Masterpieces

La plage

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:20:00 +0000

Author	Alain Robbe-Grillet
Title	La plage
Year	1962

Alain Robbe Grillet (1922-2008) was a French author, one of the leading figures in the nouveau roman literary movement, and since 2004 member of the Académie française. His best-known novels are Le Voyeur and La Jalousie. Robbe-Grillet also wrote short stories and screenplays, including L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Last year at Marienbad). He passed away today at the age of 85.

La plage (The beach) is a story from the collection Instantanés, published in 1962. I'm not aware of any translation of this collection, but an English translation of La plage is available in Penguin Parallel Text: French Short Stories 1

The story is a prime example of the nouveau roman style. Like his best novels, it's full of repetition, and each repetition reveals more details. It's a simple story, about three children walking along the beach (and that's about all there is to the plot). The three children are introduced as about the same height and age, one of them slightly smaller. In the first repetition, we find out they are blond, sunburnt, and also dressed alike: Shorts and shirts. A few pages later, we learn a few new details in the next repetition:

Leurs trois visages halés, plus foncés que les cheveux, se ressemblent. L'expression en est la même: sérieuse, réfléchie, préoccupée peut-être. Leurs traits aussi sont identiques, bien que, visiblement, deux de ces enfants sont des garçons et le troisième une fille. [...] Mais le costume est tout à fait la même: culotte courte et chemisette, l'une et l'autre en grosse toile d'un bleu délavé.

Have you read La plage? Please leave a comment and rate it.

Crime and punishment

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:55:00 +0000

Author	Fyodor Dostoevsky
Title	Crime and punishment
Year	1866
Original title	Преступление и наказание
Translation	Crime and punishment, English translation by Constance Garnett

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1861) was a Russian novelist. His novels depict life in 19th century urban Russia. His characters are often poor, working class people (unlike Tolstoy's characters, who are usually aristocrats). Dostoevsky is especially strong in character analysis.

In Crime and punishment, Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the slums of St. Petersburg, kills an unscrupulous pawnbroker, apparently to solve his financial problems. The novel deals with the aftermath of this murder, the emotional and mental effects of the crime and its investigation on Raskolnikov.

We get to know Raskolnikov as morose, self-centered, intellectual, proud and haughty, but occasionally also as spontaneous, generous and self-sacrificing. A split personality with more than a hint of madness. As the novel is largely told from his point of view, we cannot help but identify with Raskolnikov, despite his morosity, and despite his murder.

Raskolnikov believes that the law is for ordinary people, but some extraordinary people are above the law, and above the mores and conventions of society. These people are justified to break the law - even to kill - to reach their goals. Raskolnikov likes to compare himself to Napoleon, who had no scruples about the millions of deaths for which he was responsible, and who is not considered to be a criminal. Napoleon would certainly have killed the pawnbroker if it had advanced his own goals.

The murder is justified because Raskolnikov believed himself to be one of the extraordinary people, but also because by the murder he rid the world of an evil.

After the murder Raskolnikov is torn between remorse and guilt, and the believe that the murder is justified. One moment he is paranoid, believes everyone suspects him of the murder, and is ready to give himself up, the next moment he is rational, calculating, convinced he will never be caught because of his superiority. At times, he is acting strange and his friends and family think he is losing his sanity. Because of his feelings of guilt he also begins to doubt whether he is indeed extraordinary, but he never gives up this believe.

Two people cross his path that have a profound influence on Raskolnikov (and on the novel). The first is Sonia, a pious, generous and self-sacrificing young woman who works as a prostitute to support her (step-)family. The other person is Svidrigaïlov, a scoundrel who lives for sensual pleasure, and who sacrifices others for his own pleasures - he had no scruples about raping a 15-year-old girl, and did not care that this girl killed herself afterwards. In a way the cold, calculating, criminal personality of Svidrigaïlov, and the generous, self-sacrificing personality of Sonia represent the two opposing sides of Raskolnikov's split personality.

Raskolnikov is drawn towards Sonia. She is the first one to whom Raskolnikov confesses his crime. Sonia urges him to give himself up, to save his soul and his mental well-being, what he eventually does. When he is convicted to 8 years in a Siberian prison camp, Sonia follows him to Siberia and settles in a neighbouring village.

Raskolnikov's relationship with Svidrigaïlov is complex and enigmatic. He despises Svidrigaïlov, mainly because Svidrigaïlov has in the past tried to elope with Raskolnikov's sister Dounia, against her will and despite his existing marriage. He considers Svidrigaïlov a scoundrel because of his past crimes. On the other hand he is also drawn towards Svidrigaïlov - he looks for him, visits him, talks with him, and he does not know why he does it. Maybe to convince himself that the murder of the old pawnbroker is not on a par with Svidrigaïlov's selfish crimes?

A disappointing epilogue describes how Raskolnikov, after some time in a Siberian prison, finally realizes he loves Sonia, repents of his crime, and accepts he is not extraordinary and not above the law: An unconvincing happy ending stuck unto an already finished story.

Have you read Crime and punishment? Please leave a comment and rate it.

For whom the bell tolls

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:29:00 +0000

Author	Ernest Hemingway
Title	For whom the bell tolls
Year	1940

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American journalist, short story author and novelist. In the 1920s he became part of the American expatriate literary community in Paris (sometimes known as The lost generation). In the 1930s, he became war correspondent in Europe, first during the civil war in Spain (he actively supported the Republicans), and later the second world war.

Hemingway was one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Pulitzer prize in 1953 (for The old man and the sea) and the Nobel prize in 1954.

I read For whom the bell tolls in high school, a long time ago. I think I liked it then, and I still remembered the storyline and the plot, but nothing else. Much later, I read The old man and the see, and (recently) A clean, well-lighted place - both masterpieces. So I started For whom the bell tolls with high expectations.

I was, however, somewhat disappointed by this novel.

