Reading Paradise

As I have noted many times before, one of the best definitions of a Great Book is that it is a book you can reread many many times and always find something new.  (I think the origin of that definition is Adler and van Doren.)  I have reread many Great Books, and always do enjoy that fact about them.  But, I recently finished a Great Book that I have read 3 or 4 times before, and this time, not only did I discover something new, but the book suddenly seemed so immensely better that my new love of it makes my old love of it look like a trifling infatuation.  And, I used to think the book was unbelievably amazing.

Dante’s Paradiso has vaulted to the top in answer to the question, “What’s your favorite part of The Divine Comedy?”  I was reading it over Christmas (I finished it on Boxing Day—a holiday with a better Name than Traditions—does anyone actually celebrate Boxing Day anymore?), and for the first time in my life, I almost immediately started rereading a book I just finished.  (I refrained—other books called.)  But for the last three weeks, I have still been constantly tempted to reread it.  I am quite serious when I say that I used to love Paradiso—I love the whole Divine Comedy—it’s easily one of the greatest of the Great Books.  But, suddenly  Paradiso seems like the crowning jewel of the magnificent trilogy.

Why the newfound appreciation?  This was the first time I have ever read the book as a stand-alone book instead of at the end of reading the whole Comedy.  I had noticed before how the third part of the trilogy is quite different than the two preceding parts.  In Hell and Purgatory, Dante has long discussions about the lives of the people he meets.  In Paradise, the discussions change, becoming vastly more theological and philosophical.  This is fitting in the Dantean scheme of things.  While in Hell and Purgatory, the souls are naturally enough obsessed with their own lives.  In Heaven, however, the individual lives are not nearly as important as God.  So the discussions move from a backward look to an eternal perspective.  Very clever of Dante (assuming he just made it all up—if his trip was real, then I guess we have to say it was clever of God.) 

Now noting this and appreciating it turn out to be different things.  When reading the Comedy through, I always found Paradiso to be the slowest part—conceptually brilliant, but not as riveting on a canto-by-canto basis.  But, now I realize that it only had that impression because after the long journey through Hell and the quicker trip through Purgatory, I entered Heaven with a natural expectation of more of the same. And so, I (the Reader) started looking at the levels, trying to focus on what differentiates each level, thinking about the individuals and where they are placed, imagining a gradual ascent toward perfection at the Summit of Heaven.  And I thereby fell into exactly the trap which Dante had set for a reader like me.

Reading the book as a stand-alone book, suddenly the structure of the whole book came into focus.  It is not a journey through levels of souls; it is a journey through levels of theology.  It is an extended discussion of God, with each level representing the next step in the gradual revelation of the overwhelming and awe-inspiring vision of God.  For the first time, on reaching Heaven, I was overwhelmed not with satisfaction that the journey had finally ended but rather with Awe and Devotion.  This is easily the best devotional I can imagine—and I am simply stunned that I never noticed this before.  As Dante would put it:

I now see clearly that our intellect
cannot be satisfied until the truth enlighten it
beyond whose boundary no further truth extends. 

Indeed, it is the first time the following was quite literally true:

Merely consider, reader, if what I here begin

Went on no farther, how keen would be

Your anguished craving to know more.

Anguished craving indeed.

If you have never read The Divine Comedy, then by all means you should do so (in order, if it is your first (or second, I suppose) time).  (The Hollanders’ translation—don’t even think about reading any other translation.)  And if you have read The Divine Comedy multiple times, then read Paradiso alone.

In yet another sign that I have the best job in the world, the impetus to read Paradiso came from a student who was writing a senior thesis on it.  It was fun talking to her about her thesis, so I figured on the off-chance that she ever actually sends me a copy of it (yes, Hannah, that is meant to encourage you to do so…), it would be good to have the book fresh in my mind.  Little did I know that my experience would be so breath-taking.  I have had a few experience like that—reading a Great Book just to enhance my enjoyment of a senior thesis (Our Mutual Friend still takes the prize as the longest book I read purely for a student (it was also the first of Mallory’s string of perfect book recommendations.))  Like I said, I have a Great Job.

