For those of you looking for a quick Chesterton fix, InsideCatholic.com has a couple of reviews up. One is positive; the other, less so. (Note: although the headline of the second link calls The Man Who Was Thursday as a novella, our well-placed sources inform us that the author of the review knows better.)
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Chesterton
Sunday, September 14, 2008
David Foster Wallace, R.I.P.
From the LA Times:
David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead Friday night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46.
Mark Hemingway has some kind words over at NRO. Here are Michiko Kakutani's thoughts over at the New York Times.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
How 'Bout Some Poetry?
So how long has it been since we've featured some poetry at the old Review? Too long, at any rate. One of the purposes behind starting this site was to feature the new works of Mahwavians, so it would nice to do this more frequently. Towards that end, and with a hope that it will encourage some of our old (and new) friends to submit their work for posting, here's a little something I wrote over the summer. It is based on an event which occurred during Columbus' final voyage. Enjoy.
The Voyage of Diego Mendez
In naked Jamaica, Columbus’ last crew
Sat in extremest enervation
By the side of their ocean-battered ship -
Struck there in helpless dilapidation -
And cast their eyes on the volatile sea
Where they looked for death and not salvation.
Then Diego Mendez rose and he said:
"I will cross the forty leagues of the sea
To Hispaniola, and bring us help
From the men of the Spanish colony;
And I trust for the goodness of the attempt
That our gracious lord will favor me."
So he gathered Flisco, his old friend,
And a few of the sailors fortified
Against the perils of such a task,
And some Arawak, to serve as a guide;
Then they all set out in two canoes
That could barely float above the tide.
The sea swelled flat and tranquilly
Like a plate of blue suspiring glass;
The immoderate sun burned painfully,
Unveiled by a single cloud's thin mass;
And the tangible breeze that stirred at times
Smelled thick with mangrove and sassafras.
But the ocean current under their boats
Ran steady and strongly against their head,
So they pulled at the oars through the seering day
Till their palms hard creases blistered and bled -
All day and all night, and when morning came
One man from the strain of it all lay dead.
For two more days and for two more nights,
Across the forty leagues of the sea,
They pulled for Hispaniola's coast
Which their faint eyes searched out desperately,
And two more died, and the others looked
On their quiet cheeks with jealousy.
Still, on they toiled, these fugitive men,
To one another so little known,
With little more language fit to commune
Than a weary and labor-wrested groan,
Or the misery drawn on each taut cheek
That reflected to every man his own;
Cast suddenly in the midst of a sphere
Unknown to them, and unknowable;
Uncertain of how to find their bearing
On a trek momentous and wonderful
Through a natural frame of things at once
Gorgeous and adversarial;
In constant terror of ruinous storms
Arising upon them unaware;
In constant reliance on other's strength -
Both strangers and friends - to get anywhere;
Fatigued to a soul-deep lassitude,
Surrounded by death, beset by despair.
Yet whatever they lacked in that arduous course
They were not deprived a mind assured
Of its righteous aims, nor a tested arm,
To every trial at sea inured,
Nor a spirit in every season inclined
At all pains to do the will of their lord;
And certain it is, whatever the cause,
Whatever the source of that tendency,
And whatever it meant in the final word,
Those little boats and their company
Were the only thing in that mystical realm
That moved against the prevailing sea.
At last the distorted shape of the moon
Gave evidence of the solid shore;
So revivified, they plied at the wave
With a vigor drawn from hope's last store.
At dawn they made land, and the natives came
To greet and succor the exhausted corps.
They brought many fruits, and spirits to drink,
And garments woven white for this band
That had struggled so long and with such good cause,
Then they lay them down on the night-cooled sand,
Where there was no fear of the sudden gale,
Neither labor, nor heat of the sun to withstand.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Tom Wolfe on Fiction, Himself
Here's an interview with the always-quotable Tom Wolfe. Predictably, he criticizes the state of contemporary fiction:
There's so little of it now that it's pathetic, and it's pathetic all over. Writers come from master-of-fine-arts programs now. If you add up the college education of Steinbeck, Hemingway and Faulkner, you get to spring break of freshman year.
MFA programs are an easy target. Their advantages: the best programs give young writers an opportunity to learn from writers they admire; they provide a community with which to share one's work; and they help establish connections with agents, publishers, etc. But it is a shame that they're becoming almost obligatory, and based on what I've seen from them, MFA seminars often foster conformity and sameness among the stories and poems they generate.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Where's Writer's Block When You Need It?
