Read to Keep the Past Alive

This is how the life of yesterday endures.

You read a book that mentions other, older books. You read those books, too, and they also mention other, older books. And so your steps take you back, to Montaigne, to Francis Bacon, to Thomas Browne, to the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, to Seneca, and then back even further to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.

This is a normal process that keeps the past alive, but it requires you to pick up that first book and to damned well read it.

It also requires you to follow your own interests, and not the recommendations of book clubs or online book-fetish commodity sites. The steps you take into the past will be your own steps. They will certainly take you to different books than the books I found. You might walk past Virginia Woolf to the Bronte sisters, and then to Sappho. Your neighbour might step from George Orwell to Thomas Carlyle, and then to Thomas Hobbes, and then to Cicero. There are no incorrect pathways.

All of these recoveries and survivals depend on the willingness of people to take their initial steps, on the willingness of people to read. When people stop reading, everything known by the past, everything treasured by the past, will die.

If you want to see the septic wounds of its dying, just look around.

William Sansom: THE PASSIONATE NORTH - "A Wedding"

The horror stories of William Sansom are hidden away in his collections, which makes them all the more surprising when discovered. Any given story might seem, at first, an everyday slice of life, until the facade falls apart and something goes wrong. Even the gentler stories are often told with an intensity of vision that suggests paranoia, a sense that the universe itself is out to destroy someone. A few imply the supernatural, while still more describe physical dangers ferocious enough to seem demonic. (One of these, "The Vertical Ladder," made the palms of my hands too sweaty to hold the book.)

Of the more uncanny tales, my favourite is "A Wedding," from THE PASSIONATE NORTH (The Hogarth Press, London, 1950). It not only conveys a vivid setting and sinister mood, it also reveals how a frame can be used to broaden our perspective on what might seem, at first glance, a small, isolated event, and to allow for a narrator who tells the tale without understanding what the story means.

Sansom loads the weight of his frame onto the final sentence, but not on a twist ending. A twist can be useful in the middle of a story, when space remains to explore the implications of the twist; it can be fatal at the story's end, where it often seems more of a gimmick than a thoughtful resolution. Sansom avoids any twist, but offers, instead, one final, unexpected detail, the meaning of which the narrator has never grasped. Like the one piece of a puzzle that suddenly resolves a patch of blue into definite sky or definite sea, the final statement offers a hint of what kind of story this had been from the start.

In his usual style, Sansom builds up visual impressions to make his writing live. The story has no room for any detailed exploration of character (and none is needed, in this context), but the setting, and the actions within, are vividly conveyed:

"At last the door swung open, two men swathed in greatcoats came out carrying torches high. There followed the others: and last of all came the new husband and his bride.

"She seemed to lean on his arm. Perhaps as though she had almost fainted ? It was difficult in that light, the light of moon and torches, for the janitor to be sure of what he saw. Or perhaps that strange young man held her imprisoned by his own strong arm? So many dark figures moving there in the snow! So much whispering, such stamping, such a muffling of bunched furs! And now they had all moved over to a part of open ground away from the church, a place where tombstones lurched in the snow. There they stood and pointed to the ground -- they seemed to be discussing the place for a grave. Only the bride’s face was averted, she stood a frailer figure than the others, turning herself away from what they were most plainly trying to show her....

"In a few minutes all were gone. The silence of the snows again descended. The bell had ceased tolling, the lights in the church had been extinguished. Nothing stirred. Only the dark blue moonlight fell widely everywhere, sparkling a tinsel from iced birch-branches, bringing a great stillness to the black fir-clumps grouped like figures conferring against the white."

Still and cryptic, the winter landscape is a perfect setting for terrible events. William Sansom was a master of terror; in a "Wedding," he also became a master of the final sentence that lingers in the mind.

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Because "A Wedding" is long out of print and hard to find (and not even listed on ISFDB), I can offer a PDF to those who want to read it. You can download the file without having to sign in.

The Pleasures of Literacy

Many discussions about literacy focus on its practical benefits: on the power to develop critical thinking, to pursue knowledge, to seize and to refine those random, scattered notions that flit across awareness and then vanish. All of these points matter, but one detail often missed remains, for me, central: that reading is a source of pleasure.

