On the Proper Care and Feeding of Literary Works

I’ve noticed that my writing output significantly decreases when I am pregnant (as I am now: 31 weeks).  It’s not just that I lack the focus or the energy to sit down and sustain a thought for more than three seconds – it goes deeper than that: I am low on inspiration.

Usually I find myself up to my neck in a veritable river of metaphors, ideas, images, controversies…the trick is to catch one and figure out what to do with it.  Last summer there was this chili pepper, curled into a hook-like shape, drying on my windowsill, and in the evening when the gold late sun filtered through the screen it glowed red like a beacon. Everything else in the kitchen went sort of dim and fog-like.  I wrote a poem about it…also about vultures flying off with road-kill, about bagworm tents in the black walnut trees, about iris rhizomes, and even about moon-pies. Everything was fraught with significance and connected to everything else.

This summer though a chili pepper remains stubbornly a chili pepper (which is fine, really – why should it be anything else?) and I haven’t written a damn thing, beyond lecture notes, Facebook posts, and one creative project that I HAD to finish.  My body is very busy creating a whole other person, and my mind is left either to dangle about and wait or to get invested in the process – which, in my case, usually means worrying.

One thing I have noticed, though, is that contrary to a fairly popular trope, pregnancy and childbearing are absolutely nothing like producing a work of art – beyond the fact that both are work, and in both cases you end up with Something New. But the same could be said of baking a pie.

I spent so much time analyzing the “Oxen of the Sun” episode in Joyce’s Ulysses, in which the development of literature is juxtaposed against the birth of a baby, in which the forty paragraphs coincide with forty weeks of gestation, I got all caught up in the metaphor and even wrote a conference paper on “Birth and the Book: Joyce’s Pro-Life Aesthetics” (which incidentally I didn’t get to present since adjuncts don’t get travel stipends – insert loud bitchy noises here)…but when it comes down to it, the comparison only goes so far.  I would hate for writers to approach writing the way women approach childbearing, vice versa.

It is true that both books and babies are kind of a part of oneself, but also kind of separate.  You can see bits of yourself in both.  But in the case of the baby, it is absolutely guaranteed that the New Thing is completely unique, an individual, separate from you.  The same, alas, is rarely true of literary works.  The good ones have a life of their own, but all the rest, the mediocre and the poor and the downright shitty (and most of them, you know, fall into one of those latter categories) do not. They remain tied to their mamas’ apron strings.  Read one, and it makes no sense unless you know who wrote it and why, and on what biographical event it is based….and even then, you won’t find it very interesting. Unless you are in love with the person who wrote it, or something, and sufficiently loopy with desire to find ANYTHING associated with that person – a used tissue, for instance – deeply compelling.  It doesn’t speak to you on its own.  A baby will eventually learn to talk, but a poorly written poem never will.

If you treat your artistic productions as you should treat a newborn, then you are probably guaranteed to produce utter schlock. A baby, you love flaws and all: you wouldn’t have it any other way. You love it, coddle it, tolerate its messes and its bawling. It is your baby – it is completely unique and beloved, even if it is bald and red-faced and covered with baby acne and flaking cradle cap and stinky sour milk-puke in all its little folds and creases.  No one else may see that it is beautiful, but you KNOW that it is.

That’s totally the right way to look at your baby and totally the wrong way to look at the crappy poem you just produced while half-drunk under a lamppost, dripping tears of scorned love and sucking at a cigarette and feeling like what you really want to do most is scream and break things, but you don’t want to get arrested, so you write this poem instead.  Even if the baby, like the poem, came about because you were drunk and thought it was love and weren’t thinking clearly…

Have you ever had someone just out of the blue ask if you would take a look at his / her poetry? It happens to me all the time. I don’t know whether I have some sort of “reads poetry!!!” aura around me, but I have actually had total strangers approach me and ask if I can look over some poems.  I really hope I will get time off purgatory for this. Because there is always a “you can hold my baby if you want to” feel to such an offer. You can’t look at someone’s baby and say, “well, the nose is okay, but if I were you I would just get rid of the rest and start over….see if you can make something of the nose, it’s not bad. But the rest…it’s sort of awkward, it doesn’t hold together. Actually, it stinks.”  You can’t. You wouldn’t. But that is often pretty much what you ought to say to the poem-mother who has just handed you her poem-baby.  I usually try to be nicer than that….there is enough suffering in the world as it is, between wars and famines and political parties and baby-puke and bad art.

The comparison between the baby and the book becomes downright alarming when you think about some of the advice a burgeoning writer should take to heart.  Here are a few things I told my creative writing class last year:  be ruthless with yourself and with your work.  Don’t hold onto a first draft just because it is yours and you have an affection for it. Detach yourself from your work.  If it’s no good, throw it away.  Does it have a life of its own? Then let it live. Does it serve only as an expression of yourself – does it need you, in order to survive and thrive? Then trash it.  Or, if you want to keep it, keep it only to laugh at later.  The fact that it is yours and that you worked hard to produce it – the fact that it came from you – this is not, in itself, sufficient to make it important or beautiful or even halfway-decent.  Do not love your work, unless it deserves love.

Maybe Ayn Rand would support that sort of childbearing philosophy. But she never had kids.  Nor, to be honest, did she write very well.

I am thinking of the childbirth / writing comparison, and where I have seen it, and actually can’t think of a single case in which a woman has made it.  I can be tolerably certain that I will never make it again.

Apocalypse Beans

“One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. “

I do this.  It’s a good exercise to see whether something is or is not actually impossible.  A square circle is impossible; I know this not only because of its inherent self-contradiction but because, in spite of having fairly flexible imagination, I can’t picture it.  I can picture gnomes and elves and centaurs, minotaurs, giants, dryads, Nephilim, kobolds, flying carpets or saucers, genies in bottles, underground kingdoms ruled by talking cats, golden apples of the sun, mysterious one-eyed men on horses from distant climes, goofy aliens, water babies, etc etc etc.  I have never seen any of these things but they may be Up to Something behind my back, and there’s nothing really inherently impossible about any of them.