If our review of Exiles is un-enthusiastic, we’re still pretty certain, based on this review, that Hansen’s novel is better than the latest by Robert Olen Butler, a collection of stories that consists entirely of the thoughts that characters (primarily historical figures) have during sex. Butler likes writing gimmicky stories, and sometimes they work—“Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot,” like the other stories of Tabloid Dreams, was inspired by a goofy headline, and is both a very funny and moving story. But this gimmick is just sad and shameless, and reinforces the importance of works like Hansen’s, which while falling short of expectations, still attempts to clear a path for thoughtful, faithful literary fiction.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Exiles: The MLR Review!
We had been eager to read Ron Hansen’s Exiles. He is easily the most acclaimed novelist—whose work is always well-received by critics and film producers—who is proud of his Catholic faith, and here was a novel that was about Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of his favorite poets. It’s a perfect storm of Catholicism! (Excuse the tumultuous maritime pun.)
The exiles to which the title refers are six characters: five German nuns leaving Bismark’s kulturkampf, hoping to start a school in Missouri (which, for our many international readers, is a state in the Midwestern United States). They never reach their destination, dying in a shipwreck off the coast of England. The sixth exile is Gerard Manley Hopkins, who at the start of the novel—that is, at the time of the Deutschland’s wreck—is a young priest in Wales. Reading about the death of the nuns, he is inspired to write a poem for them, and the novel traces his struggles writing what would become “The Wreck of the Deutschland”—as well as his personal, religious, and health problems—until his own early death.
Hansen’s affection for Hopkins, and his sympathy for the priest’s struggles as an artist, are clear; we also enjoyed the details of the everyday lives of these holy people. Hansen makes them human and imperfect, but never diminishes their sacrifices or their holiness. Indeed, it is their apparent normalcy that makes their decisions to enter Holy Orders compelling.
Still, we couldn’t help but feeling a bit let down by the novel. The main reason for this disappointment is the telling-instead-of-showing that Matthew Lickona observes, which makes the novel seem impersonal. The novel is short (just over 200 pages), so there’s not enough room to engage with six characters in very much detail. Hansen devotes about half of the novel to the nuns and half to Hopkins, which makes formal sense. The trouble is, he’s totally democratic with the nuns—they each get the same amount of back-story, the same attention in the present, etc. We suppose it would seem a bit crude to determine that one of these nuns is better than the others, or more worthy of our attention. For the sake of the novel, though, the author needs to make that decision, and I would have liked to have seen Hansen write that particular half of the novel from the perspective of one of the nuns. By trying to show us all of them, we end up not knowing any of them very well. They are all admirable and likeable (and, because they’re human, unlikeable) in different ways, and of course their deaths are very moving, but their narrative is unfocused, and not as powerful as it could be. (This same impersonal feeling is even true of the Hopkins half of the novel, as Hansen rushes through much of the priest’s life.)
Another formal problem arises because of the time differences between the narratives. At the start, there are only a few days difference between the departure of the nuns for America and Hopkins’s attempt to write the poem. Toward the end of the novel, as Hopkins nears the end of his own life, there are years between him and the wreck, but the novel alternates between the two plot strands as it had in the start. By now, though, the time difference makes this alternating seem forced, a formal relic from the start of the novel that seems irrelevant by the end because Hopkins was no longer preoccupied with thoughts of the shipwreck.
I’ll end with a minor gripe. At one point, Hansen refers to “a handwritten poem in Shakespearean blank verse of five accented syllables per line.” There’s no such thing as Shakespearean verse as opposed to plain old blank verse; blank verse is more complicated than just five accented syllables; and the lines that he actually provides aren’t blank verse, either. That just annoyed us; we assume that Hansen knows what blank verse is, and was simplifying the definition for his readers, but there’s a difference between simplifying and getting it wrong.
This is not a bad novel, only a disappointing one. That disappointment could be as much our fault as Hansen’s, since we built unrealistic expectations for The Great Catholic Hope. For now, though, we still prefer his short stories (in many regards, especially the understated presentation of the tragic deaths, this novel reminds us of “Wickedness”) or his essays in A Stay Against Confusion.
