Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Oh hey, what's up? Just reading some more Jane Austen, this time it's her very first book. Let's be frank: it's good, it's not as good as Pride and Prejudice, but when Mr Darcy isn't in it, is that really a huge surprise? No, but I really did like the book. Except for the parts where Mr Dashwood was involved, because I'd see the 'Mr' and the 'Da...' and immediately be like Fitzwilliam!?? Uh, (ahem). Let's see, let me summarize: There are two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, who are the main characters (You know how Pride and Prejudice is essentially 'Mr Darcy and Elizabeth'? Yeah) who fall in love and have heartbreak and weirdly parallel my senior year of high school. I guess the best description is that of Emma's: the inverse Pride and Prejudice. (Look, if all this mentioning of P&P is bothering you, just be glad that I haven't mentioned a certain Sebastian Melmoth at all yet for the first time in at least ten posts.)

Okay let's go then. First of all, this an Oxford edition, which means there are notes pertaining to Jane Austen's other books in the introduction and afterwards, because all the books were meant to be sold together in one collection. In this case, the introductory note closes on things changed between editions of Austen's books. For example, the change between the penny and twopenny post (pence?) and one sentence on page sixty-six of Mansfield Park that was deleted completely. My God, how interesting! So. Interested. Another thing about this being the Oxford edition, it means that when you take the jacket off it looks like a really well-preserved antique book. You know, like those Reader's Digests Condensed books that look like they're old leatherbounds in fantastic condition until you take a closer look and it's like I HATE YOU SO MUCH READER'S DIGEST GURGHHHH. Like that? Yeah. Hate that.

Due to economic problems early on, the sisters must leave their old home Norland to a cottage. Quoth Marianne (to Norland): "'Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!--And you, ye well-known trees!--but you will continue the same.--No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer!--No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!--But who will remain to enjoy you?'" (27). How Romantic of you! You know, Romanticism... All that love of nature, writings about men's mortality and lack of... effectiveness on nature... Maybe? Romanticism? Sounds like it could be, even though it might not be the right era for that sort of thing... Guys, I'm tired, okay? Also, kudos to Jane for using the word 'ye', even if it was more common back then.

Willoughby, a love interest of the book is first described as having "manly beauty" (43). Excuse me while I laugh my head off for about a million years...

"Marianne began now to perceive that the desperation which had seized her at sixteen and a half, of ever seeing a man who could satisfy her ideas of perfection, had been rash and unjustifiable" (49). This one seems... eh... a little bitter. Writing from experience, Jane? (Perhaps Sense and Sensibility was the story they should have chosen for Becoming Jane, eh, Emma?)

Willoughby... Oh, heck. I'm still mad at him, even if he partially redeems himself later on. Major spoilers following, then. Willoughby and Marianne appear to be tailor-made for each other. They're flirting, they spend all their time together... It's suspected that they're secretly engaged. Willoughby cuts a lock of hair... and also puts it in his pocket-book. Look, I know man-purses were socially acceptable back then, but that doesn't make it any less funny! Anyway, my spoiler is that Willoughby turns out to be a complete gufgggrgffffffghkfgh. Willoughby leaves for a few months and has an affair (which impregnates the poor girl involved) and when he and Marianne see each other at a ball, it turns out he's hitting up a young lady who gets 50,000 a year, because she had the g and Marianne did not. He also is very rude to Marianne, speaks to her maybe four lines and excuses himself to continue hitting on this young lady. Marianne, of course is heartbroken. Mr Darcy is horrified by Willoughby's ungentlemanly and completely disgusting behavior and is about to kick his ass.

Look at that angry scowl. He's going to beat the ever loving God out of you. Can't touch you because you're rich? I don't think so, Willoughby. I gave him permission. And you're even worse than Wickham was. You're done.

"'Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other'" (94).

"'Sir John is as stupid as the weather'" (111). Not only is that a great insult, Sir John is being insulted in such a manner because he doesn't have a billiard room. Sir John, watch out. You're tempting Fitzwilliam, now.

Nothing really important here, but Jane Austen uses the adjective 'monstrous' for practically everything. It's kind of hilarious, even if it wasn't intended to be. It's a great adjective.

"'A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others'" (204).

Willoughby has a confession and semi-redeeming speech, directed toward Elinor with the request that she pass it along to Marianne. I won't go into details, but it builds a small amount of sympathy, since he pretty much realizes that sure, he got the dolla billz (poundz?) but his life is going to be miserable because his wife is pretty much a shrew. There's more, but that's probably the most important point. It made me feel bad enough to revoke my certificate to Mr Darcy to beat him up, at least. Lucky for Willoughby--I've seen that guy break jaws.

Willoughby also confesses to watching them leave their house all the time--"'You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you'" (326). Jane Austen's first and only horror novel?

"'If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy'" (347). Oh really? Perhaps you and I should buy some cats together, because clearly both of us are out of luck (oh wait except you're not).

Ummm. Sorry this is a little sparse. Like I said, I enjoyed the book. It wasn't her best, but it's her first. Give her some credit! Heck, I think even Emma would enjoy this. The ending is satisfying, moreso with Elinor, but things work out for Marianne too. And the villain gets his, too. Like I said, the lack of Fitzwilliam is a little disheartening, but since apparently I can summon him whenever I want to beat people up that's not such a problem. (Darcy--meet me in drawing room. Leave your cravat on.)

Fun fact regarding the book: Because of receipt left in the book for the last 40+ years, I know that this edition was bought in 1978 on the day before my birthday! Cool, huh? I thought it was cool. Don't judge me!

My attempt at MLA citation: Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibilty. Great Britain: University Press, 1978. Print.

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Little Sister by Queens of the Stone Age

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Loving your illusion, staring at a crooked crown--You always let me down

PS. Always remember to act gentlemanly, or you're going to get your butt kicked by a certain British nobleman.

Don't think for a second this guy couldn't kill you. Look at that scowl. He's already mad that he's not allowed to beat up Willoughby. (Rule #6: No suit coat, no cravat.)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

What what what I'm back! Yeah, it took me ten days to finish that last post. In that time I finished this book, read about 5/7ths of a Ray Bradbury short story collection and most of Sense and Sensibility, the latter I would be done with if Willoughby didn't make me want to break a board in half with my forehead. (Did I use 'latter' right? I always get former and latter confused.)

Anyway. Here we go, Nabokov's 'contemporary American classic' Lolita. The book is about Humbert Humbert, a middleaged man with a particular love for 'nymph/ets'--young girls, something like ages 8-14. Lolita is his main flame around whom most of the book unsurprisingly orbits around. His obsession with nymphets appears to stem from a brief tryst with a girl around the age of thirteen when he too was in his youth. Lolita herself is the daughter of the woman who he's renting a room from. At the start she is twelve and very much a catty little brat. I have a movie book with a special section on Kubrick, and a write-up on his film adaption of the book, and with it there's a close-up picture of Lolita peering over heart-shaped sunglasses and seductively sucking on a lollipop--and my first thought upon looking at it is always "she looks like a catty little bitch". Well, yeah, she is--she is exactly the personality I inferred from that one still. She's a brat, not raised correctly, and also believe it or not promiscuous (to a certain extent, because the story is told by Humbert Humbert and not an omniscient narrator, we can't be sure of how promiscuous she actually was). All right: Begin!




Humbert's chapter one, what would be the introduction if not for the foreword which is a write-up by a nonexistent PhD, reads as follows: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps... She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns" (11). One: Where the hell does he get the name Lolita from Dolores? There had to have been an explanation for this I missed. (The usage of the word* nowadays comes from the book itself, so no help there.) Two: Did he just compare himself to Jesus? Tangle of thorns--thorn of crowns? He just implied he was a--for the literary phrase--a Christ figure? Yeah, yeah he just did. Ooookay.

In the fifth chapter, Humbert describes exactly what constitutes a nymphet, the age, the look, and how only certain few can stop them--you must be an "artist and a madman... with a bubble of hot poison in your lines and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine" (19). To this he adds, in parenthesis, "oh, how you have to cringe and hide!" (19). So, on one level, he's aware, very aware, that it is not an acceptable condition, his--but at the same time, his in length details and explanation of his "hot poison" are enough to make your skin crawl like that steak in Poltergeist.

"Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for" (21). That is, Humbert could have sex with a normal acceptable woman of his age but preferred children--nymphets--demons--Liliths and their far more tempting ways. (Because he is clearly more attracted sexually and otherwise to the youthful females, and Lilith in her legendarium--a stronger base in Jewish tradition rather than Christian, though she does appear once in a while--is the sexually appealing female as opposed to Eve who... wasn't? Well, Lilith is essentially a succubus, lamia, et cetera.) Humbert also attempts to... eh, I can't think of the word... but say his tastes were okay based on famous figures, Dante and Petrarch (?) who loved certain girls of nine and twelve, respectively. He also admits he had the "utmost respect for ordinary children" (21) and their innocence--note the wording. Ordinary children.


"Oh, my Lolita! I have only words to play with!" (32). Okay, I remember being made uneasy--incredibly so at some points to the point of feeling stomachsick--while I read, but rereading it chills me ever more. What's the weirdest part is, is because of the strangely childish way it is written (for example, Humbert often refers to himself by his own name as a child often will when agitated or playing) you feel disgusted--but at the same time can't help but like the guy, at least a little. There are parts where you literally want to be sick, put the book down, kill Humbert--but you feel weirdly for the guy. It's hard to understand unless you read it, I guess, but it probably has a bit to do with that it's written from his perspective. Again, read it and get back to me. (I assume it's written in the fashion I imagine it to be--if I am correct--to reflect his taste in the immature, and possibly signal the immaturity in his own mind, for being attracted to children--never aging in his tastes or for the rest of mind. Maybe?)


His description of Canada/Alaska--"We lived in prefabricated timber cabins amid a Pre-Cambrian world of granite" (33). No, I didn't just show favor to this quote because he mentions a prehistory era, I actually thought it sounded cool of its own merit! (And I feel like it's a very 'Mountains of Madness'-esque description or Lovecraftian in general description.) In the next breath he complains about eskimo girls--"Nymphets do not occur in polar regions" (33), which made me laugh, admittedly.


Humbert when dealing with Lolita at least early on speaks a few times of the devil tempting him and then scorning him with her--giving him a chance gaze or gasp and then ruining it. In which case, to further thwart his picture of himself as a Christ in a crown of thorns he was tempted and fell to the temptation. My next mark is an obvious biblical reference again to Adam and Eve--Lolita is tossing about an apple (Humbert even describes it as "Eden-red" [55], might I add!) and on one throw she throws it up--and Humbert, sitting next to her upon sofa, caught it above her waiting hands. While he holds it, she takes a bite of it. From that moment on, we know exactly where eventually she will head. But wait, there's more! A few moments later, same scene, he takes Lolita's magazine from her and she pounces upon him, ending up sitting in his lap. He does not take her then--but he does have his, uh, own moment--what he refers to as a spasm--that Lolita is completely unaware of.


Humbert has a mild fantasy in which he imagines giving Lolita and her single (but not for long) mother sleeping tablets so he may have his way with Lolita and then imagines the confrontation about the pregnancy which would ensue. "'Mother, I swear Kenny never even touched me.' 'You either lie, Dolores Haze, or it was an incubus'" (67). This is just me being annoying: according to folk tradition, incubi cannot impregnate their victims (at least not without help from a succubus). Just saying.


"Remarkable how difficult it is to conceal things--especially when one's wife keeps on monkeying with the furniture" (87).

