Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Hi, OTM and redheadshadz. I'm done reading the Graham cracker (Power and Heart), so I only have the Asturias' Mulata left to read. Maybe we can begin discussions by the end of September?
The Shadow Nobel Prize 1967
- Thread starter OverTheMountains
- Start date
redhead
Blahblahblah
Currently only have 2 authors done (Kawabata and Auden) but I'll definitely have the time to read the others by the end of August or September. Looking forward to it, it'll make up for the lack of speculation this year! My list of books for the authors might vary slightly, however, from what I originally posted.
OverTheMountains
Reader
Glad to have you still involved, Cleanthess! With you and Redhead involved, the discussion will be great! I'm quite excited to see what you think of Mulata - that book is something quite special!
My list has definitely varied from what I posted at the beginning of the year. I'm ok with that though - it was just an initial bundle of plans, and plans are always open to being changed.
Here are three quick thoughts about Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain.
First of all, it is a true pleasure to read. From first page to last, the writing is flawless and effortless and glowing. There are no exceptionally long sentences, no explorations that push the shape of language; just perfect, simple prose that reads quickly and beautifully and feels like a poem in its economy of form. Kudos to the translator, Seidensticker, who, I have read in other places, is not terribly well regarded in contemporary translation circles. I’m not sure why. The clear spirit of the text shines through beautifully.
Second, the book was not what I was expecting it to be. I thought it would be a meditation on aging, the challenges of losing one’s faculties and control. This is what the blurb at the back of the book had lead me to believe. But it isn’t. It is about a man who is growing old in a Japan that is rapidly changing, and who must now navigate a culture that has changed dramatically from the one in which he came to understand his place in the world. The family he has built is crumbling in unexpected and, at least to him, unacceptable ways. He isn’t thrilled with his son, he worries his daughter is a failure of a wife, and he doesn’t like his wife very much as at all - though he still thinks often about his wife’s long-dead sister. He can’t figure out what to do to make everything just a little bit better and, if not better, at least honourable.
Third, everything in this novel fits together wonderfully well. The little side stories in this book are some of the best parts - and this is a piece art filled with a great many marvellous parts. And they serve that ever-important purpose of exploring and filling out those central themes of the novel - aging, the continuing loss of control over the world, and the pounding sound of death. I would not hesitate to say that this book takes the form of the novel, the swirling shape of it around a cluster of ideas and characters and plot, and puts it into it’s perfect, full realization.
I loved the book. I can't wait to read more of his work.
My list has definitely varied from what I posted at the beginning of the year. I'm ok with that though - it was just an initial bundle of plans, and plans are always open to being changed.
Here are three quick thoughts about Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain.
First of all, it is a true pleasure to read. From first page to last, the writing is flawless and effortless and glowing. There are no exceptionally long sentences, no explorations that push the shape of language; just perfect, simple prose that reads quickly and beautifully and feels like a poem in its economy of form. Kudos to the translator, Seidensticker, who, I have read in other places, is not terribly well regarded in contemporary translation circles. I’m not sure why. The clear spirit of the text shines through beautifully.
Second, the book was not what I was expecting it to be. I thought it would be a meditation on aging, the challenges of losing one’s faculties and control. This is what the blurb at the back of the book had lead me to believe. But it isn’t. It is about a man who is growing old in a Japan that is rapidly changing, and who must now navigate a culture that has changed dramatically from the one in which he came to understand his place in the world. The family he has built is crumbling in unexpected and, at least to him, unacceptable ways. He isn’t thrilled with his son, he worries his daughter is a failure of a wife, and he doesn’t like his wife very much as at all - though he still thinks often about his wife’s long-dead sister. He can’t figure out what to do to make everything just a little bit better and, if not better, at least honourable.
Third, everything in this novel fits together wonderfully well. The little side stories in this book are some of the best parts - and this is a piece art filled with a great many marvellous parts. And they serve that ever-important purpose of exploring and filling out those central themes of the novel - aging, the continuing loss of control over the world, and the pounding sound of death. I would not hesitate to say that this book takes the form of the novel, the swirling shape of it around a cluster of ideas and characters and plot, and puts it into it’s perfect, full realization.
I loved the book. I can't wait to read more of his work.
Bartleby
Moderator
That sounds so beguiling! And such a different interpretation than Isa's...
I haven't got to read any of the books yet, but I'll try to do that in the following couple of months, so, sorry in advance if I can't contribute to this conversation...
