Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra Popoff

Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra Popoff
Yale University Press, 2019
Hardcover, 424 pages

Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman is officially released today. While I'm waiting for my copy to arrive by mail, I wanted to share a little about this outstanding biography. Alexandra Popoff has written several literary biographies and is a former Moscow journalist. In Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century she follows Grossman's life and how it was intertwined with and influenced by a large part of Soviet history. While officially a reporter in World War II, Grossman's mature writings capture two of the totalitarian nightmares of the century.

As a Jew whose mother was killed by the Nazis in his native Berdichev, Ukraine, Grossman felt the twentieth-century calamities most acutely. His mother had perished in September 1941, during one of the first massacres of Jews in the occupied Soviet territories. Her destiny became the strongest motivation force in Grossman's life. It prompted him to become an early chronicler of the Holocaust and was behind his determination to tell the whole truth about the global evil unleashed by the twentieth-century's totalitarian regimes. (page 3)

In his last and most radical anti-totalitarian novel, Everything Flows, written after the arrest of Life and Fate, he declares that "there is no end in the world for the sake of which it is permissible to sacrifice human freedom." (5)

To help in understanding Grossman's early life, Popoff describes the treatment of the Jews in Russia: pogroms, distrust, deportation. Grossman was twelve at the time of the February 1917 revolution, with promises of freedom and equality ending when Lenin seized power. As Popoff covers Grossman's life, she notes how much of his life and the experiences of his friends were used in his writings. His scientific background and job took him to various places around the Soviet Union and he was able to see firsthand some of the horror from the deliberate Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s. Members of his family were exiled or murdered, and his father lived in constant fear of arrest. Many of his early writer friends were shot as traitors to the state.

While aware of the nature of Stalin's regime throughout his life, Grossman's early works were fairly conventional even if they didn't quite fit the socialist realism (propaganda) mold that journals and censors wanted. Popoff delves into these works to find seeds for later, more confrontational writing, especially in his determination to make truthful depictions.

An endorsement from Maxim Gorky took Grossman from relative obscurity to publications clambering for his work. As Popoff details, having Gorky as a friend or an acquaintance was no guarantee of safety since there were repeated purges of those not faithful or loyal enough to the Soviet state or just simply being an inconvenience to those in power. Grossman's fame brought him close to authors who would later be suspect and/or liquidated because of relationships or publications that weren't pure enough. Some of his writings were noted for their ideological unsoundness, but he (mostly) escaped harsh treatment. His wife in the late 1930s, though, was arrested. Her eventual release was a rarity for the time.

Germany's invasion in 1941 changed Grossman's life drastically. As noted above, his mother was trapped in the former Ukraine, although Grossman would not learn of her outcome for several years. Taking a job as a war correspondent, Grossman saw firsthand the incompetence of Stalin's micromanagement and the heroism of the lowly Soviet soldier. His job also afforded him with access and information that most Soviets would never see, such as experiencing the siege of Stalingrad or the liberation of concentration camps. His reports were prominently published (after censorship, of course) and what he saw and learned provided the basis for his greatest novels.

In a book that provides exciting and moving passages, the two chapters I found the most exciting and the most moving are "The Battle of Stalingrad" and "Arithmetic of Brutality" (Chapters 8 & 9). Stalingrad provided Grossman deep insight into the Soviet (and human) psyche. Men and women fight hopeless battles, but feel more alive because of their freedom in doing so, provides some of the most stirring passages in Life and Fate. In his later writings, Grossman often focused on the ordinary...men, events, etc....for deeper looks into what it is to be human, and the siege gave him plenty of examples to use. Some of the worst aspects of the battle was the fight for recognition after it was over, ignoring the countless casualties needed to secure the victory. "Arithmetic" also looked at countless casualties, in this case those of the Jews during the war. The chapter follows Grossman during the revelations of deportations and massacres of the Jews across Soviet territory and German territory. He helped work on The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry (often shortened to The Black Book), providing a record for a worldwide audience of the special targeting of Jews during the war. While the Kremlin was uninterested in allowing such a publication, several of Grossman's articles such as "The Murder of the Jews of Berdichev" (which included his mother's death) and "The Hell of Treblinka" combined "investigative journalism, a historical and philosophical essay, and "a requiem to the victims." (173) The strain of what he saw and his work on articles to capture the atrocities took its toll on him personally, causing Grossman to have a nervous collapse. Another result is that his writing would not be the same.

Grossman saw his duty in writing as becoming a Soviet Tolstoy, recording a War and Peace for the Soviet era. Fortunately for us, this yielded Stalingrad and Life and Fate, a deliberate comparison to Tolstoy's sweep and storytelling. Unfortunately for him, his work on such an epic would show his dedication to the truth, which was at odds with Soviet politics. Popoff mines Grossman's personal journal for the circumstances and difficulties of publishing his novel For the Right Cause (the published title for Stalingrad). He constantly had to rewrite large sections while fighting to keep central storylines in the novel. Since Stalin was still alive, many hurdles and restraints surrounded publication and it was a tortuous path before the bowdlerized version was released.

One of the low points of Grossman's life was adding his name to the letter by prominent Soviet Jews denouncing the Jewish physicians who were part of the so-called "Doctors Plot" against Stalin. His character Viktor Shtrum signs a similar document in Life and Fate and it's fair to infer that the guilt of character reflects Grossman's feelings of complicity. After Stalin's death and a slight thawing of restrictions, Grossman began work on Life and Fate in order to show the dehumanization of both the Communists and Fascists against man's needs for love, compassion, and freedom. It's still a wonder that the novel was arrested instead of the author. Despite this escape, Grossman didn't have long to live. He died from stomach cancer in September 1964 with several of his works unpublished, and those that had been released mangled by censors.

Alexandra Popoff does a superb job or recounting Grossman's remarkable life, fleshing out the political and social background of his life and times in order to fully appreciate his writings. She also details how parts of his life and his experiences make into his stories. For anyone wanting more of a background on Grossman and how he fit into the "Soviet Century," start here. Very highly recommended.

Update:
For more on Grossman, see Yury Bit-Yunan and Robert Chandler's article Vasily Grossman: Myths and Counter-Myths on sorting out facts of Grossman's life from “Soviet intelligentsia folklore."

Bennington College in the 1980s (Esquire article)

"The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s' Most Decadent College" by Lili Anolik, Esquire

Fall, 1982. A new freshman class arrives at arty, louche, and expensive Bennington College. Among the druggies, rebels, heirs, and posers: future Gen X literary stars Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jonathan Lethem. What happened over the next four years would spark scandal, myth, and some of the authors' greatest novels. Return to a campus and an era like no other.

What Café du Dôme was to the Lost Generation, the dining hall at Bennington College was to Generation X—i.e., the Lost Generation Revisited. The Moveable Feast had moved ahead six decades and across the Atlantic, and while, of course, southwestern Vermont wasn’t Paris, somehow, in the early-to-mid eighties, it was, was just as sly, louche, low-down, and darkly perdu. And speaking of sly, louche, low-down, and darkly perdu, check out the habitués. Seated around the table, ready to gorge on the conversation if not the food (cocaine, the Pernod of its era, is a notorious appetite suppressant), berets swapped for sunglasses, were the neo F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Djuna Barnes: Bret Easton Ellis, future writer of American Psycho and charter member of the literary Brat Pack; Jonathan Lethem, future writer of The Fortress of Solitude and MacArthur genius; and Donna Tartt, future writer of The Secret History and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Goldfinch. All three were in the class of 1986. All three were a long way from home—Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Grenada, Mississippi, respectively. All three were, at various times, infatuated and disappointed with one another, their friendships stimulated and fueled by rivalry. And all three would mythologize Bennington—the baroque wickedness, the malignant glamour, the corruption so profound as to be exactly what is meant by the word decadence—in their fiction that, as it turns out, wasn’t quite, and thereby become myths themselves.