It's the story of Robert Jordan, an American fighting in the Spanish civil war, on the republican side, who crossed the enemy lines to blow up a bridge behind the lines, with the help of a local guerrilla band. The operation seems to be doomed from the start, but has to be carried out anyway. The story is told mostly through the thoughts of Robert Jordan, occasionally as a stream of consciousness. Small parts of the book are told through the thoughts of others, which I find rather detracts from the novel. Conversation is often literally translated from the Spanish, with a heavy use of thou, articles before names (the Maria) and expressions like that you should speak - this may be natural conversation in Spanish, but in English it sounds archaic and contrived. I don't understand what Hemingway tried to achieve here.

The conversation in the novel is peppered with swearwords, but these words were consistently replaced with unprintable or obscenity, another narrative device I found annoying. Either print the swearwords or leave them out, but this way the conversation is hard to read and irritating.

An interesting story, a decent plot, and an insider's insight in the war (the story is loosely based on Hemingway's own experiences) make for a good read, but For whom the bell tolls is not the masterpiece I hoped it would be.

For whom the bell tolls was read as part of the Classics challenge.

Have you read For whom the bell tolls? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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As I lay dying

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:28:00 +0000

Author	William Faulkner
Title	As I lay dying
Year	1930

William Faulkner (1897-1962) was an American novelist and poet. He is probably the second-most influential Southern author (after Twain). His experimental use of literary devices - in particular stream of consciousness - makes his work often difficult to understand. He won the 1949 Nobel prize for literature.

As I lay dying is the story of the death and final journey of Addie Bundren. After her death her husband and children decide to honour her last wish and bring her to Jefferson, the town where she came from, to bury her there, a journey through Mississippi. As the story unfolds, we discover that several family members have selfish motives for a trip to Jefferson: Addie's husband Anse, for instance, is toothless and wants to go to town to buy false teeth, while their teenage daughter wants to have an abortion before anyone finds out she's pregnant.

Little by little, we get to know the Bundren family and their history, their lack of love and respect for each other, their quarrels and fears, by small revelations of one family member about another family member. The journey is disastrous for all involved, except for the lazy and selfish Anse, who is the only one to realize his goals (and more than his goals!), but at the expense of the others.

The story is narrated by several different people - family members, neighbours, passers-by, even the deceased herself. The numerous changes in narrator (sometimes mid-sentence), the stream of consciousness style of the narration, and the unreliability of the narrators (there is more than a hint of madness in several of them) makes the story sometimes hard to follow. As I lay dying is more challenging than Huckleberry Finn or To kill a mockingbird, and probably needs a second reading to fully appreciate it, but the extra effort needed to read this book is certainly rewarded.

The reading of As I lay dying completes the Southern reading challenge 2007.

Have you read As I lay dying? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Southern reading challenge

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 03:43:00 +0000

August was for me the month of the Southern reading challenge: With a bottle of Southern Comfort, a large box of Southern pecans and three books I enjoyed a month of Southern literature.

The masterpieces I read:

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. This novel has been on my to-be-read list ever since high school (and I can assure you that is quite a while ago).
To kill a mockingbird, by Harper Lee. By far the most enjoyable read of the three, a true masterpiece.
As I lay dying, by William Faulkner. Less accessible than the other two, it probably needs a second reading to fully appreciate it.

It has been an enjoyable challenge, reading some great literature that provided me with a glimpse of southern life in times go by. Thank you Maggie for hosting this challenge and for supplying the pecans!

To kill a mockingbird

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:24:00 +0000

Author	Harper Lee
Title	To kill a mockingbird
Year	1960

Harper Lee (b. 1926) is the first living artist to make an appearance on Masterpieces. She wrote just one novel, To kill a mockingbird. The novel was an instant bestseller and won her the 1961 Pulitzer prize. It was voted "Best novel of the century" by readers of the library journal.

The story is set in Maycomb, a small (fictional) town in Alabama, in the 1930s - some 80 or 90 years after Huckleberry Finn. The black slaves from Huck's time are now black servants, they are often (but not always) referred to as negroes instead of niggers, and the racism is unchanged.

The story is narrated by Scout Finch, the daughter of a local attorney, Atticus Finch. She is looking back to her childhood years - the narration begins when Scout is almost six, and ends three years later. She describes the town, and the bigotry of its white inhabitants, through the eyes of a child, who often does not really understand what is happening.

A large part of the narrative concerns the trial (and aftermath of the trial) of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl. Tom is defended by Atticus Finch, and Scout and her brother Jem are bullied by the children of the town because their father defends a black man against a white accuser. Atticus clearly shows at the court hearing that Tom is innocent, but the (all-white) jury nevertheless declares him guilty. "In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins." (ch. 23)

The town Maycomb was a small, old, run-down town in Alabama:

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.

The pace in Maycomb is slow, the town and the people are old-fashioned, the people gossip. There are at least three classes (middle class, poor and black). The Finches belong to the middle class. Middle class people help each other in need (e.g. when a fire destroys Miss Maudie's house the whole neighbourhood helps to save her posessions), but are bigoted with respect to the other classes (with a few exceptions, like Atticus Finch or Miss Maudie).

The Ewell family is as low as you can get in Maycomb if you're white:

Maycomb's Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. The cabin's plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design: square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feastred on Maycomb's refuse.

Noone in Maycomb wants to have anything to do with the Ewells, but when Bob Ewell accuses Tom Robinson of raping his daughter, Tom is arrested and found guilty without any proof - when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins, even if the white man is Bob Ewell.

To kill a mockingbird was read as part of the Southern reading challenge 2007.

Have you read To kill a mockingbird? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:51:00 +0000

Author	Mark Twain
Title	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Year	1884

Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910). With his novels The adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain became one of the best-known American authors.

Huckleberry Finn starts with a rather severe warning:

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By order of the author

I usually don't look for motive or moral in a novel - I leave that to professional critics - but I will have to take care to avoid looking for a plot.

There is no lack of praise for Mark Twain or Huckleberry Finn: William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature", Huckleberry Finn is often referred to as "the great American novel", and apparently Ernest Hemingway said that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It's the best book we've had."

WARNING: The rest of this article contains spoilers.