At one point Humbert does drug the girl, though he does not enact his plan... But as proof that Humbert is not a narrator we can entirely trust, we have Lolita partially drugged removing a velvet ribbon from her hair, saying she's been such a "disgusting girl" (113) and wants to go on and tell him how so. That's a sexually-charged scene that's certainly a product of a fantasy of Humbert's, probably based on Lolita saying just that (as she kissed Humbert earlier in the chapter) but the pulling of the velvet ribbon out of her hair, tossing it about and what the whole scene gives the feeling of--it has been bent by Humbert.


It is Lolita who initiates the first actual act of intercourse between them--something she at that point had apparently had a few times with a few male friends. What is apparently considered normal 'sex play', at least by Humbert. I--what? Is this a forties and older thing? Maybe I was just a prude nine-year-old? Or maybe this book is actually set in Brave New World. Lolita didn't even know its relation to reproduction. Apparently it's a thing kids just did. ...Yeah, I'm thinking Brave New World.



Humbert enrolls Lolita into school, the Beardsley school, a school of epically foolish proportions. Let me give you a portion of the headmaster's school plan: "...We are more interested in communication than in composition. That is, with due respect to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to communicate freely with the live world around them rather than plunge into musty old books... We have done away with the mass of irrelevant topics that have traditionally presented to young girls, leaving no place, in former days, for the knowledges and the skills, and the attitudes they will need in managing their lives and... the lives of their husbands. Let us put it this way: the position of a star is important, but the most practical spot for an icebox in the kitchen may be even more important to the budding housewife" (162). The headmaster goes on to add that weekend dates or more important than Medieval dates to the modern child, and what could a child care for learning about Ancient Greece or other history or anything, really. That's pretty much a 'well, let's not even try'! Humbert says upon hearing this he was appalled--with which I can wholeheartedly agree. I only mention it because of how appalling exactly it is. I hope schools don't exist like this nowadays. Another thing I want to mention is during this speech, she refers to Humbert by name several times--obviously Humbert Humbert is a pseudonym, and as if to prove this further she calls him by several different but similar names.



At one point they stop in the sound town of Soda--"Soda, pop 1001" (201). Very clever, Nabokov. I chuckled.



The scene that made me want to kill Humbert the most was when Lolita has a fever. He checks her breathing, undresses her and decides she must be sick after inspecting her lower feminine regions. Besides just looking, he tastes them. Then and only then does he give up "all hope of intercourse" (219) and take her to the hospital. Absolutely repulsive, even moreso than all else, even.



"'Because really... there is no point in staying here.' 'There is no point in staying anywhere,' said Lolita" (222).


"One mercifully hopes there are water nymphs in the Styx" (228). Humbert, of course.


"I could not kill her, of course, as some have thought. You see I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight" (246).


The ending isn't too shabby, either. Maybe I haven't mentioned (in which case, shame on me) that this whole book is written as a testimonial while Humbert is in prison. So, the end is an acceptance of his future which is rather sweet, even with Humbert's past acts in mind--nowhere near a complete redeemer of him or his situation, but. He gives Lolita his best, gives her some advice, and makes the request that this testimony of his only be published after Lolita's death--"And this is the only immortality you and I will share, my Lolita" (281).


Afterwards, there is a, well, afterword by Nabokov himself. Instantly I was hooked to this thing--in the second paragraph he talks about how much he hates people who prod for the author's purpose in writing such a thing in particular, or what exactly he meant to say in his work. He was none to fond of symbols and allegories, either. Vladimir... I think we just became best friends.


Don't have much to say. It was an okay book. It was certainly engaging, interesting and oftentimes disturbing, but I wouldn't say it's quite a 'contemporary classic'. This was probably one of the first if not the very first widely-distributed book that were about pedophilia (don't quote me on this though) and thus, to beat a dead horse, automatically gained a status. But it's actually worth a read, unlike other books in that category... Yeah, that's right, I'm looking at you Mary Shelley. You want to go!?

MLA information: Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Berkely Medallion Books, 1977. Print.



Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: The Reeling by Passion Pit


This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: They say I'll only do you wrong--We come together cause I understand just who you really are, yeah

*True story. Gothic lolitas, girls dressed in those Alice in Wonderland-esque dresses, trying to look like young porcelain dolls (they're particularly popular in Japan) all have their roots from the title of this book and its subject matter.

PS. Got a haircut! I feel like Lola from Run, Lola, Run, even though my hair isn't as short, as messy, or as red.

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by HP Lovecraft

Woooo, yeah. Triple threat, right here. HP Lovecraft, my boy, famous horror author, apparently Stephen King's a big fan too. Just saying. (On the back he says "I think it is beyond a doubt that HP Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale"! What I say to that? The twentieth century is over, Stephen King.)



This is a collection of Lovecraft's short stories, a lot of his shorter stuff, and probably contains more of his better-known works, cough cough LOOK AT THE ONE FEATURED IN THE TITLE. This is Cthulhu! You've had to at least have heard his name on the internet before, correct? He's a big thing there! (Here?) Well, in any case, if somehow you have not at least heard of him or are aware of Cthulhu's satirization, let me be the first to inform you that Stephen King is totally correct in saying HP Lovecraft is the best thing since Edgar Allen Poe. He's inspired a slew of science-fiction and horror authors since his earliest and continues to do so (Wha--me? Why are you looking at me? You guys are so silly) and he's famous if for nothing else the weird creatures he has created--since named the 'Cthulhu mythos'. (Also including, but not limited to, Yog-sothoth, Nylarthotep and Shub-Niggurath.) In any case, as I'm sure you've figured out, I'm a huge fan of the guy. What I'm trying to say is welcome to the biased post because Howard Philips Lovecraft isn't just for the win--he is the win.



The first short story is 'Dagon', which I hadn't read beforehand, except for the first line--in creative writing Marky Mark put together a sheet of stories/books with great opening lines that make you want to read more. This certainly has a great one, and I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't share it: "I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more" (1). Yes? Awesome, no? (Others on the list were from Kafka's Metamorphosis and The Hobbit.) The story itself is based, as many of Lovecraft's are, on a nightmare Lovecraft had. The narrator of the story is captured on sea, but has the chance to escape on a lifeboat--which he takes. Exhausted and hungry, he passes into unconscious for several days until he awakes on a slimy stretch of land covered in rotting fish and strange sculptures and creatures. He realizes that the land (while still in his boat) is seafloor suddenly raised to the surface with no explanation, no time even for fish to escape the ascent to air. When the ground dries out enough to walk upon he wanders a ways to strange structures, sculptures--till he sees a beast, that is, Dagon. He then flees.


One thing that I thought was interesting, especially since it comes up many a time in the following stories of this collection, was the footnote attached to the narrator's comment about the 'putrid' scent of the dead fish. Apparently Lovecraft tended to include such detail because that would have stricken a powerful chord with him--he reviled seafood, certainly just the smell would sicken him as well. Perhaps why some of his creations were aquatic-dwelling or looked like aquatic dwellers, wearing tentacles, having fish-like visages, and so on? Mayhap?


The next story is also based on a dream of Lovecraft's. This story is 'The Statement of Randolph Carter'. Two men go on research to inspect a tomb--Warren and Carter. Warren goes in; Carter stays out, and while Warren is in he screams of how unbelievable it is, then suddenly urges Carter to leave. I actually really like the ending--perhaps it wasn't intended to be funny, but I cracked up. Have you ever heard the funny campfire stories, like a kid is confronted by a ghost with a horrible gash in its neck or something and it finally corners the kid that's tried to escape, but instead of killing him it asks for a band-aid? Well, it was kind of like that. I might as well spoil it--Warren's screaming eventually stops and Carter continues to call for him for quite a while till a shadowy creature confronts him and instead of harming him shouts: "'YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!'" (13). No? Not even a chuckle? Well, knowing that Warren is dead, it bothers me that earlier in the story (the bulk of the story is a retelling of the incident) Carter says he no longer fears Warren and his eccentricities, he now fears for him. Bro, he's dead. There's not much to worry about on his behalf now.


'Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family' is interesting because in some respects it's autobiographical of the Lovecraft family (except for the parts where the forebear of the family was wed to an ape from the heart of the Congo...). Madness struck several members of the Jermyn clan (as were father and mother Lovecraft, complications of untreated syphilis) and the other example that instantly jumps to mind is one regarding Arthur himself. As a boy Lovecraft apparently believed himself to be horrendously ugly, to the point of avoiding people or hiding rather than go out in public (and his mother in fits of madness didn't help; sometimes she would apparently cover his face in distress and beg people not to look at her "ugly" son). He's not that bad looking, jeez--though his wikipedia picture is less than flattering, for sure. Here's one--uh, is it just me or does he look like Stephen Colbert...? Well regardless Jermyn bore his actual ugliness well, he didn't mind his unfortunate visage because he was a "poet and scholar" (14). Oh, okay? Perhaps that's meant for Lovecraft to express another inadequacy he felt for himself? Well, I think you're both!


The next story that I've notes in is 'The Outsider', a story that the other American Lit class read and we didn't because ugh what a terrible class that was. This story contains a lot of the feeling one gets from Poe (unconscious but unsurprising; Lovecraft was a big fan) and is thought to have been drawn in some parts from Frankenstein and Oscar Wilde's short story 'The Birthday of the Infanta'. This story is considered to be many to be kind of half-baked--which yeah, it kind of is. The man (apparently risen from the dead for some unexplained reason) lives within a decaying castle of a sorts with no knowledge or memory of any others. Eventually he becomes fed up with this existence and becomes determined to break free--which he does. He travels to another castle nearby, and all those at the party there become horrified and flee from him upon viewing him. The creature doesn't understand it--until he's confronted with a terrible beast. He puts his hand up to protect himself--and much like the dwarf from 'The Birthday of the Infanta'--is stopped by glass--polished glass--a mirror.


"And at last I resolved to scale that tower, fall though I might; since it were better to glimpse the sky and perish, than to live without ever beholding day" (44). Words from the Outsider that turn terribly ironic at the story's end--was it really better? Certainly Wilde's dwarf would not agree; his discovery killed him.


'Herbert West--Reanimator' is HP Lovecraft's much better parody of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Herbert West is possessed by the same want to raise the dead. However, how he goes about doing it is almost completely opposite--for example, Frankenstein's monster is constructed over long periods of time from numerous bodies and only one is a success. Also, electricity is used to raise the beast. Or something. Herbert's corpses must be fresh, I believe twenty-four hours is cut-off point, to avoid a tainted subject because of decaying brain tissue. And even before then, it's pretty iffy. Also, Herbert uses a serum to bring them back. Herbert also has a companion all during this--whereas Frankenstein only has an Igor in adaptations. Their ends are the same however--Frankenstein is killed by his monster (if he could have done that 100 pages earlier, though...) and Herbert West is killed by his numerous 'successes'.


"Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities" (50).


One thing I like is that the first success disappears--but that's not what I like, it's that the first chapter ends with the fact that from henceforth Herbert was forever paranoid of running into it again, and then "Now he has disappeared" (55). The first paragraph of the second chapter ends with "...a horror known to me alone now that Herbert West has disappeared" (55). I thought the reiteration was kind of cool, maybe showing that the narrator is half-mad because of the goings-on which I know, would be totally shocking. And also that that's all he can focus on because he observed the final moments--but no, according to footnotes, it is because this is a serialized story and that bit in the second chapter is just a quick summary from last month or last week's installment. Okay, fine. But this issue I must bring up again: like in 'The Statement of Randolph Carter', the narrator is all "I hope he's okay oh no he's missing that sucks" and I'm like "Dude, that monster-thingy told you he was dead! I don't think he'd lie." In this, even though the narrator (of course) faints he sees what happens to Herbert, Herbert is torn to pieces by the zombies. THERE'S NOT MUCH OF A QUESTION OF WHAT HAPPENED. There are "unidentifiable ashes" (80) in the furnace. He's not 'disappeared', he is in the furnace. Jeez.


