Literary Lessons: Ahab and the 09 Mets

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

When I first contemplated putting together a literary blog, I knew that from time to time I would be tempted to write about the Mets. As my friends know I am a die hard fan; but I had promised myself I would put aside such temptations and never include the Mets on this blog. But alas I am breaking that promise; but with good reason. One of the reasons we read literature, beyond the simple enjoyment of reading itself, is to learn about life, about people, about ourselves; that is, there are important lessons one can learn by reading books. It is why literature is taught in school. Now, on the 09 Mets there were said to be a few intellectuals (I don’t like that word but have none better), including John Maine, and Manager Jerry Manuel, who is said to enjoy reading serious philosophy. But, it seems, none have read of the exploits of that quoggy minded Captain of the ill fated Pequod. If they had read and remembered the lessons they might have fared better in the latter part of their season.

The Mets’ season, like the Pequod’s voyage was ill fated early on. The Mets faced injury after injury, as if the Fates had truly conspired against them and they seemed unable to overcome their difficulties. In fact, their difficulties were truly insurmountable. Then as the team faded deeper into the season one of them had the idea of not shaving until such time as the team again reached the .500 mark. That was a truly fateful day, the day of the lost literary lesson. I would advise the entire team to now turn to chapter 113 in Moby Dick. In this chapter Captain Ahab meets with Perth, the blacksmith, to have him forge a special harpoon for him to face the White Whale. Ahab provides the finest metal he can for the shaft, and Perth makes twelve rods which Ahab himself welds together. Then come the fateful words between Captain and blacksmith, it was time to make the barbs:

Perth: “…Captain Ahab, is not this harpoon for the White Whale?”
Ahab: “For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them thyself, man. Here are my razors–the best of steel; here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.”

For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain not use them.

Ahab: “Take them man, I have no need for them, I neither shave, sup nor pray till…”

Do you understand the lesson? Ahab gave up shaving until such time as he defeated Moby Dick! The two had met in battle once before and Ahab lost the engagement as well as his leg. He was bent on revenge, but, more importantly for us, he was bent on victory. The series was at Moby Dick 1, and Ahab 0. A victory for Ahab now would have put the series at an even 1 to 1, that is .500!!!! Alas, that was not the outcome. When the two met on those fateful three days at sea the they met several times, each time Moby Dick was victorious. That is right, the Whale swept the series! Taking down all hands leaving only Ishmael alive to tell the tale. So, should the Mets ever find themselves down again learn the lesson from Ahab. Get up early, look in the mirror and shave! Go out, play your best and look your best, look like professionals who say you may have us down, but you cannot break our spirit! We will come back to fight another day. As to young Daniel Murphy, the Mets’ Ishmael, it may fall on him to tell the story, but next year he will choose to go to sea again.

As to the Mets and those of us who are true fans, next spring remember the words of Starbuck, Ahab’s forlorn First Mate, as he looked into a golden sea: “Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye!–Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact, let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.”

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Moby Dick, some brief thoughts.

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

I am currently reading Moby Dick as part of my little project to read the books I couldn’t get through in my younger years. I have recently read and enjoyed The Red and The Black, and have a number on my future list, and if I feel the need will write a bit here.

In reading Moby Dick (I am currently 300 pages in) I have come to the conclusion that Melville inadvertently combined two books: the first being Moby Dick, the story of Ahab and the whale; the second being something along the lines of Whaling and Whaling Vessels in the 19th Century. Once I have completed the reading it is my intention to separate the two for those who wish to read the novel, or for those who feel the novel is the extraneous material. There are those who believe Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written (ok, so they didn’t ask me, now did they), and indeed there are parts of the novel that achieve greatness, but I will save my final conclusion until I am finished reading the whole novel. More later.

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Times Change

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

“On Cross motions for a decree in a libel of confiscation, supplemented by a stipulation–hereinafter described–brought by the United States against the book “Ulysses” by James Joyce, under Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305, on the ground that the book is obscene within the meaning of that Section, and, hence, it is not importable in the United States, but is subject to seizure, forfeiture and confiscation and destruction.”

Times change.