The book is a novel about Huckleberry Finn, a boy who ran away from an abusive father, and Jim, a runaway slave. They find each other on Jackson Island, and island in the Mississippi, and together they float down the Mississippi on a raft, at first towards Cairo (Illinois) from where they can take a steamship north into the free states, but when they find out they must have missed Cairo they continue their journey without a clear goal.

During their journey Huck and Jim become close friends. Huck has to choose between his friendship for Jim and his conscience - he equals helping a slave to escape with stealing property from the slave owner which would condemn Huck to hell. When Jim talks about buying his wife and buying or stealing his children in the future Huck is close to betraying Jim:

Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, "Let up on me—it ain't too late yet—I'll paddle ashore at the first light and tell."

Huck's feelings of friendship win every time, however, and eventually Huck chooses permanently for Jim: "All right, then, I'll GO to hell".

Just when I start to be convinced that Huckleberry Finn is a true masterpiece and the great American novel, the journey on the raft ends, Huck meets the Phelps family - relatives of Tom Sawyer - and Tom Sawyer himself, and a disappointing last quarter of the novel follow. Apparently I'm not the only one to be disappointed by the last part of the book - Hemingway stated:

If you read it, you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating.

The novel, with its constant undertones of racism and slavery, is a clear commentary on 19th century southern mores and society. Even the religion condones slavery (if you help a slave escape you will end up in hell). Twain's southern society is religious, racist and lawless (e.g. the Grangerford-Shepherdson blood feud, the tar-and-feathering of the duke and the dauphin, or the killing by and attempted lynching of Colonel Sherburn), a society where any white criminal is far superior to a "nigger".

Part of the southern reading challenge is to describe a sense of place in the southern novels we read. The place in this book is the Mississippi river - a place where Huck and Jim are essentially themselves, a place of freedom. When they go ashore they have to hide or pretend to be someone else, while floating down the river they are free (though their freedom is lessened somewhat when they are joined by the dauphin and the duke, two con artists). The river is a retreat from the dangers of the south, the place they flee to when they have trouble on the land. But the river also takes them deeper into the south, towards more danger and eventually the capturing of Jim.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was read as part of the Southern reading challenge 2007.

Have you read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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A midsummer night's dream

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:33:00 +0000

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
E.A. Poe

Author	William Shakespeare
Title	A midsummer night's dream
Year	c.1596

With the reading of Shakespeare's Midsummer night's dream, I completed the 2007 Once upon a time challenge.

You don't read (or watch) Shakespeare for the plots, and you certainly do not read A midsummer night's dream for the plot. If you do you will be as disappointed as Samuel Pepys:

To the King's Theatre, where we saw "Midsummer's Night's Dream", which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, and which was all my pleasure. (Diary, 29 September 1662)

The situation: Boy lovers girl, girl loves boy, second boy loves same girl, second girl loves second boy. Boy and girl elope, second boy chases girl, second girl chases second boy. They all get together in the forest where Oberon (the king of the fairies) and Puck (his assistant) start meddling with their affairs.

In the meantime, a group of labourers seek the quiet of the forest to rehearse a play they want to perform. One of them, Bottom, is used by Puck to help settle some affair between Oberon and his wife Titiana. Puck magically transforms Bottom's head into an asses head (bottom - ass: can you imagine all the clever wordplay in the following sections?).

Because of accidental misapplication of Oberon's weed (that has the same effect as Cupid's arrows) by Puck , both boys suddenly vehemently woo second girl, who obviously didn't expect this and thinks she is being mocked:

O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment:
If you were civil and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too?

Lots of confusion ensues, causing Puck to utter the most memorable line of the play: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!". (Puck does enjoy all the confusion and bickering that is going on: "And those things do best please me, That befall preposterously.")

Eventually everything is settled, second boy (still under the influence of Oberon's weed) loves second girl, boy marries girl, second boy marries second girl. Everyone is satisfied but confused, and they decide that the events in the forest must have been a dream. And maybe it was but a dream? Puck not only confirms this in the epilogue, but claims the entire play was a dream, dreamt by us:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear. 
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.

A midsummer night's dream was read as part of the 2007 Once upon a time challenge.

Have you read A midsummer night's dream? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Acknowledgements:
I discovered the Pepys quote on Enjoying "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Ed Friedlander M.D.
The image is a scan of a programme of a 1961 stage production in Dutch (which I did not see because I did not exist at the time).

A clod of clay

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 05:26:00 +0000

Author	William Blake
Title	The clod and the pebble
Year	1794

The year 1789 is engraved on the second plate of The book of Thel (discussed yesterday). This is the same year the Songs of innocence were published. The motto and the conclusion of The book of Thel seem to be from a later date. Apparently Blake changed the ending (and added a motto) while he was working on the Songs of experience (published in 1794).

The unselfish, self-sacrificing love of the clod of clay, who offers herself up to be "the food of worms", is a key element of Thel. We find the same clod of clay, with the same unselfish love, in the Songs of experience. And, just as in Thel, the clod of clay does not have the last word:

The clod and the pebble

Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair. So sung a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet. But a Pebble of the brook, Warbled out these metres meet: Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.

Many poems in the Songs of experience are a reply to or sequel of poems in the earlier Songs of innocence. The clod and the pebble contains both elements (innocence and experience) in one poem. Innocence is represented by the clod of clay, who describes unselfish, Christian love. The consequence of this noble love, however, is to be trodden by cattle's feet.

The pebble's love, on the other hand, is selfish and abusive. Yet the pebble, who represents experience, has the last word in this poem, and he is probably not trodden by anyone. Conclusion?

In Thel, we do learn that there is more to the clod's world than meets the eye (and possibly Blake wrote the conclusion of Thel while working on The clod and the pebble). Her world is "a land of sorrows and of tears where never smile was seen". To be trodden by cattle's feet is the least of her miseries. And yet she nurses and nourishes the little worm, and tries to build "a Heaven in Hells despair".

Do you like The clod and the pebble? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Thel

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 06:53:00 +0000

Author	William Blake
Title	The book of Thel
Year	1789

Thel's motto:
Does the eagle know what is in the pit,
or wilt thou go ask the mole?
Can wisdom be put in a silver rod,
or love in a golden bowl?

