Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Sher wrote: "THUMBS UP FOR THE Hughes poem... I love the ending lines about they will know me by how beautiful I am... uplifting spirit is this one..."

I find myself thinking about every word of this poem as it moves toward that ending. And I also think ... how long, how long.

Sher wrote: "Larry-- this is interesting reading about Whitman- thanks for sharing . I recall some of Whitman's descriptions of Lincoln when he saw him pass in his carriage or on foot.

Has everyone read fully..."

It was very enlightening to me, Sher.

John,

Our friends in Bethany Beach actually live around a gold course. The day we visited them, Joe turned down an invitation to play a round. It was so hot that I think he would have turned down the invitation even if we hadn't been coming.

That Vienna bookstore is Bard's Alley. Here's it website: https://www.bardsalley.com/

John wrote: "Enjoy your stay, Larry. My cousin lives not far from there — I believe the town is Millsboro. I guess with Delaware, everything is not far.

The only recent Kindle purchase I have done was for the Graves’ book because it was not available for the Nook. I remember the days when Barnes & Noble was considered the bane of booksellers. But that has changed and I am in their corner, so to speak. The independent booksellers are actually doing well these days.
..."

Delaware has only three counties. It's an odd state. I like our week at the beach there (this is the third year in the same house about two blocks from the beach.) And we have two sets of friends who have retired there (to Bethany Beach and to Lewes) who we visit. The best thing, however, is just being in the same house with my son and family for the week.

We started a new tradition last month. We take our two granddaughters to a relatively new bookstore in Vienna, Virginia and buy them each a book of their choosing. It's as much to support the independent bookstore of our choosing as it is to buy them books. We mentioned this to one of the two couples who we visited when we were in Rehoboth and by coincidence they knew the owner of the bookstore.

Fascinating. A great article, John.

I never knew that about Mrs. Blair’s family.

The following was written and posted by my Facebook friend, Mark Edmundson (UVA Professor of English) ... no poem ... but about a poem and the poet, Walt Whitman.

Well OK, here by popular demand (at least 3 people doing the demanding), one more Civil War story—though it’s post-Civil War, I suppose.

During the last phase of his life America’s great poet Walt Whitman lived in Camden, New Jersey. He was not well: two years of heroic service ministering to the wounded and dying in the Washington hospitals had pretty much broken his health. (He once possessed “buffalo strength” as Emerson put it.) He was also constantly short of money, not poor exactly but living meagerly.
Every year or so around the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, Whitman would get hold of a lecture hall and offer his remembrances of the 16th President, for whom he had the highest regard. There was an admission fee and a chance to make further donations. Walt drew on his own memories of the President, whom he’d seen often in Washington during the War, though never spoken with. He also drew on the memories of his close friend (and perhaps his lover) Peter Doyle who was there at Ford’s Theatre the night Lincoln was murdered. There was a fair amount of sighing, and paper shuffling, and wandering talk from Walt: he’d suffered strokes. But there was, by all reports, some valuable reflection, too. Walt spent his whole later life trying to figure Lincoln out and he’d done a pretty good job by the final phase.

As the evening went on, the crowd always became impatient. They’d come for something, something very special. They wanted the grand finale, where Walt recited “O Captain, My Captain.” And the poet always did. Everyone knows the poem from grade school or middle school: it’s a ballad in which Walt compares Lincoln to a captain steering the ship of America into safe harbor through the storm of the Civil War. He not only calls Lincoln Captain, but also dear Father. You’ll remember the end: “Exult O shores, and ring O bells! / But I with mournful tread, /Walk the deck my Captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead.”

The evening culminated with Walt reciting the poem. Which he hated. It was formal verse, not his usual Whitmanian gorgeous sprawl, and so he didn’t feel it was entirely his. Traditional poetic forms meant feudal culture for Walt, and he disliked feudalism as much as Mark Twain. But then—and I’m speculating here—he probably did not like the way he rendered Lincoln, worshipfully, as a captain and father. Feudal. Patriarchal. What seems to have truly upset Walt is that this was his most read and loved poem. It still is. The people were drawn to kings and this time, he--the great democrat—gave them a king-like president.

