Athol Fugard's "'MASTER HAROLD'...and the boys"

Most summers I have piles of free time to read; this summer, I'm taking care of my son and so my reading time is limited. Rather than try to read long novels and be disappointed in how few I read, I'm going to primarily read plays and poetry. Poetry I can read in short bursts whenever I get a chance, and drama reads very fast. So my summer will be spent familiarizing myself with some drama I haven't yet encountered. I'll try to give at least a brief comment on each play I read.

The challenge of a one-act play is that the relationships between the characters must reveal themselves, naturally, in the dialogue taking place during one scene. That is also the strength of the one-act play--in such a brief piece of literature or performance, the larger realities and significance of relationships between characters reveals itself. It's like a small grape that tastes so rich because all the flavor is compacted; the energy from a well-written (and well-performed) one-act play reveals everything you need to understand.

"'MASTER HAROLD'...and the boys" succeeds in this regard. The relationships between the characters are clear; the meaning of it all reveals itself in the conversations and conflicts. And perhaps more--rather than just showing us the relationships between Hally, Sam, and Willie, Fugard might be showing us the greater reality of Apartheid society.

What made the Romantic poets Romantic poets?

From Andrew Marvell's "The Garden":

The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

I love the British Romantic poets of the early 19th century; Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley are among my favorite reads. However, as I look back at other poetry, I keep seeing the threads of the Romantics: love of nature, celebration of the imagination, joy of solitude. While I find the Romantics brilliant, I must delve harder to find just what it is that made the Romantics romantic. Was it something new, or was it a stronger point of emphasis? Was it a matter of style?

But so, too, with all intellectual or literary eras--the threads go back far.

Mulholland Dr. as poem

The film Mulholland Dr. is rich thematically: it's about the loss of innocence, the corruption of the film industry, the existential hell of guilt and memory. Of course, the actual content of the film is secondary to David Lynch's trademark chaotic, random, senseless absurdity.

Or is it absurd?

When I first read a complicated poem, I occasionally have no idea what it means at all: it is simply musical sounding words. Then I'll read it again, and the substance becomes clearer. Another reading gives me further understanding of the poem's structure and subject. I can read other commentaries on the poem to brace my own insights, and further readings simply illuminate the poem further. Eventually, what was once a jumble of words becomes a precise, clear expression: not a single line, not a single word, escapes understanding or interpretation.

That is how I feel about Mulholland Dr. Eventually, it is not chaotic or random at all. Eventually, nearly everything in the film makes a certain sense (or at least can be fit into a comprehensive interpretation). What begins as Absurdity becomes a film that seems obtuse but actually fits together a little too precisely.

Summer Reading: Son of a Witch, and what is Romanticism?

Gregory Maguire's Son of a Witch
If you check my profile, you'll see that Maguire's Wicked is listed as one of my favorite books, right there among Hamlet and Crime and Punishment.

As you might imagine, I looked to Son of a Witch, Wicked's sequel, with high hopes. For the most part, these high hopes were disappointed. Why?

The protagonist is rather dull; there's nothing terribly interesting about Liir at all. As I neared the end of the novel, I began to see that Liir's lack of personality throughout may have been intentional, a critical element of the themes of maturation and growth into individuality. However, it remains that he is dull.

The middle portion of the book, "The Service," is very, very boring. It was during this section I considered giving the book up.

But I could live with that. The sad thing is, what worked in Wicked just didn't work in Son of a Witch (or wasn't attempted). The ambiguities are there, but whereas Wicked's mysteries feel like deep, soul-wrenching truths, Son of a Witch's mysteries feel like forced ambiguity. The lack of action through large portions that helps give Wicked its strength was Son of a Witch's weakness.

Still, it has its good points. It is frequently surprising, the last long section of the book is very good, and there seems to be a parallel in the Apostle Emperor to the way Christianity is fused with American imperialism. But if Wicked is an A, Son of a Witch is a C: enjoyable in parts, but often dull, some good writing and interesting theme, but without the stirring depths.

pre-Romanticism
The typical narrative of literary history has British Romanticism beginning with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Of course, as in all intellectual history, there can be an arbitrary nature to how we define epochs of thinking. I've heard critics say that the threads of Romanticism appear in Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," which is true. I can also see its threads further back, in a poem like Sir Edward Dyer's "My Mind to Me a Kingdom is" (which seems to have deliberate correlation to Shakespeare's "I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space). But of course, given that the Romantics adored Milton and often fused the spirit Milton's poetry into their own poetry, Romanticism can go further back.

Defining literary eras has a certain usefulness; the generalization helps us to make sense of literary history in a broad sense. But of course, we have to remember that we are partly CREATING these eras; it's not that they exist in and of themselves, but we examine the work produced in an era and decide what is significant, what should be read now, what had influence. There were non-Romantic poets writing in early 19th century England, I'm sure--it's just that we haven't deemed them worth the study in a survey of English poetry. As with history, we create it--we pick and choose what is worth defining an era by.

Short Downpour

The New York Times reviews new biographies of John Donne and Ralph Ellison.

Sadly, The Onion might have professors nailed here.

