Commonplace Entry: Rereading

Vladimir Nabokov, 
"Lectures on Literature"

... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do no have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous achievement of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is - a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed) - a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.

Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov. Mariner Books, 2002 (1980)

Thinking About Being

Everywhere Being Is Dancing: 
Twenty Pieces of Thinking 
by Robert Bringhurst

"It is an article of faith with me that music and poetry spring from the same root.  The space between them now is filled with words--and words, of course, are not to be trusted, because words have been betrayed." (p 33)

"Being speaks and means -- it has no choice --

because WHAT IS exists and WHAT ISN'T doesn't.

These are things I believe you should ponder.

"The Fragments of Parmenides", p 147

The essays in this book stretch the bounds of thought. For example, music is discussed in relationship to language, literature, myth, philosophy, painting, and even typography. This discussion is of typography in the modern (or post-modern) sense that those who in the twenty-first century participate in the computer revolution are likely to have an interest in typography. Thus on page 118 we find this statement:
"But typography isn't something to watch; it's something to do, like writing and reading and cooking and music and literature. It's an intrinsically rewarding, honest craft. And the nature of craft is that mental and physical ways of being stay in touch; they hold each other by the hand."
So, yes typography is like music in that sense and slowly, as you peruse the other essays (that quote was from an essay titled, "To Tell the Truth by Lying: Gorgias the Sicilian and a Theory You Can't Refuse") you become entwined in the connections that everything worth thinking about has with everything else. The quoted essay leads up to the riff on typography through a discussion of Homer, Socrates, and Plato - author of the Gorgias. In fact this essay is a microcosm of the collection as a whole; essays are included with specific titles but with amorphous paths of prose as they get to their point. The path the essays lay down for the reader leads from Mythology to Haida Oral literature and the poet Gary Snyder -- on the way there are excursions through the philosophy of poetry, the art of Joan Miro, and Bach as interpreted by Glenn Gould.  And that is just the tip of the proverbial ice cube.
 The underlying theme of the collection is presented in the title of the book and if you are interested in the nature of being you may be just the reader to delight in Robert Bringhurst's Dance.

Everywhere Being is dancing by Robert Bringhurst. Counterpoint, 2008

Rose Wilder Lane & her Mother


I never read the "Little House" books when I was growing up and my only acquaintance with them and their author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, was through the extremely popular television series based on the stories.
Presumably the popularity of the books, which predated the television hype, was not due to the same saccharin qualities that permeated the faux-rustic TV show.

I did, however, read The Discovery of Freedom, a unique and iconic personal view of the history of the idea of freedom, penned by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane. It is a foundational document for many latter-day libertarians and a great read for those who love the history of ideas. For those who are interested in these two very long-lived and lively women The New Yorker has a fascinating article about their lives by Judith Thurman in the current issue. There are a host of interesting details including a discussion over Rose's controversial "editing" of the Little House books, apparently a collaborative effort.


The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane. Fox & Wilkes. 1993 (1943).

Tristram Shandy

Never poor Wight of a Dedicator had less hopes from his Dedication, than I have from this of mine; for it is written in a bye corner of the kingdom, and in a retir'd thatch'd house, where I live in a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles,--but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of Life.
- Laurence Sterne, prologue to Tristram Shandy


The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Tristram Shandy) is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years.

As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But central to the novel is the theme of not explaining anything simply, thus there are explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that we do not even reach Tristram's own birth until Volume III. However, beginning the narrative before one has been born is not unique in literature, for example see the opening chapter of David Copperfield. Consequently, apart from Tristram as narrator, the most familiar and important characters in the book are his father Walter, his mother, his Uncle Toby, Toby's servant Trim, and a supporting cast of minor characters including Doctor Slop and the parson Yorick (no doubt inspired by Shakespeare).

Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments of Walter—splenetic, rational and somewhat sarcastic—and Uncle Toby, who is gentle, uncomplicated and a lover of his fellow man. "The long-nosed Stranger of Strasburg": Book IV opens with a story from one of Walter's favourite books, a collection of stories in Latin about noses.

In between such events, Tristram as narrator finds himself discoursing at length on sexual practices, insults, the influence of one's name, noses, as well as explorations of obstetrics, siege warfare and philosophy, as he struggles to marshal his material and finish the story of his life. What makes this novel remarkable is the seeming modernity of the technique and style. As with Rabelais, Sterne does not follow the "rules" for writing a novel, thus one encounters multiple allusions to other writers and their works and interjections of many kinds into the novel so that you begin to wonder what kind of book this is. Sterne was particularly influenced by Rabelais and his bawdy humor is no doubt due in part to that influence. This is not an easy read but one worth taking in small sections, a bit at a time. Having read Tristram Shandy you may be ready for twenty-first century post-modern literature or you may want to hang up the idea of literature altogether.

