… of life, of literature … & MORE
A reading of the Odyssey is of course never over; for me, after a concentrated yearlong effort, it is at the moment in abeyance, but surely to be returned to. For many others, their journey may just be beginning, and this recent project from Harvard’s Centre for Hellenic Studies could be an interesting starting point.
Here is the complete YouTube play list.
Former NYT star critic, Michiko Kakutani, makes a return to talk with Barack Obama about A Promised Land – the book and all the books that led to it, and the land, and all the promises it makes – sometimes fulfilling them and just as often not. One could say her piece (based on an extended telephone conversation) confirms what one already knows about Obama’s intellectual and literary influences, but it does also reveal a few new things. For instance, about his method of writing – not a disciplined keeper of a diary, rather a collector of fragmentary anecdotes; digitally inclined when it comes to research; very analogue – legal pad and favourite pen – when it comes to the writing.
In her opening paragraph, Kakutani refers to A Promised Land as being, beyond the expected historical record, also “an introspective self-portrait”. Perhaps, not exactly the same thing, but Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, in fact missed “true self-revelation” and bemoaned Obama’s (too) cool detachment. Nor does Kakutani insinuate any discomfort with his handling of race issues, unlike Adichie who is frustrated by what she identifies as his tendency towards misplaced evenhandedness. But, then, Kakutani is not writing a critique. What they both do agree on, though, is the fineness of the prose and the pleasure of the reading experience, and the service done in giving an enthralling account of an extraordinary (too) few years.
Any hesitancy I may initially have had about diving into such a meaty tome – fearing somewhat the insider policy-speak that comes with most political memoirs – was quickly assuaged. Obama talks to us! Every other passage, every turn of phrase, one may well imagine coming from his lips – just without the ums and ahs! The complexities of politics are so well packaged in familiar real world scenarios, and without a preponderance of technical jargon, that they should be understandable to most, and, more importantly perhaps, are embedded in the common warmth of a life being lived.
Asked about what he is reading now, I am absolutely unsurprised that Obama has turned, amongst other things, to Jack for some respite. It would not need me to bring to his attention the significance of his return to Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead” opus just now; the first story of which had accompanied him as he traipsed around Iowa in 2007, at the beginning of an odyssey that could have led nowhere, but instead to the highest echelons of power. Did he ever imagine that the (once) “bright radical star” of the Union would play such an important role in his life?
Granted, I must confess, I am only a couple of hundred pages in – chronologically speaking, the first weeks of his presidency – and as one unable to confine myself to just one Lektüre at a time, I do have some reading ahead of me, but I look forward every day to a bit more. And, I will most definitely have more to say.
Child or man or woman; all, at journey's end - be it of just one day, or many, or of a lifetime - a well-worn bed awaits; of warm feather or of cold board. Shared with those loved, out of fealty, or some casual convenience, or necessity - or alone like the dead. - Anne Dromache, December 10th 2020
Penelope is no man’s fool – this she wants us to know. Sheltered from the carnage of the previous hours, and confronted now with the news of her husband’s return, whatever sympathies she may have towards this stranger, she tempers with caution, even suspicion. The years of estrangement have taught many lessons, and wariness of the motivations of others amongst them. And patience she has learnt. Long has she waited, she can wait some more – and be this truly Odysseus, he can too!
Embedded in the midst of hallowed chamber, Entwined the branches of olive or of oak. Sturdy, immutable. A sign - of knowledge and Nature's fidelity. Anne Dromache, December 15th 2020
Penelope looks for a sign of truth from this man, who, scrubbed up by Athena, now even looks like Odysseus; some sign that only he and she share. And, it occurs to her, that it is there to be found in their marriage bed; for it is embedded in the very centre of their bed-chamber, a living reminder and an immutable sign of their union. Only Odysseus could know its secret. The recognition is complete. Together they weep and they sleep, and Penelope hears all; of the odyssey that will define her husband until the end of days.
It’s never over until it’s over – or until the end of song. And our singer can not resist an encore in the House of Hades – even the suitors deserve choral accompaniment as they exit life’s stage. And, should one listen carefully, one may well hear Agamemnon and Achilles in earnest exchange: each having found the end they deserved. And, for Agamemnon, the wife he deserved; unlike the bold Odysseus who, in the fair Penelope, one loyal and true.
