LITERATURE: Boethius and (gulp!) Faulkner

Posted on February 13, 2006 by susan

Let’s play with Philosophy a bit; pull Boethius away from my personal sphere and into Faulkner’s world of the Compson’s of The Sound and The Fury.  I won’t go into essay here, as I have with teaming up Aristotle and Steinbeck in a head to head, but just for giggles…

Fortune, according to Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (and here, we must assume the words of Philosophy, and thus the theories, are those put forth by Boethius himself, as author), whether it comes in the form of wealth or status is not to be held with any hope of bringing happiness, as it is by nature unreliable, and need be seen as such.  The characters of Faulkner’s novel hold these two gifts of fortune at their highest level of importance, and indeed are driven through life and to death because of them alone.

Mrs. Compson feels that misfortune has brought her the mental incompetence of Benjy, the willfulness of Caddy, the dourness of Quentin, the lack of respect by her husband in deference to his own family name.  Jason, who has little value for his family fights dishonor in its name (and too, dishonors its reputation and title by his own evil nature–another point made by Philosophy), and has an unhealthy and corrupt (see, Philosophy was right again!) view of wealth.  Caddy displays a genuine love for Benjy, and a caring for those around her, yet she lies her way into a marriage to assume an honorable name for her unborn child. 

This, I can see right here, can turn into an essay all in itself by the characters adhering to Philosophy’s theory of unhappiness and misery that the turn of Fortune brings to man.  Quentin is so consumed by his unhappiness that he commits suicide.  Thus, proving Philosophy’s point that fortune or misfortune is just as ably ended by man’s act at death, and so as fickle as Fortune herself. 

And what of Benjy?  He cares nothing for wealth, power or even reputation.  What is his own source of happiness but having Caddy near.  Is he then to be considered closest to the perfect happiness we all should strive to reach?  Or does Philosophy require the understanding that would come only of the knowledge of one’s plight?

Faulkner, it would seem, knew well the failings of man in seeking happiness in Fortune.

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LITERATURE: Character

Posted on February 12, 2006 by susan

Right now I’m watching the PBS series on Charles Dickens, immediately following his Bleak House presentation.  It is somewhat confirming a thought forming in my mind all day today about character, as depicted in literature classic and contemporary.

I’m finding the characters of the past more interesting, holding more depth and revealing more emotion and intrigue than those concocted lately.  Caddy, Jason, even Mrs. Compson of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury may seem overly dramatic and yet even in their weaknesses there is strength.  Part of what makes them so intense is a sense of honor, fear of scandal.  A hiding of their desires due to constraints of propriety of the times.

Dickens, we find, despite a wife and ten children, fell madly in love with the young Ellen Ternan, an eighteen year old actress with whom he carried on a secret affair for years.  Even after divorce, their liaison was not made public, and any hint of it was strongly denied by all.

These days, divorce, affairs, lies and betrayal do not hold the weight they once had.  A president denies then admits an affair with a young intern, and it is fully accepted as his right to private life.  While our change in moral judgment may be a good thing, think of what it does to character complexity in literature.  So What? does not make for dramatic reading. 

Once upon a time the strong female protagonist, the rebellious or the fallen woman was exciting.  Just so, the weak or oppressed was to be pitied.  Nowadays, the self-made, the independent woman is common, the submissive to be regarded as a fool.  With the male characters, the passionate in love or the arts is not as understandable as one who builds an empire. 

In the story of Dickens, his paramour Ellen Ternan kept her secret relationship with him after his death.  She married, had two children, and yet never admitted her affair. 

The program’s over now, and in the PBS highlights, there’s Prince Charles, and Lady Camilla, his new wife.  Times have changed.  Perhaps yes, for the good, and yet, we’re left with, I think, much duller characters.

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REALITY?: Words and Numbers

Posted on February 12, 2006 by Susan

No novel reading yet today, the time spent in rearranging words for show and tell in resume format.  Put forth the best foot, ignoring steps so deeply in the past they should not be tracked in view of present employment practices.

