Rowan Williams is how we imagine Pozzo’s Lucky in the days when he used to delight his master with his ‘thinking’ (Waiting for Godot, Act One:)
He even used to think very prettily once, I could listen to him for hours. Now . . . (he shudders)
Rowan speaks both as someone who has already, and for some time, thought deeply about whatever he’s talking about, and also as someone who is thinking about it for the first time, who is feeling his way. Such wise honesty, such honest wisdom.
Strange the way we misinterpret. An essay by Morozov in the New York Times (discussed by John Naughton in the Observer, 120212) compares (by the by, as far as this post is concerned) the net to 19th-century Paris: the labyrinthine medieval city was initially populated by flâneurs, who cruised the ancient arcades for curiosities; they were displaced by Baron Haussmann, “who remodelled the urban maze of medieval Paris into a tidy metropolis of wide boulevards that facilitated troop movements and cannon fire”.
Both try to explain how life should be lived, and to that extent are self-help books. Maclaren writes from within an orthodox US Christian perspective, but reinterprets Jesus’ message as a call to a radical politics and a suspicion of organised religion. Writing too much, and too autobiographically, he nevertheless is right, focusing on the be-like-a-child teaching, something Hoff develops in his clear and fun introduction for Americans to the Tao: doing nothing, being empty, action-through-inaction (Wu Wei), being clever not wise. P.155:
Within each of us there is an Owl [scholarly show-off], a Rabbit [control-freak], an Eeyore [whiner], and a Pooh [cool exponent of the Tao]. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the Forest.
The kind of set-up that you find in foreign films at Curzon cinemas: the lives of several young people come together in different ways; subplots cross over and merge, weaving a meditation on love and humanity. This one though doesn’t reach meditation level, unlike, for example, Italian for Beginners or Crustacés et Coquillages, although it is usually fun, engaging and intelligent (but thank God one of the couples doesn’t end up happy-ever-after – such glib perfection would have been too much). The characters are unlikeable: they’re all either weak and self-pitying (the majority) or coldly self-regarding. They also all look the same, and have offensively wealthy and pointless young-American lives. The women are crushingly insecure, full either of scowlingly ugly mistrust, or pawing desperation to get some kind of commitment from a man, any man. Misogynist? I think it is, despite the dénouement of the only-cool-male’s taste-of-own-medicine, when he discovers an unconvincing attraction for a girl which is not just sexual. Does he call it love? He might, but, despite the endearing pieces-to-camera from strangers about love which punctuate the film, the L-word never gets to warm the film’s heart.
Awful comedy with some very funny gross bits (man holding a boy who’s urinating in a woman’s face; boy (same one) causing a near-pile-up by projectile-vomiting over a windscreen; and the man fighting a deer is funny too, albeit ungross.
But the story itself is fascinating.
Woman has two kids, but no man, as the father has run off. Kids reject all new lovers as they want their dad back; best chance of their survival to be looked after by natural parents. Our hero fancies woman; wants sex. Realises woman has kids, so put off; realises her priorities are with her young genetic material. Goes for it anyway; wants any chance of having his own kids. Woman refuses sexual intimacy because he’s rubbish with her kids; poor chance of his helping her genes to adulthood. But man still keen, and in a crisis manages to get job of taking kids in his new Lincoln to Vancouver. Hence comedy, as kids fight man, and hence cheese, as man gradually gets emotionally attached to kids, leading to inevitable, er, climax, when kids convince woman to take man on as “something much more than a friend”. Hooray. Symbolised fabulously by fireworks ejaculating in the sky over their final hug.
Ricky Gervais weaves together Gulliver’s Travels and the Midas myth to create a funny and provocative anti-religion story, yet as usual one which attacks merely the straw man of Sunday-School religion: no worries for the modern C of E… ;-).