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Your interpretation of that sound is a lot better than another one I once read by some clueless critic, who claimed that those sounds were actually symptoms of small brain ischemic strokes. That reminded me of these immortal lines from Moliere
Toi. What does he say you are ill of?
Arg. He says it is the liver, and others say it is the spleen.
Toi. They are a pack of ignorant blockheads; you are suffering from the lungs.
Arg. The lungs?
Toi. Yes; what do you feel?
Arg. From time to time great pains in my head.
Toi. Just so; the lungs.
Arg. At times it seems as if I had a mist before my eyes.
Toi. The lungs.
Arg. I feel sick now and then.
Toi. The lungs.
Arg. And I feel sometimes a weariness in all my limbs.
Toi. The lungs.
Arg. And sometimes I have sharp pains in the stomach, as if I had the colic.
Toi. The lungs. Do you eat your food with appetite?
Arg. Yes, Sir.
Toi. The lungs. Do you like to drink a little wine?
Arg. Yes, Sir.
Toi. The lungs. You feel sleepy after your meals, and willingly enjoy a nap?
Arg. Yes, Sir.
Toi. The lungs, the lungs, I tell you.
redhead
Blahblahblah
If you wanted to join in, I'm sure we could push back the discussion a bit or something to accommodate you!
OverTheMountains
Reader
Absolutely! My only thinking for time-line is that we have selected something before Christmas so that we can figure out if we would like to continue for next year - and so that we can get started on next year's project in January when the short list is announced.
OverTheMountains
Reader
Ok folks. How do you think we did? What did you read that fed into this challenge, and what kind of observations or discussion do you think can come out of it?
I got through a novel by each of Graham Greene, Yasunari Kawabata, and Miguel Angel Asturias.
I didn't get to anything by Borges or Auden. But hopefully we can still have a fruitful discussion, if there is any desire for it.
I got through a novel by each of Graham Greene, Yasunari Kawabata, and Miguel Angel Asturias.
I didn't get to anything by Borges or Auden. But hopefully we can still have a fruitful discussion, if there is any desire for it.
redhead
Blahblahblah
I'd still love to have a discussion. I read Snow Country and Thousand Cranes by Kawabata, the Everyman's Pocket edition of Auden's poetry, and a collection of short stories/retold Mayan myths by Asturias. Didn't get to Greene and Borges, but I've read books by them relatively recently and think I still remember all the details quite well.
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Cool, let's start with Graham Greene then, if you don't mind.
The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter are easily among the best British novels of the 20th Century. But the Academy had been up to that point a bit peculiar, if not ornery, when choosing writers from England. For the first 80 years of the Nobel:
1907: Kipling (no complaints here, great choice);
1932: Galsworthy (who?);
1948: St. Louis, Missouri's own T. S. Eliot (U. S. A., U. S. A!);
1950, Bertrand Russell (a philosopher);
1953, Winston Churchill (WTH?!);
Which means that Mr. Graham Greene's chances ranged between zero and none. However, from the "idealistic direction" mandate he must have ranked very high among the contenders; heck, he even got a 1967 movie starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov and Alec Guinness based upon his novel The Comedians about the contemporary dictatorship in Haiti.
The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter are easily among the best British novels of the 20th Century. But the Academy had been up to that point a bit peculiar, if not ornery, when choosing writers from England. For the first 80 years of the Nobel:
1907: Kipling (no complaints here, great choice);
1932: Galsworthy (who?);
1948: St. Louis, Missouri's own T. S. Eliot (U. S. A., U. S. A!);
1950, Bertrand Russell (a philosopher);
1953, Winston Churchill (WTH?!);
Which means that Mr. Graham Greene's chances ranged between zero and none. However, from the "idealistic direction" mandate he must have ranked very high among the contenders; heck, he even got a 1967 movie starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov and Alec Guinness based upon his novel The Comedians about the contemporary dictatorship in Haiti.
redhead
Blahblahblah
It might be heresy, but I actually haven't read those two novels. I have, however, read one of his other great novels, The End of the Affair, as well as a novella perhaps more famous for its film adaption, The Third Man. I could imagine the academy at the time turning their nose up at the spy elements, but I really enjoyed it. I wonder if his "entertainments" hurt his chances at the prize? Anyway, I enjoyed his writing style and wouldn't mind reading more of his work, although if we do a vote or anything, I don't think he'd be my pick.