I'll admit I've read very little from the three listed here, familiar most with Brixton Smith (and only then when she was bass player and songwriter with The Fall). I guess there's been a mythology built up about this time at Bennington, by and due to the principles, and the article does nothing to undermine such myth-building. Lili Anolik lets the principles tell their stories, then pieces it together into chronological order. While letting the history unveil itself through the various interviews, a story of complicated relationships and compositions. The college seemed to go out of its way to make sure artistic anarchy would rule. From Jonathan Lethem:

JONATHAN LETHEM: When I got to Bennington, I had a starry-eyed feeling. People were developing in such eccentric ways, and so many professors were encouraging that so strongly—this kind of willful self-formation. It almost felt like a finishing school for people who wanted to forge an identity so that after graduation they could move to New York and knock the world dead in some artistic venue or other.

The article reads like the worst of the self-absorbed college movie genre, which may be why I enjoyed it nonetheless. I'm passing it on in case others might enjoy it, too.

Alexandra Popoff's "Five Best Books on Russia and the Soviet Union"

In the Books section of each weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal is a list of "five best books" on a particular topic. I've found some good leads on books I'd like to read every now and then from this feature.

This past weekend edition had a list from Alexandra Popoff, former Moscow journalist and author of Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century (which I just started and is great...more to come on it) on books about Russia and the Soviet Union. It's quite the task to narrow down such a list to just five. The list can be found here, but since it's behind the WSJ paywall I'll list the books here in case you're interested in adding more books to your To Be Read pile. Notes on the books are mine, while direct quotes are from the article.

Red Famine by Anne Applebaum (2017)
Having read this, Gulag, and Iron Curtain, I think it's apparent I like Applebaum's work. While I might favor Gulag over Red Famine, both are brutal indictments of the Soviet system. One of the strengths of Red Famine is not just laying out the deliberate effort to eliminate as many Ukrainians as possible, but in detailing the effort to cover up Stalin's policy and its rippling effects.

The Foresaken by Tim Tzouliadis (2018)
While I'm familiar with this book on Americans trapped in the Soviet Union and sent to gulags, I have not had a chance to read it yet. A "must acquire" for my TBR pile.

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev (2014)
A wild ride through Putin's Russia where nothing is...well, you can read the title. The book follows a specific story of an individual caught between competing Kremlin factions. I don't think I could wish that scenario on anyone.

A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia by Alexander N. Yakovlev, translated by Anthony Austin (2002)
What Yakovlev has been through and the access he's had to classified Soviet documents, you can bet this book is a strong "testimony against the regime he devotedly served."

An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler (2013)
Grossman deserves to be included, but which work? Life and Fate is one of my favorite novels. These notes on his Armenian travels, right after Life and Fate was seized by the KGB, provide an uncensored view of unofficial Soviet policy in action.

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Again, how can you narrow this to just five? It's an impossible task to please everyone with such a short list. And while I might want to see Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, Platonov, Babel, or the Mandelstams (among others) on the list, I don't think any of their works are going to be read less because of exclusion. Since I currently have a few books I'm reading or lined up related to the topic, I'll make a note of them.

I mentioned Popoff's excellent book on Grossman, which I hope to focus more on soon. It's a history on more than just the writer. Then there's Grossman's Stalingrad which is coming out next month. Needless to say I'm excited to see that being released.

I'll mention Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina, translated by Lisa C. Hayden. Set in the early 1930s, this recent novel follows a Tartar kulak woman exiled to Siberia. I hope to comment on this soon, especially since Lisa seems to shy away from much self-promotion on her wonderful Lizok's Bookshelf blog.

And a book I'll be getting later this week, Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity by Vladimir Bukovsky, covers Western dupes carrying out Soviet policy (only 700 pages?). From Anne Applebaum's blurb: "Judgment in Moscow provides the written Nuremberg trial the Soviets never got when the USSR fell."

The Voynich Manuscript, deciphered? (see update for more doubt)

Picture source from Old Maps, Expeditions, and Explorations blog
(See the link for more background on the manuscript from Gordon Rugg)
The Voynich manuscript has been in the news off and on over the past few years. From Wikipedia:

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and it may have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-Samogitian book dealer who purchased it in 1912.

Yale University Press released a beautiful facsimile edition in 2016. If you get a chance to look through the book, please do. It's a thing of beauty, and the accompanying essays go into detail about what was known about the manuscript at the time.

There have been recent claims on deciphering the manuscript, one here declaring it a guide to woman's health, but most claims have been debunked or withdrawn. Now comes the article The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, providing a detailed explanation of the language and writing system used in the manuscript and details of the story. From the article:

It was written by an entirely unknown and ordinary figure from the past, and without any deliberate code but a language and writing system that were in normal and everyday use for their time and place, yet the linguistic and historic information it holds are of unparalleled importance. So it turns out that the manuscript is remarkable after all, but in academic ways rather than sensationalistic and fantastical ways.

Translations reveal that the manuscript is a compendium of information on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing and astrological readings concerning matters of the female mind, of the body, of reproduction, of parenting and of the heart in accordance with the Catholic and Roman pagan religious beliefs of Mediterranean Europeans during the late Medieval period (Cheshire, G. 2017. “Linguistic Missing Links.", Cheshire, G. 2017b. “Linguistically Dating and Locating Manuscript MS408.”). More specifically, the manuscript was compiled by a Dominican nun as a source of reference for the female royal court to which her monastery was affiliated.

Within the manuscript there is a foldout pictorial map that provides the necessary information to date and locate the origin of the manuscript. It tells the adventurous, and rather inspiring, story of a rescue mission, by ship, to save the victims of a volcanic eruption in the Tyrrhenian Sea that began on the evening of the 4 February 1444 (Wilson, J. 1810. A History of Mountains: Geographical and Mineralogical. Vol. III. London: Riddell of London.; Ward, P. 1974. The Aeolian Islands. Cambridge: Oleander Press.).

The manuscript originates from Castello Aragonese, an island castle and citadel off Ischia, and was compiled for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, (1401–58) who led the rescue mission as regent during the absence of her husband, King Alfonso V of Aragon (1396–1458) who was otherwise occupied, having only recently conquered and then taken control of Naples in February 1443. Incidentally, Maria was great-aunt to Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), first wife of King Henry VIII (1491–1547) and mother of Queen Mary Tudor (1516–58).

The island of Ischia is historically famous for its hot volcanic spas, which exist to this day. The manuscript has many images of naked women bathing in them, both recreationally and therapeutically. There are also images of Queen Maria and her court conducting trade negotiations whilst bathing. Clearly the spa lifestyle was highly regarded as a form of physical cleansing and spiritual communion, as well as a general means of relaxation and leisure.

The article contains a lot of detail on the language and writing system used in the manuscript, which helps explain why earlier attempts to decipher it ran into problems. The article contains many illustrations from the manuscript and an explanation of their meaning or significance.

The last part of the article discusses a memoir "written by Loise De Rosa (1385–1475), who lived and worked in the court of Naples. It is titled De Regno di Napoli (The Kingdom of Naples)," written in a similar style and using similar letterforms, and helps explain why the Voynich manuscript "is so dominated by female issues, activities and adventures and why so few images of men appear." As with quite a bit of literature, sexual frustration comes into play.

Even if the Voynich manuscript doesn't fascinate you, I highly recommend the article for the "detective" aspect of deciphering a text that has baffled experts for years.

Article citation: Gerard Cheshire (2019) The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, Romance Studies, DOI: 10.1080/02639904.2019.1599566.

Update (2019 May 16): OK, maybe not. See this article at Ars Technica for some skeptical responses (to put it nicely) to Cheshire's claim.

The horrible washing sawing of Big Sur

Big Sur, California
Highway 1, just north of Garrapata Creek Bridge: 12 January 2019

So that when later I heard people say “Oh Big Sur must be beautiful!” I gulp to wonder why it has the reputation of being beautiful above and beyond its fearfulness, its Blakean groaning roughrock Creation throes, those vistas when you drive the coast highway on a sunny day opening up the eye for miles of horrible washing sawing.
Jack Kerouac—Big Sur (1962)

Big Sur is one of my favorite getaways. I got the chance for a solo trip last weekend and the toll taken by the elements on the area over the past couple of years limited what I had hoped to do. I drove down early Saturday morning before the crowds of tourists wind their way down Highway 1 and was able to hike some of the few open trails in the area. Many were closed from a combination of the Soberanes Fire of a couple of years ago and rain from last spring and this winter, a combination of a timeless, elemental flux.

