The Inscription Over a Modern Gate to Hell

Philip Terry is a writer who works in the oulipian tradition.  He is the author of a novel, The Book of Bachelors (1995) (which was published in its entirety in an issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction), which consists of nine chapters, each a lipogram on a different letter of the alphabet. He wrote a book of versions of Shakespeare's Sonnets, each modified by a different oulipian constraint (the results are predictably mixed).  And he did a... you can't really call it a translation... adaptation of Dante's Inferno.

For comparison, here are the opening five stanzas of Alan Mandlebaum's translation of the Inferno, Canto III:

THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,
THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.

JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;
MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.

BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.

These words—their aspect was obscure—I read
inscribed above a gateway, and I said:
“Master, their meaning is difficult for me.”

And he to me, as one who comprehends:
“Here one must leave behind all hesitation;
here every cowardice must meet its death.

And now, here are the opening lines of Philip Terry's Canto III:

THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE DOLEFUL CAMPUS,

THROUGH ME THE WAY TO ETERNAL DEBT,

THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE FORSAKEN GENERATION.

 

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT INSPIRED MY FOUNDERS;

POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY RUINED ME,

COUPLED BY BETRAYAL OF PRINCIPLE AND PLEDGE.

 

BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS WERE MADE,

NOW I SHALL MARK YOU ETERNALLY.

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.

 

I saw these words spelled out on a digital display

Above the entrance to the Knowledge Gateway.

‘Master,’ I said, ‘this is scary.’

 

He answered me, speaking with a drawl:

‘Now you need to grit your teeth,

This isn’t the moment to shit yourself.

It's quite funny— the first nine lines are, I think, a very good joke.

But I am rather uncertain, having read (thanks to Amazon's "see inside" feature) the opening two and a half cantos, whether it's a joke that can be sustained over an entire book.  So I am hesitant to plunk down $16 to get a copy.

Anyone know if the whole thing works at all?

Puzzle Literature: A Querry

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I have a question.  I'd like to list examples of a genre I shall call (for want of a better term), "puzzle literature".  I will define puzzle literature as literature whose narrative essence is a puzzle: which is to say, which can't be understood on a surface level (what Jews refer to as pshot) without unraveling various mysteries.  I want to refer to it not as a genre (since I don't think it has the social support and interlocking influence networks of a genre) but as a mode: a type of writing different writers can use, occasionally or regularly.

I shall take as my twin holotypes (yes, yes, I know you can't have more than one, feh) for the mode Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire and Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun.  (Both authors write in that mode repeatedly, but those are my favorite examples.)  The most basic facts about the plots of each book — who is Kinbote (is he Botkin? Shade wearing a disguise? A real king? A madman actually named Kinbote?) in the case of Pale Fire; the nature of multiple basic events in the plot in the case of Book of the New Sun — are not only up for grabs, but are not remotely clarified.

Narrative games are a commonality here, as are games and jokes of other sorts. Unreliable narrators are another, although not all unreliable narrators qualify (I wouldn't say that Ford Maddox Ford's A Good Soldier qualifies, for instance.)

To further clarify my definition, let me list some things that it is quite specifically not.

• It is not mysteries, that is, works which present conundrums as part of their plot but which then overtly and clearly solve them.  So not Dickens, and not Agatha Christie.

• It is not works which are, in a sentence localized-way, hard to parse, or thematically/symbolically rich.  Ulysses is, as Joyce famously said, sufficiently full of puzzles that it will capture a generation of scholars; but the basic narrative is more or less clear.  That's not what I mean.  (This is presumably the category which is going to be hardest to distinguish from puzzle literature; but I think it is different.)

• Similarly, puzzle literature tends not to be extremely difficult on a sentence-by-sentence level; the puzzles are larger. So not Finnegans Wake, and probably not The Sound and the Fury either, although I am less sure about that one (does Faulkner count? I dunno.)

• In some sense, one can use the reading protocols of puzzle literature on anything.  James Kugel, in effect, argues that "scripture" as a textual category is created by treating a text as puzzle literature, so that minor inconsistencies become theological, require unraveling, etc.  It creates rich readings. But I am talking about books (presumptively although not necessary post-Gutenberg ones, with identifiable authors) which are written to be puzzle literature.

That hopefully clarified, my question: can we list works of puzzle literature beyond the basic holotypes?  Who else writes in this mode, whether occasionally or routinely?

I am also interested in some related questions:

• Are there writers who work in puzzle mode only sometimes?  (Do Wolfe and/or Nabokov ever not work in that mode? Could one tell, since once one is expecting it it tends to dominate reading?)

• Are their works of other forms that are in puzzle mode? (Some candidates: the films of Shane Caruth (Primer, Upstream Color) and Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, Inception). Alan Moore's comics come close, but I think ultimately fall into the Ulysses category: thematically rich with lots of decipherable puzzles, but there is no basic question as to what happens in them).

• Are there any good critical essays/books about this topic (including, presumably, better names for this category than I am using)?

So: thoughts?

Update: I posted this on my Facebook page as a public post; much discussion ensued, so if you're interested you can read the comments here.  But let me also add some of the clarifications/emendations I made in that discussion to this post. So:
• I should stress that whether or not something is puzzle literature is not an evaluative judgment. I do love both Nabokov and Wolfe; but to say a work is or is not puzzle literature is not, in my mind, to praise it. (I actually go back and forth on the whole notion, which is one reason I asked the question.)
• (in response to some suggestions)  I don't think either difficulty of the text, nor ambiguity about the story, nor the unreliability of the narrator counts. What distinguishes VN/GW for me is that there are puzzles in the work, and ones that touch on the fundamental nature of the narrative. Puzzles: meaning there are pretty clear and definitive answers. But puzzles, meaning also you can read the book, even several times, and NOT get it (and some, doubtlessly, we still don't get). It's different than ambiguity or difficulty. (One further example: the name of the narrator in "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" is never given. It was several years, I believe, before ANYONE figured it out. Most people didn't even SEE that it was a puzzle! But once you see it, it is SO obvious that it is hard to imagine that anyone ever did NOT see it.)
• Two possible criteria that might help clarify: to count, the puzzle must be missable: that is, it's not something that anyone who's read the book (seen the movie) would get; but the puzzle must also be solveable, that is to say, it's not simply an ambiguity that can be read multiple ways. Maybe that'll help.
• Another one that I think clearly fits: Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. 