And numbers, costs and prices, used, discarded, reimbursed and not.  A bottomline that should be fair and straightforward, and yet, for greed and purpose, becomes capable of evoking emotional response.  Numbers shouldn’t have this kind of power.

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LITERATURE: Consolation – All You Need is Love

Posted on February 12, 2006 by susan

While Book II ends with an exhortation of "O how happy the human race would be, if that love that rules the heavens ruled also your souls!"  (Poem 8, p. 35), Philosophy hints finally at my own hope that honor is sought in not titles nor wealth, but in self respect and care of fellow man.

"Fortune has separated your true friends from two-faced ones; when she left you, she took her followers with her and left you your own.  Think how much you would have given for this knowledge when you were still on top and thought yourself fortunate.  Now you complain of lost riches; but you have found your friends, and that is the most precious kind of wealth."  (Book II, Prose 8, p. 34)

So at least there is a goodness, a value placed on self respect and virtue as seen in one by others.  Philosophy is claiming to Boethius that while Fortune is temporary, corrupting, and not to be taken as a source of happiness, it’s dual nature of Misfortune does in fact have the saving grace of its lesson in understanding that nature, "often turns them around and forcibly leads them back to the true good."

I do not think she means to merely look back and appreciate the better times, but rather to understand that there is no stability to Fortune, and therefore time and effort would be wasted on it.  Philosophy, in considering the soul and its transcendence over life, directs Boethius to concentrate instead on aspiration and satisfaction beyond the immediate.  All well and good for Boethius, who is a believer.

For one thing that is vital to Philosophy’s theory is a belief in afterlife, and this is one thing she is sure of in her conversation with Boethius.  For if one does not believe, then knowledge and whatever true happiness she claims is found in state of mind is as lost at graveside as is the wealth of material things and men’s false crowns.

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REALITY?: Weather Wise

Posted on February 12, 2006 by Susan

Short; the snow seems deeper, as to a child and brighter, whiter than the aged eyes would have believed when purity seems manipulated memory.  Reality buried for a while beneath two feet of sparkling white deception, to make the world look cleaner fresher monotonal virginal as it could never be again.

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LITERATURE: Consolation – Definitions

Posted on February 12, 2006 by susan

"In the end, we reach the same conclusion about all the gifts of Fortune.  They are not worth striving for; there is nothing in their natures which is good; they are not always possessed by good men, nor do they make those good who possess them."  (Book II, Prose 6, p. 30)

Philosophy would seem here to discount even the striving for that which is a) diluted in value by being attainable for the wrong reasons, b) bear no intrinsic value in and of themselves, but rather are perhaps the means to achieve good rather than the ends, and c) are not enduring.  While I can buy the understanding that they not only do not guarantee happiness nor goodness and they are not to be depended upon, that they should not be held as some goal within this lifetime is not quite clear.

In quick reading of Prose 7, this may become a bit clearer as to what this all means in the individual and to his world.

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LITERATURE & REALITY?: Consolation and Reality

Posted on February 12, 2006 by susan

I’ve read a bit more on this same page.  Reread it, and still argue. 

Meanwhile, Storm Carson blows from east to west and west to east.  Somehow I think it’s just an inch that blows from neighbor’s yard to neighbor’s yard and lands in piled up drifts three feet in our own driveway. 

Sideways snow.  Like making up one’s mind by seeking truth from all directions.  If fair is what I want to get and give, how then can it be worthless.  If hurt is not worth averting as it should not be felt at all, how does one turn one’s back on stepping in and keeping one from stabbing to the heart another.  If fighting for myself and only worldly goods I’d back away.  But in my father’s name and in the sense of justice for all three remaining I take on the purpose.  But what is honor, what is pride, and what is justice?  And what reward but quickly aging towards an end that can’t be happy in this world, and may not exist at all beyond.

I just don’t understand.

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WRITING: Seeing through my Ears

Posted on February 12, 2006 by Susan

Can’t sleep.  Snow is soundless and I cannot see through blackness of the night.  Snowplows grinding by tell me it’s snowing.

