November 2020

A List: R. L. Stevenson--Kidnapped.........................................................................237/254

B List: Aldous Huxley--Brave New World................................................................353/511

C List: Carlyle--French Revolution...........................................................................366/727

Still three old warhorse western man books going at once--including 2 Scots!--which I guess is bad. I'll eventually get through this logjam. The Carlyle is holding me up. It's a valuable book to read, and parts of it are very vivid, though it assumes a pre-existing familiarity on the part of the reader with many of the historical figures that I at least do not have. It is also absurdly verbose and imagistic by the standards of a twenty-first century history book, so one cannot easily fly through it. 

As the years pass and the pressure grows to break out of the old literary ruts and pay attention to new or neglected voices representing rising peoples and sectors of society, Stevenson seems to be one of the more likely of the old western standbys to fall into the obscurity of being unread, if he has not already. His main talent as a writer as far as I can see is for conceiving plots and telling a yarn, and he is good at this, after an old-fashioned nineteenth century fashion that is congenial enough to me, who am on the whole a forgiving reader if an author displays any spark of excellence in his writing, but I don't see jaded, questioning 21st century readers finding much in him. Do such people even like yarns, or regard them as possessing cultural value?

There is a lot going on of course, but tonight is not a good night for me to tackle writing about it. It is 67 degrees here at the moment, very humid, today was a holiday, people are behaving somewhat wildly, I am already 5 days late on my monthly update. Best to get it up and write about these other issues, if they merit any treatment at more leisure later on.

I didn't take many pictures this month. I don't generally take a lot of pictures as a rule. Sometimes if I go somewhere new and want to put it in a post I'll take a few, but I didn't do anything like that this month. 

My children eating hot dogs in a parking lot in Wells, Maine. We went to the beach last Sunday because it was 70 degrees, but I didn't take any pictures because we go there all the time. That's my new car by the way, that I finally persuaded myself to indulge in.

I took this picture today (Veteran's Day) thinking it might be the last day of sitting on the porch this year, which I like to commemorate, as it supposed to cool off tonight and I doubt it will be warm enough to sit outside again until the spring, which is a long time away. After October 24th I was in for about two weeks and thought that would be it for the year, which would be normal, but then we have had this last week of unusually warm weather.

A fall picture from early October.

I don't know what look/persona I am even going for anymore. It seems like I should be able to pass as a normal person, but I can never quite pull it off.

This year more than ever I am seeing people opining on how so very stupid it is to change the clocks twice a year, naturally as if it is something everyone of any intelligence must think and understand themselves. I of course do not have any strong opinion of it, do not mind it, feel that it has been going on my entire life until now without people feeling the need to rail violently against it, and rather think it is probably good to have the sun rise a little earlier even if it gets dark unpleasantly early in the afternoon.  

John Maddison Morton--Box and Cox (1847)

This one act play--almost a skit, really--has to be one of the more obscure titles I am going to get to read on the IWE list. Back in the 80s when I first contemplated reading this list, and went to the trouble at least of beginning to collect many of the titles when I came across them cheaply at library book sales and the like, I never once saw a copy of this anywhere, in any anthology or collection, and in those times before the internet, I thought it would be a serious obstacle to my ability to complete the program if I were to try to undertake it. 30+ years on I have still never encountered this play in a "natural" setting, but I was able to find a printed copy from the "French's Minor Drama" series, which according to the internet dates from the later 1800s, but which is in such good condition that I have to believe it is from later than that. I will put up some pictures of it. 

As I say, considered as a work of literature, this is rather slight--the most ready comparison that comes to mind is the old play/movie/TV series The Odd Couple--though I can see the conception and some of the gags being funny on stage. The premise is that Box, who works the night shift, and Cox, who works the day shift, rent out the same room in a boarding house, but each without being aware of the other's existence, while the landlady double dips on the rent. Among other things, this suggests that both Box and Cox work seven days a week and never have a day off, but I get that such nit-picking misses the point of the comedy. I didn't mind reading it--it is interesting to me as a period piece, especially in its contrast to the rather grander and much more elaborate literature we are accustomed to reading from England in this time period--and it has moments of being humorous, though a lot of it is goofy, and there are numerous stretches where the dialogue runs like this:

Box: Now then, sir!

Cox: I'm ready, sir! (They seat themselves at opposite ends of the table.) Will you lead off, sir?

Box: As you please, sir. The lowest throw, of course, wins Penelope Ann?

