So work the honey-bees

Over Labor Day weekend, we were invited by our friends Troy and Molly to help harvest honey from their beehives.  Actually, to be more accurate, Troy removed the honeycombs and we aided in the process of getting the honey out of the combs and into bottles.

Here's Troy with his bee mask and a device which contains a flammable material (similar to styrofoam) which, when lit, produces an abundance of smoke.  There is a bellows on the side of the device to expel the smoke into the beehive.  This pacifies the bees during the harvesting process, ideally minimizing defensive behavior.

As you can see, I kept my distance anyway.

Here is what one honeycomb looked like.  A few of them were much fuller than this one.

In the foreground, in the cart, you can see the honeycombs.  The silver device is a honey-extractor in which the honeycombs are placed and centrifugal forces extract the honey.

But first the honeycomb must be scraped.  The scraper is similar to a comb, but with sharp edges.  One runs it down the honeycomb to break the wax seal, allowing the honey to flow freely.

Like so.

And this is how it looks inside.

Of course, as you well know, honey flows better when warm, so sometimes a little encouragement is called for.

We are almost ready to pour!

A filter is placed on top of the bucket.  A good deal of wax and other bee stuff needs to be filtered out, but we are close to honey... We just have to sit and watch it slowly pass through the filter.

This part takes a while.

Soon we will star jarring.

Success!  The harvest was a couple dozen of these and Laurie and I were able to take some home!  It was a wonderful and fascinating day, one which I shall remember for the rest of my life. 

Paul Mathers on (shudder) politics

This week's video, my political views (with puppet show).

Don Quixote Part 2: Conclusion

"Don Quixote begins as a province, turns into Spain, and ends as a universe." -V.S. Pritchett

The sensation is a bit like being drunk, a bit like mourning, and a dash of divine revelation all at the same time.  A few times in one's life, one finishes a book with the realization that they have just finished one of the greatest books that they shall have the pleasure of reading in their lifetime.  While one might read that book again, one will never read it again for the first time. 

I had that last night as I finished Don Quixote and, in spite of the fact that the series I am working through comprises, by all accounts, some of the greatest books ever written, it has been a long time since I've felt this, for lack of a better term, close to the holy as I finished a book.  The last time I can remember is Djuna Barnes' Nightwood.  I sort of stare off blankly for the rest of the evening, as if my brain says, "Well, there you go!  You're not getting anything else out of me today."

In this book is the wealth and sorrows of the human experience.  All of the anguish and pathos of being an individual in this world is not only contained in this book, but readily experienced in the process of reading it.  The horrors are tempered, as they are in real life, by beauty, companionship, virtue, and the lighter side of the absurdity of existence.  It is beautiful in every way, one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.  It is also, another rarity, one of the few books which found me laughing out loud in public while reading.

Another major theme, I think, would be how people ruin things for one another.  There is the obvious one, masterfully woven into the plot by Cervantes, of the second rate knock-off non-canon sequel written by someone else after Cervantes original Part 1 and before (catalyzing even) Part 2.  There is a long section of a particularly sadistic wealthy couple who essentially torture Don Quixote and Sancho Panza for their own amusement.  That section contained one of my favorite passages of literature.  They send poor Sancho off to be a governor for their own mocking and scoffing.  He turns out to be as wise as Solomon.  It is the apotheosis of the triumph of the common man. 

Indeed, if you don't fall in love with the two main characters, check your pulse.  Cervantes makes an open and shut case as to the near blasphemy of the "false Quixote" book simply by introducing us to the wonderful two main characters.  I say that anyone who would dare besmirch the character of Sancho Panza deserves all of the treatment that Quixote would threaten to one who would impugn the beauty of Dulcinea.  There is a part of me that is happy to see that, with a little digging, the "false Quixote" is still available in print as it is an important historical document, an important footnote to this piece.  There is another part of me that is also happy to see that it seems like no one ever reads it.

I am going to a take a moment to say that the same diabolical duke and duchess who send Sancho to govern the insula are also the ones who introduce the talking head to the story.  About 100 pages before the end of Part 2, there is a bust in a room which, when asked a question, will speak and answer the questions.  The motif of prophecy is strong in Part 2.  We saw the prophesying monkey last time and this latter section also features a parade of enchanters, including Merlin, who prophesy as well.  It would seem that Cervantes has a skeptical view of prophecy, however possibly a poetic one as well.  The prophets are charlatans, but the prophecies come true!  Or rather, the lead characters do things because of the prophecies.  They sort of willingly become the foot-soldiers of fate.  I suspect there may be a cautionary lesson in there.

Laurie asked me how the book compares to Man of La Mancha (which we do need to address when talking about this piece now just as much as we need to make mention of the "false Quixote."  I felt that Wasserman's Quixote is more valid than Avellaneda's, possibly because the subject matter is handled with such respect, nearly with kid gloves, in the musical.)  We both loved that play and still do.  I think that an entirely valid, separate work of art can be created out of inspiration from a first work of art.  Laurie asked if Dulcinea is a character in the book.  I said, "Well, kind of, but not in the specific, tangible way that she is in the musical.  She is more of a presence or force than an actual character."  She asked about parts of the play that come from the book.  There is also the barber's pan.  And the ending.  Sort of.  The ending presents a few problems.

It is not necessarily a spoiler to reveal that Don Quixote dies, as Cervantes tells you that he is going to die in the introduction.  I think, for me, what was most remarkable was the staggering elevation Cervantes achieves.  Quixote is a bit of a saint/Christ figure throughout, but in his ending he dies to, essentially, save us from more bad knock-off versions.  Although that makes it sound so trite.  Rather I might say that he dies on the altar of greatness. 

One of the only times I've appeared in the local paper was when I was asked one of those "People on the street" questions outside of our post office.  I was asked what, given my druthers, I would prefer to have written on my tombstone (assuming no one goes through with my wishes of donating my body to the crime school that leaves donated bodies out in a presumably secured wild area to observe the effects of long term exposure on corpses for the educational amelioration of future criminologists).  I stammered out some nonsense on the spot, but I think in actuality I should like to borrow an abridgment of Quixote's own:

"It was his great good fortune to live a madman, and die sane."

Reader, you need to read this book.  You need to get a copy of the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote and read it while the sun still shines on you.  For your own sake.  You will be a better person for it.

 

Paul Mathers on American Embarrassments

This week's video: What is your most embarrassing confession as an American?

 

Don Quixote Part 2: Part 1

Christopher was right.  At the end of Part 1, I had a moment where I wondered if I should read Part 2 right away or put it on the back burner while I went back to the Harvard Classics list proper.  Christopher said, "No!  Read Part 2 immediately!  It is even better than Part 1!"