The most horrifying scene is when they discover an undead creation with the arm of a child in its mouth. It is certainly the most chilling scene Lovecraft has ever written (though the imagination of the creatures from 'Pickman's Model' is a close second): "Looming hideously against the spectral moon was a gigantic misshapen thing not be imagined save in nightmares--a glassy-eyed, ink-black apparition nearly on all fours, covered with bits of mould, leaves, and vines, foul with caked blood, and having between its glistening teeth a snow-white, terrible, cylindrical object terminating in a tiny hand" (65). Ugh. Eek. Jeez. I think I'm going to be sick.


The writer of the explanatory notes makes an argument that the story was not influenced by Frankenstein, due to the differences I've outlined above. HP Lovecraft, in his letters are read, said the story is a parody. Sooooo yeahhhh.


'Rats in the Walls' at its beginning was kind of disappointing to me because I thought it was going to be that totally awesome Bram Stoker story (who names their kid Bram?) about rats that are in walls that's actually called 'The Judge's House'. It's really cool and I wish I owned some book that had it included. You should find it, unless horror isn't your deal. What the story is actually about is a guy (de la Poer) who moves into his ancestral home which is full of rats. Eventually, with the help of his cat--if you'll excuse me--'Nigger-Man' he discovers a huge underground city of his forebears who ate human flesh and raised humans down there specifically for slaughter.


The coolest part is the end. He goes mad upon discovering what he has and becomes possessed by the same latent attributes in him that drove his forebears and attacks his (human) companion and begins to devour him. Not only that, the narrator begins to rant and rave in the throes of his madness, devolving in language to unintelligable grunts: "Why shouldn't rats eat a de la Poer as a de la Poer eats forbidden things?... The war ate my boy, damn them all... and the Yanks ate Carfax with flames and burnt Grandsire Delapore and the secret... No, no, I tell you, I am not that daemon swinherd in the twilit grotto! It was not Edward Norrys' fat face on that flabby, fungous thing! Who says I am a de la Poer? He lived, but my boy died! ...Shall a Norrys hold the lands of a de la Poer?... It's voodoo, I tell you... that spotted snake... Curse you, Thornton, I'll teach you to faint at what my family do!... 'Sblood, thou stinkard, I'll learn ye how to gust... wolde ye swynke me thilke wys?... Magna Mater! Magna Mater! ...Atys Dhona 's dhola ort, agus leat-sa! ...Ungl... ungl... rrlh... chcchch..." (108). Awesome, huh? (After the Latin he speaks in Gaelic, then primitive grunts.) The explanation for the war ate my boy but not Norrys is that the two were both in WWI--the boy however was reduced to a cripple because of injuries sustained and died in two years. And the bit about the flabby fungous thing and all--him denying that he attacked and partially ate Norrys.


The biggest factor that takes away from the story is the cat's name. It's one of the most blatant elements of racism in any of Lovecraft's stories (though trust me, there's a lot, and for practically everybody that's not him). His intense racial prejudices are very unfortunate. Well, back to the cat's name--it certainly damages the story, even if just as a bothersome detail that's like woah... Come on, Lovecraft. Chill. (Even more bothersome would be perhaps that he named the cat of the story after one of his own cats, his favorite from his childhood.)


Ahhh, 'The Call of Cthulhu'! A story to have inspired countless other literary works, movies, videogames, and an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy! Cthulhu entrapped in the ocean though dead is not really dead and can send out psychic calls to the minds of men, resulting in outbreaks of madness--huh, KA Applegate... that sounds familiar. It's so strange, can't imagine why... Just this name, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill... Weird, why would I think of that name, or book number four in the series on the cover of which Cassie is turning into a dolphin? Well, it's essentially about that and Cthulhu's followers rising as the great Old One is himself--and eventually being thwarted, though not forever, because the creature can never truly be defeated or killed, and will rise to bring madness and horror and destruction unto mankind once more... or however many times it takes to do so successfully. I really haven't much to say other than this is an awesome story, and Lovecraft pulls a Victor Hugo in describing Cthulhu--saying he's the beast that can't/must not be described, but mentioning his claws, squid-head, et cetera--like in Hunchback of Notre Dame when Victor Hugo's all "I won't even try to describe this specific detail of his being which will give you a clear idea of exactly what Quasimodo looks like actually". Sometimes when Lovecraft does it it gets a little hackneyed but compared to when Lovecraft actually does describe the being in mind--sometimes I wish he hadn't. Here's a passage that makes me particularly queasy (from 'The Festival'): "They were not altogether cpws, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membraneous wings; and as they reached the throng of celebrants the crowded figures seized and mounted them, and rode off one by one..." (116). Uheheh. I think I'm going to be sick. Again.


'The Colour Out of Space' interests me because of my knowledge of Stephen King's affection for Lovecraft and the fact that King did the screenplay for the movie Creepshow. The Lovecraft story is about a once-prosperous farm. A mysterious meteor crashes into the land beside the barn and strange things begin happening, crops begin giving off tasteless fruits, otherworldly plants begin to grow, family members go mad, and even the livestock suffers. The color regards the strange colors that spread and pulse over the land and in the growths that has come from the meteorite. Okay, okay. The movie Creepshow is set up in five different stories, and the second (or third, if you count the introduction) is about a fellow who finds a strange meteor. The meteor causes intense vegetation to crop up, including all over the secluded hick farmer who found it. The bit ends with the entire farm clogged in these new growths, including the farmer who is almost completely infused with plants. He shoots himself. But you see the similarities there? (I find information regarding Stephen King saying that The Tommyknockers was inspired by 'The Colour Out of Space', but none regarding this.) Also, fun fact: Stephen King plays the guy who shoots himself. Wish I hadn't got rid of that movie now, I'd really like to rewatch it... (His son is in it too!)


I really like 'The Whisperer in Darkness'. This appears to have some base in the strange tales of New England, as it centers around beasts that fly and crawl and live on certain mountains and in certain valleys and if a poor fool moves in too close to their territory, it's likely they'll abduct them or burn their farmhouse down. (He obviously added to legends, but really, stories like this aren't that uncommon, though moreso than they would be at that time, of course.) The creatures are of course actually aliens, not Indian superstition or strange mutants. A fellow in a farmhouse knows of them and writes to our narrator of their existence--a human toadie for them intercepts however and not only falsifies letters they eventually--well, I won't share the twist. I love the twist. I predicted it, but I wasn't sure until Lovecraft goes out and says it explicitly--and it was great. But I will say that the narrator eventually visits the farm house.


One of the things the footnote writer points out about this is the appearance of Nyarlathotep, and how if Nyarlathotep is a shapeshifter then why would he need to use waxen hands and a mask to appear to be Akeley? Well, I don't know. He has appeared as a man before (a pharaoh) in 'Nyarlathotep'. The writer of the footnotes says he feels like N wasn't really fleshed out, so to speak, in at the very least Lovecraft's original works. Yeah, I guess I'd have to agree. Honestly, I can only think of three stories he appears in. He can destroy things, shapeshift, and perform great 'miracles'. ....Yep.


'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' is cool because it throws the unexpected at you. After reading a lot of HP Lovecraft and over as quick a period as I did this collection you get a little bit in a rut, I admit. "Ohh, he saw something crazy but it's an alien and he didn't see it well but that's okay because even if he did he wouldn't dare describe it and he's going half-mad and death would be way better than dealing with that event get me my shotgun." This did not do that. Near the end, with the clues, I was kind of like, "Ooh, is HP Lovecraft going to do that? Oh no way!" But I get ahead of myself: Innsmouth is this sketchy town that everyone except natives avoid. The narrator, interested, goes to the town and gets a drunk to tell him about the legends surrounding the town--the Deep Ones who honor human sacrifice and mate with humans as well who produce beings that degrade over time intro fish-beasts that can live forever if they shed the last traces of the human personas and enter the water. The twist is, our narrator is chased through town and narrowly escapes those of the order of Dagon. So we're figuring they were planning on eating him or silencing him or something. But wait! The narrator has a grandmother that had a strange look about her, and an uncle. The Innsmouth--the fishlike--look. Could it be... that the stories of these beings coupling with men are true? No--that's unlike Lovecraft--is it? Oh yes. What a great great great GREAT ending--he actually debates on suicide and says he can't do it--then makes plans to help his cousin who has begun the transformation already escape the madhouse he was locked in. The beasts chasing him--they were trying to claim him and take him to their underground city, not capture and kill him! How perfect is that!? Oh man. High five, Howard Philips... if that is your real name.


Well, that's the end of comments on the stories themselves... I have a few comments for certain footnotes, but first, here are all the stories--I didn't comment on some of them, not for quality, I just really don't like going over short story for short story or poem for poem, as I have been doing, and I probably won't be doing it again any time soon. Something about it makes me weary. But, in any case, here are the stories: 'Dagon', 'The Statement of Randolph Carter', 'Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family', 'Celephais', Nyarlathotep', 'The Picture in the House', 'The Outsider', 'Herbert West--Reanimator', 'The Hound', 'The Rats in the Walls', 'The Festival', 'He', 'Cool Air', 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Colour Out of Space', 'The Whisperer in Darkness', 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', and 'The Haunter of the Dark'.


Apparently, according to the footnotes for 'Celephais' (the first one, actually) Lovecraft was--maybe not a huge fan of Wilde (certainly not a fan of his personal life)--but adhered to the scorning of "mundane realism" and his 'dictum' that "'The artist is the creator of beautiful things'" (368). As for my comment of Lovecraft's disapproval for Wilde as a man, his comment: "'As a man, however, Wilde admits of absolutely no defence. His character, notwithstanding a daintiness of manners which imposed an exterior shell of decorative decency & decorum, was as thoroughly rotten & contemptible as it is possible for a human character to be'" (413). Jeez, that's really harsh. Lovecraft, jeez. (Though I'm curious to see the praise beforehand, since it looks like there was...) I find it a little ironic as well--as Wilde argued often that it was practically indecent to delve into the personal lives of important and famous folks. Well, here we go--an otherwise fan so horribly abusing him personally. Anyway, the reason why I have this is because someone is called a dandy in 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' and our footnote man imagines that this is a reference to Wilde (who is still pretty much known as the quintessential dandy) and with that comment in mind implies the darkness and depravity of this one fellow's character. You dig? I think it's an interesting guess and more likely than not true.


Well, let's see... I actually felt compelled to read a little about Lovecraft in the introduction, though I got bored and devolved to skimming around the time of his marriage... But the point is that Lovecraft was pretty much a child prodigy. At age seven he had read the Odyssey and written a summarization of it in rhyming verse. His first original story was written at age six. At age eight he got into chemistry and astronomy. What is up with this guy!? Stop making every other human being ever look bad!

A point our footnote and introductory writer (I should really check his name) in the introduction is that early mythology--any mythology--regarding the gods tends to be singular in that the gods are messing with humans. They're always involved, sometimes helping sometimes harming but always acting in tangent with men. Lovecraft's mythology, his gods could care less. They never act with men, unless they're using them--they couldn't give a damn. They do what they want.