An empiricist might argue that a flying carpet is impossible according to the rules of nature as we know it.  This reminds me of Chesterton’s Father Brown:

“It’s not the supernatural part I doubt. It’s the natural part. I’m exactly in the position of the man who said, `I can believe the impossible, but not the improbable.’”

“That’s what you call a paradox, isn’t it?” asked the other.

“It’s what I call common sense, properly understood,” replied Father Brown. “It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing–room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand. So it is with that tale of the curse. It isn’t the legend that I disbelieve–it’s the history.”

As for the apocalypse, I was brought up on it.  This was partially due to the anxiety over nuclear war that was a staple of the Eighties, but also partially due to a lot of fringe religious influences.  Armageddon was supposed to be right around the corner (because, you know, these days are So Much Wickeder than any days that have ever gone before.  Which you may continue to believe, if you never study history).

The Three Days of Darkness was a big deal for some people.  I forget what was supposed to happen if you didn’t barricade yourself inside with wretched canned food and candles (no one ever suggested cigars, wine, cheese, and apples…because heaven forbid that one should actually enjoy the apocalypse)…demons would haul you off howling, or something, and there would be NOTHING God could do about it.  We didn’t need to stockpile canned goods because we raised our own food and anyway, we had a whole room full of boxes of dried beans, which we could cook and eat or, alternatively, plant, after civilization had collapsed.  This room accounted for the quantity of mice that made themselves at home with us.  Rats, too.  And snakes, to eat the mice.  One of them got into our bathroom one morning, and my dad found it coiled around a lamp atop the toilet.  It was a fine menagerie.

Then we had y2k which was a sort of remote possibility, but people were thrilled with the opportunity to drop everything and prepare for cataclysm once again.  By this time I was old enough to see that the End of the World (as we know it) could be a useful excuse for evading responsibility.  I regularly have wished civilization would collapse, so that I won’t have to pay off my student loans, and so my not terribly marketable skills will suddenly be eminently useful.   I am shit with computer technology, but I can live off the land and shoot a gun and survive without running water and also teach a lot of useless but delightful lore about Philosophy and Literature, to keep civilization alive.

It is not incomprehensible to me that civilization should collapse eventually. History shows us numerous instances of societies that have risen and fallen.  The fact that is could happen, and that it has happened before, should be a reminder to people not to put too much trust in the status quo.

There is a tendency among some to say “it hasn’t happened yet, so it’s never going to happen.”  This is pretty bloody naive. I mean, I haven’t died yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t, eventually.

Then on the other hand there are the alarmists who confuse a “could happen” with a “must happen.” I suppose on one hand this could be the result of sloppy grammar and a mixing-up of modal verbs.  But I think it’s really just that some people are primordially discontent. Some of these people are fond of saying things like “I was born into the wrong time.  I was meant to be a Victorian Lady” (or a wild west outlaw, or a renaissance philosopher, etc etc etc). This offers a good excuse for not flourishing in the here and now.

Anyway, I don’t think that there’s anything inherently impossible about a collapse of civilization, especially considering our unnecessary wars, our boundless materialism, our exhaustion of our natural resources, and the fact that Katy Perry is at the top of the pop charts.  But until civilization collapses, I unfortunately still have to clean my house, pay my bills, go to work, etc.  From a religious perspective, this is where I am called to live each moment with love for God and family and neighbor. What a drag.

I do however think that the Rapture is inherently silly.  I CAN imagine it – it’s not like a square circle – but when I do, it seems goofy.  I know God has a sense of humor, but he is not (as far as I can tell) a bad movie director who replaces a good plotline with pointless special effects and gratuitous nudity.

Reasons why the Rapture is improbable:

1) People who believe in it take their “evidence” from the Bible, which explicitly states that we “know not the day nor the hour,” and yet they are often telling us the day or the hour.

2) People are, apparently, going to be sucked up out of their shoes and clothes, and go swooping through the sky.  This means that a lot of unappealing physiques are going to be suddenly bare beneath the sun.  Seems like poor taste.  It also means that some appealing ones are going to be bare…does this mean that the Elect are going to be casting covert glances at beefy bottoms and opulent bosoms, while singing “alleluia” with a sudden, greater fervor? Or maybe you lose your sex drive while flying through the air.  I don’t know.

3) Speaking of bodies…I hope, if it happens, that your digestive functions shut down, too.  En route to the glorified body, some folks might get so excited by the experience of ascension, that they lose all control. This could be particularly troublesome if people are raptured out of bathrooms and outhouses, in the middle of a “project.” Not fun for those of us “left behind.”  But then, I guess it’s not supposed to be.  However, nowhere in the book of Revelation does it say that “the heavens rained down…” in this respect.

4) Since we know from modern science that you can go on and on and on through space and not bump your head against the underbelly of Heaven, and we know from theology that Heaven is not really a “place up there,” the whole ascension thing has got to be just a special effect thrown in for a couple of minutes.  Otherwise the Elect are just going to go on and on and on and on for billions and billions of light years.  So I guess once they get past the cloud  cover, or out of sight, the ascension bit stops and they get blipped out of this space-time continuum into Paradise.  In which case, why bother with Rapturing them at all? Why not just have them disappear? Or drop (apparently) dead?  Is it just to make the ones jealous, who are Left Behind?

5) Do babies get raptured out of mothers’ wombs? Because, I am not a very holy person. But my unborn child is quite innocent, as far as I know.   So how is it going to get out? The traditional way? Will it go flying through the air, four inches long, five ounces? How will it breathe, poor thing?  Wouldn’t this be kind of like an abortion? Wouldn’t that be bad?

6) Interestingly, the people who think they are going to be raptured rarely strike me as particularly holy themselves. Well-meaning, I suppose.  Followers of certain rules. Fond of passing judgment.  A little lazy about REALLY studying their Bibles (they memorize verses, but it never seems to dawn on them that the Bible was not originally written in their language, so if they want to know it well, a few courses in Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic might not be amiss).  But then, who am I to know what God really likes?

