Boria Sax's Blog: Told Me by a Butterfly, page 7
January 4, 2014
One Raven Away from Doom
In Homer's The Illiad, the Trojan warriors were driving the Greek invaders back to their ships, when an eagle with a serpent in its claws appeared in the sky. The serpent bit the eagle, which released it, and the snake fell, still writhing, among the Trojans, who feared the event might be an omen of defeat. Hector, their leader, chose to ignore the serpent and continued his charge, setting events in motion that would finally lead to the fall of Troy.
In medieval Japan, the Genji and Heike clans were both preparing for the great naval battle of Dan-no-ura, when a vast school of dolphins suddenly surfaced and swam towards the Heike boats. The Heike warriors initially took their approach as a hopeful sign, and expected the dolphins to either remain on the surface or circle back towards the Genji. When the dolphins dived and swam beneath the Heike fleet instead, the Heike feared they were doomed, and many of their allies deserted to the Genji.
Until a few decades ago, people generally assumed that animal divination, along with other superstitious practices, was a survival of ancient times, destined to fade away as people became progressively more rational.But superior reason doesn't stop crowds of reporters and tourists from gathering around the hole of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania every February 2, to learn from him whether winter is about to end.
Team sports, which are essentially simulated wars, are now openly accompanied by animal divination. This came to public attention when Paul the octopus at Oberhausen Zoo in Germany successfully predicted the outcome of all eight World Cup soccer championship games in 2010. Today many other animals, mostly in Germany, are being used to predict the outcome of soccer games, including an elephant, pig, alpaca, otter, cow, bulldog, goat, and python.
It is a little hard to tell just how seriously people take Paul the octopus and his successors, and it is just as hard to tell how much the Homeric heroes really believed in the divinatory power of eagles and serpents. In both these instances, the exhilaration of combat may have moved people to respond to events in otherwise uncharacteristic ways.
Perhaps animal divination serves largely to focus human attention and confirm intuitive conclusions. Even before the omen, Hector's recklessness was apparent to the counselor Polydamas and probably to other Trojans. Before the dolphins appeared, the Heike had already suffered many serious defeats. When Paul predicted its victory, Spain was already the favorite to win the 2010 World Cup.
Rather than the relic of a hoary age, animal divination is something that is likely to surface in any era when the conditions are right. The tension, excitement, and insecurity that accompany war and sport lead people to look for portents, especially in the behavior of animals. It is galling to think that a game point in soccer may be decided by whether a ball is blown a fraction of an inch off course by the wind. Animal divination might seem irrational, but it reassures people that all things have a reason and purpose, even when they appear arbitrary.
As I showed in my book City of Ravens, ravens were first brought to the Tower of London in about 1883 to serve as props for tales of Gothic horror told by Beefeaters to the tourists. During World War II, people used these ravens as spotters for enemy bombs and planes, and their employment was quickly mythologized as a prophecy--that the British Empire would fall if the ravens ever left the Tower. This prediction, which sounded "primitive," was then displaced into the remote past, and used to make ravens at the Tower one of the most popular tourist attractions in Britain.
In 1945, just before the Tower of London was about to reopen after shutting down for World War II, the last two ravens, a mated pair named Mabel and Gripp, escaped. The British Empire was dismantled shortly afterwards, so people could have said that the prophecy was confirmed, and there was consequently no further need for visionary ravens. Instead, new ravens were brought in, and their prophecy was amended to say that the British Commonwealth would fall if the ravens left the Tower. When Britain joined the European Common Market, the Commonwealth lost much of its importance, so the ravens were said to hold the fate of Britain herself. Merlin, a female raven at the Tower of London, was used to predict results of the 2012 Olympics.