His thought-experiment is a world where, as with Gulliver’s Houyhnhnms, there is no concept of lying (Swift’s horsey paragons periphrastically accuse Gulliver’s of “saying the thing which is not”). Much straight-talking-based comedy ensues: (while waiting for his date) “I thought you were masturbating” / (when she appears) “I was masturbating”; (waiter bringing a cocktail) “I had a little sip”; (everyone) “You’re a fat loser” / “I find you repulsive” / “You’re out of my league” etc. And then, as expected, Gervais’ character (Mark Ellison) realises the power of lying, as everyone believes him: the bank cashier gives him more money than is in his balance, as she believes him over the computer system; a belle in the street instantly agrees to have sex with him, on being told that the world will end if they don’t.
As in Click, we move into a Midas world, which we expect to unravel. It’s here though that Gervais’ rabid atheism takes over, as, faced with his moribund mother’s terror of oblivion, he reassures her that death is eternal bliss, meeting up with deceased loved ones, a mansion each, free ice cream, etc. She dies happy, but Ellison’s words have changed the lives of the nearby medics, and subsequently the whole world: Truman-show shots of worldly diverse families hanging on Ellison’s every word.
A very clever scene is Ellison’s speech to a crowd outside his home, and billions on satellite, explaining ‘what he knows’ about the afterlife. Here we get a fully-fledged Sunday-School theology of ‘Man in the Sky’, and heaven and hell, with all its contradictions. These revolve particularly around the ‘fact’ that the Man in the Sky ‘controls everything’, which with heckles from the crowd resolves into his causing and then curing a cancer, and upsetting a fisherman’s boat and then saving his life. Not a very sympathetic view, but it highlights really well the contradictions in the naïve view of Big Man Who Controls Everything And Is Nice. It’s a great moment when a member of the crowd bursts out “Well I think we should fuck the Man in the Sky” (or wtte).
After this we fall into Midas-touch-going-wrong mode: depressed Ellison soliloquising at mother’s grave about how he’s the only one who knows she’s just in the ground, and the not-very-important love interest (which I’ve ignored so far, and henceforth). What I’m getting at is that the film is structurally weak and therefore artistically unintelligent, but clever with ideas and, pace strawmanism, a good knock at some forms of woolly religious thinking.
Sherlock Holmes lives in a London identical to the one in which Conan Doyle’s books about him were published, except that it contained no books about him by Conan Doyle. Doctor Who couldn’t watch Doctor Who. Novels, in the very act of being created in our world, vanish from their own fictional world. Something quantumic here but God knows what.
In films this applies to actors: George Clooney can’t be a real person in a film in which he acts – just imagine if they met. Being John Malkovitch plays with this problem, by setting up a world where people can crawl down a muddy tunnel and end up in John Malkovitch’s head looking out through his eyes, and able, with practice, to override Malkovitch’s own mind to control his body. Malkovitch plays Malkovitch, and at one point himself crawls down the tunnel, entering a fantasy world where everyone is him. There’s no logical way out.
And Truman, dear Truman, is in his own world, but doesn’t know this. When he knows, he becomes someone different, and leaves.
And Buzz Lightyear does exist in the film’s world, but not in the (unique, fictionalised) way he thinks he exists: when he views the shopping aisle stuffed with rows and rows of himself, and realises that he is a toy, his existential pain beats Truman’s.
We exist in the mental worlds of others, but not our own: the subject cannot be part of the object.
Beautifully written and produced – hardly a single typo throughout. Her introduction is a fascinating survey of forms of address across languages, and is particularly interesting on English.
Although much of the detail is there more for scholarly completeness than direct interest, Dickey does bring out some, for me, startling observations and conclusions:
The tria nomina system (praenomen, nomen/”gentilicium”, cognomen) we are used to is only really an Imperial phenomenon; in the Republic this was usually used just by noble families.
“domine” was not used by slaves to their master, but had more the force of “mister” or “sir”; also used between friends and lovers. Slaves used “ere/era”, a term used only in this context.
Superlatives such as “optime”, “maxime” and “sanctissime” do not keep their superlative sense, and indeed sometimes are less than their positive counterparts (from grade-creep [the watering down of polite forms, as English “you”], and from the fact that these positive forms are not found in prose).
“pulcher” is used in addresses by women; “formose” by men.
“hospes” can be used by native to foreigner and vice versa; ξενε only from native to foreigner.