Since so many of the trails and beaches I wanted to visit were closed, I decided to stop at a pullout in Garrapatas State Park and walk out to one of the vista points. I noticed on the way south earlier that morning that the state had improved many of the coastal access points and I wanted to take advantage of the development. As I walked across the highway and down the narrow trail toward the cliffs, a guy came running up to me and said, "My friend has just fallen. If you see anything in the water, please let us know." I didn't have time to respond before he was off, so I continued heading out toward the coast. The surf is captured in the above video, 12-15 foot waves with an occasional 20-footer. While there (for about 45 minutes), many rangers, firemen, lifeguards, and other rescue people showed up on the scene and positioned themselves to locate the fallen friend. Seeing the personnel go through the rescue drills was just as dispiriting as the individual event, realizing they had done this dozens of times before and had a protocol they instinctively followed in order to spot a body in the water. There are many articles online about the event, but I'll just link this one.

There are a few literary works that capture the area for me, my favorite being some of Robinson Jeffers' poems. Last week's encounter, however, reminded me more of Jack Kerouac in Big Sur. I've never really connected with Kerouac, but if I had to pick one work I liked the best it would be this short novel. If you haven't read it, Big Sur follows Kerouac a few years after On the Road had been published (and fourteen years after the events in the book) as he's trying to handle the fame of his book as well as his inability to control himself, especially with alcohol. Kerouac's mental deterioration coincides with his visits to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's cabin in Big Sur. His isolation, exacerbated by the insignificance he feels in comparison to nature's power brings on a mental and physical breakdown. The poem he wrote while in Big Sur, "Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur," does little for me except for the parts echoing the parts of the novel comparing man's transience to nature's permanence, part of the many tensions in the book such as image vs. reality and beauty vs. hazard.

There are parts of the novel that I have recalled when visiting the area, though, and last Saturday was one of those moments. The simultaneously exhibited beauty and fearfulness of the area had never been on clearer display.

View north of Big Sur coastline, 12 January 2019
Just south of Bixby Creek Bridge

The Disappearance of Émile Zola: Love, Literature, and the Dreyfus Case by Michael Rosen

The Disappearance of Émile Zola: Love, Literature, and the Dreyfus Case by Michael Rosen
Pegasus Books, 2017

I have to admit I've never really connected with Zola's books. I find things I appreciate and like in his writing, but its more in fits and starts than for a sustained reading. What interested me in this book was Jean Barois by Roger Martin du Gard, which included a cameo by Zola during one of the trials in the Dreyfus affair, and my interest in following up on what happened after Zola's libel trial.

A little background if you aren't familiar with Zola's famous 'J'Accuse' letter printed in the Parisian daily L’Aurore on January 13, 1898: 
French Captain Alfred Dreyfus had been accused of passing French military secrets to the German embassy. Based on documents believed to be forged, Dreyfus was convicted of treason. The case received heightened public scrutiny as Zola and others were convinced the French army was trying to cover for the real guilty party(s) and also because of antisemitism (Drefus was Jewish). Zola's letter was addressed to the French president, laying out his beliefs that deceit, forgery, incompetence, antisemitism, villainy, and "the defeat of justice and plain truth" in the case resulted in a guilty verdict. Zola highlights that his letter exposed himself to a libel charge, hoping that such a trial would allow new evidence in the Dreyfus case to exonerate not just himself but Dreyfus, too. During Zola's trial, Dreyfus' case was not reviewed and the author was found guilty of libel. About to be fined and sentenced to a year in prison, Zola fled to England.

Rosen's book follows the author's flight across the channel and his time in England (February 1898 to summer 1899), when he was able to return to France after Dreyfus' verdict was overturned and Zola's follow-up trial was postponed. It's a lively story at first, as Zola arrives in London without any luggage not able to speak English, having to pantomime any request. Just four years earlier he had been the focus of adulatory receptions in London's literary circles, but now he was a fugitive intent on hiding his identity. Eventually he settles in a Norwood hotel suite for most of his stay in England.

Making matters even more complicated was Zola's thorny personal life. His wife Alexandrine and his mistress Jeanne Rozerot (and her two children with Zola) came to visit the author in England at different times, reflecting a similar arrangement the trio had arrived at in France so Zola could share time with both women. While in England, Zola maintained his writing habits and was able to begin a new series of novels (Les Quatre Évangile), as well as other short works. 

Rosen reconstructs what happened through Zola's fastidious letter writing to Alexandrine and Jeanne, the memoirs of his daughter Denise, and a book written by Zola's English translator and publisher Ernest Vizetelly. The account can become monotonous at times, resulting from Zola's tendency for a structured, repetitive routine.  Other times, though, his fugitive life provides something out of a spy thriller (although not nearly at the same level). His flight to England generated many newspaper articles in Paris as the press published articles claiming he was in Switzerland or Norway before finally confirming he was only across the channel. His political maneuvering earned him reticent friends in socialist circles, but they were instrumental in Dreyfus' eventual pardon Dreyfus. Rosen sums up the contradictions Zola had to deal with upon his return to France, in that

throughout the period of the Dreyfus case, his exile and the last months of his life was that the France he wanted (republican, humanist, secular, democratic and evolving toward socialism) was not the France he had written about in 'J'Accuse', faced in his own trials, or fulminated against in his most miserable moments in exile. So when, in his literary mind, he placed France at the head of a movement to humanise the world, this was a France that he knew didn't exist yet. What's more, by identifying imperialism as an evil that other powers were guilty of, he had either to efface the imperialism of France itself or claim that whatever France did, could do or should do outside of its own borders was as a humane, civilising force. (page 231, hardcover)

The upper echelons of the French military never forgave Zola for his role in publishing their conspiracies regarding the Dreyfus case. Zola's stay in England proved to be a great strain, something he never seemed to fully recover from. The antisemitism he fought against ended up making him a target of the same hatred and prejudice. Three years after returning to France, Zola and his wife died from carbon monoxide poisoning related to a stuck chimney flue, with rumors of murder never confirmed.

Rosen has produced a mostly lively account, where the severe turbulence of this period of Zola's life clashes with his desire for spending time with his family. *ahem* Families. At times the recounting of the author's routine and his concerns became repetitive (because Zola repeated them often) , but overall it's an solid documentation of the author's place and standing in the Dreyfus case while examining Zola's life in general and this period in particular.

Also included in the book is a postscript that highlights the BBC Radio 3 program "Zola in Norwood", covering parts of this story in an interview with Madame Martine Le Blond-Zola, Émile's great-granddaughter. Also included is "Angeline," a short story by Zola, inspired in part by some of the English countryside the author visited. 

The Avignon Papacy Contested by Unn Falkeid

The Avignon Papacy Contested: An Intellectual History from Dante to Catherine of Siena by Unn Falkeid
Harvard University Press, 2017
Series: I Tatti Studies in Itallian Renaissance History

The aim of this book has been to explore some of the most significant critics of the Avignon papacy, critics who in many ways came to prepare the ground for the harsh disputes in the coming two centuries in Europe. The critics have been selected because of the strength and originality of their arguments, their authorial voices in the contemporary debates, and the general impact of their work on later generations. ... Despite their striking dissimilarities—an expelled Florentine poet [Dante Alighieri], a physician trained at the University of Padua and later a rector at the University of Paris [Marsilius of Padua], a Franciscan friar and theologian from England [William of Ockham], a humanist at the papal court in Avignon [Francis Petrarch], a princess from Sweden [Birgitta of Sweden], and an uneducated young woman from the Sienese popolo grasso [Catherine of Siena]—these thinkers shared a series of factors. Primarily, their works were produced during the era of the Avignon papacy, which they all profoundly despised. ... [E]ach of them challenged in specific ways papal power and the papacy's stay in souther France, and they all played key roles in contemporary public debates. Moreover, a network of people and events links them together, and some of them probably even met each other in person as well. Finally, together they offer us a rich and detailed glimpse of the bitter and multifaceted conflicts over the legitimacy of the Avignon papacy from 1309, when the pope settled in Provence, to Pope Gregory XI's final return to Rome in 1377. (176-7)

I remember my interest in the 14th century began when I read Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror in high school. I knew I didn't understand everything going on, but the turbulence she described was fascinating to me. Plus it was the first time I heard or read about the Avignon papacy. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict this book won't be on too many holiday wish lists or "best of" lists, but it's one of my favorites of the year. Unn Falkeid has produced an overview of leading literary criticism of the papal move to Avignon in the 14th century as well as providing detail on how some of the critics' works addressed the problems they saw. There is a wealth of scholarship in this book, but Falkeid's "hope is that this book will spur on further interest. There is still much to explore...". (177) I'm in full agreement since there's quite a bit more I want to delve into after reading her book.

