The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

A superb narrative, absorbing powers of description, penetrating psychological analyses of a worthy protagonist, even some disparagement of the South- Styron did a good job, apparently good enough to win a Pulitzer. The story begins and ends with the day of Nat Turner's execution, and in between Turner tells of how he ended up in a jail cell awaiting death.

Though a slave in the 1800s, Nat is capable of lucid English that surpasses the quality of the white illiterates,' for he was taught to read and write and cipher while growing up in a relatively kind master's household. This lends the account a surprising, gratifying intelligence not common to fictionalized slave narratives.

Nat's education infused him with deep religious convictions, and into his adulthood his knowledge of the Bible guides and sustains him. He fashions himself into a sort of slave reverend, and his comprehensive study and interpretation of the Old Testament prophets convinces him he is called to lead a slave rebellion, a purging of the whites, in a manner similar to that of the biblical heroes' own revolts. The horrendous effects of living a life that legally belongs to another man drives this introspective intellectual to bloodshed.

Nat carefully dissects his emotions and motives- from discovering, as a little boy, that the words on canisters represented what was inside, to being unable, even in the heat of the moment, to murder his master- and effectively traces the development of his rebellion from its roots to his execution. Styron's meticulous, evocative use of description complements his comprehensive presentation of Nat's inner dialogue. His images are present and confident without becoming painfully obvious or self-conscious. Achieving this alone is worth a Pulitzer. The palpability of his narrative raises concerns only when Styron dips into the more ignoble aspects of Southern life in the 1800s. The graphic nature of some of the Southerners' exploits is not so pleasant to experience. But of course, as is so often the case, that is the point.

Nat Turner's merciless extermination of scores of whites is morally complex. Spartacus-like, he vanquished his oppressors in an almost certainly futile bid for freedom. But what else could he have done in a society in which he could never have gained such no matter what he did? The murders are undoubtedly repugnant, but slavery just as much. The South's continual oppression of an entire race of people and their descendants was the catalyst for the suffering and inequality from which we still feel the effects today.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

This second time around, I feel like I actually got the book. The first time I read it, I was rather sidetracked by the content issues, but was able to access some sympathy for Holden Caulfield and his disillusionment. I impulsively bought my sister a copy for her birthday, and later decided I should reread it to find out what exactly compelled me to do so.

I was surprised to discover what an excellent character Holden Caulfield truly is. An English teacher of mine, whom I didn't particularly like (I had, through serendipitous events, two English classes at the time, and while one teacher adorned every essay I wrote for him with glowing inked praise, this other one rarely gave me perfect rubric scores and, though constructive I'm sure she tried to be, criticized my writing quite often), once dismissed him as "annoying" and "whiny," but I found his dissatisfaction with life and the status quo entirely understandable. He is veritably drowning in "phonies," as he terms them, poseurs attempting a facade of normal, sane existence who in fact alternate between degeneracy, immorality, deceit, narcissism, and greed. Holden, while by no means without faults, refuses to be party to their pretences.

He is actually a terribly compassionate, thinking boy. Holden reads, engagingly and well. Moreover, he mulls over books at length afterwards. He also feels deeply the discomfort of others, whether it be some dowdy tourist women, his poor roommate, or two traveling nuns. The mundane tragedies of daily life are not lost on him. They move him in a manner his unfeeling compatriots cannot or care not to comprehend. It's no wonder then, that such a sensitive boy would retreat from the pretension, the peeling veneer of geniality, the utter "phoniness" of the miniature universe of prep school.

Holden's attitude towards religion and, in an interesting parallel, girls also, is troubling, complex, and yet, approaching healthy. Of ministers Holden is wary, for their obviously put-on preaching voices make him doubt their sincerity. He fancies himself an atheist, but harbors a regard for Jesus. If someone could just sit him down and explain it all to him...

As for girls, Holden is controlled almost entirely by his physical inclinations. Still, he desires not to take advantage of them, and realizes that his most meaningful relationship with a girl involved almost no physical contact at all. Holden is altogether in transition, navigating, almost directionless, the end of adolescence towards adulthood. His deep pity for mankind keeps him afloat. He's missing, of course, a satisfactory answer for existence, and this might be the root of his inability to cope with the world around him.

I guess this is what I wanted my sister to experience- Holden's frustrations and disillusionment, the common ground that scores of teenagers have identified with. After all, she's had her share of "phonies."

Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann

Mann's work was recommended to me enthusiastically, with a "just don't think too hard" caveat tacked on. I always considered my approach to literature rather dilettantish anyway.

This book is a collection of Mann's turn-of-the-century short stories that explore themes of the genius in art and intellect within a motif of the German at home and abroad. The stories share threads of recurring elements, illuminating the essential aspects of Mann's own creativity.

"Death in Venice," "Tonio Kroger," and "Disorder and Early Sorrow" were the only stories whose merits outweighed any untoward content. The other five, while undoubtedly well-written and with some merits of their own, alternated between sordid and dull, and so I am unable to give them praise that is not heavily qualified.