Monday, August 04, 2008
A Few Harsh Words
It is normally our policy at the Review to refrain from any unpleasant comments directed at members of the literary community. Normally. But I am afraid it is about time to direct some harsh words towards a certain type of critic, and a certain type of criticism, which is emerging of late, and which deserves quite a number of harsh words directed towards it. I am referring to that species of literary criticism which makes pretense to being a scientific inquiry, and applying a scientific methodology to the comprehension of literature. The latest performance of this meaningless though increasingly popular farce was put on by one Philip Davis in the pages of the Literary Review; it is quite representative of the phenomenon, and on this account (and no other) merits our attention.
The upshot of Mr. Davis’ article is that he and a number of apparently unoccupied “brain scientists” have discovered that listening to certain lines in Shakespeare makes certain lights on certain machines flash in a certain way. Employing their EEG’s, their MEG’s, and their fMRI’s – you know, the usual tools of the literary critic – they found that listening to sentences containing various types of what Davis calls “functional shifts” causes things called N400 and P600 effects, which are surges in the amplitude of waves moving through different locations of the brain. These surges are indications of the brain’s aroused attention, its preparedness to “work at a higher level.” Since the “functional shifts” which were used in the experiment are similar to the ones that Shakespeare frequently employed, Davis concludes that Shakespeare can be said to goad our brains “into working at a higher adaptive level of conscious evolution,” and leaves from his experiment with “a greater sense of how and why Shakespeare really does something to our inner reality.”
Where to start. First, quite obviously, no discovery is being made here; Davis is not presenting any substantial information here which hasn’t been known for centuries. That Shakespeare makes our brains “work at a higher level” or, in less pretentious terms, that he makes us think, is, I would suggest, a less than earth-shattering assertion. One doesn’t need an MEG machine in one’s study to adequately grasp the way “Shakespeare does something to our inner reality.” Similarly, the pleasing and arresting qualities of “functional shifts” of language have been known to rhetoricians from antiquity to the Renaissance, as is indicated by Davis’ citation of Puttenham, and are readily apparent to any sensible reader. After all, why did Davis choose to experiment upon precisely these features of Shakespeare’s language if he hadn’t felt their power prior to stepping foot into the lab?
I know the response; Davis and his ilk will say, now we have proof, by which they mean scientific verification, the only thing they will admit as proof. Its not true, but suppose even that it were. There are a million experiences in the course of our lives which we admit as legitimate and settled without scientific verification; we could hardly get on were it not the case. We do not ask the little men in white coats to “prove” to us that chocolate has a wonderful taste, or that an unexpected clap of thunder shocks us; indeed, to ask for such proof in such cases would be tantamount to a sort of paranoia. If a man should say to us, “I believe I am rather fond of Beethoven’s chamber music, but I am heading downtown today to have my brain scanned in order to be certain that is the case,” I think we would all suspect his sanity. But when a man writes “I believe that I find Shakespeare’s style striking and lovely, but I had the brain’s of several unwitting strangers scanned in order to prove it,” he is published in the Literary Review and, quite likely, takes one step closer to that cherished tenure-track position. The dogma that scientific modes of verification are the only legitimate modes of verification is nothing more than an epistemological disease of the modern world; it is a dogma because no one can possibly demonstrate why scientific modes of verification are the only valid ones available on all matters, particularly on those matters of which we possess phenomenological knowledge. A man who says to himself, and to the readers of the Literary Review, that we only possess certain or clear knowledge of a feature of Shakespeare when it has been subjected to scientific procedures is a man whose mind is in serious epistemological disorder.
Such would be the case even if Davis’ experiment proves what he thinks it proves. But, as I said, it doesn’t. It proves nothing because it explains nothing. Here is what Davis knows: when his subjects read certain kinds of “functional shifts,” a change in wave amplitude – called a P600 – is observable, and correlates to an increase in attention. Now here are all the things that Davis doesn’t know: why is a P600 triggered by a “functional shift” instead of one of the other literary devices, such as metaphor or synecdoche? Why does a “functional shift” cause a P600 effect, instead of a P700, or a N300, or a XYZ56 and a third? How can there exist a causal relationship (as opposed to the observable correlation) between language heard and changes in wave amplitude in the brain? How can there exist a causal relationship (as opposed to the observable correlation) between changes in wave amplitude in the brain and increases of awareness? How can there exist a causal relationship between brain processes and increases of awareness? Or between brain processes and awareness itself? How can matter in any form or arrangement fully account for the phenomenology of subjective experience?