“miser” and “infelix” mean ‘someone whose situation could be pitied, but not necessarily from the speaker’ – this explains the “wretched” angle.
“homo” has a male sense, as “vir” by default means “husband”.
“virgo” conveys respect; “puella” implies the possibility of sexual interest, but not necessarily from the speaker (it’s used by fathers).
Generic addresses (e.g. “vicine”, “miles”, “poeta”) are unmarked when the speaker’s name is known, marked when it is used instead of a known name.
“o” was only rarely used; “ω” seems to have been the default in Greek.
“puer” seems to have been reserved, at least by poets, for particularly charged addresses, e.g. Aeneas’ farewell to Pallas; else names or “nate”.
“uxor” is default; “coniunx” poetic.
Cicero’s addressing of Catiline directly at the start of Verrine I is incredibly dramatic, as usually you’d address the senators en masse.
“Romane” was directed at all Romans as a people; “Romani” to a particular group.
New words: leno “pimp”, furcifer “one punished with a furca [a kind of fork] (so not from fur)
Mark 11.12-26
And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:
And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.
And when even was come, he went out of the city.
And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.
And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.
And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
Mark’s fig tree clearly represents establised religion, bearing no fruit. Jesus’ successful cursing is explained by saying that believing prayers are fulfilled is their fulfilment. And then the final two verses claim that forgiving others is being forgiven yourself; ontologically forgiveness is achieved through forgiving, as happiness is gained through that of others. Jesus confounds grammar, making the passive active.
Surely this supports Don Cupitt’s secularisation of Christianity; that Jesus sought to replace established religion with a human one, eternal life is for now.
No one knows the origin of the Old English word “gylt” (“a crime”), but by the late 17th century it had developed its modern meaning of “a sense of having done wrong”, rather than just the “doing wrong” in the first place.
People talk of ancient cultures’ being either Shame- or Guilt-based, depending on whether the primary motivation for a hero’s heroism is external (Shame – he’ll feel embarrassed in front of his peers) or internal (Guilt – he’ll feel bad about himself). I first heard this distinction in a queue for coffee, from a Japanese PhD student who was comparing the heroic world of medieval Japan to that of the Iliad. Hector, the most fully developed example in Homer, is driven by Shame: although Homer famously doesn’t give us much of what’s going inside the head (you have to take people, as in real life, from what they say and from what they do), sometimes he allows a literary soliloquy to reveal some of the inner psychic gloom. At the key point of Hector’s life (i.e. just before Achilles kills him) he wonders whether he can avoid his fate by parley or by flight. Both are rejected: the former as there is not even the slightest chance that Achilles will stay his sword, the latter for reasons of Shame – “for surely I would not be able to hold my head high among the other Trojan heroes, were I to do this”. So he resolves to stand. But then Achilles gets nearer, Hector’s resolve turns to water, and he runs. But at the very end, when Hector realises that the unexpected appearance of his brother is just another deception of the gods, and that, as their dupe, there really is no hope, he dies nobly, charging his foe heroically and impaling his neck on the spear before him. Homer gives us no insight here, merely the description of Hector’s actions: we are given no indication of what spurs Hektor to this final act of bravery, but today we naturally read it to be an inner force, a sense of what a man has to do, in short Guilt, which drives the soft skin onto the metal. Homer’s characters are not simply motivated by Shame: Achilles himself in Book 9 recognises the social need to accept Agamemnon’s gifts, yet owns up to Ajax that he still cannot bring himself to do this: tragically for Achilles, the inner emotion defeats the outer.
But, as with the false contrast between deontological and consequentialist ethics, here is surely another binary opposition ripe for undermining. For what is the actual force of the feeling of Guilt? Why does it hold us so powerfully? Is it not at bottom a kind of Fear, an anticipation of future pain, a fear of the Shame we know will come over us when we meet those we have hurt or let down? The inner judge who gives us the sense of having done wrong is merely stirring an anticipatory anxiety for our coming public disgrace. Hector’s inner psyche knew that by driving him on to die like a man he was ensuring that he would be outwardly remembered as one.
Houyhnhnm 