The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (novel #145)

I have battered destructively and in vain upon the mystery of someone else’s life… ~ Charles Arrowby

Charles Arrowby is the recently retired first-person narrator. After a life of stage and screen (mostly stage), acting, directing, writing (mostly writing). He retires from the London jet-set, to a humble cottage, in a quiet village, on the sea to write his memoirs, probably late 1970s.

Very quaint. I was rather jealous of the setting, and Charles is quite content at first:

It has stopped raining and the sun is shining, but over most of the sea the sky is a thick leaden grey. The sunny golden rocks stand out against that dark background. What a paradise. I shall never tire of this sea and this sky.

Until he discovers an old flame, Hartley, living nearby – which sets him on a destructive obsession – even though Hartley is married, and rather dowdy by most standards.

The book is arranged in a pre-history chapter, six history chapters, and a postscript. I wouldn’t ordinarily discuss the arrangement, but to me at least, it was significant, and perhaps even brilliant. 

The pre-history, is a bit dull to be honest. Charles describes his many show business friends, colleagues, lovers and cousin James. Charles is a perfect hedonist, though he certainly didn’t see himself as such. Reading the pre-history, the reader has no idea, most of the characters will reemerge. Charles is merely setting the stage – apropos for a director and playwright – for his memoirs.  

But the memoirs are never written; the six history chapters are narrative about life in retirement, on the sea, and the pursuit of Hartley. These were the exciting parts, when I couldn’t put the book down, but in retrospect, it is the pre-history and the postscript that give the book its real poignancy.

It’s marvelous, though I didn’t realize it until the end. For most of my read, I just thought it was beautiful, soulful writing, such as the way Charles describes…

…the sea, image of an inaccessible freedom.

Or his starlet lovers…

Clement was the reality of my life, its bread and its wine. She made me, she invented me, she created me, she was my university, my partner, my teacher, my mother, later my child, my soul’s mate, my absolute mistress.

[Lizzie] She fell in love with me during Romeo and Juliet, she revealed her love to me during Twelfth Night, we got to know each other during a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then (but that was later) I began to love her during The Tempest, and (but that was later still) I left her during Measure for Measure.

Rosina’s kisses were those of a tigress. Rosina had the fierce charm of the rather nasty girl in the fairy-tale who fails to get the prince, but is more interesting than the girl who does, and has better lines too.

Or Hartley…

She was not an intellectual or bookish girl, she had the wisdom of the innocents and we conversed as angels. She was at home in time and space.

She became my Beatrice.

Or male colleague, Peregrine aka Perry…

It has taken me a long time to persuade Perry that it is stupid and immoral to go to expensive crowded restaurants to be served with bad food by contemptuous waiters and turned out before one is ready to go.

I went to Peregrine not only for a drinking bout and a chat with an old friend, but for male company, sheer complicit male company; the complicity of males which is like, indeed is, a kind of complicity in crime, in chauvinism, in getting away with things, in just gluttonously enjoying the present even if hell is all around.

Or Charles’ retort to Perry’s accusation that he despised women

I don’t despise women. I was in love with all Shakespeare’s heroines before I was twelve.

Charles is also a foody, often describing in detail the dishes he prepares. These always made me hungry.

Of course, I never touch foreign cheeses. Our cheeses are the best in the world.

Or this one, that I most emphatically identify with.

What is more delicious than fresh hot buttered toast…

Or his description of the audience...

Of course, actors regard audiences as enemies, to be deceived, drugged, incarcerated, stupefied. This is partly because the audience is also a court against which there is no appeal.

A lot of excerpts I know, but there were just so many quotable, marvelous passages. And I’m not done. 

But then there is also this horrific and magnificent story, complete with foreshadowing, subtle allusions, unexpected twists, and just enough doubt about what really happened in the end.

In the pre-history, Charles newly settled in his home is gazing out to sea, when he sees an enormous sea-serpent, rise and writhe, and disappear. Charles of course disbelieves his own vision, but professes that it was so real. Perhaps it was the green-eyed monster that was about to rise from Charles’ idyllic existence. (if you look closely at the cover, you can see the sea monster...I missed it, thanks to Brona for pointing it out)

In the middle history, Charles is nearly drowned. One of his show-biz friends pushes him in, but Charles is rescued by his cousin James. Charles does not  remember the rescue, and there are no witnesses. Much later, Charles remembers – but it is, like his sea monster, utterly impossible, and yet…

And then in the postscript he explains it away, he convinces himself of a physically possible explanation, but the reader – this reader at least – finds the utterly impossible more plausible.