As with his son, it remains now for Odysseus to be reunited with his father, Laertes. Remaining true to himself – how could it be otherwise – this too must he make complicated. There is no joyous greeting – no, not from Odysseus! – rather, another devised twist in the plot. Gladly, brief this diversion, for faced with a grieving father’s tears, the legendary gift of deceit deserts him and a son is revealed; and bitter tears turn sweet.
…Oh, and Zeus and Athena make arrangements, as they so often do, such that the strife on Ithaca finds, too, its end. With a minimum (!) of collateral damage as three generations stand side by side in a last bloody hurrah, a truce of sorts is parleyed; vengeful thoughts and deeds are put on hold. Forever? Or, until some fateful day, when the gods come out again to play?
Listening to BBC Radio 4 this morning, as I mostly do, and with various degrees of attention, I caught up with, for the first time in quite a while, Melvyn Bragg’s long running cultural programme “In Our Time” – the topic: Fernando Pessoa. This, a name, ringing somehow familiar, but hard to place. May I be forgiven my ignorance, for he is a man of many names – just check out this impressive list of heteronyms! Now somewhat enlightened, I will surely dedicate some attention to him (or them!). On the programme website are a number of references, that may offer a good start.
As is often the case with me, one thing often leads to another. In the process of googling Pessoa, a link was returned to a NYT Q & A interview with the academic André Aciman from last year; in which (amongst other things) he names Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet as “the last great book” that he had read.
Skimming through the piece further, I was immediately distracted – irritated would be a better description – by Aciman’s assertion that Mrs. Dalloway is overrated – neither “gripping” nor “interesting”, he states – and badly written! Each to his own, I could say; reading after all is a very subjective activity. That Mrs. Dalloway doesn’t interest him, well so be it; though one is tempted to presume that he doesn’t know terribly much about her person nor her writing life and how they intersected to produce her fiction, for should he do so, Mrs. Dalloway could not help but enthral. But that a literary scholar would fail to recognise the consistent quality of Virginia Woolf’s prose surprises me. I mean to say, Woolf’s hastily scribbled asides to herself (diary) or others (letters) are mostly always druckreif – whether fragmentary gems of observation or gossipy meanderings. And her fiction, absolutely so, even when structurally imperfect or not to her satisfaction.
What is interesting, and probably unbeknownst to Aciman, is that some of the names he drops (we won’t count Proust – of whom he is an expert and Woolf a devotee) were likewise people of interest also to Virginia Woolf a long time ago.
Firstly, Dorothy Strachey. Yes, one of the Stracheys! But I couldn’t think which, and then realised that Woolf always referred to her by her married name of Dorothy Bussy.
Woolf’s first reference to Dorothy appears to be in a diary entry on Saturday 14 June 1919; made upon visiting with her (and her sister-in-law Ray Strachey) in Hampstead and, as all the Strachey family, she will turn up again over the years in Woolf’s diary and correspondence. Bussy’s only novel, Olivia (1949), cited by Aciman – a lesbian schoolgirl narrative; an experience it is presumed she is not unfamiliar with – was in fact published by Hogarth Press, albeit eight years after Woolf’s death, and was dedicated (or so says Wikipedia) “to the very dear memory of Virginia W.” I should say, Aciman says “nothing happens” in the novel he recommends, but unlike the dull Mrs. Dalloway that seems enough. Further, a new Penguin Classics edition was published in June, in which he writes an introduction, and one wonders whether he approached Penguin or vice versa, and whether a little bit of marketing wasn’t going on here. Just a suggestion. Irrespective, any Strachey interests me, so I certainly intend to read Olivia; now credited to Dorothy Strachey. Thanks for the tip, Mr. Aciman! (My tip: the Vintage UK edition is a bit cheaper, at least on Amazon outside the US.)
And in the same segment, Mr. Aciman announces the virtues of another great “unread” – La Princess de Clèves by Madame de La Fayette – Woolf loved this, though she only wrote about it in passing – in her “On Rereading” essay for instance. In my reading notes of Volume 2 of Woolf’s diary I make reference to her February 18 1922 entry, and include an excerpt which clearly illustrates her enthusiasm for La Princess. Though, I am not that sure, it is is as so “unread” as Aciman suggests – certainly not in France, and I thought it to be also well known in wider feminist literature studies. Fortunately, for the interested, La Princess de Clèves is easily found on the internet.