And I'll be hanged if he wasn't right.  This, and I am not just saying this out of being caught up in the emotion of the moment, is one of the best reading experiences of my life.  I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but my gratitude towards Dr. Eliot for leading me to finally read this book is matched only by my utter astonishment that he only included Part 1 in his curriculum.  Part 2 reveals a more evolved author who has adapted intrepidly from the lessons that the publication of Part 1 and the subsequent public reaction occasioned.  He has scuttled the stories within the story to focus, instead, purely on the adventures of the ingenious gentleman.  The meta-fiction aspect balloons in this section, starting with a scholar telling Sancho and Quixote about Part 1, its publication, contents, and reception.  Their reaction is as hilarious as one might imagine.  In his further adventures, Part 1 is something often considered and he encounters a number of people who read it.  Part 2 also, it is promised and I will soon get to it, unquestionably ends the story.  On reading the introduction, I mused why some wag hadn't thought of penning a Don Quixote's Adventures in the Afterlife.  Something that might make both Cervantes and Dante plunk out their respective mustaches in rage.

Depending on how one looks at it I suppose, it is either a series of fantastic and absurd events that the premise (madman wandering around thinking he's a knight errant) suggest punctuated by some of the best dialogue in all of literature between Sancho and Quixote or vice versa.  I am inclined towards the latter.  I could read conversations between Quixote and Sancho for the rest of my life and never fall out of sheer delight.  I suspect the same was true for Cervantes.  It is not difficult to imagine it was rip-roaring fun for him to write this.  It seems like the sort of thing that, when one gets one's teeth into writing something like this, the rest of life sort of becomes a hindrance to writing.  It's my experience, as a writer and having read many other writers on the subject, that such blessings are exceedingly rare in writing.  It is almost always a slog to get anything written at all.  In this, I envy Cervantes.

This is not to say that the action isn't equally thrilling.  The scene in the etching above is when Don Quixote is watching a puppet show.  He becomes so enthralled by the action that he enters into it.  I was reminded of a true story that the head of Shakespeare Orange County (my former boss) told me once about a production of Henry VIII in which he was playing the title role.  There was a scene between Henry and Cranmer which was so intense, acted with such tension, that one night a member of the audience climbed on stage and told them to cut it out.

It was also one of my favorite scenes in the book.  I searched for hours, but apparently Doré never drew the prophesying monkey.

At present I am with Quixote and Sancho in the court of a Duke and Duchess who have the main characters from one of their favorite books drop by quite unexpectedly one day to pay them a visit.  Childhood daydreams: resurrected!

Belief systems seem to be one of the themes addressed in the story.  I have chuckled more than once at Quixote's capacity to explain away inconvenient truths by attributing them to invisible enchanters who cloud the eyes of their enemies with illusion.  Even better, at one point Sancho tries to exploit this tendency, having observed Quixote, in the garden of his mind as it were, turn inns into castles, windmills into giants, lions into things that should be attacked, Sancho tries to convince Quixote that a poor, crass peasant girl is his beloved Dulcinea.  Quixote doesn't see it, which he, again, attributes to enchanters.  Maybe he is enchanted, maybe Sancho is enchanted, finally settling on Dulcinea being enchanted and he needing to save her from said enchantment.  This plan backfires on Sancho in a nearly literal way a few hundred pages later.  While Quixote's reality is not our consensus reality, it is nonetheless as hermetically sealed as our reality, as any functioning reality must be.

I should also like to say a few words about the footnotes.  Again, this entire reading experience has been infinitely enriched by the excellent and tastefully appropriate footnotes by Ms. Grossman.  While I say, again, that everyone should read this book, I will also say that every native of the Queen's English should read this specific translation of this book.  I am already bracing myself for the inevitable whiplash of my next book, the footnoteless and likely inferior translation of The Aeneid which sits at my right elbow while an angels sits on my left shoulder whispering "Go out and buy the Fagles translation tomorrow.  You'll be much happier if you do."  A suspiciously Mephistophelean voice from my other shoulder is whispering about thrift and our recent electric and medical bills.  

There is one particular footnote that burrowed its way deep into my brain like a thorn these past two days.  In it, Grossman points out a phrase, spoken by Sancho, which was suppressed by the Inquisition.  I shivered.  There is something about the grimmest of realities popping in to remind us that they exist while we are in the middle of a didactic tale on the virtues of creating one's own reality that almost demands a renewed commitment on the part of the reader, similar to a conversion in the face of persecution.  Quixote is a saint or even messianic figure for crazy wisdom and holy madness.  I see one of the lessons of the story to be along the lines of:

"Don't like this reality?  Make up a better one and live in that one instead!"

And I think there is some hope in that some of the characters are permitting the co-existence of Quixote's reality if not actively joining in on occasion.  For those examining from the heartbreaking perspective of without, the demands of our reality does not allow us to see the invisible enchanters as the true antagonists, but rather the true antagonists in this story are disbelief and the unwillingness to permit the reality of Quixote's devising.  

For my part, it is my intention to withdraw as much of this weekend as I can to spend on the remainder of this book.  One of the strange compulsions of reading a great book is the desire to spend so much time in it which only serves to make the end come that much more quickly.  Such is life.

Paul Mathers on Machismo

Let's All Write A Canto!

Or "Let's All Write Cantos."  This is one of the problem forms in this project.  It presents a difficulty in my intention to write one of each of the forms.

The problem is that a canto is similar to a chapter.  You will find it in longer, possibly epic works of poetry, as a way of breaking up the ideas into bite sized pieces.  The most obvious example would be Dante, which works rather neatly if you are describing rings of a realm.  Simply make a canto for each ring.  Ezra Pound also wrote cantos in his magnum opus The Cantos, one of those books in life that I think I will be on stab #3 of trying to read it next time I attempt to do so.  That is about all that our text has to tell us about Cantos and how to write them.

Here is an example of a canto.  It is the final canto from Dante's Inferno in which they observe the lowest level of Hell where resides Lucifer, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, Cassius, and my English teacher from my Freshman year in High School.  As I said, in Dante's case, the canto structure worked neatly in describing realms with levels.  But, as you can also see, they are chapters of a story and are not meant to be taken from the context. 

And so I was faced with the problem of what to do here.  I can't just skip a form, but I also don't have the time or artistic resources to crank out an entire epic poem split into cantos simply for the sake of this form (I have no idea what I'm going to do when I actually do reach the "epic" section of this book.  Stay tuned for that.  We can be surprised together).