I often come across a complaint from students: Why bother to read a full text, when a summary in bullet form (often supplied by Artificial Idiot) can provide all of the "information" of a text without the "distractions" of skill and form and art? This takes utilitarianism to absurd lows, but the point is worth considering. Why bother to read?

My answer is that reading, in itself, can be a joy.

Let me offer a few passages from a lifetime's library of pleasure. Please read them aloud; please hear them.

"In vain do individuals hope for Immortality, or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the Moon: Men have been deceived even in their flatteries above the Sun, and studied conceits to perpetuate their names in heaven. The various Cosmography of that part hath already varied the names of contrived constellations; Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the Dogge-starre. While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we finde they are but like the Earth; Durable in their main bodies, alterable in their parts: whereof beside Comets and new Stars, perspectives begin to tell tales. And the spots that wander about the Sun, with Phaeton's favour, would make clear conviction.

"...Man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equall lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature.

"Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus, but the wisedom of funerall Laws found the folly of prodigall blazes, and reduced undoing fires, unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an Urne."

-- From HYDRIOTAPHIA, by Thomas Browne, 1658.

Sound and sense in combination can provide an intensely aesthetic pleasure, but even I, agnostic and anti-spiritual, can feel Browne's belief through the intensity of his language.

Another example from Thomas Browne, this one more "down to Earth." Again, please read this aloud.

"Whether lampries have nine eyes, as is received, we durst refer it unto Polyphemus, who had but one, to judge it. An error concerning eyes, occasioned by the error of eyes; deduced from the appearance of diverse cavities or holes on either side, which some call eyes that carelessly behold them; and is not only refutable by experience, but also repugnant unto reason. For, beside the monstrosity they fasten unto nature, in contriving many eyes, who hath made but two unto any animal, that is, one of each side, according to the division of the brain; it were a superfluous inartificial act to place and settle so many in one plane; for the two extremes would sufficiently perform the office of sight without the help of the intermediate eyes, and behold as much as all seven joined together. For the visible base of the object would be defined by these two; and the middle eyes, although they behold the same thing, yet could they not behold so much thereof as these; so were it no advantage unto man to have a third eye between those two he hath already; and the fiction of Argus seems more reasonable than this; for though he had many eyes, yet were they placed in circumference and positions of advantage, and so are they placed in several lines in spiders."

-- From PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA (Third Book), by Thomas Browne, 1646-1672.

This is natural history, close observation, skeptical inquiry, fuelled by a wit that no reduction to point form could preserve.

Another example. By all means, read this one aloud!

"But the third sister, who is also the youngest --! Hush, whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybèle, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But this youngest sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with tiger's leaps. She carries no key; for, though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is Mater Tenebrarum -- Our Lady of Darkness."

-- From SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS, by Thomas de Quincey, 1845.

De Quincey moves beyond the natural history and anthropology of Browne into the worlds of imagination, dreams, and dreads, but he relies no less on striking images and organ chords.

A final example.

"A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides --
You may have met Him -- Did you not
His notice sudden is --

"The Grass divides as with a Comb,
A spotted shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on --

"He likes a Boggy Acre --
A Floor too cool for Corn --
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot --
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone --

"Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me --
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality --

"But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone --"

-- Emily Dickinson, ca 1865.

The power, the beauty of great prose and great poetry is that it cannot be paraphrased; it must be read as it is, in full, because its impact relies as much on sound and metaphor, imagery and rhythm, as on what it "says."

Any student of today who prefers bullet form summaries to the joys of reading might be dissuaded by examples like these. It is the task of literate people, who love to read, to show what can be gained by reading for pleasure.

Revenge of the Reading Comprehension Test

And now, a reading comprehension test! Do you consider yourself literate? LET'S FIND OUT FOR CERTAIN.