7) Speaking of the Bible, there is such a thing as apocalypse literature, and there is a tradition for interpreting it. It is not, traditionally, to be interpreted literally.  Numbers, for instance, have a spiritual significance. So if I say that seven bears with three heads each, and claws ten inches long, sat down on twelve thrones and ate forty virgins, the thing to do is NOT to try to figure out which seven evil world leaders are referred to here, but to figure out what the number seven actually signifies, allegorically.  (Okay, actually, if I were to say this, the thing to do would be to put me on some pretty powerful meds. Since I’m not divinely inspired, as far as I know).

8) Of course, if everything in the Bible is to be taken literally, then we Catholics are right about the Real Presence. In which case, we should be raptured, too. But here it is, May 21, and I am sitting in front of my computer, when I should be out weeding.  See? You can shirk responsibility, even without the Apocalypse as an excuse.

The Italian Peasant Experiment

Once you grow up, you are expected only to make believe when you are cast in a play…and then you call it acting, and it is serious. I never quite stopped playing pretend games, however.  Probably my love for theatre has a lot to do with my love for make-believe, but I also think the reason theatre exists is the same reason why make-believe exists: mimetic desire, the longing to become in order better to know, the thrill of liminality.

Fortunately for me I met my friend Kate when I was 25, and technically a good 15 years past the time when make-believe is socially acceptable.  Eventually, I suppose, I will be old enough so that it will constitute a symptom of inevitable dotage; in the meantime, I am hopeless.

Among other commonalities, we found that both of us had, at some point in our teenage years, gone wafting about mist-covered hills in cloaks, pretending to be…something or other.  Eowyn, I think, in my case.  I still fear a cage above all other things.  I still also like to dress up in ridiculous outfits and waft – so does Kate – although we now do so with babes in arms.

Kate and I worked together on a landscape crew between Ann Arbor and Detroit, in the summer of 2000.  We were the worst landscape crew ever, not because we weren’t good with the soil, precisely, but because everyone on the crew was going through some variety of angst or turmoil. After burning the midnight oil, we would head to work in the morning jaded and weary, half the crew in my old silver cop car, smoking cigarettes bitterly and bickering over whether to listen to NPR or the classical station.  Once we blasted Aerosmith and all stuck our heads out the windows and sang, “sing with me, sing for the years…” feeling alive and elegiac.  The fact that this was one of our brighter moments is instructive.

We also sucked because Kate and I kept succumbing to the inexplicable urge to turn every planting or weeding or pruning job into a musical.  We used rakes and shovels as props, and belted out impromptu choruses, modeled vaguely on “Glory and Praise” songs (infantile melodies: easy to mimic, even for a non-musician like myself) with some sort of general romantic theme of desire or treachery.  Eventually it dawned on us that our boss was always sending the two of us off to work on totally unnecessary projects, on our own, far from the rest of the crew, ANYTHING to get us and our horrific musical theatre away from the porches of their ears.                                                                                                          

One of these unnecessary projects involved dead-heading lavender – huge, springy, fragrant beds of lavender, that didn’t in the least need to be dead-headed, but it was something for us to do.  It was glorious – we sank briefly into a world that was dominated entirely by lavender, lavender everywhere, its air around us, its color dotting our vision.  We collected all the faded sprigs of sweetness on a giant canvas tarp, which I believe we were suppose to load up and then dump somewhere. I ended up keeping it in the trunk of the Crown Vic, since it smelled so lovely (which made for interesting encounters with border guards when we’d drive over to visit our favorite pub in Canada:  ”have you got anything in your trunk?”  ”only some dried herbs.”  Honesty is a good policy).

It was all so picturesque, the sweet far-away aroma of the lavender rising all about us, the languor of a July day…we decided on our lunch break to get a loaf of bread, a brick of cheese, and a bottle of wine, to carry on with the general Arcadian theme.  I think we both had the famous Brideshead picnic lurking in our minds somewhere: we were living out a beautiful storybook rebellion.

My reasoning on the wine was as follows: Italian peasants would eat just such a lunch, and then go right back to work the fields.  But that sort of reasoning involves the willful ignorance of certain glaring historical discrepancies.  It also involves one NOT drinking the entire bottle of wine, on an 85 degree day…especially cheap screw-cap wine (we had no corkscrews, so that was our only option).  The amazing Brideshead wine that was “heaven with strawberries”… this was surely not it.  The cheese sat and saddened in the sun; it sweated; we sweated; the lavender was sort of absorbed into a general odor of warm cheese, Michigan suburbs, and body odor.  A siesta would have been welcome but back we went to work, digging holes for shrubberies around a depressing suburban development. We lagged and our heads swam, all the houses began to look the same – well, actually, they always looked the same, but now the sameness became more notably dreary.

I did not learn however. We tried the same Italian Peasant experiment again that same summer, and it failed, again (imagine!).  For the past ten years I have continued in my pigheaded determination that I WILL drink wine or beer along with some heavy bready and cheesy substances, on my lunch break, and then successfully carry on manual labor, or directing a play, or running after maniacal children.  I subjected Brendan to the experiment on our honeymoon: we drove to the top of a mountain, then hiked way, way down into the river valley to gaze at a waterfall and eat cheese and apples, and drink Chianti. Then we had to climb back up. Happy times.

I have recently discovered two things:

1) If you leave out the wine, you can pretend to be a peasant and still go back to work.  Pregnancy taught me this.  It’s not quite as much fun while you’re pretending, but it makes for better gardening afterwards.