So what were these writers contesting? One area they focused on would be the struggle for power, both within the Catholic Church and between the church and states. Before the move to Avignon, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Clericus lacios bull in 1296, stating jurisdiction over clerics and their property was not subject to lay powers. Boniface later issued the bull Unam Sanctam in 1302, firmly asserting the pontiff's power over secular rulers. The pope, in other words, had full power on earth for spiritual and temporal matters. Even though this bull was later annulled by Boniface's (short-term) successor, the marker had been laid for the desired power of the papacy.

Pope Clement V moved the papacy and supporting cast to Avignon in 1305, where he and the next six popes resided until Pope Gregory XI moved the papal court back to Rome in 1377. Several of contesting writers saw Rome as the proper center for the church, but things didn't necessarily work out well on that front. Despite the return to Rome, the papacy was not fully embraced or welcomed. Political and religious turbulence flourished as religious schisms were on the horizon. Falkeid asserts in the introduction that she doesn't intend to give a detailed account, historical or otherwise, of the Avignon papal era. Instead she explores how writers of the time responded to the "Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy" and their political and religious implications.

The move from politically unstable Rome (and "Italy") to the more peaceful and pliant location of Avignon in southern France provided an opportunity for the papacy to bolster its power and wealth. Soon after Pope Clement V moved the religious court to this crossroad of trade and religious travel, Italian companies established trade/bank divisions located there, clearly following the money and power. They recognized what others would eventually see as the papal court bolstered their power and wealth in three main ways. First was the nomination of benefices, or appointing clergy to ecclesiastical offices. This move made priests, cardinals, etc. more indebted to the papacy. Second, Pope John XXII (1316 - 1334) began a system of papal taxes that created "an intricate, specialized fiscal system, which, together with the spoils from the newly banned Templars, rapidly developed the papal curia into a court that outshone all the secular courts in Europe in power and wealth." (21) Third was the growing power of the papal seat itself as it adopted a monarchical structure. This consolidated power and money insulated the pope not just from state leaders but also from high-ranking religious leaders attempting to challenge his power. Even with this consolidation of power and the resulting economic growth, the papacy would still have to navigate the tense political situation in Europe. It was the excessive claims of ecclesiastical power that led to much of these writers' criticisms.

Each chapter of the book provides a case study showing how the six figures tried to cope with the precarious situation that the Avignon papacy had created. Dante, Marsilius, Ockham, Petrarch, Birgitta, and Catherine did not only come to have a decisive influence on the political events of their time; as well as being significant political agents, their literary works dominated the agenda of the contemporary political and intellectual debates, with far-reaching effects for the political discourses of early modern Europe. (6)

Falkeid goes into some detail for these authors' criticisms and their suggested solutions. My brief notes here will cover only a few highlights of what she presents in the book. Dante, in Paradiso VI and Monarchia reveals how enamored he was with the Roman Empire. In Paradiso VI, Dante presents emperor Justinian looking at the separation of the powers of church and state and both of their divine origins. Since man has a dual nature of "the corruptible body and the incorruptible soul," man has two realms where he needs guidance. The emperor and the pope have similar missions but in different spheres, so the papacy's infringement on secular power caused Dante to lay out his concerns in Monarchia. Marsilius of Padua's Defensor pacis (The defender of peace) agreed with Dante that the church's creeping jurisdiction into political/secular matters was something to resist. Where Dante viewed both church and empire as divine gifts, though, Marsilius viewed both institutions as human inventions. Therefore power in each was to be derived from the people. Justice in each realm would be recognized by their smooth functioning, something sorely lacking in the 14th century. William of Ockham's Breviloquium de principatu tyrannico (A short discourse of tyrannical government) focuses on divine and natural rights granted as all human beings' fundamental liberties. This work, presented in the form of court testimony, examines the limitation of human rights granted by God and nature, which existed before any papal power. Because Ockham believed the pope's actions countered many of these divine and natural liberties, the pope was committing heresies.

In the mid-14th century, the writers Falkeid highlights begin to combine their attack of the physical location of the papacy with the ecclesiastical reforms that needed to be made. Petrarch's letter to Cola di Rienzo shows the author wading into the political fray after Cola's 1347 revolution in Rome. Petrarch's letter marks a trend in viewing papal legitimacy tied to its return to Rome. Birgitta of Sweden's Liber celestis revelaciones (Celestial book of revelations) records her visions as filtered through her scribes, translators, and confessors. Birgitta weaves politics and theology together as she presents herself as a widow of Rome, offering advice on how the miserable state of the church could be improved. Catherine of Siena's letters emphasized that it wasn't enough for the papacy to return to Rome—reforms were needed, too. While working as a peacemaker between warring factions in Italy, she made it clear she believed in the separation of powers between secular and ecclesiastical rule. She pointed out that the religious rulers would benefit from reforming the church in addition to returning to Rome. Not only benefiting the church, she predicted such moves would settle the chaos she witnessed in Rome.

By involving themselves in the political and ecclesiastical questions of the day, these writers helped shape some of the political thoughts of their time. While the book isn't meant as a complete overview of the times or of each author, it can serve as a wonderful introduction that should spur further investigation into the times and writings. Very highly recommended, especially for readers with some knowledge of the period.


A few of the books referenced

• Avignon and Its Papacy (1309 - 1417): Popes, Institutions, and Society by Joëlle Rollo-Koster
• The Popes of Avignon: A Century in Exile by Edwin Mullins
• Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the Divine Comedy by Giuseppe Mazzotta
• Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge (Princeton Legacy Library) by Giuseppe Mazzotta
• Dante and the Making of a Modern Author by Albert Russell Ascoli
• Dante: A Critical Reappraisal by Unn Falkeid
• Marsilius of Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy by Alan Gewirth
• The Political Thought of William Ockham by Arthur Stephen McGrade
• Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works by Victoria Kirkham and‎ Armando Maggi
• St. Birgita of Sweden by Bridget Morris
• Catherine of Siena by Giulia Cavallini

Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee

Shakespeare in Swahililand: Adventures with the Ever-Living Poet
by Edward Wilson-Lee
William Collins; London: 2016

One of the most striking things I found as I followed Shakespeare on his travels through East African history was the fact that the works were present at every stage of life in the region during the very period when the region was struggling to free itself from colonial rule. The plays were set as compulsory reading at school, yes, but they were not dispensed with after that as nothing more than rote learning. Many—even most—of those who would go on to become post-independence political, social and cultural leaders went on to study English literature at Makerere University, where the emphasis was heavily on the reading and performance of Shakespeare's plays. And though this odd fact in itself was the result of a curious set of historical circumstances, these readers of Shakespeare did not simply shake off their reading after graduation as so much colonial propaganda. Instead, they too Shakespeare with them out into the world, and he was woven into every part of the fabric of African life, into the speeches of politicians and lawyers, but also into the folklore of rural villages. Shakespeare even followed in times of crisis, into riots and guerrilla warfare and into concentration camps. Yet any temptation to write this love of colonial masters even as they overthrew them, is quickly dispelled as the trail is followed: these are wholehearted commitments to reading Shakespeare, and ones as likely to Africanize his works as to preserve him as a pristine European fetish. (137-8; quotes are from the U.K. edition)

Edward Wilson-Lee, raised in Kenya, teaches Shakespeare at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. He ran across the fact that one of the first books printed in the Swahili language had to do with Shakespeare, "a slim volume of stories from Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, published ... on the island of Zanzibar in the 1860s." Traveling through the countries where Swahili was common (plus Ethiopia), Wilson-Lee found "a hidden history that brought both Shakespeare and the land I thought familiar into richer focus than I had ever known them." Shakespeare in Swahililand records his journey and what he unearthed in these southeastern African countries, part travelogue, part literary and theatrical development, combined with the region's history. Many colorful characters, political and theatrical, grace the pages.

