Category Archives: Literature

Sun Wukong [Common Meter]

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The Monkey King with magic staff
outmatched monsters and gods,
defying the Jade Emperor's
edicts against all odds.

He erased himself from out of 
The Book of Life and Death,
and lived through the Crucible --
nearly holding his breath.

Finally, the gods called Buddha,
though some had their qualms,
but the one thing Monkey couldn't do
was leap from Buddha's palm.

Shakespeare Clerihew

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The Bard, the great William Shakespeare,
made stony souls feel love, hate, and fear,
but I'll cease to dote,
in case he never wrote...

BOOK REVIEW: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

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A Short History of Tractors in UkrainianA Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This is a comedy of family dysfunction. The family consists of Cold War era immigrants to England from Ukraine. One adult daughter (Nadezhda) narrates the story, which about how her estranged relationship with her sister (Vera) is renewed through battle with a common enemy, Valentina, the gold-digging Ukrainian woman (younger than either sister) who’s moving in with the sisters’ eighty-four-year-old father.

There’re a few divides that generate the story’s tension. First, Vera grew up with war during her formative years, while Nadezhda was a child of the post-war peace. This informs how each sees the world and the other. Vera sees her younger sister as a naïve bleeding-heart socialist, while Nadezhda sees Vera as a cold and distrusting Thatcherite scoundrel. Second, there’s the chasm between established immigrant and new arrival, the former feeling that they kept their heads down, did the work, assimilated, and earned their status as citizens, while feeling someone like Valentina is tricking her way in and expecting to be handed all the perks of first-world living without working for them. Finally, there’s the gap between what a new immigrant expects life is like in a wealthy country, and what it’s actually like. Valentina has a television view of England that assumes the characters she sees are typical.

The story is funny, but occasionally poignant – e.g. as when we learn the family’s war-torn backstory or even when Valentina is shown in a more sympathetic light by our “bleeding-heart” narrator, who waivers between her family obligation self (who despises Valentina) and her socialist-feminist self (who empathizes with Valentina to some degree.)

I’d recommend this book for readers of literary fiction. It’s well-crafted and humorous. But it’s literary fiction, so if you need your characters likable and your plot strong, you may find it a bit dull.


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ESSAY REVIEW: Confessions of a Book Reviewer by George Orwell

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Confessions of a Book ReviewerConfessions of a Book Reviewer by George Orwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Available free through the Orwell Foundation

An amusing essay that reveals the dirty secrets of book criticism, while proposing that the vast majority of books don’t merit a review. Just a few pages long.

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BOOK REVIEW: Better Living Through Criticism by A.O. Scott

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Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty and TruthBetter Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty and Truth by A.O. Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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There’s a chasm between title and book. The title, which is clearly meant to play on the Dupont motto turned recreational drug user motto that substitutes the word “chemistry” in place of “criticism,” suggests a book that will be directed toward a reader, teaching said individual how to hone his or her skills of art criticism. This book, on the other hand, reads more like a review of the criticism industry that is meant to be received by an audience. In other words, it feels more like you’re in a Ted Talk than that you’re having a private lesson or conversation. It’s a fine book, witty, thought-provoking, and insightful by turns, but not the book one would expect from the title, subtitle, and blurb.

This essay (or collection of six shorter essays – if you prefer) examines the life and livelihood of art critics and how the endeavor has ebbed and flowed over the years. While the author is a film critic, he adeptly uses examples and stories from across the arts: poetry, paintings, music, theater, etc. In addition to the six chapters, there are three dialogues that are presumably meant to be reminiscent of Oscar Wilde’s essay / dialogue “The Critic as Artist,” a piece that is referenced and quoted in the book.

While the book is generally readable, it would probably benefit from more clarity of message while dialing down attempts to be witty and interesting. It seems like the author may have aimed to do what the films that film critics tend to love do, leave one walking away wondering what it is that one just consumed.

If you want to know more about the criticism “business,” i.e. who does it and how the job has changed (and continues to change,) you’ll enjoy this book. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a book that (as this book’s subtitle suggests) will help you better understand “how to think about art, pleasure, beauty, and truth,” then this might not be the book for which you’re looking.