"Death in Venice": On a trip to Venice, an acclaimed author sights a young, attractive Polish Adonis of sorts, and, overwhelmed with the beauty of his countenance, forsakes reason to follow him for weeks on end. The boy's comely features send the man into philosophizing reveries on the nature of literary expression and the creator and his creation. "Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought- these are the artist's highest joy," he muses during his undaunted pursuit.

There is irony in Mann's name, for he examines extensively the emasculation of his linguistic artist. His protagonist asks, "[D]o you believe that such a man can ever attain wisdom and true manly worth, for whom the path to the spirit must lead through the senses?" This man's decidedly effeminate nature detracts from the intellectual insights he has, and he clearly tries to justify his unwholesome affection for the young boy under a guise of aesthetics. More's the pity.

"Tonio Kroger": Again the androgynous artist appears. Dark-complexioned Tonio Kroger lives the fitful, melancholy passion of the litterateur, silently envying the blue-eyed blonds who surround him in their blissful ignorance. He considers his artistic gifts a curse inherited from his mother's temperamental Italian blood, contending that he was not destined, but doomed, from birth, to create. However, a trip to Denmark gives him the presence of mind to accept and even revel in his love of the "blond and blue-eyed, the fair and living, the happy, lovely, and commonplace."

"Disorder and Early Sorrow": A professor and his young daughter experience a presentiment of later sorrows that inevitably come when she dances with one of her older brother's friends on a lark at a party. The five-year-old feels an indefinite sense of the envy and longing that accompany rejection when she has to go to bed and her humoring partner reunites with his date. Her father observes it all with a helpless pathos.

This was the purest of Mann's stories, exquisite in its sorrow, tender in its telling, noble and unwavering in its feeling. He was at the top of his form here.

Mann is splendid when he conducts esoteric discussions of Life and Art, as it were, but he often becomes mired in the disturbing and the unsavory. It's unfortunate, for he is a consummate writer.

He Who Thinks Has To Believe by A.E. Wilder-Smith

What a title, right? I've finally found someone who approaches the world in a manner I can accept. Wilder-Smith begins with just the sensory information to which every human being is privy, and he follows a logical line of reasoning to conclude that what the Bible says is truth. He attempts no emotional appeal, guilt trip, or sentimentality. In fact, as a professor of pharmacology, he insists that "try[ing] to 'believe' emotionally" leads to "dangerous emotionalism and hysteria," for it rebels against one's ratio, or sense of rationality.

The primary section of the book deals solely with a parable of an undiscovered tribe of "Neanderthalers." These "honest, thinking people" are able to reason from the evidence that natrually surrounds them and deduce that there must be a Creator, and He must desire reconciliation with them. When some explorers discover these people and try to enlighten them with assertions of a materialistic worldview, the Neanderthalers poke holes in their theories and hold steadfastly to theism, augmenting their beliefs with Christianity when they encounter a Bible.

The second part discusses the finer points of Wilder-Smith's theology. I'll attempt briefly to sum up the gist of his arguments. Because of the information present in matter, and because life never comes from non-life, we can conclude that a higher consciousness created the world. Because the creator is never less than the creation, we can conclude that this higher consciousness is personal as we are personal. Because this higher consciousness (for all intents and purposes God) is personal, we can conclude He desires interaction with us. Because genuine interaction requires one to be on the same wavelength of another, God has to manifest Himself as a man to achieve this interaction. Because of the historical accuracy, fulfilled prophecy, textual logic, and willing martyrdom of those involved, we can conclude that the Bible's account of such a manifestation is true.

There is more to it, but that is the essence of what Wilder-Smith posits. I found such dispassionate logic intensely gratifying. I'm sure someone could muster up a rebuttal to some of his points, especially those which he admits surpass the realms of human understanding, but spontaneous generation is still unsubstantiated, and surely the information coding of genetics cannot be left to chance. As Wilder-Smith says, "chance [is] an antipode, an antithesis of thought." Design comes not randomly.

Wilder-Smith lifted an onus of inability from my shoulders. I've been trying to legitmately, logically, articulate my claim to Christianity in a lucid, comprehensive fashion for over a year now, and it was not until Wilder-Smith's book that I found someone capable of doing so.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White

I was fortunate enough to acquire this revered manual for a dollar at a thrift store. The library wouldn't let me check it out, for they categorized it as a reference book. It's a surprisingly slim volume, under a hundred pages. The authors adhere to their own exhortations of brevity. They were condescending and affected at times, even as they instructed the reader to avoid such tones, but their composition advice is worth taking.

Much is review of the basic courtesies, as they'd have it, of the writer for his reader. Communicating effectively is the composer's essential goal. "Clarity can only be a virtue," White insists. They iterate the rudimentaries of grammar, punctuation, and the like. Strunk, especially, espouses brevity. The less said, the better. White is inclined to agree, and so am I.

I felt chastised on a few counts, such as the subject of qualifiers. Apparently, my use of "rather" is rather unnecessary and weak. "Interesting," too, is taboo, denounced as being unspecific. Not-positives, moreover, such as "not honest" or not important," should be replaced with positive assertions: "dishonest," insignificant."