Read, if you can, this brief passage:

"Meethinkes their ghoasts come gaping for revenge
Whom I have slain in reaching for a crowne.
Clarence complains and crieth for revenge,
My Nephues bloods, 'Revenge, revenge' doth crie.
The headlesse Peers come pressing for revenge,
And everyone cries, 'let the tyrant die.'
The Sunne by day shines hotely for revenge,
The Stars are turned to Comets for revenge,
The Planets change their courses for revenge,
The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge,
The silly lambe sits bleating for revenge,
The screeking Raven sits croking for revenge,
Whole heads of beasts come bellowing for revenge,
And all, yea all the world I think
Cries for revenge and nothing but revenge."

-- From THE TRUE TRAGEDIE OF RICHARD III (ca 1591).

Question: What are all of these comets and ghosts and birds and silly lambs bellowing, screeking, shining hotly and pressing for?

A) Renege.

B) Pretence.

C) Replunge.

D) All of the above, but not necessarily in that order.

BONUS QUESTION!

Are you illiterate? (If you can't write the answer, then shake your head, or put an X on paper, or cry out, "No! My parents loved each other!")

'Will' and 'Shall' Best Fitteth Tamburlaine

Click for a better jpeg.

TAMBURLAINE, PART ONE, by Christopher Marlowe (ca 1588): a difficult play to assess, but I do have thoughts about it.

Tamburlaine knows, thoroughly, utterly knows, that he will conquer the world, so he begins. When the ends of his power are served by persuasive oratory and generosity to those who follow him, he shows mercy and clemency. When the ends are served by the slaughter of innocents and the brutal humiliation of his opponents, he mows down entire populations without a second thought, and treats human beings as furniture, as caged amusements. The man seems more a drive to conquest than a human being, and this makes the play disturbing.

For this reason, the play is less about plot than about iron pageantry: a tapestry of murders, victories, humiliations dished out by a symbol of power with few human characteristics. Yet the play does does offer moments of unexpected sympathy for those caught up in Tamburlaine's path: in the fate of Bajazeth and Zabina, emperor and empress of the Turks, brutally mistreated like caged animals until they show surprising depths of love for each other; in the final words of Arabia's king, whose intended bride, Zenocrate, was captured for marriage by Tamburlaine, and who, at the moment of his death, reveals himself to have been a good man sincerely devoted to the woman who should have been his; and in the second thoughts, the hesitations, of Zenocrate herself, the one person close to Tamburlaine who argues for mercy and against mass murder. These brief glimpses of humanity stand out all the more as a contrast to the single-minded will of Tamburlaine.

The result is a troubling, repetitive play that lacks the layered characters of Shakespeare, Webster, Ford. What it offers, instead, from beginning to end, is brilliant language: the first great poetry of Elizabethan drama. Quote one passage, and you might be tempted to quote them all.

THERIDAMAS:
Before the moon renew her borrowed light,
Doubt not, my lord and gracious sovereign,
But Tamburlaine and that Tartarian rout
Shall either perish by our warlike hands
Or plead for mercy at your highness’ feet.

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TAMBURLAINE: Whom seek’st thou Persian? I am Tamburlaine.

THERIDAMAS:
[Aside] Tamburlaine?
A Scythian shepherd, so embellished
With nature’s pride and richest furniture?
His looks do menace heaven and dare the gods,
His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth
As if he now devised some stratagem,
Or meant to pierce Avernus’ darksome vaults
And pull the triple-headed dog from hell.

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TAMBURLAINE:
Theridamas my friend, take here my hand,
Which is as much as if I swore by heaven
And called the gods to witness of my vow --
Thus shall my heart be still combined with thine
Until our bodies turn to elements
And both our souls aspire celestial thrones.

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MENAPHON:
Your majesty shall shortly have your wish
And ride in triumph through Persepolis.

TAMBURLAINE:
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles?
Usumcasane and Theridamas,
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

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TAMBURLAINE:
The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown,
That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair
And place himself in the empyreal heaven,
Moved me to manage arms against thy state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

For all of its great poetry and stark moments of humane feeling, TAMBURLAINE, PART ONE is hardly a great play, but its place in the history of world theatre and its nagging persistence in the mind after its pages have been closed make it worth celebration.