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The Plural of I, the Poetry of Sharon Olds

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

Yesterday, 9/12/09, I had the pleasure of being at the Spencertown Academy for a reading of Poetry by Sharon Olds. Before going to the reading I reread a handful of poems from three books, because it had been some time since I had read any of Olds’ poetry. This rereading confirmed some of the original impressions I had of her poetry.

Olds pushes the bounds of acceptability in her use of language, which some interpret as vulgarity. This supposed vulgarity has offended many people, but oftentimes those artists that push boundaries will offend; they will offend those who do not understand, those who do not want to understand (people who are invested in being pissed off at new forms of expression), and the grasps of those, who, themselves are unable to create. They tend to react negatively toward anything which is different or potentially groundbreaking. It is necessary to approach a poem with an open mind, thus allowing the poet to touch the soul of the reader, making a connection–intellectual or emotional–or not, based on the poem, and emotions expressed, and the sensibility of the reader. Thus, for example, Olds’ poem “Ode to a Douche-bag” did very little for me, being a middle aged male; yet I am certain it did touch some of the women in the audience. One poem cannot–nor should it try to–reach everyone. But then again, as a middle aged male, much of her Olds’ poetry is quite enlightening, and helps to open up a world that men are not normally able to understand, that is, the mind and heart of a woman.

Sharon Olds’ poetry is self-centered. Not in the sense of selfishness, not even in the sense of self-absorption, but in the sense of a person understanding the world through her own perception; realizing that her own perception is often more universal, that we share much as human beings. In this sense the “I” of Olds’ poems takes on a dual function: it is the “I” of the writer inside herself and her own emotions, and it is the “I” of the reader, who is forced to make a choice. The reader must decide if they are that “I” as well. “…I don’t know if I knew how to love our daughter…”, here the “I” is clearly the voice of the poet facing the newborn she has helped bring into the world, yet it is an emotion felt by numerous parents when faced with a child. The “I” becomes the voice of an empath inside the reader, who realizes the emotions have been shared by others, and one poet has given them voice. “I didn’t blame her,/she’d been born to my mother’s daughter. I would kneel/and gaze at her, and pity her….When she smiled at me,/delicate rictus like a birth-pain coming,/I fell in love, I became human.” If these emotions were unique they would be beautiful as expressed by Olds in her poem “First Weeks,” but they go beyond, and while much of the poem describes the physical aspects of what a woman goes through, when her “I” touches the emotional it goes beyond the woman feeling the roller-coaster of emotions at birth, and the I is open to becoming the heart of the reader, touched by the language of the poet.

Books could easily be written about Olds’ sense of self as written in her poetry. She does not hold back. In fact, her perception of herself is central to much of her poetry. But in those poems, where she most deeply explores and expresses herself, the “I” is not always to be found. In her poem “Ecstasy” where for some the “I” would be paramount, it is the word “we” that keeps cropping up, as if ecstasy is something that cannot be experienced alone, that it must be shared. She will often describes herself as “her father’s daughter,” or “her mother’s daughter,” each aspect of herself being brought forward in different poems. “…As I see you/ embracing me, in the mirror, I see I am/ my father as a woman..” and though she describes the physical aspects she inherited from her father she is clearly speaking as much about the emotional elements of herself, which came from being raised by her father. That which is not so much inherited as shaped by spending a life with someone. Growing up we do not understand just how much of ourselves was shaped by our parents and family, then one day your parents are standing there, in the mirror, staring back at you as you embrace another.

In her most recent work Olds’ realizes that much in life is to be discovered in humor, and she has become genuinely funny, as she explores the physical aspects of growing old, and of understanding that not everything is meant to be taken seriously, (something her critics would do well to learn). From poems about self-composting toilets, to observations about her aging buttocks as seen in a mirror, she is exploring more of the physical world, and finding the humor in it all. It adds a sense of lightness and balance to her work, and her view of the world. She has not stopped growing, her understanding is not stagnant nor is her work. As her sense of self is changing so does the “I” of her poetry. But that “I” is still reaching out to touch others, and, as readers, our understanding of that “I” changes as well. Her poetry reads differently at fifty than it did at thirty, not because the poem or poet has changed, but because our portion of the “I” has changed. This is true of all works of art. But, when one reads the intensely personal work of a poet like Sharon Olds, one is more aware of it, and we too must realize that when one looks in the mirror sometimes all one should do is laugh.