But, over the past few decades, the ravens have increasingly been associated with the monarchy. In 2011 a baby raven was born at the Tower of London, the first in decades. The bird was named "Jubilee," and was ceremonially presented to Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of celebrations that marked the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne. In 2013 an urban fox managed to find its way into the Tower and, tragically, managed to kill two ravens, Jubilee among them. This was immediately interpreted as an omen. On October 30, 2013, for example, a headline in The Telegraph, a leading London newspaper, proclaimed, "One spare raven away from the end of the world." Some people interpreted the incident as a sign from heaven that Britain should not have banned fox hunting, while others blamed allowing immigrants into the country.
This sort of development was probably inevitable, since the Crown has become a sort of repository for British traditions and mythologies that would elsewhere seem anachronistic. As British society in general became more modern and industrial during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Crown provided a sort of balance by growing more ostentatiously "medieval," in its renewed emphasis on jewels, bloodlines, prophesies, protocols, mysteries, and, most especially, elaborate ceremonies. Perhaps, though, the message of the fox is this: In post-Industrial society, "magic" is, once again, to be found almost everywhere, and not so easily confined, contained, or controlled.
In medieval Japan, the Genji and Heike clans were both preparing for the great naval battle of Dan-no-ura, when a vast school of dolphins suddenly surfaced and swam towards the Heike boats. The Heike warriors initially took their approach as a hopeful sign, and expected the dolphins to either remain on the surface or circle back towards the Genji. When the dolphins dived and swam beneath the Heike fleet instead, the Heike feared they were doomed, and many of their allies deserted to the Genji.
Until a few decades ago, people generally assumed that animal divination, along with other superstitious practices, was a survival of ancient times, destined to fade away as people became progressively more rational.But superior reason doesn't stop crowds of reporters and tourists from gathering around the hole of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania every February 2, to learn from him whether winter is about to end.
Team sports, which are essentially simulated wars, are now openly accompanied by animal divination. This came to public attention when Paul the octopus at Oberhausen Zoo in Germany successfully predicted the outcome of all eight World Cup soccer championship games in 2010. Today many other animals, mostly in Germany, are being used to predict the outcome of soccer games, including an elephant, pig, alpaca, otter, cow, bulldog, goat, and python.
It is a little hard to tell just how seriously people take Paul the octopus and his successors, and it is just as hard to tell how much the Homeric heroes really believed in the divinatory power of eagles and serpents. In both these instances, the exhilaration of combat may have moved people to respond to events in otherwise uncharacteristic ways.
Perhaps animal divination serves largely to focus human attention and confirm intuitive conclusions. Even before the omen, Hector's recklessness was apparent to the counselor Polydamas and probably to other Trojans. Before the dolphins appeared, the Heike had already suffered many serious defeats. When Paul predicted its victory, Spain was already the favorite to win the 2010 World Cup.
Rather than the relic of a hoary age, animal divination is something that is likely to surface in any era when the conditions are right. The tension, excitement, and insecurity that accompany war and sport lead people to look for portents, especially in the behavior of animals. It is galling to think that a game point in soccer may be decided by whether a ball is blown a fraction of an inch off course by the wind. Animal divination might seem irrational, but it reassures people that all things have a reason and purpose, even when they appear arbitrary.
As I showed in my book City of Ravens, ravens were first brought to the Tower of London in about 1883 to serve as props for tales of Gothic horror told by Beefeaters to the tourists. During World War II, people used these ravens as spotters for enemy bombs and planes, and their employment was quickly mythologized as a prophecy--that the British Empire would fall if the ravens ever left the Tower. This prediction, which sounded "primitive," was then displaced into the remote past, and used to make ravens at the Tower one of the most popular tourist attractions in Britain.
In 1945, just before the Tower of London was about to reopen after shutting down for World War II, the last two ravens, a mated pair named Mabel and Gripp, escaped. The British Empire was dismantled shortly afterwards, so people could have said that the prophecy was confirmed, and there was consequently no further need for visionary ravens. Instead, new ravens were brought in, and their prophecy was amended to say that the British Commonwealth would fall if the ravens left the Tower. When Britain joined the European Common Market, the Commonwealth lost much of its importance, so the ravens were said to hold the fate of Britain herself. Merlin, a female raven at the Tower of London, was used to predict results of the 2012 Olympics.