2) We can’t be Charles and Sebastian because we’re not upper class Oxonians in the twenties, and we’re not in love with each other (I mean, Kate and I aren’t.  When we played Olivia and Viola in Twelfth Night that was rather painfully obvious, that we were NOT in love with each other).  And that is one of the magickal things about stories: they are in many cases our only entry to a rich, rife atmosphere that otherwise we would never breathe, because each story has its special uniqueness, its singularity to a time and place like no other.  This reveals to us the terrible preciousness of the moment that burns once and then slips away: it is not just a symbol, not just a pointer, it is real and tangible and meaningful in itself, the single tree or the golden afternoon or the slant of a face in shadow.

“I should like to bury something precious in every place where I’ve been happy and then, when I’m old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.”

You can’t, though.  If you really think you can, you end up like Sebastian.  It’s lost in time, the pot of gold.  But it was gold, for all that.   Playing pretend games keeps it shiny in our recollection.

(That’s my excuse, at any rate).

Suspended in her jar

The sun is shining.  I am eating a mango.  Ideologies fade like miasma.

I am firmly of the conviction that the pleasure of eating good food puts one in direct contact with the ineffable Good, which is too often mediated to us through mere theory or guesswork – it is posited as something Out There which has nothing to do with bodily pleasure.  Indeed, this mango right now is, according to such theories, interfering with my contact with the Good, because it is distracting me through base pleasure.  You know what I say to that? Hooray for base pleasure! I know that the taste of this mango is good with the same certainty that I know I exist. It is a comforting thought.

I’ve spent years recovering from the philosophical prejudice about bodily pleasure. But recovery is complete! No longer will I apologize for enjoying a ripe tomato or a succulent bloody steak. I won’t try to make shameful excuses: “it’s okay as long as it’s nourishing the body that sustains the mind that enables me to read Hegel” – or the “merely subjectively satisfying is neutral as long as it does not distract one from the objective good” or “I have to eat this tomato because a nice old lady offered it to me, and I don’t want to offend her, but I promise I am NOT enjoying it. I am thinking about Higher Things.”

Incidentally, the tomato was first mentioned in a European cookbook in 1692 – the same year Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy was translated into English. I love Descartes, but it seems that a lot of ripe tomatoes are necessary, occasionally, to balance out the psychological effect of too much Cartesian meditation.  Reading Descartes gives me the distinct impression a) that he is right; and b) that I am sort of disintegrating like the Cumaean Sybil, one bit of me over there washing dishes, the other bit of me huddled over a hot stove in Sweden, some snippet of me (a nose, perhaps) galloping across golden fields at dusk, far away, over there.

I ascribe to a Schelerian view of a hierarchy of goods, according to which sometimes a lower good should be eschewed for the sake of a higher one. Thus it is of course acceptable to give up the pleasure of food for the sake of fasting, or for the sake of health. Gluttony involves pursuing the pleasure of eating to so inordinate an extent that other goods are harmed or neglected.  But that doesn’t mean gastronomic pleasure isn’t good; it simply means that it is not the highest good.

One pleasant thing about eating is that you can romanticize it as much as you want, and it still won’t disappoint you. Romanticization of marriage, or pregnancy, or traveling in France, or having a kickass career, can lead to despondency.  But there is something about a good meal that prevents one from trying to make it into anything other than what it is…a good meal.  This may be because a glass of wine is not a person – it is finite and contained, and we are not in danger of pretending that it is more or less than what it is.  We often make the error of reducing a person to a mere object of pleasure, or trying to transmute him or her into an Ideal (also a sort of reduction, really: if anyone ever says “you’re my ideal” you should RUN SCREAMING AWAY).  It’s fine to regard a chocolate cake as an object, though. And no one I know has ever pretended that a cake is a Platonic Form (and I’ve known some pretty loopy people).

No matter how many glorious literary descriptions of feasts I read, I am still not downcast over real feasts in real life.

This leads one to reflect upon memorable literary meals.  I present these, in no particular order. Feel free to add more:

1) “Babette’s Feast,” by Isak Dinesen. The amazing banquet cooked up by the mysterious French chef, Babette, for a host of simple, kindly, Puritanical Danish Christians.  Almost as good as the descriptions of the meal: descriptions of the aging, cautious sisters’ terror of the heathenish ingredients in store for them, their determination NOT to speak a word about the food, not even to enjoy it.  Best of all, though: the true communion and love experienced, at the close of the feast.  ”Justice and peace shall kiss.”

2) Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh.  Here we have two memorable feasts:  Charles and Sebastian drinking wine and eating strawberries one golden Arcadian day, and the exquisitely sophisticated Parisian meal Charles orders for the clueless Rex. Especially the description of the pearls or caviar in melted butter on blinis.

3) The Odyssey, by Homer.  The Cyclops’ “feast” does a lot to explain the hero’s relief to finally be again among “men who eat bread.”  For a change.

4) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis.  The breakfast Mr. Tumnus serves Lucy.  So many different things to serve on toast!

5) The Satyricon, by Petronius.  Trimalchio’s Feast is a monument of vulgarity, especially when they slice open the roast pig and out come all the sausages.  Also, here we find that memorable quotation about the Sybil (suspended in her jar):

One interesting thing about this book is that in the Loeb classical edition, prudish scholars wouldn’t translate certain bits; this gives the curious Latin student impetus to brush up on grammar and vocabulary to find out just WHAT happened after Encolpius meets Arquilla.  Nothing salutary, you can bet on that.  After you have translated as much as you can you will reject these silly notions about contemporary literature breaking with the high-minded purity of the sacred Tradition.

6) The Bible.  Speaking of mangoes: the Forbidden Fruit in the garden of Eden.  Probably NOT an apple. Most likely a mango. Also, the rapid-fire meal Abraham prepares for his heavenly visitors.  The man runs out, slaughters a calf, roasts it up on a fire, grinds grain, makes bread, runs back in, serves his guests…in the time it would take most of us, presumably, to throw together a PB & J sandwich.  Oh, and of course, the Last Supper.