Images in the dark now frighten not inspire.  Just like the plows, the noise of either dead or yet unborn conversation flashes by to let me know it’s there, all the worse for the not knowing where it began or ends.

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LITERATURE: Mrs. Kimble – Exposition

Posted on February 12, 2006 by susan

The novel starts out with a few pages on the death of who I am assuming is Mr. Kimble.  Having read the blurbs, I understand that the story focuses around his three ex-wives, and so when the next chapter opens with a completely different scenario, I understand it to be a different time zone–as noted by the heading date of 1969.  The opening finds a man dead in his Cadillac, and gives a police report style background of a man living alone in a rented apartment who has loads of cash and money in a bank account.  Nice time to bring in the ex-wives.

I’m also catching up on the lit journals, but will post on only features that I find outstanding such as story, voice, imagery, metaphor, or technique.  Let’s just move me along with my backlog without the stopping to write about each detail, and then maybe I won’t have to admit the issues go back to 2004.

And of course, I’m more of the mind to get into Consolation, to find some personal answers in the study as well as the main objective of understanding Boethius’ particular philosophical theory.

Writing though, is stagnant.

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LITERATURE: Consolation – Understanding

Posted on February 12, 2006 by susan

Reading Consolation now is both a blessing and a sham.  Personal conflicts are so relative to the lessons, and so the close reading is closer still.  But is that its purpose, to help one understand the principles and so apply them to one’s own philosophy of life, or better, higher, to take it as it is between Boethius and Philosophy and expand it to humanity.

I feel so greedy and self-serving using this for personal purpose, and yet is that not a hope of Boethius himself?  Is he not teaching by the learning in his own experience? 

I keep falling off my soapbox in the fight against injustice in the justice system.  Black and blue I clamber up again, convinced the principle is worth the fighting for; or so it seems.  Maybe this is why I drag myself through Consolation; why I am not racing through to find the answer to contemporary plights.  Guilt at using wisdom in such secluded manner.  Questioning myself as much as Boethius.  Seeking likeness in the weakness of human nature, but seeking truth and reason as well.

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REALITY?: Tea-hee

Posted on February 12, 2006 by Susan

Living in the strictest of conditions known to us, I try to make him understand the doubling use of coffee (add one less scoop to that already used to use again; wash and reuse the filter once).  But a sudden urge for tea tonight.  I peek inside the teapot that he’s been using, surprised to see a lumpy bottom, similar to that of burned bubbled coffee left on too long.  I reach inside to find a half dozen teabags…

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LITERATURE: Consolation-On Honor

Posted on February 11, 2006 by susan

Quiet reading today, and perfect for the contemplation.  I understood the measure to which Philosophy held Fortune, but seeing fortune as a state of being–aside from material things, which I well understand are transitory and little value in the long run:

"Moreover, if honor and power were by nature good in themselves, they would never be found in wicked men.  For opposites are rarely found together, and nature abhors the union of contraries.  Since there is no doubt that wicked men are often hnored, it is obvious that the kind of honor which can be ahieved by the wicked is not good." (Book II, Prose 6, p. 30)

At first reading of the above, it’s understood.  Then the doubts creep in.  Like saying that if money goes to evil men than money’s not worth having, in fact, is bad.  This isn’t quite the full truth.  Money, for all its bad connotations, is not in itself an evil thing.  It’s just a medium by which we must survive and use as barter.  And honor paid to the corrupt, is that not just by a hoodwinked crowd?  Does it lessen the honor to be abused? 

If publishing houses publish junk, is it less meaningful to the good works that are done as well?  Maybe so.  What should be strived for then, as goals and purpose?  In this life, I mean.  Or is this life, the gifts of which are given to both the virtuous and the evil, not meaningful at all?  Again, an unwavering trust in a life beyond the grave in which the body lies must be accepted.  How else to justify the inequalities on earth.

Further reading, I am sure, will clarify Philosophy’s advice and explanation.  Right now, I do not see the sense in smugness that acceptance of all on earth would bring if when the passing is nothing more than past.