Seven Songs Per Decade: 1970s (Part 1 of 4.5)

In the spring, I am teaching I brand-new class, on the history of the United States from 1974 - 2014.  I am currently in the process of preparing the course.  One thing I thought I'd do, mostly just for fun, is play a song as the students walk in every day as a processional.  I'm only going to do this on days I lecture (not on discussion days or exam days), so it won't be every day.

But I want to come up with a list of songs which are A), Good, B) Representative, and C) Iconic.  Some songs will be on the list primarily for one of those reasons, but ideally most will be a mix of all three.  In order to get a comparatively even chronological mix, I'm going to try to do 7 songs each from the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s, plus 3 from the 10s.

And I'm soliciting suggestions!

To give you a sense of the sort of thing I'm thinking about, here is a preliminary, mostly off-the-top-of-my-head list of six songs (leaving one TBD):

1. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd (1974)
2. Born to Run (or Thunder Road), Bruce Springsteen (1975)
3. Stayin' Alive, Bee Gees (1977)
4. Psycho Killer, Talking Heads (1978)
5. Gotta Serve Somebody, Bob Dylan (1979)
6. London Calling, The Clash (1979)
7. ??

At the moment, all six are by white men. I'm not happy about that (it's not true for other decades).  That's one dimension I'd like suggestions on how to fix.

Note that as a general rule, I am limiting every single musician to one song on all five lists.  (I am making an exception for one, and only one, musician, to be revealed later.)  But bear that in mind: if you think someone's best or most representative or most iconic song is from a later decade, don't put them on this list!  Save them for later.

Note that while all suggestions are welcome, I'd prefer complete lists, either just a set of seven, or telling me what you'd add/subtract to my rough draft.

Update, November 15:

This query, cross-posted to facebook, generated a vigorous and (for me) very informative discussion, and far, far, far more suggestions than I could actually use.  After reading what everyone had to say, and painfully cutting it back down to seven, I came up with this revised list:

1. After the Goldrush by Neil Young (1970)
2. Search and Destroy, Iggy and the Stooges (1973)
3. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973)
4. The Payback, James Brown (1974)
5. I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor (1978)
6. The Promised Land, Bruce Springsteen (1978)
7. Rapper's Delight, Sugar Hill Gang (1979)

 ...with the idea that the Talking Heads will be on the 80s list instead.

So now I'm soliciting suggestions, comments and revisions on this second draft list.  I'd love to hear what you think — but please, only suggest an addition if you also suggest which it should replace.  Also, remember that we are going for a representative list of iconic songs; quality is important, but only within that larger constraint.

Myself, I am liking the list pretty well.  The one I am most tempted to cut is "After the Goldrush", not as any reflection on the song itself, but since the chronology of the course really starts a few years later, in 1973/1974.

Up next: the 1980s. Stay tuned.

Poem of the Day: Farewell, Rewards and Fairies

Farewell, Rewards and Fairies

Farewell, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,
The Fairies’ lost command!
They did but change Priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land.
And all your children, sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as Changelings ever since
For love of your demains.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had;
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late, Elizabeth,
And later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the Fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were ‘Ave Mary’s’,
Their dances were Procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for Religion fled;
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure!
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished, sure;
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue.
Oh how the commonwealth doth want
Such Justices as you!

-- Richard Corbet (1582–1635)

This poem, I believe, is now quite obscure: but in Rudyard Kipling's day it was apparently common enough that his child protagonists of Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) had memorized it.

It's a strange poem. On a first read it may seem -- at least it seemed to me -- largely a poem about disenchantment: the sense that the old magic has gone from the world that so much fantasy is based on, even about. (Which is one of the reasons that fantasy can seem, at times, such an essentially anti-modernist genre.) In which case nothing may surprise about it save that it's so early -- the first few decades of the Seventeenth century, after the ascent of James to the throne of England (1603), but before Corbet's death in 1635. And there, of course, we may be surprised, but we shouldn't be: that sense of modernist disenchantment is in other works from the period, too, such as the famous passage by Corbet's more famous contemporary poet-in-arms, John Donne:

And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.

But though we have become distracted by Donne, and recognize that it is a better poem and wish to follow that particularly path with leaves no step has trodden black (no, no, don't go on another tangent--), reread the Corbet. And on a second reading you may zero in, as I did, on the somewhat puzzling religious politics of the poem.

At second glance the poem may seem simply anti-Catholic: the Faeries are declared gone because they were Catholic, and the new spirit of the age is equated with protestantism:

...the Fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were ‘Ave Mary’s’,
Their dances were Procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead;
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for Religion fled;
Or else they take their ease.

(The "old Profession", of course, is not the proverbial oldest profession (though faeries of that sort might make an interesting story, should anyone wish to write it), but the former faith (profession, that which you profess, i.e. your religion.))

Except is that right? Because the metaphor of the changeling, the faerie put in place of a babe, is used to explain the replacement of Catholicism by Protestantism:

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,
The Fairies’ lost command!
They did but change Priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land.
And all your children, sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as Changelings ever since
For love of your demains.

So is it in fact a pro Catholic poem, since Protestants are equated with changelings (not, traditionally, a positive association)?  Possible, I suppose, but given that its author was a bishop in the Church of England, it seems unlikely.  I presume such a bishop was unlikely to be a secret Catholic?