I could go on and on, but I will leave it to you all to supply further examples: because I have to go make lunch for my kids.  Incidentally, isn’t it nice that we can read all about these feasts, in graphic sensual detail, without ever feeling one bit guilty for our delectation?  Nothing about food needs to be left untranslated, by even the most dusty and pedantic classicist.

A bit of a rant.

I’m not sure what is more interesting, historical events or people’s reactions to them.  Since I am hopelessly addicted to observing human nature, I regularly subject myself to the teeth-grinding torment of reading the “comments” section on Yahoo News reports.  I am regularly enthralled by the vitriolic misspelled arguments, in a train-wreck sort of way.  ”You are such a moran” – “modern pop singers are imoral and aliterate” – that sort of thing.  Fortunately, I know enough about history to realize that this is not a New Low. We’ve always been idiots; the internet just allows us to flaunt our idiocy.

This drive for justification – by whatever misspelled means necessary – is possibly something new, however.  I keep seeing reports on the narcissism of contemporary culture, and I am inclined to agree.  Modernism introduced heightened self-consciousness (calling oneself “Modern” with a capital “M” and discussing what this means is pretty self-conscious) which is reflected in the huge advances made in psychology during that period, as well as in the development of such trends as the internal monologue in literature.  T.S. Eliot’s “anxiety of influence” is a symptom of a painful consciousness of self as the weary tail-end of history. The modernist Self is aware of immersion in as well as disintegration from the world and time.

The post-modern narcissistic self doesn’t seem to have any anxiety of influence – no worry about “how am I going to write a good poem, in light of Homer and Dante and Milton and Keats and Eliot?”  If the narcissistic self takes the time to write a poem (which it probably won’t) it’s enough that it be MY POEM.    Should anyone attempt to criticize the poem (dude, mixed metaphor!  what’s up with the scansion?) the narcissistic self will be ready with a defense.

Unfortunately I see this in some of my classes. Many students are ready to accuse those vague “others” out in the world of ignorance, selfishness, materialism, “aliteracy” and “imorality” – but it does not seem to occur to many of them to be embarrassed that they have not read the Bible or Augustine or even C.S. Lewis.  They are not ashamed of their misspellings; they just want to know what they can do to get an “A” because it’s “very important” to them.  What mystifies me with this class of student, particularly, is a constant clamoring about their own orthodoxy, when they have not bothered to find out what the Church actually teaches on a single issue. If they know that Catholicism says abortion is wrong, it’s probably because they heard it from a cutesy pop speaker.  (N.B. Certainly not all students are like this.  I have had the pleasure of teaching many bright, independent, impressively well-read kids who have humbled me with their wisdom and abilities, and who are a LOT less insufferable than I was at their age).

And that sort of smug ignorance is not exclusive to conservative religious circles.   I see it also in leftists who are eager to accuse Republicans of being “morans.”  Why can’t any of these folks just be refreshingly honest and say “look I’m a dumbass, and I like being a dumbass, so shut up and let me eat my cheetos”? They want to have their cheetos and their “A” grade, too.

When I read about the death of Osama bin Laden, my first reaction was “I’ve got to see what people are saying about this.”  This was followed by a series of other reactions including “finally” and “if it’s not all a conspiracy” and “may God have mercy on his soul” and “actually this isn’t going to make much material difference in the War on Terror” and “I suppose in fact this is going to make the volatility even worse.”

Reactions I expected included: “we should never rejoice over the death of any person” and “may his soul rot in hell” and “this is purely symbolic” and “it all sounds a little fishy” and “yay George Bush” and “yay Barack Obama.”  When I logged onto Facebook I saw that my predictions were pretty accurate.

What did surprise me just a wee bit was the number of people who posted on the theme of the first sentiment. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people, whether Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Independent, whether Christian or otherwise, expressed sentiments of humanity and decency.  Needless to say none of these folks were writing that bin Laden was actually an all-right dude who didn’t have it coming.  What they pinpointed was the right relation between an emotion and its object.  What are we cheering for? We should be cheering if something good has happened. But what good has actually come of bin Laden’s death? An end to terror? The soldiers being able to finally come home?  No more fear?  No more airport friskings?  The conversion of bin Laden’s soul?  Honestly, this last one is the only one we can even remotely hope for.  Maybe, in the last few seconds of the firefight, he had a chance to repent.

If you are hoping he did not, if you are hoping he is rotting in hell, well, just be aware that your hope is in no way in line with Christ’s desire for every human soul to be saved.

Granted, of course, forgiveness is not natural.  Our natural impulses as human beings drive us to want to have sex with anyone we find attractive, to eat meat when we crave it (screw fasting), and to destroy our enemies and vaunt over them like Achilles (or in this case to rouse ourselves from our stupor on the couch and vaunt because someone else has killed our enemies).

I am not sure, if I had actually lost someone close to me in terror attacks, that I would be capable of forgiveness.  I know that it is almost impossible to imagine what such bereavement would feel like, but I do know it probably would not express itself in the “America, fuck yeah!” sentiment.  People who are grieving deeply are doing so as individuals, and for individuals; they are not so susceptible to the superficial orgy of nationalistic celebration.

A number of us posted the Vatican’s official statement on the death of Osama bin Laden:

“Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions to this end.  In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.”

I posted this because I felt that it summed up eloquently what I was in a far more muddled way thinking.  The Vatican has certainly made diplomatic errors in the past, but as a two thousand year old organization it has a responsibility to think long-term, and not just to succumb to the impulses of the moment.

Not surprisingly, another “statement” quickly appeared on Facebook, in which the following claim was made about those of us who posted the Vatican statement:

“I don’t know what the posters’ intent is, or what it’s meant to say, if anything, about the spontaneous celebrations that erupted in our country last night and today when Americans heard the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.  But I can say, to post the Vatican’s statement without any explanation, following these celebrations, strikes me as a shallow act of moral snobbery.  It appears–appears, if it’s not intended–to criticize these celebrations, as if rejocing about this momentous event is somehow un-Christian.”