William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, engraver, and painter. He illustrated, engraved, printed and hand-coloured his own poems. Blake is best known for his earlier shorter poems, especially the collections Songs of innocence and Songs of experience. Later, he created longer narrative poems, often visionary, prophetic, mystical works in which he devised his own mythology. He had little success during his lifetime, but both his poetry and his painting are now considered seminal in British art.

The story of Thel

Thel is the youngest daughter of Mne Seraphim. She and her sisters live in the vales of Har, by the river Adona. While her sisters "led round their sunny flocks", Thel sits at the river lamenting the transience of her life - she's "born but to smile and fall".

A lilly overhears her monologue and answers her. The lilly is more fragile and transient than Thel, but "clothed in light, and fed with morning manna", and when she withers in the summer heat she will "flourish in eternal vales".

This does not comfort Thel. The lilly is food for lambs, her fragrance purifies the air, her pollen are used to make honey. But Thel is like the "faint cloud kindled at the rising sun", she will just fade away and disappear. The lilly then calls down a little cloud to tell Thel why it fades and disappears.

Thel asks the cloud why he does not lament his mortality: "Why thou complainest not when in one hour thou fade away"? The cloud explains that just because he vanishes does not mean nothing remains. By passing away, he gives life to flowers. Thel complains that she, unlike the cloud, has no use, and wonders if she only lives "to be at death the food of worms". The cloud claims that if you are to be the food of worms you do have a purpose, and calls a worm to meet Thel:

Then if thou art the food of worms, o virgin of the skies,  
how great thy use, how great thy blessing! Every thing that lives,  
lives not alone, not for itself. Fear not and I will call  
the weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.  
Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen!

The worm cannot speak, only weep, and Thel pities it. A clod of clay feeds and comforts the worm, and then explains to Thel that God even loves a clod of clay, and pours oil on her head, so that she can nourish and nurse the worm. Thel weeps and realizes she has nothing to complain about.

The eternal gates

The last section is different in tone than the rest of the poem, and may well have been added several years later. The clod of clay invites Thel to enter her house. She enters through the eternal gates and "saw the secrets of the land unknown, [..]a land of sorrows and of tears where never smile was seen". She wanders around, visits "the couches of the dead", listens to "dolours and lamentations", and finally sits down at her own grave plot. There, she hears a "voice of sorrow" (probably her own) saying:

Why cannot the ear be closed to its own destruction,
or the glistening eye to the poison of a smile?

The voice continues, and when it comes to these lines:

Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy,
why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?

Thel flees back shrieking to the vales of Har.

Blake's mythology

Blake's mythology is not a complete, consistent, well-rounded body of work (like e.g. Tolkien's mythology), but fragmentary, as if mere fragments of an ancient mythology have survived. The book of Thel does not introduce Mne Seraphim, Adona, Luvah¹⁾, or Har to us, but assumes we know them, as if Thel is part of a larger body of work, now sadly lost.

The book of Thel, probably printed between 1789 and 1792, is the second of Blake's longer, mythological poems. The first, Tiriel was written around 1787, never engraved, and not published during Blake's life. Tiriel was the son of Har and Heva. Whether the vales of Har (Thel's home) are named after Tiriel's father is an intriguing question that I cannot currently answer. (I have not read Tiriel yet. The vales of Har are mentioned in both poems.)

Maybe we should not ponder to long over Har, Luvah or Mne Seraphim, but just enjoy the story of this young girl, searching for her destiny, but fleeing from it when she finds it.

The book of Thel was read as part of the 2007 Once upon a time challenge.

Have you read The book of Thel? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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¹⁾Luvah, merely mentioned in Thel (the cloud claims that his "steeds drink of the golden springs where Luvah doth renew his horses"), returns decades later to play an important role in Blake's later work.

War and peace

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Mon, 28 May 2007 13:13:00 +0000

Author	Leo Tolstoy
Title	War and peace
Year	1865-1869
Original title	Война и мир (Voyna i mir)
Translation	Oorlog en vrede, Dutch translation by René de Vries

Yasnaya Polyana

Leo Tolstoy (or Tolstoi) is considered one of the greatest novelists of all times, mainly because of his two masterpieces, War and peace and Anna Karenina. He was born in 1828 at the Yasnaya Polyana mansion in Central Russia, in an aristocratic family. He inherited the estate in 1847 and spent most of his life there. The mansion is now a museum dedicated to Tolstoy.

Tolstoy spent most of the 1860s and 1870s on his two long epic novels - War and peace was published (in installments) between 1863 and 1869, Anna Karenina between 1873 and 1877. After 1880, Tolstoy's stance on moral issues led to a spiritual crisis, and his later works bear the marks of it. He was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. He died in 1902 at a railway station, from pneumonia, after having fled his home.

War and Peace

War and peace tells the story of three aristocratic Russian families (Rostov, Bezukhov, and Bolkonski) during the French-Russian wars between 1805 and 1813. The story opens at a soirée where several of the main protagonists are introduced to us, and where Napoleon and the approaching war are the talk of the day.

Tolstoi then goes on to describe the European battles where the Russian army is involved (in particular, the heavy defeat of the combined Russian-Austrian army at Austerlitz), the peace treaty of Tilsit (where Russia became an ally of France), and Napoleon's invasion of Russia. In the mean time, life in Moscow and St. Petersburg continued as if nothing happened, at least for the aristocracy.

The battle of Borodino is a turning point: On a single day of combat, an estimated 45,000 Russians were killed (plus at least 28,000 French, the highest number of casualties on a single day in modern history), forcing the Russian army to give up Moscow. Tolstoy's impressive (albeit biased) description of the battle has become famous. The battle of Borodino, and the evacuation, capturing and burning of Moscow had a profound influence on Russian (and European) history, and on the lifes of the protagonists of War and Peace.

Masterpiece

War and peace is Tolstoy's masterpiece, and one of the greatest works of literature. It is not an easy read. Though most people are deterred by the number of pages, it is actually the number of characters that makes War and peace hard to read.

Tolstoy introduces 580 characters (according to Wikipedia - I didn't count them :-), both historic and fictional, and recounts the historic story of the Russian wars against Napoleon, intermingled with fictional events and essays on war, free will, history.