You’ll remember that in “Dead Poets Society,” Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) makes endless reference to this poem, using it to build up his cult of personality: he gets the boys calling him Captain My Captain. (The movie is a wonderful teaching tool, but it sends me around the bend every time I use it.) In his great “Lilacs” elegy for Lincoln, Walt did much better in mourning a democratic hero. But I’d guess that one person reads “Lilacs” for every five thousand who read (or are compelled to read) “O Captain.”

Democracy is a struggle.

This is Us - BY LANGSTON HUGHES

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

John, I'll bracket your note on Ch. 14 with these notes from Chapters 13 and 15.

Ch.13
Trench soldiers hate the staff officers.

May 22, 1915 — a major. Bombardment by the French a few miles away. His soldiers have rifles in disrepair snd clothes in tatters.

The old hands who don’t believe in the war still will follow good officers.

June 9 - the German trenches are 30 yards away

Two soldiers are shot for killing one of their own sergeants … the wrong one. Two spies are shot.

Generally there is a lot of idle time. Captain Furber bets that the trench lines will move little in two years from now. He wins the bet.

How the enemy wounded was treated varied from division to division.

Ch. 15

A major offensive against La Bassee is planned. He goes on leave to London and things seem unreal. Enlistment is still voluntary. He returns. The British bombardment is starting a week ahead of the offensive. A lot of the ammo coming from America contains duds. The British plan to use gas.

It really is a perfect poem for these particularly hot days.

John, did you discover that Scribd has Trilling’s THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT: SELECTED ESSAYS?

John, you saved me some money.

Juan, the FUNDAMENTALS book by Wilczek looks really interesting. Let us know how you liked it.

John, I am buying some Google books … just because I don’t want Amazon to have all of my business. BTW, we’re in Rehoboth for the week so my posting may be even more sporadic than it usually is.

John wrote: "I bought this book recently and have been just going through it. The poets of the Great War were unlike any other poets, in my opinion. They were grappling with modern horror while still in the Victorian age. The confluence of these two has always interested me.

Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew..."

John, it look particularly good in containing some poets beyond the well-known ones. The decade leading up to the war and the time of the war fascinate me.

Carol wrote: "Boris has written a book on Churchill whom he greatly admires...."

I have to confess that I have been tempted in the past to buy Johnson's Johnson's Life Of London: The People Who Made The City That Made The World. But I so far have resisted that temptation.

Isn’t it strange that he was more affected by rifle fire whistling overhead than artillery shelling? I’m pretty sure that it would be the latter that would get to me.

With more than a million podcasts available, I most often find good ones through the recommendations of friends. Thanks for pointing us towards this one, Jeffrey.

And from Ch.12
In this chapter he takes what he had written as a novel snd uses it to tell the real story of his first few months in France. On arrival he and five other officers were trained in basic facts about trench warfare, including the weapons. Sent to the front, he is unhappy to find himself with the Welsh Regiment and not the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His battalion has been devastated five times in fighting at the front. His platoon is full of old or very young men, one 63 and one 15.

These were still the early days of trench warfare, before the worst weapons were introduced. He takes his platoon to the front. They come under rifle fire. He meets the colonel. He reports to Capt. Dunn, who is actually two months younger than himself.

Dunn explains that they don’t know as much about trenches as the French and not nearly as much as the Germans.

John, my reading pace has been affected by us watching our two granddaughters while my daughter-in-law is in Peru for two weeks!

I do like the length of chapters also. Amazing what he packs into a short chapter though.

Some notes from Ch. 11
He takes some pleasure in having joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers, with its many honors, instead of some other regiments.

He admits that They had surrendered at Yorktown, but that was the fault of the Navy. :-)

He explains the spelling of Welch with a c for the regiment’s name. After the Boer War, the regiment was asked if it wanted to be Guards regiment, but it refused.