So I decided to write a canto of a missing piece.  I floated a few ideas past Laurie.  One was to write a canto about how Sancho Panza's donkey was stolen.  Another was to write a canto from the life of Mozart, specifically why he never completed his Great Mass in C minor which he promised to God to write in return for Constanze's fever breaking.  He had ample time left in his life to complete it, but he never did (and he wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to his work).  I nearly wrote that one, but finally, when I came to write the thing, I decided to write a Canto from the life of Paul Mathers, an epic autobiographical poem which will, most likely, never be written outside of what you shall see here.  The story is a true one.  The verse is the net-less tennis of free verse.  


Et Incarnatus Est
by Paul Mathers

On each week's last labor's day
I arose hours before Phoebus
to wind produce from all four corners
deep into the craggy heart of yon neighboring mount
like a goblin.

Places like The Wooden Trout, The Grubstake Saloon, Toki's Soda Fountain,
a little red schoolhouse down a one lane road, 
keenly aware that my bobtail truck would have to back down if I ever met a car coming down as I went up.
I never did.
Although once I backed down in the middle of winter to avoid a snowdrift.

My soul bloated over a billion signs of wild.
Bears in the road, deer in the road,
golden day's first dip into a valley of pine,
driving drunk on love of creation.
Converted, I proselytized,
encouraging wife and parents to drive up on my day off with me,
capture the sights on film,
quaff deep the delights of the mountain towns,
bestride the terra like Titans,
each breath of thin air deposited towards a future of health.

Result: they carsick from the winding ride,
seeing it through the eyes of the city, small in town, inconvenient in nature,
the small diner gave miserable service,
our coats were not warm enough,
the whole covered by a glass darkly.

But rather than raw disappointment, a rare moment of clarity in the converse,
Awakening to the divinity infusing the places down the mountain,
in the darkest hour, in the shabbiest corner, in the cheapest excuse,

I resolved to keep the mountain in my heart.

Also,

Perhaps not best to share every thought God whispers in your ear.

3 Art Pieces That Impacted Me At Divers Times

And, as a bonus track, here is me telling a joke about Philip Glass.

And here is the piece by Philip Glass that I gush over in my initial video.

Don Quixote Part 1: Part 2

I finished reading Part 1 and was torn.  Should I proceed immediately to Part 2 or should I return to the curriculum of the Harvard Classics series and move back to The Aeneid.  I sought the advice of my friend Christopher who strongly urged me to read Part 2 immediately.  He said it was even better than Part 1, which sold me as Part 1 was, as I've said, one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had in recent memory.

I still wonder why Dr. Eliot only included Part 1 in his series.  I mentioned this to Laurie with a few of my own guesses: the meta-content of Part 2 might be more in line with contemporary thought than Dr. Eliot (making Cervantes ahead of not only his own, but also of Dr. Eliot's time), maybe something as simple as space constraints, or at the end of Part 1 just sort of shrugging his shoulders and saying "Eh, I think you get the point."  Laurie suggested, and I think she may have it, that perhaps Part 1 was more historically influential as it was written quite some time before Part 2.  So much, in fact, that someone else came along and wrote a "false" Part 2 before Cervantes finished his authentic conclusion.  By the time the authentic Part 2 came to be, Cervantes was already a world renowned figure, with a reported offer to teach Castilian in China with Quixote 1 as the textbook, and even likely having a play penned by William Shakespeare based upon Cardenio's story (one of Shakespeare's "lost" plays, which hasn't stopped a few theater companies from mounting productions of what might be Shakespeare's Cardenio.)  The world in which Cervantes lived when he wrote Part 2 was a world that knew Cervantes.

So much of the action of Don Quixote does not involve Don Quixote.  So much of the delight in the parts of the action which do involve Don Quixote are not so much delightful for the action, but for the conversation and ideas.  In spite of the fact that this book is a rip-roaring good narrative after chivalry, I felt that one of the key delights of this book is that it is a book of ideas.  One of the other other key delights of this book is the scope of its humanity.  Of course, the major delight of the book is simply the sheer quality of the writing and story-telling.  It is amazing to have a book where you are involved in the story of two character that you love interrupted by another new character or circumstance bringing several chapters of a completely unrelated story, and you are in no way annoyed by this.  Perhaps I should speak for myself, but I am.  I was simply enchanted the whole way through.

Again, it is too huge to survey all that I loved: the story of the Moorish prisoner, Don Quixote's penitent madness in the wilderness, the canon's speech about a minister of culture, Don Quixote's response to the priest's disparaging remarks about books of chivalry (in which he expresses the Fruit of the Spirit he has exhibited since becoming a knight errant, which would be true if it weren't for the fact that he is barking mad and all of his assumptions are based upon premises which lay outside of consensus reality, leading him to, say, attack a group of penitents in order to free the effigy of the Virgin Mary that they are carrying), Anselmo and Lotario, Don Francisco, the battle against the wineskins, the return of the whipped child, and so on and so forth.  What I have read thus far dances in my head and I was sorry to see it end (and end so abruptly.)  I am grateful for the permission slip to make haste into Part 2.

In my previous post, I imagined I would break this reading into 3 responses, but I think 4 will be more likely at this point.  More soon.
 

Paul Mathers on Laughter and Tears

P.S. here's the scene from Lawrence of Arabia that I mention. See if you can spot the differences between the actual film and the way my brain remembered it:

The Legend of the Tootsie Pop Wrapper

I sent a Tootsie Pop wrapper to the Tootsie Pop company for reasons explained in the video.  What they sent me was more wonderful than I ever would have imagined!

Don Quixote Part 1: Part 1

Having already thrown the strictest version of Dr. Eliot's prescription to the wind, I am reading all of Don Quixote.  Dr. Eliot actually only demands Don Quixote Part 1.  Of course, this being my first time through the work, I have no idea why.  I do know that Part 2 was written and published many years later after someone else wrote a Further Adventures of Don Quixote.  This bastard version was to Cervantes what 50 Shades of Grey is to Twilight, what Mormonism is to Christianity, and what American Democracy is to the ancient Greek ideal of Democracy.  You can imagine Cervantes chagrin, to the extreme of writing a whole additional book.

I have decided to read the entire thing because, simply put, this is without a doubt one of the top five most enjoyable reading experiences of my life so far.  Other titles in the Harvard Classics series I have found enjoyable and profitable; I might have recommended them to certain parties.  The Grossman translation of Don Quixote, on the other hand, is something I would recommend to everyone.  It reads as easily as anything contemporary, and the footnotes are excellent.  In fact, there are several moments which would suffer enormously to the contemporary English speaking reader without the footnotes (specifically, the chapter where the priest culls Don Quixote's library would have been terribly dull without the footnotes.  With the footnotes, the reader grasps the brilliant satire).  There are also a few narrative gaps explained by the footnotes, gaps which likely inspired the Los Angeles Times critic to write the quote on the back cover which calls it "Cervantes's imperfect masterpiece."  Which seems to me like a nervy thing to say.  Your novel had better be pretty stunning if you're going to go around calling Don Quixote imperfect, book review-boy.