So, yeah. I'm a big Lovecraft fan. He's a cool guy, especially in the horror department--though I admit some of it is dated, and it's like oh... that was scary, oh wait, no it's not. But he can imagine some messed up things, and it's those descriptions that get me even more than situations or stories. Ick. What a chilling guy.


Because I referred to a lot of footnotes and editor's (right?) notes, here's my attempt at MLA-ing this book: Lovecraft, Howard Philips. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.


I also want to plug this painting I came across--really cool, too cool to just make a faceless link to. Look at this! I'm sad it's sold. I'd buy it; totally awesome.

I'm also going to plug a comic I got at Connecticon--Atomic Robo. I plug it here because I was given the third comic book which is very much Lovecraft-themed. (Also Carl Sagan is in it, which was why it was given to me--go on, keep on making fun of my 'Carl Sagan is my Homeboy' shirt. Cool people appreciate the hell out of it.) I was kind of flipping through it, looking at chapter titles thinking huh, look at these Lovecraft references, vaguely wondering if they were on purpose or not. I started reading it--Lovecraft makes an appearance as the incubator of a gigantic alien entity. And Carl Sagan helps take it down. Welcome to the cool people convention. Oh, but the comic itself is about a sentient robot created by Nikola Tesla. The creative team described it to me as "like ghostbusters", except with creatures other than ghosts. It's kind of like an alien and science version of The Goon, I'm feeling, which is another totally awesome comic you should check out. Anyway, I'm begging for the other books in this series for my birthday/Christmas, as I'm a college student and I can't actually spend money on anything else. But really, check it out. If crazy science and robots and cool things are your thing, well! (Also, choice preview quote: "When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them Carl Sagan sent you.")

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Magnolia by The Hush Sound

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: And I can feel the madness inch by inch, the more I run the more I am convinced

Also, sorry about any spelling errors in the final third of this post. Blogger has had it up to here with my long posts.

Collected Poems of Oscar Wilde

I know, I'm breaking my rules on not writing about poetry because it makes me uncomfortable but those were never explicit rules per se and if you really think I'd pass up an excuse to talk about Oscar Wilde, well, you may want to buy a hat.

Oscar Wilde's poetry is... Well, he's not my favorite. There are a few I think a lovely and beautiful and many that seem hackneyed. Some of it I have trouble focusing on--which may be partially because of the general style of the era, I'm more of a Beat Ferlinghetti-Ginsberg-Corso sort of person. Actually, another reason why I decided to write about this is because this book actually had information regarding Wilde's 'discovery' and charges being brought to him and I wanted an excuse to share it. You see, the story is that he was handed a card by Lord Alfred Douglas's father that read "To Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite" (only badly spelled, like 'sodumyte' or something equally atrocious)... And then it always skips to the trials, like, oh, suddenly everyone magically knew? Like, Wilde didn't just rip it up or eat it or something? This reveals that he actually attempting to sue for libel, lost the case, and then of course the charges for homosexuality were brought upon him. Talk about a spit in the eye, you know? Anyway, that's the only part of the introduction I really paid attention to, other than a small bit citing the poems written in memoriam of his sister and father.

Oh, and a note on the edition in question: it's Wordsworth, but not the famed 'Second Edition' which apparently is the best version ever. I believe this contains every example of his poetry however, so suck on that second edition users! Plus, instead of the cover being the ocean, it's a close-up version of this picture--the circled is Oscar Wilde: Also, support that site I stole the picture from because they were the only folks around who had a decent picture of it. It's actually kind of strange to see him dressed as a natural man of the era... but I guess, believe it or not, he was human too.






From 'Libertatis Sacra Fames' (The Sacred Hunger for Liberty [French]: "Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, / Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, / Or Murder with his silent bloody feet." (9). Infamy will always live on longer than... Well, the other things Wilde names.


In his poem 'The Garden of Eros', Wilde lists a good many Norse epic/saga heroes, such as Sigurd and Gudrun and Grettir. He prefaces it with "We know them all" (14). By what 'we' exactly are you referring to? You and JRR Tolkien? You, JRR Tolkien, and my brother? Yeah, that sounds about right. (Thomas is going to be mad that he was lumped into the same group as JRR Tolkien...)


One of my favorite poems, though not my most is 'Requiescat' ('May She Rest' [Latin]). It was written for his sister after her death; Wilde kept a lock of her hair to the end of his days. I've not much to say for it, but might I provide a link to it for you: http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/requiescat.html

A few of his poems beg for the beauty of the ancients of Greece and Rome to return by way of letting "the dull world grow young" (35). At the same time he seems to be aware of the paganism and impurity of that (my example is currently 'The Burden of Itys') as he talks about Ashtaroth (a demon, which apparently... teaches math and science? What?) and how he loves the "morning-star of Tuscany/More than the perfect sun of Raphael" (35). In that case, though, it seems he is unaware as of yet, still intoxicated by the glorious sights he is beholding, or imagining he will be beholding... Well, my point of bringing that second quote up is that perhaps I'm reading too far into it, but remember, Lucifer is the "Morning-star of evil" and Raphael is an archangel... And it appears before the Ashtaroth thing, so... Yeah? Could work?


In the same poem he admits that he wants to remain intoxicated with life and that fantasy and avoid "the Gorgon eyes of Truth" (37) and reality, and begs those fantasies to grow stronger because he still beholds Christ who he has attempted to desert even though he admits he had loved him, held his hands, kissed his lips and that he now is aware of Christ weeping, and he admits that it may be for him, the lost sheep. Again, he attempts to pull away, but through the rest he eventually works his way back to Christ; the conclusion comes with the ringing of the church bell which he goes back to, knowing he "must not wait" (40).


Apparently Keats had a poem entitled 'Endymion', or a poem in which he was the main character (Endymion was beloved of the moon and given eternal sleep and youth for her to view) and Wilde has a poem of the same name. I have never read the first, but Keats was Wilde's hero, so I can only assume that Wilde's was written as a response. Seems logical, no? One thing that bothers me about Wilde's poem is that the second stanza opens with "The turtle now has ceased to call" (46). What? I imagine they make noises, but... what? There were no better animals that could have been used or one that actually comes to mind as a 'calling' animal? The poem itself is kind of sad, for its about Endymion's human lover, who was told but the day before by himself that he loved her... And now she waits for him sad and disheartened, begging the moon to find him and help him find his way--though of course she already has found him; she has just claimed him for her own.


Wilde, unsurprisingly, also made a visit--although as he would probably be more apt to call it, a pilgrimage--to the grave of Keats. According to this book, he prostrated himself upon the grave... And later wrote a poem about the grave and in honour of Keats. I mention it because it is one of my favorites and for the fact that again, our heroes had heroes too and were, believe it or not, human. (In a later poem Wilde talks of a dream he has or had of meeting Keats.) And, let it be known--I acted similarly on Wilde's grave.

'In the Gold Room: A Harmony' is also a great poem. It is a sort of love poem, but I like the opening lines to each stanza--"Her ivory hands on the ivory keys", "Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold", "And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine" (72)--the best. Each stanza continues to describe whatever has been first touched upon.

In 'Fabien dei Frenchi' Wilde makes a quote which one at first would think a reference to Dracula--in fact, I thought it was until I just looked up the poem's date, which was 1881. Dracula wasn't written until 1897, so no go there. Oh, before I go on I guess I should make you privy to the line in question: "The dead that travel fast" (80). The line in Dracula is "For the dead travel fast" (Chapter one). This however is a reference to a ballad called 'Lenora' (Or 'Lenore') written by Gottfried August Burger in 1773. (The things I know, huh?) Depending on the translation, you actually get that exact line. So... to cut a long story short, Oscar Wilde is referring to a ballad that's largely unknown these days. (I myself have yet to read the whole of it.)


'Panthea' is a great poem of passion and greater passion, of living to the fullest and wildest in such, while ignoring things like philosophy and wisdom for they are "dead" and of "childless heritage" (83) respectively. If I could share a few choice lines with you: "Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,/From passionate pain to deadlier delight, --/I am too young to live without desire,/Too young art thou to waste this summer night"(83). Wasting it on asking questions that have been asked to the oracles and seers centuries before where no answers had or could be given--because "to feel is better than to know" (83). To love is better to be immersed in the philosophy and too much knowledge.

"Hearken [the gods] now to either good or ill,/But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will" (83). / "'It rains on the just and unjust alike... Except in California'"--Alan Moore, Watchmen.

"O we are wearied of this guilt,/Wearied of pleasure's paramour despair/Wearied of every temple we have built,/Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer,/For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high:/One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die." (85). "All things live in Death's despite." (86).

"We [lovers] shall be notes in that great Symphony/Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,/And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be/One with our heart; the stealthy creeping years/Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,/The Universe itself will be our Immortality." (88). Because he argues that if not for love between people, the rest of nature would not work as it should--the bee would not pollinate, flowers would not bloom, leaves would not bud, and so on.


'Taedium Vitae' ('Weariness of Life [Latin]) interests me in its opening line--"To stab my youth with desperate knives" (95). Though this was written nine years before Dorian Gray would be published (And seven to eight years before it was written/conceived, I assume) I can't help but point out its irony with that book in mind. Dorian of course has his portrait that reflects his true age and true vileness--the climactic scene is when he takes a dagger to it and ends up killing himself. But you see? He took a knife to his aged self. (Though arguably in an attempt to destroy the sins which marred his portrait which were obtained during his elongated youth he could have been doing exactly what the opening line entails anyways...) The knife was desperate either way, I'd say as well. He also talks about meshing his soul "within a woman's hair" (95). This could either refer to the Victorian practice of giving loved ones locks of hair and winding jewelry out of hair and stuff (okay, so not everything about that era was great) in terms of a lover or wife, or referring to his by then deceased sister, a lock of whose hair he had in his personal affects until his own death.

The next poem I believe is called 'Bittersweet Love', though I cannot be sure because Wordsworth decided not to give an official translation and the title is in Greek characters (Which I cannot reproduce here). All I can say is, in this particular edition, it begins on page 109. Its first line is "Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay" (109), that which instantly attracted me. He is apologizing for a romance that did not work out which would if, well, he had not been made of common clay--which is awesome imagery right there. This is the poem he says his dream of meeting Keats in; the love was so great he felt he had attained what Keats had or wrote of and blessed him (Wilde) with this ecstatic love. Wilde goes on for a while talking about how great it was, and had it worked out they would have been the sort of lovers young lovers would read about for time and time to come--but "the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth" (110) and eventually they drift away from each other. He speaks of growing old and losing passion and youth and eventually death knocking at his door--but he never says he regrets loving the female the poem is directed to, nay, he is okay with it because it was of his own choice and that to experience that love was great indeed, even if it eventually led to nothing greater.

Going to Keats once more is Wilde's poem 'On Sale by Auction of Keat's Love Letters'. The poem is told in woe because the notes are being bargained and fought for, priced by a merchant and not for what they contain, their true beauty hardly even mentioned or known--the men understand not what they do, treating it as practically a trifle. In the second stanza he compares this act of theirs to the Roman soldiers who played dice for the clothes taken off of Jesus just before his crucifixion.