Except that that last stanza seems to praise Faeries specifically for their punishment of (what we would now call) snitching, and actually wishes that England had similar "Justices":

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure!
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished, sure;
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue.
Oh how the commonwealth doth want
Such Justices as you!

What is that all about?

My guess is that the answer to this mystery would be more-or-less obvious to anyone well versed in the history of early Stewart England, but that I (whose period is far off from that in both space and time) am just missing it.

So anyone have a sense of what is going on -- in terms of religious politics, and the sense of the changing metaphysical beliefs -- in this poem?

New York's 23rd Congressional District's Democratic Primary

Since my wife and I moved to Ithaca -- more than a dozen years ago now -- it has been represented by a Democrat, Representative Maurice Hinchey. He's a quite progressive Democrat, and I've always been happy with him as our Congressman. Sadly, after the 2010 census, New York lost two Congressional seats, and, since Hinchey is 73 and has just dealt with a case of cancer, he's decided to retire, letting the Democrats try to save other seats through redistricting.

So as of this upcoming election, Ithaca, New York will no longer be part of the 29th Congressional District, but will instead be part of the 23rd District. Tom Reed, a Republican first elected to Congress in 2010, is an incumbent in the district -- which is to say, even though Ithaca's not been represented by him before, he's running for reelection. And there's a primary, with three Democrats running, to be his opponent in the newly-organized district. The primary is a month from today -- Tuesday, June 26.

So I thought I'd ask if anyone knows anything about any of the three. Any thoughts?

Here's a set of brief interviews with each of the three on Ithaca.com. The three candidates are (in alphabetical order) Leslie Danks Burke, Melissa Dobson and Nate Shinagawa. (The links are to their official campaign web sites.) My slight bias is towards Shinagawa, because he's cross listed on the Working Families Party ticket, so I'm guessing that he might be the most progressive of the three. But that's not a great heuristic and my preference is weak. So I'd love some more information, if anyone has nay.

Do Libertarians Believe in Slavery?

Let me first start by clarifying my question in several ways.

First, while it is, to some extent, a rhetorical question designed to point out (one of the many of) the disqualifying-level problems with libertarianism as an ideology, it is also meant, quite sincerely, as a genuine question. Which is to say, assuming that anyone responds to this post*, I'd expect mostly combative responses trying to show why the implication behind my question is wrong. And that's fair. But I'd also be interested in genuine responses, i.e. answers to the question. I'm particularly interested in whether or not any famous libertarian thinkers has addressed this question -- because I suspect they have, and I'd be curious to read it.**

Second, my question is theoretical, not historical. "Libertarians" as such did not exist in antebellum America. It seems clear to me that in any but a question-begging, no-true-Scotsmen sense, libertarians' closest ideological ancestors from that time were defenders rather than opponents of slavery. I'm sure there are lots of counterarguments. But it's not the question I'm asking nor something I want (right at this moment) to explore.

Next, let me clarify a few premises behind my question.

First, it seems to me that one of the key things that distinguish libertarians from anarchists is that they believe that the government ought to enforce contracts. This isn't mentioned quite as much as the maintenance of armed forces and police, but my sense is that it's pretty universally agreed by most miniarchists that enforcement of contracts goes along with those things as proper roles for the state. (If there are libertarians who don't think, in general and on principle, that the state ought to enforce contracts, then let me know -- I'd be interested -- and please mentally amend this entire attempt so that wherever it currently says "libertarians" it reads instead "that subset of libertarians who believe that government ought to enforce contracts".)

Second, it seems to me that one of the key things that distinguish libertarians from liberals is that they don't believe that governments ought to enforce their opinions about what contracts consenting adults ought to make. That's why they're fine with prostitution, for instance: they see it as, in Nozick's memorable phrase, a "capitalist act[] between consenting adults". So while governments ought to enforce contracts, they oughtn't to regulate what contracts ought to be enforced. (Again, where I say "libertarians" here I mean the subset to whom this applies, an identification which seems warranted to me by the fact that (so far as I know) most libertarians will fall into this category.)

Finally, it seems to me that another one of the key things that distinguish libertarians from liberals is that they don't think that the government ought to step in to prevent non-state coercion -- the sort of coercion that comes from desperate poverty, for instance. If they did, they'd believe in alleviating desperate poverty (so that the poor people were not coerced by it), which would mean erecting some sort of a welfare state, which would make them (at least in this respect) liberals, not libertarians. Now, this may be less generally true than the other two premises -- I know that some libertarians believe in a certain level of minimum income which ought to be guaranteed by the state, for instance -- but my sense (and, again, I'd be interested to know if this seems unfair to anyone) is that most libertarians these days are, at best, apathetic about whether such a thing happens -- they don't work on pushing it -- and in fact spend most of their political energies in this area trying to cut back the welfare state and similar things.

So -- with that in mind -- imagine a libertarian utopia. (Where libertarian is defined as agreeing with those premises.) Then imagine a person so desperately poor -- someone starving, say -- that they will do anything to survive. And imagine such a person being offered a contract to submit to slavery for the rest of their life.

It probably wouldn't be called slavery. But it's easy to imagine, in such a world, a contract being drawn up to replicate all but one of the essential features of slavery in its familiar American form. Such a contract would stipulate that it is unbreakable; that the person signing would have to obey their owner in all the ways that slaves had to (live where ordered, do what they were ordered, etc); that they consented (by signing the contract gave future consent) to whippings should they not obey, etc. The only feature of American slavery that wouldn't be replicated would be its inheritability -- since libertarians, presumably, wouldn't think that a person could sign away the rights of their children. But while that feature was a key component of American slavery, I don't think you could argue it's necessary for slavery -- a childless slave is still a slave.***

So: in a libertarian utopia, would such a contract be enforceable? It's an act of capitalism between consenting adults (for libertarian notions of consenting, i.e. of age, not obviously mentally incapacitated, etc., where economic coercion is considered irrelevant.)