Much earlier Charles had said of James…

James had always been the finder of lost things.

I believe Charles was lost for most of this story.

Time, like the sea, unties all knots.

In the very end, Charles is able to give up his obsession with Hartley.

I have battered destructively and in vain upon the mystery of someone else’s life and must cease at last.

Upon the demon-riddled pilgrimage of human life, what next I wonder?

4 out of 5 stars

 

This was my first read of The Sea, the Sea or Iris Murdoch. I loved it, though I didn’t really love it, until the end. I will definitely read more by Murdoch, including Under the Net which I hope to get to this year. What are your thoughts on The Sea, the Sea? On Iris Murdoch?

This book satisfies square N-2 “Winner of a Foreign Literary Prize” [the Booker Prize] in the 2020 Classic Bingo Challenge

Other excerpts, all the words of Charles Arrowby:

Is there any language in which there is a word for that tender runnel that joins the mouth and the nose? 

(Wanderer’s response: Yes! The language is English; the word is “philtrum”. I don’t remember how I know this.)

Well, this is getting a little too picturesque: dragon, poltergeists, faces at windows! And how restless this rain makes me feel. 

There are a great many references to classic literature throughout The Sea, the Sea. References to Shakespeare, Proust, Dante, and near the end, Charles tries to read The Wings of the Dove by Henry James, but confesses…

…its marvelous magisterial beginning failed to grab me.

I emphatically agree.

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Dante's Purgatorio

Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri                                                                  (translated by Robert and Jean Hollander)

And he to me: “This mountain is so fashioned

that the climb is harder at the outset

and, as one ascends, becomes less toilsome. ~ Virgil to Dante regarding the climb of Mount Purgatory

Purgatorio is the second part of Dante’s epic poem The Divine Comedy; it follows Inferno and is followed by Paradiso. I suspect Purgatorio will be my least favored of the three, as it is caught in Limbo – pardon the pun – between despair and glory. 

By the way, it isn’t really a very good pun. Limbo and Purgatory are not synonymous. According to Dante, Limbo is on the outskirts of Hell, inhabited by virtuous pagans and the unbaptized who are separated from God, but not condemned to the suffering of Hell. Purgatory is for souls who repented late in life, who must purge their souls for the years spent apart from the grace of God. They are considered “saved” as their eventual ascension to Paradise is assured.

Full disclosure: I am a Christian and believe in Heaven and Hell, but I don’t believe in Purgatory. This certainly tempered my reaction to Purgatorio as I was ambivalent to the souls in Purgatory. But, just as with Inferno, I remind myself that Purgatorio is literature, not Christian doctrine. 

Virgil continues to guide Dante’s journey, but he is replaced by the end of Purgatorio by Beatrice as Virgil, doomed to Limbo, will never be admitted to Paradise. Beatrice is probably based on an actual person Dante admired, perhaps even loved, but in the Comedy, she is the representation of Beatific Love.

The souls in Purgatory are guilty of the same sins as those in Hell, but differ in that they repented late in life and claimed God’s grace. 

          Sinners to the final hour,

          we were all at the point of violent death

          when a light from Heaven brought us understanding

          so that, repenting and forgiving,

          we parted from our lives at peace with God,

          who with desire to see Him wrings our hearts.

Their time in Purgatory is equal to their years of unbelief in mortal life, but can be shortened by the prayers of Christians in Heaven and Earth. Most fascinating though, was the concept that all sin is an aberration of love – that is: love perverted (pride, envy, wrath), love defective (sloth), or love excessive (avarice, gluttony, lasciviousness)

In Inferno, the nine levels of Hell descend into an abyss, whereas in Purgatory the levels rise as a mount. At the summit is the Earthly Paradise, not Heaven, but after purgation a place of innocence, very much like the Garden of Eden.

In the last several cantos of Purgatorio we learn how and why Dante was chosen for this journey. Beatrice, who has died and is Paradise, is distressed by Dante’s earthly life. During her life, Dante was apparently inspired to Godliness by Beatrice, but after her death, he quickly forsakes virtue and theology for pleasure and philosophy. Concerned for his immortal soul, Beatrice goes to Limbo and by her tears persuades Virgil, to guide Dante through the eternal realms, and thus affect his repentance.