I've not much to say for 'To L. L', other than provide a link to it--though honestly you can find any of these by googling them. I'd say it's one of the most perfect of the bunch, and if asked I'd be willing to say it's in the top five, if not my absolute favorite of Wilde's poetry (discounting 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'). The only stanza I really feel the need to draw particular attention to (for the rest is far too much to quote) is the final one: "But strange that I was not told/That the brain can hold/In a tiny ivory cell/God's heaven and hell" (124). / "The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"--John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book one). This quote refers to Satan's mind and twisted logic (in Paradise Lost) and there's very little doubt that that quote is the one that inspired Oscar Wilde for this stanza, for surely being an educated man he would have read it (no doubt it was required at Oxford). As for if that would be meant to have bearing on Wilde's character at that point in the poem--I cannot say.

And one last note, that pertains to 'The Sphinx'--Wilde writes again of great gods and mythical beasts past--the speaker of the poem is urging the monster to return to her land and her previous lovers and consorts, arguing that those like Thoth and Ashtaroth never died--Jesus is the only god of those named who had in his--for lack of a better word that is in no means meant to offend--legendarium allowed himself to be killed. In the end, as in 'The Burden of Itys', he rejects the Sphinx and what fantasies arise around her and tells her to "leave me to my crucifix" (135) and his God.

So, there you go. I've already done 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' down in The Collected Oscar Wilde post if you're still interested in his poetry, especially what is probably his most famous. (I don't think I really went over his other poems in that collection...) And checking that post, I can now say with certainty that Barnes & Noble does not give you his complete poetry in that collection. Well, like I said, he's not my favorite poet, but he's certainly no Robert Frost. Ever. Those with a fondness for Victorian poetry will probably enjoy this more than I did; like I said, I prefer those of the Beat poets.



Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Walk Away by Franz Ferdinand

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: The lovers who have tainted you, they pulled you into the night--They touched your skin with velvet gloves and made you feel alive

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

YES! A book that gives me an excuse to use ampersands! High fives, anyone? God, I love ampersands. Maybe not as much as semicolons, but it is a little more exciting to see an ampersand since they appear even less often. ...Uh, can we pretend none of what I just typed actually happened?


Anyway, as you can see, this book is right there in my 'Top Books' column. You know why? BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME. Way better than that other book of his I read which shall not be named (Theyiddishpoliceman'sunioncoughcough). It's about two boys in New York (one of them having immigrated--emigrated?--to escape the ominous hints of war on the horizon) who have a dream to make comic books. The book is about a year--yes, a good portion of the book only happens in a year, a fact that left me reeling when they actually bring it up--creating these books and making it big, though eventually it goes through the following years much faster and faster, eventually giving you kind of snapshots--and then pulling back. Does that make sense? No? Good. I'm doing my job correctly!





"'Never worry about what you are escaping from,' he said. 'Reserve your anxieties for what you are escaping to'" (37).


Josef Kavalier is the boy who emigrated--though his first attempt fails; he was cut off at the station because he was supposedly missing a stamp. So he shows back up at his teacher Kornblum's--teacher of escapism--flat, determined to find a way to get to the US. "'What am I saying--"if I am going"?' He spat a flake of tobacco at the ground. 'I have to go.' 'What you have to do, my boy,' Kornblum said, 'is try to remember that you are already gone'" (43).


Kavalier at one point observes a crate that contains a sword-cane. YES PLEASE.


"'Maybe it was supposed to be female,' Josef suggested as he watched Kornblum zip the Golem's fly. 'Not even the Maharal could make a woman out of clay,' Kornblum said. 'For that you need a rib'" (61).


When Kavalier and (Sammy) Klayman are attempting to think up superheroes: "They began to go through the rolls of the animal kingdom, concentrating naturally on the predators: Catman, Wolfman, the Owl, the Panter, the Black Bear. They considered the primates: the Monkey, Gorillaman, the Gibbon, the Ape, the Mandrill with his multicolored wonder ass that he used to bedazzle opponents. 'Be serious,' Joe chided again" (93). Hehe. They end up coming up with the Escapist, a hero who utilizes--what do you expect?--escapism. With him eventually arises a whole other slew of heroes.


"'He was all muscle. No heart. He was like Superman without the Clark Kent'" (120). Sammy is describing his father, who was a travelling strong man that eventually left him behind.


"'What's so bad about Hitler?' said Davy. 'Just kidding.' 'Maybe you ought to call it Racy Dictator,' said Marty" (142). This quote exists here mostly for Kelly's reaction upon my texting it to to her: "I'm a racy dictator." (The racy thing is because popular comic books of the time were entitled things like Racy Science, Racy Adventure, et cetera.)


Kavalier, hiding his Jewishness or at least in an attempt to not admit it outright tells Sammy's friends that he's from Japan. "'And you have to tell us how's come if you're from Japan, you could be Sammy's cousin and look like such a Jew,' Davy O'Dowd said. 'We're in Japan,' Sammy said. 'We're everywhere.' 'Jujitsu,' Joe reminded him. 'Good point,' said Davy O'Dowd" (143). Again, insert some mad chuckling here.


Well, I don't have much to say till a lot later on. At this point, the Escapist has made quite a name for himself and his creators, and there is talk of a radio show being created. The boys are at a party, one which features Salvador Dali who almost suffocates in a diving outfit (a story which is based on an actual event, believe it or not) and anyway. A man named Harkoo asks Josef to take a picture of him. Just some pretty words, here, again. "'How do I focus it?' Joe asked him, lowering the camera. 'Oh, don't bother about that. Just look at me and push the little lever. Your mind will do the rest.' 'My mind... The camera is... Telepathic.' 'All cameras are'" (233).


"A surprising fact about Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herberies and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not in astrology, theosophy, chiromancy, dowsing rods, seances, weeping statues, werewolves, wonders, or miracles... What bewitched Bernard Kornblum, on the contrary, was the impersonal magic of life, when he read in a magazine about a fish that could disguise itself as any one of seven different varieties of sea bottom, or when he learned from a newsreel that scientists had discovered a dying star that emitted radiation on a wavelength whose value in megacycles approximated [Pi]. In the realm of human affairs, this type of enchantment was often, though not always, a sadder business--sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel" (265). There's a lot of fluff in here, but there's still a lot of good things going on too...


"The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place" (339).

Well... hmm... I guess there's no choice but to introduce spoilers. Sorry, this one is kind of sparse, I guess. Well, Kavalier still has family across the ocean, you remember. And he uses a good portion of the money he garners to get his brother passage to the US. The ship is sunk, and Kavalier leaves for the military, specifically the navy. His girlfriend at the time is pregnant--though he is unaware of it, and Sammy marries her. I only bring this up because Emma will recognize an unconscious parallel to it... sort of... sometime in the future... Uh. Well, anyway, after this it picks up to many years later first starting around Kavalier and Rosa's son, Sammy.

"'You can't walk me to school,' Tommy said... 'Mom, you can't possibly. I would die. I would absolutely die.' 'He would die,' Sammy told Rosa" (476).

At one point a few comic book artists talk about some comics Sammy worked on--one of which is Lone Wolf and Cubby, which I thought was funny and had to be a reference to the actual comic Lone Wolf and Cub. I've never read it, but I hear it's fantastic. They sell shirts for it at Old Glory. (But it seems like those guys like everything, really.)

"'You were watching my fingers. Don't watch my fingers. My fingers are liars. I have taught them to tell lies'" (511).

Kavalier eventually does come back, the reason why it took him so long is because he didn't... quite... know how to do it. He was scared, he didn't know how he would explain himself or what had happened, how to apologize for what he had done, and so on. One of the sweetest moments in its own strange way is Sammy's response: "'Christ, Joe, you f--king idiot... We love you'" (558). Okay, I thought there was something oddly sweet about it.

"'God is a madman. He lost his mind, like, a billion years ago. Just before He, you know. Created the universe'" (564).

"...The usual charge against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf" (575).

Rosa says at one point that even though bacon is pork, it is okay--because of one passage in the Talmund--to eat. A rudimentary inspection of Google tells me that you can get struck down for eating bacon along with the followers of Baal, however, there is bacon made of ducks and others available for Kosher consumption. And apparently it's okay in some respects, as long as you're not an Orthodox Jew. (I feel like the rules regarding proper slaughter come into effect, as turkey isn't considering Kosher unless you 100% know it was slaughtered in the proper fashion.)

Now, if you'll recall, Sammy's father abandoned him and then later died. Sammy in the future is brought to court for his works (as are other comics creators) and one of the things brought up is his often adding boy sidekicks to comic book heroes' repertoires. This is meant to be a homosexual charge and although (spoiler alert which is kind of unnecessary since I know Emma has read this) Sammy is actually gay, he imagines it more as a yearning for what he hadn't had: a close father who he could rely on and was always around to protect him and interact with him. Poor Sammy.

Tommy, going through his real father's possessions finds Joe's very first sketch and attempt at a superhero during Sammy's original pitch... a Golem, the Golem of his home. It's a touching moment via drawing though perhaps not the most--Joe's brother sent Joe to the US in possession of a drawing of Harry Houdini falling from the sky drinking tea completely unworried, as though he had all the time in the world... I believe about three times it is mentioned, though its run finally ends with Joe's military service, when he leaves it behind in his post.

"'This is feeling very strange to me,' Rosa said. She was gripping the pillowcase filled with Joe's old sheets in one hand, like a sack, and dabbing at the tears in her eyes with the other. 'It's been strange all along,' said Sammy" (636).



...Well. I guess this was really sparse, sorry... I guess I'm still kind of drained from Ulysses and Connecticon and my first visit ever to a 7-11. Well, the book is awesome is what you need to know, and that you should read it. Really. (The only bothers me thing about the book is sometimes Chabon's writing style really bothers me, but most of the time I'm fine with it.)



Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Spitting Venom by Modest Mouse

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: I cannot turn to see those eyes as apologies may rise; I must be strong and stay an unbeliever

Holes by Louis Sachar

I know what you're thinking, "Angela, I read this book in fourth grade. Are you real right now?" Why yes, yes I am. This book is awesome. This is the Everything is Illuminated of my childhood. It is utterly perfect. I was debating on rereading it and putting it up here, actually, but at my friend's graduation party we were eating sunflower seeds, I made an offhand Mr Sir joke ("This seaside cottage ain't no girl scout camp") and everyone cracked up... and before that at my college orientation in the bookstore I happened to notice Holes in the shelf and I was all excited. So here we go.



This book is about Stanley Yelnats, a boy who has been accused of stealing shoes--really expensive important shoes--and is sent to a 'correctional facility' (essentially a work camp) known as Camp Green Lake. Once upon a time there was an actual lake, but now it has all dried up and the boys in the camp go out onto the lake every day and dig a five by five hole. The book is also about Sam and Kate Barlow, who later becomes the notorious outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow and also about Stanley's no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great grandfather. Is this seriously necessary? Come on, everyone has read this book--I hope. Maybe you've only seen the movie... OH WAIT THEN YOU'D STILL NEED THIS SUMMARY LOL. Okay, maybe that's unfair, I haven't seen in a while. Maybe it really was good. Yeah, the way the film adaption of Maniac Magee was good. BAHAHAHAHA I tried to rewatch that, I think I lasted like 45 seconds. The second the dad was like "I'll teach you the stopball" I was done. Anyway.



I guess there's really not a whole to point out other than the book's perfectness. Everything travels in a full circle; there are no superfluous details. Even minute details like the fact that Trout Walker has a foot fungi that smells like fish (Trout is just a nickname) comes into play, one character's red hair and one character's turquoise-studded boots*... And of course big important details exist as well.

Oh, and might I mention I wrote about this book in my college essay?--to further attest to its awesomeness, of course. Stanley's great-grandfather was left stranded in the desert after being robbed by Kissin' Kate Barlow. He survived for seventeen days and when asked how he survived he said he "'found refuge on God's thumb'" (93). This thumb in question happens to be overlooking the Camp and a portion of the book is spent running away from the camp and to God's thumb. I don't know, that bit always had a certain poignancy for me.