If Mr. Davis had done more than dip his little toe into the baby pool of philosophy, and gone diving into the deep end instead, he would understand that these are fundamental and intractable problems which have no answers now, and very likely never will. Yet his whole article presupposes that all of these questions have been tidily answered by now, and of course, in this, he is no different than that army of academic frauds in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, neuropsychology, etc, etc, who, by producing mountains of new empirical data every year, think they can pretend to have answered the philosophical dilemmas presented by subjective experience. But it is the most ridiculous thing in the world for Mr. Davis to suppose that he has presented an explanation of the beauty of Shakespeare’s style clearer or more compelling than one offered in purely phenomenological terms, when his own explanation carries with it dozens of insoluble difficulties.
All of this is bad enough, but perhaps the worst part of the article is that reference to Shakespeare causing our brains to operate at “a higher level of conscious evolution.” Of course, this is a phrase with no meaning. There are no such things as higher levels of evolution, nor is there any such thing as an evolution of consciousness. What Mr. Davis is attempting to do here is smuggle into literary studies the language of sociobiology, or totalizing Darwinism. And in this, he has quite a number of accomplices. Darwinian literary criticism (a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education covers the phenomenon) is the latest challenger for the title of most ludicrous ideology to corrupt literary studies, vying with feminism, multi-culturalism, and deconstructionism for the distinction. Any decent person who – in an act of penance or of masochism – has read a sociobiological account of ethics or politics knows how incoherent, equivocal, and downright revolting such accounts can be, and any such person with a love of literature would want to make sure that sociobiology, with all of its phony methodology and all of its dishonorable prejudices, be kept as far away from the literary arts as possible. The literary Darwinists are like credulous merchants, plunging recklessly into the ports of some long-rumored kingdom, only to carry back in their voluminous holds all the vile, corrosive, vermin-born plagues of abused science, wherewith to infect the happy realm of letters.
The fact remains that Mr. Davis’ experiments offer no grounds for distinction between the “functional shifts” as they occur in Shakespeare and in his own examples; they both apparently produce the same changes in the amplitude of brain waves. A method of criticism which provides us with no grounds for distinguishing between the style of Shakespeare and the style of a scribbler for the Literary Review is a perfectly worthless and irrelevant method of literary criticism; that, and nothing more, is what Mr. Davis has presented in his article. That, and nothing more, is what all “scientific” literary critics have to offer. I trust that all intelligent readers recognize this fashionable travesty for what it is, and regard it with the sort of disdain that it deserves.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
"With Hope in Our Hearts and Wings on Our Heels": Chariots of Fire
We were recently watching Chariots of Fire, and it occurred to us that the movie is a great example of an extraordinary work of art that engages with religion in a serious and thoughtful way. In this regard, it’s a model for young artists seeking to use their art to present their faith without being polemical.
A brief plot summary in case you haven’t seen it: the movie follows two British sprinters as they prepare for and compete in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Harold Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) is the son of a Lithuanian Jew, and who constantly feels as if he is treated unfairly by his countrymen because of his religion. (We see this unfair treatment for ourselves in the behavior of two Cambridge dons, who I think are played by Statler & Waldorf.) He races in part to prove his worth to his countrymen. As he says, to prove himself he’ll “take them on, one by one, and run them off their feet."
Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), meanwhile, is a Scot and devout Christian. Like Abrahams, his religion defines him, but in his case there’s more of a conflict between faith and sport: he is torn between his talents as a runner and his family’s missionary work in China. He eventually decides that because his talent is a blessing from God, he should continue to run to glorify Him. As he explains to his sister (in a beautiful scene shot on Arthur’s Seat overlooking Edinburgh), “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” Liddell’s greatest challenge comes when he learns that his qualifying heat is on a Sunday. (I won’t give away the outcome.)
Some qualifications. First, the movie comes awfully close to reinforcing some stereotypes: the wild and talented but unrefined Scotsman who trains by running through the hills, the Robert Burns of running; the ambitious Jew who comes dangerously close to becoming a professional athlete by hiring a coach. And of course, the film takes liberties with history, among them that Liddell knew that his heat was on a Sunday long before the Olympics. This site has plenty of left-wing complaints, too (basically, “the movie says that liking your country is a good thing, which movies really shouldn’t do when Margaret Thatcher is prime minister!”) Though the article is silly, it does clarify that Abrahams converted to Catholicism, which would indeed clarify why his funeral is in a church!
Still, the movie has cracked our all-time favorite list. It helps that we’re an Anglophile (and a Scotophile, too)—there’s lots of British culture here, and many beautiful scenes in English manor houses, ancient universities, the Scottish Highlands, plus the famous opening and closing running scene along the beach (filmed in St. Andrews, but which is presented as Kent in the film).