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’62 Center for Theatre and Dance

Posted on September 5, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

Randy Fippinger was kind enough to drop me off a catalog of this year’s schedule for the Williams College ’62CTD. The schedule looks great for the coming year and there are a number of performances I am looking forward to. Laurie Anderson will be performing, and I will make every attempt to be there as I love her work. Also Lucinda Childs and Roger Bonair-Agard should be outstanding and thought provoking. If anyone is interested and will be in the area let me know as I have some discounts (Hey a few bucks is a few bucks!). I have yet to attend anything at the Center for Theatre and Dance, but am looking forward to this season. Click on the link above and peruse the schedule, there are many potential gems, and while you may read about them here, after the fact, it is never as much fun as the actual experience.

Also Congratulations to James Pethica who has just been appointed the director of the W.B. Yeats Summer School in Sligo for the next three sessions. (Perhaps, if no one notices, I can sneak into his luggage; cutting out breathing holes of course.)

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Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

I have loved the writing of Peter Matthiessen for years. At Play in the Fields of the Lord was the first of his novels that I read, and it should be a classic (time will eventually tell as I am not the sole arbiter). Yet if viewed only as a novelist one gets less than a full picture. He has made a mark as a naturalist, journalist (in the sense of keeping and publishing a journal), travel writer and novelist. Among his recent non-fiction that I have enjoyed are The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes, and End of Earth: Voyaging to Antarctica. With these outstanding books one begins to get a sense of the breadth of Matthiessen’s work. But it is in the novel that Matthiessen truly explores the complexity of the human personality. And, in Edgar Watson, he gives us a character as richly drawn as Kazantzakis’ St Francis or Christ or Doestoevsky’s Raskolnikov; a character we can understand, one whose world may be as alien as a tropical rain-forest, but whose personality rings true.
Shadow Country originally came into this world as three novels: Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River & Bone by Bone. Matthiessen, however, was never quite comfortable with them, as he did not feel they fulfilled his original vision for the story being told. The three novels sat for some time on my top shelf of books to read by favorite authors, and I started the first several time, but never quite got into the flow. When I ran across Shadow Country in a local independent book store I bought it and read it. As it runs to almost 900 pages it was not quite a one sitting novel. Also, if a book is 900 pages and I don’t fully enjoy it, I don’t finish it. Why waste the time. A short novel I will often finish if I feel it has potential. But Shadow Country grabbed me from the beginning, and held on.
The novel is divided into three parts, roughly equivalent to the original, separate, three books. The first part begins with the death of Edgar J. Watson at the hands of locals, in the Florida Evergaldes in 1910, as they try to arrest him and turn him over to the law for murder. The killing of Watson is the point around which the whole novel is keyed. The first part of Shadow Country is told in bits by the people who knew him. Each contributes a piece here and there, as a detective might put together the stories of various witnesses to a life, thus getting an outline as seen by others. Reading this section one comes away with a profound sense of the contradictions that are the life of Edgar Watson. The people that loved him and the people that hated him all offer up the bits of his life they know, or the conjecture they have committed to. Everything that led to the death of Watson is laid bare. But Lucius Watson loved his father and cannot accept that his beloved father is the murderer people believed he was.
The second part of Shadow Country is the story of Lucius, who, after fighting in WWI, returns to Florida, becomes a historian and tries to redeem his father’s reputation. Years after his father’s death Lucius tracks down friends, family, acquaintances, bringing up a past everyone wants to forget. The people who killed him fear retribution from a family member of a notorious killer. The family fear for their own reputations’ ruin, as a past people have begun to forget comes festering out of their long buried memories. Lucius’ own fears, that he may find a truth he doesn’t want to hear; that he may be unable to face a truth about his own blind love for his father; that his own emotional turmoil and past as a WWI sharpshooter will lead him to a truth no one else will want to hear. Lucius’ complex search is not just a search for his father’s truth, but for his own murky past; a life as murky as the waters of the Everglades. As Lucius story nears its end we are still left with only a partial understanding of the man who is the central character. And it is up to Watson himself to set the record straight.
The last section of the novel is the longest and most complex as the reader realizes he has only scratched the surface of one of the most complex characters in modern literature. Ed Watson was raised in the time of reconstruction, with a young personality as complex as the schizophrenic times he grew up in. Racism was as common as air, and hatred was pure in the times after the civil war, when a black could be lynched for no real reason at all. Watson did not share the pure hatred of his compatriots, but he was a product of his times and believed in the “proper place” for blacks in society. Watson’s temper and violent rages develop as a child of a violent father and passive mother. He was a hard worker who rarely got what he deserved and was forced to move from place to place to escape his bad reputation, earned and unearned. Watson traveled from Carolina to Northern Florida, where he fell in love and married. His “Charlie” died young leaving a hole in Watson’s heart that could never be filled, as the violent part of his nature began to become more prominent. His travels took him west, as he gained a reputation as an outlaw. Later he returned to Florida settling as a sugar cane farmer in the Everglades. His life saw him through three wives, numerous children, legitimate and not, multitudes of legal misunderstandings, murders real and imagined, and more troubles than an average person with a penchant for alcohol and violence. But through it all Watson was a hard worker with a sound business sense, a sense of the times and the way things were changing, and a profound misunderstanding of the people who loved him. He watched as his family and friends died or deserted him. Watched as Lucius developed a sense of The Everglades and their violent natural beauty. As even this son who loved him had to leave in the end, as his father’s loyalty to the wrong people led to his eventual downfall. Watson’s growing awareness of himself and his history gave him a sense of inevitability as he began to realize the harm he had done, and he moved from the criminal’s sense of “they made me do it” to a human sense of responsibility.
Interwoven in the story of Edgar Watson are a host of characters as carefully drawn as Watson himself. Frank Reese, Henry Short, Les Cox, Rob Watson–Edgar’s oldest–mix among Watson’s wives Charlie, Mandy and Kate, and other romantic attachments. This story is of a time when America was as conflicted about what direction to travel as was Edgar Watson. About a part of the country that was as beautiful as it was vulnerable and violent. A time when big business was becoming, and the small farmer was beginning its inevitable decline. In this sense Watson, as drawn by Matthiessen, was as complex as the times he lived, and the way he died: in the aftermath of a hurricane, in a dead calm of understanding and acceptance. Shadow Country is available as a Modern Library paperback at an independent bookstore near you.

