*At the Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness -H.P. Lovecraft
Never in the entire novella did H.P. Lovecraft frighten me. The build-up was incredible, almost viral, and in the end, it was all. The monsters’ origins, their habitat, their sculpture, their history, their diet, economic glitches, decline and wars and they turn out not to even be the monsters, or at least can’t be blamed for acting monstrous, and in the remaining ten pages we are given a glimpse of the long-built-up “unspeakable terror” and it’s a giant blob resembling a subway car… Well… the imagination was pointed. The language was steeped.
“What we heard was not the fabulous note of any buried blasphemy of elder earth from whose supernal toughness an age-denied polar sun had evoked a monstrous response.”
Lovecraft obviously knows all the synonyms for scary.
But what I love most of him is his name. And second most, his writing. But his allegory never struck.
“Even the pictures illustrate only one or two phases of its endless variety, preternatural massiveness, and utterly alien exoticism. There were geometrical forms for which an Euclid would scarcely find a name—cones of all degrees of irregularity and truncation, terraces of every sort of provocative disproportion, shafts with odd bulbous enlargements, broken columns in curious groups, and five-pointed or five-ridged arrangements of mad grotesqueness.”

*Europeana

Europeana -Patrik Ourednik
At the end of Europeana Ourednik observes that, “memory is renewed wheras history removes the legitimacy of the living past by fixing it in time.” I say observes because hardly in this unique work could I say that Ourednik writes, yet, at the same time, his observations have such ringing aesthetic dignity to them that this is undoubtedly a work of art rather than a textbook or any other expository chuck at history. Ourednik has created a memorial rather than a museum, living in the flux of memory rather than the stronghold of history. His observations are so quick and poignant that they are more caustic than nauseating (MTV) and more unsettling than tedious (CNN). I compare him to television not because he resembles it, but because he comes close to what in television is possible yet rarely attained.
Ourednik attends detailed horrors and tongue-in-cheek sidebars with the same cool, glib composure, for example, “Above the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp was the sign EVERYONE GETS WHAT HE DESERVES.” A note that is read so quickly and so deeply ensconced in a two-page paragraph that it is almost glossed over. But it’s not. Rather than glossing over these thousand and one facts, it is the unpartisan details that gloss over the reader, showering us in horror and humor alike. The potency of the Buchenwald sign is given no precedence over, “And no one wanted to be poor anymore and everyone wanted to have a refrigerator and a cordless telephone and a dog and a cat and a tortoise and a vibrator and take part in sports and attend psychoanalysis.”
or,
“And young people looked toward the future and the wind ruffled the ears of corn and the sun rose on the horizon.”
And the book reads in about two maniacal hours.

*Gilead

Gilead -Marilynne Robinson
Gilead is like a circus tent that never opens its flaps. To enjoy the show you have to join the troupe. Robinson has eased her way into a language that doesn’t succeed in any translation or abridgement. You must join her circus, you must know how to juggle, or swallow fire, or funambulate to enter into this novel. You must move to the town of Gilead to understand what she is saying. You must listen to her like a mother.
Her best passages are not quotable.
To quote from this novel is to conjure.
She has built a house without a foundation and the result is more solid and skyscraping than any series of I-beams or cement crews could muster.
The tendentious motives of many great writers is to work within a book so that they may succeed in erupting out of the book, into the “real” world. The great writers want to achieve pertinence outside of their books. They want to matter, to tell us something about us. Robinson does not do that. This novel is self-contained. It matters only to itself, yet still resonates of the most pointed parable. Only in the middle, when Robinson shifts to blatant (though sensitive) theology, are we reminded that she falters, and then, and sadly, are there a few moments of redundancy, but so simple, and dry, they remind me more of annoyingly hot summer days than bad fiction.
There is a spark in Iowa.

*Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling -Soren Kerkegaard
It is important for Abraham to have never given up the finitude of wanting his son alive. This is the dialectical nature of faith, to not only believe in God, but to fear him, not only to believe in life after death, but to live in this life before death. It is absurd for God to have asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, but Abraham traveled three days journey to complete the act. It is absurd for God to then allow Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead of his son, but Abraham rejoiced. If he had not faith, the Joy at gaining a son, instead of having to kill him, would have been incomplete.
Problema One: Abraham’s action, that of meaning to kill his son, was not ethical, it was beyond ethics. The ethics were “teleologically suspended.” Kierkegaard carefully makes the distinction between the pagan (faithless) tragic hero, who suspends his own will for the upholding of a greater ethic and Abraham (the knight (father) of faith), who acts by a purely personal virtue. “He does it for God’s sake… and for his own sake in order to be able to produce the proof” of his faith, because that is what God demands of him. The tragic hero upholds a virtue outside of himself, and so for him we can weep, and laud. But the knight of faith goes beyond virtue, and, his action is absurd. For God is beyond our rationale. “When a person sets out on the tragic hero’s admittedly hard path there are many who could lend him advice; but he who walks the narrow path of faith no one can advise, no one understand.”
Probelma Two: Is there an absolute duty to God? The answer is in the koan-like aphorism: “the knight of faith is kept in constant tension.” Tension? What tension is there in perfect faith? Is not faith the opposite of tension, unsurety, of quavering? Is not faith the pillar holding man to God? What then is there of tension? The common quip to “build on rock” could be extrapolated to build on the deepest, hardest rock, deeper, still, all the way digging to the center of the earth, where the rock has become so adamant that it has turned to fire, which is the essence of rock. Flame. With faith the same. The essence of faith lies in its tension. Its question.
Problema Three: The story of Abraham extends far beyond a genre. Into the absurd. Kierkegaard asks if it was ethical for Abraham not to tell his wife, his servant, or his son what he was going to Moriah to do. It was neither ethical, nor unethical, because even if Abraham tried to explain or expiate himself, he could not. He spoke a language not of men, but of Faith. He spoke in tongues. “Aesthetics can well understand that I sacrifice myself, but not that I should sacrifice another for my own sake,” which is exactly what Abraham did. Yet, to put it lightly, it perturbed him. When Isaac asked where the lamb was, Abraham broke his silence and answered, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” He said this because he truly believed it. He had faith that either, as happened, a ram would replace his son, or, if he went through and killed his son God would restore him. This is not a self-sacrifice, or, in Kierkegaard’s words, “infinite resignation,” rather, it is faithfully and resolutely holding onto the self-employ, or self-will, that he doesn’t want to kill his son. The tragic hero would resign himself, sacrifice his will and murder his son for the “greater” good. Abraham, the knight of faith, does greater than “greater”, he maintains his will unto God. Proof of this is his clarity of acceptance of, first, the ram, and second and most importantly, his son. This is what hits me the most. In pure faith, he is filled with Joy not to have to sacrifice Isaac. This rejoicing is not a test of faith, it is not a result, but it is an indelible mark. If he had not perfect faith, there would be guilt, or doubt, or even, simply, hesitation. I don’t mean hesitation to lift the knife, which there obviously wasn’t… but the hesitation that there wasn’t to take back his son.
Kierkegaard maintains that “faith is the highest passion.” It is what each generation is born without and only a few of each generation achieve. Yet faith is only and the only stepping stone for something far greater. Love. Call it ascension. Christ ascended not in faith, not even because of faith, (though without it he would never even have been killed) but in love. He ascended not in passion, but only after passing all passion. Faith, simply, is not a shovel. It is not a tool at all. It is not the anvil or the hammer. It may be the blacksmith. (A blacksmith because a blacksmith is not useful, it is of no use to the gardener. You can’t dig with a blacksmith, but, nor can you dig without a blacksmith) And love, then, are the tools that the blacksmith makes. It is also every tool that he doesn’t make. And even every tool that he couldn’t make. (Imagine three-spaded shovels, hoes that do the hoing, scissors with ball and socket hinges) Love is the anvil and it is the bread that powers the blacksmith’s arm and the wine that he drinks with his wife. It is the fire and it is the bellows. It is the steel and it is the ingot and it is the mold. It is the coup de grace of the blacksmith’s sword. It is the death groan and the weeping widow and the orphaned child and the revolution and the lily in the field and this one mis-cropped wishing great things into metallurgy. Oh, Soul!

“I can swim in life, but for this mysterious floating I am too heavy.”
“and yet it is only the knight of faith who is happy, only he is heir apparent to the finite.”