I’m sorry.  What was vague about the Vatican’s words? What I meant to say was what the words said.  What further explanation is required?  If you are celebrating because you think innocent people will be safe in the world today, you may be politically naive, but there is nothing un-Christian about your celebration.  If you are actively rejoicing over the death of an individual as an end in itself, well, your celebration is not Christian.

Go ahead and try to say “hey, I can hate my enemies and be a Christian too” but that reminds me too much of the student who wants the A without having to work for it.

Christianity demands an awful lot of us, and I am not always equal to it.  Few of us are.  The example of Christ forgiving his enemies while he was suffering on the cross is a hard one to follow.  And I do think it would be intolerably snobbish, as well as smug, tasteless, and inconsiderate to tell anyone who had actually lost loved ones to terror attacks: “do as Christ did.” I’m not holy enough to get away with that.

But for those who have not directly suffered, I have to ask. What are you celebrating?  An end to terror?  Someone brought up the image of the Hydra; cut off one head and two more grow in its place.  I don’t think this is going to end the war on terror.  The fact that bin Laden himself can no longer personally cause any more violence? The man was sick anyway, probably dying.  The fact that justice has been done?  It is my belief that only God can enact true justice, because only God knows the actual condition of any soul; only God truly knows what each one of us deserves.  The fact that the job is done? I think those who had the job to carry out do have a right to feel relief at having finished it, but I hope that their celebration is as thoughtful and sober as the situation demands.  Killing someone is a serious business.

I suppose there is something snobbish about posting the Vatican statement, something snobbish about Christianity commanding us to transcend our natural impulses.  A lot less snobbish to just run with the mob, enjoy mass instincts, not try to be better people. Just as good spelling and decent hygiene are also sort of snobbish.  But considering the fact that plenty of non-Christians have the ethical sensibilities to transcend emotional contagion, it’s not THAT snobbish. It’s not too much to ask, of most of us. Actually, it will make the world a better place.

I am curious about whether the author of the statement accusing me of snobbishness would be logically consistent enough to say that it is equally snobbish to quote the Vatican’s statements on contraception to a poor, struggling young couple barely getting by feeding their children…or to quote the Vatican’s statements on homosexuality to two mature, responsible individuals who want to spend their life together.

To quote Bloom County (is that snobbish?): “sneaky inconsistency keeps me awake at night.”

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A Fish with a Cigar

Apparently men have become less manly, and it is All My Fault.

I’ve been reading reviews of a book that seems to be getting glowing reports at the moment – Manning Up: How the Rise of Women has Turned Men into Boys.  I really need to get a hold of a copy (cheap) so I can see the argument in the author’s own words (though plenty of reviewers are happy to tell me her argument in their own words) before I can say anything really conclusive about the book. Because heaven preserve me from becoming one of those people who blithely trashes texts unread, for instance: “I’ve never read Derrida, but I don’t have to, to know he’s nuts.”  Academic gnosis! Must be nice.

It was the title that caught my attention - the moment I saw it little red flags started going up in my head. Because I’ve heard that tune before, you know: chivalry is dead, and it’s because of all of us those howling man-hating feminists who beat men over the head with a copy of The Feminine Mystique, every time they try to open a door for us.  

I can’t begin to count the many times this archetypal scenario has been referenced (in classroom discussions, in internet discussions, in regular life discussions) but I have never seen it happen – and don’t know a single man to whom it has ever actually happened. It’s not that I doubt that it happens; I just don’t think it’s the norm any more than I think pacifists spitting on veterans is the norm.

It came up in an online discussion today.  So I got to thinking about doors, and also about history, chivalry, tradition, men, women, etc.

Doors

Courtesy dictates (to me) that if I go through a door and someone else is behind me, I automatically hold it for them. I don’t step aside and hold it for them obsequiously; I just hold it until they get there.  Exceptions to this include: people carrying heavy stuff, pregnant women, people with small children, old people with walkers, anyone pushing a cart or a stroller…for them I will stand aside.

An exception in the opposite direction: I might be tempted to let the door slam in the face of someone with a swastika tattoo.  Maybe.

If a man stands aside and holds a door for me obsequiously, I actually don’t like it much. It strikes me as unnecessary (unless I am, at that moment, in one of the “exceptions” categories).  I feel like I have to trot faster to get to the door, so he isn’t stuck holding it for a silly amount of time, letting the cold air in, running up the utility bill.  However, in the interest of courtesy, I will smile and thank him.

If someone lets a door slam in my face, I like it even less.  I once had the dubious pleasure of working in a country club, and witnessed a man “chivalrously” escorting his wife through the door to the ballroom – and then let the door swing shut bang in the face of a waitress carrying a huge tray stacked with entrees.

I was thinking about the rule that applies for old people. Hold doors for them, offer up subway seats for them, etc.   But what if the old person doesn’t think he’s old? What if he takes umbrage? I can see that happening about as frequently as I can see the feminist-door-holding scenario happening.  I don’t think either the feminist or the not-so-old old person should whinge about having a door held. Yes, we want to beat away at the fortresses of bigotry. But rudeness is not the way to go about it.

Chivalry

Chivalry has nothing to do with opening doors.  The word derives from the French “chavalier,” meaning “knight,” or, literally, horseman. So being chivalric in the strict linguistic sense means being good on a horse.

Historically, however, chivalry was a socio-political-military code according to which a knight (a horse-owner) would swear fealty to a feudal overlord, practice various arts of war, and maintain the correct standards of etiquette and heraldry.  Etiquette certainly would have involved correct behavior towards ladies, but, by ladies, we mean…ladies. In the strict aristocratic sense.  Keep in mind that in the days of chivalry, class was a fairly rigid structure – not like today, when you can have “class” in one sense if you have good manners, or are considered “upper class” in another sense if you make millions a year, no matter how.  Donald Trump and Snooki are upper class – you can tell, just by looking at them.