These essays can be annoying, and distract from the story, but Tolstoy probably considered them the most important part of the book. He tried to prove a point with War and peace, and did not consider War and peace to be a novel. His point seems to be that every situation follows necessarily from the previous, and people, even those in power, have very little, if any, influence on the way events unfold. He challenges the view of historians of the time, who think that history is mostly made by great men (like Napoleon, in this case).

I don't think I'll read War and peace again any time soon. The novel is certainly worth a re-read, but the first reading took over six weeks. Still, I hope to read it again someday, and maybe report on it again.

War and peace was read as part of the chunkster challenge.

Have you read War and peace? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Jorinde und Joringel

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sun, 27 May 2007 06:27:00 +0000

Author	Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Title	Jorinde und Joringel

The Grimm brothers

Jakob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) were two German professors working mostly in linguistics. They are best known, however, for their collection of folk tales and fairy tales. They collected German and French tales that were probably handed down orally for many generations, and published them.

Once upon a time

Es war einmal ein altes Schloß mitten in einem großen, dicken Wald, darinnen wohnte eine alte Frau ganz allein, das war eine Erzzauberin.

Once upon a time there was an old castle in the middle of a large, dense forest, and in it lived an old woman alone, she was an arch-sorceress. When Carl announced the Once upon a time challenge, he wrote:

Once Upon a Time…all the great ones begin that way, don’t they?

Jorinde und Joringel indeed begins that way. The story has all the elements of a classic fairy tale (except the wicked stepmother that Grimm's fairy tales are famous for). There is an enchanted castle, a witch that collects chaste maidens that she turns into birds (she has collected 7000 maidens-turned-into-birds, so the large, dense forest must have been densely populated), a spell that can be broken. Jorinde, the most beautiful of all chaste maidens, is caught, and Joringel, her boy-friend, sets out to find a way to break the spell. He succeeds, of course, and releases Jorinde and the 7000 chaste maidens. And Jorinde and Joringel lived happily ever after.

Jorinde und Joringel was read as part of the 2007 Once upon a time challenge.

Have you read Jorinde und Joringel? Please leave a comment and rate it.

Listen to Jorinde und Joringel at Märchenwald (in German).

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Southern Reading Challenge

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sat, 26 May 2007 09:58:00 +0000

The challenge: Read three Southern books. The books must contain a Southern setting by a Southern author. The challenge is hosted by Maggie of Maggie reads. Maggie defined the Southern region with a helpful map (just for me, she told me). Apparently, "south" refers to the south-east (no, not the south) of the U.S. Why Virginia is "South", and Tenessee even "Deep south", while southern states like New Mexico and Arizona are not southern at all, will always be beyond me.

The three Southern masterpieces I selected:

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. The most influential Southern novel, maybe even the most influential American novel, ever. Apparently Hemingway claimed that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn".
As I lay dying, by the 1949 Nobel prize winner William Faulkner.
To kill a mockingbird, a Southern Gothic bildungsroman novel (according to Wikipedia) by Harper Lee. I don't know what a "Southern Gothic bildungsroman novel" is, but I guess I'll find out when I read To kill a mockingbird.

A clean, well-lighted place

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sat, 19 May 2007 08:22:00 +0000

Author	Ernest Hemingway
Title	A clean, well-lighted place
Year	1926

Hemingway was one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Pulitzer prize in 1953 (for The old man and the sea) and the Nobel prize in 1954.

Many people consider Hemingway's short stories superior to his novels, and one of his best known stories is A clean, well-lighted place.

The story is simple enough. The scene is a cafe (a clean, well-lighted place), at 2:30 a.m. There is one visitor left, an old man seeking refuge from the emptiness of life and the despair of old age in brandy, and the two waiters talk about him. The younger waiter asks the old man to leave so that they can close up and go home. The older waiter sympathizes with the old man and appears to feel the same nothingness in his life:

"It was all nothing, and a man was nothing too."

Hemingway used his usual terse style to good effect. The story contains stark images of light and dark, of youth and old age, of despair, nothingness. Hemingway's own fear of old age seems to permeate through the story. The feeling this story left behind was similar to the feeling I had watching Goya's black paintings, in particular Two friars and Two old people eating - the same despair, the same fear of old age and the emptiness that goes with it.

A clean, well-lighted place was read as part of the Short Story Short Challenge.

Did you read A clean, well-lighted place? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Crazy cozy classics challenge

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:08:00 +0000

Kathrin of Crazy Cozy Murders hosts another classics challenge: Read 3-5 classics between July 1 and November 30 (2007, I assume).

My three choices:

Crime and punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
For whom the bell tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
Der Tod in Venedig, by Thomas Mann

De dood van Vesta

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:41:00 +0000

Author	Louis Couperus
Title	De dood van Vesta
First published	1911

Louis Marie-Anne Couperus (1863-1923) was an important (and prolific) Dutch novelist. He travelled extensively and moved often. He lived in Holland, Dutch Indies, France, and Italy, but always considered his birth place The Hague his home town: Zoo ik iets ben, ben ik een Hagenaar, if I am anything at all, I am a Hagenaar (someone from The Hague). Several of his novels deal with former expatriates, returned from the Dutch Indies and now living in The Hague.

De dood van Vesta (The death of Vesta) is a short story, set in ancient Rome in the time of emperor Theodosius. Theodosius has made Christianity the official state religion, and the old pagan religion withers.

Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth, and custodian of the eternal flame, the sacred fire brought by Aeneas from Troy to Rome. This fire was not permitted to go out, or a nationwide disaster would follow. The fire was preserved in the state-funded temple of Vesta, and tended by the Vestals, six virgins chosen by lot from Roman girls between six and ten years old who had to spend at least 30 years in the service of Vesta (and usually stayed the rest of their lives).

When the story begins, the temple of Vesta is crumbling, and the last virgins have grown old and died - only one, old and ill, is left now to guard the fire. When she dies, the fire will extinguish, the goddess Vesta herself will die, and disaster will befall Rome.