*The Last Temptation of Christ

The Last Temptation of Christ -Nikos Kazantzakis
This book recalls to me a word that I once loved and have since semantically abandoned. Deed. The difference between deed, endeavor, and aesthetics. The endeavor of Kazantzakis is, exemplified by his bio and this opus, large. Though I’ve never seen a picture of the author, I imagine him looking very much like his artistic Judas, gargantuan, resolute, red-bearded (at least in essence), unwavering, fat-fingered, muscle-faithed, but still with a sensitivity-- a big man who can cry. The deed, then, of this man is the novel. Deed, however, not as a stamp, but as a vector. This vectordeed then is beautiful and human. The aesthetic, though I am addressing a translation, is where the opus stumbles. In theory The Last Temptation is beautiful. Christ and the Gospels supercede theory.
The Last Temptation begins before Jesus came out of the closet. He was a young carpenter/crossmaker, still living with his parent, plagued by dreams of angels and allusions of the greatest grandeur. He had memories of childhood love for Magdalene and reluctantly, very reluctantly, heeded his own coming of age. Gathering up the sons of Zebedee and tethering ardent-hearted Judas to a life of love was the adventure. For a few-hundred pages meandering through the Gospels. Ugly, half-shunned ex-publican Matthew was the most interesting character, staying up nights to scribble his prosody, all the other disciples scorning the writer. Not until we find nailed to the cross and hailing God, “Eloi, Eloi…” are we swooped into the aesthetic of Kazantzakis. The alternative end of Jesus, if he were to submit to his powers and descend from the cross, robust and vital, to couple with Magdalene and then live a life as a father, husband, a consummate man. Hunchbacked old Paul is the new thorn in his side, proclaiming, “I don’t need you anymore, Jesus,” the idea of crucifixion and rising again and ascension is enough for Paul to construct a church and a religion. But then staple-hearted Judas maunders by Jesus’ door and reminds him of the “sacrifice of the betrayal” and, soon enough, we are transported back to the moment of the cross, “… Lama Sabachtani!” the scream is complete, “It is finished.”
Three quotes from Magdalene:
“If you’re not hanging on to your mother’s apron strings, you’re hanging onto mine, or God’s.”
and my favorite: “It’s coming down in buckets, Jesus.”
“If you are a holy saint and a woman requests a kiss of you, descend from your sanctity in order to give it to her. Otherwise you cannot be saved.”
And then another gem:
“First came the wings and then the angel.”

*Wild Child

Wild Child -novella by T.C. Boyle included in McSweeney’s 19, along with “Color Plates” by Adam Golaski and “Prince of the World” by Christopher Howard
Encased in a cigarbox with mock AandH bomb tactical response pamphlets and old travel guides to Iraq, is a wonderful volume of literature. What’s unfortunate about modern popular literature is that our contemporary writers, apologies, have behaviorally evolved to, even while writing the most profound or plangent stories, can’t take their tongues out of their cheeks. And it’s so for both T.C. Boyle and Christopher Howard. Their topics are commendable, their diction honed, their metaphors whetted, but there is an inextricable element of postmodern smirk to them. Or is it ennui. For even the slightest glimmer of ennui is worse than determined depravity. The stories, along with the theme of the cigar box, are savage, frightening, and very pertinent to our post-nuclear, operation freedom world. I feel echoes of McCarthy. Echoes of Revelation. And I believe in God.
A man on the street asked me today, But have you surrendered to surrender? He was drunk, intelligent, Berkeley, talking to us about his thesis in calculus, what is the difference between an idea and a belief and he looked at me and said, John, are you racist? His name was Nick Armstong. And his mother and all of his sisters are very becoming women.
“The city awoke and arose. Fires were lit. Raw dough fell into hot oil, eggs cracked, pike lost their heads, civilization progressed.” from T.C. Boyle

*The Tempest

The Tempest -William Shakespeare, with introduction by Harold Bloom
Perplexing. Little direction. Seemingly misinspired. At no point did I ever doubt Prospero’s complete control, and, as there was no suspense, the “jokes” seemed to linger after said, or, even more eerily, present themselves before their just deliverance. My favorite parts were the original bickerings of the boatswain and Gonzalo and, later, the bickerings of Sebastian, Antonio and Gonzalo. As Bloom pointed out, Shakespeare created an unique creature with Caliban, which I agree with, but it felt such a shame that he had so little stage time, or was treated with such snub-nosing, even by Shakespeare himself. He, in fact, as much as claims airiness in this tale:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and out little life
Is rounded with a sleep…
… A turn or two I’ll walk,
To still my beating mind.”