But, over the past few decades, the ravens have increasingly been associated with the monarchy. In 2011 a baby raven was born at the Tower of London, the first in decades. The bird was named "Jubilee," and was ceremonially presented to Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of celebrations that marked the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne. In 2013 an urban fox managed to find its way into the Tower and, tragically, managed to kill two ravens, Jubilee among them. This was immediately interpreted as an omen. On October 30, 2013, for example, a headline in The Telegraph, a leading London newspaper, proclaimed, "One spare raven away from the end of the world." Some people interpreted the incident as a sign from heaven that Britain should not have banned fox hunting, while others blamed allowing immigrants into the country.
This sort of development was probably inevitable, since the Crown has become a sort of repository for British traditions and mythologies that would elsewhere seem anachronistic. As British society in general became more modern and industrial during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Crown provided a sort of balance by growing more ostentatiously "medieval," in its renewed emphasis on jewels, bloodlines, prophesies, protocols, mysteries, and, most especially, elaborate ceremonies. Perhaps, though, the message of the fox is this: In post-Industrial society, "magic" is, once again, to be found almost everywhere, and not so easily confined, contained, or controlled.
January 2, 2014
The Most Fantastic Monsters From Art And Literature
The most fantastic monster in all of Western history just might be the demon in the center of Hell, from Hieronymus Bosch's triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights," painted around the start of the sixteenth century. It has a human face with an inscrutable expression; its torso is a broken egg, which seems to be growing from branches of dead, hollow trees. On its head is a hat topped with an enormous bagpipe. The flames around it are those of the early iron mills. Many figures in the painting seem to move to jerky, mechanical rhythms, such as those marching around the brim of the demon's cap. Precisely the lack of an unambiguous interpretation has helped make the picture an icon of the diffuse, half-articulate fears that would pervade the emerging industrial age.
Just about two centuries earlier, Dante, in Inferno, had described a profoundly different Hell. The inscription above the gate contains the words, "I (Hell) was created by divine power, by the highest wisdom and the greatest love." Evidence of this is the extreme order that prevails in the underworld. It is neatly divided into nine levels, in which each person is placed in the location that corresponds exactly to the nature and severity of his sin. By contrast, the Hell of Bosch is a state of chaos, a disintegration not only of order and justice but also of all the categories with which we habitually try to make sense of the world. There is little distinction left between nature and artifice, people and animals, or animals and plants. There may, in fact, not even be much difference between eternal punishment and everyday life. Most of the sinners appear, from the expressions on their faces, hardly aware that they are being tormented, as they go about their assigned tasks. In this abyss, even the Devil himself no longer seems to exercise much authority.
One might say, then, that Bosch's Hell is an implosion of Dante's. Humanistic traditions generally attempt, whether through science or theology, to impose a very intricate order on experience. They rely on elaborate classifications, and regard incorporeal features such as "reason," "sentience," or "the soul" as predominantly a human birthright. But the very complexity of this order means that it is constantly threatened with collapse, and the industrial era has always been accompanied by an undertone of nihilism. There is also a substratum of animism ─ what the Victorian critic John Ruskin called the "pathetic fallacy" ─ that periodically emerges in many contexts from lyric poetry to philosophy.
The human imagination is continually active and so vivid that imagined beings constantly threaten to overwhelm our sense of reality. Fantastic creatures are found in art of all times and places, but people in some cultures feel more threatened by them. The Occident has been generally less visually inventive than ancient Egypt, China, India, and Mesoamerica. In the Abrahamic religions, the depiction of fantastic animals has been inhibited by the Biblical injunction against representational art, enforced with varying degrees of strictness in different forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Greco-Roman traditions, the representation of imaginary animals became standardized, preventing a constant propagation of novelties. Traditions far older than even the Biblical Book of Revelations make the proliferation of strange beasts a sign that we are approaching the end of time.