Dante does indeed confess his sin, and is purged, just as the souls in purgatory. He is unique, in that he is yet mortal and at the conclusion of the Comedy must return to live out the remainder of his mortal, and presumably now, more faithful life.

One excerpt that I found quite poignant. Early in the climb, at a particular gate…

          At that we moved ahead, The first step

          was of clear white marble, so polished

          that my image was reflected in true likeness

          The second was darker than the deepest purple,

          of unhewn stone, looking as if it had been burned,

          cracked through its length and breadth

          The third, resting its heavy mass above,

          seemed to me porphyry, as flaming red

          as blood that spurts out from a vein

The first step, forces Dante to see himself as he is – so critical to confession and repentance. The second step is dark and broken, revealing the sinful and broken state of Dante (mankind). The third step red, the color of spurting blood, like the blood of Christ.

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Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (novel #144)

…the human was more powerful in him than the Divine.

This is a sad story, which is not a criticism. Sometimes a sad story can be quite compelling. And again, this is a horribly sad story.

In fact, to quote Luther Heggs…

The horribleness and awefulness of it will never actually be forgotten.

It goes something like this:

Boy [Jude] has great aspirations. Boy meets girl. Girl entraps boy into a doomed marriage. Marriage confounds boy’s lofty ambition. Girl leaves boy – not divorces – just leaves. Boy meets new girl [Sue], but boy is not free. Boy and girl defy Victorian mores to their unhappiness and ruin.

Hardy does a marvelous job. Jude was a likeable chap, and I was fully invested in his fate, even when I saw him making fatal decisions that I knew would lead to no good. The sadness of the story can make it feel as though I didn’t like the novel, but if I am deliberate and honest, I have to admit, it is a very sad story, told very well.

It is sad on another level however, that I do have some complaint with. Hardy uses this novel, I think, to make his criticism of Victorian and Christian values (that’s fair, it’s his right as an author), particularly in regard to marriage, class structure, and religion. He suggests that the rigid rules of society and the consequences of flaunting them are the cause of his character’s unhappiness – and the cause of much unhappiness in the world.

To that, I take some exception. Jude and Sue were unhappy abiding by the rules, but they were unhappy when they broke them. Hardy would probably say they were made unhappy by the prejudice of their neighbors, a point I will concede has some merit. However, my point is this: society DOES have rules; break them at your own risk. Indeed, Jude learned this…

To indulge one’s instinctive and uncontrolled sense of justice and right, was not, he had found, permitted with impunity in an old civilization like ours.

If you tie your happiness to how the world treats you – you will never be happy.

So, I have to take some points off because, for me, Hardy did not prove his point. I ordinarily try not to judge an author’s work by their personal lives, but if they use their work to promote their world-view, then it’s fair game. Still, I give Jude the Obscure

3 ½ out of 5 stars

This book satisfies square B-2 “Classic Tragedy” in the 2020 Classic Bingo Challenge and “Classic with a person’s name in the title” category from the Back to the Classics Challenge 2020

This was my first read of Jude the Obscure or Thomas Hardy. I’ll definitely read more, though I know to expect similar sentiment.

Excerpts

If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man.

Drinking was the regularly stereotyped resource of the despairing worthless.

Strange that his first aspiration – towards academical proficiency – had been checked by a woman, and that his second aspiration – towards apostleship – had also been checked by a woman.

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Modern Art - What do you see? | NOVA this Week

Observations from my weekly wanderings, usually in Northern Virginia (NOVA).

I won’t be finishing my current reads in the next week, and since I haven’t done NOVA this Week in forever (479 days), I thought this as good a time as any.

I was in a public building recently, that had a display of modern art. I was looking thoughtfully at one piece when I colleague asked, "what do you see?" I was caught unprepared and replied, "nothing really." I hate being caught unprepared...so, I've prepared…for next time.