If so, it seems all but inevitable that slavery would rapidly appear in a libertarian utopia, and would be a permanent and recurring social feature.

I suspect that any libertarian who grants my premises but still wishes to deny this fact will do so by denying that such a situation will occur, arguing that in a society free of government coercion everything will be good enough that no such dire poverty (lacking other remedy) will emerge. This strikes me as obviously wrong -- do libertarians not believe people, even without government help, make dumb decisions? Get in bad situations? -- but anyone who is wild enough to suggest such a thing is probably unpersuadable.

And, of course, such slavery would really be slavery in the classical sense: the police would track down runaways, since that, after all, would be a breach of contract.

On the other hand, if such a contract would not be enforceable, then it seems to me the purity that is the essential rhetorical appeal of libertarianism ("it's none of your business what I do!") has been thrown away, and all that is left to negotiate is the precise balance of the arguer's liberalism, i.e. precisely how desperate do the circumstances need to be before the government helps, and how horrific does the private contract need to be before it's declared unenforceable? Think about these things long enough and the next thing you know you'll be for a minimum wage and government regulation of working environments... that is, a liberal, at least on these issues. Sure, some ex-libertarians might have different ideas about where to draw the line. But then it's just a question of pragmatic juggling -- no longer a question of grand (and grandly announced) principles.

So? Anyone have any answers?

Do libertarians believe in slavery?

Postscript: A liberal view on this, incidentally, doesn't seem to me very hard. Speaking personally, on this matter I would quote John Locke:

As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty, as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise: and a man can no more justly make use of another’s necessity, to force him to become his vassal, by with-holding that relief, God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat offer him death or slavery.

-- John Locke, Two Treatises Upon Civil Government

...but it seems to me a libertarian would want to make the former (one's own title to the product of our honest industry) vitiate the latter (others' title to our industry to stave off want). Which means they support slavery.

Or, if not... why not?

Update: Meaning-altering error (meant one word, typed another) fixed.

Update 2: Anyone interested in this blog post should make sure to read the long and fascinating comment left below by philosopher Dan Hicks.

_______________________

* Unlikely, I'll admit: I get very few comments (he said self-pityingly)

** A very quick glance at Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia turned up only the following sentences on the topic:

...The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would. (Other writers disagree.) It also would allow him permanently to commit himself never to enter into such a transaction. (p. 331)

And so far as I can tell, that's it -- a brief reference in a section devoted to unanswered questions. But I might well have missed something. But there you have it: Robert Nozick was pro-slavery.

*** And who would have a child, if they had any choice (although remember they wouldn't) under these circumstances? For that matter, what possible chance would such a child have to be in anything less than desperate circumstances when they attained whatever the age of consent in the society was? (Although, of course, we've already stipulated that our libertarians don't care about non-state -- in particular, economic and social -- coercion. They might well just wave that away -- with perfect consistency, I might add.)

It Seems That There Are Fashions In Student Errors Too

This spring a fair number of students, from both of my classes, have been repeatedly using the word "advancement" when they just mean "advance", e.g. "The law was a huge advancement for African Americans". My guess is that they think it sounds 'sophisticated' or something, since it's longer. But I don't have any idea why that particular error has had a sudden spike in popularity. Has anyone else seen this?

Legality of the Mandate Question

Is it not the case that you are required to have insurance to drive a car? How is that different from requiring people to buy health insurance? I presume the answer is that auto insurance is a state matter, and the Obamacare mandate would be a federal one; and that you can, in theory, choose not to drive. I get how these might be legal responses. But I'm seeing a fair amount of talk from people who seem mostly philosophically concerned with the idea of the mandate -- not worrying about it on a strictly legal basis, but fretting about the whole notion of a government that can make you buy things. To these people, neither of the answers seem relevant (from this point of view, surely, state/federal is a moot point (if it's oppressive it's oppressive at either level, if not not), and the freedom not to be able to drive, while exercised by many people, is still a very significant life restriction in our society). So what would they say about the fact that we already do this?

For that matter, it seems like the Government requires us to buy all sorts of things. Don't public decency laws require people to buy clothes? What would you say to a nudist who objects that they own no clothes and by requiring them you're going out and forcing them to engage in commerce?

"I am human: nothing human is alien to me"

Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto.
Vel me monere hoc vel percontari puta:
Rectum'st, ego ut faciam ; non est, te ut deterream.

-- Publius Terentius Afer, Heauton Timorumenos

I am a man: and think myself interested in everything that concerns mankind. Imagine that I wish either to advise you, or to be informed myself: If what you do, is right, I would follow your example; if wrong, I would dissuade you from persisting in it.

-- Terence, "The Self Tormentor", Anonymous (?) translation, 1777

I am a man, and feel for all mankind.
Think, I advise, or ask for information:
If right, that I may do the same; if wrong,
To turn you from it.

-- Trans. George Coleman

I'm human, so any human interest is my concern. Call it solicitude or curiosity on my part, whichever you like. If you're right I'll copy you, and if you're wrong I'll try to make you mend your ways.

-- Trans. Betty Radice, 1965

Anyone know of any particular good translations of this passage? There are several nineteenth century ones online, but I like all of them less than either of these versions. Most of the more recent ones don't have a preview function. I suppose I'll have to go into an actual library, with books on dead trees -- how quaint.

Incidentally, if Wikiquotes is to be believed, this same play is also the source of the familiar phrases "time heals all wounds" (line 421, "Diem adimere aegritudinem hominibus") and "where there's life there's hope" (line 981, "Modo liceat vivere, est spes").

