tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75280594224736327362024-03-18T02:48:27.395-07:00talented reader: a literary journal"He dreams of the day when the spell of the bestseller will be broken, making way for the reappearance of the talented reader, and for the terms of the moral contract between author and audience to be reconsidered." Enrique Vila-MatasGeorge Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.comBlogger344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-66029391737768085512020-03-08T18:23:00.002-07:002020-03-08T18:23:10.587-07:00Dying of Natural Causes in Stalin's Russia<h2>
<i>Cancer Ward</i>, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMm6pSh1UwBFJbMtyIBk5eagbc6pa5ChEN5TVwGZ4I5KgpnwRVQSj53gAHXqmPALWI4qLyG0nP0KctcVhFzmy2rAky0nAkaNSw_VYPvbEmiCUqewNlq31yVgJaJfu1PC0wWzDuAU8jh9k/s1600/as-square-father.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMm6pSh1UwBFJbMtyIBk5eagbc6pa5ChEN5TVwGZ4I5KgpnwRVQSj53gAHXqmPALWI4qLyG0nP0KctcVhFzmy2rAky0nAkaNSw_VYPvbEmiCUqewNlq31yVgJaJfu1PC0wWzDuAU8jh9k/s1600/as-square-father.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
It was, by any measure, a remarkable life, a struggle most of us cannot comprehend. <br />
<br />
Solzhenitsyn's great novels--from <i>Ivan Denisovich </i>through <i>Cancer Ward</i> and <i>First Circle</i>--tell the story: four years of fighting the Nazis, witnessing atrocities committed both by German troops and his own comrades; eight years in the Gulag for referring to Stalin as "the man with mustache" in a private letter to a friend, the result was "perpetual exile." He was moved, in 1947, to "Special Prison 16," a <i>sharashka</i>, a prison for those with skills in science and mathematics. Three years among those in a kind of limbo that became the basis of his greatest novel <i>The First Circle.</i><br />
<br />
Another slip of the tongue--he <i>couldn't help himself</i> from speaking up, nor could he contain his impatience with the cruelty of the Stalinist system--as a result he was exiled to Ekibastuz where he "wrote" <i>One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich</i> by memorizing it, line by line. (I remember reading this unsurprising fact in Michael Scammell's biography).<br />
<br />
In 1953 Stalin died and Solzhenitsyn was sent to Kok-Terek, in the Far East, sent to "perpetual exile." There he was a schoolteacher, divorced from a wife who had no prospect of ever seeing him again, with a constant pain in his abdomen. Almost too late, on the point of death, he was admitted to the cancer clinic at Tashkent where doctors removed a large tumor from his abdomen. But recovery was hardly cheering for a man in exile--<br />
<br />
<i>“I was like the sick people all around me, and yet I was different,” he
wrote. “I had fewer rights than they had and was forced to be more
silent. People came to visit them, and their one concern, their one aim
in life, was to get well again. But if I recovered, it would be almost
pointless: I was 35 years of age, and yet in that spring I had no one I
could call my own in the whole world. I did not even own a passport, and
if I were to recover, I should have to leave this green, abundant land
and go back to my desert, where I had been exiled ‘in perpetuity. ‘
There I was under open surveillance, reported on every fortnight, and
for a long time the local police had not even allowed me, a dying man,
to go away for treatment.”</i><br />
<br />
In 1956 Solzhenitsyn's sentence was lifted and he was permitted to return to the agricultural college at <i> </i>Ryazan where he remarried his wife, taught mathematics, and wrote out, at last, <i>One Day</i>. Between 1957 and 1963 three of his short novels were published in the Soviet Union, but in May 1967 the climate of relative tolerance shifted under Leonid Brezhnev. He was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union in 1969 and later detained and sent into exile, first to Germany, and then, accepting an invitation from Stanford University's Hoover Institute, to the United States. He lived in Vermont, in Cavendish, where, in 1977, I sought him out hoping for, I have no idea what, but, in any case, he was no where to be found in that tiny hill town in the center of the Green Mountain State. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<i>Cancer Ward </i>is to Stalinism what Mann's <i>Magic Mountain</i> was to the nationalism and militarism that plunged Europe into the Great War, though Solzhenitsyn avoids the intellectual high ground of Mann's great study of world-weariness for a story more deeply steeped in cultural despair. Mann wrote within a modernist framework committed to lamenting the passing of what he thought to have been the pinnacle of European civilization (though Mann's irony makes it difficult to know precisely what he thought of the world that had committed suicide). Solzhenitsyn had nothing to lament. For him, Stalinism was nothing less than the murderous continuation of a political history that dated back to the Tsars. There was nothing in Russian history worthy of lament apart from the courage and suffering of ordinary Russians--in this respect, and in others, Solzhenitsyn is much closer in spirit to Tolstoy than to Dostoevsky, with whom he is most often compared. <br />
<br />
There are countries whose history can only be read as the history of the lives of ordinary people. In those countries, and Russia is one of them, politics has not offered solace from the rigors of the human condition. Thus <i>Cancer Ward</i>, like the <i>First Circle,</i> consists of a collection of small stories of "ordinary" people who were, for Solzhenitsyn, the soul of Mother Russia. <br />
<br />
As in his monumental histories of the Gulag and of the First World War, these earlier novels delve with loving attention into the psychological condition of the victims of history. Kostoglotov, who is Solzhenitsyn's alter ego in the novel, yearns for a plot of land, a wife and family, peace and security--for ordinary life. Yet everything--war and famine, the oppressive state and, a final indignity, his own body--conspire against his enjoying any of the solace of a normal human life. Kostoglotov's yearning for these things in the face of his own disease, and his compassion for those who partake of the same dreams, are what gives the novel its beauty and profundity. <br />
<br />
There is, to be sure, a current of cynicism and considerable anger in the book--the Stalinist toady Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, for example, represents for Kostoglotov all that is rotten within the Soviet system, and Solzhenitsyn is unsparing in his criticism of the hypocrisy and cruelty of the politics that has condemned so many innocents to death. But the novel as a whole is remarkably free of bitterness. The final chapters, in particular, are memorable for their depiction of yearning for a better life. When Kostoglotove is released from the Cancer Ward--in remission, but, we understand, not cured, he reacts as a child might to the ordinary pleasures of life. An ice cream, a treat not experienced in the War or the Gulag or the Ward, evokes in Kostoglotov an almost mystical sense of the beauty of life. This was Solzhenitsyn himself speaking: his own life must have led him to conclude that nothing was sweeter than simply living. <br />
<br />
In Vermont, hiding out, writing furiously, he became cantankerous. The West, he felt, was decadent--who could disagree--self-indulgent, naive. He "warned" us repeatedly of the dangers of totalitarian states. He said that our immersion in materialism and shallow culture would be our undoing. The wise men who tell us what to think accused him of being a "crank" and "out of touch." We knew better than he did, even though none of us had survived the horrors that for him were the ordinary stuff of memory. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
As the life around me deteriorates--as politics becomes folly, as indignities multiply--I can't help but think of how fortunate I have been, how my life has been blessed from beginning to (near) ending with peace and relative prosperity. If I compare my own circumstances to those of Solzhenitsyn, I can hardly believe that we resided, for some time, in the same world. His angry outbursts at the West during his exile seemed to many, and, I must confess, to me as well, as overwrought, the product of a view of the world I couldn't understand, let alone share.<br />
<br />
What did I know? <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXv5-qfqOn7eAt2w9p1wFF9NEfCeVbesV4FeT3cnDGkotFYEt1heRGSB2CzAi8kAYnb4xpjmryClEBXj3paLiLQ-ralb-Ujyao71bjw4Zzr30KnFAR6QZ_9pZu1dcuuQCJZu8X9Ghmz1s/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="309" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXv5-qfqOn7eAt2w9p1wFF9NEfCeVbesV4FeT3cnDGkotFYEt1heRGSB2CzAi8kAYnb4xpjmryClEBXj3paLiLQ-ralb-Ujyao71bjw4Zzr30KnFAR6QZ_9pZu1dcuuQCJZu8X9Ghmz1s/s400/images.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
George Ovitt (March 7, 2020)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-73945174330672454502020-02-14T21:33:00.000-08:002020-02-16T16:55:42.911-08:00The "Judgment of History"<h2>
<i> </i></h2>
<h2>
<i> Tribunal</i>, a novel</h2>
<h4>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When we roll out
clichés like ‘time will tell’ and ‘the judgment of history,’ we are of course
playing with language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time does not
speak, nor does history judge.”</span></h4>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">John
W. Dower, <u>Cultures of War</u></span></b></div>
<h4>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:11.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
line-height:115%;}size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style></h4>
<h2>
</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_YCl9x1VVgon3sZTrpE2SMFm7-4Rrj0k6qSIQL7yX1pAmJdQKlXqDo14yec8BximkhJ2D3-WiArBJL5QEWb62HE6iTk0DqRpzWNYaDezb9_UhXKyFUKVerD7eynwMnOQ2kgi9C-uO1mg/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_YCl9x1VVgon3sZTrpE2SMFm7-4Rrj0k6qSIQL7yX1pAmJdQKlXqDo14yec8BximkhJ2D3-WiArBJL5QEWb62HE6iTk0DqRpzWNYaDezb9_UhXKyFUKVerD7eynwMnOQ2kgi9C-uO1mg/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
That's Pol Pot, Saloth Sâr, a happy peasant soldier, smiling in the jungle, during the period in which he and his associates and followers in the Khmer Rouge were murdering three million of their countrymen in the name of the revolutionary transformation of Democratic Kampuchea into a Maoist utopia. The photographs of their atrocities--I thought of putting one or two into this short post, but for me they are simply too graphic--feel impossible to reproduce, like pictures of Auschwitz that one suspects appeal to those who are titillated by the sight of corpses, the evidence of unspeakable torture. The perpetrators of Cambodia's self-immolation left us plenty of records, and in this case I prefer to read the story rather than look at images that are beyond comprehension. <br />
<br />
I have obsessed over Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge ever since 1970, the year when, with hundreds of thousands of other Americans, I protested the widening of the Vietnam war into a naive and politically neutral country. I marched and sat and wept and was arrested over the invasion and bombing of a country whose history had about it an almost mythic aura, a country dragged with my country's help into madness, into hell. Over the years I have read every book I could acquire, in English and in French, on these events, beginning with William Shawcross's <i>Sideshow</i> and extending to Philip Short's biography of Pol Pot and Elizabeth Becker's <i>When the War Was Over</i>. I have tried to understand what happened in Democratic Kampuchea, without success.<br />
<br />
Over the past five years I wrote a novel about Cambodia, a novel that struggles with issues surrounding genocide, long-delayed and imperfect justice, the fragility of memory, the limits of language, and the comfort of forgetting. It was published last week, and I hope you will forgive my small act of self promotion on this site. I have no idea if the book in any way achieves the goal I set for myself, which was to create a fictional narrative that examined the matter of historical judgement, that asked, in essence, if it is better for us to look at the pictures or to look away.<br />
<br />
A memorial isn't a memory but a space where we are induced to remember. My novel was written as a memorial, but in the end I couldn't find a way to answer the question I wanted to answer because, as it turns out, there is no language in which to frame it. Perhaps there isn't even a question. <br />
<br />
Here's a short passage in which the novel's narrator, in the course of attempting to construct a coherent explanation of his own past (which intersected with the genocide in Cambodia), ruminates on a famous image from another war. I am not able to reproduce the picture by Erich Andres, but it can be viewed on line and is reproduced in <i>Tribunal</i>:<br />
<br />
<br />
<style id="dynCom" type="text/css"></style><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
p.MsoCommentText, li.MsoCommentText, div.MsoCommentText
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Comment Text Char";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
span.MsoCommentReference
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-ansi-font-size:9.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;}
span.CommentTextChar
{mso-style-name:"Comment Text Char";
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-locked:yes;
mso-style-link:"Comment Text";
mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:11.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
line-height:115%;}size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}</style>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“In
today’s world, personal truth is the only reality. To stand by that truth—to
declare it—is revolutionary.” </span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The writer Hans Erich Nossack, who died just a few years
ago, nearly unknown in America, wrote in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Untergang</i>,
his eye-witness account of the firebombing of Hamburg, his city, “Now time sits
down sadly in a corner and feels useless.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was in Guernica, in 1939, that airplanes first dropped bombs on
civilians with the purpose of terrorizing—and, of course, killing them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Hamburg, between visits to libraries, I
went to a gallery to look at the photographs of Erich Andres. One photo shows
twisted corpses turned to charcoal by the fires ignited by incendiary bombs—an
image that is difficult to look at, pornographic in its depiction of violated
human bodies. Another shows the skeleton of a building that reminds me each
time I see it of Ground Zero in Hiroshima.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The one I now remember as I browse among the hopeful words of
theologians and philosophers (the faint gray light barely penetrates these ranges;
I leave the overhead lights off) show living men and women making their way
through a rubble-strewn street amid dusty, diffused light. Two men carry
bicycles on their backs—there is no question of their being able to ride
through the chunks of stone and mortar—while an old woman, whose stripped dress
looks like the forlorn clothing of the condemned at Birkenau, carefully
negotiates the broken street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The line<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" style="mso-comment-date: 20180616T2157; mso-comment-reference: ME_1;"> of people
stretches into the vanishing </a><span style="mso-comment-continuation: 1;">point</span></span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: comment;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> at the center of the photograph,
which was then hanging on a wall on a side street of Hamburg, a street similar
to the one in the photo, narrow, rebuilt of course, packed with shops and cafés
and pedestrians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked the owner of
the gallery, a thick, florid man whose beard was a shade of white I had never
seen before, as white as a cooked egg, if his shop were on the street captured
by Andres’s photograph, the one that had riveted me for a quarter of an hour,
whose texture was as flat and bland as those haunting photographs of the dead
that had just begun to arrive from Cambodia, from the “killing fields” as they are
being called.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spoke German poorly,
though it was a language I had heard growing up, German filling the rooms of
our apartments as aunts and uncles newly arrived from the old country, the old
disgraced country, passed through on their way to new lives, lives, perhaps, of
equal disgrace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>German is a language I
love to read but despair of speaking—back then, not cogent in any case, I
choked on the words as I addressed the egg-faced man, and he looked at me with
amusement, perhaps disdain, and said that no, we were standing in an
entirely new and rebuilt part of the city, one that had not been in the
quarters that were destroyed, and that if I wished to visit the older parts of
town I could take the tram or a cab—he pointed to the door to indicate the
direction in which one might find the remainder of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took the hint and left, but I had no real
interest in locating the scene of the photograph that had so arrested me in the
gallery; the effect was felt and registered, the truth of the image burned, as
it turned out, forever into my memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now in whatever city I find myself, as I walk the streets, it is easy to
imagine the graceful brick apartments and shops lying cracked in the dusty air,
the hurrying pedestrians moving like ghosts through the streets they grew up
in, wondering how they would eat or where they might sleep."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <i> </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>Tribunal</i> is available from Amazon beginning on February 17th, and from my publisher, Fomite Press, internet link below. If you read it, I would very much like to receive your responses here, on this site. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Thank you for your continuing support of our blog and our fiction. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">George Ovitt (2/15/2020) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tribunal-George-Ovitt/dp/1944388850/ref=sr_1_33?keywords=Tribunal&qid=1581731624&sr=8-33">https://www.amazon.com/Tribunal-George-Ovitt/dp/1944388850/ref=sr_1_33?keywords=Tribunal&qid=1581731624&sr=8-33</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="http://www.fomitepress.com/our-books.html">http://www.fomitepress.com/our-books.html</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">[All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Doctors Without Borders] </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: comment-list;">
<hr align="left" class="msocomoff" size="1" width="33%" />
<div style="mso-element: comment;">
<div class="msocomtxt" id="_com_1">
<span style="mso-comment-author: "Marc Estrin";"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_msocom_1"></a></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoCommentText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoCommentText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoCommentText">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<h2>
</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-15816835305459578202020-01-16T07:15:00.001-08:002020-01-18T06:28:47.485-08:00One Radical Son<br />
<i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Unhappy Warrior: The
Life and Death of Robert S. Starobin</span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">by
Linda Rennie Forcey<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSByBRRiPrgDdbhzeYuh8RueKlkorGWr0GUIfPw9D1ZWgkKG7sXVK-AaYu0sVGAIK5Vr8CtG8PzC7cJ_1gi_SxRKl1OTMhE9JRDGTN8f9kHZqYd8Gos5eqoNrr0SpCn0GiAXmzFeZ9Znk/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="383" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSByBRRiPrgDdbhzeYuh8RueKlkorGWr0GUIfPw9D1ZWgkKG7sXVK-AaYu0sVGAIK5Vr8CtG8PzC7cJ_1gi_SxRKl1OTMhE9JRDGTN8f9kHZqYd8Gos5eqoNrr0SpCn0GiAXmzFeZ9Znk/s400/1.png" width="266" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> It
was roughly eight years ago that I read my mother’s Ph.D. dissertation for the
first time, a manuscript completed some thirty-five years earlier, in 1978,
then tucked away in a drawer. Entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Personality
in Politics: The Commitment of a Suicide</i>, it tells the story of a radical
young historian named Robert Starobin, a man who struggled mightily to
reconcile the different, often oppositional demands of his life as a scholar
and professor and as an activist committed to radical change. For Bob it was a
struggle, coupled with years of depression and self-doubt, that finally
overwhelmed him: in 1971, at the age of thirty-one, he put a bullet in his
head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> I was struck at once by his story,
inspired—as well as troubled—by his brilliance, his passion, his weakness, his
rage. For the story of Robert Starobin is not only the story of a flawed if
remarkable man, a promising historian, teacher, and activist haunted by
injustice in every form, but also, and significantly, a compelling depiction of
life in the U.S. in the years during and immediately following the Vietnam
War—a violent, bewildering, still largely unresolved chapter in the history of
this nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> From as early as his student days, Bob
Starobin was drawn to the throbbing heart of the times, often taking a leading
role in the political affairs of his day. Born and raised in Greenwich Village,
New York City, he was exposed early on to the more progressive strains of
American life, attending political meetings and participating in the crowded
rallies, marches, folk music gatherings, and May Day festivities in Washington
Square Park.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjym6SAlCzzN-8tUj6Q9CWGyYnCFn1LOi9b1XcNPhv15-OSzZC1ypF6ngjAOL0ODv965weHCQzWvHaCH7KPs-wfi3paPfPPNwG3xISSYPv8rNJi5pueah5HK_U4wLrIpzowurUUSVg6NAg/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="937" data-original-width="716" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjym6SAlCzzN-8tUj6Q9CWGyYnCFn1LOi9b1XcNPhv15-OSzZC1ypF6ngjAOL0ODv965weHCQzWvHaCH7KPs-wfi3paPfPPNwG3xISSYPv8rNJi5pueah5HK_U4wLrIpzowurUUSVg6NAg/s640/2.png" width="488" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 48px;">
<span style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">(Photo by Weegee, featuring Bob Starobin just behind fiddler)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The
son of Joseph Starobin, a professional communist and Foreign Editor for the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Daily Worker</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, Bob, like most “Red Diaper
Babies” raised in New York, attended the Little Red School House, Elisabeth
Irwin High School, and The Bronx High School of Science, before heading upstate
to Cornell, only to complete his graduate work at Berkeley, what was then the
epicenter of student unrest. While there, he was active in both the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Free Speech Movement (FSM). He
protested everything from university policies and curricula to racial
discrimination, nuclear testing, and the war in Vietnam. And that was just the
beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 48px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdGNbW33PHaSNA6iD6VQa2AleO-f8OtXsYfpEIPVsfDjD6XispW3FAbEiCoa5mPFdXpv7Pry72spFWA8IErN1-kshINphduRw9P2hMWNGPABA8sjeCZfaG_8BMwMPdzmsWkyXyw_IMbx0/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="974" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdGNbW33PHaSNA6iD6VQa2AleO-f8OtXsYfpEIPVsfDjD6XispW3FAbEiCoa5mPFdXpv7Pry72spFWA8IErN1-kshINphduRw9P2hMWNGPABA8sjeCZfaG_8BMwMPdzmsWkyXyw_IMbx0/s640/3.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">In his first teaching job at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught seminars in Reconstruction and pioneered
the university’s first black studies course, he proved an ardent and outspoken
advocate for the black students there, as well as vociferous critic of the
administration itself, which, in an editorial called “Let It Bleed,” he accused
the University of having been co-opted by corporate and military interests.
Called a “Jew-commie-nigger-lover” by an anonymous caller one night, he was
also openly criticized for his radical politics, in particular for his
participation in the Free Speech Movement and for his support of the Black
Panthers. Yet he was unwilling to compromise his principles, to back down, to
temper his politics for the sake of securing tenure there. He ultimately
resigned his position in 1968.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0_-vVUgRIv6popZzJKUdfhR6G-_VHMwAn1p4Wm275M6U3nkKGxnvloWBOynFt6cYrGQmTg0oCXcmYYzVKHlE4dFmY65RUyFV-pFFtGnQDpdurQRJiwq9PxdKd4_ks0HE4FIBXEgm9Lxo/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="974" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0_-vVUgRIv6popZzJKUdfhR6G-_VHMwAn1p4Wm275M6U3nkKGxnvloWBOynFt6cYrGQmTg0oCXcmYYzVKHlE4dFmY65RUyFV-pFFtGnQDpdurQRJiwq9PxdKd4_ks0HE4FIBXEgm9Lxo/s640/4.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> From
there he moved east to Ithaca, New York, where, as a university fellow, he
taught briefly at Cornell, his alma mater, before accepting a tenured position
in the history department at the State University of New York at Binghamton. It
was there in 1969 in Binghamton that he met and befriended my stepfather,
Charles Forcey, a fellow historian and professor, and my mother, Linda Rennie
Forcey, then a political science student in the doctoral program there. It was
through her friendship with Bob that my mother developed an interest in his
radical politics, in his often-zealous idealism, an interest that was brought
to a head by Bob’s suicide in the winter of 1971. What had happened, she
grieved. What—for all his good intentions—had gone wrong? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Months passed, then years</span>, when, still shaken by his death, my
mother decided to tell his story for her dissertation. Over the coming years
she travelled throughout the country, interviewing everyone she could find who
had known or worked with Bob. Critical to her research, to finding answers to
her own hard questions, was the time, the many days, spent interviewing Bob’s
parents, Joseph and Norma Starobin, in their home in Hancock, Massachusetts.