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Godot on DVD

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Ralph.Hammann

Fear not if you missed attending  one of the major revivals of WAITING FOR GODOT that Broadway is likely to produce for some time, likely my lifetime anyway. While seeing Beckett in the theater (assuming he is served well by the production) is preferable, a group of 19 of  his dramatic works were filmed as films as opposed to plays being filmed. They are now on DVD, and of them the production of GODOT is certainly a highlight. Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, it stars the great Beckett interpreter, Barry McGovern, as Vladimir and his co-star from the acclaimed Dublin Gate Theatre production, Johnny Murphy, as Estragon.

Besides the fine acting of McGovern and Murphy, a major reason to experience this production is to hear the language as delivered in true Irish accents. There is a musicality and humor here that eludes many productions, and it makes for a very different experience. While Beckett did originally write GODOT in French, his English version is no mere literal translation of the French. Rather, he wrote it with a keen sense of Irish idioms and with a new music, the inimitable Irish lilt. If you are a fan of Beckett, you owe to yourself to watch this production; if you never saw GODOT, here is a good place to begin your exploration of one of the greatest works of all time.

The DVD set is entitled BECKETT ON FILM, a project that brought together 19 directors and a host of talent who include Jeremy Irons, John Hurt, Julianne Moore, Michael Gambon, Kristen Scott-Thomas, Alan Rickman and Milo O’Shea. I didn’t see it on Netflix, but Amazon carries it for about $145.00 — not cheap, but a bargain when you consider the cost of a couple of theater tickets (between $100 and $200). And you get all those other works besides GODOT. 