Cox: Of course, sir.

Box: Very well, sir!

Cox: Very well, sir!

Box: (Rattling dice and throwing.) Sixes!

Cox: That's not a bad throw of yours, sir. (Rattling dice--throws.) Sixes!

Box: That's a pretty good throw of yours, sir. (Throws.) Sixes!

Cox: (Throws.) Sixes!

Box: Sixes!

Cox: Sixes!

Box: Sixes!

Cox: Sixes!

Box: Those are not bad dice of yours, sir.

Cox: Yours seem pretty good ones, sir.

Box: Suppose we change?

Cox: Very well sir. (They change dice.)

Box: (Throwing) Sixes!

Cox: Sixes!

Box: Sixes!

Cox: Sixes!

Perhaps you get the idea. 

The IWE introduction has this to say about it:

"Chiefly, this farce deserves its immortality (?) because it is a classic idea. It is not, however, merely a dramatic idea. Lodging houses in industrial cities--in the U.S., notably Pittsburgh (?)--used to rent rooms in sleeping shifts, two or three each twenty-four hours, when the steel mills were busy. The idea made a musical show for Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1867; there the title was Cox and Box. The librettist was not Gilbert but Francis Burnand. It is very short and is usually produced in a double bill with a short Gilbert and Sullivan operetta."

John Maddison Morton lived from 1811-1891. He was English, and hailed from Pangbourne in Berkshire, near Reading. In his heyday he was a pretty successful playwright. Box and Cox earned him 7,000 pounds according to Wikipedia, which also notes that the New York Times in 1891 called the play "the best farce of the nineteenth century", which however would seem to say more about the comparatively moribund state of the English theater in the 19th century than anything else. He is revived very rarely in our day by major professional companies.

I've dragged out this review about as long as I can. You can read the entire play in about half an hour, if you want, and if you have any interest in this type of literature it is probably worth the time, even if just as a brief escape from election news and all of the other contemporary political and social problems. 

The BS Challenge

1. Supernatural (Season 10, Episode 24 "Brother's Keeper, TV--2015............................2,476

2. Stefan Zweig--The World of Yesterday.............................................................................466

3. Brothers and Sisters (Season 5, Episode 9 "Get a Room", TV--2010..............................419

4. William Faulkner--Light in August..................................................................................359

5. Room Service (movie-1938)...............................................................................................69

6. Gilbert & Sullivan--The Yeoman of the Guard (opera)......................................................21

7. Walshin & Leal--Rhode Island Recipes...............................................................................9

8. Andrew Goliszek--In the Name of Science..........................................................................8

9. Stan Cox--The Green New Deal and Beyond......................................................................8

10. Francis W. Shepardson--Beta Lore....................................................................................1

11. John Maddison Morton--Comediettas and Farces............................................................0

12. Walter Hamilton--Parodies................................................................................................0

A small field for a small book whose words do not produce a wealth of other associations. 

I like how Box has his gridiron here.

1st Round

The top four seeds receive byes.

#12 Hamilton over #5 Room Service

#11 Morton over #6 Gilbert & Sullivan

#10 Shepardson over #7 Walshin & Leal

#9 Cox over #8 Goliszek

Cox is 500 pages shorter. 

Quarterfinals

#12 Hamilton over #1 Supernatural

#2 Zweig over #11 Morton

Zweig has seen a big revival of his once dormant popularity among the serious reading public in the last few years, as evidenced by the large number of reviews for this book, even outpointing a major Faulkner novel in the seedings. In theory I should go with Morton here because according to my system he is an IWE author in an early round game, and Zweig is not. However, this particular Morton title is a photocopied and bound volume of a book printed in 1886 and out of print since then, and I am rather interested in not passing up the chance to read the Zweig book, or at least have it compete deep into the tournament.

#10 Shepardson over #3 Brothers and Sisters

#4 Faulkner over #9 Cox

Final Four

#2 Zweig over #12 Hamilton

#4 Faulkner over #10 Shepardson

Two routs against books which didn't belong in the Final Four

Championship

#2 Zweig over #4 Faulkner

In addition to Zweig being about 170 pages shorter, I thought it likelier that this Faulkner book, which despite being famous does not appear to have made it onto either of my other lists, would qualify for the tournament again, where it would always stand a decent chance of winning depending on the field. The World of Yesterday has made inroads among a contemporary English-speaking, largely male audience somewhat given to Europhilia and nostalgia, which, even though I could be said to be part of this crowd, is also a reason, perhaps the only reason, that I am a little wary of it. But I am sure I will like it. 

