately,
as mentioned above, there are a number of problems here. One has to do with
plot resolution. With about 50 pages to go I got the feeling Burney herself got
confused how to resolve this. There are some very real problems here, both for
Camilla and for Eugenia, but instead of working towards a resolution we spend
the majority of the end-section with Camilla fretting, crying and gushing without
anything really coming out of it, while around her, things sort themselves out
on their own. Just like that. Even Eugenia, the most capable of the girls, just
resigns and have outside agents, through accidents, sort things out. Why did
nobody call out Mrs. Mittens?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Another
problem has to do with the characters and their sentiments. Camilla always
means well, but is either mislead by principles and good heart or is simply too
unprepared for the outside world and consistently makes the wrong choices. And
Edgar… if ever I saw a “hero” who did not deserve to be one. Very early I
decided very much against him. To paint him and his sentiments in a positive
light was so at odds with my own opinion. I was wondering why on Earth Camilla
was pining for him at all. Somebody needed to kick him badly, and when he comes
around in the end, it is not with an excuse for his opinions or actions, but
because he is now convinced she is good enough. Phew. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My two favorite
characters were by far Mrs. Arlbery and Sir Sedley Clarendel. Both represent
modern ideals, free people who are capable of doing what they want, not caring of
the opinion of prudes, but smart enough to make the right choices. And both of
them with a heart. I get the feeling Burney actually admired this type, but was
afraid to make them the ideal of the story. Their sentiments were completely at
odds with those of the Tyrolds’ and particularly Edgar, representing as they
were the modern world. Mrs. Arlbery also called out Edgar early on and warned
Camilla what kind of marriage she was aiming for with him. When Sir Sedley
takes an interest in her she gets the chance of setting herself free, but decides
not to. That is her choice of course, but it also marks this as a poorly aged novel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I did enjoy
reading “Camilla”, Frances Burney is too good a writer not to, but it was at
times an infuriating read and not up there with “Evelina”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-86454148203793293622022-05-12T23:06:00.004-07:002022-05-12T23:06:38.274-07:00The Monk - Matthew G. Lewis (1796)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5L48HRt56lriFOF7pcuhDjpsB_rfxL7zP88-76tYReovu_VGZcxRKhj3cPr7mTzHFACZWwMeUEDbc_Zkt8WA90Ab8FRisbp0pKNKS_UZl_a3S24lEA9C0og5VaL40H0vCuBfjwu1bBuNUHSmHS6GHTu4NBen8EQTNkxJn-yeyAgQmp39JXYcWkNNYeA/s499/The%20monk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="329" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5L48HRt56lriFOF7pcuhDjpsB_rfxL7zP88-76tYReovu_VGZcxRKhj3cPr7mTzHFACZWwMeUEDbc_Zkt8WA90Ab8FRisbp0pKNKS_UZl_a3S24lEA9C0og5VaL40H0vCuBfjwu1bBuNUHSmHS6GHTu4NBen8EQTNkxJn-yeyAgQmp39JXYcWkNNYeA/w264-h400/The%20monk.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>The Monk</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There seemed
to have been a wave of dark or gothic literature around the end of the eighteenth
century and likely into the beginning of the nineteenth century, ranging from
the romantic to the macabre and outright disgusting stuff. Whether this was
inspired by the horrors of the French revolution or some other underlying and
earlier reason I do not know, but the book List editors certainly have an
affinity for these stories.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Matthew
Lewis’ “The Monk” is, as I understand it, a highly influential work that tapped
into this stream. From the basic idea that power and righteousness corrupt, he wrote
the twin stories of two girls who falls into the clutches of corrupt monastic
rulers. Or, as considered from the other side of the table, of the fall from grace
of people who were supposed to be above these things, corrupted by power and
temptation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">One story
is about Raymond, Agnes and the prioress of the convent of St. Clare. We meet
them while she is a nun and he is attempting some covert communication with
her. In flashback we get the story how he was travelling in Germany incognito
(he is the son of a Marquis in Spain) where he meets and fall in love with
Agnes, a guest at the castle Lindenburg. Unfortunately, the baroness of the
castle, Agnes’ aunt, is deeply jealous, thinking she should get his attentions.
Raymond is kicked out and Agnes comes up with a scheme to pretend to be a
renowned ghost to escape with Raymond. The real ghost gets in the way, Raymond
disappears and Agnes, believing him dead, joins a convent. Back in Madrid, when
they are reunited, they start a clandestine affair, Agnes gets pregnant and the
prioress, massively incensed by this violation of rules, confines her to die in
the dungeons of the convent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The second
story concerns Antonia, Lorenzo and the abbot of the Capuchin monastery,
Ambrosio. In this story Lorenzo, a nobleman, is infatuated by the pretty but
demure Antonia. Antonia’s father was of nobility (and related to Raymond) but
disowned by his family and Antonia’s mother is convinced that so uneven a match
will not end well. At the monastery Ambrosia is a super righteous monk who is
slowly being led into temptation. A young novice he cares a lot about, Rosario,
turns out to be a woman, Matilda, and she becomes the instrument to gradually
corrupt the Monk. They start an illicit affair, but eventually he tires from it
and instead turns his attention on the pretty Antonia. Matilda seems more
interested in turning the monk onto the dark path than having an actual
relationship and it becomes increasingly clear she has access to dark powers.