Early explorers to Africa's Lakes Region made a point of noting they carried Shakespeare (and other weighty works) in their safari kitbag, not to share with the natives but rather to remain in touch with civilization. Wilson-Lee visits Zanzibar, where the volume of the Lamb's Shakespeare translation was published, only to find that most archived documents of the mission house are in various stages of disintegration. While the man responsible for the publication of the translation, Edward Steere, initially came to the area as a missionary, it seems clear that in publishing this volume, and in other of his reports, he wanted to establish a shared culture, too. Explorers and missionaries lifted Shakespeare's narratives in writing their reports and memoirs, showing how integral the poet was in their lives and, possibly, how they thought he captured aspects of civilization and savagery.

I enjoyed the tie-in between the history of a region and how it impacted the theater, such as the use of Indian workers to build the East Africa Railway, running from Mombasa at the coast to the interior lakes. The side-effect of this was a "vibrant culture of East African Shakespeare performance in the early years of the twentieth century." All play performances had to obtain a license from the colonial authorities at the East African Protectorate, and Wilson-Lee includes an appendix showing approval for eight approved plays in Mombasa that are either performances of or adaptations from Shakespeare during February and March 1915. Reports of these and other performances provide interesting detail, especially surrounding the changes to Shakespeare's plots. There was also music added, of which Wilson-Lee was able to find two gramophone recordings on shellac (crushed battle-shell). The changes to Shakespeare's texts, or maybe better described as liberties taken, demonstrate an interaction with the poet, highlighting his appeal to audiences throughout time, language, and place.

Wilson-Lee illustrates presence of Shakespeare at the stages of life in the region by showing how Shakespeare may have been present in colonial run schools, but more importantly he wasn't discarded with colonial propaganda on the countries' roads to independence. His language "was woven into every part of the fabric of African life, into the speeches of politicians and lawyers, but also into the folklore of rural villages." What the people of East Africa did was take Shakespeare's writing and make it their own. Or as Wilson-Lee puts it, "the Shakespeare made in Africa has come to replace the one that was taken there."

I think it a little dangerous to view what happened through the lens of Shakespeare, such as British explorers viewing natives through The Tempest, but Wilson-Lee makes it clear when he does something like this it's only speculation. The book is a marvelous guide to the life of Shakespeare's writings and performances in the eastern Africa region, a travelogue of the poet's influence in the area. Even though his writings are understood in differing ways, his works have been available to the residents of East Africa for a while, open to their interpretations, and made their own. East Africa has appropriated Shakespeare, just as Shakespeare did with other works. Very highly recommended.

The abrupt withdrawal of Shakespeare from the front lines of East African life [at the end of the Cold War, post-1989] gives a strong indication of the extent to which his place there was sustained by power struggles rather than by disinterested love of his works. This, like so many other aspects of the story I have been pursuing, makes clear how difficult it is even to ask questions about Shakespeare's universal appeal. The Victorians' idolization of Shakespeare meant that he would have a place at the foundations of language learning in their colonies, and would serve as a totemic standard of beauty for the peoples over whom they ruled. In this respect there was a certain inevitability to the central place that he would have in East African history—first as something kept from the natives, then a test through which they could prove their allegiance to their colonial masters, then as something they could take over and make their own, and finally as something to be cast off, as the final and most internalized form of colonial power. It is possible that something would have serve this role even had it not been Shakespeare's works. (220-1)

Additional Links:
Edward Wilson-Lee's article in Foreign Affairs—Africa's Theater of War: Shakespeare and Nation Building on the Continent

A more detailed (and much better) review by Ramnik Shah.

Edward Wilson-Lee's essay A Voice in the Desert at FSG's Work In Progress blog

"The resulting book is bursting with stories about reading in unexpected places and how it changes what we read, but at its heart is always the question of whether there is anything that is beautiful and significant to everyone—whether, in a sense, in a world deserted by shared values, there is any voice that can speak to us all."

Shakespeare in Swahililand: In Search of a Global Poet
by Edward Wilson-Lee
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; New York: 2016

Catullus' Bedspread by Daisy Dunn

Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet by Daisy Dunn
Harper, 2016
Hardcover, 336 pages

An attempt to get back in the swing of posting...

Catullus' Bedspread by Daisy Dunn, released to coincide with her translation titled The Poems of Catullus (also from Harper) looks at the life and work of the poet commonly known for bawdy writing. As Dunn demonstrates, Gaius Valerius Catullus also turned out poetry that provided reflections and insight into the tumultuous times of his age, as well as influencing the poetry of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace (and other significant poets). His mini-epic, Poem 64, which Dunn nicknames the "bedspread poem," is a stunning achievement. The poem hss a maze-like structure describing artworks within artworks, comparing the mores of his modern times unfavorably to the mythical Golden Age.

Catullus' Bedspread has two distinct but intertwined goals. The first goal attempts to provide a biography of the poet. As Dunn highlights, "There are very few surviving sources for Catullus' life. Practically everything that can be known about him must be extracted from his book of poetry." But as Catullus points out in his poems, a poet's writing doesn't necessarily reflect the author's life. Dunn acknowledges that Catullus' poetry was meant for "public consumption, and not necessarily as a faithful account" of his life. So we know we're entering dangerous ground when relying on his poems for facts about his life. So how does the biography goal work out?

I'll admit I'm extremely wary when it comes to speculative biographies, especially at moments when Dunn decisively states things Catullus did or experienced. That being said, many of Dunn's key assumptions track consistently with what I've seen presented in other recent works, although I must note my background in this area is limited. The general framework of Catullus' biography, what is generally accepted, yields only a glimpse at what must have been an interesting life. Born in approximately 82 BC, he was raised in Verona while it was part of Cisalpine Gaul (people there wouldn't be granted full Roman citizenship until 49 BC). Since his family was well to do, his father would have met with many influential people of the day as they passed through the area. Catullus moved to Rome around his 21st year. We know he worked in an administrative position for a year in Bithynia, then died in his 30th year, around 53 BC. Not much for hard facts, is it? Yet we have his poetry, which hints at a lot depth in an unsettled soul during those turbulent times.

This leads to the second goal of the book, in which the turmoil of the era in addition to his tumultuous life infuses his poetry, The literary analysis of his work by Dunn shows the influences of and experimentation within his works. Or as Dunn puts it, "Catullus provides the poetry; I offer something of the world that informed it. ... If together he and I can bridge the distance that lies between us, then even the most labyrinthine of his poems sing." On this point I think Dunn does an excellent job, putting the poems in context with what is happening in Rome and its lands at the time.

And what a time it was. The decade of Catullus' birth saw the civil war between Sulla and Marius. A decade before his birth Rome experienced the Social War, where Italian allies demanded full citizenship. In his childhood, Catullus would have heard about Sulla's dictatorship and his death, the never-ending conflict between Mithridates and Rome, and the Spartacus revolt. In his teens he would have heard about Pompey's success against sea pirates and his eventual defeat of Mithridates. His move to Rome would have been around the time of Pompey the Great's third triumph and Caesar's governorship of Further Spain. He would have seen the formation of the First Triumvirate between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus and the start of Caesar's Gallic War. Catullus lived long enough to see Cicero's exile and recall, hear about Caesar's attempts to invade Britain, and possibly even Crassus' death at the battle of Carrhae.

These were interesting times indeed, and Dunn does a great job of putting Catullus' writings in the context of these events. In addition, she also demonstrates the major influences on Catullus, especially that of Sappho and Callimachus. Catullus' poems include details on daily life with pointed political commentary. Dunn's analysis of Catullus' writing was the most lively and entertaining part of the book. The more I learned what was behind the subject...the "secrets and allusions in Catullus' Latin which take some teasing out" as Dunn puts it...the more appreciative I am of his poems.

I highly recommend the book for the spotlight Dunn focuses on Catullus' writing and the political and social dynamics of the time (and place) influencing his poetry. As I mentioned, there are some parts of the biography section that trouble me, but Dunn makes her approach clear and provides plenty of contemporary and historical notes and sources supporting her narrative. While her conjectures about his life based on his poetry and from these sources aren't flights of fancy, nevertheless it's difficult to discern just how well grounded they are, but she makes clear her assumptions and approach. Her presentation of the events and context of his writing helps alleviate some of my concerns, while her literary analysis makes me want to read Catullus' works again. Fortunately there are plenty of excerpts in the book as well as the complete Poem 64 (all her translations).