Via 3quarksdaily, The Nation comments on The Simpsons hitting 400 episodes.

When do you give up on a book?

Just because you start a book doesn't mean you are going to finish it. Sometimes the thorns of life get in the way. However, when do you consciously choose not to finish a book?

It's easy to stop reading a boring book after a few pages, or a few chapters. But several times I've gotten around halfway through a book and wondered whether it was worth finishing (sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't). If you are halfway through a book and not enjoying it, do you owe it to yourself to finish (lest your previous reading be wasted--one of the reasons I'm still vegan)? Or, if you are halfway through a book and not enjoying it, do you owe it to yourself to STOP reading it and go on to read something better?

Colossal Downpour

At Pacifist Viking, links posts are called "Blizzards." At Costanza Book Club, we'll call them Downpours. These link posts are sort of a pain in the ass; I don't know if you'll find the links interesting, but they at least remind me what I want to read later.

Manohla Dargis at the NY Times talks about blockbuster films in "Defending Goliath: Hollywood and the Art of the Blockbuster."

According to Matea Gold of the LA Times, "'Law & Order' may move to cable." It's only on TNT about 46 times a day; why not air new episodes there?

At The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert talks about the new particle collider in "Crash Course."

Zadie Smith's short story "Hanwell Senior" is also in The New Yorker.

Cherie Miner explores "The Reagan Myth."

3quarksdaily has a post on Coppola's "Marie Antoinette," the film that officially created the PV household blacklist: "Monday Musing: The New Mannerists." In the PV household, we decided we've sat through enough boring or awful movies, and now if we see two awful movies amd zero good movies by one filmmaker, we will blacklist that filmmaker. The list currently includes Sofia Coppola, Eric Rohmer, and Jim Jarmusch (though we've never even seen a Jarmusch film in its entirety). I seem to think I'm forgetting one more person, but neither Possible Flurries nor I can think of the other person. Do any of you have any blacklisted directors?

Via 3quarksdaily, the always fun Neil DeGrasse Tyson gives us "The Cosmic Perspective" in Natural History.

Via Arts & Letters Daily, in the Philadelphia Inquirer Carlin Romano does some reviews and talks about what makes Shakespeare great in "The readiness to deconstruct is all."

Television as Great Art

You may or may not know this, but I have utter and complete contempt for about 90% of what is on television. However, even while recognizing the medium provides a lot of awful material, there are gems of beautiful art provided by television. I think we need to recognize this: contempt for the medium itself, or for the majority of the material provided by the medium, is no reason to abandon everything the medium provides as schlock.

So here is a list of television shows that I consider "great art" (as problematic as that phrase may be). I think other TV shows are art (like Star Trek or The Twilight Zone), but I can't think of other shows beside these that I'd call great art (barely missing the cut is The Kids in the Hall).

Seinfeld
The first show to really bring an artist's precise analysis to the everday, mundane, commonplace facets of our society.

Arrested Development
If the sitcom can aspire to the title of art, that it is necessary to place the greatest sitcom ever made into our list.

The Sopranos
Every TV critic already agrees.

Nip/Tuck
This would probably be the inclusion that would get the most disagreement, but I believe it is great art.

Six Feet Under
There aren't a lot of shows so focused on the realities of death.

Deadwood
Possibly the greatest work the Western genre has offered us.

The X Files
The pinnacle of its genre.

The Simpsons
So brilliant, so all-encompassing: if Fox ever asks me what America was like in the 90s, I'm going to tell him to watch this show.

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Larry David takes Seinfeld up a notch.


That is my current list: now I want some of your opinions.

From defunct to re-funked

I'm back, baby!

I'm resurrecting Costanza's Book Club. I started this blog as a chance to share ideas about ideas, and I feel that I failed. In v. 2.0 of the Club, I intend this to be much more accessible. Yes, I'm going to talk about books and literary theory, but more often I'm going to try apply literary theory to cultural productions like television shows. It will be a place to discuss ideas, but it will be a place to discuss ideas within the context of popular culture.

Right now, I'm the only contributor: I'll be setting the agenda of discourse. But if you'd like to join the Club, just prove your chops in the comments. I would like more contributors: I want this to be a place where others can share ideas on whatever cultural productions we wish.

I've got high hopes for this reborn blog. Please read, please comment, and perhaps, please join.

Does Authorship Matter?

When considering my syllabus for this past semester, I wondered if I included enough women and minority writers. I teach three novels, two of which were Ernest Gaines' A Gathering of Old Men and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, so I had the feeling I had given minority writers a voice (sadly, this semester I did not teach David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, an omission I don't plan on making again). I teach many works by women writers (including works with obvious feminist themes like "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Trifles"). But I still felt there might be a lack of women writers.

But then I looked at the works by men that I taught. Lysistrata is a play primarily about women's role in society. King Lear is a play I first read in a Women in Literature course, so it clearly has issues of women involved. When reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, we talked about misogyny. When reading Death of a Salesman, we talked about Linda's role. Over and over again when reading books of either male or female authorship, we examined the roles of women in the works and the perspectives of women in the works.