(As a side note, I find Galsworthy's prize really interesting. He was actually one of the biggest English novelists in the 20s I believe, although by the time he won his star was already beginning to fade. Just goes to show you how fickle literary fame can be; also makes me wonder which bad Nobel choices actually seemed like good picks at the time.)
(As a side note, I find Galsworthy's prize really interesting. He was actually one of the biggest English novelists in the 20s I believe, although by the time he won his star was already beginning to fade. Just goes to show you how fickle literary fame can be; also makes me wonder which bad Nobel choices actually seemed like good picks at the time.)
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
You're right about Galsworthy, he even died a few weeks after the Nobel Ceremony (he was too sick to attend). I took a look at his books at Archive.org, and among the top results is "Hauptmann and Galsworthy, a Parallel", which tells me that
Galsworthy must have been famous as a playwright too. Prior to 1950, there were quite a few movies made based upon his work.
I love the "minds and morals" exploration aspect of Graham Greene's works (him being a Catholic novelist and all), as well as how easy he is to read and how entertaining his plots, but in the end this might have worked against him.
An example of his subtlety. You know how in many of his works we can see Nabokov front and center providing his protagonists with help and/or hindrances like a minor deity to one of her votaries; well, in The Heart of the Matter, Greene does this in a way more delicate and nuanced. The main character is in a pickle, and he sees no way out; his final choice, being a Catholic, would seem to condemn him to falling straight into hell, and yet, a little earlier, he had opened one of his wife's books and read:
Autumn
The leaves fall, fall as from far up,
As if distant orchards were dying in the heavens;
Each leaf falls as with leafstalks waving "no."
And tonight the heavy Earth, too, falls
away from all other stars and into the loneliness.
We're all falling. This hand of mine must fall
And also the other one:—it is the law.
But there is One who holds all this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
Galsworthy must have been famous as a playwright too. Prior to 1950, there were quite a few movies made based upon his work.
I love the "minds and morals" exploration aspect of Graham Greene's works (him being a Catholic novelist and all), as well as how easy he is to read and how entertaining his plots, but in the end this might have worked against him.
An example of his subtlety. You know how in many of his works we can see Nabokov front and center providing his protagonists with help and/or hindrances like a minor deity to one of her votaries; well, in The Heart of the Matter, Greene does this in a way more delicate and nuanced. The main character is in a pickle, and he sees no way out; his final choice, being a Catholic, would seem to condemn him to falling straight into hell, and yet, a little earlier, he had opened one of his wife's books and read:
Autumn
The leaves fall, fall as from far up,
As if distant orchards were dying in the heavens;
Each leaf falls as with leafstalks waving "no."
And tonight the heavy Earth, too, falls
away from all other stars and into the loneliness.
We're all falling. This hand of mine must fall
And also the other one:—it is the law.
But there is One who holds all this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
Bartleby
Moderator
I quite failed in this thing, unfortunately. I was just able to finish El Señor Presidente, by Asturias, though, resuming it after a long while (it was way to resume, since although it has a plot, it's mostly told in episodic form). I wrote a mini review of it on my Instagram, but since it's in Portuguese, I won't bother copy it here, basically, I found its writing usually engaging, incantatory in tone, full of over imposing metaphors in a way that feels like a precursor of Herta Muller's The for was ever the hunter, in the way that it justaposed contraditory metaphors so as to create a feel of uncertainty and oppression. Muller is more radical in this, but the idea is already there.
The only thing that really set it back to me was a certain over sentimental quality to it, specifically when Asturias would force us to sympathise with his suffering characters. He makes very clear through the use of adjectives his side, which is a side almost anyone will agree with, opposing the dictatorial president.
It is written with the fury of the ones who are alarmed at the injustices of the world.
It's easy to see it's worth, though I'd like to see what the author has written in his later career to better place a judgement of his work.
Then the other authors I read nothing. Nothing new. I had previously read Borges's Fictions, and was blown away by it (so based on both latin American writer's reads my vote would be for Borges). And I've only read a while ago as well a short novella by Kawabata, and was very fond of it, the dancing girl of izu, I believe it was translated. Read it in Portuguese and remember finding his style very sensitive poetic and appealing to me, and I related to the themes of this work very strongly. But I still have read a proper novel by him.
Read nothing of Greene.
And I admit finding some trouble reading Auden. I was enchanted by his sense of rhythm and his rhymes with the few poems I read, but I found his style too elaborate for me to have a grasp of the content of it. Maybe I just should put more work into it and eventually I will, so I can't say much about him, other than by style alone i can see him as a stronger contender.