Moliere--The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670)

Periodically in these reviews, I feel the need to revisit the question (mainly to demonstrate that I am aware that it exists) of why I should bother to write a commentary on these works of literature that are already so well known and expertly explained by the greatest and most interesting minds spanning many centuries. Of course I am not really trying to explain anything to anybody, if I ever was doing that, other than my own experience of this as a kind of pilgrimage, and the particular landscapes, or countries, or ages, through which it passes, and the impressions, fleeting thoughts, or even crossing of paths with the occasional fellow traveler I encounter there. It is a class of narrative I have always been fond of and I thought it at least possible that the cumulative effect of noting my reactions and how they intersected with what was going on in my mind over a long period might add up to something of interest. 

Coming to this especially evoked that feeling of having arrived via some fog-shrouded forest path in a remote and strange, if somewhat jolly old hall, perhaps a somewhat more modest version of the castle of Chambord, where the play had its debut before King Lewis XIV to cap off a day of hunting, the entire theatrical company and its sets, costumes, musical instruments, etc, having been brought down on a four day's journey from Paris at great expense. This great cultural epoch of later monarchial France has, I feel, grown especially far away from me in these last years. While it never occupied a central place in my studies or the formation of my worldview, I did have in my youth some basic familiarity with the art and philosophy and history and architecture of that age, but then for many years it seems I did not follow up much on this foundation and I got rather old. But there is considerable charm in revisiting its literature, especially in contrast with the unrelentingly dark and despairing art of our present age, and for most of the entertainment I found it highly pleasing to be back among such spirits.

The I.W.E. introduction contains nothing I find to be of interest so I am skipping over it. 

Act I (p.329) The Music Master: "But you can't live on applause; praise alone won't pay the rent...the best hand people can give us is a hand with cash in it."

Act III (pps. 352-3) Nicole: "I've also heard, madame, that to top it off he took on a philosophy teacher today." M. Jourdain: "Quite right. I want to sharpen my wits, and be able to discuss things among intelligent people." Mme Jourdain: "One of these days you'll be going to school to get yourself whipped, at your age." M. Jourdain: "Why not? I wish to heaven I could be whipped now, in front of everybody, if I could know what one learns in school." 

This sounds eerily like me doing this blog. 

Chambord Castle, where the Bourgeois Gentleman had its debut. When I was searching online for a picture, I was startled that one of the first images to come up was of my old French teacher in Boston from the early 2000s, who has since returned to France, posing in front of the chateau. That had not happened to me before.

I read this in the 1957 Modern Library edition of Eight Plays by Moliere which should be pictured somewhere in here. Readers in the more egalitarian, culturally striving 1950s and 60s found this more personally offensive. The brief introduction for what they translate as The Would-Be Gentleman observes (and then engages in wild-eyed speculation) that: 

"Citizens of a different world, a different time, are likely to feel a certain sour aftertaste on reading the play. The immense mockery of the Bourgeois, whose only offense is that he wants to be a gentleman, seems to us, who are not gentlemen either, excessive, even repellent. Monsieur Jourdain's desire for instruction, for excellence, is admirable rather than ridiculous. We note that the representative of the nobility is a thoroughgoing scoundrel, who belongs in jail and not the king's suite. We sympathize with Madame Jourdain's candor and with Cleante's manly statement of his pride in the bourgeois tradition. Are such reactions due merely to the changed social situation, or did Moliere consciously hint at social criticism? The spectator of the play had no time for such reflections; the reader has a right to say that Moliere's words have taken on a new meaning which he could not have intended. Perhaps; but I think Moliere knew what he was saying."

Sadly, the play is much more socially relevant again today with regard to education, marriage prospects, and so on, which have become more widely segregated by social status again, as well as I suppose great talent in isolated instances. 

Monsieur Jourdain is in the pantheon of iconic characters of the post-Renaissance European theater. I am more sure of this having actually read the play, it is something one feels when the character is before you. He is so thoroughly ridiculous, and so thoroughly earnest and determined in his ridiculousness, that he achieves a singularity of person that goes beyond mere type and makes him inimitable. The play doesn't achieve immortality, I don't think, without this quality. His anger at his parents for not educating him properly, his middle-aged self hatred, his inability to accept himself, his idolatry of his social betters, is genuinely humorous, but in that way that is ultimately heartbreaking at the same time, which is why it has been able to have the effect that it does have and would appear on a surface description to be lacking.  

