Notes on Jason & Medea

Once again I've finished a Penguin 80p book. I love these because they're usually excerpts of good books, but since they are contained within their own binding I can count them as a book on my yearly goal. Maybe that's cheating; maybe it isn't. But, I only set the goal in June, so I needed to get a boost to hit 50 by the end of the year. So, these classics are helping out a bit.

This story of Jason and Medea comes from Apollonius of Rhodes in the form of his epic poem The Voyage of Argo. As stated in previous posts, I love ancient history and have since an early age. Much of that is because my parents made me read a lot as a young child and much of that is because of classic epic movies from the fifties and sixties (and earlier). This myth was no exception.

I had some abridged version for young readers in my recent memory when I first saw the 1963 film, Jason and the Argonauts. The story was good; the acting was hammy and perfect; but, the film came alive to me because of the claymation. Oddly enough, the stop-animation director, Ray Harryhausen retired after making my favorite 'epic' movie of my childhood, the 1981 Clash of the Titans. The modern remake of Jason and the Argonauts was everything that the old film was not. Good graphics and terrible. I actually enjoyed the remake of Clash of the Titans, but missed the claymation owl. That is neither here nor there, however.

This excerpt from the longer epic poem deals with Jason arriving at Colchis and the goddesses conspiring to help him attain the Golden Fleece. Jason does his bit with the fire breathing bulls plough and teeth seeds and proceeds to slaughter the crop much to the chagrin of King Aetes and the delight/agony of his daughter Medea. The story is well known, but there were a couple of things that stuck out to me on this reading.

First, was the interesting death ritual of the Colchians. "They never bury them or raise a mound above them, but wrap them in untanned oxhide and hang them up on trees at a distance from the town. Thus, since it is their custom to bury women, earth and air play equal parts in the disposal of their dead" (Apollonius, 8-9). I happen to be doing a preliminary study on Pre-Socratic at the moment I think this statement stuck out because of that little study and because the imagery of the dead being hung in trees as ritual, not punitive was an interesting image in my head. But, because of the Greek sense of justice being balance the fact that earth and air play equal parts in their death ritual makes sense, so that neither air nor earth would overstep its bounds.

Another interesting point came to me in the inequality and equality given to male and female characters. Medea is a rock star in the book, but the male characters aren't super keen on giving her that status. The author has no problem with it, but Jason states, "But oh, how bleak the prospect is, with our one hope of seeing home again in women's hands" (Apollonius, 18).

Mopsus reads a sign and declares, "May all turn out as I foresee, reading the omens with my inward eye" (Apollonius, 21). I like the imagery of a mystical reading using the 'inward eye'.

I also enjoyed the description of Medea and her pains and love for Jason. "Tears of pity ran down her cheeks and her whole body was possessed by agony, a searing pain which shot along her nerves and deep into the nape of her neck, that vulnerable spot where the relentless archery of Love causes the keenest pangs" (Apollonius, 28). I'm not really sure why I liked it so much, but the description stuck with me.

Notes on Caligula

Suetonius wrote the Twelve Caesars and I think at some point in my pre Egg to the Apples life I read it, or listened to it. But, it's not the largest book if I remember correctly, but when I came across these 80p books in England I had to snatch them up. 'Caligula' is the excerpt from Suetonius' Twelve Caesars' dealing only with the reign of Caligula. It's short, concise and moves quickly as a read.

The story of Caligula is a pretty famous one, as he is somewhat famous for being somewhat notorious, to put it mildly. I've always enjoyed Roman History, but when I discovered Mike Duncan's now (sadly) finished podcast when I was living in the Dominican Republic some seven or eight years ago (I don't remember when I started listening, but it wasn't at the beginning of his run, but it was before Julius Caesar appeared on the scene) it rekindled an early childhood fascination with all things Roman. If you haven't checked out that podcast or his newer one and like history than you don't know anything about podcasts. Figure out what a podcast is and go check it out. But, after that incredible turn to the left let's try and steer back on to the matter at hand - Caligula.

Suetonius didn't paint a very good picture of Caligula in the little book as most of it is negative. But, if I didn't have any knowledge of Caligula prior to reading it I wouldn't have really expected it to have gone so badly. There's a lot of nice things about him and his father Germanicus in the first little bit, but then Suetonius slides in this nugget of a sentence: "So much for Gaius the Emperor; the rest of this history must needs deal with Gaius the Monster" (Suetonius, 21). Ouch! Must Needs. Must.

Right after Suetonius takes this must needs turn he reveals that Caligula has some of the better statues of all the famous gods in Greece brought to Rome where he has their heads removed and busts of his own as their replacement. I would condemn this behavior, but if you've ever been on my Instagram feed you may have seen this:

That's my head on a god statue in the Parthenon. (Unfortunately, its the lifesize replica in Tennessee). SO, I say we go ahead and give Caligula a pass on that one - agreed?