Her interest in their son proved a consolation to them. As attested to in their
lengthy correspondence with my mother, they believed in her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So why was her dissertation never
published? The answer is both simple and complex. After years of enjoying the
confidence and encouragement of Bob’s parents, following his suicide and
throughout her completion of the dissertation, she received the following
typewritten letter from Bob’s then-widowed mother, Norma Starobin, dated
September 20, 1978, shortly after her dissertation had been approved: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Dear Linda:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">In
relation to your Ph.D. Thesis entitled <u>Personality in Politics: The
Commitment of a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suicide</u>, submitted
to The State University of New York at Binghamton 1978, I must tell you that I
will not permit any publisher to publish this Thesis in its present form, using
real names of persons living and dead. <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">When
you told me about your desire to write on political commitment, using my late
son, Robert S. Starobin’s experiences as part of your research material, I kept
emphasizing<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>social workers, psychologists, etc. use a case study,
changing names and hiding true identities. This
you have not done and real names are constantly used. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">I
find the contents of your thesis an invasion of my right to privacy. You give
details of the life of members of my family that can be an invasion of their
lives too, and some of these members are among the living.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">As
the Court appointed Guardian of the Property of Robert S. Starobin’s minor
child, my granddaughter, Rachael, I also object to the publication, should
publication take place of the Thesis in its present form as being against her
interests, and liable to affect her future growth and development adversely and
unnecessarily. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">I
regret having to inform you that I will sue in Court any publisher of the
above-named manuscript, unless many changes in the present text are made and
legally approved of by me. These changes would have to protect me, my
relatives, and particularly Rachael S. Starobin-Thompson from invasion of
privacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Needless
to say, my mother was surprised by Norma’s reaction, clear, candid, as she felt
she’d been with her in writing the story of her son. Indeed, my mother had and
still has no recollection of Norma ever mentioning the matter of anonymity to
her. Yet what could she do? Saddened and wounded, she put the dissertation
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Then one day </span>in 2001, after my
mother and stepfather had retired to Florida, she received a letter
from Oakland, California, from Bob’s daughter, Rachael Starobin MacKay. The
letter begins:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">I am Rachael Starobin, daughter of the late
Robert Starobin, who you wrote your Ph.D. dissertation about. My Grandmother,
Norma Starobin, passed away in 1998. I was recently back east in Hancock,
dreading the task of weeding through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">piles
</i>of letters and files (my grandmother saved everything from shopping lists
to phone bills from 1952) and found, what has proved to be the greatest gift of
my life—your dissertation about my Father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Spurred by Rachael Starobin’s
response, my
mother reread her dissertation and thought again of trying to find a publisher
for it. She, however, was
unable to do so at the time, preoccupied as she was with the mental and
physical care of her late husband, Charles B. Forcey. It was only after his
death in 2008 that she returned to the dissertation. The question was: how much
should she change? What, if anything, should be updated? After a great deal of
discussion with Rachael, her mom, and me she
decided that, but for some editing to make it
more appealing to a wider audience, to leave
the dissertation as it was when she completed it in 1978.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="375">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Mention"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Smart Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hashtag"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Unresolved Mention"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">As a boy I myself knew Bob Starobin. I
often accompanied my mother when she visited him at his little farmhouse in the
hills above Owego, New York. I remember his daughter, Rachael. I remember his
goats, Huey Newton and Ho Chi Minh. And I remember the day he died. I remember
my mother crying.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvOYLgT0UCMwcru1mJmwSCA_yCAfxu34mCm5CCUdWf9IsvBXSCQCVy2T0CvaoOvbuNkWiV3aZKe6LljbM4DyNDWvATdvlPgnU_asFWuc_hXwS40flpVz8if4xMX1QErgDYxuribbyXFg/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="472" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvOYLgT0UCMwcru1mJmwSCA_yCAfxu34mCm5CCUdWf9IsvBXSCQCVy2T0CvaoOvbuNkWiV3aZKe6LljbM4DyNDWvATdvlPgnU_asFWuc_hXwS40flpVz8if4xMX1QErgDYxuribbyXFg/s640/5.png" width="476" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> (Bob
Starobin with daughter </span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Rachael</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">, roughly one month before his suicide)</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Here
is a link to the book: </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unhappy-Warrior-Death-Robert-Starobin/dp/1679630024/ref=sr_1_1?crid=216ILDAPDRUI4&keywords=unhappy+warrior&qid=1579124924&s=books&sprefix=unhapp%2Caps%2C208&sr=1-1"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unhappy Warrior</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="375">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Mention"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Smart Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hashtag"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Unresolved Mention"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> Peter Nash</o:p></span></div>
<br />
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-23994622172916493642020-01-06T12:45:00.000-08:002020-01-06T17:47:33.378-08:00The World Inside the World<h2>
<i>Oblivion Banjo</i>, Charles Wright (Collected poems)</h2>
<h3>
"How are we capable of so much love / for things that must fall away?" </h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkGlrrhhZGNjcliSFIcHOsm58nExTv6PTz4XCrzN5BeApFdgUnJi5z-qKOcLCiXTeTt1mH0bMKOIUrjiDDCz56xmRb0dPt_72qtEB6vLHcxwXgemiDzspkJBiYSQEDKoKfmgouiROtZHs/s1600/31JnrMdchtL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkGlrrhhZGNjcliSFIcHOsm58nExTv6PTz4XCrzN5BeApFdgUnJi5z-qKOcLCiXTeTt1mH0bMKOIUrjiDDCz56xmRb0dPt_72qtEB6vLHcxwXgemiDzspkJBiYSQEDKoKfmgouiROtZHs/s320/31JnrMdchtL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
A typical Charles Wright poem begins with an observation of the world outside his study window (this is how I imagine it happening; there are plenty of exceptions)... <br />
<br />
"In the skylight it's Sunday, / A little aura between the slats of the Venetian blinds"<br />
<br />
("Reading Rorty and Paul Celan One Morning in Early June")<br />
<br />
<br />
"Back yard, dry flower half-border, unpeopled landscape"<br />
<br />
("<i>Disjecta Membra</i>")<br />
<br />
"A misty rain, no wind from the west, / Clouds close as smoke to the ground"<br />
<br />
("A Field Guide to the Birds of the Upper Yaak")<br />
<br />
Scene set, Wright deftly, with remarkable economy of diction and almost preternatural insight into the connections that bind him--us--to the world, moves to place himself, at that moment, into the slice of time and place he has described:<br />
<br />
"If I were a T'ang poet, someone would bid farewell / At this point, or pluck a lute string, / or knock on a hermit's door. / I'm not, and there's no one here."<br />
<br />
These lines follow "A misty rain..." and, once the poet has come to inhabit the scene, he gently leads the reader to the trope that Wright handles better than anyone--he finds a way to make the natural world, the world he inhabits, merge with what he is thinking and feeling. This act of union isn't the romantic's or transcendentalist's use of nature as a mirror or a metaphor for the self but the mystic's conviction that the soul is one entity, connected to all things, including to God. I have no information about Wright's religious views--I don't want autobiographical information clouding my reading of his poems--but he is, I believe, the most deeply spiritual poet of our moment.<br />
<br />
I love taking long walks in the winter. The streets are mostly deserted and the bare branches of the elms and cottonwoods that surround my neighborhood are especially lovely when etched against what is (right at this moment) a sky of astonishing blue--not a whisper of a cloud, no contrails, just emptiness. Wright is a fine companion on such walks, and I might carry a line with me for company:<br />
<br />
"It's blue immensity that taught me about subtraction, / Those luminous fingerprints/ left by the dark, their whorls / Locked in the stations of the pilgrim sun." ("6 August 1984," from one <i>Zone Journals</i>).<br />
<br />
Or, from yesterday's walk, a single line:<br />
<br />
"Landscape's a lever of transcendence--" ("<i>Apologia Pro Vita Sua</i>")<br />
<br />
I would guess that Wright is not for everyone: he's vague about certain things, evocative rather than descriptive. He's relentlessly serious, or at least never frivolous. He's never witty or ironic; he's not a "language poet" but a poet who conveys in poem after poem the limitations of language, the loose fit between words and thoughts.<br />
<br />
His poems have a halting structure: they aren't easy to memorize; lines run on as descriptions grow dense ("Dogwood insidious in its constellations of part-charred cross points"). And, as I said, he's a spiritual thinker, and has more in common with Gerard Manley Hopkins than Wordsworth or Keats. It often feels as if he's looking past or through the lovely hills of central Virginia (he lives in Charlottesville) toward a New Jerusalem of the imagination. Yes, I do believe he is a great spiritual writer, our Rilke, our Hopkins.<br />
<br />
<i>Oblivion Banjo</i>--over 700 pages of poetry, without any intervening prose introductions or commentaries, or even a word from Wright--contains wonders.<br />
<br />
Here's one of them:<br />
<br />
"Lives of the Saints"<br />
<br />
I.<br />
<br />
A loose knot in a short rope,<br />
My life keeps sliding out from under me, intact but<br />
Diminishing,<br />
its pattern becoming patternless,<br />
The blue abyss of everyday air<br />
Breathing it in and breathing it out,<br />
in little clouds like smoke,<br />
In little wind strings and threads.<br />
<br />
Everything the pencil says is erasable,<br />
Unlike our voices, whose words are black and permanent,<br />
Smudging our lives like coal dust,<br />
unlike our memories,<br />
Etched like a skyline against the mind,<br />
Unlike our unretrievable deeds...<br />
The pencil spills everything, and then takes everything back....<br />
<br />
The pleasure of a big book like this one is that the reader can follow the trajectory of the poet's career. In Wright's case, from <i>Hard Freight</i> published in 1973 to <i>Caribou</i>, published in 2014. That's a long time to keep at poetry, and Wright has been remarkably consistent: in formal commitments, in themes, in high seriousness. There's a melancholy strain of frustrated understanding that runs through all of his books. He works in poem after poem to put what he feels into words, and, more often than not, he gives up and ends one of his meditations with a line that sounds Japanese in its simplicity and durability: "When the body is old, the heart becomes older still," "Everything moves toward its self-appointed end." (both from <i>Littlefoot</i>, a poetic journal).<br />
<br />
It's a joy to read Wright in any season, but winter feels especially appropriate a time to take stock, to look around more carefully, and to think about why we love so deeply the things that must fall away.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEichDtfmhwZ_q9-KdilCLjvfhwIPXiP1hxbfgCCdLtlMA9gSqehhk9z4Gkx6HQr0NheY_7fnSGRlbzM31y13KkmXUlkTnaQt6OQfXDXCYcPVu05seMuafBysTWVZFG88uIU5Q2zxbmNx9I/s1600/wright-charles-c-holly-wright-300-dpi_wide-411c5ee647e0c07c0c1d6183f21a55eef2cd89e9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEichDtfmhwZ_q9-KdilCLjvfhwIPXiP1hxbfgCCdLtlMA9gSqehhk9z4Gkx6HQr0NheY_7fnSGRlbzM31y13KkmXUlkTnaQt6OQfXDXCYcPVu05seMuafBysTWVZFG88uIU5Q2zxbmNx9I/s320/wright-charles-c-holly-wright-300-dpi_wide-411c5ee647e0c07c0c1d6183f21a55eef2cd89e9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (6 January 2019)George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-30950744166976727692019-12-31T18:26:00.000-08:002020-01-01T08:25:16.399-08:00The Ones I Liked<h2>
Not the Best Books of 2019</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNOBnq5L23bFLsNR0uxLTXqbcjTgIa89ezoQ5H7ce8_CxzOKGQvG4AM59cNTNPP_vJi5pU8pI3EAIcY1_XdvI3vqQSvA69SjRoccWQaYMh8B_vOO2udz81K2eDtefuNJ9bljJB3VUaHC8/s1600/DSC_0024.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNOBnq5L23bFLsNR0uxLTXqbcjTgIa89ezoQ5H7ce8_CxzOKGQvG4AM59cNTNPP_vJi5pU8pI3EAIcY1_XdvI3vqQSvA69SjRoccWQaYMh8B_vOO2udz81K2eDtefuNJ9bljJB3VUaHC8/s320/DSC_0024.jpeg" width="213" /></a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Nearly 305,000 titles were published in 2019, rendering any notion of the "ten best" or even the"thousand best" books absurd. Naturally the lists touted by the <i>Times</i>, the <i>Post</i>, the <i>Guardian</i>, and my other sources of information are dominated by the same titles, the same authors (Ben Lerner!), and by the major publishers. You won't find any small presses represented, nor will you be surprised to learn that few first-time writers, or non-MFA holders, or people who don't live in Brooklyn made the cut. If you read this blog from time to time, you know that we here at TR like to branch out and read books out of the mainstream, small press titles, books by unknown writers, books by writers not living in the United States, translated works and books that are quirky, nontraditional, and likely to be ignored by the cultural taste makers in London and New York. We're snobs, sort of, cultural nobodies who happen to like to read, and we operate on the premise that what is popular is often not what is best, though this isn't always the case, as my own list of favorites demonstrates. </div>
<br />
It has been a splendid year for books. I can't remember a time when I stumbled upon so many fine writers, so many interesting novels, so much engrossing non-fiction, such splendid and moving poetry.<br />
<br />
I wanted to share the titles of some books worthy of your consideration, listed here in no particular order. I hope that you had a good year of reading and that in 2020 you will find many hours to escape from the insanity of the world in the quiet, solitary silence of good books.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
Marion Poschmann's <i>The Pine Islands</i>, a slender novel about "a journeyman lecturer on beard fashions in film," was not only a pleasant excursion into Japanese history and geography, but it led me back to Basho's great classic <i>The Narrow Road to the Deep North </i>in the David Landis Barnhill translation. Poschmann is a highly regarded German writer whose books are just now being translated.<br />
<br />
Ariana Harwicz's <i>Die, My Love</i> is a chilling story of a woman's deepening hatred for her husband and child (and for everyone else). This isn't merely another Hollywood version of the alienated wife in the mode of "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," nor is it a story of madness; instead, Harwicz, a young Argentinian writer, mercilessly dissects the pretensions of love, marriage, and child rearing. The corpse that's left isn't pretty.<br />
<br />
The inimitable Daša Drndi's two novels of the life and near-death of Andreas Ban that I read this year, <i>Belladonna</i> and <i>EEG </i>(her final novel) operate in that rare space of politically sophisticated and philosophically dense fiction that is one of the staples of Eastern European writing. Ban, a melancholic psychologist and writer, meditates on history, genocide, love, hope and hopelessness in the style of Dubravka Ugrešić (<i>The Ministry of Pain)</i> and Zoran Feric (<i>The Death of the Little Match Girl). </i>These are all bracing books--dense, unrelenting, demanding, but ultimately rewarding as you must think deeply and pay attention as you read. <br />
<br />
Valeria Luiselli, <i>Lost Children Archive</i>, which I have written about in this blog, was the most affecting novel that I read this year. I have now read all of Luiselli's books and also recommend <i>Sidewalks</i>, her short essays on persons and places, thoughts while walking--with a lovely introduction and appreciation by Cees Nooteboom. I am astonished to learn that former president Obama read and enjoyed this heart-wrenching novel about our border and its victims. Would that someone with power to effect a change in our immigration policies read this fine book. <br />
<br />
Deborah Eisenberg has been on my must-read list for a long time. This year I read her collection <i>All Around Atlantis</i> and have <i>Your Duck is My Duck </i>on my desk. Few writers can do what Eisenberg does with eccentric America--she is, as someone put it, "the chronicler of our madness." Funny and sad, refreshing in our time of insane public life--memorial characters who look like you and me. <br />
<br />
I read a lot of poetry this year. The two books I have read steadily all year are collections from veteran poets: John Balaban's <i>Locusts at the Edge of Summer </i>and Arthur Sze's (winner of the National Book Award this year) <i>The Redshifting Web</i>. Both poets work in open forms, observe the world with compassion, and open up avenues of feeling that draw you not only into individual poems but into the rich body of their work. Once attracted to Balaban, I sought out three volumes of his translations of Vietnamese poetry (he served in Vietnam as a conscientious objector during that war) and recommend these books as well. <br />
<br />
Andres Resendez's <i>The Other Slavery,</i> an account of the enslavement of Native Peoples in the Americas was a book that stayed with me all year not only for its meticulous research but for the grace and style of the story's telling. <br />
<br />
I read three of Patti Smith's books over the past few weeks--<i>We Kids, Devotion, </i>and, best of all, <i>M Train.</i> The story of my coming around to read the books that everyone else has already read is too long to repeat here, let's just say that I admired Patti as a musician for many years and had no idea that she wrote splendid books until I stumbled upon <i>M Train</i> in our one remaining bookstore. Patti's travels, her sensibility, and her prose--hallucinogenic, surreal, and as complex as her song lyrics--are worth taking up. I especially love her travels to pay hommage to the graves of writers she admires since I have had the same habit. <br />
<br />
Lucy Ellmann's roller-coaster of a three sentence, one-thousand page stream of consciousness book is an insightful, long, long look at where we are now as seen through the consciousness of a not-so-average Ohio housewife. It takes patience, but <i>Ducks, Newburyport </i>is worth the effort. You'll be lulled into complacency by a bunch of pop culture references (I didn't get half of them) and then startled into wakefulness by a observations that are poignant and right on target. Ellmann is the real deal: a novelist who is willing to break up the form and create something like Joyce's final 85 pages of <i>Ulysses</i>--Molly Bloom, with a millennium of pages to fill.<br />
<br />
That's it for now. Happy New Year to all!<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (12/31/2019) George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-9795534052027303462019-12-25T17:17:00.000-08:002019-12-27T08:38:48.403-08:00Men, Lurking<h2>
<i>Milkman</i>, Anna Burns</h2>
<h2>
<i>The Testaments</i>, Margaret Atwood </h2>
<h2>
<i>Ducks, Newburyport</i>, Lucy Ellmann</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFstZm1S2CWvVAqnAwlVJmsxbHQ2Pc51Z-A-G80aW2yALsCmTCJthEUlcIgTrpFiSQHkPwZURuFOjHxwnOcrFw1LOKTJ2MJpsR4DpnDcFYRIWKAwAOClROB0ywBqcnxJrcvwNTJrFrJ8/s1600/anna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFstZm1S2CWvVAqnAwlVJmsxbHQ2Pc51Z-A-G80aW2yALsCmTCJthEUlcIgTrpFiSQHkPwZURuFOjHxwnOcrFw1LOKTJ2MJpsR4DpnDcFYRIWKAwAOClROB0ywBqcnxJrcvwNTJrFrJ8/s1600/anna.jpg" /></a></div>
<h2>
</h2>
It's been a bad year for men. Although, to be fair, when it comes to men's behavior, every year is pretty much the same.<br />
<br />
Just recently, watching what reminded me (from my reading, not direct experience) of the spectacle of devout Bolsheviks falling over themselves to praise the Leader--"The Gardener of Human Happiness," The Man of Steel,"and, perhaps most aptly given that <i>our</i> Leader has been likened, without apparent irony, to Jesus Christ, "Dear Father"--I felt deeply embarrassed for my sex, age-group, and ethnicity (full disclosure: I am an oldish white male). The defense of our recently impeached President by the <i>apparatchiks </i>of the GOP ("Groveling Odious Partisans") presented a nearly eight-hour spectacle not only of mendacity, boot-licking, and abject immorality, it also made it perfectly clear to this white male that what we are seeing is the <i>end-</i>-thank God--of the rule of old white men over women, children, people of color, and our planet.<br />
<br />
This can't go on, and the fervid displays of disingenuousness, smugness, and worst of all, the sense of entitlement that have been on display during these past weeks not only here but also in Great Britain--B. Johnson being Trump's twin, bad hair, fascistic tendencies, and a shared aversion to the truth--suggest that what is transpiring is a last, desperate attempt by a powerful but increasingly irrelevant class of old men (and young men with old souls) to cling to the prerogatives that they believe must be accorded their sex--power and money it goes without saying, but also unimpeded access to women's bodies, authoritarian control of our political and economic system, dictatorial influence over culture, and, in general, the status of demigods that has been, until now, their presumptive birth-right. That's over, and, believe it or not, it is Trump, the Omega-Male, who is destroying what he hopes to preserve, destroying his half-baked MAGA-fantasy through fecklessness, narcissism, and immorality, and at the same time, for those persons paying attention, undoing all claims of masculine legitimacy--that is, all of the historic nonsense that has turned an ideology of masculine superiority into a farcical circus peopled by preening nobodies whose claims to "natural" domination of the world would be laughable were it not for the tragic consequences these nabobs have visited on human beings and our planet.<br />
<br />
A bit of a rant, and poorly punctuated, but it's how we men talk. <br />
<br />
My prognosis may appear counter-intuitive given the numerical dominance of white men in business, government, academe, the military, and everywhere else there is power to wield, but bear in mind that the demise of every hegemonic system in history--from feudalism to absolutism to so-called communism--has come at the moment of that system's seemingly greatest power. The right-wing, anti-democratic, misogynistic, racist male egotism embodied by Trump, McConnell, Weinstein, Bezos, and their devoted followers is unleashing--even as I write these words--a backlash that is global and that will, in time, wash away the so-called principles and self-serving ideas of these men, wipe it away like a great Tsunami sweeping across a landscape laid waste by centuries of greed, stupidity, and arrogance.<br />
<br />
This is the central point of Margaret Atwood's continuation of <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i>, the (I'm sorry to say) far less engaging novel <i>The Testaments</i> whose central premise is that rotten systems of government--in the case of the novel, brutal patriarchy--decay from within. While the sequel to <i>AHT</i> was clunky, Atwood's premise is right on the money. Rot begets rot; corruption engenders corruption; the cult of death--for that is what patriarchy really is--kills itself, though, unfortunately, not until it has claimed far too many innocent victims.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgoH2Px_VfLQx3kAQz5QQi59zdDA2V-di9ai3fosN_rTGxvenlL5T2nkllFoipS7hTUzrxkC_Z99zDQSiwqbIUo-n4eIvHx4kk8BiIAlzTaqhXUUTWP7WSlMv4E6_ThWGsGQWJu3zV8KM/s1600/atwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgoH2Px_VfLQx3kAQz5QQi59zdDA2V-di9ai3fosN_rTGxvenlL5T2nkllFoipS7hTUzrxkC_Z99zDQSiwqbIUo-n4eIvHx4kk8BiIAlzTaqhXUUTWP7WSlMv4E6_ThWGsGQWJu3zV8KM/s1600/atwood.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Will the rest of us--women, children, the poor and powerless, and decent fellows like myself, get out alive? That remains to be seen. I don't anticipate a long-term residence on earth, but I lament daily the world my daughters, my wife, and the good people I know will inherit, and I resent bitterly the stupidity and callous self-interest that has created what has passed beyond crisis to something more akin to disaster.<br />
<br />
Yes, of course, there are wonderful men and awful women, sure, natch. I generalize to be sure. Congressman Schiff seems a decent sort; Congressman Jordan of the shirt-sleeves, not so much. But this isn't a note about politicians, but about the trajectory of masculine behavior as it has for too long existed: we're in danger of expiring as a species; birds and turtles are disappearing; coral reefs are doomed; thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children starve and/or sleep under our freeways while the uber-rich (Rudy Giuliani!) own six homes and belong (Rudy Giuliani!) to eleven country clubs. It's unnatural. The world is being devoured by piggish men who do nothing for anyone--they don't police our streets, fight our fires, teach our children, tend to the sick and the dying, build anything--they spend their wasteful days spinning money into more money, fomenting wars for others to fight, shitting in golden toilets, and spending an inordinate amount of time harassing, degrading, and raping women.<br />
<br />
Enough.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, women fight back with courage, dignity, and art.<br />
<br />
Anna Burns, for example, in a novel of extraordinary originality, plunks us into the odd reality of "middle sister," an eighteen-year-old who "reads while walking," and negotiates the violent world of what is presumably Northern Ireland during the 1970's (Burns was born in Belfast). The unnamed characters who walk the streets of Burns's unnamed city negotiate a masculine world of political and personal grievance that leaves nearly every family mourning a son, a father, a daughter. Burns, with deftness and imaginative scope unusual in contemporary fiction, pushes her story of sectarian violence from realism into the realm of parable: the repetitions of theme and language, the characters identified by their social role rather than by name ("maybe-boyfriend," "Milkman," "renouncers"), the circling back and forth among patterns of action, nearly all of which end in bloodshed--these rhetorical and thematic modes of storytelling add up to a novel that enacts the cycles of violence and degrees of victimization that characterize so many parts of the world in which we live. Most ominous for me are the lurking men, the "renouncers" who hate those from "over the ocean" and who inflict vengeance against any of their countrymen who deviate from a strict pattern of permissible behavior. "Informer" takes on the weight of "non-conformist": maybe-boyfriend who is middle sister's maybe love interest is suspect because he likes sunsets and stars; the Milkman (who isn't a milkman) is the chief of the "renouncers," perhaps an IRA gunman, and his unrequited love interest in middle-sister isn't offered as courtship but as the threat of sexual violence--he's the most powerful man in the community and is entitled to take whomever he wishes, no questions asked. Middle-sister does her best to negotiate a terrain as replete with fixed rituals and unyielding culture as the Catholic Church; she fights rumors, but truth holds little sway in her world, just as it holds none in ours. <i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Milkman</i> is narrated throughout by middle-sister; dialogue is reported by her, all descriptions are filtered through her lively consciousness. In this regard, Anna Burns and Lucy Ellmann approach the novel with similar aims: Burns reprises the psychological effect of simmering violence on the consciousness of one sensitive character; Ellmann, over the course of one-thousand pages (and about three sentences) uses a hurtling form of stream-of-consciousness (as in Joyce's <i>Ulysses</i>) to survey in (frankly, at times) excruciating detail the anxieties of an Ohio housewife, an Everywoman. In one sense, Burns and Ellmann traverse the same terrain, for both women view a world created by men that is baffling, full of threats, irrational, rapacious, and indifferent to the well-being of the weak, the very people for whom, one presumes, societies were created. Ellmann's housewife isn't faced with the Shadow of the Gunman (see Sean O'Casey) but with the enervating rituals of up-to-the-minute American life. Ellmann, who has resided in Scotland for many years, is utterly hip to what is going on in our local precincts--the slipping away of a sense that we are anything other than a national shopping mall, that we can have a life outside of the internet, that we exist in any meaningful way with other people, that we give a shit about anyone other than ourselves. Ellmann does isolation with the same intelligence that Burns does paranoia; in the end, these feelings amount to the same thing. <br />