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Waiting For Godot

Posted on July 12, 2009 by Ralph.Hammann

I write this on the closing night of a rather remarkable production, the WAITING FOR GODOT that Anthony Page directed for New York City’s Roundabout Theatre.

The thing about Samuel Beckett’s plays is that the director has to honor Beckett’s stage directions with the same fidelity that is accorded the dialogue. Beckett was very emphatic about this. In his minimalism he  was exacting in creating images that were as important  as the words. Change his directions in terms of movements, pauses & silences, props, costumes or setting, and the effect (to say nothing of the meaning or wealth of meanings) that Beckett intended is lost. For this reason, when his plays fall into the hands of directors with “concepts”, the plays (some of the greatest in world theater, I think) are very fragile. 

And in a culture where directors’ egos frequently drive them to make their mark by offering new interpretations of classical works, even a play as seemingly unassailable as WAITING FOR GODOT is imperiled. Witness the production of it that was done on the Unicorn Stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 2008 where the director, Anders Cato (and his designers), launched into equal importance with Beckett and so perverted his vision that the production was not WAITING FOR GODOT. The setting (a white room with two doorways and some gravel between them — as opposed to simply a road) was just the beginning of the assaults to Beckett’s prescribed and demanded (he fought to have productions be faithful to his script) directions. 

Thus it was with great pleasure and relief that I left the recent production of it on Broadway. Admittedly I was worried that an attempt would be made to make it “new,” as I was that Nathan Lane (as the tramp, Estragon) would overact the role and use it as a vehicle to show off. What I found was a remarkably faithful production that honored virtually everything Beckett wrote. I might quibble with the too short length of some of the silences and pauses. And I think the amount of irritation Vladimir and Estragon showed at Lucky’s monologue was inadequate. But these are minor concerns given everything that the production got right — or at least attempted to get right. 

Bill Irwin (as Vladimir) and Lane were perfectly contrasting and simultaneously complementary types, and they worked off of each other with the dexterity of (and appreciation for) the vaudeville clowns Beckett so admired (the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin and Keaton) and referenced. With its vast rock-scape, Santo Loquasto’s set design eschewed the plainness of many productions, but it nonetheless kept faith with Beckett’s orders and did provide a sense of the bleakness, harshness and sterility that are key to framing the action. And there was poetry in the very theatrical rising of the moon (again, per Beckett’s description) and onset of evening.

But the biggest discovery this time out were the two supporting performances. John Glover was the most appropriately repellent and pathetic Lucky I have seen (his continual slobber, caused a woman sitting in the front row to move back a row), and he brought an eagerness to please his master, Pozzo, that made one feel he was not an unwilling servant/slave. As Pozzo, John Goodman was the show’s greatest revelation. Grotesque, needy, commanding, eloquent and utterly spellbinding, Goodman made us feel Pozzo’s plight as never quite before. 

It may very well be best live production of GODOT I will see in my time. Its success lies not just in the fact that great artists were enlisted. It is that these artists put their sizable talents in service of Beckett. In trusting him, they humbly allowed his genius to guide them.