I came across these lines in Kwame Anthony Appiah's article in the NY Times six years ago, "The Case for Contamination"; something recently recalled them to me, so I dug them up. Here's the passage from that article where Appiah discusses this passage:

Our guide to what is going on here might as well be a former African slave named Publius Terentius Afer, whom we know as Terence. Terence, born in Carthage, was taken to Rome in the early second century B.C., and his plays - witty, elegant works that are, with Plautus's earlier, less-cultivated works, essentially all we have of Roman comedy - were widely admired among the city's literary elite. Terence's own mode of writing - which involved freely incorporating any number of earlier Greek plays into a single Latin one - was known to Roman littérateurs as "contamination."

It's an evocative term. When people speak for an ideal of cultural purity, sustaining the authentic culture of the Asante or the American family farm, I find myself drawn to contamination as the name for a counterideal. Terence had a notably firm grasp on the range of human variety: "So many men, so many opinions" was a line of his. And it's in his comedy "The Self-Tormentor" that you'll find what may be the golden rule of cosmopolitanism - Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto; "I am human: nothing human is alien to me." The context is illuminating. A busybody farmer named Chremes is told by his neighbor to mind his own affairs; the homo sum credo is Chremes's breezy rejoinder. It isn't meant to be an ordinance from on high; it's just the case for gossip. Then again, gossip - the fascination people have for the small doings of other people - has been a powerful force for conversation among cultures.

...A tenable global ethics has to temper a respect for difference with a respect for the freedom of actual human beings to make their own choices. That's why cosmopolitans don't insist that everyone become cosmopolitan. They know they don't have all the answers. They're humble enough to think that they might learn from strangers; not too humble to think that strangers can't learn from them. Few remember what Chremes says after his "I am human" line, but it is equally suggestive: "If you're right, I'll do what you do. If you're wrong, I'll set you straight."

I like the little fragments of translation that Appiah gives -- I don't know their source (all google results for that precise wording seem to be quotes of Appiah -- perhaps he's the translator?) -- better than any of the others above:

I am human: nothing human is alien to me.
[...]
If you're right, I'll do what you do. If you're wrong, I'll set you straight.

-- Translation by K. Anthony Appiah (?)

...except, of course, for that irritating missing middle line.

Anyone feel like translating "Vel me monere hoc vel percontari puta:" in the style of Appiah? Or, again, does, anyone know of a good translation of this passage? If you have any at hand, please leave the translations of these lines (77-79) in comments.

Later Update: I just recently had occasion to read Appiah's book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers -- a terrific book, incidentally, highly recommended -- from which the above-quoted article was adapted. And in the book Appiah actually gives the entire quote, including the missing line. So here is the passage, in the full Appiah version:

I am human: nothing human is alien to me. Either I want to find out for myself or I want to advise you: think what you like. If you're right, I'll do what you do. If you're wrong, I'll set you straight.

-- Translation by K. Anthony Appiah

...and yes, judging by the notes Appiah himself is indeed the translator here (he doesn't have a note on this specific passage, but he says generally that uncited translations are his own).

So there: a translation of the entire three-line passage, in the style of Appiah -- as done by Appiah himself. Glad I found it.

This Word Amen

When did "This." become the new "Amen"?

Or, since "Word." probably was the new "Amen", when did "This." become the new "Word."?

The Ogre's Feathers

I just watched a brilliant short film called "The Ogre's Feathers", written and directed by Michael Almereyda. I was interested primarily because I'm procrastinating on grading my exams it includes SF writer, critic and all around Man of Marvelous Letters Samuel R. Delany in a small supporting role as the ill king (the first person on the screen is he) who needs an ogre feather to recover. (That's the reason my friend Ron Drummond, who's done editorial work for Delany, linked to it, which is how I saw it.)

The film is based on the story from Italo Calvino's book Italian Folktales called "The Feathered Ogre". (It's only three pages long; you should be able to read it at the link.)

The film is described by its creators as a "silent" film, but that's not quite right: there are sound effects and music. (Actually, both of those are quite well done and are part of the pleasures of the film.) I'm tempted to say "wordless", but that's not quite right either: there are words, put on title cards (white letters on a black screen), as used to be done in silent films. But there are no spoken words in the film.

(Which raises a question for me: why didn't silent films use subtitles? Was it simply that no one ever thought of it, or was there some technical reason (or aesthetic reason) why they wouldn't work? It seems like a far better (subtler, more efficient, less disruptive) way of communicating words on film using text than title cards. Yet I can't recall ever seeing a silent film use them. Does anyone know?)

I will admit that I'm not quite sure the not-really-silent-silent-film aspect really works. It's a bit odd given the sound -- the really quite gorgeously done sound, including, at one point, inaudible voices of children in the background. (Silent movies had music, but this has sound effects -- doors closing, etc -- which make the lack of voices odder.) And it slows down the movie, and makes it artificial... although that last point may be a plus, given that the entirety is a fairytale, but that it is filmed & set in contemporary New York: the oddity may be necessary to make it work. But it's an interesting (and clearly quite deliberate) artistic choice, and doesn't stop me recommending the film.

What I liked best, though, was the cinematography -- the movie is just gorgeously photographed, in incredibly rich black and white, with marvelous settings, frame compositions, and so forth. It really is plain old fabulous to look at. (It's very well acted too; I particularly liked Rachel Chandler as the ogre's wife.)

-- although here, too, I must admit one quibble: the entire film is gorgeous and beautiful... except for two brief scenes which take place on a ferry. Apparently they couldn't get permission to film on the real ferry, so they used rear screen projection for those scenes -- which looks oddly fake and off-putting compared to every other frame of the film.* (And it's odd, because they make it look like an old movie -- one of the movies in which that technique was regularly used -- whereas it otherwise doesn't, for all that it's a (not-really-silent) silent, black-and-white film.) Given that they updated the rest of the visual setting (i.e. talking and acting as if were a fairy tale but filming in NYC), I would have suggested trying the subway, or a bus, and referring to it as a ferry.