A passion for hunting something

For the first time in the last two weeks, I actually have nothing pressing to do right now (well, other than answer the e-mail in my Inbox (which I probably should be doing right now instead of writing this (but, I am afraid that an e-mail response right now would end up being nothing other than a long series of parenthetical asides since I seem to be having a hard time sticking to the subject (then again, since I just started writing, I guess there isn’t really a subject yet from which to digress)))).  So, it seemed like an opportune time to get to a book review, since there is now a growing stack of books waiting to be reviewed right here next to my computer.

And so, a review of my favorite Christmas Gift:

Lee Bermejo, Batman: Noel 

Janet bought this for me.  She actually went into a bookstore and walked into the comic book section just to buy me a gift.  I have no idea how she gathered up the courage to do so.  And then, faced with an array of comic books, she chose this one.  I am very happy to report: she chose wisely.  An utterly wonderful comic book.

The book is remarkably clever, actually.  There are two levels to it.  At one level, it is Charles Dickens’ son retelling A Christmas Carol.  The son acts as a narrator, relating the story as he heard it from his father.  The son adds in a wealth of asides, noting where the story makes sense or not, editorializing along the way, adding notes about the characters.  If you just read the narrator, it would be an interesting take on the story of Scrooge.  But, since this is a comic book, there are pictures throughout.  And the pictures are a story of Batman.  If you ignore the narrator, you’d get a standard Batman story.  Overlay the two, and it is one of the most creative comic books I have read.  Combing the narrator and the comic book story, we get Batman as Scrooge, meeting the four ghosts, and finding redemption in the end.  And until the book cheats on the very last page, it does a fantastic job keeping the narrator and the Batman story independent entities which feed into each other but are never blurred.  (The last page blurs that line when the narrator morphs into a character in the story—it showed a serious lack of conviction by the author—he’s just pulled off a clever feat an then he feels the need to get cute which lessens the achievement.  It makes one want to shake the author and tell him to have more courage.)

In terms of thinking about Batman, who is probably the most psychologically interesting canonical superhero (indeed, it’s hard to think of who even rivals him for that title), the book does a great job at blending the fun-loving Batman of the 60s (think Adam West) with the dark Batman of the 90s (think Frank Miller) by painting the transition as similar to the difference between Scrooge’s youthful self and his older self.  By the time we get to the hardened Batman, we find someone willing to sacrifice an innocent life to pursue the Joker.  It’s easy to imagine Batman reaching that point.  And then it’s an interesting exercise to imagine how Batman might awaken from this darker self to recover his purer incarnation.

The book has now become a new Christmas staple.  It’s nice to think that I have a Batman story to look forward to rereading ever December.

Ghost to the Post

It’s New Year’s Eve and there is only one event heralding the onset of the New Year about which I care.  New Year’s Eve itself is a very minor holiday in the Hartley Household.  We celebrate it by doing absolutely nothing.  New Year’s Day is a slightly less minor holiday.  But this year, New Year’s Day is on a Sunday, so that means NFL instead of College Bowl Games.  And this year, week 17 of the NFL season has the Raiders playing for a playoff spot.  That is the only thing happening in the next two days which interests me in the least.  And it interests me a great deal.

So, by tomorrow evening, I will either be elated or depressed.  (Don’t ask why the Raiders are the one thing in my life which generates immense emotional reaction—I have no idea.)  So, I figured I had better use today to review a book I recently read.  If things go horribly wrong tomorrow, it will be a long time before I will have the strength to write about the Raiders. 

And so, in the wake of the death of Al Davis and the periodic displays of talent the Raiders showed this year, I read Peter Richmond’s new book about the Raiders of the 1970s.  These were the Raiders I started watching when I was young.  These were the Raiders who won and won and won.  Faced with a game like tomorrow, these Raiders would win it.  No doubt about it.  The subtitle of Richmond’s book summarizes its contents nicely:  The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden’s Oakland Raiders.  In it, I could relive the Glory Days.