Top 10 responses for What do you see? [in modern art]

10. Diogenes eating a waffle
9. The cold excess of capitalism
8. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show
7. A snow leopard perceiving its reflection in a pool of water
6. Chaos as a metaphor for self-perception
5. Antediluvian man holding a gourd
4. The Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run
3. The Muffin Man
2. Passionate indifference
1. A psychedelic minstrel levitating an evanescent enclave tentatively perceived as a cosmic Gordian Escher knot

Wanderer’s further commentary: I don’t believe all modern art is bad, but I do think it is easy to foist off works that lack artistry as such. Or, as Sir Tom Stoppard put it…

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

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Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (novel #143)

That hour at the entrance to Deception Pass had been the climax of her suffering – the flood of her wrath – the last of her sacrifice – the supremity of her love – and the attainment of peace.

Riders of the Purple Sage is of course a Western, by one of the quintessential authors of the genre, Zane Grey.

I’m sure I’ll catch grief for this, but I was disappointed. It felt like a guilty pleasure more than literature. So, on the plus side, let me acknowledge that it was a pleasure. It was fun, exciting, riveting, and satisfying.

But I felt a little cheated. First, I’m not sure how much Zane Grey really new about cowboys or horses. I’m no expert myself, though I did have a beautiful, gentle mare in my youth. There were several items that gave me doubts about Grey’s knowledge of horsemen of the wild west. Second, and this was quite distracting, he uses the word “sage” hundreds of times – literally hundreds. It was absurd. “Riders” and “purple” popped up over and over again, leaving me convinced that this was an intentional motif of the author, but it just seemed ridiculous. Finally, each one of the four main characters had moments when their behavior was completely unbelievable to me.

Sounds like I hated it right? Well, no! I’ve said before that a good story is more important to me than perfect writing – and this story is captivating. Set in Utah Territory, 1871, it concerns beautiful and wealthy Jane Withersteen who is befriended by near outlaw Lassiter as she fights to keep her independence from the churchmen of her Mormon faith. It’s filled with rustlers, stampedes, horse chases, gunplay, two separate love stories, and a pair of loyal dogs. 

I want to give it juuuust a bit less than four stars, but three and a half is too low, so for the sake of the dogs, ya gotta love faithful dogs, I give it…

4 of 5 stars

This book satisfies square O-2 in the 2020 Classic Bingo Challenge and “Abandoned Classic” from the Back to the Classics Challenge 2020

I began this book once before, probably as a teen. I can’t recall what caused me to abandon it, but in spite of my criticism, I’m still glad to have read it and will read more by Zane Grey, though I think next in this genre I’ll try Louis L’Amour

I want to give Grey credit for a subtle allusion to classic lit. When two of the main characters realize their perfect hideout has been discovered – Grey describes their realization as…

Both had seen the footprint in the sand.

A clever allusion to Robinson Crusoe.

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Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hind’s feet, and makes me walk on my high places. ~ Habaukkuk 3:19

Hind’s Feet on High Places is the tale of Much-Afraid and her journey to the High Places. Much-Afraid is crippled, deformed, and unattractive; she lives in the Valley of Humiliation with similarly miserable relatives such as her aunt Dismal Foreboding, cousins Gloomy and Spiteful. Most of all, she is plagued by her cousin Craven-Fear who intends to make Much-Afraid his wife, even against her will.

But Much-Afraid senses that her life should be something more meaningful. She has one friend, the Good Shepherd, whom she meets daily at the trysting place. She speaks to him of her desire to leap on the mountain heights like the wild deer. The Shepherd promises to help her reach the High Places, and make her beautiful and whole, if she will but trust him. 

She is beset by fears and doubts, reluctant to set out on such a hazardous and impossible journey, but she does eventually trust the Shepherd and he plants the seed of love in her heart, an initially painful process, which immediately produces resolve and hope. 

The Good Shepherd provides companions for Much-Afraid – companions she is none too glad for – Suffering and Sorrow.

The journey is begun, but indeed not without suffering and sorrow. At each difficulty however, Much-Afraid learns to lean more completely upon the Good Shepherd and he brings victory and a new lesson.

Hind’s Feet is a Christian allegory, describing the journey from unbelief to childlike faith, to mature faith, to faith that serves others. 

The High Places, are not to be mistaken for Heaven, but rather the place of submission and obedience that produces peace and joy, and a servant’s heart. Much-Afraid is given a new name, Grace and Glory, and in her rapture, she thinks of her suffering relatives and countrymen in the Valley of Humiliation. She determines to return to the valley, along with her companions who have been transformed to Peace and Joy, in order to share the hope and good news of the Good Shepherd’s transforming love (the Christian’s Great Commission).