Finally, Aciman’s favourite book to assign students. Here, he nominates Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, for which Virginia Woolf wrote an introduction for the 1928 Oxford World’s Classics edition (also included in The Common Reader Second Series), and which begins with her observation that maturity grants a writer certain privileges – with language and composition. I make the observation that at the time this essay was written, being just a couple of years after Mrs. Dalloway was published, Woolf was of an age such that she too had granted herself permission to be messy – to write what was in head; messy, as I said. It is a riddle to me how Sterne can be so admired and not Woolf. Maybe it is only Mrs. Dalloway that Aciman dislikes; but why do I think otherwise? He didn’t qualify his verdict, but Woolf certainly possessed some prejudicial traits that are not easy to disregard by everyone.
Start the week with Andrew Marr and a good listen, then read on.
Read Derrida, should you dare! Lighter work, for sure, to deconstruct the person. The philosopher, Julian Baggini, reviews Peter Salmon’s book An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida here.
Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader found critical acclaim and a worldwide audience, but had its detractors in Germany – not an apologist work, but, if sought, excuses for a nations fall into barbarism are too easily to be discerned. His 2018 novel Olga, just published in English, received here a fairly tepid reception – a woman’s fate through the panorama of German history from the Kaiserreich through the 20th century; and character just too good to be true? History tells us, there were many more “Hannas” (the illiterate guard of The Reader) than there were “Olgas”.
Enjoyed very much (hardly a surprise!) Alexandra Harris’s perceptive commentary on Virginia Woolf’s reading habits and expectations. In Virginia Woolf’s own words, “How Should One Read a Book” from The Common Reader, Second Series. Woolf may have suggested to Schlink’s young reader (in The Reader), to keep the best of it to himself.
Reading, with all its extended connotations, may well bind them, but strange bedfellows these three. I love Andrew Marr – he can bring together disparate voices to a successful ménage à trois.
At day's end what's left to be said? What use a play of false forbearance, or calculated regret? Too late now for redress, for false pardon or indulgence. Fate and a song have long decreed those favoured few to be reprieved. A bōw, or a bŏw, and a change of dress, changes not the bloodied scene. - Anne Dromache November 24th 2020
Penelope with slaves in tow, fetches Odysseus' famed and curved bow. Well armed her beaus with arrows aplenty, that will quiver and spin when strung and aimed at axes hung all in a row. So ordained be their will. Alone, aloud be it said: here only one destined to win - the rest, they will be dead. - Anne Dromache November 24th 2020
Astute she may be, but Penelope is oblivious that she too now is slave – to Athena’s scheme, so assiduously brought to fruition in cahoots with Odysseus, and nearing its fulfilment!
The swineherd and cowherd pass their final test of fealty; and with that the lives of Eumaeus and Philoetius saved, and Odysseus reveals to them his person and receives them as co-conspirators.
One after the other, the cocky crew of “wanna be’s” show off only the limitations of their prowess, and Antinous seeing what lays ahead for him – no, not that; his prescience only stretching as far as the contest – suggests the competition be held over for one day, as this day is Apollo’s day and the god obviously angered at their meddling in what famously is his sport.
Odysseus will try, and is roundly rebuked, but Penelope takes his side, and Telemachus too. Having played her part, a role of which she knows not of, to perfection, mother Penelope’s exit is insisted upon. For the eyes of neither mother nor wife is that which follows fit. The die is cast; the bow is passed into great practised hands and his gifts and person then displayed. As the book ends, father and son stand united:
With his eyebrows he signaled, and his son strapped on his sword, picked up his spear, and stood beside his chair next to his father, his bronze weapons flashing. Book 21 [lines 431-434] The Odyssey, trans. Emily Wilson
More than expose himself; a deadly exposition:
Odysseus ripped off his rags. Now naked, he leapt upon the threshold with his bow and quiver full of arrows, which he tipped out in a rush before his feet, and spoke. "Playtime is over [...] Book 22 [lines 1-5] The Odyssey, trans. Emily Wilson
Hardly surprising; Antinous, the most troublesome of all is the first to fall, and ever lurking Fate and the goddess Athena, guised as Mentor or hovering in the rafters orchestrating the carnage, decrees all the suitors to follow suit on their bloody way to meet their own fate.