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WRITING: A Word

Posted on February 11, 2006 by Susan

How strange.  I have not been able to write creatively in well over a month and yet a word, "wisteria," sneaks into mind that brings a necessary scent and touch to an old story and I know that it belongs there.  I write it in, make a few more subtle changes.

And close the file without an ending still.

On second thought, it’s not so odd I suppose.  Faulkner’s left me with the choking scent of honeysuckle, and Caddy smells like trees.

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LITERATURE: Mrs. Kimble

Posted on February 11, 2006 by susan

021106l So this is my next selection (don’t know why the image is so fuzzy).  Jennifer Haigh was one of the lecturer/instructors at the Wesleyan conference last summer, and I was quite impressed by her insight.  But I was wowed by her reading of an excerpt at one of the nightly seminars.  Even told Josip Novakovich that he should hire her to do his readings, she was that good a reader.  Tone, voice, inflection, eye contact, dramatic pause–this lady could sell any book she reads aloud.

So can she write?  I think so.  I had started just the first few pages back in June and was immediately drawn into the story.  The concept is a good one:  Three points of view of a man by his ex wives.

If Miss Haigh weaves a story with the same magic with which she reads aloud, this novel should be a delightful and interesting excursion.  Her website is here.

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LITERATURE: The Sound and the Fury – Finale

Posted on February 10, 2006 by susan

So that’s what’s so hot about Faulkner.  He’s damn good.  Knows the rules and how to break them.  Can suck a reader in with the most godawful opening pages and keep you wanting to know what this nonsense is all about.  Has you inside the head of an idiot, following and almost wishing for his simple world of smell and motion and fire and mirrors.  Except the drooling; I wouldn’t want to spend my life drooling. 

Benjy feels, just from what he sees and hears, and without money, women, job problems to deal with there is still the animal pain of change in his world, without the instinct to know what to do about it.  He sleeps, then spends the day with someone constant by his side.  All he has to do is hush when he is told to.

Mrs. Compson has spent her lifetime building her own crucifix to hang on.  Mr. Compson found his ready-made in finding her.  Quentin is too sensitive to live comfortably within this household; Caddy finds her happiness wherever she can and saves some to share as well; Jason’s just a little prick who grows into a bigger better one when stimulated properly–or at all.  Dilsey bears the burden of her own maternal instinct and only gets her licks in with her words.  Her family, her boys, are born to work hard, so maybe taking care of Benjy ain’t so bad.

Each character becomes more complete as we progress through the novel.  I wondered why Faulkner started with Benjy, making it the most difficult reading, but then again, it is the simplest sketch of their lives:  this is what they do, this is who they are, this is how they smell.  Non-judgemental, Benjy is the perfect narrator who tells what he sees and lets us see it for however we want.  Is Caddy being wild?  We’ll find out.  Is Jason being mean?  Read on.

Faulkner then, through dialogue and character narration shows not tells.  We form our own opinions as the language changes with the points of view.  He plays with narrative structure, starting here then going back and starting up again in another place and time.  But we come full circle back to Benjy.  Having heard the story now, we see him ride away, a broken flower in his hand, and bellering, bellering, until his world is right again with all the pieces of it going by in proper pace and form. 

With this ending, we see the turmoil ended.  Jason bit the bullet and it won’t change a thing except that maybe he’ll hate women even more because Caddy’s girl has outsmarted him and stolen her own money back and taken off.  Benjy, well Benjy’s life will just go on as is until his mother or Dilsey die–or maybe sooner–when he’ll be shipped off to the home for those like him in Jackson.  And Jason will step up to the plate every now and then to demonstate his authority just as he did in the center of town by jumping on the wagon in which Luster tried, at least this once, to show a bit of his own strength towing a scared and desperate Benjy in the rear–to be seen by all in the middle of town on Easter Sunday.  Not cool.

Faulkner has woven such a story in within this novel, mostly by the thoughts and dialogue and little narrative.  He’s left us little mysteries to solve (what did Caddy do?) and gave us answers from the characters themselves.

So very glad I chose this one to read just now.  I’m looking forward to more Faulkner.  Now that I halfway comprehend the dude.

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