But a few artists, scattered throughout the centuries, have lifted almost all of the restraints on their imaginations and created a mélange of amazing beasts, blending human features with those of animals, plants, and objects. One of the first is the mysterious "Master of Zarko" on the island of Crete in the seventh century BCE, who carved fantastic images on gems and just might be, though his name and story are unknown, one of the most influential artists that ever lived. In the last couple of centuries, artists of the phantasmagoric include J. J. Grandville in France, Kawanabe Kyōsai in Japan, and Dr. Seuss in America. When they give a tangible form to that primeval chaos, it often seems less threatening and more humorous than we might initially have expected.
Today, the growth of sophisticated electronic devices and of biotechnology is leading us into a phantasmagoric world. Many stories, such as the Jewish legends of the Golem in medieval Krakow and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, have warned that human beings could be challenged, and perhaps even replaced, by their creations. In dystopian science fiction, a recurring trope is the sentient computer such as Hal in Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Robots now conduct telephone interviews and navigate through traffic in Manhattan. Human genetic material is inserted into pigs, to produce organs suitable for transplant into men and women. Children grow up caring for robotic pets such as tamagotchis. But, while challenging human uniqueness, power, and autonomy, these developments do not impinge on the poetic mystery at the core of humankind. The heroes of old fairy tales and epics do not seem less "human" for wandering among creatures that, at times, show far greater wisdom and power than their own.
Boria Sax is the author of Imaginary Animals: The Monstrous, the Wondrous and the Human [Reaktion Books, $30.00].
Just about two centuries earlier, Dante, in Inferno, had described a profoundly different Hell. The inscription above the gate contains the words, "I (Hell) was created by divine power, by the highest wisdom and the greatest love." Evidence of this is the extreme order that prevails in the underworld. It is neatly divided into nine levels, in which each person is placed in the location that corresponds exactly to the nature and severity of his sin. By contrast, the Hell of Bosch is a state of chaos, a disintegration not only of order and justice but also of all the categories with which we habitually try to make sense of the world. There is little distinction left between nature and artifice, people and animals, or animals and plants. There may, in fact, not even be much difference between eternal punishment and everyday life. Most of the sinners appear, from the expressions on their faces, hardly aware that they are being tormented, as they go about their assigned tasks. In this abyss, even the Devil himself no longer seems to exercise much authority.
One might say, then, that Bosch's Hell is an implosion of Dante's. Humanistic traditions generally attempt, whether through science or theology, to impose a very intricate order on experience. They rely on elaborate classifications, and regard incorporeal features such as "reason," "sentience," or "the soul" as predominantly a human birthright. But the very complexity of this order means that it is constantly threatened with collapse, and the industrial era has always been accompanied by an undertone of nihilism. There is also a substratum of animism ─ what the Victorian critic John Ruskin called the "pathetic fallacy" ─ that periodically emerges in many contexts from lyric poetry to philosophy.
The human imagination is continually active and so vivid that imagined beings constantly threaten to overwhelm our sense of reality. Fantastic creatures are found in art of all times and places, but people in some cultures feel more threatened by them. The Occident has been generally less visually inventive than ancient Egypt, China, India, and Mesoamerica. In the Abrahamic religions, the depiction of fantastic animals has been inhibited by the Biblical injunction against representational art, enforced with varying degrees of strictness in different forms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Greco-Roman traditions, the representation of imaginary animals became standardized, preventing a constant propagation of novelties. Traditions far older than even the Biblical Book of Revelations make the proliferation of strange beasts a sign that we are approaching the end of time.
But a few artists, scattered throughout the centuries, have lifted almost all of the restraints on their imaginations and created a mélange of amazing beasts, blending human features with those of animals, plants, and objects. One of the first is the mysterious "Master of Zarko" on the island of Crete in the seventh century BCE, who carved fantastic images on gems and just might be, though his name and story are unknown, one of the most influential artists that ever lived. In the last couple of centuries, artists of the phantasmagoric include J. J. Grandville in France, Kawanabe Kyōsai in Japan, and Dr. Seuss in America. When they give a tangible form to that primeval chaos, it often seems less threatening and more humorous than we might initially have expected.