Spared only are Phemius, the famous singer – thinks Odysseus in this moment of his legacy to be told in song? And, for his son’s sake, the house boy Medon – he, who calls Telemachus “friend”.
At the hands of the other herdsmen, an ugly death awaits the goat herd Melanthius – does Odysseus think this a favour, an honour, that he grant them this gruesome deed? Eurycleia is too easily “forced” into role of denunciator – twelve slave girls will pay, but not before they have cleaned Odysseus’ house of the massacre and its remnants – a cruel extra, known well enough in modern times.
A final fumigation; as a cure against lurking evil. But, will it cleanse the soul? And, the hero weeps. Or does he? For more precisely: “…seized by sweet desire to weep…” [500-501]. The condemned slave girls; they did really weep as they made rid of the hero’s bloody carnage, to then be ushered to a drawn out death.
And, for Odysseus, has home been at long last reached? And, was it worth it?
Well, it is not very fair to comment without a full frontal view, but whether this is quite the right way to honour the great Mary Wollstonecraft is debatable!
Irrespective, there is one part of me pleased enough that some more diverse (if you count “women” as diverse!) historical figures, are finding their way into public spaces. And, of course, that Virginia Woolf should find a place now in Richmond, where she lived for a long period, is fitting. Though sitting on a park bench watching the day go by – is that not a bit too Mrs. Dalloway? As the tortured soul she does not have to be depicted, but… And, whether this trend is stretching to people of other ethnic or cultural backgrounds (beyond Gandhi and/or Mandela) I have not heard. Then, there is the sceptical me, one who can’t help but doubt whether any number of busts, statues, plaques, do very much in the way of taking the viewer (or casual passer-by) beyond the public space into the public consciousness; whether they really tell us anything of the person, the time and circumstance, and are in the end only sentimental reflections of a work’s creator and the society and time in which he/she/they lived, rather than that of the subject.
There are indeed enough that one could be well rid of – for instance, Cecil Rhodes; a hullabaloo that spans continents, and Sloane; now put under wraps at the British Museum. A couple of years old now, but this is an opinion on the greater global predicament of just what to do with some of these guys (they are mostly “guys”!). And Jonathan Jones questions the whole “folly of depicting history through the dead art of statues”, and pleads for “serious art” and a contemporary approach that remembers without the false promise of restoration. His “selfie in bronze” description is spot-on – and not unlike my reflections above.
All the above links are to The Guardian.
… may be translated into English as something like: Fire of Freedom (liberty) or Flames of Liberty – The Saving of Philosophy in Dark (gloomy, sinister) Times …
Recently published in Germany, this new book from Wolfram Eilenberger is conceptually very similar to Time of the Magicians that I wrote about a short time ago. When Feuer der Freiheit will be published in English I don’t know, that it will, given the international success of the aforesaid, I am very confident.
Briefly I will say, that this time Eilenberger invites us to follow the paths of four women, and in the ten years from 1933-43. Until I read the book, I can only divulge who the subjects are: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil and Ayn Rand. Hannah Arendt, of course, arose in Time of the Magicians in terms of her relationship with Heidegger, and does so again in our own gloomy present – though far removed from the very sinister 30’s – where her star has risen on both sides of the Atlantic. Madame de Beauvoir has survived her contradictions and the ruthlessness of competing feminist movements to retain icon status (and on her own!). Simone Weil; one can but wonder, for she died so young, but I can’t help but think of the unstable genius of Wittgenstein or Benjamin. And, just as for Cass Sunstein in this review for a recent biography of Ayn Rand (limited access at The New York Review of Books), I too as a young thing had an inexplicable attraction to The Fountainhead, and in extension to its author.
I very much look forward to seeing how Eilenberger interweaves the lives of this extraordinary group in a very extraordinary time. For anyone who can read German more than a bit, I suggest this review by Jens Bisky in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and, if you can really read German, don’t wait for the translation, be like me and put the book on your reading list now. Popular it may well be, and personality driven, but I would warrant place enough is given to an exposition of the philosophical ideas driving his subjects.