So how is the book?  Well, I mentioned it a month or so ago in passing.  The prose made my brain hurt.  Truly hurt.  It was sheer torture to read.  If it was about anything other than the Raiders, there is no way I would have made it through.  But, the Raiders are always worth my time.  I read endless newspaper articles about the Raiders written in similarly insipid prose.  But, reading horrid prose for page after page taxed me.  If you do not bleed Silver and Black, don’t even think about reading this book.

If you love all things Raiders (as you should), however, is the book worth it?  I don’t know.   There were some interesting tales here.  But, the gist of  most of this material is also in the autobiographies of Madden, Stabler and Tatum which I have read before.  (I’ve never read Tooz’s autobiography.  I am not sure why.) 

What this book did do is remind me of how much football has changed in the years I have been watching  it.  The game was much simpler back then.  (This is largely why Art Shell was such an underachiever as a coach—he never really figured out that the game had changed since he was a (truly great) player.  It was impossible to read this book and not have a sense of longing for the day when the Raiders were the biggest, baddest bullies on the block.  If they can recover even a bit of that swagger, they will be awesome to behold.  Awesome.

Here’s hoping the New Year brings the Playoffs!

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

The end of the year is a time traditionally associated with reflecting on the past 350+ days and making resolutions for the next 100 days.  (Yeah, I know everyone pretends they are making resolutions for the whole year, but when was the last time you heard someone in November saying, “I really have to do this in order to meet a promise I made to myself 11 months ago”?)

So, taking these matters in order:

1. Reflections

This last year was pretty much the same as the 18 years which preceded it.  Honestly, I suspect next year will be much the same.  I am fine with this.  While reading Mencken’s “On Being an American” last night, I realized how much my sense of well-being is akin to his.  (This shouldn’t really have surprised me—I have had his picture on my office wall since I started working at Mount Holyoke; it’s just been so long since I regularly read Mencken, that I seem to have forgotten how much I enjoy him.)  He writes:

To be happy (reducing the thing to its elements) I must be:

a.  Well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion.

b.  Full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of my fellow-men.

c.  Delicately and unceasingly amused according to my taste.

It’s item c) on that list which made me chuckle at self-realization.  While the external circumstances of my life are remarkably unremarkable, I am unceasingly amused at the world around me.

I do live my life vicariously in books, to be sure.  So, for an exciting tale about the last year, I would refer you to Hunter S. Thompson’s The Curse of Lono.  If you have never read Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then don’t even think about reading this book.  Read the account of his trip to Las Vegas first.  It’s funny, irreverent and quite memorable.  Indeed, I found On the Road dull because I had read Thompson first, and Thompson does a much, much better Kerouac than Kerouac did.  But, if you have read the Las Vegas book, and you want more Thompson, then a) unfortunately I haven’t read anything of his that is nearly as good as that book, but b) there are three other books you might enjoy.

            1) Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail  This is an attempt to mix the drug-addled Las Vegas trip with coverage of a Presidential campaign.  It sort of works.

            2) Hell’s Angels  This is a surprisingly good book if you want to know about a motorcycle gang.

            3) The Curse for Lono.  I just read this a few weeks back.  Of these three books, it is far and away the closest thing to the Las Vegas book.  It’s actually pretty good, so I am surprised that I have never heard of it.  I found it at a library book sale.  No deep plot here, no shocking insight into human nature, but a very clever ending and a tale well-told.  Somewhere buried under all this story is presumably a true story about Thompson being sent to Hawaii to cover a marathon, but I suspect the true story is nothing like the story in the book.  (And if the true story is exactly like that in the book, then I think I’d rather not know.)  Thompson reminds me of Johnny Depp playing Captain Jack Sparrow—it’s all just so over the top, it’s amusing.  But, sometimes, both Depp and Thompson end up seeming more like impersonations of themselves playing the roles which made them famous than simply themselves playing the roles which made them famous.  When the illusion is lost, then the work seems a bit flat.  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the original Pirates of the Caribbean are thus perfect.  In the sequels to both, the illusion gets punctured every now and then.

It just occurred to me that Depp played Thompson in the movie version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  I’ve never seen that movie—the book strikes me as one of those things that can only be desecrated in transferring it to film.  But, I am now wondering whether the connection made in the last paragraph is because I subconsciously had already connected Depp and Thompson because of the movie or whether it is just a sign that Depp was obviously the perfect person to play Thompson in a movie.

