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Advanced Reading Survey: Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith

Oct18

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

Author Note:
George Meredith was an author with his own highly original style, more poetic than prosaic, and at times confusing and even obscure. (Oscar Wilde said of him, “Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning.”) He never attracted the general reader as did his contemporaries Dickens and Thackeray, and Diana of the Crossways, published in 1885, was his first novel to have great popular success. He became in his later years a respected poet and critic, at least respected by others in the field of literature.

Characters:
Diana Antonia Warwick–the heroine of the novel.
Emma Dunstane–Diana’s most intimate friend.
Mr. Redworth–Diana’s admirer and later, her husband.
Mr. Warwick–Diana’s estranged husband.
Mr. Percy Dacier–Diana’s admirer and friend.
Lord Dannisburgh–Diana’s friend.
Arthur Rhodes–a young poet, Diana’s admirer.

Quotations:
Diana: “The worst of a position like mine is that it causes me incessantly to think and talk of myself. I believe I think less than I talk, but the subject is growing stale.”

“Moral indignation is ever consolatory, for it plants us in the Judgement Seat. There, indeed, we may, sitting with the very Highest, forget our personal disappointments in dispensing reprobation for misconduct, however eminent the offenders.”

Diana: “What the world says is what the wind says.”

Perceiving the moisture in her look, Redworth understood that it was foolish to talk rationally.” (Yes, a male author could write such a thing back in 1886.)

She had come out of her dejectedness with a shrewder view of Dacier; equally painful, for it killed her romance and changed the garden of their companionship in imagination to a waste.

Emma: “Any menace of her precious liberty makes her prickly.”

Diana: “Expectations dupe us, not trust. The light of every soul burns upwards. Of course, most of them are candles in the wind. Let us allow for atmospheric disturbance.”

I think, if I am remembering correctly, the Austenites among us might enjoy Diana of the Crossways. It was published almost a century later than Ms. Austen’s novels were, but it has the same flavor of restrained courtship in polite society. However, if you decide to try it out, please do allow for atmospheric disturbance and for the lapses in memory that are attendant on my advanced years.

Advanced Reading Survey: The Importance of Living by Lin Yutang

Oct12

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

Author:
Lin Yutang, or Lin Yu-t’ang, was a Chinese American author born in China and educated in Christian schools there. He later moved to New York and still later to Singapore. He also moved from a childhood immersed in Christianity to a sort of joyful paganism and then back to a deep commitment to Christ and to the church. At the time that his most famous book of essays, The Importance of Living, was written (1937), Mr. Lin was in the happy Chinese pagan chapter of his life. He later wrote another book, From Pagan to Christian, in 1959 that detailed his return to Christianity and the reasons for it. Lin Yutang was a best-selling author, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times in the 1970’s. He is said to have been a writer who bridged Eastern and Western cultures. Oh, and he also invented and patented a Chinese typewriter.

Quotations:
“Somehow the human mind is forever elusive, uncatchable, and unpredictable and manages to wriggle out of mechanistic laws or a materialistic dialectic that crazy psychologists and unmarried economists are trying to impose upon him.”

“The world, I believe, is far too serious, and being far too serious, it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.”

“A plan that is sure to be carried out to its last detail already loses interest for me.”

“Somewhere in our adult life, our sentimental nature is killed, strangled, chilled, or atrophied by an unkind surrounding, largely through our own fault in neglecting to keep it alive or our failure to keep clear of such surroundings.”

“No one should aim at writing immortal poetry, one should learn the writing of poems merely as a way to record a meaningful moment, a personal mood, or to help the enjoyment of Nature.”

“Scholars who are worth anything at all never know what is called “a hard grind” or what “bitter study” means. They merely love books and read on because they cannot help themselves.”

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”

I really would like to re-read Mr. Lin’s essays on living a good and wise and simplified life. Maybe when I simplify my life . . .

Advanced Reading Survey: Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Oct5

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

Agamemnon is the first play in a trilogy of ancient Greek plays called The Oresteia., the only such trilogy out of the canon of Greek drama to survive to the present time. The Oresteia was originally performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens in 458 BC, where it won first prize. Aeschylus himself is is the oldest of the three great Greek dramatists, and of his eighty or more plays, seven survive.