He was probably referring to Sancho Panza's magically disappearing and reappearing mule.

I have decided to post about each third of this book.

I found Cervantes to be charming and sublimely clever.  It is rare that I laugh out loud while reading, even rarer in 400 year old texts, but in this instance I have already several times and in public.  I have even chuckled a few times away from the book when thinking about the scene when Sancho leans over Quixote to see which teeth he lost in battle.

We start with a long series of sonnets at a friend of the author's suggestion and Latin phrases become a running gag.  Quixote is driven mad by reading novels, yes, very much like the one we are reading.  Early on we are treated to a chapter where, as I mentioned, a priest culls a library for books that should be burned.  The meta-commentary of that scene early on informs us that this is far more cunning and modern than one might expect from a work from the 1600s.  I cannot adequately express what a delight it is to read this book.

The windmills happen right out of the gate.  So much of the joy of the book is in the relationship between Quixote and Sancho Panza.  There is a sort of unspoken idea behind the text, bringing to mind Tristram Shandy, that we are in no hurry and shall take our time enjoying what is before us.  If Cervantes feels like taking three chapters to describe a novel that some of the characters found at an inn, well, he will do so without apology and we shall enjoy it (I am currently in one such section). 

But it goes beyond all of that.  It is also tender, brutal, and excruciatingly human.  It is also an excellent piece of literature.  Definitely on my short list for when I am inevitably exiled to a desert island.  To be completely honest, I am far more intimidated to write about this book than I am to read it.

More soon.

Paul Mathers on Comedy and Misery

Let's All Write a Calligram

The Calligram, as Ron Padgett explains in our text The Teacher and Writer's Handbook of Poetic Forms (for newcomers, I am attempting to write one poem in every form covered in the book), is a form named after the Greek terms for "beautiful writing."  The form is to make a poem in which the words form a picture.  By way of example, Guillaume Apollinaire was, perhaps, one of the most famous poets to employ this form.  Here is an example of one of his poems:

 The poem is shaped like the Eiffel Tower, you see.

And so, approaching this form, I thought about images that I could form into, especially images which I might be interested in composing a poem on.  My first thought was to make a poem in the shape of my dog Schubert, but when I latched onto that idea I found that I kept putting off writing the thing.  Upon examination I found that I feared that such a poem would be too folksy, too close to cowboy poetry (a form which is mercifully absent from this text and which I would likely scrap this project if compelled to attempt to ever write one).

Then I had a panic attack earlier today.  Or something like that.  Anyway, my mind was running in circles of fear and I was on the phone with Laurie at lunch trying to talk my way out of it.  That seems to help me sometimes.  After I got off the phone, I remembered that wonderful quote by author Neil Gaiman:

“Remember, whatever discipline you’re in, whether you’re a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer — whatever you do, you have one thing that’s unique: You have the ability to make art. And for me, and for so many of the people I’ve known, that’s been a lifesaver, the ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times, and it gets you through … the other ones. Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong — in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.”

And so I went more abstract and made my calligram of my panic attack.  I call it  A) Lopressor, B) Metformin, or C) Ativan?  You will probably need to click on the image in order to make it large enough for you to read it.

 

Paul Mathers on Childhood Dreams

My video this week is about childhood dreams.

Introducing Quixote

"You're reading them out of order now?!!? Outrageous! 10 points from Ravenclaw!"

I decided to leapfrog over Virgil's Aeneid to read Don Quixote.  I fully understand that this overlap in material covered in Plutarch's Lives and I am sure that the Harvard Classics were put in that order for good reasons.  My reasoning is simple.  I really want to read Don Quixote.  I will simply read the Aeneid next. 

As a little glimpse inside my brain, I can tell you that I struggled for some time over feeling guilty about this.

I decided to go with the recent Edith Grossman translation.  Quixote is one of those books that, as I have often heard from trusted sources, has suffered much in translation.  One of the key concerns seems to be preservation of tone and, specifically, humor.  I had heard good things about the Raffel translation as well, but my tipping point was in the footnotes and in the recommendation of the Grossman by my friend Christopher.  I am well into the text and feel that this was the best possible choice.  It really is, as the endorsement by Library Journal claims on the cover, "the translation to beat."

The translators preface further serves to back up what I assume was Ms. Grossman's intentions/philosophy in her translation.  Simply put, she intends to preserve the experience that readers of the work in Spanish would have for readers of the work in English.  She writes, "...all human efforts to communicate- even in the same language- are equally utopian, equally luminous with value, and equally worth the doing."

I skipped most of Harold Bloom's introduction.  Look, I have enjoyed Professor Bloom's work in the past and I am sure I will again in the future.  I did not enjoy his introduction at this particular time.  He spends a great deal of the introduction comparing Cervantes to Shakespeare (who, granted, were contemporaries to the point where they actually died on the same day.)  I commented to Laurie that it struck me as being a bit like what Quentin Crisp said about television interviews:

A television interview, you see, is like a geography examination. You can’t study the whole world. Therefore, on the night before your exam, you take your atlas down from its shelf and open it at random. The map that you happen to expose is of China. You regard this as a sign from You-Know-Who and study China. The next day the main question in your paper is about France. You-Know-Who has sold you a pup. Don’t panic. Your answer begins, "France is not like China, which is . . . "

I haven't graphed it, but I suspect he spent more of his introduction talking about Shakespeare than Cervantes.

But that is not why I skipped it.  I skipped it because twice in the few pages I read, Professor Bloom committed the unforgivable sin of revealing major plot points of the work that I was about to read.  I am cursed with the sort of brain that remembers everything.  I don't care how famous you believe the work to be, if you are called upon to speak before a piece, it is part of your duty to preserve the wonderful experience before all of the audience, especially those who have never had the pleasure before.  If you are unable to do this, you should not be speaking in that context.  In fact, I would suggest to the publisher that what they have from Professor Bloom is not an Introduction that should ever be used for this piece.  What they have from Professor Bloom is probably an excellent Afterword.  I shall treat it as such and I shall return to comment on it once I've finished the book.