The country club bumpkin who slammed the door in the face of a waitress was acting quite traditionally: too busy attending to a LADY, to waste time cosseting the help.  Of course, we have a literary instance of a knight being kind to the help – Sir Lancelot befriending Gareth, when the latter was disguised as a kitchen boy, and mocked and shunned by everyone else at Camelot.

However, Sir Lancelot also bedded the wife of his friend and overlord. Not very chivalrous, hm?  But wait!  Medieval literature romanticized the chivalric tradition  - thus our notion of the “parfit knight.”  Part of this romanticized ideal included Courtly Love which HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MARRIAGE.  As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, a it was “love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love.” Because, ideally, the knight should be in love with a woman who is totally unattainable – he should desire her ardently, and sublimate his eros into a poeticized, spiritualized affection that would find expression in poetry, song, and ritualized activities.

Sometimes men would pretend to fall in love with married women, because it was fashionable – or because Hopeless Love is a good muse.  Sometimes though they really would fall in love – and if the woman in question happened to be in an arranged marriage with a man many years older, and not particularly interesting or attractive, she might reciprocate.  Sometimes the adulterous passions would remain on a stylized, ritual level – but sometimes it was bodily and real – as in the case of Lancelot, or Tristram, those two heroes of courtly literature.

So yes, chivalry is dead.  But ladies, are you sure you really want to mourn its passing?  Unless you have a hankering to be married off to a 60-year-old baron so that a dulcet knight can woo you with sweet canzones, until finally, overwhelmed with ardor, you flutter like a dove into his trembling arms, and then your husband pops in and whacks off your heads with a mighty sword.

Courtesy

I think what we really want is courtesy – which is not just a matter of how a man treats a woman; it’s a matter of treating every individual with respect.  Courtesy means holding a door for someone not because you think an imaginary outmoded social norm is necessary for the common good, but because of that person’s dignity – it also means not snapping at a person who has held a door for you, even if you find it annoying.  Courtesy means stopping and considering that person as an individual, and thinking: what are her preferences? What would make him happy? If you think a woman would rather not have a door held for her, it is not courteous for you to hold it.

Of course, this means taking a little time, and going beyond mere rules of etiquette to a consideration of what mindset lies behind “good manners.”  It can be tempting to flaunt one’s manners as a sign of social superiority.  I know how to set a table for a seven-course meal. I would never wear white shoes after Labor Day (unless they happened to be winter white).  I never clap between movements of a symphony or concerto. There is a special place in hell reserved for people like me.

If manners are going to transcend snobbery, that means we have to think of people as individuals – not as types.  Bloody exhausting.  But honestly, if a man is thinking “Ha! I held that door for that feminazi dyke and there was nothing she could do about it” – that man is no gentleman.  John Cardinal Newman wrote that a true gentleman is one who “never willingly causes pain.”  Manners should not make people uncomfortable.

Men and Women

Here’s what I don’t get: are we sitting on some cosmic see-saw, men on one side, women on another, and every time one side goes up the other has to go down?  Are women supposed to crawl back into their corners and let men go back to whatever they were doing before? I respect men too much to believe that they are utterly emasculated by the mere sight of educated, competent, independent women.  Maybe it’s the guys I hang out with, but I haven’t noticed any marked diminution of assertiveness or confidence or competence in males in proportion to the relative capability of the females around them.  A man  who, in order to feel truly manly, needs a woman to get all swoony every time she sees a mouse or hears a clap of thunder, has got problems of his own he needs to deal with.

The feminist movement is full of man-haters, I have heard. But, first of all, there is no one “feminist movement” since feminism comes in many forms. Some women hate men, and I am sure some of those women are feminists. Likewise some men hate women. It’s all a bit ugly out there, but hate is nothing new.

Secondly, I have nowhere in my reading of feminist literature met any male-bashing quite on the par of the female-bashing with which we are expected to be comfortable in the classics.  See Aristotle: “woman is a misbegotten male.” Apparently, according to The Philosopher, nature slips up pretty often and brings about this deformed creature who, lo and behold, is capable, when joined with a man, of reproduction. If nature hadn’t slipped up there would have been one single resplendent moment of All Men – and the humanity would have ceased forever.

How is the idea that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” more derogatory and sexist than Kipling’s statement that  ”a woman is just a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke”?  Does the fact that it is intended as a witticism somehow make it okay?

What I dislike about both those statements – the one angry, the other flippant – is their reduction of individuals to types.   It is true that a woman does not need “a man,” but sometimes she is more fulfilled with one unique particular man.  And a woman is never just “a woman.” None of us are ever “just a” anything, even if rampant ideology and anger and fear sometimes make us act as though we are.

This fish doesn’t need a bicycle, but sure would enjoy a good smoke.

The Gastronomy of Religion

I would be planting potatoes today – it’s a Good Friday tradition – but the ground is too damned wet. So much for symbolism.  They would have been Adirondack Red potatoes, too – pinkish on the inside, a little like bleeding flesh; down into the dark they would have gone, with a promise of resurrection tenfold.

Of course, given that Easter is a movable feast, there is no strict meteorological or astronomical reason WHY potatoes should be planted on Good Friday; it’s pure ritual. The gardener’s year is as full of rituals as is the Church year.

Since I am a Catholic with a Jewish heritage, I am fairly comfortable with ritual – at least, as long as it involves food, and doesn’t take too long.  Lengthy chants don’t do it for me, outside of church, maybe because we were never a particularly musical family, maybe because of some dour grim Nordic tendencies coming down from the Bratten side of the family…Vikings, apparently, who sacked Britain and may have had something to do with the great white chalk horse on the hillside in Bratton, England (inspiration for Chesterton’s “Ballad of the White Horse”) then went over and persecuted the Irish for a while and finally came and settled in the US in the 17th century.  My father persists in thinking our family was originally Irish, but this is pure fantasy. Singing dancing ritualistic jolly people they do not appear to have been.  I imagine they were eating roast pig and in big ascendancy mansions, not planting taters on Good Friday.