One instruction, which I'd never heard before, resonated loudly with me: "Write with nouns and verbs," White says. "The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place." I'd always assumed all parts of speech were created equal, but upon reflection, White's adage rings wise. I assure you, I'll make a conscious effort in the future to write thusly.

Strunk and White have a few idiosyncratic preferences. They consider thanking someone in advance to be bad form, and the word "respectively" to be largely unneeded. White says the word "thruway," phonetic spelling and all, will become an established term. I think his prediction was a bit off. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say "thruway," and I can't say I could define it properly.

The authors do seem to be striving for a thoroughly early-20th-century, modern-1950s, sterilized tone with much of their advice, but who could begrudge them that? It was the early 20th century. But with that said, some of the manual's assertions may be grounds for reconsideration. The pervasively ironic tone of the post-(post?)modernist now employed by many writers sometimes involves a slight variance in acceptability. How's that for qualifiers?

Despite all the admonitions to take the reader into account when writing, White closes with this: "The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one." I can say that, barring a few assigned essays, I have always inclined that way; to what end I don't entirely know. Certainly some interesting (I don't care; I like the word) Young and Sharp Submissions.

Beowulf by Anonymous; translated by Seamus Heaney

What more appropriate book to commence a blog with than Beowulf? Below is my impression, as it were. You can view it, and many, many others, from here: http://www.geocities.com/dualphilology/beowulf.html

As the first surviving work in the English language, Beowulf has been elevated to a place of almost mystical reverence in literary circles. Tolkien was a foremost scholar on the epic poem, and the influences he derived from it form the very foundation of his own attempt at Northern European mythology. Indeed, the very grammatical structures of his invented languages, the questing motif, the treasure-guarding dragon, even the name Eomer, can be traced to Beowulf.

It has been said before, but it loses no truth in repetition: Beowulf speaks to a very fundamental, archetypal, germane (both literally and figuratively) set of emotions. The epic hero vanquishes his foes and rules triumphantly for many years, meeting his own end in a spectacular display of hubris, destroying his enemy even as it destroys him, dying a glorious death. Stories with these elements are found throughout the world's cultures, for honorable warfare has been an intrinsic desire of mankind, or mannas cynnes, as the Old English renders it, since its inception. Such values become a manner of survival for early, isolated people in a hostile environment.

I enjoyed the story, without a doubt, but more than that, I revelled in the poetry. Heaney's translation was superb, a delightfully readable versification that retained an archaic sensibility. Moreover, the original Old English was printed alongside, allowing me to trace the elements of Germanic roots that remain in our speech today. "Modor" (mother), "twelfye" (twelve), "wundor" (wonder), were all discernible; some such as "under" or "gold," have not changed at all.

First Post

I've decided to establish a blog to complement my fledgling website: www.geocities.com/dualphilology. Like how I used the correct version of "complement"? It's a collection of literary impressions, and I created it because I thought the Internet was curiously lacking in this area. I read a book, and then I write about it. I've been doing so for like a year and a half now, and I've amassed quite a cache of musings. A singular vocabulary, too.

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore

While written in the late nineteenth century, Lorna Doone encompasses more than a decade of the 1600s in rural England. John Ridd is a farmer's son who, after a chance encounter with a young Lorna, becomes utterly enthralled with the girl and spends years pursuing her. She is ostensibly a member of the Doone clan, a family of terrors responsible for, among others, the death of John's father. Nevertheless, John purposes to persist in his wooing.

Carver Doone, who would have Lorna marry him, barricades her in her home without food for days. John rescues her and establishes her in his home. It is eventually revealed that Lorna is, in fact, a daughter of nobility who was raised by the Doones after they murdered her family, in order to gain her inheritance by marriage when she came of age. John foils all that. He leads a rebellion against the Doones, overthrowing their reign of the countryside, and he marries Lorna.

The book is rather lengthy, but I relished the comprehensiveness. In the beginning, I found John slightly distasteful, his continual self-deprecation and false modesty making a poor hero for a romantic adventure, but as I read further I discovered the humor in it all and engaged myself wholeheartedly in the story. Because it was so long, the book involved many, many plot twists, some of which were inevitably improbable. Still, I suppose it comes with the literary territory.

That Lorna was held in such a high position of impeccability did bother me a bit. Her beauty is her primary virtue, and John spends pages and pages extolling her hair, her eyes, and her figure. When he is not praising Lorna's unparalled, unimpeachable gorgeousness, John drones on about her tender-heartedness, her unflagging faithfulness, her modesty, her magnanimity—basically, her inability to do wrong. This, of course, forms an unattainable level of feminine perfection that can only be anathema to myself. I am a flawed individual, and so prefer to read about flawed individuals, especially as I have never met anyone who was anything but.

I can see how it fits into the comedy motif, though. For, of course, no one is perfect, and that John actually thinks Lorna is can only be played for laughs. While the novel had many humorous components, it had its share of poignant moments as well. Indeed, it was altogether a decent book. That it is rather obscure despitre its relatively recent inception may be due to the flaws I found in it. But Lorna Doone is essentially a good story, and a worthy work.