And then there is Cervantes' own Prologue.  I was instantly enchanted.  I literally smiled while I was reading it.  I am finding Cervantes to be delightful clever, but that is an terrible understatement.  I am finding Cervantes to be one of the cleverest authors I have ever had the pleasure to read.  In his prologue he establishes that we are to read a work of satire and that the target of the satire will largely be chivalry (although there seems to be a winking understanding that the scope of the work shall be far far larger.)  He also establishes the startling modernity of the work.  Having read Milton and Shakespeare in recent memory, I found it astoundingly modern to be reading not only a novel, but one in which the author periodically appears in the narrative. 

In short, I have no regrets over my decision.

Plutarch's Lives- Part 4: Ceasar and Antony

Julius Caesar bestrode this narrow world like a colossus.  He stomped on the Terra.  We of the Judeo-Christian worldview like to think that we have the market cornered on events from 2000ish years ago which still impact every living human today, but, with all due respect, there was a secular moment of at least equal secular importance when a group of men walked into the Roman senate and stabbed the reigning dictator for life to death.

The sheer force of nature that was Julius Caesar is abundantly clear in the unfolding of his story.  Even saying any of this reminds me of how odd I've found the endorsement blurbs on the copy of Don Quixote that I'm about to read.  And, no, they are not just endorsing the translation.

"Yes, even some people of our own time love the best thing ever." -Paul Mathers

Even down to the New York Times Bestseller label on the cover.  I wonder if there is an edition of the Bible that boasts New York Times Bestseller.

What's so great about Julius Caesar?  Well, the first answer is that Plutarch clearly feels that Julius Caesar was the zenith of nobility towards which one ought to aspire.  The dizzying heights of his elevation certainly must have a dash of the hyperbolic about it, although I feel so horribly tainted by the modern anti-civilization mindset when I say that.

Certainly the conquest of Gaul is one of his inspiring achievements and students of Latin will more likely than not be called upon to read Caesar's own account of the campaign at some point in their studies.  There is also the weighty Roman Civil War circling around the power shift between Pompey and Julius.  Ascending to power, he took on the mantle of Dictator for Life.  Several of those close to him conspired to make that a much shorter honorific than it might initially sound.

Aside from these achievements, the man is portrayed as a model of virtue.  He overcomes extreme odds (just think of it: a warrior with epilepsy) by the force of a gargantuan will which would come to be envied by the likes of Nietzsche and Wagner.  Indeed, I felt there was something almost American in the individual will to power of Julius Caesar.  You can take that statement any way you like.  In a lot of ways, his is a snowball that is still rolling and gaining mass, for better or worse.

Having intimated that last point twice already in this post, my internal professor is rabid to write in the margins in red ink "Give Examples!"
1. Caesars were not Caesars until Julius Caesar.  He, in fact, changed government forever.
2. As I mentioned, his writings are standard for Latin students, making him one of the key figures in one of the major roots from which the English language grows.  And I think we can all agree that language has a direct effect upon reality; if not one of its major shapers, certainly, as Wittgenstein said, the fence at the limit of reality.
3. His story is woven into the fabric of our reality as well.  He came, he saw, he conquered.  "The die is cast" (I can't tell you how often I think that in the course of my daily life.)  The Ides of March and "Et tu, Brute?"  He is in Dante's Limbo and the subject of one of the greatest plays in the English language (two if you count Shaw.  And I do.)

Again, even listing these things makes me feel like I am giving an endorsement to something far greater than I.

Plutarch doesn't bother to include a summation comparing Caesar to Antony, at least not in this edition, and I have to assume that the truths were suspected, rightly I should think, to be self-evident.

Antony is described as dissolute.  He gambles; he drinks; he sleeps around; he is a member of some weird cult that goes around whacking women with whips on Lupercalia.  On that note, I felt there was a bit of a microcosm of the whole dynamic of the two men in the famous story where Antony approaches Caesar on Lupercalia with a crown, which Caesar declines in a gentlemanly manner to the great joy and support of the crowd.  I found Antony to be, in stark contrast to Caesar, one who was being chewed up in the teeth of time, rather than the chewer.  Another microcosm might be in each man's story of their relationship with their lover in common, that is to say Cleopatra.  Caesar restores her to her throne, effectively increasing both of their power (if not adding a bit more straw to the camel's back of those who were plotting his death.)  Antony follows her around like a puppy, which eventually leads him to the end of his own sword.

One difference in these two sections from any of the others is that they both contained stories of other major figures.  Cleopatra probably receives the most coverage.  She ascends to power, much like Caesar by willpower and manipulating circumstances to her advantage.  In fact, her suicide is one of those rare suicides that seems like an act born from a place of power.  She escapes her prison by the only means available to her.  She also has the ingenuity of gruesome foresight.  The painting at the beginning of this post is of Cleopatra testing poisons on condemned prisoners to see which one she might like best when the time comes to commit self-slaughter.

Timon of Athens is introduced as one of the most famous misanthropes of antiquity.  But for me the portion with the most emotional impact was the section about Caesar's murderers.  I was mainly struck by how much that section read like a prose retelling of the plot of Shakespeare's tragedy on the subject (not being an idiot, I know full well that the opposite is, in fact, the case.)  I was most stunned by the moments after his murder.  Of course, there were no police to be called.  The murderers walked out of there expecting change, solidarity, a new order.  Instead, people are stunned and then, after Antony's stirring speech, outraged.

I think the key lesson I gleaned from this section was to wield the power one has been granted for good and to build.  The negative example is one against allowing one's self to be blown about by circumstance or to allow one's self to commit wicked acts for the promise of better circumstances.

Paul Mathers Makes Pacifists Fight

I can't believe I did this.  You won't believe it either! This week's topic was a dash on the jocular side.

Plutarch's Lives- Part 3: Demosthenes and Cicero

Cicero and Demosthenes were both orators of great acclaim in their respective places. Demosthenes had to work for his oration skill and in that sense reminded me a bit of Milton.  He expended a great deal of time and energy on honing his skill, then reaped the benefit (sort of... for a time anyway.)  He was occasionally mocked for his practiced orations, but it seems no one took such criticisms seriously in light of the man's oratory skill.  He, perhaps ill advisedly, entered politics, which ultimately lead to drinking poison to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies.

I have noticed Plutarch seeming to show marked favoritism towards the Roman figures.  I may be reading too much into this (or it may simply be a result of the choices in this abridgment) and it may have more to do with Plutarch's familiarity and the availability of information to him, but it really does seem to me that the Roman pieces are far more compelling and perhaps a bit more on the noble side.

The story of Cicero was a bit more engaging, especially since it is building to the end of the reading in Plutarch.  The book ends with Caesar and Antony.  There is overlap with Cicero's story in each of those. 