Couperus, not a fan of Christianity, clearly laments the withering of paganism. In De dood van Vesta, Christians still fear Vesta, the fire, and the curse of the last Vestal. Pagans see Christianity as a passing fad and hope (expect) that their religion will revive. The vestal virgin has no hope: Not only the religion, but the gods themselves wither and die, and many gods are already dead. She laments, with Couperus, the new religion that is replacing the old (and true) religion. She knows she can't protect her religion (or the flame that symbolizes it) much longer.

De dood van Vesta was published in 1911, as part of the short story collection Antieke verhalen van goden en keizers, dichters en hetaeren (Antique stories of gods and emperors, poets and hetaerae). As far as I know, these stories were never translated into English.

Links:

Zoo ik iets ben, ben ik een Hagenaar, blog post on Haagse Prenten - Images of The Hague (in Dutch)
Louis Couperus society (in Dutch)
Louis Couperus at Amazon
Theodosius at Wikipedia
Vesta's fire at Wikipedia

De dood van Vesta was read as part of the 2007 Once upon a time challenge.

Did you read De dood van Vesta? Please leave a comment and rate it.

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Le corbeau et le renard

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:14:00 +0000

Author	Jean de La Fontaine
Title	Le corbeau et le renard
Year	1668

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) was the most important French poet of the 17th century. His main work was Fables choisies mises en vers (Selected fables set in verse), which appeared in 1668.

Never trust a flatterer

Le corbeau et le renard (The fox and the raven) is the second fable of the Fables choisies. It is based on an older fable by Aesop, The fox and the crow: A crow sits in a tree, holding a piece of cheese in his beak. A fox flatters the crow, telling him he is a beautiful bird, and a wonderful singer. He convinces the crow to sing, the crow drops the cheese as he tries to do so, and the fox goes off with the cheese.

In La Fontaine's version, the crow is replaced with a raven (corbeau).

Le corbeau et le renard

Maître corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître renard, par l'odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage:
"Hé! bonjour, monsieur du corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli! que vous me semblez beau!
Sans mentir, si votre ramage
Se rapporte à votre plumage,
Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ces bois."
A ces mots le corbeau ne se sent pas de joie,
Et, pour montrer sa belle voix,
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le renard s'en saisit, et dit: "Mon bon monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute.
Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute."
Le corbeau, honteux et confus,
Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus.

The Raven and the Fox

The fable was translated into English by Elizur Wright (1804-1885):

Perch'd on a lofty oak,
Sir Raven held a lunch of cheese;
Sir Fox, who smelt it in the breeze,
Thus to the holder spoke:─
"Ha! how do you do, Sir Raven?
Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one!
So black and glossy, on my word, sir,
With voice to match, you were a bird, sir,
Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days."
Sir Raven, overset with praise,
Must show how musical his croak.
Down fell the luncheon from the oak;
Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:─
"The flatterer, my good sir,
Aye liveth on his listener;
Which lesson, if you please,
Is doubtless worth the cheese."
A bit too late, Sir Raven swore
The rogue should never cheat him more.

Le corbeau et le renard was read as part of the 2007 Once upon a time challenge.

What do you think of Le corbeau et le renard? Please leave a comment or rate it.

Technorati tags: la fontaine le corbeau et le renard grandville

Once upon a time

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:28:00 +0000

Coming soon

As part of the Once upon a time challenge (hosted on Stainless Steel Droppings), you can expect posts about the following masterpieces:

The book of Thel, by William Blake.
Jorinde und Joringel, from the Grimm collection.
Le corbeau et le renard, by Jean de la Fontaine.
De dood van Vesta, by Louis Couperus.
A midsummer night's dream, by William Shakespeare.

2007 Winter Classics Challenge

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:30:00 +0000

In December, I announced my participation in the 2007 winter classics challenge hosted by booklogged. The challenge was to read five classics during January and February 2007. Except for a few chapters of The Woodlanders, I ended up reading all during the last three weeks of February, finishing the fifth on the very last day of the challenge.

The books I read:

The Woodlanders, a novel by Thomas Hardy. See the separate post about this book.
The Aspern Papers, a short novel by Henry James. See the separate post about this book.
A Room With A View, a novel by E.M. Forster. This was the only re-read on the list. The first time I read it was probably in 1997 - at least there was a 1997 bus ticket inside my copy used as a bookmark. See the separate post about this book.
The Unbearable Bassington, a short novel by Saki (or H.H. Munro). Saki is a master of the short story, but his attempt at a novel failed. The story is interesting enough, the plot is good, and the social satire is occasionally as brilliant as in his Reginald stories, but (at merely 164 pages) the novel is twice as long as it should be. The story doesn't start until chapter 4, long passages and complete chapters (like Elaine's foray into the country and her meeting with Tom Keriway in chapter 8) have no bearing on the story and should have been removed.
Love and Mr Lewisham, a novel by by H.G. Wells. H.G. Wells is best known for his science fiction novels, like War of the Worlds, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, or The Time Machine. Love and Mr. Lewisham is his first attempt outside this genre. Though not a masterpiece, it is an interesting story about an overly ambitious young man, who is destined for Great Things, but then love gets in the way of his ambitions, and economic hardship and the drudgery of daily life almost kills his love.

Next up: The Chunster Challenge, hosted by Bookfool.

A room with a view

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:26:00 +0000

Author	E.M. Forster
Title	A Room with a View
Year	1908

Edward Morgan Forster (1879 – 1970) was an English novelist. He completed only six novels, all written between 1905 and 1924. His best known works are A Passage to India and Howards End.

A Room with a View follows the development of Lucy Honeychurch. When the novel starts she is a young, naive, insecure girl, anxious to follow the conventions of society. During her travels through Italy she learns to think for herself and choose her own path through life. The central theme of this book is the choice between following society's conventions and following one's heart, the conflict between being delicate and being beautiful.

"Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?"
"Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?"

WARNING: The rest of this article contains spoilers.