Characters:
Agamemnon: King of Argos
Clytemnestra: wife of Agamemnon
Cassandra: daughter of (deceased) King Priam of Troy and now slave of Agamemnon
Aegistheus: son of Thyestes, cousin to Agamemnon
Watchman
Herald
Chorus of Argive Elders

Quotations:
Chorus: “Zeus–if to the Unknown
That name of many names seem good—
Zeus, upon Thee I call.

Agamemnon: Twixt woe and woe I dwell.

Chorus:
The show of weeping and of ruth
To the forlorn will all men pay,
But of the grief their eyes display,
Naught to the heart doth pierce its way.
And with the joyous they beguile
Their lips into a feign`ed smile,
And force a joy unfelt the while.

Chorus:
The slayer of today shall die tomorrow–
The wage of wrong is woe.
(For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23)

Agamemnon:
For few are they who have such inborn grace,
As to look up with love and envy not,
When stands another on the height of weal.

Clytemnestra:
Already we have reaped enough the harvest field of guilt:
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt.

Oh, but the blood-spilling is only continuing in Agamemnon; revenge must be taken. There is no “gift of God” to put an end to the cycle of an eye for an eye.

Advanced Reading Survey: Medea by Euripides

Sep28

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

Author: Euripides, one of the trio of great Greek dramatists which includes Sophocles and Aeschylus, lived during the fifth century BC. He wrote approximately ninety-two plays, of which nineteen are extant, but he only won four prizes in the great dramatic contests of the time, probably because of his somewhat unorthodox views. He was the first to reduce the importance of the chorus in his plays and to instead emphasize the study of character.

Characters:
Medea, a sorceress and wife of Jason.
Jason, the Argonaut who, with the help of Medea, won the Golden Fleece.
Creon, King of Corinth.
Chorus of Corinthian women.
Medea’s nurse.
Aegeus, King of Athens, Medea’s protector.
Messenger.

Quotations:
Attendant: “Art learning only now that every single man cares for himself more than for his neighbor, some from honest motives, others for mere gain’s sake?”

Creon: “A cunning woman, and man likewise, is easier to guard against when quick-tempered than when taciturn.”
(Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. ~Julius Caesar)

Medea: “Ah me! Ah me! to mortal man how dread a scourge is love!
Creon: “That, I deem, is according to the turn our fortunes take.”
(Love is a thing aye full of dread. ~Chaucer)

Messenger: “Not now for the first time, I think this human life is a shadow; yea, and without shrinking I will say that they amongst men who pretend to wisdom and expend deep thoughts on words do incur a serious charge of folly.”
(“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ~Macbeth)

Chorus: “Many a fate doth Zeus dispense, high on his Olympian throne: oft do the gods bring things to pass beyond man’s expectations; that which we thought would be is not fulfilled, while for the unlooked for, god finds out a way; and such hath been the issue of this matter.”
(“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.”
~All’s Well That Ends Well)

Either Shakespeare knew Euripides, or else the translator whose work I read was well steeped in Shakespeare —or these are just universal statements of truth.

Advanced Reading Survey: The Idiot by Feodor Dostoyevsky

Sep21

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

I’m posting my notes from my reading, 30 years ago, of The Idiot because Cindy just read it and wanted to discuss it with someone else who had read it. I can’t really discuss it with her, but Past-Me can give her thoughts and the quotations she chose to copy into my notebook. (Confusing pronouns!)

Author note:
Dostoyevsky was born the son of an army surgeon and educated as a military engineer. He chose, however, to become a writer, and his first novel, Poor Folk, made him famous almost overnight. While attending a political meeting, he was arrested by the Czarist police and condemned to death. The sentence was later commuted to four years exile in Siberia. He served his sentence and returned to Russia to write his most famous novels, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot.

Characters:
Prince Lyov Nickolayevitch Myshkin: a young epileptic recently returned from Switzerland.
Nastasya Filippovna: a fallen woman whom Myshkin wishes to redeem.
Parfyon Rogozhin: Natasya’s boyfriend and sometimes fiance.
General Ivan Fyorovitch Epanchin: a friend of Myshkin.
Princess Lizaveta Prokofyevna: Epanchin’s wife and a distant relation of Myshkin.
Alexandra, Adelaida, and Aglaia: the Epanchin daughters.
Gavril Ardlionovitch: a man who first to marry Nastasya, then later Aglaia.
many more characters . . .