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Beginnings of an Obsession

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

I was always a reader. I cannot remember a time when I did not have a book going, or several. Right now I have about five that I am actively reading, and two that I finished in the last few days. But collecting is an obsession that began in full shortly after high school. The first books I collected were from The Franklin Library. (I just heard the collective groan from book people everywhere.) The Franklin Library offered the “Hundred Greatest Books Ever Written.” They had several different series, the one I subscribed to had the leather spine, decorated boards, gilt edged and marbled end papers (words that meant nothing to me at that time). The books were $20.00 plus postage at the time. I did not get all 100. But their selection of books was excellent, and provided me with an introduction to the classics for which I am still grateful. It was in this collection that I first discovered Cervantes, Hemingway, Candide, Crime and Punishment, Homer, Tacitus, and others. I have held on to all, with the exception of the copy of Hardy’s The Return of the Native, still one of my favorites, by one of my favorite authors, that I once loaned to a friend. I hope he enjoyed it. I had no idea of the obsessive nature of book collecting–indeed collecting of any kind–I only knew that I didn’t throw away books, nor did I give them away. Occasionally I would scrap a title I hated, but mostly I kept them too.
Today I have my first incunabule framed in my library. I have so many books they require their own room. My favorite authors are few, but always growing, but I am selective in choosing those I call my favorites. I have first editions of Samuel Johnson, limited editions of all sorts, signed books and prints, favorite presses, and a variety of topics of particular interest.
Today the Franklin Library books are worth little on the market, though in a hundred or so years they may command more money, as they are actually nice books with quality illustrations. As of now they are not considered old nor are they of particular interest to collectors. I will still not be selling those that have my bookplate that came with the books. They have a special place in my collection, not because of their monetary value, but because they were first. They were the start of something, and in their own little way, were an influence in my life.
I also realize something; it is the words, rather than the artifact, that is important in most cases. To the collector it is something else. But it all starts with the words. The artifact is important for a quality that only partly has to do with the words. For example, a modern first edition that has value to a collector, has greater value if it has a nice dust-jacket. The dust-jacket has nothing to do with the book. It is designed by the publisher, usually to attract the attention of a buyer in a book store. The value a collector places on a book begins with the work and the author–is this something worthy of collecting–but from there the value is centered on things like the edition, the binding, the condition, and a multitude of other variables. A first edition of say, John Grisham’s latest novel, will have no collector value. This says nothing about the quality of the novel or the author. In fact, I would say that Grisham has written a few outstanding novels. But the editions of Grisham’s novels, other that the first, were so large that that all important quality for the collector, scarcity, is not possible. In order for a book to have truly great value (that is monetary value), it must be scarce. The historical value of an edition is completely different and probably affects the dollar value.
But in the end what really matters are the words. I do not collect the works of those whom I do not like. Even if they have monetary value. I would pick up something like that for resale, but not to keep. Right now I am have a nice and growing collection of Mosher books. He had a knack for a good book, though of a certain style, and he didn’t like paying royalties to authors. Consequently he published many high quality books at reasonable prices, by European authors whom he did not have to pay royalties to. (Anybody bought any DVDs from China lately?) I first found him interesting reading about him in books on collecting. But I noticed that they were interesting titles, by, mostly high quality authors. Then one day I bought several and noticed they were uncut. Then the real dilemma started! Do I cut them to read them, or, do I buy another “reading” copy. It is said that you become a collector of books the first time you buy a book with no intention of reading it (or reading that particular copy). Of this I have been guilty. Alas, the first step to curing a problem is admitting you have it. I have it. But what if I don’t want to be cured? The madness feels good, like the spine of an old leather volume that has been gently read, sitting in a comfortable chair.
Nicholas Basbanes has written a good deal on the madness and probably knows better than any the suffering of the afflicted. Pity us, or join us, but do not despise us.

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New Blogger on the Way

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Ron Rutstein

Today we added another blogger and will welcome Ralph Hammann aboard. Ralph has taught theater and film at Pittsfield High School since 1976 (going on 34 years)
and has been a film and theater critic for Metroland (Albany, NY)
for some 20 years, but as of the past three or so has only been
doing theater. Ralph also reviews theater for the Transcript (North Adams)
and for many years was the chief theater critic for The Advocate.
Ralph has promised a discussion of the current New York production of Waiting for Godot, which is also of interest to James. Hopefully he will follow up with a discussion of the Irish production available on DVD since getting to NY is not so easy for most of us.
In the Current economic climate the arts are suffering, and as we all seem to have less these days we are careful about where those dollars go. In our own little way we hope to direct people to new things they may like. Going to NY to see a play is prohibitive to most, but rental of a DVD is not. The practical is something we will try to address, while at the same time recognizing the importance of a current production or exhibit. If one of us is able to attend a great exhibit or performance it will be noted and discussed. If something of a more practical nature can be tied in it will. If we do not please feel free to let us know of something like the Godot DVD which we can pass along. We are always interested in new things ourselves, it is part of our approach to life. (Click on the ABOUT page for a full discussion of our philosophy.)

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