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BOOK REVIEW: An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

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An Essay On CriticismAn Essay On Criticism by Alexander Pope
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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View free at The Poetry Foundation

This essay is a poem, i.e. heroic couplets in iambic pentameter, to be precise. It advises both poets and critics of some of the mistakes made in their respective pursuits (though at the outset he warns that bad criticism is a bigger sin than bad poetry.) To critics, Pope advises against nit-picking, as well as failure to recognize the tradeoffs inherent in poetry – i.e. sometimes the better sounding line is grammatically strained, or the wittier line may be less musical. To poets, he lays out a range of insights from stylistic to psychological, and it is an essay both about improving the product of writing as well as improving the relations between writers and critics.

Those unfamiliar with the essay will still be aware of a few of its lines, these include: “A little learning is a dang’rous thing;” “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread” and anyone who’s learned to write iambic pentameter (and the sins, thereof) will remember: “And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.”

But those everyday aphorisms are by no means the full extent of this essay’s wise words and its clever phrasing. My favorite couplets of the poem include:

“Some neither can for wits nor critics pass, // As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.”

“Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, // Make use of ev’ry friend – and ev’ry foe.”

“For works may have more wit than does ‘em good, // As bodies perish through excess of blood.”

“Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, // Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.”

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, // As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.”

“Some praise at morning what they blame at night; // But always think the last opinion right.”

“Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things, // Atones not for that envy which it brings.”

“All seems infected that th’ infected spy, // As all looks yellow to the jaundic’d eye.”

“’Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain; // And charitably let the dull be vain:”

I delighted in this poem. It’s full of food-for-thought, and reads remarkably well for a piece from the year 1711.


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Quotations Stumbled Upon [Recently]

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To survive in this world you have to be many times a coward but at least once a hero.

Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master’s son

The metaphysical assumptions upon which you want to build your life cannot be an inherited duty.

Patrick levy, Sadhus

It is true that if there were no phenomena which were independent of all but a manageably small set of conditions, Physics would be impossible.

Eugene wigner, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences

I feel about literature what Grant did about war. He hated it. I hate literature. I’m not a literary West Pointer; I do not love a literary man as a literary man, as a minister of the pulpit loves other ministers because they are ministers: it is a means to an end, that is all there is to it.

Walt whitman, as quoted in Yone Noguchi’s the spirit of japanese poetry

Know that all the sects in existence are a way to Hell.

Nichiren, as quoted by yone Noguchi in the spirit of japanese poetry

It is so easy to convert others. It is so difficult to convert oneself.

oscar wilde, the critic as artist

If you meet at a dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself — a rare type in our time, I admit, but still one occasionally to be met with — you rise from the table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience it is!

Oscar wilde, tHE CRITIC AS ARTIST

BOOK REVIEW: The Critic as Artist by Oscar Wilde

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The Critic as Artist: With Some Remarks Upon the Importance of Doing NothingThe Critic as Artist: With Some Remarks Upon the Importance of Doing Nothing by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Free to Read Online

In this dialogue, the characters of Ernest and Gilbert reflect upon the value, nature, and limits of artistic criticism. Ernest serves largely as foil and questioner, taking the everyman view that critics are failed artists and that criticism is a puny endeavor that isn’t good for much. Gilbert, on the other hand, defends criticism of art as an art unto itself, and a difficult one at that, one that requires revealing elements and ideas of the artistic piece that the artist didn’t put in the piece in the first place. Throughout, Gilbert lays down his counterintuitive bits of wisdom about the job of the critic, the characteristics of good critics, and – also – about artists and art, itself. [Ideas such as that all art is immoral.]

Oscar Wilde was famed for his wit, quips, and clever – if controversial – turns of phrase, and this dialogic essay is packed with them. A few of my favorites include:

“The one duty we owe to history is to re-write it.”

“Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.”

“If you wish to understand others you must intensify your own individualism.”

“Let me say to you now that to do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”

“Ah! don’t say that you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.”