The title: Hind’s Feet on High Places is taken from Habakkuk, but many portions of the narrative are derived from The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), which is a tender and intimate love story, which in turn is a good description of Hind’s Feet on High Places.

I look forward to reading more of this tale, in the sequel: Mountains of Spices.

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Dante's Inferno

Inferno by Dante Alighieri                                                                                  (translated by Robert and Jean Hollander)

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.

Inferno is the first part, of Dante’s epic poem The Divine Comedy, which is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It describes Dante’s journey through Hell, guided by Roman poet Virgil. It isn’t precisely clear why Dante is appointed to this journey – only that he is appointed by divine will, and Virgil is his guide, presumably because Virgil, now only a shade, has made the journey himself, and is much revered by Dante.

Hell is described as nine circles. Less serious crimes are punished less severely in the higher levels and as Virgil and Dante descend they discover more heinous criminals and greater punishment culminating in the ninth level, the lowest pit of Hell, where they encounter infamous traitors Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, who are tormented by the chief of traitors Satan himself.

It’s grim reading.

At the very outset, before entering the netherworld Dante writes…

     In middle of the journey of our days

     I found that I was in a darksome wood

     The right road lost and vanished in the maze.

I particularly like this, as he uses first person singular “I”, after previously using the plural “our”. I believe this signifies both an individual and collective conscious and conscience. 

As they prepare to enter the Gates of Hell, Dante sees the fearsome sign…

     THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE CITY OF WOE,

     THROUGH ME THE WAY TO ETERNAL PAIN,

     THROUGH ME THE WAY AMONG THE LOST.

     JUSTICE MOVED MY MAKER ON HIGH.

     DIVINE POWER MADE ME,

     WISDOM SUPREME, AND PRIMAL LOVE.

     BEFORE ME NOTHING WAS BUT THINGS ETERNAL,

     AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.

     ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.

Each level of Hell is guarded a different demon. They challenge Dante’s right as a living soul to enter, until they are rebuked by Virgil…

     Hinder not his destined journey.

     It is so willed where will and power are one,

     and ask no more.

And with that, they are suffered to pass.

In the early going, Dante feels pity for the souls he sees, but Virgil reminds him that the souls all enjoyed free will and a season to repent. Or, as one commentator put it…

…the time for mercy is here in this world, while in the world to come it is time only for justice. ~ Guido da Pisa

One of the more striking things about the punishment meted out, whether to the lustful or gluttons, violent or blasphemers, hypocrites or thieves, was that the punishment fit the crime. They were punished by their own vices. 

As Hollander put it…

What they did above, they do below…

Or as the narrative describes…

     And she to me: “There is no greater sorrow

     than to recall our time of joy

     in wretchedness – and this your teacher knows.

Or…

     How many now above who think themselves

     great kings will lie here in the mud, like swine,

     leaving behind nothing but ill repute!

Or…

     Every evil deed despised in Heaven

     has as its end injustice. Each such end

     harms someone else through either force or fraud.

Or…

     Then my leader [Virgil] spoke with a vehemence

     I had not heard him use before: “O, Capaneus,

     because your pride remains unquenched

     you suffer greater punishment.

     In your own anger lies your agony,

     a fitting torment for your rage.”

It was, as I said a grim, but fascinating read. 

I often had to remind myself: Dante’s Inferno is literature, not Christian doctrine. And although there are a great many particulars on which I disagree quite strongly with Dante’s conception, there is a profound theme that I believe is true…

God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Galatians 6:7

A word about this translation. I can only imagine that translating poetry is a tremendous challenge. I am not qualified to comment on the quality of this translation, but I can say I found it quite accessible, and I think the team makes good sense: Dante scholar Robert Hollander and his poet wife Jean Hollander. My unscholarly opinion: they did a marvelous job of maintaining the great power and terrible beauty of the message.

Finally, when I read Shakespeare, I keep watch for those little sayings of the Bard’s that have passed into modern English vernacular, such as Neither here nor there or Mum’s the word. I noted such a saying by Dante in Inferno. Virgil tells Dante he has not seen enough yet to form some opinion. Virgil’s words are (keep in mind the circles of Hell)

…you have not come full circle

Ironically, this saying, is misattributed to Shakespeare as he uses it in King Lear.

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