Invisible Forms

"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice and that was my initial response to this unique book. Written by Kevin Jackson, a writer and traveler and somewhat of a mystery, Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities is a book about books. It is specifically about the 'other', the 'invisible' forms or parts of almost every book that are there "in plain sight"; ignored or assumed away when considering the book, but not by Kevin Jackson. He discusses dedications, titles, epigraphs, footnotes, prefaces, afterwords, indexes and even the imaginary: imaginary books and authors. Marginalia is not left out in this delightful compendium of useful and whimsical knowledge and trivia. The epigraphs for the book are worth considering:

There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books. (George Santayana, Realms of Being)

Some of the means I use are trivial - and some are quadrivial. (James Joyce, responding to accusations of triviality)

The contents of Invisible Forms exist in that realm somewhere between the trivial and the whole world. It is an interesting place, one that invites the reader in for a dip now and then. Watch out that you are not engulfed by the world of Invisible Forms.


Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities by Kevin Jackson. St. Martin's Press, New York. 2000.

Housman

A Shropshire Lad includes many lyrical poems. Some, including the following, are appropriate to commemorate his death on this date in 1936:

White in the moon the long road lies,

The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.
Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way....

Kafka

The world described in The Trial by Franz Kafka is nightmarish and irrational. While superficially recognizable to most people (haven't we all experienced a bureaucratic snafu that seems inexplicable), upon analysis it becomes a world that is uniquely unanalyzable. That seems to be a contradiction, but I would argue that the contradiction is Kafka's and the attempted analysis is a futile pursuit. There are no answers for the whys that the events suggest for there is no causal connection in the world of Kafka. Things just happen in this book and one thing may happen rather than another for no reason whatsoever because reason does not apply in the world of Joseph K. (a particularly unlikeable character). There also seem to be symbolic references that should have meaning for the reader, but that is no more reasonable than the text itself. Joseph K. is well beyond the reality of this reader and there is no way to connect to his realm, thank goodness.

Evelyn Waugh

On this day in 1966 the English novelist Evelyn Waugh died at the age of sixty-three. Even those commentators who disagreed with Waugh's views and behavior thought him the best stylist of his day -- a writer, said Gore Vidal, of "prose so chaste that at times one longs for a violation of syntax to suggest that its creator is fallible, or at least part American." Many regard Waugh's earlier satires -- Decline and Fall, A Handful of Dust, Put Out More Flags -- as his greatest achievement; some prize the elegiac Brideshead Revisited; many prefer the less-filtered Waugh of the posthumously published letters and diaries. In different measure, all three categories combine the master stylist and the arch-conservative for our amusement and alarm: "Of children as of procreation -- the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable" and "The only human relationships I abide are intimacy, formality and servility." Personally, Decline and Fall is still my favorite of all even though I admire tremendously the beauty and achievement of Brideshead Revisited. My disagreement with the philosophical point of view expressed in that book outweighs the stylistic achievement in my mind. I plan to read the Sword of Honour trilogy and look forward to more pleasure from the pen of this master.

The World of Samuel Beckett

The Samuel Beckett of this fine biographical portrait is an inspiring artist. The author, Lois Gordon, focuses on the world from 1906 to 1946 in which Beckett matured and became the great writer that we know. Through her fascinating depiction of his maturation during these years, including his involvement with the Red Cross and French Resistance, we learn about the life that helped make the man.



The World of Samuel Beckett, by Lois Gordon (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1996)

The Namesake

Based on the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, this film is an drama both of the education of an American boy of Indian heritage and of the story of his family's traditional life. In a sense it is the love story of the parents of the boy, Gogol Ganguli, who is shown growing up. As he matures he discovers his heritage and the importance of his name given to him by his his father. Heartwarming and filled with the contrast between cultures and ages, this film left me with a sense that I knew these people. Both the directing, by Mira Nair, the performances of Irrfan Khan and Kal Penn as the father and son, respectively, and all of the other acting was effective in the family portrayal with touching moments abounding. I would recommend this film highly.

The Magic Mountain 

by Thomas Mann

For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.
Thomas Mann



When thinking of The Magic Mountain and Hans Castorp, the young protagonist of the novel, I cannot help but consider both the similarities in the depiction of male your to that in Death in Venicethat is so central to Mann’s own internal struggles, and the loss of innocence resulting from Hans' gradually increasing knowledge. As he learns from discussions with Settembrini and Naphtha he gradually grows into a young man of some little wisdom. This includes a number of lengthy philosophical debates between Herr Settembrini and Herr Naphta. These philosophical debates are central to the message of the novel raising questions and speculations that mirror our own. The world of Hans Castorp, upon leaving the sanatorium, becomes a mirror for ours. Who is our Mephistopheles?






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