Quotations:
“At moments he dreamed of the mountains, and especially one familiar spot he always liked to think of, a spot to which he had been fond of going and from which he used to look down on the village, on the waterfall gleaming like a white thread below, on the white clouds, and on the old ruined castle. Oh, how he longed to be there now, and to think of one thing! — . . . Let him be utterly forgotten here! Oh, that must be! It would have been better indeed if they had never known him, and if it had all been only a dream.” p. 330.

“It’s life that matters, nothing but life—the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself at all.” p. 375.

Oh, to have time to re-read some of the books that I read when I was a different person, twenty-one or twenty-two, unmarried, still dreaming and discovering in a twenty-something way. I’m sure I would see different things in the book and save different quotations this time around.

Cindy compares The Idiot to Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow. I don’t remember enough of The Idiot to add to that discussion, but here’s my post on Jayber Crow. I’m fairly sure that both Jayber Crow and Myshkin could be seen as Christ figures, sacrificing themselves and their own desires in love for another. And the quotation above about life being in the living of it and not in the end discovery sounds a lot like these words that I copied from Jayber Crow:

“Nearly everything that has happened to me has happened by surprise. All the important things have happened by surprise. And whatever has been happening usually has already happened before I have had time to expect it. The world doesn’t stop because you are in love or in mourning or in need of time to think. And so when I thought I was in my story or in charge of it, I really have been only on the edge of it, carried along. Is this because we are in an eternal story that is happening partly in time?”

Maybe Cindy’s on to something.

Advanced Reading Survey: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Aug4

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

Author note: Charlotte Bronte was the third of six children of a Yorkshire clergyman. Two of her sisters died while still in school, but Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell,, the remaining children, grew up together creating and writing down stories about fantasy lands called Angria and Gondal. Both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights grew out of these early flights of fancy and out of the Brontes’ experiences in school, as governesses, and as inhabitants of the beautiful but wild country of Yorkshire. Charlotte wrote under the pseudonym of Currer Bell to keep from public knowledge the fact that she was a woman.

Characters:
Jane Eyre: the eponymous orphan who tells her life story in the book.
Mrs. Reed: Jane’s aunt by marriage and her guardian.
Helen Burns: Jane’s friend at school.
Mr. Rochester: Jane’s employer
Adele: Jane’s pupil
Mrs. Fairfax: Mr. Rochester’s housekeeper

Quotations:
Helen:

“I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low; I live in calm, looking to the end.”

Jane:

“Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Mrs. Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.”

Conversation between Jane and Helen upon the occasion of Helen’s imminent death:

“But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?”
“I believe; I have faith; I am going to God.”
“Where is God? What is God?”
“My Maker and yours who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power and confide wholly in His goodness; I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me.”
“You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven and that our souls can get to it when we die?”
“I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend; I love Him; I believe He loves me.”

All the rest of the quotations are Jane’s voice:

“It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.”

“I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes . . . It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity; they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.”

“He could not bound all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest—in the limits of a single passion.”

“When I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation, that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down.”

“His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer; it was only elevated.”

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.”

Mature reflections:

I read the books for Advanced Reading Survey and chose these quotations to copy out about thirty years ago when I was twenty-one or twenty-two years old. Now from a fifty-one year old vantage point, I note several things.

Charlotte was rather fond of semicolons. She might like this blog were she still alive and writing.

I must have been thinking of some super-critical person like Mrs. Scatcherd, but I don’t remember who it was, if so.

From this distance, Helen looks rather priggish, but her statement of faith is moving and definitive anyway.

The last “laws and principles” quotation has come back to me many times in the midst of episodes of temptation. It’s so true. I need rules and laws for the times when everything inside me wants to break them, when I strain to justify my need for an exception to the rule. That’s when I need the standard to hold me accountable.

I’ve not re-read Jane Eyre in ages, but I tend to think it would hold up just fine.