<br />
With Burns one is, as it were, 10,000 feet above the world, looking down at a grid of unnamed streets and neighborhoods and people, at events uprooted from time and place, at the general pattern of human folly. Ellmann, on the other hand, is like one of the historians of the <i>annales</i> school: she unpacks every moment, every impression, every thought of her narrator. Both novels explore the interior life of a woman who possesses the gift of observation but who is put continuously on the defensive by a world that has become unmanageable. Both Belfast and Ohio are sunk in violence, though of different sorts. Middle-sister lives among gunmen; Ohio-housewife lives in the murkiness of a way of life that is disappearing--security, community, child-rearing, marriage, work, patriotism--none of the verities with which Housewife has lived are enduring. Trump makes numerous cameo appearances in <i>Ducks, Newburyport</i> as the talisman of this slipping away. Who better to embody the mess we are in? <br />
<br />
What, Housewife wonders, has become of us? What, indeed?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZnGh52KYf8up2VECsZvhArj1y9V2JR1Ffck2zmB-CkBMaWrQ5cGUHNqtstZMc3kSEKT2mU-EF9heJIG0nNTVRmAim-FFvcIXIXSvP_NasvyNjyWnjJnAVdpHzwRu8m9nxycug6YMAmlM/s1600/ellmann.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZnGh52KYf8up2VECsZvhArj1y9V2JR1Ffck2zmB-CkBMaWrQ5cGUHNqtstZMc3kSEKT2mU-EF9heJIG0nNTVRmAim-FFvcIXIXSvP_NasvyNjyWnjJnAVdpHzwRu8m9nxycug6YMAmlM/s1600/ellmann.webp" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Christmas Day, 2019<br />
George Ovitt<br />
<br />George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-15890513688309984842019-12-08T17:25:00.000-08:002019-12-08T17:25:20.339-08:00William Wordsworth, Patti Smith, and One Meaning of History<h2>
Patti Smith, <i>M Train</i> (a memoir)</h2>
"These beauteous forms, <br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Through a long absence, have not been to me </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
And passing even into my purer mind </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
As have no slight or trivial influence </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
On that best portion of a good man's life, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts </div>
Of kindness and of love."<br />
<br />
--William Wordsworth, from "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfwZTKx_L_9HBKEhzxb62K-FlgRBSN412Aj69dS6VlKOEzMcTN2QuHvfR3gXwxiQAvId8PLRjFSzF45gvO7Moglo8dM-d3o_nrhWBMLcBpGTpGurzL4bvwHNNibpT9bQu-2VFcHO-gEs/s1600/pattismith-770.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="770" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkfwZTKx_L_9HBKEhzxb62K-FlgRBSN412Aj69dS6VlKOEzMcTN2QuHvfR3gXwxiQAvId8PLRjFSzF45gvO7Moglo8dM-d3o_nrhWBMLcBpGTpGurzL4bvwHNNibpT9bQu-2VFcHO-gEs/s320/pattismith-770.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I finished <i>M Train</i> late last night, and while I should have slept in, I awoke at sunrise, my mind full of images from the book--Patti searching out the grave of Sylvia Plath, Patti photographing Bolano's writing chair in Blades, Patti at Mishima's grave, Patti and her late, lamented husband Fred Sonic Smith traveling to Suriname to fulfill a promise Patti had made to the ghost of Genet...and then the lines I have reproduced above from Wordsworth's <i>Tintern Abby</i>, imperfectly remembered, arrived as the sun rose in a bank of clouds over the Sandia mountains. I next remembered an interview I had seen with Patti (I couldn't call her "Smith" if I tried) shot in 1975 when, clearly under the influence of something or other, she stole the show from five or six men, band members and a male interviewer, describing her own sense of freedom and of "breaking through to the other side." Somehow all of these disparate images coalesced into, of all things, a theory of history. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Morning mind, like beginner's mind, is the best place to find new ideas.<br />
<br />
Figuring out the arrival of William Wordsworth was easy enough. His great poem of memory precisely describes Patti's working model: in "lonely rooms" (though by her own admission Patti is never lonely) and at her corner table at the Cafe Ino, she drinks her coffee and writes in her notebooks, remembering what has been a tumultuous life, full of joy, fame, and heartbreak. Her beloved husband, Fred Smith, died young, as did her companion and lover of the late 1960's and early 1970's Robert Mapplethorpe. She has been celebrated as one of the founders of punk rock, and she was by far the finest lyricist to perform to in this style; she is a successful visual artist, an activist, and, above all (for me) a compelling writer. Her memoir <i>Just Kids</i> won the National Book Award in 2010; she has written half-a-dozen other books of which <i>M Train</i> is perhaps the finest. There is much for her to remember.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdEe6yOfNLeGMxqDTM54eu_ju5b-zm57FRfqwkF9nxfizJqDBYvzYexBxa7flgOQ2jbzfXKiox7zm5SsufWeeg75CgXPLePiUKAhleAxEDxCjEQVU2-TDuNwnKbYZ26_9iz2EP16omgfQ/s1600/tumblr_pxtwy7QKAu1ux4g9lo1_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="400" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdEe6yOfNLeGMxqDTM54eu_ju5b-zm57FRfqwkF9nxfizJqDBYvzYexBxa7flgOQ2jbzfXKiox7zm5SsufWeeg75CgXPLePiUKAhleAxEDxCjEQVU2-TDuNwnKbYZ26_9iz2EP16omgfQ/s320/tumblr_pxtwy7QKAu1ux4g9lo1_400.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
But the reason I thought of Wordsworth and of "Tintern Abbey" in particular goes deeper than the centrality of memory in Patti's work; rather it was because, as was the case for the great romantic poets of the 19th century, Patti is inspired by a deep sense of place--by graveyards in particular, but also by landscapes and seascapes, by city streets and remote villages. Her descriptions of specific locales as a source of self-identity mirrors the Romantics' certainty that the spiritual and therefore the enduring is best discovered by traversing pastoral districts, visiting ruins, gazing on hills and oceans and then, reposing (pen in hand) in tranquility, recalling and reproducing the sensations evoked, not by the places themselves, but by their recollection. <br />
<br />
I can't pretend to know Patti's working methods--I'm guessing from what she has written, which may or may not be construed as a guide to her thinking--but her collections of objects and her offerings to the dead are aptly tied to her interests and obsessions: a few stones for Genet's grave, a cotton sock with an embroidered bee for Sylvia Plath, and always the Polaroid photographs of what feel like melancholy objects (Bolano's writing chair, Frieda Khalo's bed, Tolstoy's bear)--all of these images and objects possess the precise weight of memory one finds in the Romantics, or, closer to us, in the haunting books of W.G. Sebald. (Sebald isn't mentioned in <i>M Train</i>, but his spirit hovers alongside Patti as she writes).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOvQJ1JVS2P7Shyphenhyphen1n6K4enLJWcjNNEns-cf1XzNA6dd0RDajtONnJW0j3__0IBqxWcYa28xqKo4L-RADF5dLzLyrAaamvkeksJgnYVJwLGfQCsTebIq9G0oe8qZyNwtyiwDdKjW4pE-7U/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOvQJ1JVS2P7Shyphenhyphen1n6K4enLJWcjNNEns-cf1XzNA6dd0RDajtONnJW0j3__0IBqxWcYa28xqKo4L-RADF5dLzLyrAaamvkeksJgnYVJwLGfQCsTebIq9G0oe8qZyNwtyiwDdKjW4pE-7U/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The waking dream of my theory of history is, I'm afraid, rather sketchy, at least compared to my sense that Patti Smith is a notable Romantic artist. But here was the thought I had, for what it's worth. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Since the end of World War II (Patti was born in 1946), the central passion of American history has been the consolidation of economic and political power--enjoying the accidental fruits of uncontested material superiority that came after the War and the construction of a fragile consensus that would allow traditional elites to maintain social control while at the same time reluctantly doling out just enough wealth and just enough freedom to keep the majority of Americans, if not contented, then at least docile. I know this is facile and probably untrue, but then, of course, it <i>is</i> true.<br />
<br />
The 1950's (e.g. 1945-1963) were an experiment in social control through the narcotizing effects of consumerism on the one hand, and the enforcement of conformity through ideology and violence on the other. Women were locked in the domestic sphere; African-Americans were excluded from the mainstream through legal segregation and quasi-legal lynching; gays were forced into hiding, and non-elite men were pushed into economic and social roles that were, at best, constricting, and at worse, debilitating (see Richard Yates). All power flowed to the elites of business, government, and the academies. In other words, the aristocracy first conceived by the Founders had, at long last, been fully achieved within the comfortable borders of prosperity and global hegemony.<br />
<br />
However:<br />
<br />
There was bound to be an explosion, and the overthrowing of this repressive order was the work of the now much maligned "radicals" of the 1960's. Actually not radicals so much as persons who hadn't forgotten that ideals like democracy and liberty were a reward due even the lowliest assembly-line worker, hotel maid, and stay-at-home mom. Yes, it's true, in the Sixties there was folly galore, and self-indulgence, and the stupidity induced by drugs and narcissism, but the social impact of the age, which lasted until 1974, was indelible and salutary. <br />
<br />
All of this is well known and it took me only fifteen seconds to think all of the above in that slipshod way I have of thinking in grand narratives.<br />
<br />
But what I was actually considering was the weirdly exhilarating image of Patti Smith, age 29, a slender slip of a young woman, explaining to an interviewer that <i>her </i>life was about freedom, and that this (I thought when I heard her say it) was precisely the romantic view of human existence, and that saying this, and living as though it were true--living as though human freedom, especially creative freedom, was the point of living at all--wasn't a reason to shake one's head and worry about narcissism or the fall of American civilization but quite the opposite.<br />
<br />
What Patti was saying was the simple truth. And that, stripping away all of the bullshit about what it means to be a responsible citizen and a loyal American, leads one back to Wordsworth: our duty is to ourselves, to our understanding of our finite earthly existence, and that once we have managed to make some sense of what we are doing, we need to work hard to create something beautiful, however it is that we choose to do so. All understanding is self-understanding. And the minute this not-at-all original idea came to me it also seemed clear that this was why I have been reading books all these years, precisely to discover for myself the truth and the freedom of thinking. <br />
<br />
Here, I finally said to myself (the sun fully risen at last), was a way to find "the best portion of a good man's life"--how to live both well and fully.<br />
<br />
Thanks Patti. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9LwMKh-jRXcW4nDWY6TK6aoBhmVum8s8P20E3vF_cCmUyuV4_z_XZBtZcjepspxZAxrQb8IxPQL39Wj07sjbRosw0_IbHPyFutTfzbBs1q14tJrzxyKev6-pv1GoyAgh3YYZC9HotdM/s1600/older+patti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9LwMKh-jRXcW4nDWY6TK6aoBhmVum8s8P20E3vF_cCmUyuV4_z_XZBtZcjepspxZAxrQb8IxPQL39Wj07sjbRosw0_IbHPyFutTfzbBs1q14tJrzxyKev6-pv1GoyAgh3YYZC9HotdM/s1600/older+patti.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (12/7-8/2019)<br />
<br />
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-35137792620483023262019-11-30T13:39:00.000-08:002019-12-01T07:40:20.150-08:00Stranger in His Own Land<h2>
Langston Hughes, <i>I Wonder as I Wander</i> (autobiography)</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFbaEI4j9cGCivbCith6HemDZY3MXBI9liGVlJhYd6KQezawTuvvVxPDqpJgujv5KDmdQQ4SegoDu8Peit3500VK67HrD8RJpnezdL5qji3k7KpGSHyyqLMmPlb5fmagg6MU0HTi5MglY/s1600/ab25e0f09be563c3489f2bda5c7c82b9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFbaEI4j9cGCivbCith6HemDZY3MXBI9liGVlJhYd6KQezawTuvvVxPDqpJgujv5KDmdQQ4SegoDu8Peit3500VK67HrD8RJpnezdL5qji3k7KpGSHyyqLMmPlb5fmagg6MU0HTi5MglY/s320/ab25e0f09be563c3489f2bda5c7c82b9.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
That's Maya Angelou with Langston, not sure when.<br />
<br />
Langston may have been related to Henry Clay; in any case, his grandfathers were white Kentuckians.<br />
<br />
He might have been gay; he might not have been. His biographer, Arnold Rampersad says not. I only mention this point of little or no interest because I for one find in his poems an extraordinary balancing of rage and compassion, revulsion and desire. I don't doubt that his complexity cut through the core of his being, right through to matters of greatest intimacy, His tenderness toward working-class African Americans, his mixture of anger and indifference toward white society--though not toward particular white persons, many of whom were his friends and patrons--create a poetic voice that is unique among Harlem Renaissance poets and American poets generally.<br />
<br />
Langston was extraordinarily forthright in his judgments and observations of other people, as likely to laugh at (white) human folly as to weep, able to see irony and absurdity, but not one to write as if the world were full of moral ambiguity. It wasn't. Isn't.<br />
<br />
When Langston and his various companions traveled--in the South, in Cuba, in Haiti, in the USSR--Langston was neither a straightforward recorder of impressions nor a magisterial self reducing the world to fit his preconceptions. Rather he looked as a poet looks, finding the telling detail, taking each person as a unique part of a much broader experience. He then made poems or stories out of what he witnessed, adding to his observations the rich context of a perennial outsider, one who would have belonged to his country had he been permitted to do so. Poets, I believe, can never belong to any place. This is probably a false view and easily contradicted, but having just finished <i>I Wonder As I Wander</i> it feels right. <br />
<br />
Langston, in my reading, was only marginally interested in communist, though he was hauled before Joseph McCarthy's HUAC and forced to answer ridiculous questions about his politics. Communism for African-Americans like Hughes was as much an escape from the suffocating bigotry of Jim Crow as it was an economic or social system. As Langston himself put it, he was an artist first and foremost, little drawn to the nitty-gritty of ideology or political work. Nonetheless, he was a radical in every sense. Had McCarthy known the half of it, his head might have exploded. <br />
<br />
I can hardly believe I have not before now read this autobiography. It's an engrossing volume, a kind of adventure story welded to the sensibility of a born poet. Like Whitman, whom he superficially resembles, Langston had a preternatural ability to locate and describe the significance of every moment. In his triumphant poetry-reading tour of the Jim Crow South, made in the depths of the Depression, he shakes his head rather than his fist at the arcane social contortions white southerners engaged in to insure their insulation from the likes of Langston Hughes.<br />
<br />
One strange anecdote takes place at a train station in Savannah. Langston enters the Whites Only waiting room to purchase the Sunday <i>New York Times </i>(a newspaper, by the way, that was no friend of the African Americans in the 1930's), but a white policeman forbids his egress from the White Waiting Room through the Whites Only doorway; baffled by the absurdity of not being permitted to use a door (in which he is even then standing), Langston has to laugh at a system so witless and foolish as to enforce rules whose goal was to render an entire population invisible. <br />
<br />
I've also been reading E.M. Forster's <i>A Passage to India</i> and marveling yet again at Forster's brilliant portrayal, in understated language, of the impact of racism on both its victims and perpetrators. Nothing could be more absurd than the parcel of unconsidered generalizations about "Orientals" that burden nearly every white English person in Forster's classic story. Aside from the remarkable Fielding (who is absurd as well, but at least he has the good sense to know it) no normal human intercourse is possible between a white person and an Indian. The consequences of this blindness are, of course, tragic. Indians, Hindu and Muslim, and Sikhs alike are made strangers in their own country by the overweening British.<br />
<br />
And we Americans are exactly like them, eager to renounce tolerance and compassion, forever willing to narrow our world with walls. The gift of fiction and poetry is to allow us to see how blind we have been and to help us to find a way to the door that is marked "human beings." Just that.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd-k3UUO96HoSpgqFjvxjDjiHN_MyFziqt-tzDs_dfpyTgEAskXgCw_gw_mmJRyiYrBv6DX6SNfUgZSlUze7_Wo0ooyUNkVnXfJ6Ur16EPl4yQBxXppBWN-OXcRjLbcIL2fBZGlw21fqE/s1600/Langston_Hughes_by_Carl_Van_Vechten_1936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1506" data-original-width="1017" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd-k3UUO96HoSpgqFjvxjDjiHN_MyFziqt-tzDs_dfpyTgEAskXgCw_gw_mmJRyiYrBv6DX6SNfUgZSlUze7_Wo0ooyUNkVnXfJ6Ur16EPl4yQBxXppBWN-OXcRjLbcIL2fBZGlw21fqE/s320/Langston_Hughes_by_Carl_Van_Vechten_1936.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (11/30/2019)<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-52901640018124495492019-10-12T10:31:00.003-07:002019-10-13T07:09:59.346-07:00A Long Walk to the Far North<h2>
<i>The Pine Islands</i>, Marion Posachmann</h2>
<h2>
</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPTsFc0N4ILi1SbPErLbUfTIhVbu5Cq70buOgHq_-XFc2ANVRKljvlLd6JVU3-W_WMByG2g_daWUOnrKbCnJbylwVmnQT5FOEC699dG65c4N0Qat5qwZTfyqy49K5S6s9Z33FMxlxIR8/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPTsFc0N4ILi1SbPErLbUfTIhVbu5Cq70buOgHq_-XFc2ANVRKljvlLd6JVU3-W_WMByG2g_daWUOnrKbCnJbylwVmnQT5FOEC699dG65c4N0Qat5qwZTfyqy49K5S6s9Z33FMxlxIR8/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The old pond- <br />
a frog jumps in,<br />
sound of water.<br />
(Basho, trans. Robert Haas) <br />
<br />
<br />
The islands of Matsushima, "the most beautiful place in Japan," have attracted poets and novelists and painters and monks and ordinary persons seeking tranquility since the beginning of time.<br />
<br />
Eight hundred years ago Basho, among the most notable of Japanese poets, journeyed to the far north of Japan to see the islands of Matsushima.<br />
<br />
"The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years that come and go
are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on ships or who grow old
leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their
travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years
past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind
to ceaseless thoughts of roaming.<br />
Last year I spent wandering along the
coast. In autumn I returned to my cottage on the river and swept away the
cobwebs. Gradually the year drew to its close. When spring came and there was
mist in the air, I thought of crossing the Barrier of Shirakawa into Oku. I
seemed to be possessed by the spirits of wanderlust, and they all deprived me of
my senses. The guardian spirits of the road beckoned, and I could not settle
down to work." Basho (trans. Donald Keene)<br />
<br />
Marion Poschmann, a highly regarded German novelist whose work, until now, has been unknown to me, uses Basho's "narrow road to the deep north" in order to frame a contemporary fable of self-discovery.<br />
<br />
Gilbert Silvester, an academic whose intellectual preoccupation is beards in film and history, is propelled by a dream of his wife's infidelity to pack a small valise (toothbrush, change of underwear) and leave his home in Germany to fly to Tokyo. In the airport he purchases a copy of Basho's classic account of his journey to the far north, as well as <i>Genji </i>and the <i>Pillow Book</i> of Sei Shonagon. Browsing these volumes, with no plan and no apparent motive, Silvester is moved to retrace Basho's steps--to journey alone to the far north, to see the islands of Matsushima and find the sort of "inner peace" that in the West is equated with the diminution of the ego's cravings, a negative and, for the most part, fruitless endeavor.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUd_-wKNIkR-vjFlQmCdjeNJBUMPBuyuJr3_ynWSJxurq9zPMisha8qcB8368VRna0AwZmZl8lZMjAMtoq9NNhV9lahjrmZBu__rlFHU8AS1eSK3iXq5ZnjJSL8yQtbk9IkO5mkS_cIc4/s1600/basho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUd_-wKNIkR-vjFlQmCdjeNJBUMPBuyuJr3_ynWSJxurq9zPMisha8qcB8368VRna0AwZmZl8lZMjAMtoq9NNhV9lahjrmZBu__rlFHU8AS1eSK3iXq5ZnjJSL8yQtbk9IkO5mkS_cIc4/s1600/basho.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Quite by accident Silvester's path crosses that of a young Japanese man who, nearly alone among his countryman, has a small beard: <i>"The young man fussed around the bag and then finally seemed to reach a fragile but satisfactory state for the moment. He took a step back to admire his work and it was only then that Gilbert realized what it was about the man that had irked him. He had a small goatee beard: trendy, neat. Gilbert Silvester decided to speak to him."</i> (26) An awkward plot device I suppose, but this is, after all, a book about impulses accepted and rejected, so why not bring two people together over the matter of beards?<br />
<br />
Yosa Tamagotchi is a student who intends on killing himself "because he was afraid he wasn't going to pass his exams." Gilbert thoughtfully (?) suggests that jumping in front of a train may not be the most aesthetically pleasing way to commit self-slaughter, and convinces Yosa to accompany him on a journey in search of the ideal spot for self-destruction or, in Gilbert's case, ego-destruction. Yosa agrees, is agreeable, and, for the most part, is moved about like a puppet on strings, a projection of one corner of Gilbert's impulses.<br />
<br />
And so we have in <i>The Pine Islands </i>what amounts to a buddy novel, a road trip (on trains) in search of Basho, the wisdom of no-self, and a pretty spot for suicide. It's an odd premise, and I was skeptical at first, but Poschmann pulls it off: the novel is full of pretty writing, and as the two men make their way, haltingly, toward the islands of Matsushima, the absurdity of what they are about gradually washes away. I didn't much care what would happen, since the events were besides the point, but I did relish the way Poschmann turned prose into poetry, the ordinary into the mystical.<br />
<br />
Throughout, Gilbert writes cryptic messages back home to his abandoned wife and begins to sound a bit like a Buddhist monk. Yosa, whom we know only through Silvester's observations, rejects one suicide spot after another, mostly based on criteria established by his German mentor (too crass, too crowded) and we begin to think he might live after all.<br />
<br />
Eventually the two travelers are separated, as we knew they must be, for this is ultimately a novel about living, and Gilbert's quixotic search for a better self could only be completed alone. The novel is full of anti-climaxes, but the final pages are so beautifully written that we don't mind at all that the whole thing feels like a half-baked fable intended to buck up unhappy Europeans (and now, with this translation, unhappy Americans) with the hope that by taking a long walk, carrying only a change of underwear, we too can find beauty, write poignant poems, and, just maybe, recover the lives we've squandered.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicu1nKQ84BPtm31wmHWGxYyCZ7t-2h2MCqF5mXEa120fHB6p71AJewght3Hc0HlZC8QAtcEmZ6dinBi7qHfYF3BwZWxZBIaollsi5ZFDRI4fDznhQ4du9PwuGxInxmaclP6KcR3NNibSc/s1600/poschmann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicu1nKQ84BPtm31wmHWGxYyCZ7t-2h2MCqF5mXEa120fHB6p71AJewght3Hc0HlZC8QAtcEmZ6dinBi7qHfYF3BwZWxZBIaollsi5ZFDRI4fDznhQ4du9PwuGxInxmaclP6KcR3NNibSc/s1600/poschmann.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>The Pine Islands</i>, translated by Jen Calleja, is published by Serpent's Tail Press; it was shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize in 2019, takes about two hours to read, and is worth every minute of your time.<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (10/11/2019) <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-80670232167014994662019-07-05T10:29:00.000-07:002019-07-05T14:07:09.973-07:00Wanna Get Away?<h2>
<i>My Year of Rest and Relaxation</i>, Ottessa Moshfegh </h2>
<h2>
<i>The Journal, 1837-1861</i>, Henry David Thoreau </h2>
<h2>
<i>The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals</i>, ed. Patrick Hart and Jonathan Montaldo</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjudDLP8ruxIOJvBvKixBA4O0EDf9ghMAuhp0u2Yfxpv3yKPbFN7ZMrpQeLHYD70BnDGOJo_oFxr0IpBS2GOpHPOGm6Hg5P5JNLBVzp71mMclYfThyKjpB_0Q-aDmEUZK4U1nbj3537vxQ/s1600/merton5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="476" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjudDLP8ruxIOJvBvKixBA4O0EDf9ghMAuhp0u2Yfxpv3yKPbFN7ZMrpQeLHYD70BnDGOJo_oFxr0IpBS2GOpHPOGm6Hg5P5JNLBVzp71mMclYfThyKjpB_0Q-aDmEUZK4U1nbj3537vxQ/s320/merton5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I've always been intrigued by solitude, by the rich resonance of being alone, and by those who can leave the world behind without a thought. Thomas Merton was such a person, and while his introspection, circling endlessly around his faults and his guilt before God, can become tedious, nonetheless his commitment to living an austere life of reading, writing, and meditation refreshes through its purity of purpose. Not only did Merton flee the life of an aspiring New York writer and intellectual for the austere existence of a Trappist monastery (a strict order requiring vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), but at Gethsemane Abby, feeling distracted by his emerging fame as a writer, requested and was granted permission to live alone in the Hermitage (pictured here). His journals, of which <i>The Intimate Merton</i> is a selection, remind me of Thoreau's journals. Both men sought peace in solitude, both believed that separating themselves from "ordinary life" would put them in touch with higher truths, each had a "calling," and both were at times lonely and disappointed that in their solitude they found not fulfillment but a deeper, inchoate yearning. Being alone causes you to doubt yourself: perhaps that's why so few people are able to bear solitude.<br />
<br />
<i>"I sometimes seem to myself to owe all my little success, all for which men commend me, to my vices. I am perhaps more willful than others and make enormous sacrifices, even of others' happiness, it may be, to gain my ends. It would seem even as if nothing good could be accomplished without some vice to aid in it."</i> Thoreau, Sept. 21, 1854<br />