With these Ambrosia manages to get Antonia into his clutches, hiding her away
in the dungeon. Will Lorenzo get to her and his sister Agnes in time?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Lewis was
very young when he wrote “The Monk” and I could tell how it is driven by his
urge to tell a story. It is quickly paced and covers a lot of ground in relatively
few pages, but it is also rambling in the sense that Lewis cannot decide
exactly what story he wants to focus on and from what perspective and this
gives it an almost anthology quality. There is a very important part about Ambrosia’s
decent from holier than thou to be entirely in the thrall of sexual desires,
ready to sacrifice every principle to satiate it. Antonia’s story is of course
linked to it because she is his victim, but Lorenzo, the hero of the story, is
largely relegated to an impotent observer and much less interesting to Lewis.
The story of Agnes, Raymond and the prioress is, although the characters and linked
to the first story, almost tangential to it with very little connection. It is
a detour, an interesting one, but also so massive and different that it removes
the focus from Ambrosia. I think Lewis let himself get carried away and he
struggled to tie the stories together.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thematically
this is an attack on the hypocrisy of the righteous. That the vanity of religion
corrupts and that we are not to trust those. It does feel a bit thin, though,
and the real driver seems to me to be a desire to write a luscious and macabre
story with ghosts, sorcery, pretty girls and evil people of power.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Reading up
on the story before going in, I had the impression it would be way darker,
maybe down the road of de Sade, but in that sense, I was happily disappointed.
Sure, there is both rape and murder, but much less of it than I was led to expect,
and it is not dwelling on it with sadistic glee.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The final
verdict is that it is an easier and more entertaining book to read than expected
but also a story strangely out of focus and unpolished. It was a bit hit in its
time, but I frankly cannot see why people got so worked up on it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245035536655194991.post-56181000702193480842022-04-13T11:04:00.002-07:002022-04-13T11:04:20.643-07:00Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1795)<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEsZzHOfCd-06PklB2ts1EvT_5vKon6OL_MlwxZwEu_Y2JCAlIMtjS88ouksX8dNLZIbCLlFaS5eBq9xtOmn7k28cYTwqhBAsZrWWLwKLZbynPMg_urhM4n7pBKa5uZgyAfq6FaHxGAlpuvpRRYj-nnibjYq2btqBL2GjLoL7qKVwM8CuWKqEHE3cCA/s474/Wilhelm%20meister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="313" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiEsZzHOfCd-06PklB2ts1EvT_5vKon6OL_MlwxZwEu_Y2JCAlIMtjS88ouksX8dNLZIbCLlFaS5eBq9xtOmn7k28cYTwqhBAsZrWWLwKLZbynPMg_urhM4n7pBKa5uZgyAfq6FaHxGAlpuvpRRYj-nnibjYq2btqBL2GjLoL7qKVwM8CuWKqEHE3cCA/w264-h400/Wilhelm%20meister.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship</b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Can you be
impressed and confused about a book at the same time? I hope so, because this
is exactly how I feel having just read Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister’s
Apprenticeship”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In this we
follow a young man called Wilhelm Meister of middle-class origin. Wilhelm
Meister is in love with theater. Watching it, the production, the plays, the
characters and not least the actors and especially the actresses. He is
chaffing at the expectations that he will pursue a career in the family
business and easy to distract with anything theater.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On a
business trip he gets seriously sidetracked and involved with actors and
actresses and as they see him as a source of funding, he is soon involved in a
theater project. Wilhelm’s ideal about theater and the reality of the business
are quite different sizes and while he is not exactly being abused, he is being
led on and for awhile I saw some comparison to “Der Blaue Engel”. But Wilhelm
Mester is a lot more reflective than Professor Rath, taking a lot of
responsibility on his shoulders and genuinely care for his, mostly ungrateful,
colleagues.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yet,
Wilhelm is powerless to actually take charge of his life. Whenever he tries, it
becomes false starts and instead he just drifts along from a conviction that
fate is taking him to the right place. The result is that other agents are
constantly pushing him around and he is lord of nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is a
break in the story and when it returns, the tone is different. It turns out
that practically everybody in Wilhelm’s surroundings is connected, that he is
being manipulated in a way to discover for himself his true self by something
called the Tower Society. Exactly why they take this interest in him and what
their target is, is entirely unclear to me. The result, however, leaves Wilhelm
as powerless as ever to control his own life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe wrote the first part in the 1770’ies, then only resumed the
manuscript 20 years later and that shows. Where the first five chapters feel
like a burlesque on the emerging theater scene in Germany with Wilhelm as the
blundering fool but also as our keen observer, the last part is entirely
different. Suddenly all the strings are being tied up. Apparently insignificant
characters get a purpose and there is a mysticism and presentation of ideas
entirely absent in the earlier part. Clearly Goethe has something on his mind
and got some ideas about education, religion and purpose in life. But who makes
that purpose? Are we born with it? Guided to it by “helpful” people or are we
free to set a course on our own? Is Wilhelm Meister better off drifting along,
making decisions on the spur of the moment? Or does he get to a better place if
he is guided? And who reserve the right to guide us?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I sense a
far more reflective Goethe in this latter section, one who is influenced by the
enlightenment and the revolutionary thoughts in France. This is an age where
fixed patterns are breaking up and people are allowed to reconsider their place
in the world, especially the bourgeois. But what is to replace that earlier
structure?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Meanwhile,
Goethe himself had a love affair with the theater and was deeply involved with
the theater at Weimar (where he wrote his most famous work “Faust”), so I
definitely sense an autobiographical streak here as well. Is Goethe ironizing
over his own life?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ultimately,
I am not certain what exactly Goethe is aiming toward with this novel, and I
wonder if he was himself certain. Maybe he was just bouncing ideas and Wilhelm
Meister was the unwilling victim of those ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Absolutely
recommended. Among the best books on the list so far.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>TSorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12208153011927807857noreply@blogger.com0