But quibbles aside, I really enjoyed it.

So here's the film. It's about 20 minutes long; the youtube is listed as "unlisted", meaning it doesn't show up in search results but is still available for embedding and linking (unlike "private" videos). So hopefully this (or this link) should work:



Finally, now that you've watched the film (come on, those exams can wait...), one small plot quibble which is a SPOILER for the movie (and the short story too):

In the story, the hero is asked by three additional people (apart from the ill king) to bring feathers, but is asked by four additional people for information. Each time the ogre's wife takes a feather she asks a question, so that the monks, the fourth set of information seekers (who requested no feather) go along with the feather for the king (who needed no information). Four feathers, four questions. In the film, however, the monks are cut out, which means that the wife asks only three questions and takes (or we see her take) only three feathers. Which means that I was counting feathers as they redistributed them to those who had asked, sure that the hero would run short. But he didn't: he gave out four feathers. Which is to say, cutting the monks left a plot loophole that I for one wish they had somehow filled (maybe one of the other three questioners could have refrained from asking for a feather?).

_________________
* Even the scenes on the ferry are beautiful if you ignore the background and just look at the actors. The background looks lousy, though.

Did You Know That Henry James Participated In a Round-Robin Novel?

I didn't. But it seems he did: The Whole Family: A Novel by Twelve Authors (1908) includes a chapter by Henry James -- Chapter 7, "The Married Son". I wouldn't have guessed it.

(A round-robin story is a story written by multiple authors -- essentially a stunt, although there have been a fair number of them.)

Aside from James, the other author involved who's still read today is William Dean Howells, who wrote the first chapter, "The Father" (and seems to have conceived of the whole project). I haven't read it, but if you want to, you can find the book on Gutenberg. (Aside from Howells and James, the authors are, today, mostly forgotten.)

In other Jamesiana, Alice James, the diarist and sister of novelist Henry and philosopher & psychologist William, was born on August 7, 1848. This wouldn't be worth mentioning save that a surprising number of web sites -- PBS, and the "about" page for the publisher Alice James Books are two -- list her as born in 1850. I'm not sure how this alternative date got started. I'm pretty sure it's wrong, although both are quite prominently listed. (One telling fact is that the specific day is always associated with the year 1848.) Does anyone have any information on this? (To confuse things further, Alice was also the name of William James's wife; she was born 1849.)

Update: While I'm sharing stray oddities about the James siblings, I'll mention one more, which isn't widely known (although Louis Menand talks about it in his fabulous book The Metaphysical Club), which is that the third child of Henry James Sr. (after philosopher William and novelist Henry (Jr), but before diarist Alice) was Garth Wilkinson James -- called Wilky James -- who was one of the (white) officers in the (all-black infantry) 54th Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War -- the regiment whose formation and attack on Fort Wagner is depicted in the movie Glory. Wilky James was wounded in the attack on Fort Wagner, and never fully recovered, suffering from various pains and ailments until his death at age 38.

Alphabetical Africa Errata -- With Possible Patches

Update: Read this post for an introduction to the book, and a few patches to some of the errors; but a more complete table of all known errors in Alphabetical Africa has now been posted here.

For the "constrained literature" discussion group I've been hosting, I've just read Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa. (I began it once before, but this was my first full trip through it.)

It's a strange book, written under a tight (and, so far as I know, a unique) Oulipian constraint. The first half of the book consists of 26 chapters, labeled A through Z. The first chapter contains only words beginning with A; the second contains words beginning with A and B; the third words beginning with A, B and C; and so on up until Z, in which any word may appear. The second half of the book, also 26 chapters long, reverses the process. The chapters are labeled Z through A; Z uses any words; Y uses any words save those beginning with Z; X uses any words save those beginning with Y or Z, and so on back through the final chapter, A, which again uses only words beginning with A.

To give you a sense of how this works in practice, here's the first paragraph of the first chapter A:

Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation. Albert argumentatively answers at another apartment. Answers: ants are Ameisen. Ants are Ameisen?

Here's the opening of the first chapter I:

I haven't been here before. I had hoped I could hire a car, but I can't drive. I have been awfully busy finishing a book about Alva. First I contemplated doing a book about another character, and another country. Bit by bit I have assembled Africa. Although I hate hot climates I chose Africa. Desire is always alive in hot climates I have been informed. I brought a gun along, and a calendar. It is August here. Bright beautiful August. I used to draw Alva. Her face, her hands, her breasts. But I am an amateur artist. I didn't bring any drawings along. I am alone.

And here's the opening of the first chapter S:

Summarizing Africa: I can speak more freely. I find fewer and fewer impediments. Soon I'll reach my destination. Soon I'll also complete my documentation and my book. Daily Africa is shrinking from extreme heat and fatigue, as rebels in bush battle African armies led by foreigners. Orders are passed in fifteen magnificent click languages. It is no surprise really if most soldiers are missing.

You get the idea. At times particularly in the early chapters, it reads somewhat more like poetry than like fiction. If you want to sample some more, here's the book in Google Books. And here is a fabulous review of the novel in twenty-six paragraphs using (the first half of) Abish's constraint in its writing.

If this sounds utterly silly and pointless to you, then you almost certainly won't like the actual book. It's a novel that requires the experimental-literature equivalent of a healthy willing suspension of disbelief: you need to go with the flow. If, on the other hand, it sounds cool, then you probably will like it, because it's good at what it is. While I personally found the first couple of chapters tough to get through, it picks up around chapter I, and becomes a very funny, engaging book (with arguably problematic politics). It's not the Great American Novel or anything, but it's probably the Great Alphabetical African Novel,* and that, while admittedly somewhat more limited, is still a lot of fun.

And it's a wild constraint after all. Imagine writing entire chapters with so limited a vocabulary! And yet somehow Abish manages to do it.