But what makes the movie extraordinary and moving is its presentation of these two very driven men whose religions are central to their lives and their senses of themselves. The movie is not preachy, yet still makes clear that these men are admirable for both their ambition and their devotion. Still, the movie doesn’t present these men as exactly the same. It suggests that Harold will never be satisfied, that he will never think he’s done enough to feel like he’s accepted by his countrymen. (That’s why the complaint that the movie is excessively nationalist is so misdirected—this sense of dissatisfaction is the country’s fault more than it’s Harold’s.) Liddell’s desire, though still rooted in his faith and the faith of his family, is fueled less by a sense of dissatisfaction or resentment, so he’s much more satisfied and content after the Games, having done what he set out to do for God.
And although the movie gives voice to the critics of these men—Liddell’s decision is said to smack of “fanaticism,” and they’re both criticized for putting their religions over their countries—the movie presents their beliefs sympathetically and realistically (the two are not contradictory!).
It’s an inspiring movie for many reasons, including Liddell’s belief that his running matters because it’s an opportunity to glorify God. As his father tells him, “You can praise the Lord by peeling a spud, if you peel it to perfection.” (That sounds like Josemaria Escriva!) It’s also inspiring to recognize that the movie was widely acclaimed in 1981 (it won the Oscar for Best Picture), which suggests that even in a “post-Christian” popular culture, there is a place for great art that presents religion as an important force in the lives of great men.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
In Defense of the Graphic Novel
Last month, we posted some unpleasant thoughts about EW's Top 100 Reads of the last 25 years, and complained that there were too many comic books on the list. Our friend Joe posted a reply in which he defended the genre, which we're pasting as a posting below. But first, in related news, here's the trailer for the film adaptation of Watchmen. (Warning: it features Billy Corgan's very annoying voice):
Take it away, Joe!
I'll personally vouch for half of the comic book entries (Side note: "Graphic Novel" is a legitimate term, but it's often misapplied by people who are embarrassed to admit that they read comic books. A graphic novel is any comic book that acts as a stand-alone work of previously unpublished material. Following this definition, "Maus" and "Persepolis" would be graphic novels, but "Watchmen" and "Sandman" would not.) I've said on more than one occasion that "Sandman" and "Watchmen" belong among the greatest literary works of the past quarter century.
"Watchmen" works, not just as a fantastic, genre-bending adventure story, but also as a loving deconstruction of the super hero mythos in American culture. Moore juggles a lot of philosophical perspectives, namely the plight of man navigating the space between determinism (represented by Doctor Manhattan) and nihilism (represented by Rorschach), and touching on a lot of really fascinating stuff along the way.
"Sandman" is absolutely unparalleled in terms of breadth and scope. It's an Aristotelian tragedy told in more than seventy-five parts over nearly ten years. Gaiman incorporates his incredible knowledge of mythology, history, and literature into a breath-taking epic that is alternately thrilling, frightening, and touching. Start with "Preludes and Nocturns" and keep reading; each book gets better and better.
I would also argue that "The Dark Knight Returns" and possibly "Batman: The Killing Joke" belong on the list as well.
Comic books and graphic novels are a medium just like any other; they have certain advantages and limitations and they have their own way of conveying a story and information. I think to write off the entire genre would be the equivalent to saying "Film is a waste of time," or "Books are for nerds."
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Ron Hanen, "Exiles"
There's an interesting conversation at InsideCatholic.com about Ron Hansen's new novel, Exiles. We're not done with the novel yet, so we're not in position to evaluate the comments, but we're very impressed that Hansen himself joins in a conversation that often isn't very nice to him. One of the discussion's central themes is what constitutes Catholic fiction, so it should be of interest to any Mahwahvian.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Bogus Brideshead
The New York Times has more on the new film version of Brideshead Revisited. As Ross Douthat observes, the directors claim to have made an effort to be true to the novel, but have given Hopper "a positive spin." (We're also sorry to hear that Anthony Blanche has only a passing role -- Nickolas Grace's portrayal is a highlight of the mini-series.) Click here for our earlier post on the topic.