This stout abjectedness hardly holds force to Miranda’s reaction to Prospero’s life story: “Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.”
So, enjoying the glimpse of Shakespeare, but, he never struck me in the heart. The “Anti-Faust”, though, is a idea worth contemplating.

*Two Years Before the Mast

Two Years Before the Mast -Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
A Harvard Classic from a Harvard graduate. Blown about by the torrential Southeaster. Lackadaisy, dropsical academia discarded for two years to become the regular “salt.” Much, as pointed out in the introduction, as Roosevelt left Yale for a few seasons to rough it as a cowhand in Wyoming. Dana’s prose is proper, yet still inspired, full of sailoreese, and an obvious precursor to Melville. I enjoyed it, a good little adventure, but didn’t finish it as it seemed not to course out of its regular, stormy direction.
The Philadelphia Catechism:
“Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh, holystone the decks and scrape the cable.”

*The Iliad

The Iliad -Homer (Robert Fagles Translation)
I really enjoyed this great and bloody tale by Homer. The translation was seething and alive. I hope I never forget the scintillating use of epithets in The Iliad. Bernard Knox explained in the very thorough and enlightening introduction that repetition and epithet and other literary devices were tools that Homer used to help “memorize” such a long story. Something like, Variations on a Theme. Which is an inspiring and freeing concept to an artist. This book, water-crinkled and ragged, accompanied me through an afternoon of storms at ten thousand feet on the snowy climes of Mt. Shasta. It accompanied me also closer to sea-level on stormy, desolate plateau of sadness and sickness. The diversions and details have survived many thousands of years to still horrify and delight. My favorite moment was perhaps when Achilles’ mother, Thetis, wanting to properly arm him for battle, coaxes the god of fire, Hephaestus, to forge an unheralded panoply for her son and Homer expounds the details of the brilliant shield for one hundred and forty some lines, describing castle scenes, wedding feasts, wars, young men in love, exceeding in form to the point that on the golden shield, where the harvesters plowed the field, “the earth churned black behind them, like earth churning / solid gold as it was.”
My first question is, why did Achilles initially give up Briseis? There is some understanding that he is under deep, honorable obligation to obey Agamemnon at any cost, even if it means hating him through the obeisance. But, as we see that Achilles rage is unquenchable even after his revenge is completely carried out (dragging Hector’s body behind his chariot for nine whole days), there is a sentiment that Achilles longed for more battle than was posed to him by fighting the Trojans. He needed more drama, and more war. And so he submitted to giving up Briseis and spent the entire war plotting to get her back and to pay back Agamemnon and then to revenge Patroclus and still, never, will his rage be sated. I wonder, then, where such “anxiety” comes from? Why will Agamemnon not accept as amends Helen from Paris and call of the war? The characters all lacking a God of peace. Lacking a ultimate reason, even on Earth, and battling, thus, to no foreseen end.
“Beware the toils of war… / the mesh of the huge dragnet sweeping up the world.”
“fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed blood.”
“the earth that feeds us all.”
“his face dark / as the sudden rushing night but he blazed on in bronze / and terrible fire broke from the gear that wrapped his body, / two spears in his fists. No one could fight him, stop him, / none but the gods as Hector hurled through the gates / and his eyes flashed fire. And whirling round he cried to his Trojans, shouting through the ruck, / ‘The wall, storm the wall!’”

“no one can ever slake / their thirst for blood, for the great leveler, war! / One can achieve his fill of all good things, / even of sleep, even of making love… / rapturous song and the beat and sway of dancing. / A man will yearn for his fill of all these joys / before his fill of war. But not these Trojans-- / no one can glut their lust for battle.”
“both claw-mad for battle.”

And one love scene:
“With that the son of Cronus caught his wife in his arms / and under them now the holy earth burst with fresh green grass, / crocus and hyacinth, clover soaked with dew, so thick and soft / it lifted their bodies off the hard, packed ground…”

“A man’s tongue is a glib and twisty thing.”