Today, the growth of sophisticated electronic devices and of biotechnology is leading us into a phantasmagoric world. Many stories, such as the Jewish legends of the Golem in medieval Krakow and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, have warned that human beings could be challenged, and perhaps even replaced, by their creations. In dystopian science fiction, a recurring trope is the sentient computer such as Hal in Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Robots now conduct telephone interviews and navigate through traffic in Manhattan. Human genetic material is inserted into pigs, to produce organs suitable for transplant into men and women. Children grow up caring for robotic pets such as tamagotchis. But, while challenging human uniqueness, power, and autonomy, these developments do not impinge on the poetic mystery at the core of humankind. The heroes of old fairy tales and epics do not seem less "human" for wandering among creatures that, at times, show far greater wisdom and power than their own.
Boria Sax is the author of Imaginary Animals: The Monstrous, the Wondrous and the Human [Reaktion Books, $30.00].
November 28, 2013
A Moderate Thanksgiving
It is hard to dwell on your blessings without feeling guilty, and the holidays bring plenty of occasions for both. They are a time of excess. In early America Christmas was often banned, since it was a time for drinking, brawling and random shooting. Today, we don't brawl or shoot as much, but we sure drink enough. And all of the holidays are times to indulge in all of the feelings like pride and despair, that we push from our minds during the rest of the year. This time, however, I will try to have a moderate Thanksgiving, without an orgy of eating, drinking, guilt, shopping or anything else. I would like it to be a thoughtful time, where we can consider where we have been and what it all may mean, without dwelling too much on how lucky, wicked or virtuous we are. Happy Thanksgiving!
November 3, 2013
Which Leaf?
WHICH LEAF?
And I said, “Let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day”
---Patrick Kavanagh
Many are brown or yellow,
Orange or lichen green.
One leaf is so intensely red,
It seems unnatural.
One leaf will float on a stream.
One will be impaled on a branch.
One does not fall, but rises
And then falls, to ascend again.
I am one leaf amid the multitude.
They lie, almost still, upon the field,
Like dying warriors, amid the drumming
Of crickets and the hiss of wind.
Tell me, which leaf am I?
Boria Sax
(c) 2013
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
And I said, “Let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day”
---Patrick Kavanagh
Many are brown or yellow,
Orange or lichen green.
One leaf is so intensely red,
It seems unnatural.
One leaf will float on a stream.
One will be impaled on a branch.
One does not fall, but rises
And then falls, to ascend again.
I am one leaf amid the multitude.
They lie, almost still, upon the field,
Like dying warriors, amid the drumming
Of crickets and the hiss of wind.
Tell me, which leaf am I?
Boria Sax
(c) 2013
The Raven and the Sun: Poems and Stories
October 28, 2013
Ravens and Foxes
Recently, two ravens in the Tower of London were killed by a fox, which prompted an article in The Guardian (see link below) to argue against keeping them. He fears that calls to protect the ravens will lead to a revival of fox hunting and perhaps a renewed hostility to the natural world. This is the opposite of my position in my book City of Ravens: The Extraordinary History of London, its Tower and its Famous Ravens (London: Duckworth, 2011), where I argued that the ravens had come to represent the natural world. Like most people, the author thinks the ravens and their legend go back to Charles II, though they only date from 1883. My book traced the legend that Britain will fall if the ravens leave to July 1944, when the ravens were being used as unofficial spotters for enemy bombs. But I am used to that, and it does not bother me at all. The author does make some very good points in arguing that it is neither pragmatically nor psychologically helpful to so intimately connect the fate of a nation with a population of birds. I had hoped my book would spark some lively public discussion of such topics. That has not happened so far, but perhaps this article will help. Legends are not fixed in form, and perhaps this one needs to evolve, which is difficult when a powerful institution sponsors a single version. What do you think the ravens mean, or ought to mean, in the twenty-first century? http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...