UPDATE: Deal Hudson chimes in over at IC.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Kay Ryan: Poet Laureate
The Library of Congress has announced that Kay Ryan will become the new Poet Laureate this October. Here's a New York Times profile of her; here's one of her poems; here's some footage of her at a public reading (warning: the audience suffers from OLS (Over-Laughing Syndrome)). The NYTimes piece includes this notable testimonial:
Dana Gioia, a poet and the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was an early supporter of Ms. Ryan’s work, describing her as the “thoughtful, bemused, affectionate, deeply skeptical outsider.”
“She would certainly be part of the world if she could manage it,” he said. “She has certain reservations. That is what makes her like Dickinson in some ways.”
Ryan writes interesting, accessible poetry with a humor that reminds us of Billy Collins, but with a more careful attention to phrasing and sound. Still, although she's a fine choice for the position, we can't help but think that she'll have as much success broadening the nation's interest in poetry as David Beckham has had in making soccer our national sport.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Thomas Disch, R.I.P.
J. Bottum has a moving tribute to Thomas Disch, who committed suicide earlier this month. Here's perhaps his best-known poem, which Dana Gioia has been known to recite:
Ballade of the New God
I have decided I'm divine.
Caligula and Nero knew
A godliness akin to mine,
But they are strictly hitherto.
They're dead, and what can dead gods do?
I'm here and now. I'm dynamite.
I'd worship me if I were you.
A new religion starts tonight!
No booze, no pot, no sex, no swine:
I have decreed them all taboo.
My words will be your only wine,
The thought of me your honeydew.
All other thoughts you will eschew.
You'll call yourself a Thomasite
And hymn my praise with loud yahoo.
A new religion starts tonight.
But (you might think) that's asinine!
I'm just as much a god as you.
You may have built yourself a shrine,
But I won't bend my knee. Who
Asked you to be my god? I do,
Who am, as god, divinely right.
Now you must join my retinue:
A new religion starts tonight.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Billy Collins: Porky Pig Poet
This weekend’s Wall Street Journal features an article by Billy Collins, the most popular poet in America and former Poet Laureate. Collins makes a few interesting observations about artistic influence: “the question of literary influence is a tricky one. For one thing, it offers the author the opportunity to duck it by substituting for his actual influence certain names the dropping of which is designed to impress.” He notes that writers tend to only name artists from their own genre, when “the truth is that influence enters us from all sides. . . . A short-story writer may have been influenced by 18th-century Dutch painting as much as anything else—or by his mother’s cooking.” Unfortunately, Collins spends the rest of the article describing how Warner Brothers cartoons influenced his own work:
Characters could jump dimensions, leaping around in time and space, their sudden exits marked by a rifle-shot sound effect. Anticipating the tricks of metafiction, these creatures could hop right out of the world of the cartoon and into our world, often Hollywood itself to consort with caricatures of Eddie Cantor and Marilyn Monroe. Or Bugs would do the impossible by jumping out of the frame and landing on the drawing board of the cartoonist who was at work creating him. This freedom to transcend the laws of basic physics, to hop around in time and space, and to skip from one dimension to another has long been a crucial aspect of imaginative poetry. Robert Bly developed a poetics based on the notion of psychic “leaping,” where the genius of a poem is measured by its ability to leap without warning from the conscious to the unconscious and back again.
We can agree with the broader statement about imaginative leaping (Keats’s “To a Nightingale” is another great example, as is Ashbery’s “The Instruction Manual”), but the connection between cartoons and great art is more than a little labored. Porky We do not count ourselves among those who think that pop culture can inspire only bad poetry, but this has all the heft of a kindergarten haiku, and is neither interesting nor (worst of all!) even funny. We prefer this one by William Trowbridge, which a) surprises the reader and b) makes connections between the subject matter and the speaker’s life.
There’s nothing pretentious about Collins, which we admire. But his article will not comfort anyone who believes that there isn’t enough substance to his poetry. Case in point:
the poetry (first published in 1977) that accompanies the article. For example:
Happy only
when he is gardening alone
far from conversation
and the terrible stammering
far from Petunia, nag and tease
just resting on a hoe
unembarrassed
as he contemplates
the blue background of his flat world --
a Zen pig.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Baer is Blogged
InsideCatholic has a profile about Dr. Baer. The piece covers Baer's nurturing of a Catholic literary scene, as well as his important work with formal poetry. (Best of all, it appears that its author is cut from our Mahwahvian cloth.) A blurb:
Like many other Catholic writers, Baer believes that faithful Catholics do not need to convey a specifically Catholic teaching through their art: "Their work can be simply entertaining; or it can be moral; or it can offer a specifically Catholic perspective. Catholic writers can do all sorts of things, as long as they consider whether it's pleasing to God."