And that's it? Is anyone missing?
The only thing that really set it back to me was a certain over sentimental quality to it, specifically when Asturias would force us to sympathise with his suffering characters. He makes very clear through the use of adjectives his side, which is a side almost anyone will agree with, opposing the dictatorial president.
It is written with the fury of the ones who are alarmed at the injustices of the world.
It's easy to see it's worth, though I'd like to see what the author has written in his later career to better place a judgement of his work.
Then the other authors I read nothing. Nothing new. I had previously read Borges's Fictions, and was blown away by it (so based on both latin American writer's reads my vote would be for Borges). And I've only read a while ago as well a short novella by Kawabata, and was very fond of it, the dancing girl of izu, I believe it was translated. Read it in Portuguese and remember finding his style very sensitive poetic and appealing to me, and I related to the themes of this work very strongly. But I still have read a proper novel by him.
Read nothing of Greene.
And I admit finding some trouble reading Auden. I was enchanted by his sense of rhythm and his rhymes with the few poems I read, but I found his style too elaborate for me to have a grasp of the content of it. Maybe I just should put more work into it and eventually I will, so I can't say much about him, other than by style alone i can see him as a stronger contender.
And that's it? Is anyone missing?
Bartleby
Moderator
By the way, I haven't read galsworthy's works yet, but from what I've gathered, his is a very traditional, realist style, which maybe is the reason why there's this backlash against him, even, and specially, by his own contemporaries, for at that time old styles were getting out of date and new ones were surging, but it leaves me greatly curious to find out for myself if thats the only reason, I mean, I'd like to see if apart from the time he were inserted in, if he is a great realist writer like the more classical ones we hear about (Tolstoy, flaubert etc). Or if he's just boring and irrelevant and forgettable.
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Moving on to Auden, and speaking for the defense:
Exhibit A:
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
Exhibit B
August 1968
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
Exhibit C
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Exhibit D:
SEXT
I
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
To ignore the appetitive goddesses,
to desert the formidable shrines
of Rhea, Aphrodite, Demeter, Diana,
to pray instead to St. Phocas,
St Barbara, San Saturnino,
or whoever one's patron is,
that one may be worthy of their mystery,
what a prodigious step to have taken.
There should be monuments, there should be odes,
to the nameless heroes who took it first,
to the first flaker of flints
who forgot his dinner,
the first collector of sea-shells
to remain celibate.
Where should we be but for them?
Feral still, un-housetrained, still
wandering through forests without
a consonant to our names,
slaves of Dame Kind, lacking
all notion of a city
and, at this noon, for this death,
there would be no agents.
II
You need not hear what orders he is giving
to know if someone has authority,
you have only to watch his mouth:
when a besieging general sees
a city wall breached by his troops,
when a bacteriologist
realizes in a flash what was wrong
with his hypothesis when,
from a glance at the jury, the prosecutor
knows the defendant will hang,
their lips and the lines around them
relax, assuming an expression
not of simple pleasure at getting
their own sweet way but of satisfaction
at being right, an incarnation
of Fortitudo, Justicia, Nous.
You may not like them much
(Who does?) but we owe them
basilicas, divas,
dictionaries, pastoral verse,
the courtesies of the city:
without these judicial mouths
(which belong for the most part
to very great scoundrels)
how squalid existence would be,
tethered for life to some hut village,
afraid of the local snake
or the local ford demon
speaking the local patois
of some three hundred words
(think of the family squabbles and the
poison-pens, think of the inbreeding)
and at this noon, there would be no authority
to command this death.
III
Anywhere you like, somewhere
on broad-chested life-giving Earth,
anywhere between her thirstlands
and undrinkable Ocean,
the crowd stands perfectly still,
its eyes (which seem one) and its mouths
(which seem infinitely many)
expressionless, perfectly blank.
The crowd does not see (what everyone sees)
a boxing match, a train wreck,
the crowd sees only one thing
(which only the crowd can see)
an epiphany of that
which does whatever is done.
Few people accept each other and most
will never do anything properly,
but the crowd rejects no one, joining the crowd
is the only thing all men can do.
Only because of that can we say
all men are our brothers,
superior, because of that,
to the social exoskeletons: When
have they ever ignored their queens,
for one second stopped work
on their provincial cities, to worship
The Prince of this world like us,
at this noon, on this hill,
in the occasion of this dying.
I rest my case.