Except for the goofs.

Ah, yes: the famous errors of Abish's Alphabetical Africa. The Complete Review, which does its usual good job on Abish's book, found four errors. Reading through it, I found no less than twelve more -- and another two items that are arguably errors. Here's a complete list, combining all of them. (Update: This is now obsolete. An integrated, updated list can be found here.)

Chapter/Page	Error	Phrase
G1, p. 15	premature I	Are Germans convincing in Africa?
K1, p. 27	premature N	...he could design a new colony...
N1, p. 35	premature S	...everything, even all sounds, heavy, dark...
O1, p. 38	premature P	...I promise her.
P1, p. 39	premature T [arguable]	...part-time only...
R1, p. 46	premature T [arguable]	After a bit of rough-and-tumble...
V1, p. 58	premature W	...from the eastern and western edges...
W1, p. 59	premature Y	...had we been here a hundred years ago...
V2, p. 87	belated W	The children are at school when the mailman arrives...
T2, p. 93	belated W	When Boyd discovered this...
T2, p. 94	belated W	...they meet men who are transplanting Africa.
T2, p. 95	belated W	...have come to terms with African emotions.
T2, p. 97	belated W	He walks as far as the gates of the consulate.
K2, p. 123	belated L	Like everything else...
k2, p. 123	belated L	...it conceals all hope for life by...
F2, p. 138	belated I	...boosted an innovative design...
C2, p. 146	belated I	After considering all alternatives, I capture a couple crocodiles.
C2, p. 147	belated I	After I cross a...

(The ones from the Complete Review are the premature P on p. 38, and the final three listed. The arguable ones are the ones that are part of compound phrases: "Part-Time" in the first P chapter, and (even less convincing) "rough-and-tumble" in the first R chapter.)

(Update: Commentator Jonathan Arnold found an additional twenty-five (!!) errors which he kindly posted in the comments below. I will integrate them into this post when I have the time; in the meantime, definitely look in the comments to see a whole lot more. Update 2: The updated, integrated list of all known errata in Alphabetical Africa has now been posted here.)

There has been speculation that the known errors are deliberate, a breaking of the artistic constraint for aesthetic reasons. The Oulipo, the literary group most closely associated with constrained literature (although Abish himself has no connection to the group I'm aware of), has developed the notion of a "clinamen" (based on a term from Lucretius) for the notion of a deliberate violation of an artistic constraint for greater artistic purposes.

But I must admit I'm doubtful. Not just because I recall seeing an anecdote on the web where someone who met Abish asked him about the errors and got astonishment and a description of how hard he and his editor worked to prevent them (although I do). But because the errors don't feel like clinamen. They're too many; they're too random and uninteresting. They simply feel like... errors.

(The one way in which some (although not all) feel like clinamen is that there are obvious solutions. One of the criteria for an Oulipian clinamen is that there must be a way to "solve" the issue that does not involve breaking the constraint -- so that one is clearly doing it for reasons of aesthetic choice and not inability to find one's way out of the self-constructed maze. But this isn't true of all of them, at least for me (see below.))

So no: I think they're errors. And there are quite a lot -- in addition to the Complete Review's four, I found a dozen or more (depending on the arguable cases) in a single reading. And I wasn't really trying that hard -- I was just reading the book for the most part. So if there are 16 to 18... I bet there are more, too, that I didn't find.

Ah well. Even Abish nods. It's pretty close, right?

...Except, it seems to me, that most of these are quite readily fixable.

So in the spirit of the Age of Wiki, I offer freely, to one and all (particularly to Abish, in the unlikely event he should stumble upon this post), the following patches (to use the programming term) for Abish's novel:

Ch.	Error	Possible Fix
G1	Are Germans convincing in Africa?	Are Germans convincing around Africa?
K1	...he could design a new colony...	...he could design a cutting-edge colony... ( ...he could design an advanced colony...)
N1	...everything, even all sounds, heavy, dark...	..everything, even all noises, heavy, dark...
O1	...I promise her.	...I assure her. (...I guarantee her.)
P1	...part-time only...	...half-day only... (...casual labor...)
R1	After a bit of rough-and-tumble...	After a bit of a fracas...
V1	...from the eastern and western edges...	...from the eastern and opposite edges (...from the eastern and far edges) (...from the near and far edges...) (...from the longitudinal edges...)
W1	...had we been here a hundred years ago...	...had we been here a century ago...
V2	The children are at school when the mailman arrives...	The children are at school as the mailman arrives...
T2	When Boyd discovered this...	After Boyd discovered this...
T2	...they meet men who are transplanting Africa.	...they meet men engaged in transplanting Africa.
T2	...have come to terms with African emotions.	...have come to accept African emotions. (...have faced up to African emotions.) (...have reconciled themselves to African emotions,) [Here the fix has to be more specific as to meaning than the error-laden phrase.]
T2	He walks as far as the gates of the consulate.	He goes as far as the gates of the consulate. (He strolls as far as the gates of the consulate.)
K2	Like everything else...	As in everything else...
K2	...it conceals all hope for life by...	...it conceals all hope for continued existence by...
F2	...boosted an innovative design...	...boosted a creative design... (... boosted an advanced design...) (...boosted an experimental design...)
C2	After considering all alternatives, I capture a couple crocodiles.	After considering all alternatives, capture a couple crocodiles. (Capture a couple crocodiles after considering all alternatives.)
C2	After I cross a...	After crossing a...

Not all of those are of the same quality of course. Some I think are obviously right; some I'm not very happy with, although I can't come up with anything better.

Having offered these, I have several queries for my Noble Readers.

First, if you've read Alphabetical Africa and know of any errors that aren't on this list... please leave them in comments, and I'll add them to this table!

Second, can you think of a better patch for any of the errors that I've already found? Again, please leave suggestions in comments.

