READIN

Sunday, May 23rd, 2004

I have been distracted, a bit, from Heart of Darkness by the book which Ed Antoine gave me for my birthday present; it is The Myth of the Eternal Return: or, Cosmos and History, by Mircea Eliade. I can't quite tell yet, what is the nature of the book; its prose is the very dense essay style that makes me reluctant to read philosophy (though I believe its genre is probably sociology). But this is a book that I am judging by (a) its cover and (b) the fact that Ed gave it to me, as worth spending some time being puzzled by.

The moment I saw the title I had a pretty fully formed thought along the lines of, "Cool -- he is going to investigate how different early cultures came up with the idea of a cyclical cosmos, and how that relates to being human." -- I know -- a lot to come up with from 10 words, 5 of which are articles, conjunctions or prepositions -- still, Ed assured me that I was on the right track with that supposition. And that investigation is interesting to me; so I am trying to get on board with Eliade's difficult prose.

So far, a lot of what he is saying seems like pretty intuitive ideas backed up with historical research. One thing that I liked: he was talking about how cultures would tend to think of unknown territory as being part of the chaos that preceded creation, and when they conquered or explored new territory would perform rituals that made it part of the created universe; at one point on page 15, he writes, "...the temple or sacred city is always the meeting point of the three cosmic regions: heaven, earth, and hell." And that made me start thinking about how if "hell" is the chaos outside our knowledge, and "heaven" is Platonic forms, i.e. pure knowledge, then "earth" is the imposition of forms onto the unknown, is reality which we can dominate by naming.

posted afternoon of May 23rd, 2004: Respond
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Thursday, May 13th, 2004

🦋 Found the answer

Heart of Darkness -- I was wondering yesterday what was with Marlowe's journey by foot to the Central Station -- the introduction explains that the Central Station was in Kinshasa, at Stanley Falls, and reproduces a map of the overland route (a trek which Conrad made in 1890). Clearly the falls would be an obstacle to shipping so the steamer had to stop there; not quite clear to me why another boat could not run from there to the coast.

posted evening of May 13th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, May 11th, 2004

I read the first chapter of Heart of Darkness last night and this morning -- but I think I will start over this evening. I seem to be reading a little too fast and missing some detail. Nice imagery though.

I'm a little perplexed by Marlowe's 20-day hike to the Central Station: why would the company not build the Central Station at the mouth of the river where it would be accessible by ship? The station is certainly on the river, I guess at a point where it is not navigable by ocean-going vessels. But why? If the whole point of the station is to serve as a transfer point between freshwater craft and ocean-going vessels, wouldn't it make more sense to build it further down the river? Maybe there is a long stretch of the river that no boats can navigate -- I can't quite picture this though.

posted morning of May 11th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, May 10th, 2004

This thread on Brad DeLong's site reminded me that I have not read Heart of Darkness since college -- in the same class indeed where I first read Don Quixote -- and that I have very little memory of it. Time to go back and reread; I picked up a copy of this newly topical book at Coliseum today.

posted afternoon of May 10th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, May third, 2004

Flags in the Dust -- Bayard seems totally dissipated after his grandfather dies. I think this may have been true from the beginning of the book but I was reading with the wrong lenses in my glasses or something; I had seen Bayard as possessed of some depth of character and potential. The moment I really understood Bayard, I think, was during his visit to the MacCallum's place when he undressed to go to sleep and Buddy warned him to wear warmer clothing in bed.

posted morning of May third, 2004: Respond
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Sunday, May second, 2004

We finally got around to watching House of Sand and Fog on tape last night. That is to say -- I did; Ellen was involved getting Sylvia to stop screaming... Not too impressed by the movie. Ben Kingsley's performance was wonderful as was Shohreh Aghdashloo's; Jennifer Connelly was good, Ron Eldard made a good effort at playing a role for which he was fundamentally miscast. The problem as I saw it was that none of the characters was developed as fully as they were in the book -- this may not have been possible, so it could be argued that reading the book spoiled the movie for me. I think the only moment in the film where I felt fully involved with the action on screen was when Massoud was in the hospital, praying for his son's life.

Update Sunday evening: Sylvia is quiet this evening (knock wood) and Ellen is taking the opportunity to watch the tape.

Update Monday morning: Ellen stopped watching before the climactic scene because she could not take the suspense. (She also had a really hard time with reading the book at this part.) She agreed with me that Ron Eldard was a poor choice for Lester (actually she thought he was a lousy actor).

posted morning of May second, 2004: Respond
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Friday, April 30th, 2004

🦋 Poem in your pocket day

Lilith has suggested that everyone post a favorite poem today. Here is my contribution to the effort, an early poem by Rilke with my own translation.

    Der Novembertag

    Kalter Herbst vermag den Tag zu knebeln,
    seine tausend Jubelstimmen schweigen;
    hoch vom Domturm wimmern gar so eigen
    Sterbeglocken in Novembernebeln.

    Auf den nassen Daechern liegt verschlafen
    weisses Dunstlicht; und mit kalten Haenden
    greift der Sturm in des Kamines Waenden
    eines Totenkarmens Schlussoktaven.

    The November Day

    Cold autumn can muzzle the day,
    silence its thousand jubilating voices;
    from the steeple whimper, so peculiar,
    death bells in November's mist.

    On the wet rooftops lies sleeping
    a white fog; and with cold hands
    the storm inside the chimney's walls strikes
    a death-karma's closing octaves.

posted morning of April 30th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, April 27th, 2004

On the web site of the University of Illinois at Chicago, I found an interesting paper, titled Flags in the Dust: A Continuum of Immorality Lost in a Lilac Dream. There does not seem to be any information about the author of the paper except that his first name is Juan. I will try to find out more and post it.

posted afternoon of April 27th, 2004: Respond
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Flags in the Dust -- It occurs to me that I may have given the impression in my last post that I think Horace is a con man. Far from it -- he deceives himself probably better than anybody else. The narration around him is written in the same affected manner he uses when speaking; I did not understand what was going on before since the narration is in the third person, but I think now that he is actually narrating -- and maybe that each scene is narrated by the character who is central to it.

posted morning of April 27th, 2004: Respond

Monday, April 26th, 2004

Flags in the Dust -- This evening, as I was reading the scene where Horace is visiting Belle, it occurred to me that Horace is a poseur. And with that understanding, everything his character did started to make more sense. The other characters so far seem by and large to be either unreflective or else withdrawn and unsocial; but Horace is extroverted, and busy with self-consciously projecting a façade to the people around him. His fancy language is tiresome and unnecessary, and he knows this on some level; but he keeps it up in order to maintain a consistent false persona. This is his connection with Belle, who is a bit of a faker herself.

posted evening of April 26th, 2004: Respond

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