Exhibit A:
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
Exhibit B
August 1968
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
Exhibit C
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Exhibit D:
SEXT
I
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
To ignore the appetitive goddesses,
to desert the formidable shrines
of Rhea, Aphrodite, Demeter, Diana,
to pray instead to St. Phocas,
St Barbara, San Saturnino,
or whoever one's patron is,
that one may be worthy of their mystery,
what a prodigious step to have taken.
There should be monuments, there should be odes,
to the nameless heroes who took it first,
to the first flaker of flints
who forgot his dinner,
the first collector of sea-shells
to remain celibate.
Where should we be but for them?
Feral still, un-housetrained, still
wandering through forests without
a consonant to our names,
slaves of Dame Kind, lacking
all notion of a city
and, at this noon, for this death,
there would be no agents.
II
You need not hear what orders he is giving
to know if someone has authority,
you have only to watch his mouth:
when a besieging general sees
a city wall breached by his troops,
when a bacteriologist
realizes in a flash what was wrong
with his hypothesis when,
from a glance at the jury, the prosecutor
knows the defendant will hang,
their lips and the lines around them
relax, assuming an expression
not of simple pleasure at getting
their own sweet way but of satisfaction
at being right, an incarnation
of Fortitudo, Justicia, Nous.
You may not like them much
(Who does?) but we owe them
basilicas, divas,
dictionaries, pastoral verse,
the courtesies of the city:
without these judicial mouths
(which belong for the most part
to very great scoundrels)
how squalid existence would be,
tethered for life to some hut village,
afraid of the local snake
or the local ford demon
speaking the local patois
of some three hundred words
(think of the family squabbles and the
poison-pens, think of the inbreeding)
and at this noon, there would be no authority
to command this death.
III
Anywhere you like, somewhere
on broad-chested life-giving Earth,
anywhere between her thirstlands
and undrinkable Ocean,
the crowd stands perfectly still,
its eyes (which seem one) and its mouths
(which seem infinitely many)
expressionless, perfectly blank.
The crowd does not see (what everyone sees)
a boxing match, a train wreck,
the crowd sees only one thing
(which only the crowd can see)
an epiphany of that
which does whatever is done.
Few people accept each other and most
will never do anything properly,
but the crowd rejects no one, joining the crowd
is the only thing all men can do.
Only because of that can we say
all men are our brothers,
superior, because of that,
to the social exoskeletons: When
have they ever ignored their queens,
for one second stopped work
on their provincial cities, to worship
The Prince of this world like us,
at this noon, on this hill,
in the occasion of this dying.
I rest my case.
OverTheMountains
Reader
Before we move away from Greene...
I want to briefly share just how thoroughly I enjoyed The Power and the Glory. It was a fantastic novel. The writing was crisp and clean, deceptively simple, at times quite beautiful. The sort of writing that one aspires to write without realizing that it is a goal. In auspicious is, perhaps, the right word. Perhaps not. It contained none of the pretension that I associate with some of his peers and which, at times, exhausts me in my reading (I'm thinking of you, Golding and Orwell). Nonetheless, it was a profound novel that hovered just below its central ideals only to, occasionally, delve directly into the moral world. The structuring of the story was fantastic. It was plot driven. It had this incredible central character, with a few others popping in and out to build the protagonist out and support his development. It left me feeling like I couldn't wait to read another book by Greene (and I can't - I've got a couple rising up on my TBR pile again).
I'm not sure if he deserved the Nobel after one read - this book didn't quite click that particular itch for me - but I'm confident that, with a few more reads, I'll be a full believer.
As for Auden.
I've tried with him. I've tried a few times. Picked up a number of books, gave them a gander, read a few of his poems and a couple essays. I even enjoyed some of them. But nothing has ever clicked and I'm not sure why. Maybe I need to hear some of it being read in his voice? Maybe I need to slow down and read some more of his works? I'm open to both of those things. And it seems like he was again on the shortlist for 1968, so I might have the chance to do so this year.
Cleanthess, can you tell me more about why he deserves? Some of the lines in that poetry and truly quite remarkable - it is just too bad that the rest of it gets in the way and doesn't seem to add so much to the journey of getting to the ultimate destination.
I want to briefly share just how thoroughly I enjoyed The Power and the Glory. It was a fantastic novel. The writing was crisp and clean, deceptively simple, at times quite beautiful. The sort of writing that one aspires to write without realizing that it is a goal. In auspicious is, perhaps, the right word. Perhaps not. It contained none of the pretension that I associate with some of his peers and which, at times, exhausts me in my reading (I'm thinking of you, Golding and Orwell). Nonetheless, it was a profound novel that hovered just below its central ideals only to, occasionally, delve directly into the moral world. The structuring of the story was fantastic. It was plot driven. It had this incredible central character, with a few others popping in and out to build the protagonist out and support his development. It left me feeling like I couldn't wait to read another book by Greene (and I can't - I've got a couple rising up on my TBR pile again).