And finally: does anyone know Walter Abish, or know anyone who knows Walter Abish, or even know anyone who knows anyone at New Directions (his publisher)? It'd be great to see Alphabetical Africa 1.2 published, with all known errors removed & fixed. (Or, if these are indeed deliberate, to get confirmation of this fact.)

In the meantime, I offer them to any and all readers of Alphabetical Africa as an unauthorized erratum sheet. Feel free to mentally substitute (or even physically write in, if you buy it rather than get it from the library) these corrections for a smoother, error-free Alphabetical Africa experience.

______________________
* This gets at a separate issue, which I don't have time to go into -- a subfield in the study of literary (and more broadly artistic) constraint that I'd like to see someone delve into: there seems to me a distinction between constraints that one can imagine becoming a form, that is, a generalized practice (however obscure and marginal) with multiple works to its credit, and those that seem inexorably one-time works, constraints that are hard to imagine re-using without the results being hopelessly derivative (and which therefore will be used only in works that are formally and openly derivative, i.e. the aforementioned review of Abish's book written under (half) its constraints). The distinction would be, therefore, between (on the one hand) lipograms, which have a long (if not all that proud) history which predated Perec's novel (and which have also had an ongoing life beyond it, including multiple variations on the theme), and (on the other hand) something like Abish's constraint, which it seems to me hard to imagine replicating, not because of the technical challenge, but simply because of the overwhelming feeling that it's been done. (Where this border lies is, obviously, a point subject to dispute.)

Random Question Inspired By My iPod's Shuffle Feature

When John Lennon thrice sings, in "A Day in the Life" (from Sgt. Pepper -- and not any of those fancy re-mixes either, just the good old-fashioned CD release from 1987), "I read the news today, oh boy", how are we to understand those last two words? Is it a simple groan, or is it sarcastic glee? What struck me is how both meanings would fit equally well with the rest of the song -- the worldweary overwhelm of Lennon's newsreading.

Indeed, I can't quite make up my mind whether there is in fact any difference between those two options, or whether something said with sufficiently sarcastic glee might as well be a groan.

Perhaps one way to capture the difference -- if there really is one -- would be two possible punctuations of the line:

I read the news today (oh boy)
I read the news today -- oh boy!

Any thoughts?

In Search of the Univocalic Window

I dismiss nitpicking criticism which flirts with philistinism.

-- Christian Bök, Eunoia

If you think lipograms (texts written without using a particular letter) are silly, then you won't want to go anywhere near univocalisms: a univocalism is a text written employing only a single vowel: that is, it is a lipogram in four or five letters (depending on how its author treats y).

Surprising as it may seem to some, though, the univocalism is not uncharted terrain for literature. In fact, I know of a number of different univocalisms: Georges Perec (who wrote the most famous lipogrammatic novel, La Dispiration (translated as A Void)) wrote two: a novella all in E called "Les revenentes" and a short piece in A called "What a Man!" (the original title is in English despite the text itself being in French). Perec's univocalisms have both been translated by Ian Monk: the first under the title of "The Exeter Text" (in an anthology of Perec's writings called Three by Perec); the latter under its original title, as part of his own set of six univocalisms, "Homage to Georges Perec". Also notable in Monk's set is the essay, "Perec's Letterless Texts", a defense of the whole notion of lipogrammatic/univocalic writing. Finally, Canadian poet Christian Bök has written an entire book, Eunoia, whose main chapters are a series of five univocalisms (the entire book is online at the link, if you're curious).

It's an odd little corner of the literary universe, and one that will, without question, not be to everyone's taste (many will be surprised that it's to anyone's taste). I have had on my hard drive for over a year now a lengthy half-finished post, considering the aesthetic merits of these works.

-- But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Today I just want to ask a question: what is the longest naturally occurring univocalism in English?

By naturally occurring I mean unplanned -- none of the texts cited above count: they were all deliberate. I want to know how long a stretch of prose can be found which unintentionally -- without the author even noticing (at a minimum until after the fact) -- uses only one vowel.

A parallel question concerning pangrams has been asked; it's the search for the shortest pangrammatic window (i.e. series of unplanned, naturally occurring text which uses all 26 letters; so far the record is 47 letters). But if anyone has asked about the univocalic window, I have yet to find it.

-- What's the point, you ask? That's easy: it's a game, it's fun -- a literary amusement. (Whether or not you think univocalisms can be literature, this quite clearly isn't: it's just for fun.)

So: can anyone think of any candidates? Idle thinking hasn't brought to my mind any longer than four words or so, but I bet there's at least a full sentence out there somewhere...

(My real hope here is not so much that my commentators will come up with a good example -- although that would be wonderful! -- but that y'all will spread the meme to bigger sites than mine, which will then lead to lots more people playing the game...)

Technical Problem Bleg: Quotes Not Working

Over four months ago, I added random quotes to my sidebar. I used a script on a blog that's now taken down. The quote file is here. It all worked fine for four months. And then suddenly yesterday the quotes stopped loading -- all I see now is a blank space. (I tried a couple browsers.) Anyone have any idea why this happened or how to fix it? Thanks --

(I can't think how to post it here without it working, but if anyone is good with this stuff I'll send you an email with the html....)

Update, February 15: ...And then, weeks later -- long after I'd given up and decided to remove the quote widget entirely (although, luckily, before I'd gotten around to actually doing so) -- they spontaneously started working again. Very, very weird. I presume it's something that blogger did to its software or something -- both times. But that is a presumption that is 100% cluelessness, and 0% reality-based, so take it for what it's worth: zip.

Does Anyone Know the Source of This Quote?

Moses Hadas is credited all over as the author of the famous book review put-down "This book fills a much-needed gap." But no one seems to give the context. Does anyone know anything more -- what book he was reviewing? Where the review appeared? Anything?