<br />
I find refreshing the minutiae of solitude, the little moments of unguarded confession that range from trivia--e.g. Thoreau's July 25, 1853 entry on the difficulty he has keeping his shoes tied--to the profound--Merton's tortured description of his (physical) love for the nurse he refers to as "M".<br />
<br />
<i>"I feel that somehow my sexuality has been made real and decent again after years of rather frantic suppression (for though I thought I had it all truly controlled, this was an illusion.) I feel less sick. I feel human." </i><br />
<br />
Merton doesn't go so far as to break "the vow that prevents the last complete surrender," and he remains "suspicious of the tyranny of sex," but, taken together, his journal entries on his love for M show how difficult it is for even the most committed ascetic and solitary to give up life in the world.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu8RE8KbBHueEzF5rO8qtv1nfvHg3BqGo2ywc1JihVmdngP63kN8GoqBvdG8qN-pOyykKCPY91w25ebFYsJyq5G_rsn_J7HStBMTjm1Bg51oZT9hODCbFiaSAE2D8_7_k1IOmjQqVhPHs/s1600/sleeping-vintage-woman.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu8RE8KbBHueEzF5rO8qtv1nfvHg3BqGo2ywc1JihVmdngP63kN8GoqBvdG8qN-pOyykKCPY91w25ebFYsJyq5G_rsn_J7HStBMTjm1Bg51oZT9hODCbFiaSAE2D8_7_k1IOmjQqVhPHs/s320/sleeping-vintage-woman.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
Which is why, if you aren't a transcendentalist or a Trappist and you want to escape the world you have to go to sleep. Not for eight hours, but for eight months or a year or forever. You have to load up on Ambien and Restoril, Xanax and Ativan. Pay all of your bills automatically, quit your job, say goodbye to your (one) friend, and....go to bed.<br />
<br />
It might not be fair to contrast the meditative and spiritual solitude of Thoreau with the seeming (see below) escapism of the narrator of Ottessa Moshfegh's latest novel <u>My Year of Rest and Relaxation</u>, but Moshfegh is so smart that the comparison is inescapable. Instead of turning a year of drug-induced "rest and relaxation" into a soap opera of millennial <i>angst</i>, Moshfegh imagines a young, pretty, well-off Upper-East-Sider as a kind of latter-day mendicant, one who seeks rebirth and reawakening with the same earnestness as a transcendentalist or Trappist. The young woman--who remains nameless throughout but tells her own story with an ingenuousness that is at the same time touching and creepy--retires to her couch, takes baskets of drugs prescribed by her lunatic psychiatrist, watches Whoopi Goldberg movies, and seeks not self-destruction but self-renewal, or maybe, in the jargon of today, a reboot. Her father has died of cancer; her mother has recently killed herself with pills and booze; her one and only friend is bulimic and deluded (the married man she loves <i>will </i>leave his wife for her someday); her on-and-off boyfriend is a sadist. Who wouldn't want to wake up from this nightmare?<br />
<br />
Moshfegh writes scathingly of her own generation. Given the insincerity of so much contemporary writing, I find Moshfegh's deadpan style--bitterness unleavened by irony--refreshing. The narrator's cruel boyfriend Trevor is a dick, but in New York, on the cusp of Y2K, a beautiful young woman could do worse:<br />
<br />
<i>"[Trevor] was clean and fit and confident. I'd choose him a million times over the hipster nerds I'd see around town and at the gallery. In college, the art history department had been rife with that specific brand of young male. An 'alternative' to the mainstream frat boys and premed straight and narrow guys, these scholarly, charmless, intellectual brats dominated the more creative departments....'Dudes' reading Nietzsche on the subway, reading Proust, reading David Foster Wallace, jotting down their brilliant thoughts into the black Moleskine pocket notebook. Beer bellies and skinny legs, zip-up hoodies, navy blue peacoats, canvas tote bags, small hands, hairy knuckles, maybe a deer head tattooed across a flabby bicep. They rolled their own cigarettes, didn't brush their teeth enough, spent a hundred dollars a week on coffee." </i><br />
<br />
When you get tired of "settling" for what is offered and unpalatable, you want nothing more--I feel the same way sometimes--than to sit alone, quietly, with a good book or a dumb movie. But Moshfegh isn't playing for cheap stakes--she never does, not in any of her stories or in her earlier novel <u>Eileen</u> (Stephan King meets Thomas Bernhard). Nothing less than a cleansing of her heroine's life, an erasure of memory, a recasting of the too, too solid flesh will do the trick, and so the young pretty woman who looks, we are told, like Kate Moss, sells all that she owns, hires a Japanese conceptual artist as a kind of caretaker, and leaves the world behind on a fake drug--Infermiterol, concocted in the manner of Don DeLillo's Dylar, a made-up magic bullet that eases one into three-day black outs, mini-deaths that, over the course of six months, succeed in erasing not so much memories as emotions about memories. It's a Trappist retreat; Thoreau's hikes on Cape Cod; May Sarton's winter alone in a Maine cabin; John Muir at Hetch Hechty, a Sand County Almanac for the lonely and neurotic urban dweller of our Brave New World. <br />
<br />
Come to think of it, <u>My Year of Rest and Relaxation</u>, while wonderfully vulgar, is also, oddly, a religious book. Yes, to be born again we have to die, at least "symbolically," we have to take on a new body, a new self. Sleep, after all, is what Lazarus awoke from; death can't be provisional, so he was in a coma, or in REM sleep. He was not only awakened, but, we have to concede, renewed. How could it be otherwise? The great imperative of our age should be: WAKE UP! We're not just watching zombie movies these days; we're zombies ourselves. Not "the blind leading the blind," which at least is touching (think of those images from the trenches of WWI), but the mindless, the sleepwalkers, leading the sleepwalkers. So Moshfegh's heroine is Everywoman. As I read the book I kept thinking (at some level, not sure which one) not how shallow the narrator was, or how cowardly, but how brave. How estimable it was to say, "fuck it," and go to sleep. Not to become like everyone else, but to become someone else. <br />
<br />
I won't say another word--the ending of the novel is beautiful and astonishing. <br />
<br />
Yesterday, watching Stealth bombers and fighter jets zoom over my beloved city--not the Washington of Trump and the rest of the hoodlums, but the city of real people--I wished for some "Infermiterol," some "Dylar," for a long sleep, a week on the Concord and Merrimack, a retreat to a monastery, time alone to sort things out. To wake up once and for all. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-UMIpb_hS7mA5__eCjqryQT3orkIQsDGoSXdBe89G1nwlXiHPO_zSHf_DHzMmmCLYnkJV5oz2d8vht53OSU7hq9vHeU4gYuqrquqKiKX2ifXzu9vYby2-zE_e1XqE13PyrGt5jXZvzs/s1600/180709_r32402.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="727" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO-UMIpb_hS7mA5__eCjqryQT3orkIQsDGoSXdBe89G1nwlXiHPO_zSHf_DHzMmmCLYnkJV5oz2d8vht53OSU7hq9vHeU4gYuqrquqKiKX2ifXzu9vYby2-zE_e1XqE13PyrGt5jXZvzs/s320/180709_r32402.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt, July 5th, 2019 <br />
<i> </i><br />
<br />George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-90041271189775164272019-06-11T14:26:00.000-07:002019-06-11T14:25:59.955-07:00Breathless<h2>
Jean-Luc Godard, <i>Breathless</i> (a film)</h2>
<h2>
Valeria Luiselli, <i>Lost Children Archive</i> </h2>
<h2>
Andres Resendez, <i>The Other Slavery</i></h2>
<h2>
Karl Jacoby, <i>Shadows at Dawn</i></h2>
<h2>
Richard Slotkin, <i>Fatal Environment </i></h2>
<h2>
<i> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUm9PftFmn3C2Um6PNbARkLqyAOqfnoNv_8PB4daDqq5zISs5RPWncum4q9zUMamS1zJFRYsMy0AYb5Mdf1xMyVCxw6E1MM7XdOEKhQAnekAM1KNGiLQs9qwoAylbQTRzjksz9SzoVjvQ/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUm9PftFmn3C2Um6PNbARkLqyAOqfnoNv_8PB4daDqq5zISs5RPWncum4q9zUMamS1zJFRYsMy0AYb5Mdf1xMyVCxw6E1MM7XdOEKhQAnekAM1KNGiLQs9qwoAylbQTRzjksz9SzoVjvQ/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
</i></h2>
[Apologies for the silence. It's a long story; suffice to say, it's good to be back and writing].<br />
<br />
Thanks to the Criterion Collection now having gone online, I have been able to rewatch one of my favorite scenes in all of movie history, a scene from Jean-Luc Godard's <i>Breathless</i>. In this part of the film, Jean Seberg and Jean Paul Belmondo are crammed together in the narrow space of Seberg's character's tiny hotel room, smoking furiously, arguing, flirting, thinking aloud the kinds of existential thoughts Parisians were bound to think in the 1960's. Godard himself pushed the wheelchair in which Raul Coutard sat filming--that's how claustrophobic the scene feels. Belmondo, a cheap hoodlum, having impulsively shot a policeman, is on the run, hiding out with an unwitting American student and aspiring writer, played perfectly by the ingenue Seberg. In the end, Seberg's Patricia Franchini betrays Michel Poiccard, who is killed by the police. It's a great film, and, in 1960, it changed the course of cinema history by adopting the techniques--low lighting, handheld cameras, documentary style, long scenes full of closeups and thick with dialogue--that we associate with French "New Wave" cinema.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFA_b2qMqU79fQHjIBUL3N3e9jHqND_cXyQBQ5xKvCXFCEhHCO8TPnXyG9O2Z5h-447zQjZ4Z_jhZRlmTZXGz994XEl37ykxtSK5ZJKLUxigreVDISXeYDLIfryGoWwyhdijgbqFjWb4/s1600/16727880_303.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="700" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFA_b2qMqU79fQHjIBUL3N3e9jHqND_cXyQBQ5xKvCXFCEhHCO8TPnXyG9O2Z5h-447zQjZ4Z_jhZRlmTZXGz994XEl37ykxtSK5ZJKLUxigreVDISXeYDLIfryGoWwyhdijgbqFjWb4/s320/16727880_303.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
What makes the film especially poignant for me is the real-life story of Jean Seberg, who was haunted by the FBI for her support of the Black Panthers--stalked, photographed, libeled--until the Iowa-born expat who lived most of her adult life in Paris took her own life. J. Edgar Hoover took as great an interest in investigating Seberg as he did in looking into the life of Martin Luther King. His FBI agents scurrilously accused Seberg of having a child out of wedlock by one of the Panthers, demonstrating again Hoover's creepy obsession with "race mixing," sex, and black males. <i> </i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjqGOLEVa8GkBN90n23z-Mfj-Fa2Ezc1O2qLekkuwyLL5rYUDeGTdHdxRTlR4hDYh-zbf6-H-Jq5yKeJE9o4JhJ_gYS0uzu-2Xua_1qpmLjzA3RnQgfCpjtHFOqqBvsODHZiTR3GjAvc/s1600/4405738.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="181" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjqGOLEVa8GkBN90n23z-Mfj-Fa2Ezc1O2qLekkuwyLL5rYUDeGTdHdxRTlR4hDYh-zbf6-H-Jq5yKeJE9o4JhJ_gYS0uzu-2Xua_1qpmLjzA3RnQgfCpjtHFOqqBvsODHZiTR3GjAvc/s1600/4405738.jpg" /></a>The thought of Seberg harried to a lonely death from an overdose of barbiturates--her suicide note said, <i>"Forgive me. I can no longer live with my nerves</i>"--for sending money to the Panthers seems emblematic of a more terrible story that I have been reading about these past several months. It's the story of America's self-created myth of a white Protestant nation; the internalized and perverted version of the "city upon a hill" rolled together with the myth of manifest destiny and godly providence, leavened with the poisons of slavery, racism, and greed. Seberg was just one of millions of victims of a crusade to destroy any threat to a mythical country, one that existed in the minds of men whose imaginations were unconstrained by history or ethics. I can't untangle all of the strands of this story yet, but Valeria Luiselli's extraordinary new novel goes as far as anything I have read in coming to grips with this tangled history.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGc-SkW3MKwb9wVs0u0QetgAYt3vhezt3ka6sRDncN47tpf8zEn1HxFdmz2EPyIhu3VBcyOQqoAvHR-efXIAJ_fVvhJFa3UPp4_dxErnqf_7rY7IOyAhAnoMgZjQ_ONRxA4QLGF1yqqI/s1600/500_F_162337257_xfPGjFViYqyP6RXkHUOYBFVPJkCpWHDK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="500" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGc-SkW3MKwb9wVs0u0QetgAYt3vhezt3ka6sRDncN47tpf8zEn1HxFdmz2EPyIhu3VBcyOQqoAvHR-efXIAJ_fVvhJFa3UPp4_dxErnqf_7rY7IOyAhAnoMgZjQ_ONRxA4QLGF1yqqI/s320/500_F_162337257_xfPGjFViYqyP6RXkHUOYBFVPJkCpWHDK.jpg" width="320" /></a>Here is where the story begins: On the border between the empire of the United States and the empire of Spain--this was long before the United States conquered what was then the northern third of Mexico in 1848--a state of nature prevailed. Beginning in the sixteenth-century, the northern Sonora on both sides of the Rio Grande was a source of Indian slaves for the Spanish, whose mines in Hispaniola and Mexico ground up slave labor with ruthless efficiency. The story of this other slavery is told in Andres Resendez's <u>The Other Slavery</u>, a book that shatters many myths about the Spanish conquest of the New World. For one thing, Christopher Columbus wasn't only intent on making a fortune in gold; he was also the first slave-trader of the New World, and his plans to enslave the entire population of the Caribbean were thwarted only by Queen Isabella's opposition to the enslavement, rather than the Christianization of the Indians. Resendez's account of the history of the enslavement of the Indians helped me to make sense of something I had always found troubling, namely the canonical account of Indian genocide in the Americas as being due to microbes, an account that largely exculpates the Spanish, and later, the British, from responsibility for the catastrophic demographic collapse of the indigenous population of the New World. There is no doubting the impact of European disease on an Indian population lacking in exposure to smallpox, measles, and other infectious diseases; however, the Spanish and the British also instituted practices--revolving around impressed labor--that precipitated the destruction of the Indians. The Spanish remained ambivalent about Indian slavery thanks to critics of the practice like Bartolome de Las Casas, but the need for laborers in the mines and on the <i>encomiendas </i>(grants of Indian labor) in northern Mexico led the Crown to find tortuous scholastic justifications for Indian indenture or slavery. Here I was reminded of the position of Mississippi Delta cotton planters who found themselves, after the Civil War, scrambling for ways to keep African Americans from emigrating north, including actively curtailing the Klan's racial violence and easing, ever so slightly, the odious racial practices we associate with the rest of Mississippi. In any case, the Spanish, needing labor, ignored the strictures of the Crown, waged "just wars" against the Indians in order to take prisoners of war, or simply enslaved peaceful Indians and sold them to the mines, where the Indian lives were short and horrible. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJsazoWHpQazjrSNImdhMA-XIPRCN-7itsIPyEAakOax6QzMmiBg5MbQTJ_VcsCjc2IwCeZuZ5akrhbZ4DkcisMStLTP5hGoV0NheZD25T777fNsEHxjqjH31AyiTq-O6_a0Wsw0bxbo/s1600/skeletons_in_the_cave_t715.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="715" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJsazoWHpQazjrSNImdhMA-XIPRCN-7itsIPyEAakOax6QzMmiBg5MbQTJ_VcsCjc2IwCeZuZ5akrhbZ4DkcisMStLTP5hGoV0NheZD25T777fNsEHxjqjH31AyiTq-O6_a0Wsw0bxbo/s320/skeletons_in_the_cave_t715.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from the1872 Skeleton Cave Massacre, Salt River Canyon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And then there was the war against the "savages." Here I have learned most from Karl Jacoby and Resendez, whose books, by the way, provide excellent background to Cormac McCarthy's important novel <u>Blood Meridian</u>. This is of course a long story, and for my purposes--a review of <u>The Lost Children Archive</u>--suffice to say that Indians were considered savage in direct proportion to their resistance to the Spanish/Mexican/North American conquest of their lands. The Apaches therefore were the tribe most in need of elimination. Hence the Camp Grant massacre, a story vividly and powerfully told in Jacoby's <u>Shadows at Dawn</u>. The Camp Grant massacre was a relatively late event in the story of Indian dislocation, enslavement, and extirpation (1871), but reading Resendez and Jacoby back-to-back lays out with clarity and precision the continuity of an Indian policy pursued on both sides of the Gila and Rio Grande Rivers by successive generation of Spanish, Mexican, and North American governments. If one wishes to dig more deeply into the fate of the Indians of the Southwest, don't neglect Richard Slotkin's <u>Fatal Environment, </u>volume two in his "gunfighter nation" trilogy. Here Slotkin lays out the development of the American identity as it was forged in the blood of the "savages" of the West. Slotkin's isn't Turner's heroic march from Atlantic to Pacific but a nightmare of violence more in the vein of Cormac McCarthy than Thomas Jefferson's agrarian utopianism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnPq5bp0jT0eEe0UQ4EBewJ4qP1UqlRwddBua-oPuhyD2T-C2eEsF6x5ihLgQ3jn-hj-04Vk8PgkGB_IsUoCWswoCGk0bJUblbALv2Yf9C-I99gOHBe_qatT5tgJHIqu3TBrK1kJ9Q8SE/s1600/American_progress.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="1307" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnPq5bp0jT0eEe0UQ4EBewJ4qP1UqlRwddBua-oPuhyD2T-C2eEsF6x5ihLgQ3jn-hj-04Vk8PgkGB_IsUoCWswoCGk0bJUblbALv2Yf9C-I99gOHBe_qatT5tgJHIqu3TBrK1kJ9Q8SE/s400/American_progress.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Border wars, Indian massacres, truth telling and memory, love and
commitment, parents and children--Valeria Luiselli weaves all of these
themes and more into a novel that is so smart, so fresh and surprising,
so unforgettable, that now, deep into my second reading, I am still
marking up the book, making marginal notes, running off to find books to
help me more deeply understand what Luiselli is telling me.<br />
<br />
I have read three of her books already: <u>The Lost Children Archive</u>: <u>Faces in the Crowd,</u> <u>Sidewalks</u> (reflective essays full of surprises), and <u>Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions</u>, a kind of workbook for <u>The Lost Children Archive</u>. <br />
<br />
A 'blended family'--mother and daughter, father and son--buy a Volvo and set off on a month-long car trip from New York to Arizona, to Apacheria, the vast desert extending from west Texas across southern New Mexico and Arizona which was once the home of the Apache. The parents are documentarians, that is, they produce documentaries based on sound recordings. The husband--Lusielli uses the terms "husband," "boy," and "girl" rather than names, thus allowing the family to become representative and keeping the story from falling into the trap of banality--specializes in the world's soundscape (bird calls, traffic noise), while the wife, who is also unnamed in the book, records voices, conversations, and interviews. With this simple distinction, Luiselli begins to reveal the fissures in the family that reflect fissures--chasms--in the world outside the tiny space of the automobile. (Claustrophobia within vast spaces: this was something Lusielli made me think about, just as Godard had me considering how human interactions shift with locale). The husband's mind is rooted in the past, in the destruction of the Apache, in the stories of Indian resistance to the "white eyes," while the wife can think only of the lost children, the immigrant boys and girls who wander in the desolate spaces of the southwest. This tension between past and present, between the husband's righteous anger and the wife's compassion reveals itself in the daily interactions of the family, in their fleeting moments of camaraderie and in their far more frequent bouts of brooding silence. The family is collapsing, and yet neither wife nor husband is willing to say so. Only the boy, aged ten, and one of the novel's two narrators, is able to face the truth.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijeld_k0Wm8No6BkHE6rNOeRhfDuKr3dd7t3Ufn_nSFbeykLngIvbmVVF9bMgfkSNn08JSaR1fEwZBwswnfc8hAkhPOZq2gBUudPBcXZDhqb7w7QfwQh8OidtwbhaAKkqEMNGBddzIwo/s1600/photo-1463679217535-663297c17bc8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijeld_k0Wm8No6BkHE6rNOeRhfDuKr3dd7t3Ufn_nSFbeykLngIvbmVVF9bMgfkSNn08JSaR1fEwZBwswnfc8hAkhPOZq2gBUudPBcXZDhqb7w7QfwQh8OidtwbhaAKkqEMNGBddzIwo/s320/photo-1463679217535-663297c17bc8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Along the empty road, in the mostly silent car, the Archives, the boxes of memory, are unpacked. In them one finds books--Susan Sontag's journals, Geronimo's autobiography, maps of the desert terrain, immigrant mortality reports ("Nuria Huertas-Fernandez, Female, age 9, COD: hyperthermia, dehydration"), postcards, sound recordings, notebooks waiting to be filled. The boxes of the children are empty, waiting to be filled with their own perceptions of the trip. The boy, an aspiring documentarian himself, takes streaky Polaroids along the way, and filters through these crude images an alternative story of the journey, one that looks inward at the family's dissolution.<br />
<br />
Luiselli blends with perfect pitch the mundane details of a road trip--where the family eats, where they sleep--with poignant observations on the horror of lost children, the growing distance the wife feels from her husband and children, the story of the great border that divides not only countries but cultures and histories. It's a tour de force, rich in visual and psychological description, with a plot that takes a surprising shift when the narrator hands off storytelling duties to the ten-year-old boy. If there is a single criticism of the book, I suppose it might be of the remarkable sensitivity and intelligence of a ten-year-old; then again, Lusielli is so skillful a writer that you are prepared long before the final, luminescent chapters for the shift in point of view.<br />
<br />
If you wish to think about borders, or the crisis now unfolding in the American southwest, you can do no better than read this extraordinary novel.<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (June 10, 2019) <br />
<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-83595778483465559802019-03-29T07:11:00.000-07:002019-03-29T07:11:11.919-07:00An Insidious Entrapment<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDNAk5Ulgkl1pMTsvIT6xW-TA4PKV9n-VkuFWmLcfHrSRyG5VpmVDNORhfx1IYdFVAPdg-P3fLhyphenhyphenAv5l7wvYm1CI8HextJ79ClMIOD7na8OPwJbCkLzaldM1W47ME5vlSFkq8NB6p4jU/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="900" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDNAk5Ulgkl1pMTsvIT6xW-TA4PKV9n-VkuFWmLcfHrSRyG5VpmVDNORhfx1IYdFVAPdg-P3fLhyphenhyphenAv5l7wvYm1CI8HextJ79ClMIOD7na8OPwJbCkLzaldM1W47ME5vlSFkq8NB6p4jU/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">A Woman’s Story</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Frozen Woman</i> by Annie
Ernaux</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcjVrDcZ4BFaJECVHCSEtepwgp4i9d54wfX_WVfcvyb4AFAMoDQ7oGYRlUKn8COrflWUX-mAyu1fA7_JIqWTalPdNpCVnfNrm872I3U2J-xe2C_IFo5kxcgYaqd5qnxDaR11pj8gPOy5o/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="431" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcjVrDcZ4BFaJECVHCSEtepwgp4i9d54wfX_WVfcvyb4AFAMoDQ7oGYRlUKn8COrflWUX-mAyu1fA7_JIqWTalPdNpCVnfNrm872I3U2J-xe2C_IFo5kxcgYaqd5qnxDaR11pj8gPOy5o/s400/2.png" width="261" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">In an
opening smartly reminiscent of the first lines of Camus’ novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Stranger</i>, the French writer Annie
Ernaux begins <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Woman’s Story</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Une femme</i>), her spare, deeply affecting
memoir-novel of her relationship with her late mother, with the simple
declaration:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;">My mother died on Monday 7 April in the old people’s home
attached to the hospital at Pontoise, where I had installed her two years
previously. The nurse said over the phone: ‘Your mother passed away this
morning, after breakfast.’ It was around ten o’clock.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet the
story she tells in this terse, laconic style, a style she calls <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">écriture plate</i>, is anything but
detached, anything but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">absurd</i>, as she
struggles earnestly to see and make sense of her proud, self-sufficient mother,
a woman for whom, all her life, she felt a profound ambivalence, a troubling
mixture of love, hate, guilt, frustration, and pride. In short it is the story
of daughters and mothers everywhere—powerfully, honestly told. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Having
read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Woman’s Story</i> in a single
sitting (it is just 92 pages long), I began Ernaux’s novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Frozen Woman</i> (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Femme gelée</i>)
that same night and was even more impressed with the story, even more enamored
with her style.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgon3e-icqQhlHt4NYAU77-w8MG00iyYpr1yJUciMoh4OaDzcycowMFFjUgNo3TMM7QiIpJRftpLczVLnfO-R-hh7f8G_u-LPkw_iRgvTveHElJ3Mq8O6xcPFtnXAvOIRufs_6D1k75w/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="392" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYgon3e-icqQhlHt4NYAU77-w8MG00iyYpr1yJUciMoh4OaDzcycowMFFjUgNo3TMM7QiIpJRftpLczVLnfO-R-hh7f8G_u-LPkw_iRgvTveHElJ3Mq8O6xcPFtnXAvOIRufs_6D1k75w/s320/3.png" width="212" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">In brief,
the novel charts Ernaux’s awakening as a teenage girl to the bourgeois
realities in store for her as a young woman. Hemmed in at an early age by
society’s expectations for her, the unnamed narrator suddenly finds herself a settled,
intellectually stifled thirty-year-old woman with a husband and two children,
trapped—like a fly in web—in the very life she’d struggled so hard to avoid. It
is a poignant, familiar, finally harrowing tale, a twisted Bildungsroman in
which, by the end, she can only gape in amazement at the woman she’s become:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;">"Just on the verge, just. Soon I’ll have one of those
lined, pathetic faces that horrify me at the beauty parlor when I see them
titled back over the shampooing sink, eyes closed. In how many years? On the
verge of sagging cheeks and wrinkles that can no longer be disguised.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Already me, that face." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiGphN7UYhzG9UDxtwEEM395kemS3n4pu-ynUGer4rSiuBmiGQpKkVyoLMkn379xYdHkp8IdaHnkfFPLYPmgkVLPjPG6M7acb1QyiGWE4lvS8WxPILD3smIaXIul2wDKnTeFnYtN3x1M/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="318" data-original-width="1020" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiGphN7UYhzG9UDxtwEEM395kemS3n4pu-ynUGer4rSiuBmiGQpKkVyoLMkn379xYdHkp8IdaHnkfFPLYPmgkVLPjPG6M7acb1QyiGWE4lvS8WxPILD3smIaXIul2wDKnTeFnYtN3x1M/s640/4.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;">Peter
Adam Nash</span></div>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-10903942272111466832019-03-15T15:33:00.002-07:002019-03-15T17:31:21.356-07:00Is It A Scandal? An Economic Diversion <h2>
<i>The Passions and the Interests</i>, Albert O. Hirschman</h2>
<h2>
<i>The Great Transformation</i>, Karl Polanyi</h2>
<h2>
<i>Voltaire's Bastards</i>, John Ralston Saul</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEtN_HO_WelW1Z8g4iwT6Bzu7-JQxiQhm64yW__uSo913X0oxn_bTGuvfI-bwon74BBVItnQRKe8du1_8okaEIf_4pcqmbKFlRWSHtCzLJQ1hB-XB2vR373fmcZcR_rBSiC2daAsn7sd4/s1600/Smith12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="440" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEtN_HO_WelW1Z8g4iwT6Bzu7-JQxiQhm64yW__uSo913X0oxn_bTGuvfI-bwon74BBVItnQRKe8du1_8okaEIf_4pcqmbKFlRWSHtCzLJQ1hB-XB2vR373fmcZcR_rBSiC2daAsn7sd4/s320/Smith12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
While nearly everyone is familiar, usually at second or third hand, with Adam Smith's famous justification of self-interest as the most rational way to organize economic life ("It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stock towards the employments which in the ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society," and so forth), fewer readers are aware of this passage, generally ignored by the defenders of free-market capitalism:<br />