I'm not sure if he deserved the Nobel after one read - this book didn't quite click that particular itch for me - but I'm confident that, with a few more reads, I'll be a full believer.
As for Auden.
I've tried with him. I've tried a few times. Picked up a number of books, gave them a gander, read a few of his poems and a couple essays. I even enjoyed some of them. But nothing has ever clicked and I'm not sure why. Maybe I need to hear some of it being read in his voice? Maybe I need to slow down and read some more of his works? I'm open to both of those things. And it seems like he was again on the shortlist for 1968, so I might have the chance to do so this year.
Cleanthess, can you tell me more about why he deserves? Some of the lines in that poetry and truly quite remarkable - it is just too bad that the rest of it gets in the way and doesn't seem to add so much to the journey of getting to the ultimate destination.
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
First of all, we both agree on Graham Greene: great, great novelist.
About Auden, the poems I quoted above are my favorites among his work. Despite the fact that a joke only gets funnier when it needs to be explained, I'll try to provide some context.
Auden began his rise to prominence in the 1930s. Victorian poetry was still influential, given how WWI has taken its toll on the ranks of poets-to-be. Tennyson, Swinburne, Hardy, Housman and, in contrast, T. S. Eliot were among the major voices leading up to that point in poetic time. As the poems quoted below show, poetry was moving from the euphonious to the colloquial, even deadpan; from classically oriented fluff towards two opposite poles: harsh real life concerns and fancy fantasy, sprinkled with humor, social engagement and/or erudition. Auden was the next step on that progression.
Tennyson:
Æonian music measuring out
The steps of Time—the shocks of Chance—
The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt.
Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame
In matter-moulded forms of speech,
Or ev'n for intellect to reach
Thro' memory that which I became.
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;
And thou, with all thy breadth and height
Of foliage, towering sycamore.
Swinburne:
Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses—
"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die."
Housman:
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poison
And the knife at her back,
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
'Oh young man, oh my slayer,
Tomorrow you shall die.'
Oh Queen of air and darkness,
I think ‘tis truth you say,
And I shall die tomorrow;
but you will die today.
Hardy:
Young Hodge the Drummer never knew—
Fresh from his Wessex home—
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow up a Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
Eliot:
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
About Auden, the poems I quoted above are my favorites among his work. Despite the fact that a joke only gets funnier when it needs to be explained, I'll try to provide some context.
Auden began his rise to prominence in the 1930s. Victorian poetry was still influential, given how WWI has taken its toll on the ranks of poets-to-be. Tennyson, Swinburne, Hardy, Housman and, in contrast, T. S. Eliot were among the major voices leading up to that point in poetic time. As the poems quoted below show, poetry was moving from the euphonious to the colloquial, even deadpan; from classically oriented fluff towards two opposite poles: harsh real life concerns and fancy fantasy, sprinkled with humor, social engagement and/or erudition. Auden was the next step on that progression.
Tennyson:
Æonian music measuring out
The steps of Time—the shocks of Chance—
The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt.
Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame
In matter-moulded forms of speech,
Or ev'n for intellect to reach
Thro' memory that which I became.
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;
And thou, with all thy breadth and height
Of foliage, towering sycamore.
Swinburne:
Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses—
"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die."
Housman:
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poison
And the knife at her back,
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
'Oh young man, oh my slayer,
Tomorrow you shall die.'
Oh Queen of air and darkness,
I think ‘tis truth you say,
And I shall die tomorrow;
but you will die today.
Hardy:
Young Hodge the Drummer never knew—
Fresh from his Wessex home—
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.
Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow up a Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.
Eliot:
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Next on the list is Jorge Luis Borges. And here begins my despair as a reader. All commentaries to a site like this are a set of opinions whose use among its posters assumes a shared past of common readings. How, then, can I translate into words the limitless Borges, which my floundering mind can scarcely encompass?
CapreseBoi
Reader
I've read the whole thread and saw that none of you has mentioned The Master of Go by Kawabata. It is one of my faves of his albeit I've only read about 4 and so might I suggest yall add it to yalls TBR. It would be interesting to know what you guys think of it.