I should add that in my literature course, I barely discuss the author at all. I focus the class primarily on the text, the text, the text (and the reader's experience with the text). I do recognize that the perspective of the writer matters: Aristophanes may give women a voice in Lysistrata, but it is still a man's voice in the woman's mask.

But if we're talking about the roles and perspectives and issues of minorities and women in the works, how important is it that the actual writers be minorities and women? I ask this not in a canonical sense (I do think more minorities and women need to be read and taught), but in a pedagogical sense. For the purpose of my class, for the students' experience with the text and the ideas, for their reading and our discussion, does authorship matter?

everything is everything

In M. Butterfly, David Henry Hwang explores power and prejudice of nationality, culture, race, gender, and sex. He never tries to create a hierarchy, order, or separation of these issues: they are constantly interweaving. The West perceives Asian culture as feminine, thus perceives Asian nations as feminine and able to be (even desiring to be) dominated. The West considers Asian men inferior because they are feminine. Asian women are considered submissive because they are women, and because they are Asian. Rene’s sexual “conquest” makes him seem a man of knowledge and power for political “conquest.” Constantly Hwang inverts these prejudices and reverses the power dynamic, but he never separates them.

There is interconnectedness of all things. In our nation, we can’t separate the problems of poverty from the problems of race, we can’t prioritize eliminating sexism over eliminating racism or vice versa, and we can’t separate the nature of power from money, gender, or race.

And I do not make the heavy moral separation between types of violence. I see relationships between terrorism and war, between individual violent acts and terrorism, between war and individual violent acts.

And I don’t see the murders at Virginia Tech as entirely separate from any of these. We must always abhor violence. We should work to eliminate war in any way, in the same way we should work to eliminate domestic violence in any way. We should work to eliminate terrorism and crime and state-sponsored torture and all of it. I do not separate vegetarianism entirely from pacifism: our violence against animals may be tied into our violence against people.

The shootings at Va Tech should rightly fill us with sadness and horror. So too should all violence fill us with horror.

Scattered thoughts of pain

We’re all at the mercy of thieves and murderers. We walk about our lives, but there’s really no defending ourselves; at any random moment, we could be killed by the chaotic actions of somebody with a gun. That’s a lesson on mortality we never really accept but is true nonetheless.

I’ve always believed universities to be a special, unique, hidden chunk of civilization. It’s where social movements, from the Reformation that started in 1517 to the major social evolution that took place in the 1960s. Universities have produced the best and brightest ideas and people of civilization, and universities have maintained, protected, and rebirthed the great ideas of our culture. It is where our great leaps in science, in religion, in ideas, begin. Universities are a place for youth, for hope. Universities are for people willing to devote their lives to ideas. Universities are places of progress, of openness, of free speech, of discourse, dialogue, conversation. But whatever ideal role universities may hold in civilization, it still exists within this messy civilization. In Paradise Lost, Lucifer and the demons discover and utilize gunpowder. Milton wasn’t far off.

We should always respond to violence with horror. Bloodshed should always make us cringe. When we stop wincing at the suffering humans inflict on each other, we lose something of our humanity. And when that violence becomes so clearly senseless, when the chaotic random chancy nature of violence comes so close, so desperately close…there aren’t even words for these feelings.

All the debating and moral wrestling of last week over Imus, rappers, and words seems so silly now. Nobody was hurt. Now, when we shift our attention to the real, horrific blood and bones of death and violence and suffering, concern over words seems futile. It still matters; for many of us, most of us, almost all of us, words are the stuff by which we live. We devote our attention to sports; we blog about amusement; we dissect syntax and word choice. It’s all worth something, I believe, but let’s always know that it means less than other things.

There’s a lazy inefficiency to a campus. There’s nothing in the world like a college campus. And to have it marred by such massive violence just causes a deep ache. And many of us that spend much time on campuses recognize that there but by the grace of God goes us.

I just can’t imagine the pain being experienced by the friends and families of the murdered students at Va. Tech. For right now, I’m not sure I want to imagine it; for right now, that limitation to my imagination is suiting me fine. I can’t stomach the loss of all these young people, blithely going to class, bored or indifferent or on fire for learning, whatever it may be, cut down. Removed from human affairs. Their presences suddenly and violently obliterated. We hope, of course, that they are somewhere else, that their souls have life beyond this veil of tears. We hope that those souls weren’t permanently destroyed. And we weep for those classmates, those teachers, those colleagues, those friends, those parents and brothers and sisters. There are all sorts of ritual phrases that people utter in these times. But ritual words, while often hollow, are often full to bursting with emotions.

But this stuff still matters. This devotion to ideas, this study of human affairs, this quest for understanding of humanity and the cosmos, this devotion to language, it still matters. In the face of this tragedy, a tragedy occurring in the very cradle of ideas, we have to remember that. To make sense of this, to prevent this, to know what this means, still matters. That young students can be brutally killed even in these places where words are studied and science advances and everything is open to civil, honest, rational debate, scars. Universities, the bastions of reason and inquiry, are made up of the people, not the buildings. And those people, flesh and blood and bone, are subject to the slings and arrows that all people of flesh and blood and bone are subject to.