<br />
<i>"These are the disadvantages of a commercial spirit. the minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and the heroic spirit is almost utterly extinguished. To remedy these defects would be an object worthy of serious attention."</i><br />
<br />
I was reminded of this passage in <u>The Wealth of Nations</u> while rereading Albert Hirschman's seminal essay <u>The Passions and the Interests</u>, a rereading prompted by the college-admissions scandal that broke this past week. The spectacle of wealthy families bribing college coaches, SAT and ACT tutors and anyone else who could advance the chances of their (dull-witted) children gaining admission to America's <i>elite</i> colleges and universities--USC, Georgetown, Yale, etc.--reminded me yet again of how unlikely it is that, despite the optimistic predictions of Montesquieu, Steuart, Smith and other political thinkers of the Enlightenment, human folly will ever by tamed by self-interest.<br />
<br />
Hirschman's compact essay relates the history of the idea that human passions--primarily greed and violence--can be redirected into self-interested economic activity. From Francis Bacon to Adam Smith men who saw in mercantilism an irrational centralization of political and economic power in the hands of absolute monarchs, a compressing of power that resulted, as it must, in constant wars over limited resources, developed what they believed was the antidote: the enlightened, rational, and unregulated pursuit of self-interest. Adam Smith is the most famous of the proponents of this view, though as the quotation above indicates, he was able to see the moral risks of self-interest more clearly than many of his disciples.<br />
<i> </i><br />
The "inoculation" theory of the social and economic order has never made sense to me. The idea that you encourage individuals to cultivate their worst instincts in a framework that ends up benefiting society as a whole seems as irrational as the Victorian idea that if you have an erotic impulse you either bottle it up or redirect it, usually as violence against dark-skinned people (e.g. <u>Passage to India</u>). Neither viewpoint places much hope in the possibility of human self-improvement through education, in the potential of a just government to constructively overrule the irrational passions of its citizens, or in the existence of altruistic impulses that might very well be as deeply embedded in human character as greed and vanity.<br />
<br />
Adam Smith felt that capitalism was likely to channel our passions into socially constructive modes of economic production, but he also recognized that human material needs are limited, and that most of what industry produces is not needed for survival but instead is a form of personal aggrandizement. What we end up with under capitalism, what we have always ended up with, are self-interested people who game the system for themselves and who have not the slightest concern for the well-being of others. (Any economic system that could lead a judge--a judge!--to placidly summarize Paul Manafort's life as "blameless" has something wrong with it.)<br />
<br />
A cursory reading of history confirms this as a fact, not an ideological pronouncement. One might rationalize this truism (if one is capable of recognizing it as such) by saying something like, "Well, sure, but look at all the good things we have," a view that I think of as the "breaking-a-few-eggs" theory of history. Easy to say if you know you aren't going to be one of the eggs. But why not argue instead that we might have all these good things without breaking any eggs at all? (See below)<br />
<br />
It baffles me when the talking heads and editorial writers wring their hands, as they have all week, over the college admissions scandal. (By the way, if you type the word "college" into your search engine the first link to appear will be "college admissions scandal.") Well, what did we expect? If you set up a system of economics and social life that rewards greed and egotism, how can you be surprised by daily examples of greedy, egotistical behavior? If Masha Gessen were a talking head and offered her view of American higher education, Americans would express shock that such a "radical" perspective was allowed to be aired. Have a look at her article, linked below, and see if her interpretation makes sense.<br />
<br />
*** <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFFpGDi0zsqmQZRa4Bfesjzk6wHdAckQ5UfNxlWOQmCFH8F8d0NeSRTsvx5aMj71cXOgw-ABJjvSAW7FSQdjcbLSId4HbToFd2HKIWk411YWPd8O5kn_qblCr5XcWTqcnD1zMKux46Cw/s1600/maxresdefault-1-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFFpGDi0zsqmQZRa4Bfesjzk6wHdAckQ5UfNxlWOQmCFH8F8d0NeSRTsvx5aMj71cXOgw-ABJjvSAW7FSQdjcbLSId4HbToFd2HKIWk411YWPd8O5kn_qblCr5XcWTqcnD1zMKux46Cw/s320/maxresdefault-1-.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
That's a picture of Karl Polanyi, whose 1944 book, <u>The Great Transformation</u> has helped me to think more clearly (I hope) about politics, economics, and history. Contrary to the classical/liberal view that self-regulating markets arose necessarily out of the developing conditions of economic history, Polanyi painstakingly demonstrates that the so-called free market, with its alleged reconciliation of the passions and the interests, was but one alternative, and that many societies have organized production and exchange along social and reciprocal lines, rather than through the deliberate optimization of personal self-interest. The "great transformation" came when, in the eighteenth century, a particular set of economic and social relations, born in a time of relative peace and described with canonical certitude by Adam Smith and others, became an article of nearly religious faith. The next time you are relaxing with friends try saying, "the self-regulating capitalist market, far from being the inevitable by-product of economic history, was only one option for organizing production and exchange, and not, as history shows, the best one," and see how quickly you are dismissed as a "socialist" or worse. Every FOX commentator will tell you that Marx was wrong in seeing communism as the inevitable end of history (as he was), but suggest to them that there is no reason to see the "free market" as any more "inevitable" and you will be called a crackpot or get punched in the nose (e.g. the blowhard Bill O'Reilly on the writings of Robert Reich).<br />
<br />
Here's a snippet of Polanyi: <br />
<br />
<i>"To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment, indeed, even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would result in the demolition of society. For the alleged commodity 'labor power' cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without affecting also the human individual who happens to be the bearer of this particular commodity. In disposing of a [person's] labor power the system [the free market] would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity 'man' attached to that tag. Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime and starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes despoiled, rivers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed." </i>(GT, p. 73)<br />
<br />
Human beings are more than their passions and interests. Remarkable, really, that most economists can't grasp this fact. I suppose every astronomer (as Walt Whitman reminds us) sees human beings as dust, and every cardiologist as a beating heart. Dear Milton Friedman: Communities are more than markets. And culture is more than money. And a good life, as even Adam Smith saw, is more than a totting up of possessions. Dear Lori Loughlin: Why not send your underachieving child to trade school? Better to be an honest electrician than a crooked TV actor or Instagram doyen. Way better. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifjFIELqygRxPKyGZcxTcghv77Rg13RujyQTN1zUhRW2HYAziooyTSHdyx4b-FGUCrGqQbKE0hYk3vwIN-n2HHICwBd5eULGAZr8OlQ0wDxK0l7PEBlDRX-3F0zQyoHxfs1lBwJ9_9XqQ/s1600/John-Ralston-Saul-isuma.tv_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="616" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifjFIELqygRxPKyGZcxTcghv77Rg13RujyQTN1zUhRW2HYAziooyTSHdyx4b-FGUCrGqQbKE0hYk3vwIN-n2HHICwBd5eULGAZr8OlQ0wDxK0l7PEBlDRX-3F0zQyoHxfs1lBwJ9_9XqQ/s320/John-Ralston-Saul-isuma.tv_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Speaking of Ms. Lori Loughlin. She wanted her daughter to attend an "elite" university. Ms. Loughlin and her husband have lots of money and so they did what (I hope) only a very few people with lots of money do--they bought their daughter the credentials she needed to join the elite at an elite university so that, upon graduating (presumably after more bribes and more cheating), she would take her place among the elite (and the rich, it goes without saying).<br />
<br />
No one has done more to uncover the pretensions and perversions of elitism in supposedly democratic societies than the Canadian political theorist John Ralston Saul. Claiming access to what is called "rationality," elites have, since the eighteenth century, dominated society. Because "rationality" is nothing but a neutral sounding word for ideology, access to reason has become the holy grail of economic and social power in capitalist societies. Graduate from Harvard or Stanford and you have been baptized into the minuscule population of true elites, and you are henceforth immune from the oversight of the masses: "There is no language available for outsiders who wish to criticize [elites]." How can an ordinary person challenge the policies of a pharmaceutical company, of Exxon/Mobil, of his local cable provider, of the <i>wunderkind</i> Wall Street broker who leveraged his house out from under him? The junior college graduate, or, worse, one of the thirty-percent of Americans who don't attend college at all, has no place to stand, no voice to raise, no words to address those who tower above him in credentials, in contacts, and in social capital. This loss of public power is what moves the voiceless to the exercise of private power and violence. And to the support of demagogues. <br />
<br />
Those who attend elite universities belong to a club. They may be nasty to one another, but, in the end, when it's time for cocktails, Donald Trump (Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania) will be more likely to be sitting down with Hillary Clinton (Wellesley) than with you or me.<br />
<br />
I pity the poor <i>mentsh</i> who works hard, plays by the rules, saves her pennies for the kids' college, goes into debt, who can't afford expensive tutors, and who would be mortified to learn her son or daughter had cheated on the SAT's or faked athletic credentials. As one commentator, dismissing the seriousness of the college admissions scandal put it: "This is the way the game is played." It's callous to say so, but, unfortunately, he's right. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3QULy36qI-pudG5E5OoPB5j32sMFPtBOg2DQTANtRrKkfEWPu-yzTZkobynLfI4rT18cwHVjEm2TQ6mQy_uFVdBRAYC_t8lZ0H38aJStc535CQ2uZK7at9UCnoFXPErVMM-HA-S5No98/s1600/are-we-living-in-the-gilded-age-20-s-featured-photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="768" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3QULy36qI-pudG5E5OoPB5j32sMFPtBOg2DQTANtRrKkfEWPu-yzTZkobynLfI4rT18cwHVjEm2TQ6mQy_uFVdBRAYC_t8lZ0H38aJStc535CQ2uZK7at9UCnoFXPErVMM-HA-S5No98/s400/are-we-living-in-the-gilded-age-20-s-featured-photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
George Ovitt (Pie/Pi Day, 2019)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-i-would-cover-the-college-admissions-scandal-as-a-foreign-correspondent?utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_031319&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bea018c3f92a404693c1681&user_id=17871469&esrc=&utm_term=TNY_Daily">https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-i-would-cover-the-college-admissions-scandal-as-a-foreign-correspondent?utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_031319&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bea018c3f92a404693c1681&user_id=17871469&esrc=&utm_term=TNY_Daily</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-70376383328152706102019-03-08T17:36:00.000-08:002019-03-09T08:17:38.563-08:00Reimagining (later in life) D.H. Lawrence<h2>
<i>Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence</i>, James T. Boulton, editor</h2>
<h2>
<i>Mornings in Mexico</i>, D. H. Lawrence</h2>
<h2>
<i>Sons and Lovers</i>, D. H. Lawrence</h2>
<h2>
<i>Women in Love</i>, D. H. Lawrence</h2>
<h2>
<i>Out of Sheer Rage</i>, Geoff Dyer </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb99IhoIyBNTL8ru4rhK1d2bVWTKHpLQlqEci7pVuSR0tlHcKWNXGmLCguzyNCb77IqB2pUXnbNAGpYj4baMUZwn6El0zEb2rjTi_MNOxSk-MeLnlsn9fShzeiBtfQBOVX6rKlFtcvc5g/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="186" data-original-width="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb99IhoIyBNTL8ru4rhK1d2bVWTKHpLQlqEci7pVuSR0tlHcKWNXGmLCguzyNCb77IqB2pUXnbNAGpYj4baMUZwn6El0zEb2rjTi_MNOxSk-MeLnlsn9fShzeiBtfQBOVX6rKlFtcvc5g/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
"The world is as it is. I am as I am. We don't fit very well." (to Catherine Carswell, May 18, 1924)<br />
<br />
He fit not at all, not anywhere. His life was a dizzying procession through temporary lodgings, perennial poverty, ill-health, and flashes of writing, sometimes brilliant, sometimes not so much. The letters--seven volumes of them--are wonderful, better than the novels, none of which moved me when I first read them in college, but all of which have shown me more as I began to reread them in my eighth decade. (So much is revealed that was kept hidden when we were young; then I read to understand myself, now I read to understand others). Best are the travel books. Lawrence was a keen observer, and his agility in blending objective observation with personal reflection makes his non-fiction more readable than his oftentimes mawkish stories about lust and love. <br />
<br />
Here's Lawrence wandering Italy's ancient and sacred hills:<br />
<br />
"But gradually, one after another looming shadowily [sic] under their hoods, the crucifixes seem to create a new atmosphere over the whole of the countryside, a darkness, a weight in the air that is so unnaturally bright and rare with the reflection from the snows above, a darkness hovering just over the earth. So rare and unearthly the light is, from the mountains, full of strange radiance. then every now and again recurs the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow and a mystery under its pointy hood." (from <u>Twilight in Italy</u>, 1916)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQKFxZfZ93Sk6a9yJ7rOtBYKcC8-askQf-VchDUvyzgj0WhC_upLFqCRupBsdmSaSrD8jJp7ng3QCjGIdnbWYp-vePaiHln_1AjrFkvQG2yxTgMyY1n1RnRnn9JoBWIWemg76soqMM0M/s1600/index+Lawrence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQKFxZfZ93Sk6a9yJ7rOtBYKcC8-askQf-VchDUvyzgj0WhC_upLFqCRupBsdmSaSrD8jJp7ng3QCjGIdnbWYp-vePaiHln_1AjrFkvQG2yxTgMyY1n1RnRnn9JoBWIWemg76soqMM0M/s200/index+Lawrence.jpg" width="200" /></a>There's more eroticism in Lawrence's descriptions of nature than in the stormy couplings of Gudrun and Gerald. And far less melodrama. From <u>Sons and Lovers</u> onward, Lawrence was given to precise, microscopic examinations of his inner life. To say he was a romantic or that his passions prevailed over his intellect seems false: the letters and the travel books show Lawrence to have been thoughtful, with a remarkable memory for books and ideas, with an enviable ability to blend feeling and thinking. "I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self. ... Most [men] are born again on entering manhood; then they are born to humanity, to a consciousness of all the laughing, and the never-ceasing murmur of pain and sorrow that comes from the terrible multitudes of brothers." (Letter to Rev. Robert Reid, December 3, 1907). The "laughter" to which men and women are reborn is surely ironic, for while there is pleasure and joy in Lawrence, he is never unaware of life's tragic dimensions. He couldn't be, given his health and the struggle he imposed on himself by declining to live as a comfortable bourgeois. And, frankly, there are some questions to be answered about Lawrence's commitment to "the terrible multitudes of brothers."<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaH1yboYqvY_XxdyzZZqIXJg9Xm7CdodKY-lQ2AW6W1Vau1BqNbaH9GG0h0mxL_PAC7jP2hEN0z7PMB0qkZE1y2Yq-Qe4fpHq-EEo7TgBb_UJbDYIviMtplimGLetK8IjYS4fVxfzBnRI/s1600/DH-Lawrence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="234" data-original-width="466" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaH1yboYqvY_XxdyzZZqIXJg9Xm7CdodKY-lQ2AW6W1Vau1BqNbaH9GG0h0mxL_PAC7jP2hEN0z7PMB0qkZE1y2Yq-Qe4fpHq-EEo7TgBb_UJbDYIviMtplimGLetK8IjYS4fVxfzBnRI/s400/DH-Lawrence.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
It was the provocative wag Geoff Dyer who forced me to recover from my long disinterest in Lawrence. Reading his unclassifiable, Bernhard-infected rant/meditation on everything <i>not</i> about Lawrence and just <i>sort of </i>about Lawrence, I knew that I'd lost again. Hard as I try to put away interests--there's only so much time--someone comes along and writes a book that I can't ignore, and that book leads to another, <i>ad infinitum</i>. I hope that I am done with Karl Ove, and Founder bios, and Cormac McCarthy, but <u>Out of Sheer Rage</u> has made Lawrence, once again, irresistible. Dyer, if you don't know his work, is a fabulist, a Restoration wit, an essayist in a league of his own (Zadie Smith meets W.T. Vollman)--funny, self-deprecating, vulgar and refined, lyrical and wise. His pursuit of the ghost of Lawrence--from Taos to Sicily to Mexico to Eastwood--is evidence of enviable literary obsession. What's the point of reading books if you don't allow yourself to become obsessed with certain writers? We do it with musicians and hobbies--I know people who "followed" the Grateful Dead for years, a few who are Miles Davis completists, and others who collect beer glasses from every micro-brewery they visit (me). So why not chase Lawrence around the globe, read his letters obsessively, and spend years thinking of all the ways this unpleasant, brilliant, tubercular neurotic changed your life?<br />
<br />
I feel especially engaged by Lawrence due to his having lived, thanks to Mable Dodge Luhan and weak lungs, on a small ranch outside of Taos, New Mexico. He's buried near San Cristobal, and the letters suggest that this austere landscape meant more to Lawrence than any other. The Lawrence ranch isn't much to look at; he and Freida lived in a ramshackle cabin that looks about to collapse, but the surrounding desert and mountains invite the contemplative viewpoint one finds in the writing Lawrence did during his sojourns in New Mexico.<br />
<br />
I first saw the shrine--for that is what it is--in the early 1990's when I was in the throes of my obsession with visiting writers' homes and grave sites. On a warm summer afternoon, the air still and the sky a blue so deep you sensed, at once, the immensity of the world, there was a holiness conveyed by the plain cross and white-washed memorial that I think Lawrence would have approved. Of course every pilgrimage feels anti-climactic. We ask ourselves if is <i>this</i> all that is left of the person whose books have so moved us? But if we carry away a memory of the place it turns out to have surprising resilience, and this memory gives the books a depth of feeling we hadn't experienced before.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfAZzmahVLC6UCJxRkhehC5PXcfcqROrqGwe8emeMikaB4q7rBG3kzbFs-RcEBHgFrvFWzHNS-8i4vjs6NqErrrJ57vF83up39cvmV7DO0AaIfQoksZqWHdpnQFkqVsOeoYE4cuss1WiQ/s1600/lawrence-s-memorial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="550" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfAZzmahVLC6UCJxRkhehC5PXcfcqROrqGwe8emeMikaB4q7rBG3kzbFs-RcEBHgFrvFWzHNS-8i4vjs6NqErrrJ57vF83up39cvmV7DO0AaIfQoksZqWHdpnQFkqVsOeoYE4cuss1WiQ/s320/lawrence-s-memorial.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
***<br />
<br />
In preparing for a spring visit to Chihuahua in Old Mexico, I have been reading Lawrence's <u>Mornings in Mexico.</u> It's nearly always summer in Lawrence. As "Paul Morel" he must have tired of the coal-black skies of Eastwood, of England's grimness, and we know for certain that he tired of his fellow Englishmen:<br />
<br />
<i class="break" data-two="two">"</i><i class="break" data-two="two">Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines,
the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding
rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling,[sic] dribbling, dithering palsied
pulse-less lot that make up England today. . . . God, how I hate them!
God curse them, funkers. God blast them, wishwash. Exterminate them,
slime."</i><br />
<br />
<span class="break">Always it was summer, and he bothered to learn the names of the flowers and trees, paid close attention to the birds and to the clarity of the air. Often we find him sitting still, jotting notes or writing letters--what a loss the end of letter writing has been! He doesn't say too much about what he's eating or drinking or wearing, it's the passing impressions on his lively mind that we are privy to, and to what are often stilted conversations with the "natives." </span><i class="break" data-two="two"> </i><br />
<br />
<span class="break">Martin Amis, not jolly himself, has described Lawrence as the most ill-tempered of English writers. We know that Lawrence struck his wife (she was larger and she hit him back). He disliked Jews, wrote cringing sentences about Mexicans (Rosalino, Lawrence's faithful Indian servant in <u>Mornings in Mexico </u>is "a dumb-bell, as the Americans would say"), and was as often unkind and gossipy as not. He had a Freudian dossier of sexual hang-ups--his is the finest example of an Oedipus complex since <u>Hamlet</u>, and that he loved men more than women is a reasonable inference from the letters and fiction. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="break">His writing can be overwrought, sentimental, incoherent:</span><br />
<br />
<i><span class="break">"[Miriam]knew she felt in a sort of bondage to him, which she hated because
she could not control it. She hated her love for him from the moment it
grew too strong for her. And, deep down, she had hated him because she
loved him and he dominated her. She had resisted his denomination.
She had fought to keep herself free of him in the last issue. And she was free of him, even more than he of her." <u>Sons and Lovers,</u> Part 2, Chapter 11. </span></i><br />
<br />
<span class="break">I find most objectionable the way in which his narrators project themselves into the minds of everyone around them, creating a world that existed solely to mirror Lawrence.</span><i><span class="break"> </span></i><span class="break">A lot of writers do this, but <u>Sons and Lovers</u> and <u>Women in Love</u> feel emotionally claustrophobic, as if there were one voice speaking and everyone else was just moving her lips. This habit imparts a sameness to the novels, a predictability in terms of character and plot. And Lawrence's women are sexualized in the way a man might imagine or wish them to be, and they are also, like Lawrence, tormented by sex. His men are austere and predatory, not often admirable. Nothing wrong with sex, but what seemed tantalizing when I was in the my twenties--this was long before ubiquitous porn or even the tedium of sex-obsessed sit coms--is now boring, even juvenile. There are times when I imagine Lawrence sniggering over his foolscap, shocking the Puritans, working himself up for Freida. (Joyce's letters to Nora are a nice cure for the flowery pudenda and penises of Lawrence). </span><br />
<br />
<span class="break">Henry Miller mirrors Lawrence's preoccupations, his fear (?) of women, his narcissism. There might be a scholarly book comparing the two, something richer than <u>Sexual Politics</u>, but if there is, I don't know about it. Miller grew beyond the <u>Tropics</u> and the <u>Rosy Crucifixion</u> trilogy, but he remained a dirty old man right to the end of his long life. Both writers were strange, isolated men who appeared to yearn for companionship and yet disdained those who provided it. (See Miller's letters to Anais Nin). Both broke the rules and challenged taboos that now seem incomprehensible. Both had to go to Paris to get their books published, as if that were a hardship!</span><br />
<span class="break"><br /></span><i><span class="break">***</span></i><br />
<br />
<span class="break">John Middleton Murry, second husband of Katherine Mansfield, flogged Lawrence in his book <u>D. H. Lawrence</u> (1930). Lawrence called Murray "an obscene bug sucking my life away," and Murry repaid the complaint, finding Lawrence domineering and self-centered. Murry and Mansfield both showed up in Lawrence's novels, and the Frieda/DH/Murry/Mansfield quartet is the subject of a group biography by Sydney Janet Kaplan, <u>Circulating Genius</u> that I hope to read soon. Since Murry's book, Lawrence's reputation both as a man and as a writer has undergone several transformations. I find much to admire in the writing, but, with some reservations, I have to agree with Amis--Lawrence is a difficult person to warm up to. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="break">"Sheer rage," Dyer's title is from Lawrence's <u>Letters,</u> and it's a phrase that turns up often in the correspondence. From rage comes art, of a kind. Would that his sheer rage been leavened with some of Frieda's exuberance, or Geoff Dyer's playfulness. Lawrence wrote in order to be saved--I believe he was religious, despite his protestations to the contrary. And he found his version of the divine in "nature" though not of the romantic's sort. He appears never to have made his peace with other people. He was a stranger wherever he went, an emigre Englishmen looking askance at the "wogs," an uptight libertine, dry and judgmental. But, for now--he's fascinating. </span><br />
<span class="break"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXqlBRUZZ-WFX4DQOTFvZ0te6QQILP-iQcGHSpE-vGLq1EQZZ_K4Yk2O_Yqh6wQ6eIHIB-HNe9hKzzorz6n7y_Ko9t2VzoRW3iodFf-kP2ejReWF1Tw3yGnQFZhhhfXTUXTMijXNzxYg/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="375" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXqlBRUZZ-WFX4DQOTFvZ0te6QQILP-iQcGHSpE-vGLq1EQZZ_K4Yk2O_Yqh6wQ6eIHIB-HNe9hKzzorz6n7y_Ko9t2VzoRW3iodFf-kP2ejReWF1Tw3yGnQFZhhhfXTUXTMijXNzxYg/s400/images.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span class="break"> </span><i><span class="break"> </span></i><i class="break" data-two="two"> </i><i class="break" data-two="two"></i><br />
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (9 March 2019)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-14944606287317552632019-03-05T16:16:00.000-08:002019-03-05T16:16:06.986-08:00‘The Most Surreal Place on Earth’<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4u4C0aPeSIfPPPCVC3It_TSQzaBn8qE72FkSQUPittoBwtLzMUYm_mtXuhuSdTEki-I-nYa3SEA7iUkWJUwQES8fnVdnq5oCDkFLzAHL4ChpvbPiGWOWIPz4SEV0GfHuyZ6i0HuR2SO4/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="900" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4u4C0aPeSIfPPPCVC3It_TSQzaBn8qE72FkSQUPittoBwtLzMUYm_mtXuhuSdTEki-I-nYa3SEA7iUkWJUwQES8fnVdnq5oCDkFLzAHL4ChpvbPiGWOWIPz4SEV0GfHuyZ6i0HuR2SO4/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: lime;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The Mexico City Reader</span></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, edited by Rubén Gallo</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mexico</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">D.F.</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Ciudad</i>. The
oldest capital in the Americas, contemporary Mexico City is a sprawling megalopolis
that all but beggars description, spread out, as it is, over 579 square miles
and home to some twenty-one million people, speaking a mixture of Spanish, English,
Nahuatl, Otomi, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Mazahuaare. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mexico City Reader</i>, editor Rubén
Gallo has compiled an urgent and eclectic anthology of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">croncias</i>—short hybrid texts—from the last thirty years about life
in one of the world’s most vibrant, chaotic, delirious cities, a city André
Breton called the most surreal place on earth. Writes Gallo:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.0pt;">The writers included in this selection not only live in
Mexico City but have made it one of the most prominent themes in their work.