Act III (p. 363) "I display for a certain person all the ardor and affection conceivable. I love only her in all the world; I have her alone in my thought; she has all my devotion, all my desires, all my joy; I speak only of her, I think only of her, I dream only of her, I breathe only for her, my heart exists only for her..." Cleonte's over the top expression of his love is a fine example of concise theatrical presentation. 

p. 372--Monsieur Jourdain, in response to his wife's intelligent plea on Cleonte's behalf: "Those views reveal a mean and petty mind, that wants to remain forever in its base condition." 

Act IV (p. 378) Dorante (M. Jourdain's noble friend), at the expensive dinner Monsieur has given: "...the wine with a velvet bouquet, somewhat young and saucy, but not to the point of impudence..." "Impudence" lol. 

Madame Jourdain is funny.

Each act in the original performance ended with a song and dance number which one obviously misses in reading. 

The ending does not really work (can you even do it in a performance anymore?--M. Jourdain's friends play at being "Turks" and bestow on him the title of "Mamamouchi"). Mostly it just isn't funny, it goes on too long and in general is not in line with the rest of the play, which is rather pointed and witty.

 

Challenge Time

1. Margaret Atwood--The Testaments...........................................................................11,627

2. Chinua Achebe--Things Fall Apart.............................................................................3,118

3. I Love Lucy (TV Show)...............................................................................................2,157

4. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (movie-1953)....................................................................1,148

5. The Great Dictator (movie-1940)..................................................................................900

6. Julia Quinn--An Offer From a Gentleman.....................................................................596

7. Mary Shelley--The Last Man.........................................................................................240

8. Viviana Durante--Ballet: The Definitive Illustrated Story.............................................217

9. Sandra Ingerman--The Book of Ceremony.....................................................................201

10. Moliere (movie--2007).................................................................................................166

11. Dorothy Dunnett--The Unicorn Hunt.............................................................................72

12. G. K. Chesterton--Charles Dickens................................................................................18

13. New Order--"Ceremony" (song--1987)...........................................................................16

14. Hesiod--The Homeric Hymns..........................................................................................11

15. Marilyn Manson--"The Fight Song" (song--2001).........................................................10

16. Christopher Durang--The Marriage of Bette and Boo......................................................8

1st Round

#1 Atwood over #16 Durang

Durang is a "troubled marriage" play from 1973, and even though those types of works tend not to have aged well, I was tempted to take it over the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. However I have kind of made it a rule for the time being to stick with powerhouse authors and overwhelming favorites, especially in the first round, where no mitigating circumstances intervene.

#2 Achebe over #15 Manson

This is quite a matchup. I tried watching the video for this Marilyn Manson song. It's really not my kind of thing.

#14 Hesiod over #3 I Love Lucy

Speaking of stellar matchups.

#4 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes over #13 New Order

While New Order is, or at least was at one time, more in my line of musical taste, this particular song does not do much for me either.

#12 Chesterton over #5 The Great Dictator

I do like that I have a couple of classic movies that I haven't actually seen before to add to that list.

#6 Quinn over #11 Dunnett

In the battle of the genre books, Quinn is shorter.

#7 Shelley over #10 Moliere

#9 Ingerman over #8 Durante

Ingerman wins on length and for appearing to be a more conventionally readable book. Viviana Durante is a well-known real Italian ballerina however, and a lovely specimen of an artistic European person for us, so she merits a picture, as long as it stays up.

Quarterfinals

#1 Atwood over #14 Hesiod

This is another shaky win for Atwood in an unconventional matchup where I am not sure of the form of the Hesiod book and whether I would get anything out of trying to read it.

#2 Achebe over #12 Chesterton

A good matchup here. I would like to get to both of these authors someday. Achebe is probably more essential in contemporary literary culture, especially the mainstream of it.

#9 Ingerman over #4 Gentleman Prefer Blondes

#7 Shelley over #6 Quinn

A pretty strong final four.

Semifinals

#9 Ingerman over #1 Atwood

Ingerman benefited from favorable opponents to get to this point, but her book is just the right length and level of seriousness to take out a #1 seed I was looking for an excuse to defeat

#7 Shelley over #2 Achebe

Everything was set up for Achebe to break through and win the tournament, but going up against another well-regarded book with an upset factor spelled doom in the semifinal game.

Championship

#7 Shelley over #9 Ingerman