2. Resolutions

I hereby resolve to read a lot of books in 2012.

What’s on my reading list?  Too many things to count, I suppose.  But, I do have a new long-term goal.  Last week, Janet was talking with my mother and her husband (who were visiting for Christmas) about their bucket lists.  (That phrase strikes me as annoyingly idiotic, by the way, but alas, I can’t figure out a way to stop it from becoming a part of American English.)  I realized while they were talking (mostly about trips to far off lands) that one thing I would really regret not having done before I die is reading all of Plato.  So, I’ve just added the Collected Works of Plato to my reading list.  I didn’t tell the participants in the discussion this was my new goal—they all would have just stared at me in disbelief before Janet uttered some remark about the how absurd it is that this would be my goal.  Sadly, I have little doubt that just about everyone else would agree that when comparing “Take a trip to China" and “Read the collected works of Plato,” it is only the former which is a socially acceptable thing to which to aspire.

Annual Christmas Letter, 2011

            Your Humble Narrator is in a Quandary, which In and Of Itself would not be a particularly Novel (let alone Noteworthy) event were it not for the Remarkably Rare (if not Unique) fact that the Quandary aforementioned is not, as The Patient Reader Might Assume, the result of Your Humble Narrator’s Grammatical Style or any other Cause Originating in the Action of Your Humble Narrator, but rather the Quandary which is under discussion in this sentence (and yes, this is still the same sentence as the Patient, yet Diligent Reader (a small, yet not non-existent set of Temporal Beings)) is due to Causes Outside the Control of Your Humble Narrator, which (again) would be neither Noteworthy nor Novel were it not for the Further Quite Disturbing Fact that the Quandary originates in an Alteration in Cultural Norms of the Society Writ Large in which said Society has seemingly abandoned a Tradition Long-Standing, which has required Your Humble Narrator to simultaneously Bemoan the End of Tradition (that Noble and Praiseworthy cultural artifact) and to abandon the very long-standing Practice which gave Birth to Your Humble Narrator in the First Place.

            The Quandary in question (and, yes, the present sentence properly belongs in the last paragraph, but since many of the Patient Readers are not as patient as would be required by Your Humble Narrator’s sentence structure, the present sentence was moved to the following paragraph in order to give the appearance that this Epistle is something other than a single run-on sentence) results from an Event Apocalyptic.  The Christmas Card has Died.  Your Humble narrator has noticed the Death Throes of this Ancient Tradition for many years, but in this, the Year of Our Lord 2011, it is Official.  Christmas Card, RIP. 

           The evidence of the Death is Overwhelming.  In addition to the fact that none of the Christmas Cards received in the Hartley Household this year actually had a pulse, the Hartley Household has received less than a mere half-dozen such cards.  Your Humble Narrator is not surprised by this dearth of Christmas Cards received:  no member of the Hartley Household seems particularly keen on sending Christmas Cards this year either.  And, lest the Patient Reader assume this is merely Proof by Anecdote, the Wall Street Journal, that arbiter of all News which is Newsworthy, contained a lengthy article on the demise of the Christmas Cards and the hardship this is causing companies which had heretofore relied on massive sales of such items.

            Now the Death of the Christmas Card is not normally the sort of thing one associates with the Form Letters traditionally inserted into Said Cards which give details about the lives of the Family Unit sending out Such Cards.  In Your Humble Narrator’s Case, however, the Death of the Christmas Card is an event most ominous because, as hinted at above, Your Humble Narrator exists only in the Christmas Card.  Thus arises the existential question:  if there are no Christmas Cards does Your Humble Narrator Cease to Exist?  Yet, Your Humble Narrator Thinks (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and thus Is.  So when Essence precedes Being can Being continue to exist when Essence is destroyed by the vagaries of culture?  On such matters Your Humble Narrator will ponder throughout the season,

            But, in the meantime, Your Humble Narrator has joined the 21^st Century and is hereby converting the Hartley Household Christmas Epistle to an electronic format.  Said epistle is thus having its World Premiere on this blog.  Loud hosannas ring out through the land.  Patient readers everywhere will still be able to discover the Activities of the Hartley Household by reading the present letter.