They are avid <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flâneurs</i>, persistent
explorers of the most recondite corners of the capital, even at a time when highways,
expressways, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">periféricos</i> have
left many parts of the city inaccessible to pedestrians. This collection of varied
texts about life on the city’s streets aims to replicate the experience of
walking through the streets of Mexico City, where one’s five senses are constantly
bombarded by the cultural contradictions that make life in the capital
unpredictable. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Dk4OO7mh199VN7H44ekNFBxJLpt_-Vfm3uurp6xez0fbMFMcsLGMErllKIZsvTjWSkpkj33rHDQA-mgCWHGVFZgIcT-e_BSjBwd09Cb_9RGEu6O-YXjb_udYjac49G04qmwwydI0uoU/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1017" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Dk4OO7mh199VN7H44ekNFBxJLpt_-Vfm3uurp6xez0fbMFMcsLGMErllKIZsvTjWSkpkj33rHDQA-mgCWHGVFZgIcT-e_BSjBwd09Cb_9RGEu6O-YXjb_udYjac49G04qmwwydI0uoU/s640/2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
history of the Mexico City </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">flâneur</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is as old as the city itself. From the
poems of the pre-Columbian poet-king Nezahaulcóyotl to the reflections-observations
of Bernardo del Balbuena, Fanny Calderón del la Barca, and Alexander Humboldt
to the brilliant, sometimes darkly stirring testimonies of Artemio de
Valle-Arizpe, Salvador Novo, Carlos Fuentes, </span><a href="http://talentedreader.blogspot.com/search?q=Gonzalo+Celorio"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Gonzalo Celorio</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
David Lida, and Francisco Goldman, the city has long been a source of fascination
for writers—native and foreign alike. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dUAEN-OyQd3Sj2QLNJfAzhEbplsS5Z1MQ1aDqsUmaNZouxbLs6HAwm6wLx3iwpc3a3V-KGN0fThJWYtZ-vmEpNoI4jkJL3vzfM-6majmB-lV2W5KZ6lph_XtGuIzpdeEVfq9FOzXrzA/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dUAEN-OyQd3Sj2QLNJfAzhEbplsS5Z1MQ1aDqsUmaNZouxbLs6HAwm6wLx3iwpc3a3V-KGN0fThJWYtZ-vmEpNoI4jkJL3vzfM-6majmB-lV2W5KZ6lph_XtGuIzpdeEVfq9FOzXrzA/s640/3.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Covering
topics as varied as neighborhoods, the Metro, monuments, eating and drinking,
maids, urban planning, corruption and bureaucracy, waste disposal, and the
morgue, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Mexico City Reader</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> represents a complex, humane, nearly
kaleidoscopic perspective on what is surely one of my favorite cities in the
world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVowW1WbosuC-idI-CFwVb2iBDcYPupYoxTFhsM5qRG8CnFcDWktoSvwtSMOiGT06iGjvtNbBBIfpwXf4haIu5Vxt10GB3OSik93UIVDYZuxgjT7oqIJhN1jSynYPdZe7GIDmJ9zBb-I/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVowW1WbosuC-idI-CFwVb2iBDcYPupYoxTFhsM5qRG8CnFcDWktoSvwtSMOiGT06iGjvtNbBBIfpwXf4haIu5Vxt10GB3OSik93UIVDYZuxgjT7oqIJhN1jSynYPdZe7GIDmJ9zBb-I/s640/4.png" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: lime;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter
Adam Nash</span></span></div>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-31642450040243350492019-02-19T12:57:00.001-08:002019-02-20T05:57:53.526-08:00"The Death of the Heart"<h2>
<i>Go Tell It On The Mountain</i>, and other works by James Baldwin </h2>
<h2>
"I Am Not Your Negro," a film by Raoul Peck </h2>
<h2>
"Black Body," Teju Cole</h2>
<h2>
"James Baldwin's Istanbul," Suzy Hansen</h2>
<h2>
David Leeming, <i>James Baldwin: A Life</i> </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtCtH0REbKYn4mNh839WZHPg8LNbFqRGpNlCZhP_izJP-4c52eAIIUmitL0WrONPHdpOWR5JcX9sP2jFa3s0cFsBSXmHRCaUp0RCDUTztwccIyGhZ-VcUtnEYpOpzIBbGJc4D2f1DU9NI/s1600/james-baldwin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtCtH0REbKYn4mNh839WZHPg8LNbFqRGpNlCZhP_izJP-4c52eAIIUmitL0WrONPHdpOWR5JcX9sP2jFa3s0cFsBSXmHRCaUp0RCDUTztwccIyGhZ-VcUtnEYpOpzIBbGJc4D2f1DU9NI/s320/james-baldwin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
From Teju Cole we learn that James Baldwin, who struggled for eight years with the manuscript of his first novel, <u>Go Tell It On The Mountain</u>, finished the book at the chalet of Lucien Happersberger's family in the Swiss Alps, in the town of Leukerbad, in 1951. "From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came," Baldwin wrote, and this sense of dispossession, of belonging no where because of the color of his skin, of being in possession of nothing but his black body--bereft of the Great Traditions of the (white) Western World--followed Baldwin throughout his life-long exile from America. In his essay on his stay in Leukerbad, "Stranger in the Village," Baldwin wrote:<br />
<br />
<i>"These people [the Swiss] cannot be, from the point of view of power, strangers anywhere in the world; they have made the modern world, in effect, even if they do not know it. The most illiterate among them is related, in a way that I am not, to Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Aeschylus, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Racine; the cathedral at Chartres says something to them which it cannot say to me, as indeed would New York's Empire State Building, should anyone here ever see it. Out of their hymns and dances come Beethoven and Bach. Go back a few centuries and they are in their full glory--but I am in Africa, watching the conquerors arrive."</i><br />
<br />
Cole distances himself from Baldwin on this point: for Cole, the legacy of the the world's culture is his birthright as much as anyone's, but this, I'm afraid, is a matter of temperament and not a fact of history. All of Baldwin's writing, from the lyricism of <u>Go Tell It On The Mountain</u> to the realism and prophetic insights of <u>Another Country</u>, is a struggle against his conviction that "the American Negro has arrived at his identity by virtue of the absoluteness of his estrangement from his past." The sum total of Baldwin's novels and essays create a realistic--bitter yet truthful--version of the African-American past. Our fashionable cant about "inclusion" and our presumed belief in "diversity" wilt before Baldwin's decades-old but intensely relevant and clear-eyed view of the "Negro problem."<br />
<i> </i><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCwdoDRpbAfWXZY7cvS7hm-Sr35GejrbWO2nxrBPbcXyHMmUSdw-KU5aw1U0C4oGoezBYe_epE_lhhSInBmRKWWNgpXI6dBsCzjK0KqJPcZJJDK2_wNpHCauxxMi5fFJF-e6O545KWzpM/s1600/Freedom_Riders_attacked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCwdoDRpbAfWXZY7cvS7hm-Sr35GejrbWO2nxrBPbcXyHMmUSdw-KU5aw1U0C4oGoezBYe_epE_lhhSInBmRKWWNgpXI6dBsCzjK0KqJPcZJJDK2_wNpHCauxxMi5fFJF-e6O545KWzpM/s1600/Freedom_Riders_attacked.jpg" /></a>Baldwin's FBI file describes him as a person "likely to commit acts inimical to the interests of the United States," as a "person who has traveled abroad," and as someone who was rumored to be "an homosexual" at a time when the line between homosexuality and communism was thin indeed. The Klansmen who savagely beat and tortured and murdered African American men and women did not fall under the paranoid gaze of J. Edgar Hoover, but Baldwin and his friends seem all to have amassed hefty Bureau files.<br />
<br />
In Raoul Peck's film, Baldwin speaks with quiet eloquence of the horrifying facts of American life: of white apathy, of moral bankruptcy, of the "death of the heart" that is manifest in the images of white power rallies from Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 to Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Progress? To make the point that there's been none, director Peck overlays photographs of young African American's shot by the police in the last half-dozen years, lest we forget that our willingness to forget the past does nothing to erase it.<br />
<br />
Baldwin's bitter words contrast with his gentle manner and with the luminous beauty of his prose. He was articulate even when he was incensed, and one feels the quiet despair that underlay everything that he wrote. His first novel, an autobiographical story that cut deeply into Baldwin's early life in Harlem, reads in parts like the King James Bible. John, Baldwin's fictional self, receives a few coins for his birthday (late in the day, nearly forgotten, in images that feel freshly lifted from "Araby"), and for the first time in his life goes to the movies, not daring to breath, "He stared at the darkness around him, and at the profiles that gradually emerged from this gloom, which was so like the gloom of Hell. He waited for the darkness to be shattered by the light of the second coming, for the ceiling to creak upward, revealing, for every eye to see, the chariots of fire on which descended a wrathful God and all the host of Heaven." So much of Baldwin's fiction is concerned with sin and redemption; he was willing to see himself as an imperfect being, a child of God, but shaped in large measure by a society that could only regard the color of his skin. In Baldwin's prose, from <u>Go Tell It On the Mountain</u> to <u>If Beale Street Could Talk,</u> one feels the weight of Baldwin's early fervor for the pulpit, his brief career as a street minister, a calling inspired by his stepfather.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7oK4lXUq0KR2zwg_mcluHZThOqatqkZJfQvZC98e-lq686RIsGt4ANpsD7WJtwn-DkiTYcJcuBojWtDMvtCXbkR-0CNg3hbCP8ikCGmEEYDiLRF1WsG5ZzihyuslmMFn2-ZRSR0zeqYY/s1600/jamesbaldwin072414.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="500" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7oK4lXUq0KR2zwg_mcluHZThOqatqkZJfQvZC98e-lq686RIsGt4ANpsD7WJtwn-DkiTYcJcuBojWtDMvtCXbkR-0CNg3hbCP8ikCGmEEYDiLRF1WsG5ZzihyuslmMFn2-ZRSR0zeqYY/s320/jamesbaldwin072414.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
In his novel <u>Compass</u>, the French writer Mathias Enard imagines Baldwin during the latter's long sojourn in Istanbul. Suzy Hansen writes, '“I feel free in Istanbul,” Baldwin told his friend, the Turkish writer
Yaşar Kemal. “That’s because you’re American,” Kemal replied. Baldwin
loved the city. He combed through the <i>sahaflar</i>, the second-hand
bookshops that line the streets around the Grand Bazaar, their dusty
wares stacked on haphazard tables. He sat by the New Mosque, drinking
tea out of tulip-shaped cups, playing backgammon, and watching the
fishermen’s wooden boats launch into the dirty waters of the Golden
Horn.' Even more than Paris, the faded Turkish city was an escape from America's racism and cruelty, and "it was easier to be gay in Istanbul, easier to be black."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8gnQYVbd8x2KGbyu4uqWDoSnRoFCSaRcc1RKKNC4u9xRYLHJUzI2rutUWUuNUJug_vUjvTPEnwwO2qPzsGyeYuIC2zOJPruRlXhabsnMY6fZSlFV8ewEIPzs8hApIHwgLah4_0w5OkmE/s1600/NMAAHC-2011_20_6-000001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="399" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8gnQYVbd8x2KGbyu4uqWDoSnRoFCSaRcc1RKKNC4u9xRYLHJUzI2rutUWUuNUJug_vUjvTPEnwwO2qPzsGyeYuIC2zOJPruRlXhabsnMY6fZSlFV8ewEIPzs8hApIHwgLah4_0w5OkmE/s320/NMAAHC-2011_20_6-000001.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
But it was never easy for Baldwin, no matter where he lived. While I admire David Leeming's biography of Baldwin--Leeming was a personal friend and had full access to Baldwin's papers--I wonder if Leeming makes too much of his subject's "search for his father" and not quite enough of the historical realities of America, in Harlem in particular, in the years leading up to World War II. Who can forget the prophetic jeremiad of <u>The Fire Next Time</u>, with its assertion that all of America's woes are attributable to white America's pathologies and not to any characteristic of the Negro:<br />
<br />
"<i>The white man's unadmitted--and apparently, to him, unspeakable--private fears and longings are projected onto the Negro. The only way he can be released from the Negro's tyrannical power over him is to consent, in effect, to become black himself, to become part of that suffering and dancing country that he now watches wistfully from the heights of his lonely power and, armed with spiritual traveler's checks, visits surreptitiously after dark."</i><br />
<br />
This seems right: how often is this fear of blackness that is, in fact, a fear of an emptiness within our (white) selves a justification for cruelty based on an abject failure of human sympathy? "Therefore, a vast amount of the energy that goes into what we call the Negro problem is produced by the white man's profound desire not to be judged by those who are not white, not to be seen as he is, and at the same time a vast amount of the white anguish is rooted in the white man's equally profound need to be seen as he is, to be released from the tyranny of his mirror." We know from James McPherson's <u>Why They Fought</u> that Confederate soldiers, who were mostly dirt poor and despised by the planter elite for whom the Civil War was a fight, above all else, for the preservation of African chattel slavery, took up arms against the Union to defend their superiority to black men. And we know that even today, the shock troops of Klan and neo-Nazi racism are poor white men, themselves disenfranchised by corporate capitalism, who find in common cause in irrational hatred for a people with whom they have no contact. <i>Fear of blackness</i> was a brilliant insight, one that came to Baldwin during his years of exile, particularly in Istanbul where the color of his skin meant as little as it ever would.<br />
<br />
My favorite scene in Peck's unforgettable documentary shows Baldwin standing in front of an audience, gesturing mildly, and explaining the ways in which his life has mirrored the lives of millions of African Americans. He turned this life, these lives, into enduring art and unforgettable polemic.<br />
<br />
"Set thy house in order," the prophet Isaiah tells the King Hezekih, "for thou shalt die, and not live." And this message, that death comes for us all, and that it is in love and understanding that we make our peace with death, constitutes Baldwin's testimony in "Down From the Cross," written in 1962. "One is responsible to life," Baldwin wrote, "it is the small beacon in the terrifying darkness..."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCNyZQT110x3Y1431jPCN9qeN-SuUyLPNLiZxxyp0JY_V_R61RD_L8HSNCNqD3plCU3ty-B0GzsYAPs_eANRee5biKqROymEmSpWRs1KdEyO6mILEsAy_BQhvoSSbWW6tl-38mB1BZ15I/s1600/Baldwin-James-main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="952" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCNyZQT110x3Y1431jPCN9qeN-SuUyLPNLiZxxyp0JY_V_R61RD_L8HSNCNqD3plCU3ty-B0GzsYAPs_eANRee5biKqROymEmSpWRs1KdEyO6mILEsAy_BQhvoSSbWW6tl-38mB1BZ15I/s320/Baldwin-James-main.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (Presidents Day, 2019) <br />
<i></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-28057297299723208222019-02-07T08:07:00.002-08:002019-02-13T04:07:16.932-08:00The Lucid Objects of Language<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrnqgYiVYAxXp_g9Yzi32p77tC2TRN3YFSG7-cDYY6txWwxV0JiFUPgrLGqqWhNhUXCeSnNgKi3QQqOL82r1VZvsGIN9PULYDJOumvxDoOj1n0vfQQozgdghPilzfRjMCvgmCccWZFJq8/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="900" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrnqgYiVYAxXp_g9Yzi32p77tC2TRN3YFSG7-cDYY6txWwxV0JiFUPgrLGqqWhNhUXCeSnNgKi3QQqOL82r1VZvsGIN9PULYDJOumvxDoOj1n0vfQQozgdghPilzfRjMCvgmCccWZFJq8/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #990000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Education by Stone: Selected Poems</span></i></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #990000;"> </span></span>by João Cabral de Melo Neto</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The late
Brazilian poet and diplomat,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">João Cabral de Melo Neto, was the
leading voice of the post WWII Brazilian poets called the “Generation of ‘45”, a
group whose work was best know for its austere and rigorous style. Known as “a
poet of <i>thingness</i>”, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">João Cabral</span> strove, in his poetry, for what has often been described as
“a staunch formal righteousness” characterized by a rigid adherence to the
description of images, actions, and <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">things</span>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here is a
brief <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sampling of his work:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Table</span></i></b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
folded newspaper</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">on the
simple table;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">the
tablecloth clean,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">the
dishes white</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">and fresh
like bread.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
green-skinned orange:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">your
unfailing landscape,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">your open
air, the sun</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">of your
beaches: bright</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">and fresh
like bread.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The knife
that sharpened</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">your
spent pencil;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">your
first book</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">whose
cover is white</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">and fresh
like bread.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And the
verse born</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">of your
living morning,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">of your
finished dream:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">still
warm, light</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">and fresh
like bread. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Windows</span></i></b></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #990000;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">There’s a
man dreaming</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">on a beach,
another</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">who
remembers dates.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">There’s a
man running away</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">from a
tree, another missing</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">his boat
or his hat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">There’s a
man who’s a soldier,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">another
who acts like an airplane,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">another
who keeps forgetting</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">his time
his mystery</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">his fear
of the word veil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And
there’s yet another who,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">stretched
out like a ship, fell asleep.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhia9EabX8OZuXLzmfcBJb3sNwWdnsXyrEv0bzA2MkpBlVJ8gbdGc5ZW7ANAfGigNkhRdyrsEpB2SK6watDUqBvbNCsrCkCeSJLDkwG_p2h2cJzOPUhsx0Gz_EU3AOhenWJycoP_a4wl64/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="585" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhia9EabX8OZuXLzmfcBJb3sNwWdnsXyrEv0bzA2MkpBlVJ8gbdGc5ZW7ANAfGigNkhRdyrsEpB2SK6watDUqBvbNCsrCkCeSJLDkwG_p2h2cJzOPUhsx0Gz_EU3AOhenWJycoP_a4wl64/s640/2.png" width="512" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #990000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Insomnia of Monsieur Teste</span></i></span></span></span></b></span><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #990000;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
lucidity which sees everything, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">as if by
lamp- or daylight,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">and
which, at nightfall, turns on </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">behind he
eyelids of the tooth</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">of a
sharp and skinless light,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">extreme
and serving for nothing:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">a light
so lucid it fools you</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">into
thinking you can do everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: #990000;">The Nothing That Is</span></span></i></b></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #990000;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
sugarcane field is so vast</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">that all
measures of it are vain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It has
the sea’s unending</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">wide-openness,
defying</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">numbers
and their ilk</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">to trap
it in their assertions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the
cane field one forgets</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">to
measure anything at all,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">for
although it is populous,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">its
population is anonymous,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">making it
resemble a pregnancy</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">of
nothingness, like the sea’s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSsWGNw-g1GdhXC5d693V5JdKTfaRCxQ1BfJfpeVWUkCs2PrJPUd9vFtZMKF4MyFSzUMdnTENMTo6ak48F77cchXJE9CqNGRgKZDpA8rVvx7uW2Ko5Kw9aDqbA4vIQGdHLkdRGM5chwng/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="900" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSsWGNw-g1GdhXC5d693V5JdKTfaRCxQ1BfJfpeVWUkCs2PrJPUd9vFtZMKF4MyFSzUMdnTENMTo6ak48F77cchXJE9CqNGRgKZDpA8rVvx7uW2Ko5Kw9aDqbA4vIQGdHLkdRGM5chwng/s640/3.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Peter Adam
Nash</span></div>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-2947227099852287142019-01-26T14:18:00.000-08:002019-01-30T10:23:02.195-08:00Seeing!<h2>
<i>Eye Contact</i>, William Benton (essays on art)</h2>
<h2>
<i>The Museum of Modern Love</i>, Heather Rose (a novel) </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSUYhIx_ybIO5mm11CmCFP3MOMcGtBA46kQhSaCmkVyZBtnPzHlxKtfu4dleEtpHAFiAnLeGOunFp2ru5qgYsEnbHuBrMCW8fnXdAM_fEroLcKw63KmoYpWpNCYOeVMatchqGNTHN2hfE/s1600/biglin+brothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="276" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSUYhIx_ybIO5mm11CmCFP3MOMcGtBA46kQhSaCmkVyZBtnPzHlxKtfu4dleEtpHAFiAnLeGOunFp2ru5qgYsEnbHuBrMCW8fnXdAM_fEroLcKw63KmoYpWpNCYOeVMatchqGNTHN2hfE/s400/biglin+brothers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
During the decade that I spent living in Washington, D.C., I visited the National Gallery several times a month, and Thomas Eakins's "Biglin Brothers Racing" (1872) grew to be the painting that meant most to me. Eakins's composition feels perfect--the postures of John and Barney are balanced as each prepares to dip his oar back into the water, and the care with which Eakins composed the background, visible only upon close inspection of the original, made me feel as if, in viewing the picture, I had fallen back in time to that day in May 1872 when the Biglins raced Harry Coulter and Lewis Cavitt along the smooth surface of the Schuylkill River. Eakins painted the pair numerous times, and his study of (nearly) nude human figures, a study that gave him the skill to reproduce the musculature in the arms and legs of the straining oarsmen, eventually cost him his teaching position at the Pennsylvania Academy of of the Fine Arts. I love Eakins's work, and, for reasons that are unclear to me, this painting in particular has been one that I have wanted to really and truly <i>see</i>.<br />
<br />
We often <i>look </i>at pictures, but how often do we <i>see</i> them? We have to internalize the object, pull it off the wall and into our consciousness in the way that, from time to time, we pull a fictional character, or a poetic image, into ourselves, making it a part of the way we imagine the world. Most of the time I wander through museums reminding myself to pay careful attention; and then, in the Rembrandt room of the National Gallery, or in in front of the Kandinskys at the Guggenheim, or in the astonishing room that holds Monet's "Water Lily Pond" at the Art Institute, I don't have to remind myself at all, I become, as one must, fully attentive, present in my person in the way I always should be but almost never am.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nxToGXjsyUd7T9yAyTnKdderl2qIxqcVejO9aNyTNluzaoW67tvm2xd28L938nnZdXtAwKa5wKYM-emLLKCrkuODdlun7yEZ5Xr9qyI6UNnhUiVbqLHjYvokjml03vnIjlgLlwc0x2g/s1600/350px-ArtistIsPresent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="350" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nxToGXjsyUd7T9yAyTnKdderl2qIxqcVejO9aNyTNluzaoW67tvm2xd28L938nnZdXtAwKa5wKYM-emLLKCrkuODdlun7yEZ5Xr9qyI6UNnhUiVbqLHjYvokjml03vnIjlgLlwc0x2g/s320/350px-ArtistIsPresent.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Heather Rose's wonderful novel <u>The Museum of Modern Love</u>, which takes as its subject the famous Marina Abramovic piece <i>The Artist is Present</i> from 2010 (seen above), a performance work during which, for seventy-five days, Abramovic sat still and silent, inviting anyone who wished to sit opposite her and to immerse themselves in the commitment to truth that has defined Abramovic's work for decades. "<i>Commitment to truth?</i>" As Rose makes plain in her evocation of the performance as experienced through a cross-section of (fictional and real) individuals, it was indeed the "truth" that Abramovic was seeking, that is, the unmediated experience of looking into the eyes of another human being, without preconceptions, without judgement, outside of language, politics, and even time (those who sat could sit for as long as they liked; over 1500 people participated and three-quarters of million visited the gallery space where Abramovic sat). Rose, a Tasmanian novelist, beautifully recreates the effect on the viewer of the raw experience of another's presence. The central character, a musician whose own art has failed him, whose wife is dying, and whose daughter thinks him unfeeling, finds in Abramovic's stoic sitting a restoration of the values that had slipped from his grasp.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF0X66tkcPIyy7tIV2PUtYBSnvX4-079C_rTz8Pf14ycgmiBFx8ejAdwVKnZU4sd1gp6elx7jkuahkHlgt3FtUMXrF4z6vNu7LdmJGoNQZfy07vT8y540Zhp-RpnSmVwD_fyjd7kVs0qY/s1600/marina+abramovic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF0X66tkcPIyy7tIV2PUtYBSnvX4-079C_rTz8Pf14ycgmiBFx8ejAdwVKnZU4sd1gp6elx7jkuahkHlgt3FtUMXrF4z6vNu7LdmJGoNQZfy07vT8y540Zhp-RpnSmVwD_fyjd7kVs0qY/s1600/marina+abramovic.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Like Rose, the poet and art critic William Benton is attuned to the life-changing power of art. Most everyone enjoys looking at pretty pictures, but thinking about what these pictures mean to us, how they change us, is a rare gift. Among the best essays on art I have ever read is Benton's "Prodigies," a concise recognition of the role played by children's art in the Modernist movement. I thought about these sentences of Benton's as I was thumbing through the images in Sandler's <u>Art of the Postmodern Era</u>: "In 'The Dance I,' 1909, the anatomical inaccuracy in Matisse's line has vivid equivalents in the markings of a six-year-old. That no six-year-old could perceive how a departure from precise rendering redistributes energy across the canvas in a way that gives an allover aspect to the composition is what makes art Art [!]. <i>It bears repeating: perception, not dexterity.</i>"<br />