That passage also wins the Southwell Award for "The Most Uses of the Word 'Catholic' in a Paragraph."
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
EW's 100 "Best Reads"
Entertainment Weekly has a list of the 100 best books of the past 25 years. Ross Douthat vents here. Like him, we're not happy that a Harry Potter comes in at #2. We're also amazed that of the four comic books on the list, two are in the top 15. A couple would be fine...and we really enjoyed The Watchmen when we read it in junior high, which is when you should read comic books (sorry, we're not calling them graphic novels). But let's not get carried away. It says a lot about the state of "things" that the list includes so many works written for adolescents, yet no poetry collections and (again, by our unofficial tally) only four collections of short stories (Munro, Moore, Danticat, and Carver.)
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Nick Hornby & the Insular Novel
We’ve been enjoying Housekeeping vs. The Dirt, a collection of critical essays that Nick Hornby wrote for The Believer. In these essays, Hornby writes about the books he read, and lists the books he bought, each month. If you’ve read High Fidelity, About a Boy, A Long Way Down, or any of Hornby’s novels, you know that his voice is fun and welcoming. He also makes some sharp observations about literature. We don’t always agree with him, but since this site says nothing nasty ’bout nobody, we’ll focus on what we like.
Hornby is concerned that not only is the average Joe reading less and less, but novelists are making matters worse by writing too much about writers and book nerds—that, in short, “the world of books seems to be getting more bookish.” He names a few novels to make his case, focusing particularly on Ian McEwan’s Saturday, whose narrator is a successful neurosurgeon with a daughter and father-in-law who both won the prestigious Newdigate Poetry award while students at Oxford. Hornby writes:
There are, I think, two reasons to be a little queasy about this trend. The first is, quite simply, that it excludes readers; the woman in the barber’s is not the only one who wouldn't want to read about the Newdigate Prize. And yes, maybe great art shouldn’t be afraid of being elitist, but there’s plenty of great art that isn’t, and I don’t want bright people who don’t happen to have a degree in literature to give up on the contemporary novel; I want them to believe there’s a point to it all, that fiction has a purpose visible to anyone capable of reading a book intended for grown-ups. Taken as a group, these novels seem to raise the white flag: we give in! We don't know what those people out there want! Pull up the drawbridges!
And the second cause for concern is that writing exclusively about highly articulate people….Well, isn’t it cheating a little? McEwan’s hero, Henry Perowne, the father and son-in-law of the poets, is a neurosurgeon, and his wife is a corporate lawyer; like many highly educated middle-class [they seemed more like upper-class to me] people, they have access to and a facility with language, a facility that enables them to speak very directly and lucidly about their lives…, and there’s a sense in which McEwan is wasted on them. They don’t need his help. What I’ve always loved about fiction is its ability to be smart about people who aren’t themselves smart, or at least don’t necessarily have the resources to describe their own emotional states. That was the way Twain was smart, and Dickens; and that is surely one of the reasons why Roddy Doyle is adored by all sorts of people, many of whom are infrequent book-buyers. It seems to me a more remarkable gift than the ability to let extremely literate people say extremely literate things.
Right on—and this isn’t much different from what Tom Wolfe writes in “My Three Stooges.” Not only does this trend suggest a lack of imagination, it also flatters the writer. If we remember right, McEwan’s novel [SPOILER ALERT] ends with Robert Browning crashing through the skylight to pummel an armed intruder who threatens the hero’s family. Ah, poets—the unacknowledged superheroes of the world!
Let’s face it: reciting “Dover Beach” isn’t going to dissuade anyone from kicking your ass. (Playing Eric Johnson’s “Cliffs of Dover” might.) Of course literature is important, but the more novelists and poets write about novelists, poets, and the people who love them—that is, people like themselves—the less average people will read quality literature. Writers should not dumb-down their craft, but must recognize that they may not be quite as interesting as they think.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Fighting for Pfleger
Readers of this site know that one of its main purposes is to explore ways to integrate faith and art. We therefore rarely delve into political controversy, but we think it's important to make an exception in the case of Father Michael Pfleger. Though he has apologized for his recent sermon, in which he ridiculed Hillary Clinton, we praise and applaud him for using the art of stand-up comedy to spread the Catholic gospel of social justice. In case you haven't seen it:
His impersonation of Hillary Clinton— "I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!!!"—is stand-up gold, as the crowd's reaction shows. It is very possible that he looked to Chris Rock for his inspiration:
(Sorry, but that was just about the only clean clip we could find.) Father Pfleger is breaking ground for Catholic clergy, and his brother priests would do well to follow his example by impersonating celebrities and political figures during their sermons.