City of Ravens: The Extraordinary History of London, its Tower and Its Famous Ravens
City of Ravens: The Extraordinary History of London, its Tower and Its Famous Ravens
October 24, 2013
Predators and Sheep
In October 2013, I attended the annual Sheep & Wool Festival in Rheinbeck, New York, and there were many people there who keep sheep, mostly from the rural Northeast. Most of them were female, and many minded the sheep in their stalls, while spinning wool using manual wheels. the sheep themselves seemed to accept all with equanimity, sometimes enjoying petting or treats, but usually not greatly aware of the crowds passing among the stalls where they were quartered.
I asked many of the sheep farmers about predators, and every one had to contend with coyotes, wolves, bears, and mountain lions. Not a single farmer wanted to eliminate predators, or even got excited about them. They generally use a combination of electric fences and dogs to protect the sheep, and one told me that predators are not very persistent. If there are a few obstacles, predators generally prefer to expend their energies elsewhere.
Some sheep farmers observed that the sheep themselves are not always so helpless. One had seen rams face down coyotes and wolves. The rams would stomp and lower their horns to charge, and the predators would back off. A few sheep farmers also kept lamas with the sheep, and said they also are pretty effective defenders. Yet another sheep farmer remarked that once the infrastructure to protect the sheep is in place, keeping predators away is not difficult.
One more told me that the greatest threat to sheep was from domestic dogs, since they will kill many sheep but not eat them. They, apparently, retain a hunting instinct, but do not think of prey as food.
I asked many of the sheep farmers about predators, and every one had to contend with coyotes, wolves, bears, and mountain lions. Not a single farmer wanted to eliminate predators, or even got excited about them. They generally use a combination of electric fences and dogs to protect the sheep, and one told me that predators are not very persistent. If there are a few obstacles, predators generally prefer to expend their energies elsewhere.
Some sheep farmers observed that the sheep themselves are not always so helpless. One had seen rams face down coyotes and wolves. The rams would stomp and lower their horns to charge, and the predators would back off. A few sheep farmers also kept lamas with the sheep, and said they also are pretty effective defenders. Yet another sheep farmer remarked that once the infrastructure to protect the sheep is in place, keeping predators away is not difficult.
One more told me that the greatest threat to sheep was from domestic dogs, since they will kill many sheep but not eat them. They, apparently, retain a hunting instinct, but do not think of prey as food.
October 14, 2013
Animals in the Third Reich, second edition
For the cover of Animals in the Third Reich, Brett Rutherford - the Owner of Yogh and Thorn Books - and I chose a painting of horses by Franz Marc, a gifted artist of that era who specialized in horses and was banned by the Nazis. We did not want any swastikas. We did not want anything that seemed stereotyped or clichéd, since we hoped people might put aside their preconceived ideas and view the era in a new perspective. We even decided to avoid the color red. There are no simple lessons or morals in my book Animals in the Third Reich, except maybe that a lot more thinking remains to be done.
I have always felt it a matter of principle not to glibly dismiss difficult themes and questions. Almost two decades ago, I started to discover, much to my consternation, through documents that were then obscure that the Nazis had probably the strictest animal protection laws in the world, and that they laid much of the foundation for contemporary ethology. This had, in fact, often been informally observed, mostly as a grotesque and inexplicable irony. In the initial edition of my book Animals in the Third Reich, I systematically documented and discussed the phenomenon, but it still seemed like an inscrutable quirk of fate, and I did not have a conceptual framework with which to analyze it. In this new edition, and for the first time, I offer an explanation in the appendix entitled "Nazi Totemism."