The first part of the novel is set in a pension in Florence, Italy. The guests are all English tourists, and among them is Lucy, who travelled to Italy under the supervision of her older cousin, the spinster Charlotte Bartlett. The novel opens with Lucy and Charlotte complaining about their rooms, that don't have a view. Their conversation is overheard by a Mr. Emerson, who offers to swap rooms. Charlotte refuses at first, thinking the offer improper, but later accepts the repeated offer. Mr. Emerson, unconventional, socialist, and atheist, is in Italy with his son George. The Emersons are often ignored or snubbed by their fellow travellers because they don't follow the conventions of society, and probably also because they belong to a lower social class then the others.

Lucy's stay in Florence is marked by several meetings with the Emersons. She likes them, especially George, and is confused by her feelings because she thinks she is not supposed to like them. George falls in love with Lucy, and unexpectedly kisses her. Charlotte, who witnessed the event, decides to take Lucy away from Florence, and the next morning they leave for Rome.

The second part of A Room with a View is mostly set in, or near, Lucy's home in Surrey. Lucy recently returned from Rome, where she has spent several months. In Rome, she has spent a lot of time with the Vyse family, old friends of the Honeychurches. Their son Cecil has proposed twice to Lucy, but she refused. The second part opens with Cecil visiting the Honeychurch home. He proposes again, and this time Lucy accepts. As the story continues, we get to know Cecil as supercilious, pretentious and selfish. He finds country life and country people (including Lucy) far inferior to his circle in London. He thinks Lucy charming and attractive, but does not care about what she thinks or feels: "[..], as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to her remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte."

Lucy begins to realize that maybe Cecil is not the right choice for her. She becomes more acutely aware of her feelings for Cecil when the Emersons show up in the neighbourhood, and George befriends her brother Freddy. George manages to kiss her again, and she angrily sends him away. But before he goes, he tells Lucy how he thinks about her engagement, that Cecil tries to control her, that she "listen[s] to his voice instead of [her] own". The same evening, she breaks of her engagement.

To avoid George, and to avoid having to deal with her own feelings towards George, she decides to travel again - this time to Greece. But at this time, she only needs a little push to be willing to accept her own feelings. That push is given by Mr. Emerson, George's father, whom she meets accidentally. At the end of the novel, Lucy has learned to form her own opinion, to lead her own life, and to do beautiful things even when they are not delicate.

A Room with a View was read as part of the 2007 winter classics challenge.

Technorati tags: Forster A room with a view

The Aspern Papers

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:13:00 +0000

Author	Henry James
Title	The Aspern Papers
Year	1888

Henry James (1843-1916) was an American author and literary critic. He spent most of his life in Europe, and in 1915, at the end of his life, he became a British subject. Many of his novels deal with Americans in Europe, or with Europeans in America.

The Aspern Papers is a short, suspenseful novel, with a surprising twist in the plot, set in a beautifully described Venice.

WARNING: I won't give away the plot, but there will still be some spoilers.

The Aspern Papers is narrated by an unscrupulous American editor, who has published about (and is a great fan of) Jeffrey Aspern, an American romantic poet from the early 19th century. In his youth, Aspern had been in love (and probably had an affair) with a Miss Juliana Bordereau, and he has devoted some of his best poems to her. The narrator, whose name we never learn, has recently discovered that Miss Bordereau is still alive and lives in Venice.

He writes to her to ask if she has any letters from Aspern, but at first his letters go unanswered, and his last letter is answered by a curt note from Miss Bordereau's niece, Miss Tina¹⁾ Bordereau, telling him they don't know what he's talking about and want to be left alone.

Convinced there must be a small treasure trove of unknown Aspern letters and other documents, he travels to Venice and presents himself under a false name to the ladies Bordereau as a prospective lodger, hoping to get the documents by deceit. They live in a decrepit Venetian palace, "not particularly old, only two or three centuries", withdrawn, almost like hermits. They offer him some rooms for a ridiculously high price, which he takes, thinking of the treasure that must be in the building somewhere. Weeks go by without him ever meeting the Bordereaus, but when he returns home early one day, he finds Miss Tina in the garden, alone.

He starts a conversation with Miss Tina, an insecure, aging spinster, and after that they meet more often. From time to time, he is granted a short interview with Miss Juliana. The narrator starts to reveal his aims to Miss Tina, who agrees to help him. Tidbits about Juliana's relationship with Aspern are disclosed to the narrator. Slowly, Juliana starts to realize the narrator's intention.

Tension builds up as the plot unravels, towards the double climax in the last two chapters: First a confrontation with Juliana, who, by now, realizes who the narrator is, and calls him a "publishing scoundrel" - she detests the prying into her, and her former lover's, private life, and later the confrontation with Tina, and a surprising twist as we realize the misunderstanding between the narrator and Tina that took place before our eyes without us realizing it.

¹⁾Apparently, Miss Tina Bordereau is called Tita Bordereau in some editions of The Aspern Papers.

The Aspern Papers was read as part of the 2007 winter classics challenge.

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The Woodlanders

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:07:00 +0000

Author	Thomas Hardy
Title	The Woodlanders
Year	1887

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English poet and novelist. He regarded himself first and foremost as a poet, but the rest of the world find his novels superior to his poetry. Most of his novels are set in the non-existing county of Wessex in the southwest of England.

The Woodlanders is the story of Grace, the only daughter of the rich timber-merchant George Melbury. Her father has given her everything that money could buy, including an education at fashionable (and expensive) boarding schools. But this education left her "as it were in mid-air between two storeys of society" (Ch.XXX): Too good for the village people because of her education, and despised by her fellow students because of her village background.

WARNING: The rest of this article contains spoilers.

The story starts when Grace returns home after completing her education. She was betrothed to Giles Winterborne, a local yeoman and her childhood friend, but she finds it difficult to get used to him again, educated and refined as she has recently become. When Giles loses his house and a large part of his income through an unfortunate series of events beyond his control, Grace (or rather her father) breaks of the engagement. When Dr. Fitzpiers, a member from the local aristocracy, but from an impoverished family, expresses an interest in Grace, Mr. Melbury pushes his daughter into an engagement, and they marry.

The marriage is a failure: Dr. Fitzpiers has an affair with one of the village girls during his engagement to Grace, and starts an affair with Mrs. Charmond, the young widow that lives at the manor house, almost as soon as he and Grace return from their honeymoon.