<br />
True in painting, true also in poetry and fiction--perception, not dexterity or talent. Benton offers us insights into the making and seeing of art in each of the twenty-nine short pieces collected in <u>Eye Contact</u>. So much art criticism, taking a cue perhaps from the <i>ex cathedra</i> style of Clement Greenberg, fails to consider how and why art become Art for the average viewer. Greenberg's pronouncement "Value judgments constitute the substance of aesthetic experience" seems wrong-headed to me. Of course value judgements are an important part of our experience of art--what are we to bother looking at?--but the <i>substance </i>of aesthetic experience must also include questions about meaning, about our inner transformation in the presence of beauty (however defined), about what in the world art <i>does</i> for us, how it unsettles us--"unsettles" in the sense that Heather Rose asks this question in <u>The Museum of Modern Love</u>.<br />
<br />
Here's Benton on the solitary female figures of Nathan Oliveria, a comment that quickly laid to rest my own inability to make sense of this painter: "Oliveria's women are other. Their native element is mind. They owe their lineage to the formative welter of male imagination. The central position they occupy on the canvas has less to do with existential space than with immanent singularity." This seems exactly right. Not that it matters, but I want to see pictures--not "correctly"--but with the greatest possible insight, and Benton, in his brief essays on Knobelsdorf, Gordon Baldwin, and Oliveria (artists whose work I have seen), and on James McGarrell, Edmund E. Niemann, and Sidney Nolan (artists of whom I knew nothing of before Benton), allowed me to search their work with renewed confidence that I wasn't shortchanging either them or myself.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GVtVC4TzWMsbCE_A6vT4IbV4w0sQee0M3h7KKkdCLw4FzjDbJKQEkKpU83Q9NQcYZZlI1hTl2kWu8bQFUywbReflEC_RVqs9MIx3fwoOAkXe6ohLvFRA5xPKrpBi4SMkCkMQooAZuds/s1600/Joan+Brown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9GVtVC4TzWMsbCE_A6vT4IbV4w0sQee0M3h7KKkdCLw4FzjDbJKQEkKpU83Q9NQcYZZlI1hTl2kWu8bQFUywbReflEC_RVqs9MIx3fwoOAkXe6ohLvFRA5xPKrpBi4SMkCkMQooAZuds/s1600/Joan+Brown.jpg" /></a></div>
Not only is Benton a perceptive critic of art, and, in particular, of artist of whom one might know little, he is also a fine poet, as evidenced by his sensitive transformations of images into words:<br />
<br />
<b>Tree Trunks Reflected in Water </b><br />
<br />
Standing in a row<br />
at the edge of the river,<br />
<br />
those trees are the men.<br />
I'm the water. I mimic the way<br />
<br />
they look and what they do<br />
in the sliding wind.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
I take on the mannerisms, voices,<br />
even the thought processes of others.<br />
<br />
I despise my skin and can't escape or fully occupy it.<br />
An empty insufficiency<br />
<br />
forces me to act. I pool slowly, all<br />
surface stars and self doubt.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
The row of trunks<br />
<br />
in a single motion<br />
<br />
rakes through my life. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgCwOFnyOSJkpRqmdVlPFZ-Po7ubxUmycGoQy0l4CPsHPivGSI8Tg6ftpJHrYOZMzT2w5P-VkwcJ1JjIot52TTgLRzNbYaHssK66RkfgQniv7NLQk5FM6kcqBTxWnjlXPRI7U1HLPjB4/s1600/fa56806048e69435fb3a6b3b1bb24ee1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgCwOFnyOSJkpRqmdVlPFZ-Po7ubxUmycGoQy0l4CPsHPivGSI8Tg6ftpJHrYOZMzT2w5P-VkwcJ1JjIot52TTgLRzNbYaHssK66RkfgQniv7NLQk5FM6kcqBTxWnjlXPRI7U1HLPjB4/s400/fa56806048e69435fb3a6b3b1bb24ee1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<u>Eye Contact</u> is published by Fomite (58 Peru St., Burlington, VT, 05401)<br />
<br />
<u>The Museum of Modern Love</u> is published by Algonquin<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (1/25/2019)<br />
<br />
<br />George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-38231943232451628972019-01-01T09:21:00.001-08:002019-01-01T09:21:46.222-08:00To Build a Road<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTLBlEDinjam3Gw1vbwyHJiBsFQ-OX_64NFH0W6ADWCNZPg9sZGm0ddvooV9KghZjtqSrOCgi9OA7BSnoacefri2WqJnWwF_82Z0uGN9O5SkWYz7fUMTHxN_uQGPKmNt81UVTzWeyEqs/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="666" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTLBlEDinjam3Gw1vbwyHJiBsFQ-OX_64NFH0W6ADWCNZPg9sZGm0ddvooV9KghZjtqSrOCgi9OA7BSnoacefri2WqJnWwF_82Z0uGN9O5SkWYz7fUMTHxN_uQGPKmNt81UVTzWeyEqs/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #f1c232;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">Man As An End: A Defense of Humanism</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;"> by Alberto Moravia</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The only truly rational
means is violence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Alberto Moravia</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now,
more than ever before in my lifetime, it is money that is the nation’s Holy
Writ, the people who manipulate it—the CEOs and CFOs, the brokers and accountants—our
sages and savants. Indeed for many their reach, their vision, is oracular. Yet
one needn’t be a prophet to understand that our adherence to this faith, this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cult</i>, has proven catastrophic in its
impact on the environment, on our civic life, on our very understanding of what
it means to be human. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While
the base, reductive thinking of Wall Street was once restricted to the
financial sector itself, to the hawking of stocks and bonds, to the humdrum vernacular
of saving accounts and IRAs, it now has permeated every aspect of life in this
country. Not only has this mercenary dogma redefined and subverted democratic governance,
healthcare, publishing, sports, news, fashion, entertainment, policing, urban
planning, public transportation, food systems, social services, national
security, the military, water and land management, social media, the criminal
justice system, and international relations, but it has even permeated the Arts
and education, traditionally the bastions of civil, humanistic discourse. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3MPC2TtUXhV4edQRb5WI8-_sMQakmXnFY3xfOoP9NuwgQTfO1HPelK7YY0YqK0pqnzQYHJjF4zPNV32HkNWUgAUZ7NqxgCVENK_UDstylY7NM2ntZYhlM281rQD9gqm5GLGLgA4f60s/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="429" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3MPC2TtUXhV4edQRb5WI8-_sMQakmXnFY3xfOoP9NuwgQTfO1HPelK7YY0YqK0pqnzQYHJjF4zPNV32HkNWUgAUZ7NqxgCVENK_UDstylY7NM2ntZYhlM281rQD9gqm5GLGLgA4f60s/s400/2.png" width="276" /></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
result is that now virtually every significant decision in the country is made
(or at least highly influenced) by some man or woman with an MBA. Time and
again their decisions are sold to us (for now everything is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sold</i>) as logical, rational<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(meaning tested, scientific, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">objective</i>), as justly, even supremely, pragmatic.
Just ask these ‘experts’, these mystagogues; they will show you the numbers on the
page. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of
course to treat something—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anything</i>—‘objectively’,
is to abstract it, deform it, to exempt it from the messy realm of human
affairs, so as to make it manipulable, so as to make it useful, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">profitable</i>. Look around you: nearly
everything these days has been reduced to a ‘science’, a technique, a method to
be mastered and exploited by rational means. A scam, a pyramid scheme, this ubiquitous
corporate gospel is the ultimate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">realpolitik</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If
neo-capitalism (or anti-humanism) was a concern to Moravia in 1963, when he
compiled this book, it (like the state of the environment today) is now a matter
of despair. His warning is plain:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So we must have no illusions. We shall have an
ever larger number of cheap, well-made consumer goods; our life will become
more and more comfortable; and out arts, even the most demanding and difficult
ones, indeed those especially, will become more and more accessible to the
masses; and at the same time we shall feel more and more that at the heart of
this prosperity lies nothingness or a fetishism which, like all fetishisms, is
an end in itself and cannot be put to the service of man.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
his first essay, “Man As An End”, he goes further to say:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Since then [in Bismark’s Germany] the strides made
by Machiavellianism have been triumphant, like a headlong, irresistible river that
swells and increases in power thanks to the very obstacles it overcomes on its
way. Machiavellianism now seems inevitable, it is taken for granted and seems
to have no alternative. In the field of pure thought it appears invincible, and
it is the ineluctable center towards which all roads in politics seem to lead…
The only result of the universal and indiscriminate practice of
Machiavellianism in modern times has been to provoke the two biggest wars in
history and to bring infinite suffering and immense destruction on mankind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Arguably
the most powerful part of this book for me appears in his first and aforementioned
essay, “Man As An End”, an essay and introduction in which Moravia, by way of
an example, describes two approaches to building a road. The first, a method employed
since the beginning of time, involves nothing less than an exhaustive study of
the land and peoples through which the new road would pass. As the road is
meant to serve them, such an approach makes sense. It follows that central to this
approach must be the careful consideration of the landscape itself, the hills
and mountains, the streams and rivers, the fishes and mammals and plants. What’s
more, the planners must get to know the people who reside there, their farms
and villages, their hunting and fishing grounds, their churches and temples and
shrines. They must devote months, even years, to familiarizing themselves with the
local customs and traditions, living closely with the locals, as one of their
own. Only in this way will the planners know if the construction of the road
makes sense, if it will enrich rather than impoverish the locals’ lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of
course you know the other way. Trump and his kind have made of virtue of it. Writes
Moravia:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The second way is just the opposite and consists
in building the road without bothering about the obstacles. In this case my
road will cut across the farm land, span the river at its widest point, flatten
the homesteads. I shall hack down mills, oil presses, chapels and workshops,
fill in the wells, eliminate the sports ground. Furthermore I shall dynamite
hundreds of thousands of cubic rock and dry up hundreds of thousands of square yards
of marshland.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nothing binds me to build the road in one way or
the other. The law is on my side. There is a decree of my government whose
execution is guaranteed by force. I can do whatever I want: I can even kill the
inhabitants down to the last man and destroy all the farms and farmland… It is
enough to say that I want to build a road. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the first scenario the people and the environment are considered the end itself,
the very reason for the road, if the road is to be built at all, while in the second
the people and the environment are resources, tools, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">things</i>, but the means to an end that has little or nothing do with
them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvSV9pNXjTukIGXyAiMI5nmFVjh9fGfVQnFKakps1TJAu9kE7kHpDdRGlBtGE91X3f2K7UApSAXaOCmgzZW7Bot0RcL1A5eHkBj_L0WfqmhVwubhyphenhyphen72-ikkksnOzkcPO0JsCuAEQ2s8Y/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="899" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvSV9pNXjTukIGXyAiMI5nmFVjh9fGfVQnFKakps1TJAu9kE7kHpDdRGlBtGE91X3f2K7UApSAXaOCmgzZW7Bot0RcL1A5eHkBj_L0WfqmhVwubhyphenhyphen72-ikkksnOzkcPO0JsCuAEQ2s8Y/s640/3.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Peter
Adam Nash </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-alt:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 134217746 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 134217746 0 131231 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Cambria",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Garamond",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style></div>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-alt:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 134217746 0 131231 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Cambria",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Garamond",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-54726561747596749492018-12-18T21:45:00.000-08:002018-12-22T11:52:29.427-08:00Some Books I Enjoyed in 2018<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhcx1Dbh-jr481tP70511WYeaQd6WShkOkGcJVorFmkQAzYd4Ja0XrffUNzJlwqKt-p59E409H7x-ig1SiG5VOISg4VM0wIBAC2Ox9N2q9m-T39UFRrRBOBa2Tw-1Aml4RNmFO0pNbhU/s1600/NM+winter.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="768" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhcx1Dbh-jr481tP70511WYeaQd6WShkOkGcJVorFmkQAzYd4Ja0XrffUNzJlwqKt-p59E409H7x-ig1SiG5VOISg4VM0wIBAC2Ox9N2q9m-T39UFRrRBOBa2Tw-1Aml4RNmFO0pNbhU/s320/NM+winter.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
I love winters in my state (you'd hate them, so don't get any ideas). And few things are as enjoyable as going for a long walk in the snow and returning home to a pile of good books, tea or bourbon (depending), Schubert's "Winterreise," and forgetting for a few hours the turmoil of the world. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
By the way, there's a very nice accounting of Schubert's great song cycle on a blog entitled "The Conversation" and posted by Jeanell Carrigan of the University of Sydney. Here's a stanza from my favorite of the songs, <i>Der Lindenbaum</i>, one that reminds me of my own walks in the windy cold:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Die kalten Winde bliesen</div>
mir grad ins Angesicht;<br />
der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe,<br />
ich wendete mich nicht.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
[The cold wind blew</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
directly into my face; </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
my hat flew from my head--</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
I did not turn back]</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Russell Platt, writing in the New Yorker, expresses perfectly the wonder of these simple songs:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>"The
seeming simplicity of 'Winterreise'—a piece that is constantly
reinterpreted in performance, not held in sonic amber—is of a richer and
more ambiguous type: it grows and changes over the years, just as the
mind and body of the person who first encounters it. Its story, of a
doomed lover who wanders aimlessly around the town where his former
girlfriend lives, is both intimate and epic, literal and metaphorical.
It’s a whole world, not just a neighborhood, or a village rectory."</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
"<b>Not held in sonic amber</b>:" I first heard the version of Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau in college. As Platt understands, the songs grow on you, and with you--their melancholy, their simplicity. Half a century later I still love D F-D's version, but have been increasingly drawn to Ian Bostridge's interpretation. Give them a listen one of these cold nights. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i>*** </i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
As for the books: not "the best" books of the year since my reading habits are eccentric and reflect the time I have to read (often not much), my shifting tastes and interests, and where each book leads me. Also, most of the books I liked best weren't published this year, so as a guide to what's new this list is useless. But these ten, in no special order, were the books that meant most to me, that I thought about for the longest time. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<i></i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
--Lily King: <u>Euphoria</u> (novel, published in 2014): Margaret Mead, Reo Fortune, and Gregory Bateson in an erotic tangle in New Guinea. Ms. King is smart as all get out, and inventive, and this is a really splendid book. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
--Valeria Luiselli: <u>Faces in the Crowd</u> (novel, also 2014): A young women living in Harlem working on a translation of the (fictional) Mexican poet Geoffrey Owen; surreal, deeply literary, poetic. I'd bring up <u>Savage Detectives</u>, but won't. Ms. Luiselli has also written a wonderful book on the border "crisis"--<u>Tell Me How It Ends, An Essay in Forty Questions. </u></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtW5u0vO3c4qI4cU5idDt7WYjoHYf2Mdsa72d3drxB1mZg8s1_WYQUJHAZJBOl77dd3Xrnt189n5g3p9XQSvAAbMVRyXFXoAkl3B8znd3o2Lkn6X4pVG4mWn9zIY78t1atJ7lmlHv-Flc/s1600/Faces-in-the-Crowd1_1024x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="635" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtW5u0vO3c4qI4cU5idDt7WYjoHYf2Mdsa72d3drxB1mZg8s1_WYQUJHAZJBOl77dd3Xrnt189n5g3p9XQSvAAbMVRyXFXoAkl3B8znd3o2Lkn6X4pVG4mWn9zIY78t1atJ7lmlHv-Flc/s320/Faces-in-the-Crowd1_1024x1024.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Elif Bautman: <u>The Idiot</u> (novel, 2017): Picaresque story of young Harvard student besotted with both Dostoevsky and a young man from Hungary (whom she has never met). A completely enjoyable and witty book. Bautman's essays, collected in <u>The Possessed</u> are also a delight. I've handed this book to several high school students who are not ordinarily readers. And they read it!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
David W. Blight: <u>Frederick Douglass</u> (biography, 2018): Definitive life of one of America's most important figures. Full of interesting and previously unreported details (not all of them flattering) about Douglass's long and complex life. Blight writes like Bernard DeVoto or Richard Hofstadter--history as compelling narrative. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
David Baker: <u>Never Ending Birds</u> (poetry, 2009): I read quite a bit of poetry this year. Baker was new to me and I spent several enjoyable days with his books (there's ten or more). This was my favorite. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Gerald Murnane: <u>Barley Patch</u> (novel?, 2011): Peter Nash has gotten me started on Murnane, the eccentric Australian unclassifiable writer of books about (among other things) not writing. How often do you find a writer who has no predecessors? I'm finishing up <u>The Plains</u> at the moment--it is quite extraordinarily strange. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Mathias Enard: <u>Compass</u> (novel, 2017): I haven't yet read <u>Zone</u> (a long, one sentence novel), but I loved <u>Compass.</u> Parts of the novel record the narrator's (he's a musicologist) attendance at a very odd international conference and reminded me of Rachel Cusk's <u>Kudos</u>. Central to Enard's writing is the "zone" of Europe that links West to East; much of <u>Compass</u> is about a European's experiences of Istanbul, Tehran, points east. Also music, opium, and obscure poets play a key role in <u>Compass</u>, all of which makes his book delightful. He also reminds me of Teju Cole and <u>Open City</u>--erudite and deeply engaging. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Robert Kuttner: <u>Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism</u> (economics, politics, history, 2018): Hands down the best of many books about what threatens all of us right now. Kuttner gives us the history of a lost, mostly humane capitalism then shows how the New and Fair Deals were dismantled piece by piece beginning in the late 1960's. This is a sad story that has been told many times, but Kuttner tells it in more detail, and more compellingly than anyone I've read. You'll want to underline the entire book. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OkCndPgxIcJ81ef09ly3qHNe8iU3SgiGzH0RXtRSBS2MOodYnpFy4t7gnlP87iK6UGnwcJ_cGY76xFwcKrOIsP5K3r5GABm4gGwN5gSE8VCiNLbpLe3pxoDFyqP9MuisV5-qsArSq7E/s1600/Deborah-Eisenberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="800" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OkCndPgxIcJ81ef09ly3qHNe8iU3SgiGzH0RXtRSBS2MOodYnpFy4t7gnlP87iK6UGnwcJ_cGY76xFwcKrOIsP5K3r5GABm4gGwN5gSE8VCiNLbpLe3pxoDFyqP9MuisV5-qsArSq7E/s320/Deborah-Eisenberg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Deborah Eisenberg: <u>All Around Atlantis</u> (short stories): Eisenberg came to my attention this year with the publication of <u>Your Duck is My Duck</u>, her most recent collection (there are seven). I started with her 1997 volume ('cause it was cheap) and loved every story. Aside from the craftsmanship, the delicacy of feeling matched with deeply troubling undercurrents of madness and violence (think Alice Munro meets Joan Didion), I really like how Eisenberg surprises me in every story. It's "now where is this unpromising premise going?" And go it does. If you haven't tried this writer, please do.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Morten Stoksnes: <u>Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean</u> (adventure? craziness? nature? 2018): The most unlikely pleasure of the year. Not sure why I even picked it up, but once I started, I couldn't stop. Shark-lore, unpronounceable names of fjords, colorful characters (it made me happy just to know that men do undertake adventures that don't involve Sherpas and oxygen tanks). And who doesn't love a book with sharks?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
And the classics that I reread this year: <u>The Trial</u>, <u>Don Quixote</u> (in Edith Grossman's new translation), <u>Eichmann in Jerusalem</u> (it really <i>is</i> a classic), <u>Culture and Anarchy</u> (not as much, but the nostalgia for lost culture is heartwarming), <u>Within a Budding Grove</u> (it gets better and better), and George Steiner's <u>Tolstoy or Dostoevsky</u>, the book that made me first enjoy reading literary criticism. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVf9ERpA16e_VX2-_TgM7XCowOS01QGQnSE9ouHOZbvv8COnGURZys1qYZx5uphBoS087tX1yNOBfCetsGKXatf2rwh9bvqdiQEwzNrMsB5FrynWm2Kq95V9ObrXQQeTtw4uL-arRlfs/s1600/cervantes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="205" data-original-width="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVf9ERpA16e_VX2-_TgM7XCowOS01QGQnSE9ouHOZbvv8COnGURZys1qYZx5uphBoS087tX1yNOBfCetsGKXatf2rwh9bvqdiQEwzNrMsB5FrynWm2Kq95V9ObrXQQeTtw4uL-arRlfs/s1600/cervantes.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Books I didn't finish for various reasons: Ali Smith's <u>Autumn</u>; <u>Middlemarch</u> (again!); Jenny Epenbeck's <u>Go, Went, Gone</u> (a book I should have loved, but didn't); Louis Guilloux's <u>Blood Dark</u> (I will try again in 2019 to finish this masterpiece); David Harvey's <u>Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic</u> (I forget the rest; the only David Harvey I haven't penetrated). Oh, and once again this year I failed to finish (I got to page 46) a science fiction novel (<u>The Fifth Season</u>).</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Peace friends, and good reading in the New Year....</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
George Ovitt (12/18/2018)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<i></i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<i></i><br />
<br />
<br />George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-25439562165376785302018-12-16T16:33:00.000-08:002018-12-16T16:33:48.479-08:00A Woman Alone<h2>
Stillpoint (a novel)</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxNvu953IFao-aqkrn-odtz1R8ECtC-glmsWKe1Lj2T0-I7h2GVZUsC6nphTQ6ZST498y6J556ltazvvt-yFMrK8iawEmPyo_HGrDpZg0i4P4cSBDFnP1Ik4lwxbUI_r7OOFltJtn9Yes/s1600/41WF6jBsOCL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="312" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxNvu953IFao-aqkrn-odtz1R8ECtC-glmsWKe1Lj2T0-I7h2GVZUsC6nphTQ6ZST498y6J556ltazvvt-yFMrK8iawEmPyo_HGrDpZg0i4P4cSBDFnP1Ik4lwxbUI_r7OOFltJtn9Yes/s320/41WF6jBsOCL.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I apologize for this bit of self-promotion, but my excellent publishers at Fomite--Marc Estrin and Donna Bister--are among the many small literary presses that lack the resources of the corporate and amalgamated publishers. They are Bosque Brewery (my local favorite) to MillerCoors--so I have to do a little advertising for myself.<br />
<br />
This is my first published novel--not the first I've written, but the first that felt finished enough and decent enough to publish. Is it any good? Honestly, I have no idea. <br />
<br />
Like my collaborator Peter Nash, I prefer a certain type of book, one out of the mainstream of plot-driven, irony-riven, arch and hip books that largely comprise today's literary scene. In general, just as a matter of taste, I am more likely to be spending my reading time with Gerald Murnane, Juan Jose Saer, Italo Sveno, Thomas Bernhard, Kenzaburo Oe, and Fernando Pessoa (all recent reads) than with <i>Times</i> bestsellers. <br />
<br />
I say this so that, should you try my novel, you won't be too disappointed. It's a quiet little book that examines a single day in the life of a widowed woman in her seventies as she goes about doing the work she loves--translating the poetry of Leopardi--remembering her past, dealing with solitude, reflecting on a life well-lived. <br />
<br />
Here's a bit of it, and thanks for your patience:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“I
am unyielding,” Elle spoke to the ravens mingled with crows that were coaxing sunflower
seeds from the feeder she’d put up for the finches. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fra poco in me quell’ultimo/Dolore anco fu spento. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elle smiles at this idea. No, the pain never