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Note: For anyone interested in the woman that inspired some of Catullus' poetry (whether praising or excoriating her), see Clodia Metelli by Marilyn Skinner. This biography of the woman that was likely "Lesbia" in Catullus' poems provides insight into the age, not just the political turmoil, but also the societal issues for a woman of her social rank. Also, I've really enjoyed the Yale University Press' Hermes Books Series, providing academic research behind the introduction to the books' topics. For a different introductory approach to Catullus, see Charles Marin's Catullus in this series.


Update (22 Aug 2018): Daisy Dunn has an article at the L.A. Review of Books: When a Love Poet Writes an Epic: Catullus’s “Poem 64”

Don Quixote's Profession by Mark Van Doren

Don Quixote’s Profession by Mark Van Doren
New York: Columbia University Press, 1958. Print.
Drawings by Joseph Low

Mark Van Doren in Quiz Show, answering a question about the meaning of Don Quixote:
"It means, if you want to be a knight, act like a knight."

My great friends do not know me.
Hamlet in the halls,
Achilles by the river
Feasting with the Duke see no one there
Like me, like Mark Van Doren, who grows daily
Older while they look not, change not,
Die not save the deaths their masters made.
- The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren (page 351)

My purpose in this case, and I did to keep it a secret from the class, was to examine the various ways in which the greatest storytellers had put divine things and human things together. The ultimate dimension, I suggested, was given to narrative by the presence in it of gods or their equivalent. In the case of Cervantes I promised that it would be difficult to say what the equivalent was, yet I supposed it was there, or else Don Quixote would not be the supreme novel it is. Reading it slowly in preparation for the course, listening to every word of it in Motteux's joyful translation, I had fallen hopelessly in love with it as I continue every year to do.
- The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren (pages 283-4)

In November 1956, Mark Van Doren gave a series of three lectures at Emory University about Don Quixote. In 1958, Columbia University Press put out this slim volume (just over 100 pages) containing those lectures. Van Doren talks about his reluctance to attempt a talk on Don Quixote since it wasn't just a subject, "It was a world." As he ends his introduction he notes, "This is not all I have to say about Don Quixote, but for me it is the central thing and I am willing to let it go at that." It is a pleasing and challenging little book that I highly recommend for anyone that has an interest in Cervantes.

Van Doren begins with a simplistic synopsis of the book (see the link below to Simon Leys article for that summary). He notes that the novel is "both simple and mysterious" and moves on to his central argument:

The sign of its simplicity is that it can be summarized in a few sentences. The sign of its mysteriousness is that it can be talked about forever. It has indeed been talked about as no other story ever was. For a strange thing happens to its readers. They do not read the same book. Or if they do, they have different theories about it. ...

He suffered from no delusion as to his identity. It was merely that he had been reading many books, and out of them he formed a conception of life as he would henceforth live it if he could. ...

It is well to observe that imitation was his aim. Not impersonation, and not deception. He knew very well who he was. The only question was whether he would be able to act the part he had chosen. (from pages 3, 4, & 5)

That is the focus of his lectures: Don Quixote was not mad—he knew exactly what he was doing when he was imitating a knight. I'm not sure I completely buy into his argument, but it is an extremely fun ride following his thoughts on the book and its central character. He begins by looking at why Don Quixote chose the role of knight. Since he was so well read, he could have imitated a scholar or a shepherd, or even a religious occupation. Van Doren believes Don Quixote chose knighthood as his role because of the learning involved in being one: "The discipline of knighthood was to him the sum of all the arts and sciences; was wisdom itself; was a liberal education." This might present a problem in looking at his role models, such as Amadis of Gaul, who was no scholar. But Amadis didn't have to talk about being a knight—he was one. Wisdom and learning play a part in imitating a knight. As Van Doren mentions later in the lectures, "To act as he [Don Quixote] acts is more than to ape; to imitate as he does is finally to understand."

Van Doren theorizes that Don Quixote "was first and last an actor, a skillful and conscious actor, who wrote his own play as he proceeded and of course kept the center of its stage." Here we run into one of the many similarities with Hamlet. Was he mad because he acted madly? Did he confuse the role he was playing with the role? Early on in the novel, after his first sally, a neighbor farmer finds and rescues Don Quixote. Upon hearing the old man calling himself the names of knightly characters, the farmer tells him that he is only the honorable gentleman Señor Quijana. "Don Quixote answers him with seven famous words. 'I know very well who I am.' This could mean, of course, that he knows he is Baldwin or Abindarez and therefore is mad. But it could also mean just what it says." Possible, but the knight then rambles on about who all he could be, too.

Van Doren mentions the troubling aspect of doing "violence to harmless creatures who get in his way," such as the poor sheep he assaults, mistaking them for armies. Or the funeral procession he disrupts, maiming one of the mourners. It's one thing to risk his own life when tilting at windmills, but something quite different "when he hurts people who in no sense deserve it. His acting now becomes extravagant with a vengeance; his role grows ruthless; he behaves more like a lunatic than like a knight; he is fanatical, as if he thought himself, like Providence, privileged to seem cruel." Van Doren points out there is a rivalry between the concept of behaving outside the law because he is just and the law itself. In order to maintain his role, Don Quixote has to behave in the former manner. And when he does make mistakes, he always blames the misinterpretation of appearances, whether through sorcerers or spells. If things had really been as he had interpreted them, his behavior and actions would have been justified. Van Doren uses this, though, to demonstrate Don Quixote wasn't mad. A madman would have continued these exploits whether or not he thought he could achieve his desires. Don Quixote continues because he believes everything is within his grasp. As he constantly puts it, his goal would have been successful in all of his failures if he had not been deceived. This delusion, then, supports his sanity.

One trait Van Doren points out that proves Don Quixote's sanity is his humor. He is able to laugh, not just at others, but at himself, too. After pointing out several examples, Van Doren states, "So much humor, so easily and so naturally expressed, is not the mark of a madman. It is not demonic humor; it is pleasantry, it is power and wisdom at play... ." Another point Van Doren highlights is that when Don Quixote is alone, which isn't often, "He is controlled and serene." Another is the understanding Don Quixote had of the part he played and his remarkable ability to play it well. If he was a poor actor, we wouldn't be talking about him. Although I have to wonder if he was a superb actor and never failed, would our take on his madness/acting change?

There's also the logic that Don Quixote uses, such as his paying penance in the mountains for Dulcinea. As he explains to Sancho, running mad without a cause shows the perfection of his undertaking. There's a certain logic in his madness, but whether it's of a sane man or a calculating madman I can't say. He understands that pretending isn't enough...as actors would say, he has to sell it. We see similar acts of madness in the novel. Carrasco fails to defeat Don Quixote when pretending to be the Knight of the Mirrors because we was a poor actor. He didn't believe what he was doing to the same extent as Don Quixote. The story of Basil winning the hand of Quiteria through his acting skills, though, demonstrates ingenuity in playing a part to earn what he wants, and Don Quixote admires him for it. As the novel progresses, the reader has to wonder which of the other characters are crazy. Characters humoring Don Quixote or trying to outwit him can seem crazier than their target.

As Van Doren concludes, it may be that Don Quixote was the "most perfect knight that ever lived; the only one, in fact, we can believe; but Cervantes never asks us to arrive at that conclusion." One of the most successful of Cervantes' achievements was to save the literature of chivalry and knight-errants by ridiculing it, a treatment that also deepens into a love for the characters he has created. In the move Quiz Show, Charles Van Doren goes to visit his father Mark Van Doren in his classroom. As Charles enters the classroom, his father is answering a question from a group of students (including Ethan Hawke, who recently wrote a book concerning knights) about what Don Quixote is about. "It means, if you want to be a knight, act like a knight," the elder Van Doren replies, and I can think of no better summary for this entertaining book. I enjoyed the confidence he has in his arguments, even when I don't fully agree with him.

I am hopeful someone is able to put these lectures back in print. (Hint hint NYRB Classics!) Very highly recommended.

Other works mentioned in this post:

• The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren by Mark Van Doren. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958. Print.
• "The Imitation of Our Lord Don Quixote" by Simon Leys. The New York Review of Books, June 11, 1998 issue
• Quiz Show. Burbank, CA: Hollywood Pictures Home Video, 1994.