Mum tried for years to get us to insinuate into our year traditions like the Advent “O Antiphons,” but we retaliated by stealing and hiding them.  If the Antiphons had been accompanied by some specific holiday fare, though, we might have found them more palatable.

What I do like about ritual, though, is the way in which it suppresses the instinct for self-aggrandizement that creeps into religious observance when everyone is given free rein to have his or her say. Usually I am all about freedom of expression, but when a worship service turns into a chance for the most long-winded to show off how eloquently they can pray, I appreciate the finitude of set ritual. Unlike free-wheeling spontaneous prayer, every ritual is guaranteed to have, eventually, a blessed end.  And often it ends with a meal.

Fish on fridays…Guinness and corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day…fried doughnuts on St. Joseph’s Day…Hamantaschen on Purim…the Seder Plate and matzoh-ball soup on Passover…lamb and challah on Easter (and all the chocolates and beer and wine one had foregone, theoretically, for forty days)…rare steak and sangria on the feast of Corpus Christi…latkes on Chanukah…ham on Christmas Eve…etc etc etc.  Did I mention the wine? Correct observance of the Seder requires the consumption of four glasses of wine.  No specification on how large these glasses should be.

The religious year is one long smorgasbord of interesting confections, sweets and savories, all for the greater glory of God.  The only respect in which I have trouble keeping ritual is that I am always wanting to experiment with the culinary possibilities inherent in religious symbolism.  So with the exception of a few constants, I have a tendency to switch the meals around, every year.

This also might have to do with items that catch my eye while I shop.  Today, for instance, I noticed a Belgian-style ale called “Ovila,” which at first glance looked like “Avila” (my daughter’s name).  I read the description, and also the history of the ale, proceeds from the sales of which go to help restore the monastery of New Clairvaux.  Even though I have a sort of sneaking prejudice against the original Clairvaux, on account of St. Bernard’s persecution of my academic hero, Peter Abelard, there is something intensely comforting in the thought of monks going on with their centuries old traditions of ora et labora, tending herb gardens, poring over ancient tomes, and brewing beer.  Too bad they don’t illuminate manuscripts anymore.

There are even specific beers that were brewed heartily enough to sustain the monks through their Lenten fast.  That’s right, they lived on simply beer and water.  No wonder the Church has a mystical tradition.

I know the old Western monastic tradition was not as romantic as we might sometimes like to think – all those boys who were sent there since their fathers couldn’t think what else to do with them! – still, when you think of the Benedictine, the Chartreuse, the secret liqueurs, the astonishing ales – also the free hospitals for lepers, the doors open to pilgrims and refugees, the scholarship, the almsgiving – it certainly had its splendor.

I just went shopping for our Triduum meals, throwing economy to the wind.  For tonight I will make a small, simple broiled wild-caught salmon with sea salt, lemon, parsley and capers.  Oh, the mortification to which we subject ourselves on these penitential Fridays. I might make potato pancakes as well, with some of those bloody Adirondack Red potatoes. I hope I don’t earn myself a few extra rounds in the Gluttony circle of Purgatorio, for turning supposed fasts into surreptitious feasts.

For Saturday evening, to break our fast, I got us a simple European repast.  Federico’s – one of the few reasons not to hate living near Steubenville – was humming with shoppers.  ”Buona Pasqua!” said the jovial manager, bustling past with a shank of Prosciutto under his arm, to a bent old man in a fedora. Another man, ordering several pounds of salami at the deli, hastened to assure the woman behind the counter, “it’s not for me! I wouldn’t sin, eating meat on Friday…not even for pork!”  I proceeded to order domestic Prosciutto (half the price of the import, and almost as tasty) as well as smoked turkey, and left the deli workers uncertain as to whether I was planning to wallow hedonistically in animal flesh, even on the most penitential friday of the year. I also picked up goat cheese, Asiago, brie, dried fruit, crusty Italian bread, mixed oil-cured olives.  The Ovila monastery ale I picked up from Valley Wine Cellar, along with a bar of dark chocolate.  Brendan had already procured a bottle of Chianti, last night. No cooking at all for Saturday evening, but plenty of gastronomic satisfaction.

I got our salmon at Kroger, as well as the fixings to go along with the lamb shanks mum picked up for our Easter Sunday dinner.  I’m making Osso Bucco, but with a twist: I’m using fennel instead of celery, and adding some grilled tomatoes.  While shopping I entertained myself by looking at the items in other people’s carts: lots of fat hams, also lots of plastic containers of cupcakes with alarmingly neon frostings.  Over in the seasonal section folks were making a run on the Peeps.  Not I. I’m a food snob. We’ll all be gorging on dark chocolate and European cheeses, but I don’t grudge others their chemical-laden artificially colored marshmallow treats, as long as no one force feeds them to me.

Here’s the recipe I’m using for Osso Bucco:

4-6 Lamb shanks       1/4 c flour      salt and pepper          2 Tbsp butter       2 Tbsp olive oil

5 shallots, diced        2 carrots, chopped      1 bulb fennel, sliced      2 bay leaves

2 c broth or stock     1/2 c red wine      2 tomatoes, halved

6 garlic cloves, minced    1 bunch parsley, minced      juice of 1 lemon

- Dredge shanks in flour, salt and pepper.  Brown in butter and olive oil mixture, at medium-high heat.

- Remove shanks to a plate.  Add to pan shallots, carrots, fennel and bay leaves.  Saute until soft.

- Turn heat to high and deglaze pan with red wine.

- Return shanks to pan, add broth.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low, simmer 1 1/2 hours.

- Brush tomatoes with olive oil and place on grill or under broiler.

- Add grilled tomatoes to pan.

-Add mixture of minced garlic, lemon juice and parsley to pan, reserving a little to sprinkle over dish when served.

I’m going to make some saffron risotto to serve this with, but it is also good with polenta, or with fresh parmesan croutons.

People sometimes inform me “you can’t be both Catholic and Jewish.”  Can’t I? Well, just watch me!