Cicero's death was absolutely grizzly.  Something about cutting off someone's hands and head and then traveling with them to a place where they are to be put on spikes doesn't sit well with me.  I know that Julius Caesar is said to have remarked, ominously, that the best sort of death is a sudden one.  I'm not sure I agree with that.  Dying at the violent hands of others seems terrible to me.  I imagine my final thought would be something like "I never made it through Infinite Jest!"  What a horrible way to go!  I increasingly find myself feeling that a good death is a lingering one, like Mozart who laid on his deathbed composing his Requiem (apocryphally it seems, but it makes a nice story, what?)

It would be difficult for me to not love Cicero.  He was a bit of a rascal and his wit was enviably keen.  The accounts seem to suggest a decent and lovable man, but he had this knack for boasting and self-promoting that put me in mind of a modern day rapper.

Rather than rehashing the details of their lives, I should, as Plutarch intended in writing these lives in the first place, focus on what lessons I gleaned from reading about these two men.  I think that Plutarch would agree that looking at the lives of the great people of history can and should inspire the reader and instruct them in good living, be it in the positive or negative example (with the added level of whether or not the reader agrees with the author's point of view.)  I would add, and I also think Plutarch and Dr. Eliot would back me up on this, that this is precisely why a work like this ought to be requisite to the education of young people.  Perhaps this might serve as a drop of antidote in the ocean of arrested adolescence which comprises the culture in which they bob rudderless (there I go mixing metaphors again.  Oh well.  I've buttered my bread and now I must lay in it.)  Aside from the historic material from, what one could certainly argue if one were so inclined, two of the most important civilizations of all time, one gets the distinct impression that the true function of the book is examples of great men towards which one can aspire.  I found the lives of these two men to be an inspiration to strive towards excellence.

There was also, I felt, a theme emerging which I know will be a through-line in the remainder of my reading: beware of the shifting sands of politics.  Both men are essentially destroyed by the capricious nature of the divine right of kings, which seems to have been especially capricious in times of capricious divinity.  That may sound like a dig against antiquity, but I will reveal my opinion that I feel much the same way about the prevailing directions of religious devotion in my own time and country.

Both men shared the experience of aligning themselves with a political position that eventually led to their respective deaths.  I suppose this could be taken in a number of ways.  I could see this suggesting the path of political forbearance.  I could also see this suggesting the nobility of staying true to one's cause even unto death.  Not knowing any political leaders personally and having zero interest in politics, my interest in this thought experiment seemed theoretical on the surface.  But I think that these lessons transfer on a micro-scale.  Politics touch all of our interpersonal interactions, be it in our workplace, our churches, or even our homes.  I am not talking exclusively about political ideology, but also about the teetering balances of power found anywhere power is available.  I think one of the major lessons from the lives of the noble ancients is to let truth and virtue be your leader and even if you find yourself on the business end of a vial of poison, you will be exactly where you are supposed to be.

Let's All Write Bouts-rimés: Poem the Final- Judy

Way back before the Pleistocene Epoch, back in the haziest mists of time, I started a project where I would work through Ron Padgett's book A Handbook of Poetic Forms.  The project was to write a poem for every form represented in the text.  I got through the end of the letter 'B.'

To be fair, I never willfully stopped doing the project and, therefore, in my own mind was still doing the project.  However, I think it was about a year ago when I first mentioned the Bouts-rimés topic.  I received a great deal of response from people who wanted me to write a poem using their list of rhyming words and, being a softie, I chose to attempt to write one for everyone who participated.  Then, time continued to march on.  I wrote a few and, a few months later, wrote a few more.  And then...

So, I intended to write the remaining poems and then continue the project, but found that one of the remaining two (I think) has disappeared.  I knew the book in which I had placed the list, but it was no longer in that book.  That was my friend Kari's list of suggestions.  I apologize, but we are moving on.  If I find that list in the future, I will write the poem and post it, but for now I have written a poem for Judy's list.  After this, we move on to other forms.

For some reason, I kept thinking of Flashman when meditating on these sets of rhymes and decided to pick the narrative voice of a man fleeing from serving his country in battle.

Called from the comfort of my duvet
to Her Majesty's service in parts near Bombay.
Patriotic sentiment precludes a "no way."
I packed my essentials and fled in dismay
with a rucksack of Talisker and set for croquet.
Took discretion for valor, then took the highway
in hopes from my duty that road would convey
my heart and my hind where they might be okay
lest on some far battleground they should decay.
My hope for a future rose like a soufflé.
All duty to country I felt I've prepaid
by ensuring my life for a henceforth of todays.
Laying low, unobserved, on outlaying roadways,
I'd be better employed sniffing future bouquets.

Paul Mathers on Ray Bradbury

Once a week, I pull a topic that someone has sent me out of a hat at random.  I then make a video of me speaking on that topic.  This week's topic: Ray Bradbury's Relevance Today:

Plutarch's Lives part 2: Alcibiades and Coriolanus

Socrates finds Alcibiades. Being a wise man, he knew where to look.

We seem to have turned a corner fairly quickly and my initial reactions may only apply to the initial material.  The two sections that I have just completed were a rip-roaring good read.  We also seem to have entered the portion in which the parallel lives is fleshed out a bit more fully by the author, even so far as to include a sum up in which he states what specific parallels he is intending to illustrate with these lives.  The two lives are interesting, explained to the reader with clarity, and I did not come away feeling that the comparison was in any way forced.

The thrust of the comparison, as I understood it, is as follows: Alcibiades and Coriolanus were successful in battle on more or less an equal level.  They both had equal reasons to be loved by their societies on that level.  In politics and personal lives, Alcibiades was dissolute and luxurious.  He was unscrupulous and false.  He caused a great deal of trouble and discord.  He was, however, charismatic and, therefore, got away with it.  Coriolanus', as the author puts it, "pride and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls it, of solitude, made him insufferable."

I found that I could relate to both and thus benefited from their cautionary tales.  Alcibiades, with his bravado, his chameleon nature to circumstance, his flamboyance and tendency towards hedonism, all remind me of the younger version of myself.   Coriolanus' insouciance towards public opinion (while aligning himself with extraordinarily unpopular opinion), or, it would seem, any form of compassion left him... well, dead eventually, but strongly and widely disliked.