Update (23 May 2016): After looking high and low for a copy of Don Quixote's Profession I could afford, I gave up and requested a copy via interlibrary loan. My post is based on the original book. I have since found out that Van Doren's The Happy Critic contains the text of Don Quixote's Profession and can be found for much cheaper prices. It does not contain Van Doren's introduction or Joseph Low's illustrations, but for the difference in price (under $10 vs. greater than $50 for DQP), I wanted to post about this avenue of availability. I hope to post on some of the other essays in The Happy Critic soon.

A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century by Benjamin Buford Williams

A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century by Benjamin Buford Williams
Associated University Presses, Inc.: Cranbury, New Jersey, 1979
ISBN: 0-8386-2054-X

This post is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ben and Marilyn Williams. I consider myself fortunate to have been friends of theirs.

This study is a biographical, bibliographical, generic, critical, and chronological survey of nineteenth-century Alabama authors. ... Creative writing in Alabama originated with the prose and verse published in local newspapers, and with the stimulus provided by the opening of the University of Alabama in 1831. ... In presenting a literary history of Alabama and bringing to light many lesser-known, but talented writers, and their works, Dr. Williams has expanded the current boundary of Souther and American literature. His contribution can only enrich America’s literary heritage. (from the book jacket)

This volume should appeal to readers interested in popular genres of the time or southern U.S. writers and personalities. The study covers some of the political history of Alabama since many of the writers were political figures, too. So are any of the works mentioned in the study worth reading? Fortunately Dr. Williams doesn’t sugarcoat the works mentioned, supplying qualifications (if necessary) for even the best works. I’ll run through some of the authors and their better works for exploring some of these genres. I’m not covering all the authors mentioned, focusing mostly on novelists, humorists, and famous figures.

Anne Royall was an author and newspaper editor on the Washington, D.C. scene, considered the first female journalist in the U.S. Her travel writings included the years she spent in Alabama. There are plenty of great anecdotes about her, including the successful trial against her for being a ‘common scold.’ While her literary talent wasn’t great, she provided some of the first widespread descriptions of the Alabama territory/state.

Next comes the intersection of the literary, political, and educational arenas of antebellum Alabama, focusing on William Russell Smith, Jeremiah Clemens, and Alexander Beaufort Meek: “These three men, Smith, Clemens, and Meek, thrown together by fate at the outset of their careers, along with their brilliant and gifted young English instructor at the University [of Alabama], Henry Washington Hilliard..., were to become dominant forces in both the political and literary arenas of antebellum Alabama.” (21) The influence of the previously mentioned opening of the University of Alabama in 1831 coincides with the time Tuscaloosa was the capital of the state (1826 - 1846). The city was considered one of a handful of cultural centers in the southwestern frontier. Mobile was another center, with both cities having many, varied publications (that usually didn’t last very long). Writing for many of these early authors was a part-time vocation:

The familiar pattern of lawyer-politician, and its variations of lawyer-editor, lawyer-historian, and editor-politician, is found in the biography of nearly every pre-Civil War writer in Alabama. It was not until the fifties that writing became, in any sense, the sole pursuit of the author. ... Professional authorship and the rise of Alabama literature were postwar developments, although the foundations for them were laid in the prewar years. (27-8)

So about some of these writers... William Russell Smith led a fascinating life, finding himself at the center of many historical events. His greatest contribution may be his history covering the speeches given during the January 1861 Alabama convention held to decide whether or not the state would succeed from the U.S. and his memoir (which paints a colorful picture of life in the early years of Alabama). Alexander Beaufort Meek was another lawyer/writer. His most famous work is Red Eagle, highlighting the significant Creek War of 1813-14 while weaving a love story with the history. Williams notes it isn’t a great American poem, rather judging some of the best poetry written in the area of the time. (Copies are easily found online) His best work may be Songs and Poems of the South, which includes better work while including “a theory of poetry based upon his earliest notions of the use of local themes and upon his later ideas of a literature distinctly Southern.” (52)

Outside of the literary periodicals, which were always failing for various reasons, the regional newspapers dominated the Alabama landscape with historical essays or humorous sketches. There were other fertile sources of literary interest, the most interesting to me was provided by Octavia Walton Le Vert and the salons she established wherever she went. She only wrote one book but her social and cultural impact spread far beyond it. Her influence covered not just Mobile and Alabama but America and Europe, too. Her travels provides a who’s who of social conquests.

Frontier humor and sketches became popular in periodicals of the time, and Alabama writers were included in those most read. John Gorman Barr provided many publicized sketches for local and national publications. Johnson Jones Hooper’s Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs, Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers was a successful collection of sketches published in many formats. It provided fictional biographical sketches of a man who believes it is best to live “as comfortably as possible at the expense of others.” (73) Hooper’s humor varies from many other examples of the time by limiting the physical violence and focusing on Suggs’ shifty wit. These were some of my favorite pieces I read from this survey.

Joseph Glover Baldwin was another frontier humorist. The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi demonstrates Baldwin’s focus on writing a "chronicle of frontier life," with legal jokes that the average reader might miss.

Baldwin is remembered today for his droll sketches and anecdotes of life in Alabama and Mississippi during the years of transition that turned uncultivated and lawless lands, recently vacated by the Choctaw Indians, into the rich and law-abiding agricultural regions of those states. (94)

Two local colorists writing in a style similar to that of “Bill Arp” and “Uncle Remus” that I recommend sampling are Idora McCullan Plowman Moore and Louise Clarke Pyrnelle. Idora Moore wrote as “Betsy Hamilton,” providing sketches of Alabama hill country and tales from plantation slaves. Louise Clarke Pyrnelle wrote similar stories but from the Alabama Black Belt, further south than Moore, in order to keep “alive many of the old stories, legends, games, hymns, and superstitions of the Southern slaves.” (102) Her plantation sketches in Diddie, Dumps, and Tot (1892) includes a slightly different version of “The Tar Baby” than that of Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories, which came out two years earlier. “Her writings and those of Idora Moore constitute the best of Alabama’s prose local-color stories before the turn of the century.” (104)

A few other writers of interest, providing information of a bygone era, and including some successful novels of the time:

• Thomas Cooper De Leon served as secretary to Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. His experience was the basis for Four Years in Rebel Capitals. There is another book that looks interesting for the approach it took on the just-past war:

  De Leon’s John Holden, Unionist (1893), written in collaboration with the Mobile journalist Erwin Ledyard, although replete with many of the devices of postwar fiction, is his most interesting and perhaps his most important work of fiction. The story is set in northern Alabama during the Civil War. The title character is a poor farmer who owns no slaves, sees no purpose in the war, and feels no sense of loyalty to the Confederacy. He encourages his son, Hank, to desert the Confederate Army, and with the aid of Hank’s wife he keeps the boy hidden from the Confederate cavalry, which is searching for deserters. (115-6)

• Caroline Lee Hentz was a best-selling author (of non-lasting literary quality, according to Williams) 
• Jeremiah Clemens, a historical novelist with a small but deserved place in American literature
• Augusta Evans Wilson, a successful writer of sentimental novels

Williams also surveys several Alabama poets, dramatists, and historians, which I won’t go into detail here, but Williams provides remarkable research on authors and topics usually forgotten in the particular but remembered in general (such as Abram Joseph Ryan’s ‘Lost Cause’ poetry). Williams’ survey and study provides plenty of information and resources for anyone interested in studying nineteenth-century U.S. literature. The only suggestion I could think of was adding a map or two to highlight all the cities and regions of the state mentioned as well as a timeline of relevant Alabama history. While I didn’t need the maps (nor will anyone that is a serious student of the region), I’m sure some people would benefit from them. Regarding the timeline, Williams does a good job of explaining the history so this suggestion probably isn’t needed. Very highly recommended.

Update: Many of the links were incorrect in the original post. Hopefully all are fixed now. If not, please let me know. Thanks to William Michaelian for the heads up that something was wrong.