Since the book touches on some highly emotional themes, perhaps misunderstandings may be inevitable. The temptation to project ones fears or hopes into the text may be hard for many people to resist. To an extent, I am, and have always been, resigned to that, since being misunderstood is a sort of occupational hazard for any serious author. It is something we should try to bear with dignity, remembering that the vocation offers many advantages in compensation. But I ask people to please not to think they know the book until they have read it and, hopefully, thought about it carefully.
Animals in the Third Reich
I have always felt it a matter of principle not to glibly dismiss difficult themes and questions. Almost two decades ago, I started to discover, much to my consternation, through documents that were then obscure that the Nazis had probably the strictest animal protection laws in the world, and that they laid much of the foundation for contemporary ethology. This had, in fact, often been informally observed, mostly as a grotesque and inexplicable irony. In the initial edition of my book Animals in the Third Reich, I systematically documented and discussed the phenomenon, but it still seemed like an inscrutable quirk of fate, and I did not have a conceptual framework with which to analyze it. In this new edition, and for the first time, I offer an explanation in the appendix entitled "Nazi Totemism."
Since the book touches on some highly emotional themes, perhaps misunderstandings may be inevitable. The temptation to project ones fears or hopes into the text may be hard for many people to resist. To an extent, I am, and have always been, resigned to that, since being misunderstood is a sort of occupational hazard for any serious author. It is something we should try to bear with dignity, remembering that the vocation offers many advantages in compensation. But I ask people to please not to think they know the book until they have read it and, hopefully, thought about it carefully.
Animals in the Third Reich
October 9, 2013
Review of Bloom's The Western Canon
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages by Harold BloomMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Bloom offers an array of highly idiosyncratic opinions, which are often entertaining and sometimes quite insightful. But it is utterly pretentious of him to assume, as he constantly does, that he is the voice of Western culture. Despite the vastness of his learning and the intensity of his passion, his view of literature as a sort of competitive sport, if taken seriously, would render the culture he loves trivial, a bit like football or even pro-wrestling. If it is competition he wants, he could do just as well to watch the television show "Survivor." Bloom interprets literature in terms of the world he knows, which means that writers of the past such as Sophocles or Dante become petty-minded academics, constantly scheming, conniving, and plotting ways to achieve tenure (i.e., a place in the canon). If we can't do much better than this, no wonder the study of literature is in big trouble.
View all my reviews
September 27, 2013
The Mermaid's Companions
I have posted a video on Goodreads in which I read from the chapter "Mermaid's Companions" in my new Book The Mythical Zoo: Animals in Life, Legend and Literature: http://www.goodreads.com/videos/52207...
September 23, 2013
Charlotte's World and her Web
I'm just old enough to remember a little, a very little, about the world of E. B. White's Charlotte's Web, only just barely. Farms like the one's where Wilbur lives were starting to be replaced by mechanized agribusinesses. Farmer Arable and the rest know they need to be economically profitable to survive, and that usually means not tolerating runts. From outside, the farms often appeared idyllic, especially to nostalgic city dwellers, but the farmers could be under a lot of stress.
Analogous things could be said of the society as a whole. True, America was experiencing a period of economic growth and prosperity, such as it never had before and may never see again. At the same time, though, it was a period of utter terror, which has, happily, has been almost completely forgotten. The United States was perpetually on the brink of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, which many people thought might annihilate human civilization completely. In my school, we would have "air raid drills," where kids would stand for five or ten minutes with their heads against the wall. The wealthy were building air raid shelters. A siren was supposed to warn people when the bombs were about to drop. I used to walk down the street, hear some strange noise, think it was the "siren," and almost give myself (and everyone else) up for dead. Set against this constant fear of annihilation, the opening words of the novel, "Where's father going with that ax?" can seem a lot more resonant. Kids in those days had a real sense of what Wilbur was afraid of.
But Charlotte's Web also has a bit of the matriarchal ambiance of sit-coms from the 1950s such as "Leave it to Beaver" or "Father Knows Best." The novella is a family tale, in which Wilbur is the child. Fern, who blends into Charlotte, is the mother, while Arable/Zuckerman, whose place is taken by Templeton, is the absentee father. To put this slightly differently, the story mirrors a 1950s family, where Charlotte is the mom, Wilbur the kid, and Templeton the dad.