The most upsetting part of the book is certainly that regarding Sam and Kate Barlow. Sam was an onion seller--an African American onion seller. Kate was a school teacher. The school was falling apart and Sam offered to fix it up and fixed it up well. When the school is finally complete Kate breaks down crying and Sam asks what's wrong--she says her heart is breaking, and they kiss. But, because this is the eighteen-hundreds--probably even before the Civil War--when they are spotted Sam is to be hung and the schoolhouse is burnt. The lady who sees them whispers under her breath "'God will punish you!'" (111). Sam is killed, his donkey is killed, Kate leaves and becomes Kissin' Kate Barlow. Louis Sachar concludes the story of Sam's death with this: "That all happened one hundred and ten years ago. Since then, not one drop of rain has fallen on Green Lake. You make the decision: Whom did God punish?" (115).

*Kissin' Kate Barlow had turquoise-studded black boots. The Warden of the camp also wears the same boots. The Warden has red hair--like Trout's wife.

Sam owned a donkey named Mary Lou and his boat was named Mary Lou. Zero and Stanley hide in the boat for a day or two after escaping camp. They of course do not know she was a donkey and imagine how good looking a woman she was--"'I bet she looked great in a bathing suit, sitting on a boat while her boyfriend rowed'" (161). Hehe.

Spoiler alerts come on now: Camp Green Lake is exposed as a work camp and fraught with abuse. The land is sold and it's set to ironically enough become a girl scouts' camp. One thing that bothered me about the movie is that Zero hires a team of investigators to find his mother--I remember thinking that that didn't happen, it's just implied at the very end with the woman who ruffles his hair. Well guess what, it did happen. Actually, thinking on it, it's kind of ridiculous to assume that this woman could just show up unquestioned at their house and instantly recognize her son whom she hasn't seen in five years and him not being disturbed at her sudden physical affection--okay, actually it's kind of ridiculous to assume that she's even still alive. Maybe? But I like the less... uh... 'loud' ending the book had. The movie was like OH MY GOD LOOK IT'S HIS MOM!!!! DRAMATICS!

Oh, and apparently a sequel was made to this book? I bet it's about Squid (one of the boys at camp; they all have nicknames) because when Stanley and Zero leave he asks Squid to call his mother and tell her that he's sorry... Well, it's touching. Will I read the sequel...? Well, we'll see.



Well, I guess there wasn't much for me to say. But rest assured, this is a fantastic book. Seriously, I remember Ms Falcigno reading it to us--I try to imagine how the Warden sounded, and it's her voice. I try to imagine what Hattie Parker sounded like, how she said "God will punish you"--it's the same tone my teacher took on. I can hear her reading the other parts too. Either it's because the book was so amazing from that very first time hearing it or it's signs of developing schizophrenia. No, but seriously, this book is amazing and I can still recall that feeling of shock--good shock--down in my soul, to my spine. After we finished it in school I remember begging and pleading for my dad to get it for me, and I actually remember dragging my dad to the bookshelf it was on at Barnes & Noble. This is seriously a good book.



(This post is not 7,163 words.)



Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Ulysses by Franz Ferdinand (Told you! Utter facepalm.)
This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Hold on to what you need, we've got a knack for messed up history

Ulysses by James Joyce

I did it! I finally really did it! YES, I'M A MANIAC, I FINALLY BLEW IT UP! DAMN ME, DAMN ME ALL TO... Wait, what? Oh, sorry, I was possessed by Charlton Heston for a second there. My bad.

Anyway, what exactly I did was finish... well, I assume you can read if you've made it this far. Please, absorb the title. Give me my moments of joy and pride. I'm going to get all Fitzwilliam Darcy up in here. Oh yeahhhh. (Can you tell that it's one in the morning?) Anyway, this book was awesome awesome awesome. It's about a single day in Dublin, focusing on a few men here and there, mainly Leopold Bloom but also others, such as Bloom's wife and Stephen Dedalus. Any day, really. It is, as the title may have tipped you off to, a parallel to Homer's Odyssey. (Ulysses is Odysseus in Latin.) Which is a pretty cool concept, and 85% of the reason I read it... ten percent is Marky Mark explaining certain scenes that parallel or are different on purpose, and the last five percent is that Ulysses is really cool sounding and also fun to say. Well, let's get right to it, shall we? I'll try to split it section by section, or warn you about it, but I'm sure I won't do it perfectly. Oh, and as a side note: sections in the book aren't actually titled, except in guides and such, say, Wikipedia. (I admit, I used Wikipedia for help, and a little bit of SparkNotes--they afforded about the same degree of information. Even just reading the summaries of the sections on Wikipedia is pretty cool as well.) Another note: quotation marks are seldom, if ever, used, so if a conversation takes place I will throw them in there--just to reduce confusion, mind you.

I don't have much to say on the included letters in the book, except that in John M Woolsey's ruling to remove the ban on the book (this is actually one book that was banned that you read and can actually see reasons as to why it would offend/be banned) he includes a sentence--practically the conclusion--that "nowhere does [Ulysses] tend to be an aphrodisiac" (XIV). It kind of just made me giggle and especially makes me giggle now, at five to two AM.

The first section is known as Telemachus--Telemachus is Odysseus's son, who while with his father away from home must deal with these masses of suitors come for his mother's hand, but more importantly, the kingdom. The Telemachus in question is Stephen Dedalus, being bled of wealth by those around (as the suitors did in Odysseus's unmanned home). Stephen is also meant to echo Shakespeare's Hamlet.

"'Thanks', Stephen said. 'I can't wear them if they are grey'. 'He can't wear them,' Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers'" (6). This kind of made me chuckle--and no, he didn't literally murder his mother. What happened, if I understand correctly, was that his mother was moments from dying and she begged him to pray but he went into a sort of shock and wouldn't do so. She died promptly, and thus, the explanation for Mulligan's statement.

"...all there if of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the serpent's prey" (14).

"'The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus,' he said" (18). Clearly, the drink. Mulligan thereafter starts singing a drinking tune: "I'm the queerest young fellow that you ever heard/My mother's a jew, my father's a bird. With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree/So here's to disciples and Cavalry" (19). I'm not sure who Joseph the joiner is, but I just thought I might point out that the tune is about Jesus. (The bird thing threw me off, but remember, the holy spirit came to the disciples at one point as a dove. Or the dove is just a sign of God. Look, it's been a while since Sunday school.) This passage also had me thinking of the story of Jesus as a sort of quest. I mean, it follows the quest motif. Marked for greatness, well, he's not literally marked, but his dad is the creator of the universe so that's a pretty big one on its own, his call to adventure would be about when he was thirty, which I believe was when he had his greatest revelation and began to travel... he garnered the disciples, he had tasks, like resisting the devil's temptation in the desert... His goal would be to spread the Word, I guess... Well, what brought this train of thought on was a comment from Haines, an acquaintance of Stephen Dedalus's: "'I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere... The Father and Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father'" (18). Actually, maybe that doesn't work that well, for at the end of the heroic quest is that the son must overcome the father in some way, whether it be a metaphor or actually doing so, and I don't really recall the part where Jesus beat his dad up. No, it still kind of works.

Part Two: Nestor. Nestor himself appears in both The Illiad and The Odyssey as a counsellor. Stephen Dedalus in this chapter attempts to teach a class of horribly bored children and when it is let out goes to see Mr Deasy to receive his pay. I think Nestor refers to Deasy, who tries to pass information and advice unto Stephen, a portion of which is actually anti-Semitic gabble.

"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" (34).

"Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying: 'That is God.' 'Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!' 'What?' Mr Deasy asked. 'A shout in the street,' Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders" (34).

The third section, one of my least favorites of the book to be honest, is Proteus. Proteus was a lesser sea god, appropriate because this chapter is spent on the beach, again still with Dedalus. This is the first real 'stream of consciousness' chapter as well, and according to Marky Mark one of the hardest in the book. Yeah, I can believe that.

"Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint... You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the wet street... Sell your soul for that, do... More tell me, more still! On top of the Howth tram alone crying to the rain: naked women! What about that, eh?" (40) And then he defends himself: "What about what? What else were they invented for?" (40), which made me chuckle.

"When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once..." (40). Again, that attempt to explain that unity, that synching, when you read something so perfectly like that. This stab at it is as good as any, I think.

"Endless, would it be mine, form of my form?" (48). Dedalus means his shadow. I just think it's just a really cool quote, there is something incredibly attractive about its wording.

"Our souls, shame-wounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the more" (48). Fantastic imagery.

Joyce also coins the word dislove--or perhaps not, perhaps I've just never seen it before--a very attractive (ironically enough) word. There's just something about it I like.

Joyce refers to Wilde quite a few times throughout the book, mostly in the begin but a little scattered throughout. The first reference is from part one: "'We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes'" (18). The second time is here in part three: "Staunch friend, a brother soul: Wilde's love that dare not speak its name. He will now leave me. And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all" (49). I understand the reference to Wilde--that was his defense in court when charged with being a homosexual; he mentions in a work of the love that "dare not speak its name". However, he defines it not as homosexuality but of a sort of foster father relationship or foster brother relationship with a younger man, a Greek love. (A Greek discluding Sparta love.) So it'd be a close relationship with a man, the original owner of the boots he was wearing and reflecting upon when he speaks of Wilde... Or maybe even it refers to the boots themselves, the boots in regards to his feet. But--I understand not the "He now will leave me..." bit. Taking the shoe off? His father himself leaving him? A close adult? Even perhaps a male lover? Fortunately, Sparknotes gives us nothing to explain this; Sparknotes never seems to have any information regarding the things in this book that really do confuse me.

I really have nothing much to say about the next part, other than it's when we first meet Leopold Bloom, the sort of--'mainest' character. He was sort of my anchor; from here on in, as long as Leopold is around or directly involved in whatever is going on, I have a pretty good grip of what's going on. When he disappears for periods of time I have some trouble. Anyway, Leopold is your average citizen, he's part Jewish (I feel the need to mention this because he eats pork and he has not been circumcised, which probably confused the most out of the whole book until much later when we are made privy to the fact that he is only part Jewish). Anyway, this part is called Calypso, after the sea goddess who held Odysseus captive for seven years and forced him to have sex with her and stuff (Oh no, a beautiful woman wants to have sex with me! Woe is me! Shut up, Odysseus.) We do also meet Bloom's wife this chapter, still in bed, so I can kind of see a connection there... And the missus certainly feels entrapped by the marriage (not that that feeling keeps her from indulging in, uh, outer marriage pleasures), and Bloom to an extent does--but she certainly is more agitated by it. In which case, it would be.... irony! Yay

　

Okay, next part. Chapter two of part two I guess. This is where we find out that Bloom has a secret life--he writes erotic letters to a girl, who writes back--the woman would like to meet him, at least it implies it (she asks him his wife's perfume) but he kind of skirts it off. Anyway, this is supposed to parallel the lotus-eaters, who if I recall were normal men but ate of the lotuses (loti?) and forgot their identities. (They acted as narcotics.) Leopold Bloom's false name in his letter is Henry Flowers (which also could be a joke on 'Bloom') and enclosed in the letter from his 'pen pal' is a flower. And the both are purposely ignoring their actual identities to flirt and write erotic things too, so, yeah.