While I am not like Coriolanus in his anti-social behavior, this speaks to the introvert's dilemma.  I certainly have a great deal of compassion, but I find that I am one of those who needs a greater amount of time alone for every amount of time I spend with people, in order to "recharge" as it were.  I am also disinclined to be in or near a crowd (defined as more than 3 people) and tend to be too heavy in lighter social situations.  While Plutarch doesn't go so far as to lay out a system like Dale Carnegie, his underlying suggestion seems to be "make a little effort here, people."  I felt like this is a lesson in particular that could use a bit of reviving in this age where everyone behaves as both a monarch and an island, answerable to none.

Likewise, the lesson of Alcibiades seems to be that one ought to exhibit a modicum of restraint in regards to self-indulgence.  One ought to have a consistent character rather than flattering and manipulating to get one's way.  This, too, I feel is an important lesson for today.  At first, I thought I would be writing about striking a balance in one's life and behavior in regards to the two extremes presented in these two lives, however, upon reflection, I am finding that Plutarch is simply showing two sides of the same coin.  Both are men whose self-interest precluded compassion. 

I would add that Plutarch succeeds in communicating the tone of these lives in the reaction he seeks to elicit from the reader.  I found myself charmed by Alcibiades in spite of the dastardly actions he is frequently described as undertaking, and found myself strongly disliking Coriolanus.  As it said at the end of Barry Lyndon "They are all equal now."

It seems to be smooth sailing from here on.  I have two great orators next and then two of the most famous leaders of antiquity. 

Paul Mathers on Reality Television

People send me topics on which to speak.  Once a week, I pull a topic out of a hat and speak on it.  This week's topic: Reality Television.

For more on my point of view, download and listen to this speech: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Arts-and-Entertainment/Film_-Music_-Radio_-TV_-and-Pop-Culture/Newton-Minow--Television-is-a-Vast-Wasteland/24098

Plutarch's Lives- Part 1

The waggish part of my brain wonders if St. Augustine wasn't included in this series for the sole purpose of making future difficult reads seem more palatable.

Before I started reading Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, I pulled a small mass-market paperback copy from my personal library.  I try to get my own copies of the books in this series because not underlining or writing in the margins is, to me, a bit like trying to read in a straightjacket.  However, when I perused the table of contents of the actual Harvard Classics edition in the Chico Library, I distinctly remembered Demosthenes being a figure covered in the book (it stuck in my brain because of the joke commonly attributed to Alexander Woollcott "Demosthenes can do is bend and hold the legs together.")  It turned out that my yellowed and foxing Dell Laurel edition was an abridgment.  Hastened I to the used bookstore where I found this Modern Library edition:

You will note the "Volume 1" on the cover.  I instantly noted that the volume was about twice as long as the Harvard Classics version and knew in my heart that our good captain Dr. Eliot has made his own abridgment (from the Dryden for those who care.)  Back I went to the Chico Library.

The main issue with this book, at least so far in my reading, is that Plutarch does not write biography in the manner to which we have grown accustomed.  This presents the reader with the challenge of modifying one's expectations.  It also called for frequent visits to other sources to fill in information that the author presumes upon the reader. For several of the subjects I came to the text with some knowledge of their lives (Pericles, Coriolanus, Cicero, Caesar, Antony), which seems to aid comprehension of the author's intent when, say, discussing a conflict between two specific individuals without explaining who these two individuals are.  Perhaps an example might illuminate what I'm on about.  Here is a line from the opening paragraph of the book, in the section about Themistocles, specifically referring to his mother:

"Yet Phanias writes that the mother of Themistocles was not of Thrace, but of Caria, and that her name was not Abrotonon, but Euterpe; and Neanthes adds farther that she was of Halicarnassus in Caria."

Who were Phanias and Neanthes?  What is the significance of the different names attributed to his mother?  What would it suggest if one was from Thrace or Caria or Halicarnassus?  Is this like saying "the musician claims to have grown up on the streets of Compton, but records show that he was president of the chess club at the Palos Verdes Preparatory School"?  We don't know!  At least not specifically from the text.

This would be an exercise in frustration were it not for the fact that Plutarch's purpose is not that of a historian or a biographer.  His purpose is that of a moralist and he is employing (or, for the cynical, exploiting) the lives of the noble ancients for the purpose of illustrating traits that the author feels one ought to either emulate or eschew.   

My first section comprises Themistocles, Pericles, and Aristides.  There is a great deal of battle in these lives which, to me, is only slightly more interesting than sports writing.  I have spent most of my time of reading this book trying to discern what lessons I might glean and, to be perfectly frank, disregarding the rest.  Of the three, the latter was my favorite, likely because one of the chief lessons was nobility in poverty.  Themistocles is sort of a cautionary tale.  He is lauded after great success in battle, but later ostracized over unpopular political decisions, and then re-lauded after his death. 

While I appreciated the section on Aristides, the section on Pericles was the section I found most gripping so far.  Pericles is a great man, ruling in the Golden Age of Athens.  Socrates makes a few appearances.  There is political maneuvering against Cimon.  There are mystical visions.  There is, of course, one of the most famous wars in history, The Peloponnesian.  There is even the suggestion of a love story/scandal with the fascinating character of Aspasia (I am amazed that no one has written a play or novel about that woman!)  There is even more coloring of character than in the other sections so far (for example, apparently the man had a very large head.)

With eight more sections to go, I am out of the least familiar territory historically speaking.  But I do have a bit of that feeling I have about an hour and a half into Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg when I am enjoying it tremendously to be sure, but I also know that it is miles to go before I sleep.

 

Evolutionary Coda

I catalog, dispense, and reorder medications for a living at one of the nicer assisted living facilities in my area.  Across the street from my work is a bike path which, in fact, I use every day coming to and from work.  It is also where I take my lunches in all but the most inclement of weather.  There are park benches where I like to sit and read.  The trail itself is scenic, next to a creek.  It's a lovely area.

I was sitting there on my lunch break the other day when a man, a complete stranger to me, approached on a bicycle.  He was around retirement age and the repair and accessories of his bicycle as well as his dress suggested a man of modest means and likely a more solitary existence, but not an unpleasant sort of person.

As for me, my moment before the encounter was spent realizing that I had 10 more minutes of my lunch break and only 3 more pages left before I completed the chapter I was reading.  I was inclined towards finishing the chapter before I had to return from my break.

The man said, "How's the reading?"

I said, "Great as always."

He said, "What are you reading?"

I said, "Mr. Charles Darwin."

He screeched to a halt.  I think he actually said, "Uh oh."  I knew exactly what was going through his head and what was about to happen.  The man, in his head, thought that this was the moment where he meets the secular humanist on the road and evangelizes him, or at least does intellectual battle with him.  What went on in my head was, "Great.  Now I'm going to have to listen to this guy and not get to finish my chapter."