They may also consider incorporating some meditations into the different driving styles of black and white people, like this one from The Simpsons:
Comedian: Yo, check this out: black guys drive a car like this.
[Leans back, as though his elbow were on the windowsill]
Do, do, ch. Do-be-do, do-be-do-be-do.
Yeah, but white guys, see, they drive a car like this.
[Hunches forward, talks nasally]
Dee-da-dee, a-dee-da-dee-da-dee-da-dee.
[Audience howls with laughter]
Homer: Ah ha ha, it's true, it's true! We're so lame!
Stay strong, Father Pfleger—and don't forget: women be shoppin'!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Use of Verse in Drama
This weekend, the third annual Southwell Institute Writers Conference will convene in Mahwah. The focus of this year's conference will be playwriting, so I would like to offer a few thoughts on the topic. Particularly, I would like to make a short case for the long-neglected genre of verse-drama. One of the principal aspects of the Mahwavian movement thus far has been the cultivation of formal verse, so my first argument in favor of verse-drama would be that it is in keeping with this endeavor. But I think there are other arguments, too.
The tradition of modern realist drama, inaugurated by Ibsen and Shaw, has largely eschewed the devises of artifice - including verse - formerly employed by playwrights, in order to present what its practitioners regard as a true-to-life depiction of nature. Thus, a Eugene O'Neill or an Arthur Miller can draw scenes for the stage in no material way differening from the scenes of common life. The emphasis is on this naturalism, which is everywhere opposed to artifice.
But we would do well to remind ourselves (here and always) of Burke's grand dictum: "art is man's nature." One enters into a strange building, one pays money for a ticket, one takes a seat in an auditorium designed for the presentation of plays, one sees strangers moving around in unfamiliar garb, and speaking in unfamiliar accents - in such a situation, one cannot possibly expect to witness ordinary life. In such a situation, the expectation is art - which is to say, something more beautiful and more significant than ordinary life. The stage is like a pedestal, an instrument designed explicitly for the presentation of the art work, and in effect signaling to the viewer the presence of that unique object which is the work of art. It would be no less ridiculous to see a man sitting on a pedestal in the Louvre, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper, than it is to see a troupe on stage at Carnegie Hall, acting no differently than they do at home in their own dining rooms.
The ancient playwrights understood this perfectly, and that is why all early drama - whether we look at the tragedy of the Greeks, the No dramas of Japan, or the Sanskrit plays of early India - is heavily stylized. And the drama of the Renaissance and Neoclassical periods - the drama of Shakespeare, Calderon, and Racine - while abandoning much of the rigidity in the formal structure of those early works, still displayed a wealth of artifice, largely drawn from the stores of rhetoric. To be sure, the aim of the playwright was always to imitate nature. But simply to say that X imitates Y, is to state that X is something different than Y. To say that art should imitate nature is to say that art is something different than nature, and what it is is that collection of principles and techniques, the employment of which allows the maker to fabricate objects excelling the commonplace world in truthfulness and beauty. First among the techniques available to the playwright to fashion a dramatic performance uniquely impressive and lovely is verse.
Whatever their thoughts on this question, I wish the new members of the Southwell family the best of luck over the next couple of weeks, as they get to work on their plays. I hope the Mahwah experience is as special and momentous for them as it was for me, and I hope we hear from some of them soon here at the Review.
A Psalm & A Poem
Psalm 19
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night showeth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language,
where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
David Middleton
“Things”
After Psalm 19:3-4
We live among them here and partly are
What they have always been and still will be
When soul from flesh is sheared along the scar
That marks the stitching-place as soul breaks free.
Yet if we hold them wholly in the mind
To take apart and savor, then let go,
The essence of our senses but the rind
Of some rich fruit we taste but hardly know—
The bare pecan whose trunk is simply there,
Its winter limbs against a winter sky,
The squirrel that brings the nut through dusk’s dim air,
Just doing what it must to live and die—
Such things in turn may be more than they seem
In matter’s shadow-land of squirrel and tree:
Creatures who’d wake with us in that first dream,
Time’s common tongues in timeless colloquy.
(From Measure 3.1)
Type rest of the post here
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