"Tell him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses!" (71). This seemed like a very Kerouac little section, which I guess to a certain extent makes sense, being that him and Joyce were both practitioners in the stream of thought writing. Still, just saying.

The next chapter is appropriately paradoxical of Odysseus's descent to Hades, as this is of Bloom, the senior Dedalus and Martin Cunningham going to Paddy Dignam's funeral.

We learn of Bloom's dead son (Rudy) on the way to the funeral, a son dead either at birth or shortly after birth. I thought this was interesting because, to be frank, Mrs Bloom is sleeping around. Actually, sleeping with her manager. Bloom knows it, though I don't believe their daughter is aware (she is away from home) and I don't believe any other person around knows. But wait, that's not the whole reason why I thought it was interesting! When Odysseus comes home, his son helps him get by the suitors so he can slaughter them. With a dead son then, can Bloom do nothing, or at least not gather the courage to confront his wife and her lover? And if the son hadn't died, would the affair be happening at all? (He would not have been old enough to send away like the daughter.)

The senior Dedalus Simon is complaining about his son, Stephen, and turns the phrase "tickle his catastrophe" (88), which is just another example of awesomeness in the wording apparent in the text.

The funeral procession passes Simon's late wife's grave and he becomes distraught, saying he'll "soon be stretched beside her" (105) and that God can take him whenever he wants because obviously he misses her. Possible irony, because while Odysseus is in hell he meets Achilles and Achilles says he'd rather be a slave than rule the place, much less be there at all.

"Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least" (109). Ah, so that's the grace period! Guys, your Michael Jackson jokes are still in really bad taste!

"The Irishman's house is his coffin" (110).

"Bam! Expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you. Don't forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers... Then they follow: dropping into a hole one after the other" (111). And, with that--"Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind" (111). Of course, referring to the deceased.

The next chapter is set in a newspaper office and is broken up like several articles one after another with huge headers. I had a hell of a time with this chapter. This chapter is Aeolus, who if I recall correctly gave Odysseus a bag of winds to help ease his journey.

"What was [Rome's] civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers. The Jews met in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman... gazed about him in his toga and said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset" (129). Okay, yes, it made me giggle. Also, compare that with this quote from Doctor Zhivago: "'Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction.'" It is mentioned that we still have Roman law and the retort is that Pontius Pilate is that law's prophet. (Pontius Pilate was the man who condemned Jesus to Crucifixion, though in his defense he was very reluctant to do so.)

"We were never loyal to the successful. We serve them" (133).

The next part is Lestrygonians. They were giants who ate almost the entirety of Odysseus's fleet. Appropriate, because it is lunchtime, though Bloom does not dine on miniature Grecian men. (Or does he?)

The first bit that bothers me are his thoughts of Shakespeare. Bloom says to himself that Shakespeare has no rhymes: okay, maybe not so much in plays, but what about the sonnets? I guess in his defense people don't automatically think of the sonnets when they think of Shakespeare, even if they are aware of the sonnets' existence.

"Do ptake some ptarmigan" (175). Haha, yes! (A ptarmigan is a kind of bird, by the way.) I don't know if any of you have read any Shel Silverstein, but does anybody remember that poem about that gnat? Gradually he adds the silently 'g' to every 'n' word. So. Yeah. James Joyce and I should hang out more is what I'm trying to say.

There is a conversation next chapter regarding Shankspeare and his personal life, and a man in the pub criticizing an analysis of his life in a very Wilde-ish way: "'But this is prying into the family life of a great man... I mean when we read the poetry of King Lear what is it to us how the poet lived?... Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, the poet's drinking, the poet's debts. We have King Lear: and it is immortal'" (189). Wilde argues very much the same way in a work which I can not exactly name but I know is contained in The Collected Oscar Wilde (For some reason I'm thinking 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism'?)--I wrote about in any case, if you'd like to skim that up. But to summarize, he says biographies of the great poets, authors, et cetera doesn't really tell us about the person because maybe they had a boring life that didn't really let them live to their fullest (Cough cough, Jane Austen), they could not live as they really pleased, they were only reacting to what was laid before them, that was all they could do--and so on. Their works are most important and they are what truly show us the soul, because it shows their desires, their mannerisms, true unhidden or otherwise disguised feelings, what they would have liked to live... and so on. Which I completely agree with, for the record, and not just because Oscar Wilde wrote about it!

"There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a sundering" (195).

Oh, and James Joyce name-drops Wilde's 'Portrait of Mr WH', Wilde's story that argues that Shankspeare's sonnets were written for a man named Willie Hughes. This story also resides in Barnes & Noble's The Collected Oscar Wilde. I might add that the reason why Wilde's name peppers Ulysses is probably because James Joyce was Irish as well, and Wilde was a prominent author, scandal or no. Well, and that he works for situations he is alluded too, but I feel that his Irish background has a lot to do with it. You know? Like, of course they'd be talking about him, he's straight from their home country, and so on.

"A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary evil" (207).

Midway through there is a breakup similar to play dialogue. I assume it has to do with the fact Shankspeare is being discussed, but like I said, when in doubt, SparkNotes is actually really useless.

Next chapter does not regard Stephen and Leopold at all, so let that be the warning flag to you now that I had a lot of trouble with the chapter. There are nineteen vignettes regarding nineteen different people in the book. (As opposed to regarding those not in the book?)

In one vignette M'Coy narrowly avoids slipping on a banana peel and reflects upon how badly you could get hurt if you did. Was slipping on a banana peel already a cliche then, or did this start the trend? Has there ever been any serious research on the subject that could give me a clear answer?

Next chapter regards the Sirens, women-fish similar to mermaids (depending on the interpretation) whose lovely voice lure men to their doom, as they are so drawn to the women they drive their ships right into the rocks where they repose. Appropriately, this chapter regards lots of singing and music as Bloom sits down for dinner. In another sense it works because during this chapter Boylan, Leopold's wife's lover makes his way to the Bloom household to have his way with her. (Leopold's wife, if I have not mentioned, is a singer. Boylan is her manager. She is the siren, he is the sailor, although he is the sailor who does not suffer death.)

Joyce mentions middle earth during this chapter. The middle earth? The Hobbit wasn't published for about fifteen years after Ulysses, so you never know... (I can't find anything to support my idea.)

"He bore no hate. Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old" (285).

"...Daly's window where a mermaid, hair all streaming (but he couldn't see), blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn't), mermaid coolest whiff of all" (289). Obviously, referring to the actual female sirens, not just the men (particularly Simon Dedalus) who are singing. Admittedly there are some alluring barmaids where they are dining as well.

The next chapter is Cyclops, possibly my least favorite section of the book (though it has interesting bits) and a pretty difficult section too. The cyclops was obviously a one-eyed giant who dined upon men; Odysseus escapes it by getting it drunk and then putting out its eye. Hiding under a sheepskin he escapes the Cyclops's lair. The one-eyed giant could refer to the 'Citizen' (never is he named in any other way) because he's anti-Semitic, so narrow minded, purposely blind, one-eyed for he sees but only what he wants, and so on. This chapter is told by an unnamed man whose speech was apparently modeled after James Joyce's father. The man's style of speaking, in any case, reminds me greatly of Alex from A Clockwork Orange, probably because he refers back to himself all the time, "says I" and just the way he speaks itself reads in my head with the voice of Alex from the movie. Something about the voice... Just one of those things, I guess.

There is a funny case of abusing Bloom for his patterns in this chapter. Earlier on, he's called wellrounded, well-educated, knows a tad bit of everything, yes? And this is said with honor for him. Here, though, he is berated for it. It's kind of cool to be able to see all the different opinions of him here and there, and then that coupled with his own mind (which admittedly is a little dirty and fetish-filled)--Leopold Bloom is fleshed out completely in that, more completely than any other book has ever done and could possibly do, he's more human than you or I, I'd even go sofar as to say. He's the roundest character you'll ever read, I mean, rounder than most people anyway. Anyway, Leopold being mocked: "'...If you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That's a straw. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady" (316).

In this chapter we learn of the day that this is set upon, June sixteenth, commonly known nowadays--or perhaps not so commonly--as Bloomsday. In that same sentence he actually mentions "the oxeyed goddess" (322) IE Hera. Which I thought was curious because this is really the only time he refers to any Greek god/dess, and in such a Homer-ish way, too. And on a side note, wouldn't it suck to be known as the oxeyed goddess? I'd be like, nothing? There's nothing else you could refer to me as!? The hourglass shaped goddess? The eternally young goddess? The goddess of the golden hair? Anything is better than oxeyed.

"Some people, says Bloom, can see the [might] in others' eyes but they can't see the beam in their own" (326).

Ironically, the intended cyclops of this chapter, the anti-Semite is the one who says: "'There's no-one as blind as the fellow that won't see, if you know what that means'" (326). Of course, his prejudices make him the blind man--the blind man who is unaware even of his inability to see.

"'But it's no use,' says he. 'Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life.' 'What?' says Alf. 'Love,' says Bloom. 'I mean the opposite of hatred'" (333).

"'And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till he knows if he's a father or mother.' 'Expecting every moment will be his next,' says Lenehan'" (338). Again, lovely phraseology here.

Oh, and Leopold finally sticks it to the Citizen by reminding him that Jesus was a Jew. The Citizen, filled with rage, threatens to crucify Leopold.

Next chapter is Nausicaa. Nausicaa is a young princess who comes upon Odysseus and eventually brings him to her parents to shelter him. Nausicaa has a bit of a crush on him and expresses that she'd like to marry him, or someone with his personality. Nausicaa's father is aware of this crush, or just impressed by Odysseus, and offers him her hand, but Odysseus turns it down because he's already married. Again, the parallels are clear. This chapter is mostly told through the eyes of Gerty, a girl on the beach, with a few of her friends and their kids. She thinks about marriage and sex and such while reclining on the beach (according to SparkNotes, her narrative is meant to parody early romance stories in women's magazines) till she notices Leopold watching her. While fireworks are being shot off she shows some leg and Leopold, uh, directs the pleasure toward himself. So nothing comes of that, either. (Is it bad that I'm summarizing all these chapters? This isn't really the kind of book where you can cut stuff out, you know?)

"He was too young to understand. He would not believe in love, a women's birthright" (351). Yeah, it's pretty lame, but guess what I like Jane Austen. Another example of cheap romance novel prose-cliches: "There were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm" (358).

Oh, and, I mentioned this earlier, about his foreskin? He complains about it, you know, after. Look, the only reason why I bring it up because of any bit of the book it certainly confused me the most. He's Jewish! It bothered me every page until about one hundred pages later when they go out and say that he's only part Jewish. I mean, of all things of the book to throw me for a loop, really.

"Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we die" (381).

"O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers do. Will I?" (381). You know, a play on that saying that murderers always come back to the scene of the crime. And... so do masturbaters? Well, not that there was any crime scene but you know. Again, I thought it was a cool little tidbit of Bloom's thinking.

The next is Cattle of the Sun, having to do with Helios's divine cattle, but honestly this chapter is too cool and much cooler than The Odyssey's parallel chapter, or a summary of it. This chapter's concept (which I only realized with the help of Wikipedia) follows a baby's growth in the womb. But get this--it's the language that follows the baby's growth. Like, it starts out in olde English and develops with each paragraph in a style further such as the King James' Bible, Samuel Pepys, Charles Dickens, Carlyle, among many others. Which is a really really really REALLY cool concept! Once I learned this, I had to reread the chapter. I mean, what a genius is James Joyce to think of such a thing!
"Know all men, he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions. What means this? Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time... In woman's womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the postcreation" (391). Conception and gestation, of course.