dies, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dolore</i> is so lovely, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dolorosa</i>, she can’t resist jotting this on
the paper as well. The thought of Simon offering to carry the cross made her
weep even now. Can you imagine it? No one holds a chair for you any longer, but
this man took the cross. She had stood once in the courtyard of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, walked the Via Dolorosa, imagined the procession to
Golgotha, or tried to—at certain times the mind simply shuts down, focuses on
the trivial rather than on what is, in truth, too momentous to imagine. At
Auschwitz it was the same thing; standing in Birkenau she had closed her eyes with
the secular reverence required—no tears would come, though she had wanted, upon
entering beneath the notorious gate—“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arbeit
macht frei</i>”—to summon tears, to faint under the weight of history’s cruelty,
instead she couldn’t shake the chilling lines from Dante, “Through me you pass
into the City of woe/Through me you pass into eternal pain,” nor could she
resist imagining the Florentine poet and his guide crossing to Dis, even while
silently reciting the verses to herself, intoning them like a prayer. Elle felt
guilty and somehow unhinged—how could she let herself be so distracted? Must
she be dithering with poems even here? And then, within the walls of the crematorium,
she offered a prayer for the dead, Kaddish, but it was no good, the images of gas
and fire, the smell of death, the cries of the dying, all leaked away in the
dusty light that struck the floor, the odor of dirt and cement, the weight of
her living body on a blazing hot day. Sufficient reverence, Elle thought, was
impossible. All she had at her disposal were gestures. She crossed herself—when
had she last done that—and hoped that would suffice. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dolorosa</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">George Ovitt (12/16/2018)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.fomitepress.com/Our_Books.html">https://www.fomitepress.com/Our_Books.html</a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Bright"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stillpoint-George-Ovitt-ebook/dp/B07K3ZYPDW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1545004835&sr=8-3&keywords=George+Ovitt">https://www.amazon.com/Stillpoint-George-Ovitt-ebook/dp/B07K3ZYPDW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1545004835&sr=8-3&keywords=George+Ovitt</a></span></div>
<br />
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Lucida Bright";
panose-1:2 4 6 2 5 5 5 2 3 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><br />
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-89086228136024620582018-12-16T14:19:00.002-08:002018-12-16T14:19:35.748-08:00Hiding Out in Lisbon<h2>
<i>Like a Fading Shadow</i> (a novel), Antonio Munoz Molina </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZeBtLfgn0eibDNVxXXxsv7aDqoQMouKom6gc0uKphCrj3_k44T4gwszTkpf1ArORRwF30gATcFYX6A7GNoZdohhhcN2wvEad2BDATNIrKX6rAVQmnIb_muKtEZkVrVszHNexXJtH1uaQ/s1600/James+Earl+Ray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZeBtLfgn0eibDNVxXXxsv7aDqoQMouKom6gc0uKphCrj3_k44T4gwszTkpf1ArORRwF30gATcFYX6A7GNoZdohhhcN2wvEad2BDATNIrKX6rAVQmnIb_muKtEZkVrVszHNexXJtH1uaQ/s320/James+Earl+Ray.jpg" width="221" /></a></div>
<br />
Munoz Molina read Hampton Sides <u>Hellhound on His Trail</u>--the history of James Earl Ray's pursuit and murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and, after conducting a great deal more research, he produced a remarkable novel, <u>Like a Fading Shadow.</u> Molina uses the fact of Ray's brief stay in Lisbon to create a detailed documentary account of Ray's life from 1967, when he first began to track King across the United States, until his capture in London in June, 1968, two months after the assassination.<br />
<br />
James Earl Ray lived in a fantasy world. To say he was paranoid is to understate the case--his daily life both before and after the assassination of Dr. King followed a pattern familiar to us from reading the life stories of his peers--Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley, Jr.--men who belonged to nothing but their fantasies, loners and losers, men who fixated on individuals whose existence either undermined or justified their own. Chapman thought he was Holden Caulfield, Hinckley lived (still does apparently) to impress Jodie Foster, Oswald developed an obsessive hatred for the racist ex-general Edwin Walker. None of these men, and certainly none of their deeds, were "banal." Hannah Arendt's point in developing the concept of the "banality of evil" in her book on the Eichmann trial was not to diminish the horror of murder or the evil of murderers but to remind us that evil is committed by men who are, in most respects, not unlike ourselves, ordinary persons whose lives are anonymous, even boring, up until the moment they commit their crimes. I remember how surprised I was when I read about Mark David Chapman--a nobody--and how Hinckley's psychotic fixation on a young movie actress reprised what was normal in American culture--love of celebrity and admiration for fame. <br />
<br />
Molina brilliantly captures the banality of James Earl Ray's inner life and the ceaseless turmoil of his outer life. The nondescript man in black glasses and a musty suit wanders the streets of Lisbon, lies in bed in his cheap room, rehearses his lines and tries out new identities, watches his meager cash supplies dwindle, thinks of everything except the murder that propelled his escape from the United State. Molina is utterly convincing as Ray's voice, almost as his <i>alter ego</i>. <br />
<br />
Molina approaches Ray's story obliquely, through the device of a fictional memoir. The author--clearly Molina himself--travels to Lisbon to reinvent himself as a writer; it was in Lisbon, thirty years before, the the author found inspiration for his first book (<u>A Winter in Lisbon</u>). Molina layers his three stories--of himself in the present, of James Early Ray's brief stay in Lisbon, and of his own earlier visit to Portugal--in such a way that eerie parallels emerge. All three strands of the story explore questions of truth-telling, of personal identity, and the cost of isolation. Most striking is the way in which Molina uses the idea of disguise, of hidden identities, in exploring both his own and Ray's story. Ray, after all, was a pathological liar, a story-teller and shape-shifter of considerable skills, so much so that he was able, for a time, to convince the King family that he was innocent of the killing at the Lorraine Motel. It takes little imagination to see that what Molina is doing in part is questioning the mechanisms of the novel itself, interrogating the idea of finding truth in falsehood, or perhaps asking if it is possible to create a literary form whose truth can be perceived through its disguises.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYidsX1mKJM5hEVgrXGBH_7YO7Ryi3sc-VJ3hAhAhwzQxJ7BhpTA4yGoIE1kQp6N4UF9k01aLB8PrBYBMuGDk5WAUokUuah2c6gmkW5E-KXq1_HXSCOFANVlpAWjOdW9eufPU9LtdNpcY/s1600/Munoz+Molina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="612" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYidsX1mKJM5hEVgrXGBH_7YO7Ryi3sc-VJ3hAhAhwzQxJ7BhpTA4yGoIE1kQp6N4UF9k01aLB8PrBYBMuGDk5WAUokUuah2c6gmkW5E-KXq1_HXSCOFANVlpAWjOdW9eufPU9LtdNpcY/s320/Munoz+Molina.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
George Ovitt (12/16/2018)<br />
<h2>
</h2>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-9606817143744128492018-11-26T07:19:00.001-08:002018-12-15T15:44:29.467-08:00 Reading As Eavesdropping <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Um2CScX07SC4NHtGUNniE6WSJEObq5ozwPzYMG-NvmorS6gGLuWpYu_88cU_YIaPhFRtof8aTfObwumIJJKSPT9MMBxAvEcubkXlLg9gER6ZPSVxylhKtHs3QpZOqmZ4MCbLhAw3OB4/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="819" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Um2CScX07SC4NHtGUNniE6WSJEObq5ozwPzYMG-NvmorS6gGLuWpYu_88cU_YIaPhFRtof8aTfObwumIJJKSPT9MMBxAvEcubkXlLg9gER6ZPSVxylhKtHs3QpZOqmZ4MCbLhAw3OB4/s640/1.png" width="632" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Gerald
Murnane</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--</style><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In recent
years I’ve come to more fully appreciate the fact that reading literature is an
exercise in eavesdropping—between characters and others, between characters and
themselves, a convention certainly well-known to most avid readers. Yet to my
mind the literature I so love is even more so a conversation between writers
themselves, from country to country, culture to culture, generation to
generation, a discussion to which, if we are attentive, we can listen, as
through a keyhole or a crack in a door.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjqrSma8mTuWbhLVL1xG6wiXB0gszR8joaZYy_8Q0Vtx92w0L41QhTlTkXlZgNE2oN95hESb6J5wdKmYElDYqsmonQ_tLVZ8LJknHMgUWXu2LIjCTcLHP6ysLsY0mTx0tExDw6nomkEiY/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="900" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjqrSma8mTuWbhLVL1xG6wiXB0gszR8joaZYy_8Q0Vtx92w0L41QhTlTkXlZgNE2oN95hESb6J5wdKmYElDYqsmonQ_tLVZ8LJknHMgUWXu2LIjCTcLHP6ysLsY0mTx0tExDw6nomkEiY/s640/2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Javier
Marías</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In their
writing, Charles Dickens, James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov chatted restlessly
with Shakespeare; Virginia Woolf with Leo Tolstoy; Gabriel García Marquez and
Toni Morrison with William Faulkner; Marcel Proust with John Ruskin, George
Eliot, and Charles Dickens; David Foster Wallace with Thomas Pynchon and Don
Delillo; Jane Austen with Lord Byron and Anne Radcliffe; Haruki Murakami with
Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Joan Didion with the great and
inimitable Joseph Conrad. Even the case of a writer actively despising the work
of another writer is part of the conversation, as when Nabokov said of
Hemingway: “As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early 40’s,
something about bells, balls and bulls, and I loathed it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIL-Qc2UwMu1OeiYjr6ffohq1hF4pp__0WqHWSYYVacEnWwwfDhqc9KzLwbMvfxu_67YsgnRVO5_jGQ-d7ZpT7922IRyAxec2VLEnQMkVbHfC0VuCZiDKqONbG32hyeawc08AxjPc7Uk0/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1513" data-original-width="596" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIL-Qc2UwMu1OeiYjr6ffohq1hF4pp__0WqHWSYYVacEnWwwfDhqc9KzLwbMvfxu_67YsgnRVO5_jGQ-d7ZpT7922IRyAxec2VLEnQMkVbHfC0VuCZiDKqONbG32hyeawc08AxjPc7Uk0/s640/3.png" width="252" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet such conversations
are not reserved for the great writers alone, but take place between all
writers, every day, in every part of the world, whether their work has ever
been published at all. For it is in conversation with other writers, especially
with one’s favorite writers, that every writer finds her way. After many years
of often dogged imitation of the work my own writer-heroes, of Proust, Woolf,
Conrad, Dostoevsky, Camus, Nabokov, Gordimer, Abe, Oe, Oz, Bernhard, Sebald, Brink,
Bellow, Lispector, Jelinek, Rulfo, Baldwin, Okri, Drndic, Niwa, Bolaños, Onetti,
Soyinka, Benet, Krasnahorkai, Mahfouz, Saer, Énard, and Shalev, I have come to understand
that my own writing is exactly and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">essentially</i>
that—a probing, restless conversation with other writers, a protracted, if de
facto apprenticeship in language, character, subject, and form. For literally
everything I have written I am indebted to the writers I love. </span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWIy-UHxx9xsJuD1Iwj7ChIFtyyHgLq62xxfQbviBpOIDkDqEFSN4ybxkY2j25LEv2qCed5uc6oEA_ZkK2AZ6C9IGCxCxGHsFYG_gsD62IrvCX3j_Yh1ugxnO7tyLBWDfBdDEsa07grA/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="900" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWIy-UHxx9xsJuD1Iwj7ChIFtyyHgLq62xxfQbviBpOIDkDqEFSN4ybxkY2j25LEv2qCed5uc6oEA_ZkK2AZ6C9IGCxCxGHsFYG_gsD62IrvCX3j_Yh1ugxnO7tyLBWDfBdDEsa07grA/s640/4.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Nathalie
Sarraute </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-</style><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Presently
I am at work on a novel that represents—more than anything I have written
before—an explicit conversation with others writers, in this case with Gerald
Murnane, Javier Marías, and Nathalie Sarraute. So intense is the conversation
some days it is as if they are sitting here in the room with me, prodding me,
joking, watching me work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Peter
Adam Nash</span></div>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Garamond;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-10214173336518390482018-10-20T13:07:00.000-07:002018-10-28T06:50:18.845-07:00 Woolf and the Great Subjective<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHbXk8WrCU-l5KUNeLDCIiX-U7fJv0psiDSv0lbJ4Rr-DFNRbYGzQCHLGm2GLDifVqtgD8ePrL3SyDY6aS4OPgWk8ufdDcLs562goNMTE5f1p_De2Snju3zIMj12Vy5GwgL1R7g-BNCA/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="899" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHbXk8WrCU-l5KUNeLDCIiX-U7fJv0psiDSv0lbJ4Rr-DFNRbYGzQCHLGm2GLDifVqtgD8ePrL3SyDY6aS4OPgWk8ufdDcLs562goNMTE5f1p_De2Snju3zIMj12Vy5GwgL1R7g-BNCA/s640/1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #660000;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">To the Lighthouse</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> by Virginia Woolf</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">No
novel (aside from Proust’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">À la recherche
du temps perdu</i>) has had a greater, more lasting influence on my thinking
and writing than Woolf’s 1927 paean to the griefs and glories of the subjective
mind. Beginning just before the onset of the Great War and ending a few years
after the war has ended, the novel is composed of three discrete glimpses of the
Ramseys, a cultured middle class English family passing their summers in a modest
house on the rugged coast of Scotland. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj7K9KNiXxcq7jcQawp8OEdf2wT6IIXt9E1g6PwqrHP1hXhHD5tvygREBNMIM-id_qrWqFI0Rf0trOKF_0Q7ltsiMAUhx4DuRPOzm2NrDK0VjACNzsS5n6jWSeQkpqtuBCJn_nz4_1Ou8/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="420" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj7K9KNiXxcq7jcQawp8OEdf2wT6IIXt9E1g6PwqrHP1hXhHD5tvygREBNMIM-id_qrWqFI0Rf0trOKF_0Q7ltsiMAUhx4DuRPOzm2NrDK0VjACNzsS5n6jWSeQkpqtuBCJn_nz4_1Ou8/s400/2.png" width="258" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At
the heart of the novel is the bright, maternal Mrs. Ramsey whose acute, nearly
omnipotent perspective defines the first and longest section of the book, setting
the mold and tone for everything to come. As Eudora Welty writes in her introduction:
“From its beginning, the novel never departs from the subjective… The interior
of its characters’ lives is where we experience everything.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whereas
in most novels the internal, subjective world of its characters is balanced (if
not checked) by the evidence of an objective, material world, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To the Lighthouse</i> the realm of wars and
cities and trains is all but effaced, overwhelmed, by the force and primacy of
the characters’ thoughts and impressions, that is, by the essential modernist problem
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seeing</i>. Writes Welty: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inside</i>, in this novel’s multiple,
time-affected view, is ever more boundless and more mysterious than Outside.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Part
of the brilliance and challenge of this novel is the way that the narrative
perspective switches without warning, often without the aid of conventional
cues, so that the reader is swept along on the turbid current of the various characters'
feelings. It is just one of the ways that Woolf blurs the boundaries of the
world we know (or thought we knew) in a manner that reminds me of those
traditional Japanese houses designed with moveable walls to create the illusion
that inside and outside are one. She strove, in writing this novel, and after
hours of tracking her own restless thoughts, to simulate the way an individual
actually thinks and sees, the way ‘reality’ itself is constructed—a billion
times a day—in the depths of every human brain. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKCwFqDFJQtyb16UTqoB8CYE7m98cAuxfNpn8aW02idvlDa8dnxAXeL_CiK2HeT5Y12rpJ2SIJugnHU5ufBm8oRLOstOS-ttrnofKbQ1ls7ZZvjl0AUb6_3qDsbeHA0uwWDp-bKNILDs/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="899" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKCwFqDFJQtyb16UTqoB8CYE7m98cAuxfNpn8aW02idvlDa8dnxAXeL_CiK2HeT5Y12rpJ2SIJugnHU5ufBm8oRLOstOS-ttrnofKbQ1ls7ZZvjl0AUb6_3qDsbeHA0uwWDp-bKNILDs/s640/3.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Peter
Adam Nash</span></div>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-alt:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 134217746 0 131231 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Cambria",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:14.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:14.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Garamond",serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Garamond;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Garamond;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7528059422473632736.post-78576035930761973642018-10-04T19:56:00.002-07:002018-10-04T19:56:26.779-07:00Cheer Up!<h2>
Good Books for Hard Times</h2>
<h3>
Aldous Huxley, <i>The Perennial Philosophy</i></h3>
<h3>
Hannah Arendt, <i>The Life of the Mind</i>, Volume I (Thinking)</h3>
<h3>
Lester J. Cappon (editor) <i>The Adams-Jefferson Letters </i></h3>
<h3>
Jim Crace, <i>Being Dead</i></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfXnTcJBLRouEmi0_cZuXr8flCLfIrQr15RT3nFbO-U02_qbbByGNoMNuOv5ic0Dd3iPPC-AkgaWTetiNlVfKn06iw1GXlvKj2U7ABBK9oD-2P4gV9fHa2gBsCTP1_wIqZ1aq5b83T_E/s1600/Hannah+Arendt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="830" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfXnTcJBLRouEmi0_cZuXr8flCLfIrQr15RT3nFbO-U02_qbbByGNoMNuOv5ic0Dd3iPPC-AkgaWTetiNlVfKn06iw1GXlvKj2U7ABBK9oD-2P4gV9fHa2gBsCTP1_wIqZ1aq5b83T_E/s400/Hannah+Arendt.jpg" width="288" /> </a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Don't despair. Soon it will all be over. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Meanwhile, here is a book for the soul, a book for the mind, one to feed your nostalgia for bygone days, and one to cheer you up--at least you're not a corpse. I've been reading or rereading these books lately--an antidote to the news. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I can't think of a better book to feed one's soul than Huxley's classic collection of quotations, with extensive commentary, from the world's spiritual literature. Published right after World War II, when, if anything, things were worse than they are now, Huxley's judicious anthology organizes the wisdom of the ages by topic from "That Thou Art" to "Contemplation." All of the great figures are here, from William Law and Thomas Trahane to St. Catherine of Siena. The best parts are those that Huxley writes himself, the links that make sense of the quotations, the reflections of a secular man on the world's religious traditions. Huxley, who saw so many things before anyone else (Soma! Mass Stupidity!), finds in the denominational squabbles of religion a great unifying message, the simple truth that if we will let down our guard we can find meaning in the world. Huxley makes palpable for those of us who are routinely secular a spiritual sensibility that is comforting and non-dogmatic. His own modesty and life-long search for truth, the courage he displayed in looking inward, make Huxley the perfect guide to a philosophy that transcends the turbulence of the moment. Way better than self-help or "mindfulness" [when there's an app for it, it's phony] is the wisdom of genuine seekers and mystics and thinkers. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiWauCtCXFXVmnypAbYBJhpF9DYpXK42DGPe9WhobiK4v4-HOV2QXZdXup951WmObgRTxFpR-O5wWtNdTpYOT7Ezvzyiy4YfROMPnFg7xkeG8zIqTmNC1Fes23Wu2uti7aevC4TI2lGfQ/s1600/250px-Aldous_Huxley_psychical_researcher.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiWauCtCXFXVmnypAbYBJhpF9DYpXK42DGPe9WhobiK4v4-HOV2QXZdXup951WmObgRTxFpR-O5wWtNdTpYOT7Ezvzyiy4YfROMPnFg7xkeG8zIqTmNC1Fes23Wu2uti7aevC4TI2lGfQ/s320/250px-Aldous_Huxley_psychical_researcher.png" width="236" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I have been reading Hannah Arendt steadily, with great pleasure, since the spring. Her prose is lucid (in her third or fifth language, depending on whether or not you count her Latin and Greek), her ideas stimulating, her boldness as a thinker deeply in contrast to the timidity typical of today's "thought leaders." The fact that she read everything and somehow worked into a view of the world that was intensely political while at the same time profoundly philosophical make Arendt the perfect antidote to the mendacious times in which we live. <u>The Life of the Mind</u> is my favorite of her books. It's informed by her studies with and of Heidegger, Jaspers, and others--Merleau-Ponty, Buber, Husserl--but also by her abiding interest in politics. Arendt's biographer, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, informs us that Arendt, though trained in philosophy, preferred thinking and writing about the<i> vita activa</i>. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Reading Arendt, enjoying her seriousness, the clarity of her thought, is like swimming in cool, clear water--revitalizing for the mind and the body. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCinih6vFd5ntXQqyYnYFyQ-7FTARdPc9kPL2Q9vH9v4e12QEWh1cSsKD0Vv6fOS8SA0m61F-hMuK3fRS-E8fw0e39g9g6jE9i8a2aevrbOXcj0gCFDfst7-bMX-sRzx1ZoxbWa8rIQ3c/s1600/John+Adams.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="1040" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCinih6vFd5ntXQqyYnYFyQ-7FTARdPc9kPL2Q9vH9v4e12QEWh1cSsKD0Vv6fOS8SA0m61F-hMuK3fRS-E8fw0e39g9g6jE9i8a2aevrbOXcj0gCFDfst7-bMX-sRzx1ZoxbWa8rIQ3c/s320/John+Adams.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Though they served on the committee of five that produced the Declaration of Independence and though both were patriots determined to sever America's ties with England, Adams and Jefferson were bitter political rivals for nearly two decades. After the War of 1812 they once again became colleagues (if not exactly friends: their temperaments were too different), and commenced a remarkable correspondence that ended only with their deaths, which famously occurred on the same day, July 4th, 1826. Adams was a prickly gentleman, prone to express his New England rectitude with a forcefulness that contrasted with Jefferson's more courtly manners. Adams was pro-British, a republican but not a democrat. Jefferson, the paradoxical radical and egalitarian, the slave owner who believed passionately in the rights of man, seemed to Adams to be a dangerous leveler, a tool of French extremism and an enemy of rational (that is, Federalist) politics. They attacked on another mercilessly; when Jefferson became Adams' Vice-President in 1796 he actively plotted an invasion of England with his French colleagues and founded, with James Madison, a newspaper whose specific purpose was the undermining of Federalist policies. Partisan politics! </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Yet, with their gradual reconciliation--traceable in these remarkable letters--one finds that the two men had more in common than they supposed, especially during the period after 1814 when America was nominally a one-party nation but, in fact, bitterly divided in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. While in the 1790's the two quarrelled over the writings of Thomas Paine, in the eighteen-teens they exchange notes on their readings in history, philosophy, and science in the spirit of retired college professors. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Listen to this: pious John Adams writing to Deist Thomas Jefferson (Nov. 4, 1816): <i>"We now have, it seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James's Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better to apply these pious Subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the Corruptions of Christianity than to propagate those Corruptions in Europe Asia, Africa, and America?"</i> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This thick volume, beautifully produced by The University of North Carolina Press, is full of such gems: "I cannot contemplate human Affairs, with laughing or crying. I choose to laugh. When people talk of the freedom of Writing Speaking, or Thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed." (John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 15, 1817). Reading these letters takes one back, not necessarily to a better time in our history, but to a time when <i>statesmen </i>existed, when enemies could correspond with a sense of common purpose, and when those who led the country actually knew something beyond the limits of their own egos. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTkGYdieb0HkXFBP5rDK2B9CcksNK3UJbXLHEbzVdXXr6iv0UzKbg21T-uOif7AlMRPTsM_DVIF-vQziK-F19PEmNnb5EeOQ9ICbSOtnHrNPUsVdIXILAdxnj4Y-Fxo36-RWZEO34dO4/s1600/Crace-Image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1200" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTkGYdieb0HkXFBP5rDK2B9CcksNK3UJbXLHEbzVdXXr6iv0UzKbg21T-uOif7AlMRPTsM_DVIF-vQziK-F19PEmNnb5EeOQ9ICbSOtnHrNPUsVdIXILAdxnj4Y-Fxo36-RWZEO34dO4/s320/Crace-Image.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
The English author Jim Crace writes poetic novels that aren't like anything else you've ever read. <u>The Gift of Stones</u>, set in the neolithic age, nonetheless manages to be a novel about storytelling and modernity. In <u>Quarantine</u>, Crace recasts the story of Jesus's time in the wilderness as a fable about how ordinary life can cross paths with the miraculous and not even blink. And that's what Crace does in <u>Being Dead</u> as well. Two corpses, husband and wife zoologists, occupy the center of this macabre but moving story of death and bereavement. Crace works the details of Joseph's and Celice's life into what is primarily a story about being a corpse, a feast for insects and worms. I've read over some of the more forensic scenes several times both to get the willies and also to appreciate Crace's mastery of tone and style. His descriptions of the murdered pair--a long-married couple who go off to have sex in the dunes and are murdered for no good reason--decaying in the sun over the course of an interminable week, are medieval in their intense evocation of our dewy flesh. That writing about something so disturbing could bring so much pleasure proves once again that style and technique and talent can make beauty from any subject, however unlikely.<br />
<br />
<br />
George Ovitt (10/3/2018)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
George Ovitt and Peter Adam Nashhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03540154982094119161noreply@blogger.com0