Dr. Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond elope, and Mr. Melbury tries but fails to annul his daughter's marriage. Meanwhile, Grace appreciates Giles Winterborne more and more, and finally falls in love with him. When Dr. Fitzpiers suddenly returns, Grace flees to Giles. Giles offers her to stay at his place for a few days and then give her a lift to the city. As his house consists of only one room, he will stay in "a place nearby where [he] can stay very well". What Grace does not know is that Giles will stay outside in the rain, and Giles also hides the fact that he is ill. When Grace finds out it is too late: Giles is dying. She gets him inside the house and goes out to get the only doctor in the neighbourhood: Her estranged husband, Dr. Fitzpiers. The doctor can do nothing, and Giles dies.

Grace agrees to her husband's request to meet again, and they continue meeting and eventually reconcile.

The Woodlanders is a masterpiece, not because of the story or its plot - the story is rather thin, and the plot is almost non-existent -, but because of the poetic description of the woodland in which the story is set, because of the way the story endlessly meanders, and because of Marty South.

Leaving out Marty South will hardly change the story - that's why she didn't appear in the summary above - but it would be a severe loss for the novel as a whole.

The novel opens and closes with Marty. In the opening scene, a barber offers money for her beautiful hair. Marty refuses, because she is in love with Giles and wants to look good for him, but when she discovers that Giles is betrothed to (and in love with) Grace, she cuts it off herself and brings it to the barber. Harold Bloom claims he fell in love for the first time while reading this scene - in love with Marty. He "grieved dreadfully when she cut off her beautiful hair in order to sell it".¹⁾ I won't go quite as far as Mr. Bloom, but I was disappointed when the focus shifted away from Marty after the first couple of chapters.

In the closing scene, Marty stands alone at Giles' grave. She has been tending it together with Grace, but when Grace returns to her husband, Marty continues to do so alone, and finds solace in the fact that Giles is finally hers, and hers alone:

'Now, my own, own love,' she whispered, 'you are mine, and on'y mine; for she has forgot 'ee at last, although for her you died! But I - whenever I get up I'll think of 'ee, and whenever I lie down I'll think of 'ee. Whenever I plant the young larches I'll think that none can plant as you planted; and whenever I spit a gad, and whenever I turn the cider wring, I'll say none could do it like you. If I ever forget your name let me forget home and heaven! ... But no, no, my love, I never can forget 'ee; for you was a good man, and did good things!'

Marty is a solitary girl, without any friends. Only Giles and Grace seem to communicate with her sometimes. She is often found working in the forest, usually near Giles. Like Giles (and unlike the other villagers) she was one with nature. She knew Giles better than anyone else. "Marty South alone, of all the women in Hintock and the world, had approximated to Winterborne’s level of intelligent intercourse with nature. In that respect she had formed the complement to him in the other sex, had lived as his counterpart, had subjoined her thought to his as a corollary." (Ch.XLIV). She remains loyal to Giles, although Giles hardly notices her, even after his death.

The Woodlanders was read as part of the 2007 winter classics challenge.

¹⁾Harold Bloom, How To Read and Why, p. 187

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Goya's black paintings

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:09:00 +0000

Francisco de Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is one of the greatest Spanish artists of all times. His work includes portraits, history (especially war) scenes, religious subjects, and cartoons.

Goya has been the official court portrait painter and painted the portraits of Spanish royalty and nobility, but at the same time painted scenes from daily life and ordinary people.

The black paintings: Introduction

Towards the end of his life, Goya had become withdrawn, embittered, disillusioned. He was deaf, he had fallen out of grace with the royal court, his country was at war again. Between 1819 and 1823, when Goya was well in his 70s, he painted a series of fourteen or fifteen dark, disturbing, enigmatic images directly onto the plastered walls of two large rooms (one upstairs, one downstairs) in his country house. These paintings, that were later transferred to canvas, are now known as las pinturas negras, the black paintings.

The paintings

Sources

This series of posts is based on the notes I made when I saw the black paintings in the Prado in 2003. While writing these posts I often consulted Las pinturas negras de Goya by José Manuel Arnaiz, and Goya: Work, life, dreams..., by José Manuel Pita Andrade (transl. Evelyne Colchero).

Goya's black paintings: Half-submerged dog

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:42:00 +0000

Artist	Francisco Goya
Title	Half-submerged dog
Year	1819-1823
Technique	Mural (later converted to canvas)
Current location	Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

This is the most enigmatic of all the black paintings. A dog, half submerged (quicksand? or is the dog just standing behind a rim?), gazing into emptiness, and nothing else. The whole painting emanates emptiness, a sense of loss, loneliness. Some critics have stated that the painting is unfinished. It is possible, though the painting is expressive enough as it stands.

The landscape is strangely sketchy. Actually, if you leave out the dog there would not even be a landscape, just some coloured planes.

Half-submerged dog is also known as The dog.

Half-submerged dog is on display in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

This article also appeared in the Goya's black paintings series on HBvK . com.

Technorati tags: Goya Black paintings Dog Half-submerged dog Prado

Goya's black paintings: Two women and a man

h_vk@planet.nl (Henk van Kampen) — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:16:00 +0000

Artist	Francisco Goya
Title	Two women and a man
Year	1819-1823
Technique	Mural (later converted to canvas)
Current location	Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

Two women and a man, also known as Two women or Two women laughing, seems to have formed a pair with The reading. Research has shown that in an earlier version of the painting the three people in this painting were looking at a book the man was holding. Judging by the expression on their faces, it was a rather naughty book.

But Goya changed the painting, and what we see now is two women looking and laughing at a man who seems to be masturbating. There is no background, or anything else that might help to place this scene in context. We do not now where it is taking place. All we can see is the three people.

José Manuel Arnaiz pointed out that this is not the only time Goya treated this topic: A drawing called Cuidado con los consejos and a small painting called La degollación also show a man masturbating (the latter while looking at the decapitation of a young, naked woman).

Two women and a man is on display in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

This article also appeared in the Goya's black paintings series on HBvK . com.

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