Just as in the 1950s sit-coms, the housewife is wise and mature, while the father is not always much more than another child. Just as the father goes to work every day in the "urban jungle" of commerce, Templeton forages for food . Like the 1950s father, he is uncomfortable in the feminized world of domestic animals, and is sometimes given to macho posturing. But, also like the 1950s father, Templeton does his duty in the end and helps to support his child.
Like any mother, Charlotte has things she hides from her child, particularly the trapping and eating of flies. All of the animals, including the human ones, are generally driven by circumstances beyond their control. They are placed in situations that are not, or not entirely, of their own choosing. But at times, they are able to transcend their situation for a while by showing compassion and generosity.
The sit-coms of the fifties follow set formulas, even though the tensions of the period inadvertently come through. I can't recall Beaver ever covering his head in an air-raid drill. White's narrative is superior, because he is able to look beyond the idyllic surface, and - what is almost as remarkable as Zuckerman's pig - he does it without any trace of cynicism or mockery.
Maybe the message is that, to retain our humanity, we all need, just like Charlotte and even Templeton, a tough hide and a generous heart. And that may be a lesson only animals can teach us.
Charlotte's Web
Analogous things could be said of the society as a whole. True, America was experiencing a period of economic growth and prosperity, such as it never had before and may never see again. At the same time, though, it was a period of utter terror, which has, happily, has been almost completely forgotten. The United States was perpetually on the brink of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, which many people thought might annihilate human civilization completely. In my school, we would have "air raid drills," where kids would stand for five or ten minutes with their heads against the wall. The wealthy were building air raid shelters. A siren was supposed to warn people when the bombs were about to drop. I used to walk down the street, hear some strange noise, think it was the "siren," and almost give myself (and everyone else) up for dead. Set against this constant fear of annihilation, the opening words of the novel, "Where's father going with that ax?" can seem a lot more resonant. Kids in those days had a real sense of what Wilbur was afraid of.
But Charlotte's Web also has a bit of the matriarchal ambiance of sit-coms from the 1950s such as "Leave it to Beaver" or "Father Knows Best." The novella is a family tale, in which Wilbur is the child. Fern, who blends into Charlotte, is the mother, while Arable/Zuckerman, whose place is taken by Templeton, is the absentee father. To put this slightly differently, the story mirrors a 1950s family, where Charlotte is the mom, Wilbur the kid, and Templeton the dad.
Just as in the 1950s sit-coms, the housewife is wise and mature, while the father is not always much more than another child. Just as the father goes to work every day in the "urban jungle" of commerce, Templeton forages for food . Like the 1950s father, he is uncomfortable in the feminized world of domestic animals, and is sometimes given to macho posturing. But, also like the 1950s father, Templeton does his duty in the end and helps to support his child.
Like any mother, Charlotte has things she hides from her child, particularly the trapping and eating of flies. All of the animals, including the human ones, are generally driven by circumstances beyond their control. They are placed in situations that are not, or not entirely, of their own choosing. But at times, they are able to transcend their situation for a while by showing compassion and generosity.
The sit-coms of the fifties follow set formulas, even though the tensions of the period inadvertently come through. I can't recall Beaver ever covering his head in an air-raid drill. White's narrative is superior, because he is able to look beyond the idyllic surface, and - what is almost as remarkable as Zuckerman's pig - he does it without any trace of cynicism or mockery.
Maybe the message is that, to retain our humanity, we all need, just like Charlotte and even Templeton, a tough hide and a generous heart. And that may be a lesson only animals can teach us.
Charlotte's Web
Told Me by a Butterfly
We writers constantly try to build up our own confidence by getting published, making sales, winning prizes, joining cliques or proclaiming theories. The passion to write constantly strips this vanity
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