“…nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

This is an excellent essay, and I’d highly recommend it for anyone who’s interested in art, criticism, or who just likes to noodle through ideas. You’re unlikely to complete the essay as a convert to all of Gilbert’s tenets, but you’ll have plenty to chew on, mentally speaking.


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BOOK REVIEW: The Spirit of Japanese Poetry by Yoné Noguchi

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The Spirit of Japanese PoetryThe Spirit of Japanese Poetry by Yoné Noguchi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Free Online at Wikisource

This book-length essay, originally published in 1914, discusses the unique style and aesthetic of Japanese poetry. It’s written for an audience of English language readers and advances its objective not only by presenting illuminating translations of Japanese poetry, but also by comparing Japanese poetry to English language poetry.

Noguchi takes a no-holds-barred approach to literary criticism that is both the strength and weakness of the book, sometimes it feels as though the author’s boldness is granting deep insight into the subject, but other times it reads as though the author is tribally narrow-minded and curmudgeonly. By “tribally narrow-minded,” I mean that he takes the view that the Japanese aesthetic and approach to art is always and in everyway superior to non-Japanese art (in this case, English language poetry.) Interestingly, he frequently compliments specific artists, e.g. Walt Whitman, but doesn’t have anything nice to say about English language poetry in general. By “curmudgeonly,” I mean that he takes the popular — if biased –view that the world is going to shit, and – in the section on modern poetry – it is only after discussing how the art has fallen on hard times that he can discuss a few modern poets who’ve produced some poems worthy of adoration [and some worthy examples of the modern form (Shintaishi.)]

One might think this bigoted view would cripple his book (as bigoted views usually do,) but because what he’s promising is depth of insight into the Japanese poetic aesthetic, he is able to succeed just fine. [Also, to be fair, being highly opinionated and pretentious were hallmarks of critics of his era – just usually not so nationalistically.] Noguchi does a great job of selecting evocative examples, providing powerful translations, and illuminating the Japanese mindset as it pertains to art and poetry.

If you’re interested in Japanese poetry and the psychology that influences Japanese artistic tastes, this short book is highly recommended. [Just be prepared to be offended if you aren’t a hardcore Japanophile.]


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BOOK REVIEW: Supernatural Shakespeare by J. Snodgrass

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Supernatural Shakespeare: Magic and Ritual in Merry Old EnglandSupernatural Shakespeare: Magic and Ritual in Merry Old England by J. Snodgrass
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Like – I suspect – most of humanity, I’m a big fan of Shakespeare’s work, but I’m also not alone in feeling that I’ve missed a some of the depth and texture of his plays. Both language and the body of common / popular knowledge have evolved and migrated tremendously since the Elizabethan era. This makes a market for books that offer insight into the age and the role that the beliefs, norms, and daily life played in Shakespeare’s theatrical works. This book is one such work. It focuses on the role supernatural beings and various festivals play in the Shakespearean canon and why they do so.

Conceptions of the supernatural may be one of the areas in which human beliefs have changed most severely since Shakespeare’s day. The book has chapters on witches, ghosts, fairies, and enchanted forests that are interspersed among chapters that deal with various seasonal festivals of Pagan origin. I did find this leapfrogging around a bit odd, but I would speculate two possible reasons for it. First, the author may have wanted to build cyclicality into the overall organization, and thus put beings and creatures that seemed thematically related to a season near its festivals. Second, it may have seemed like a good idea to break up the festivals because that discussion could have felt tedious to a general reader if it’d been clumped together (as opposed to the “sexier” topics of witches and ghosts and the like.) This organization didn’t bother me; it just seemed a bit strange, but I could imagine it being for the best.

I learned a great deal from this book, and my newly gained knowledge wasn’t all about the supernatural elements of Shakespeare. The author dropped some fascinating facts regarding other domains as well – such as Elizabethan sexuality and lifestyles as well as biographical facts about Shakespeare. If you’re looking to expand your understanding of background information relevant to Shakespeare’s plays, this book is worth looking into.

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