It was a source of great amazement to me how reading Darwin in public inspires more strangers to feel compelled to talk to you about religion than does reading the Bible in public.

I felt a little cheap after I thought, "This guy is looking for a great story to tell his church group.  He wants to tell the story of the atheist he met on the path and either he stood his ground for the truth of the Gospel or, even better, he preached at the atheist until the atheist got down on his knees a-weeping and repenting."  Immediately followed by the humbling thought, "Wait a minute, Paul.  Aren't you already planning to use this story on your blog?"

I did not say much.  I mainly didn't say much because he didn't ask much.  He lectured and I silently prayed, "God help him if he ever meets the person he currently thinks he is meeting.  He'll be eaten alive."  He began to speak in such a way that I could not break out of the conversation without compromising my standing as a gentleman.  I felt a little like I did when Mormons came to my door the other day.  I felt a little cheated because I would love to have an intelligent conversation about ideas, but that was not on the table here.  What was on the table was for some guy I don't know to tell me what he thinks and then leave, feeling good about himself and feeling no requirement to give me another thought so long as he lives.

How did this come to be?

I also felt a little bad that he was not about to obtain the narrative from his encounter with me that he was expecting.  He started out with the unsolicited advice that I should balance reading Darwin with also reading the New Testament.  I said, "I fully anticipate that I shall" although, in all honesty, I am currently studying through the book of Ruth and, frankly, am not doing so to "balance" anything. 

He asked me if I knew why there was so much evil in the world.  I said, "Yes.  Because of sin."  And at that moment I had the distinct impression that he realized that he was not talking to "the enemy."  He talked for a while about his view of science and religion and about how he lives in a low income apartment complex for the elderly and about the CMA church that he attends.  I then got the sense that he didn't really have all that much interest in speaking to me as a fellow human being now that he felt to his satisfaction that I wasn't someone that he needed to correct and, just as he arrived, he left.

I had this moment as he started to ride away where I had a vision, a moment where my internal camera pulled away into the third person, and I saw this lonely old poor man on a bicycle, riding away from a neurotic middle-aged poor man in a path in a neighborhood where wealthier people dwell.  Two infinitesimal growths on the thin layer of scum covering a small rock hurtling through a dark void.  It's only by the grace of God that an asteroid doesn't slam into the Earth, or Mount Lassen erupts, or the poles shift, or the coming antibiotic resistant plague doesn't arrive to wipe us all out of our strutting and fretting existence.  While both of us owe our lives to the myriad shoulders of ancestors on which we stand, neither of us are exactly the sort of mover and shaker whose bold personality is going to insure top-feeding for us and our kin.

And I called out after him, probably out of his range of hearing, "You know, both can be true."

Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species- Part 3

“The finger of God never leaves identical fingerprints.” -Stanislaus Lec

I had intended to break this book into four blog entry responses, but enthusiasm got the better of me and I finished the whole thing over the past few days.  So, this is the conclusion.

Darwin was wrong about one thing, although it was something that everyone was wrong about in his day and for a long time afterward.  He spent a great deal of this section writing about geology and he has no concept of tectonic plates or of Pangea, a relatively new scientific understanding.  (Fun fact: Did you know that one of the last things Albert Einstein ever wrote was the foreword to a book about the coming polar shifts?  The major hypothesis of how it was to happen in that book relied on a pre-tectonic plate understanding of the Earth's crust.)   Darwin then sets up and jumps through a lot of hoops in the latter half of the book to explain how different species came to be located in different places on the planet.  This leads to what I found to be some of the more entertaining portions of the entire text. 

Some of the sections that I found most interesting involved experiments that Darwin carried out to see how long diverse and sundry seeds could float in salt water and still germinate.  He observes how many and often seeds are found stuck to the feet of birds.  This suggests an extremely old Earth from the law of averages of how often seeds would stick to the feet of birds or float across the sea for us to find similar flora in different lands.  He talks about a time on the Beagle when a bird blew onto their deck, confused and very far from home as he knew it to be a landlocked bird from far far away.

It is also important to mention his repeated referral to the imperfection of our geological record (and that the geological record is intermittent).  He was correct.  The geological record was imperfect and, as it fleshed out over the following 150 years, turned out to support his theory far more than he likely would even have imagined.  At the end of the book (and I mean within the last 5 pages) he slips dangerously close to a polemic.  He has a great deal to say to the special creation crowd, but he also reserves some fire for geologists, essentially haranguing them to get their act together.

There is also a section on hybridism.  In one portion he talks about diversity strengthening species (as in diverse groups within the species procreating leading to stronger individuals).  I hear that this was a special point of concern for Darwin as he worried that having married his first cousin might have been related to the poor health and early deaths of some of their own children.

The section on extinction was a bit archaic as well.  At one point he writes "...the utter extinction of a group is generally, as we have seen, a slower process than its production."  In the margin I wrote "Yeah, not so much anymore!"  Which leads to a modern given that seems to have been entirely beyond the imagination of Mr. Darwin, that is to say the destructive capacity of humankind.  To read this biologist writing in a time before one could even think that humankind has it within their grasp to kill every living thing on the planet reminds me of looking into the face of my grandchild and wondering what it was like to be unaware that one day you will die.

Darwin never gets to the "Monkeys is peoples" part.  I am given to understand that one must needs read The Descent of Man for that little gem.  He does suggest that the embryonic state of a species recalls the parent form, but that's as close as we get to all of the fuss.  The Descent of Man is not included in the curriculum of  this current reading project, but given how much I've enjoyed reading Darwin I fully expect to read it one day.

We do get this, "Whenever it is fully admitted, as I believe it will some day be, that each species has proceeded from a single birthplace, and when in the course of time we know something definite about the means of distribution, we shall be enabled to speculate with security on the former extension of the land."  Rather, we grew to understand both more fully, but the "single birthplace" line has been a pebble in my shoe for the past few days.

I recommend reading Darwin.  As I've said before, it is a piece that one must deal with one way or another at some point or another in life.  You really ought to read what the man has to say for himself rather than taking it through the filter of others.  Then and only then do you get to come over the grown ups table when you talk about these ideas.  If you are a person of faith, let me, as a person of faith, assure you that there is no idea in this work that will shatter your faith.  In fact, I would say that if there is an idea out there that will shatter your faith, you have a much bigger problem than that idea existing.  It means that your faith is weak and shatter-able.

Although, even better, it is a fascinating book with so much to teach.  Darwin is tremendously generous with his knowledge of the natural world and his ideas are well worth engaging with.  As with so much of this series, I feel richer for the experience.  You read to engage with ideas for yourself.  If you don't want to engage with ideas, you are living incorrectly.