"I have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together" (409).

Oh, and again Lord of the Rings: Joyce uses the word 'bilbos'. A bilbo was apparently a kind of sword known for its flexible but not weak blade manufactured mainly in Bilbao, Spain. Knowing this I could make an interesting analysis of how that would regard Bilbo Baggins, but I guess this isn't quite the time or place to do so.

The next chapter is my favorite of the whole book, regardless of its madness and at times incredibly disturbing imagery. (Not A Clockwork Orange disturbing, just, you know, uncomfortable-like.) The chapter is Circe--Circe was a witch who turned Odysseus's men into pigs. Circe wanted to sleep with Odysseus like every other female in the book and, according to Wikipedia, would steal Odysseus's manhood unless if she explicitely swore not to. I don't quite remember that but okay. It actually kind of works because at one point Bloom imagines he is turned into a woman but I'm getting ahead of myself. Bloom, drunk as a skunk, wanders into the red light district and has many drunken hallucinations with brief moments of clearheadedness. His first delusion has him facing harsh charges from people close to him, his second involves him becoming a great leader of a new country--get ready for this--Bloomusalem. This is all fine and well till he's accused of being bisexual, virgin, being in possession of endless and violent lust and others. Well, let's get started for real I guess.

"'There is no place for indecent levity at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor'" (463). Seriously, James Joyce, how are you so awesome? Please inform me as to how.

Well, okay, here's the first disturbing in an uncomfortable creepy-crawly way part: after Bloom is ripped apart for his apparent sexual abnormalities, a doctor gives a long speech about Bloom and suddenly ends it with "'He is about to have a baby'" (494). Bloom, suddenly female, confesses he wants to be a mother and while standing there bears eight children. Ugh, talk about the creepy-crawlies. Oh, and keep in mind that now you know the truth: LEOPOLD BLOOM WAS THE ORIGINAL OCTOMOM.

"'What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for'" (500).

"'From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step'" (515).

Bloom, babbling on claims that women fear "creeping things" (516) because of how their differing genitals are laid out, which is why he believes the story of Eve and the snake make no sense (along with the fact that a woman would fear a snake because of the old wives' tale that snakes will suck the milk from the breast). Well, I suppose it works at least a little--it seems to me like the snake would be a phallic symbol, no? And, with his mentioning of the wives' tale--we discover in the final chapter that he drank the milk from his wife's breast. Why his wife detests him? She certainly seems to regard the incident with disgust, even though he complemented highly on her breastmilk. (Though she clearly had no problem with it when he actually committed the act, so does she really have the right to revile it now if she permitted it?)

A reference to a Spanish fly "in his fly" (516) is made. I can't help but wonder if it's that famed aphrodisiac of legend that apparently impaled a girl on a gearshift, so horny she was without relief after being slipped some. That urban legend is relatively recent, which makes me doubt it could be that Spanish fly Joyce refers to, but it's possible. Some urban legends have existed since the 1100's with only slight variations in the story. If it is that particular Spanish fly, the play on words becomes apparent--the fly on his pants, you see, that would contain the arousal. I see what you did there, James Joyce. (The actual Spanish fly can kill really easily and if it does induce arousal-like symptoms they're very painful, so do not read this and try to obtain some, please.)

"'I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general post office of human life'" (528).

The whoremistress intrudes on Bloom's delirium, and after Bloom begs to be dominated the whoremistress turns from Bella to Bello and then s/he turns Bloom back into a permutation between coquettish female and various animals; dog, pig, sheep, deer, et cetera. Obviously, Bello is Circe. Bloom's transformations are agitating however, as although this chapter is completely set up like a play, there are very few stage directions regarding exactly what and how much of certain things Bloom is--one moment he--eh, she--is small enough to hide under the couch, rooting as a pig would, still speaking, then bleating, wearing a dress again, being ridden--literally being ridden, no metaphors here--as a horse, bearing udders as a 'hegoat', a bovinelike animal who is the victim of the most skin-crawling act of this chapter, a regular man again wearing antlers--and so on.
"’You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitah is written'" (543). Shankspeare left to his wife in his will his secondbest bed.

We discover that Bloom is only thirty-eight in this chapter. I mean, I guess that's kind of old, but the way people described him I was thinking mid-forties, maybe even early fifties. Though I guess one must take into consideration that people didn't last nearly as long back then. Mrs Bloom is only about 33 too, and in her chapter she complains of her age and losing her beauty and all.
"'You die for your country, suppose... Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me... Damn death. Long live life!'" (591). How Catch-22 of you, my good sir.

This chapter ends sweetly when all madness is dispelled, however; well, bittersweetly. We know by now that Rudy was buried in a lambskin. Bloom, carried on the last waves of illusion, as they fade away completely sees an eleven-year-old boy nearby leaning up against a wall, reading a book. Bloom calls his son's name and the boy looks up without recognizing or even really seeing Bloom. The boy makes no response, but we can see a portion of a lambskin poking out of his waistcoat's pocket.

　

The next is Eumaeus, which was a friend of Odysseus's. When Odysseus returns he takes him in, unknowing of who he is. Bloom has taken charge of Stephen who was also in the whorehouse and they have since left to find momentary repose, mainly for Stephen. Identities are thrown around; at one point Bloom lies to a drunken sailor about his.

"...Mr Bloom being handicapped by the circumstance that one of the black buttons of his trousers had, to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons" (614).

Button, oh button, where hath thou fled?

"'...Why did you leave your father's house?' 'To seek misfortune,' was Stephen's answer" (619). (There really is no good spot-on way to treat these quotes and conversations, is there? DAMN YOU JAMES JOYCE AND YOUR INABILITY TO USE QUOTATION MARKS! You too, Cormac McCarthy.)

"'But oblige me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history'" (635). Et tu, Stephen Dedalus?

A fellow named Pat Tobin is described as having "often painted the town tolerably pink" (639). Hehehehe.

"'We can't change the country. Let us change the subject'" (645). I feel like more people should abide by this quote...

　

The next is Ithaca, Odysseus's homeland. This is a pretty cool chapter because it's told in a style called catechism--sort of like a q-and-a session. According to Wikipedia (though it is not sourced) this was also Joyce's favorite chapter. What happens in this chapter is that Dedalus recovers enough to go home with Bloom, but refuses the offer to spend the night there.

There is an ad that appears every so often in the book about Plumtree's Potted Meat. It is "A home without Plumtree's Potted Meat is Incomplete". In this chapter, in the q-and-a style, it reads as this: "What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Incomplete" (684). Let me insert more chuckling here, and also have a word with my good friend Aldous Huxley.

Leopold during this chapter runs through what to do--what could be done regarding his wife's infidelity. He turns down assassination and a duel with Boylan--ironic because Odysseus slaughtered all the men after his wife.

"Womb? Weary? He rests. He has travelled" (737).

The next chapter is Penelope, regarding the Mrs Bloom. Her thoughts drift from her husband (and believing her husband has extramarital affairs) to Boylan, men and women's differences, her childhood, how her life would be different if she hadn't married Bloom, various affairs, Rudy's end and eventually back to her husband. The chapter also consists of eight sentences only, broken up by paragraphs--not even with periods--so arguably you could say that there's really only one, all in all...

"I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice" (738). Seems logical. Frumpy bitter woman.

At one point Mrs Bloom implies that one of her children--most likely Rudy--was not fathered by Bloom. That's cute. (Though I admit she procures a little bit of sympathy later on--though not enough to combat affection gained, for all of his oddities and strange ways many of which appear now, for Leopold.)

In regards to her affair, Mrs Bloom thinks about Boylan giving her money for this that or the other thing. "...hes not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him" (749). Ick. Rereading this, I have trouble retaining respect for her. What a--only Emma will get this--Demos way to think! I feel my Augustus coming out and protesting that statement most vehemently. (Oh and that's funny because of Augustus's last name...)

A funny bit is when the Missus compares feminine beauty to male beauty, regarding a woman's breasts versus a man's genitalia. In the end she concludes women are much more beautiful in that argument and that it's no wonder that men "hide it with a cabbageleaf" (753). It's a rather hilarious bit, let me assure you.

"...I hate people that have always their poor story to tell everybody has their own troubles" (758). Okay, okay. At the funeral way in the beginning, Leopold becomes really human by instead of thinking what people ought at a funeral, what people are expected to, thinking about whatever, letting his mind drift completely from here and there. Thus the reader connects to them because they're the same way, as their minds are unhindered personally by social mores and norms. This is another one of those moments, when you feel yourself agreeing with the statement but feeling you ought not to so people won't think you're a jerk or what have you.

"there is a flower that bloometh" (759). Often puns are made on Leopold's name, but this is one of the last times and I thought I should point it out. She is thinking about a short-term relationship she had that she purposely messed with the boy by telling him she was engaged--she wasn't at that moment but was soon to be for "there is a flower that bloometh", that was soon to appear.

"the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their claws" (764).

The end seems to be--well, if not sweet in some respects at least acceptance of her situation. It's remembering the day Leopold asked her to marry him, and ends with her acceptance--and also the only period in the entire section. It's actually kind of sweet because there's at least a microscopic amount of affection for her husband there. He was a pretty romantic guy back then, he wrote her a poem (whose beginning letters spelt out POLDY, his nickname) he called her a flower, the "one true thing he said in his life" (782) and how she wanted him to marry and desperately wanted him to ask--so if not a remnant of affection (which there certainly must be) acceptance in that she wanted to marry him, and she had said yes, several times actually. The ending really is what makes me show any liking for her: "...then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes" (783). In my opinion, a perfect ending. Neat and tidy--though I admit I still wonder from time to time about Bloom. But I guess that's a great thing about the book, wondering about the future (mostly regarding Mrs Bloom's idle toying with what she'll do tomorrow and further after, though it's the tomorrow that's most curious) with no answer, who knows, do we really care, was it all worth it--of course--it's on the edge of forever, a lovely place for a book to be and even to end on.

As you can see I've come to regard the book quite highly. True, it's not my number one, but it's damned close. Unlike almost all of the books that end in my 'classics' shelf, its existence there was decided only five or six chapters in. It's just fantastic and if you'll excuse the wording--as I've thought for appropriate substitutes since those five or six chapters in--it is, dare I say it, orgasmic. No, not sexually, jeez, I'm not the one who's been drinking all night in a whorehouse. But it's just so full, so fantastic, such an altar. You understand? Mayhap? My favorite bit, as I've said already, is Bloom--you learn everything about him from every perspective. Good bad ugly human romantic sickening uncomfortable-making loving caring saddening and so on.

As for Joyce's work itself, why would he do it, make it so confusing and mad? He put it in "so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of ensuring one's immortality". (

Source

) Hah, something I can surely respect. And--well--as to reading the book. I don't want to make it come off as though I understood every tiny facet of the thing, because I didn't. It's difficult; I can't lie about it. It's a book I would like to reread in a few years and compare my understanding. It's a great experience, and worth a shot to anyone who thinks they're ready--or just feeling foolhardy or brave (I'm a little bit of both).

Well, there’s that. I think a point of interest might be that this post (to this sentence) is 7,163 words. (I hope the formatting comes off okay.)

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Outlaw Blues by Bob Dylan (I have no idea about that video.)

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma (welcome to another facepalm): What's the matter there, feeling kind of anxious? That hot blood grew cold.

PS. I apologize for spelling errors, after Cyclops the spellchecker decided it had had enough apparently. Keep in mind that if it's in the quotes though the error was most likely meant to be there.