Primo Levi's Universe: A Writer's Journey by Sam Magavern

Primo Levi’s Universe: A Writer’s Journey by Sam Magavern
Foreword by Jonathan Rosen, Afterword by Risa Sodi
Palgrave Macmillan: New York City, 2009
ISBN 978-0-230-60647-0

[W]hen we read all of Levi’s writings together, we find that he has woven a great and terrifying testament, one of the most vital bodies of work in modern literature. We find that his various writings combine to make a bildungsroman rivaling Proust’s. A bildungsroman, or “education novel,” follows the moral and psychological growth of its main character. In a minor bildungsroman, we watch a character adapt to an adult reality that we, the readers, already know. In a major bildungsroman, like Proust’s or Levi’s, we watch as the character finds and creates not only a self, but also a cosmos–a new interpretation of the world.

Levi’s main character is Primo Levi: a mostly factual version of himself created in a long series of memoirs, stories, essays, poems, and interviews. In Levi’s core work, he focuses on his youth: the classic age for the bildungsroman, the age of adventures. Levi’s youth included both adventure and tragedy; it did not end until his late twenties, when he returned from the war, married, and began working as an industrial chemist. But, as important as his youth was to him, Levi continued to grow and change–to re-work himself and his cosmos–until his death.

Levi’s central concern was what makes–and unmakes–a man. (pages 1-2)

Sam Magavern goes through many of Levi’s works to support his claim that they provide the key to his life and the cosmos he created in his books. Magavern also intertwines Levi’s biography with his works to provide comparison and contrast between his his writings and his experiences. With this approach, “Primo Levi’s Universe allows us to appreciate how Primo Levi became Primo Levi.” (page 206, in Risa Sodi’s Afterword) While the book isn’t long, it is packed with plenty of information that will assist someone wanting to explore Levi’s books. Magavern investigates the cosmos and ethos reflected in Levi’s work, looking at how he recorded how we live and how we should live.

The central event in Levi’s life was his experience in Auschwitz, a subject he revisited many times in his stories. Magavern’s longest chapter focuses on the time at Auschwitz because of its importance in Levi’s life. The challenges from the Lager went beyond the test of survival. In Levi’s first book, If This Is a Man (the American title is the butchered Survival in Auschwitz), Levi presents his time in the camp as a descent into hell. In contrast to Dante’s circles of hell based on religious justice, Levi provides a senseless depiction of what a man can do to another man. The dehumanizing aspect of the camp, for the Nazis and the victims, troubles Levi the most. Evil does exist, and some of the worst characters in the book are prisoners. Recounting his experience tests the limits of language–words are inadequate when describing the unmaking of men. Later versions of the novel would soften his outlook as he added sympathetic characters and more literary passages, making the book less bleak. Magavern takes care to point out things Levi left out of the story or events he altered, providing as much information about Levi as what the author included. Because it’s a novel it is not meant to be a precise recounting. Instead, Levi attempts to provide deeper truths from the experience. Levi often noted that he may have not been accurate in his depictions beyond the literary licenses he took since memory is fallible, but there are other aspects of stories he changed that can be troubling. I’ll stop here regarding this book since I will have a separate post (or posts) on it.

While If This Is a Man looks at man’s capacity for evil, The Truce looks at man’s capacity for life. The Truce (the American release once again butchers the title, changing it to The Reawakening) records Levi’s 10-month trip home from the Lager. Dante’s Ulysses in If This Is a Man is now Homer’s Odysseus in The Truce. Like If This Is a Man, The Truce universalizes what Levi experiences, especially focusing on a survivor’s shame as representative of the shame of mankind. I will post on this book, too, so I’ll have more on it later.

Magavern also looks at Levi’s life after his return to Turin and compares his writings on family life, literary life, depression, retirement, and feelings about writing that appear in his works. Levi’s major influences appear in his books and poems in many different ways. Family members and friends (and enemies) are represented by characters in his works many times over. The influence from and references to favorite authors, such as Dante and Rabelais, appear often, too. While his dual experiences and dichotomous roles are often noted, it bears repeating that the tensions or contrasts in Levi’s life helped synthesize his works into something greater than the sum of their parts.

I don’t know that I’m completely sold on Magavern’s premise that Levi’s writings constituting a major bildungsroman, but his approach of discovering the man through his works provides a rich assessment on both his life and writings. Levi continually claims that language isn’t adequate to present what happened yet he finds a way to do just that, helping others understand what man is capable of doing, whether good or bad. In the meantime, Levi doesn’t task us to transcend our humanity and become something greater. Instead, he exhorts us to remain worthy of the name ‘man’ and prevent us from devolving into beasts.

All in all, this books is an excellent introduction to the man and his work as well as providing a very good companion when exploring his writings. Very highly recommended.

Reissue planned: Gnomon by Hugh Kenner

Thanks to Anthony @timesflow for tweeting about the planned reissue by Dalkey Archive of Gnomon: Essays on Contemporary Literature by Hugh Kenner. Unfortunately it's not scheduled to be released until next summer, but it's a chance to set aside some money for wonderful essays written in the 1950s about 20th century literature.

From the bookflap of my copy:

The function of criticism, Mr. Kenner says in his provocative preface to Gnomon, is to elucidate. These essays on twentieth century literature clarify, without tedious infighting, both specific works like Williams' Paterson and Pound's Rock Drill Cantos, and the whole achievement of writers like Yeats and Ford. Never soggy, fussy, or commonplace, the essays proceed by quotation and sharp, exact statement; Mr. Kenner succeeds in realizing his subjects as wholes while discussing them in terms of producible fact. The result is to induce not vague appreciation but a renewed and exact understanding of the salient literary developments of our century.

The epigraph quotes from Chapter 85 of Pound's Rock Drill Cantos must be part of his view of the critic: "...study with the mind of a grandson / and watch the time like a hawk." The essay on Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, released as a tetralogy in 1950, alone is worth the price of admission. The breadth and depth of the essays are astounding while providing joy in their reading. From the looks of the Dalkey Archive info, the number of pages is the same so all original essays should be included. Very highly recommended.


Side-side-sidenote: my copy came from the library of J. S. Lewis. While the initials could be for hundreds if not thousands of people, I've wondered if it is the father of the author Jon Samuel Lewis.

Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters

Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters
Translated and Edited by Michael Hofmann
W. W. Norton & Company, Hardcover, 512 pages
ISBN-10: 0393060640 / ISBN-13: 978-0393060645

Albert Einstein to B. W. Huebsch
(24 February 1935)

Esteemed Mr. Hübsch,
I am truly grateful to you for sending me this consoling book [Job] by a real mensch and great writer. As I read it, I was able to share the pain of a clear and kindly human soul, inflicted upon it by the callousness and spiritual blindness of the present age, and felt myself strangely shriven by the sort of objective invention of which only an artistic genius is capable.

Friendly greetings from you [A. Eisntein]

P.S. Please forward this note to the respected author. You have my permission to use it to publicize the book in any way you see fit.
(Letter 328)

What emerges from these letters is a man constantly on the edge during troubled times. In many ways Roth reflects the turbulence of civilization coming apart at the seams. I’ve included a lot of excerpts from the Roth’s letters (and some to him) in the links below, trying to provide a flavor of his life as he described it. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, Roth was a very complex, flawed, gifted, and troubled man. Even if he exaggerated some of his troubles in these letters, it’s a wonder that his novels were written under such circumstances. The troubles he foretold for Europe, though, were often accurate. Roth’s life, reflected in these letters, shows the price of being an émigré, not just from a country but from the world at large.


Posts on Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters:

Some links to excerpts from the book
1911 – 1924
1925 – 1927
1927 – 1932
1933
1934 – 1935
1935 - 1939

Books mentioned by Roth and Hofmann that I have queued up to read:
George Letham: Physician and Murdered by Ernst Weiss
The Thibaults by Roger Martin du Gard


Updates:

Review by Tess Lewis in The Wall Street Journal

Review by Stefany Anne Golberg at The Smart Set

Ian Thomson's review in The Telegraph

Michael Hofmann looks at the circumstances surrounding the writing of The Radetzky March as mentioned in these letters

Review in The Guardian

Amelia Atlas' review in The New York Times

Simon Schama's review in the Financial Times. Also mentioned is Wandering Jew: The Search for Joseph Roth by Dennis Marks

Literalab's interview with Dennis Marks regarding his book.

Review by Mark Falcoff in The Weekly Standard

Review by Roger Boylan in Boston Review