            Alas, as long-time readers of this Hartley Household Christmas epistle undoubtedly suspect, the Hartley Household once again had absolutely no Activities Worthy Of Note (AWON).  The Long-Suffering Wife of Your Humble Narrator (LSWYHN) is shaking her head in disgust at this claim (or would be if she read it), but despite the LSWYHN’s insistence that there are AWON, specific examples are yet to be forthcoming.

            For the first time in many years, there are no new additions to the Hartley Household.   Your Humble Narrator has exercised that portion of mental activity not engaged in contemplating the aforementioned existential crisis and has not been able to imagine any inanimate object which Your Humble Narrator, using an excess of verbiage and a ready supply of commas, can turn into a worthy item of note to be added to this section.  Indeed, honesty compels Your Humble Narrator to note that due to Death and other Similar Events, the Livestock of the Hartley Household has declined this year by several chickens, one fish, and Emma.  (Unfortunately, Dante is still among the living.)

           Emma has departed the Fair Premises in which the Hartley Household resides, but has headed to a different location than the Chickens and Fish which met an untimely Demise.  She is currently residing at Mount Holyoke College, the fair Institution of Higher Learning which has long proved the means of subsistence for the Hartley Household.  At said Institution, Emma rides in Horse Beauty Contests (known as Dressage to Insiders (into which Company the patient reader can now assert membership)).  Your Humble Narrator is under the Belief (perhaps a Delusional belief) that Emma is also attending class and other such matters which traditionally accompany matriculation in institutions of Higher Learning, but information on that matter is difficult to acquire because Emma would prefer to discuss Four legged beasts.  (She will also be highly annoyed at the disparaging remark about Dante (the Dog) in the preceding paragraph were any of the Patient Readers to be So Unkind as to mention it to her.)

           Lily, to the surprise of nobody, still talks. And talks.  Now 16, she has decided to enroll in a course on legal studies in which her hyperdeveloped communication skills can be put to use for course credit.  Not surprisingly, she excels at talking.  She has had much practice.  Dressing in an unconventional, yet somehow pleasing to the eye, manner, and publically practicing the art of making long-winded arguments in a persuasive manner is a course of action most normal to the Ever Awesome Lily (she specifically told Your Humble Narrator to include the word Awesome in this letter as an adjective describing her).  (Lily is also very jealous that Your Humble Narrator has a Twitter account, by the way;  she specifically requested that this epistle (the Christmas Epistle no less!) tell one and all that she is most unhappy about said account, but Your Humble Narrator, along with the Perceptive Reader, thinks she Protests too much.)

  

          Clara, now 12, continues to age one year at a time.  She has long been the utterly adorable youngest member of the Hartley Household.  She still is.  She is also Brilliant Beyond Belief, Amusing Beyond all Measure, Polite and Kind and Generous to a fault.  If only she would clean her room on a regular basis, she would be the Perfect Child.  Clara, by the way (and, yes, surely the Patient Reader is shocked by the presence of an aside in this paragraph), seriously misses the presence of Emma in the Hartley Household.

           Janet, the LSWYHN, is still not only the oldest member of the Hartley Household but also its most active member.  Indeed, Janet seriously threatens to undermine the unblemished record of the Hartley Household for inactivity during a year.  Fortunately, the other members of the Household have so little activity worthy of note, that the average activity of the members of the household is still artificially close to zero.  During the last year, Janet’s Greenhouse business (Terra Verde nursery) grew exponentially (which is easy to do in the second year of an enterprise as long as one is not specific about the exponent, so it should be added that the exponent in this case is greater than 1 (but (sadly) less than 2)).  She continues her advanced study in field of Landscape Design and is now a mere one course away from her graduate certificate in said field.  She also continues to hold the Hartley Household together; no mean feat.

   

         And with that, Your Humble Narrator wishes You, the Patient Reader of the first annual Blog Christmas Card Epistle, a Very Merry Christmas.