Caligula might have been a madman, egotistical, debauched and petulantly cruel, but he had a pretty astute sense of politics going on for awhile. "He often quoted the tragic line 'Let them hate me, so long as they fear me'" (Suetonius, 32). If you're not going to be loved as a despotic ruler, which most times you aren't, you might as well go whole hog on it and strike fear in the hearts of everyone. Sometimes, as with the case of Caligula, it doesn't pan out in the long-run. But there have been a whole bunch of vicious despots that died peacefully in their bed.

The problem with Caligula (aside from the obvious awfulness of his soul) was that as a despotic tyrant one must needs be paranoid because even if every one is deathly afraid of you, if the right opportunity presents itself somebody is going to take it, but Caligula took the paranoia to a whole new kind of crazy level. And he didn't have the foresight to let some people have small victories here and there to ensure loyalty. "In short, however low anyone's fortune or condition might be, Gaius always found some cause for envy" (Suetonius, 37).

But you can't blame the guy for being that way totally. Nature dealt him a pretty rough hand, even if fortune did not. He got to be the most powerful man in the Roman world on the merits of his dad. But, then his dad died. So fortune favored him. Nature wasn't so kind as he ended up turning out to be bald and hairy. It made him insecure and when naturally inclined guys get insecure they tend to lash out. Most don't end up becoming as bad as Caligula; but, I believe that is solely because they don't have the tools to lash out properly like Caligula had. But, Caligula was so insecure about this unfortunate mix up of where his hair ought to have been, "he announced that it was a capital offence for anyone to look down on him as he passed or to mention goats in any context" (Suetonius, 50-51). That's pretty insecure.

Portland - Day 1

After a long flight and layover we made it to Portland, OR!! It's a long way out, but we made it. Our first night was spent with my brother and mom. My guide (my brother) took us to a vegan place for dinner. Being someone who has no dietary restrictions to be spoke of and a bit of predilection for mocking those that have, I was nonplussed to say the least to end up at a vegan restaurant. That said, I had the best Bahn Mi sandwich in the world. Afterwards we went to a grocery store to buy wine for the night. I made a giant mess...

Notes on Early Greek Philosophy (Introduction)

Early Greek Philosophy
Jonathan Barnes
Penguin, 2001

Introduction

Greek Philosophy began on May 28, 585 BC when Thales of Miletus, predicted an eclipse of the sun and ended in 529 A.D. When Emperor Justinian outlawed pagan philosophy. But, this is a traditional dates because Thales observed a solar eclipse and even if Justinian wanted to stamp out the pagan philosophy and install Christianity as the sole authority, it wasn't a successful endeavor. But, these eleven centuries can be safely called the era of Ancient Philosophy.

3 Periods of Ancient Philosophy
1) 585-400 BC, the formative years (Pre-Socratic)
2) 400-100 BC, the years of the Schools, Plato, Aristotle, Epicureans, Stoics, Sceptics
3) 100 BC - 529 AD, the years when everyone studied the prior period, systematized it and took "all that was best in the earlier doctrines of the Schools" (Barnes, xi).

Ironically the Pre-Socratic period isn't actually pre-Socrates because Socrates lived from 470 - 399 BC, so many of the pre-Socratic philosophers were his contemporaries.

The word 'philosophy' comes from the Greek philosophia, meaning literally 'love of wisdom'. The ancient Greeks however used this word very broadly and much of the sciences and the liberal arts were included in this wisdom. "The 'wisdom' which a philosopher loves is 'knowledge of things human and things divine'" (Barnes, xiv).

The philosophers that came after the Pre-Socratics divided philosophy into three major branches: logic (including the study of language), ethics (moral and political theory) and physics (which was a broad sense of the science, concerning itself with all the phenomena of the natural world). The Pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with this definition of physics.

"The modern distincition between empirical science and a priori philosophy had no importance in the earliest phase of Western thought, when wisdom was not yet distributed among departments and thinkers were innocent of specialization" (Barnes, XV).

Three things really demarcated the Pre-Socratic philosophers from earlier thinkers, mythologists, poets and rhetoricians.

1) "The Presocratics invented the very idea of science and philosophy" (Barnes, XVIII). The looked at the world in a scientific and/or rational way. They saw the world as something that can be explained and something that was ordered, not something arbitrary or random.

2) The Presocratics accepted the world as something orderly and explicable, but not something that was absolutely willed to be so by gods or subject to their whims. While maintaining some theism, they removed most of the traditional functions of gods and assigned the processes of the world to natural phenomena.

3) The Presocratics explained everything in as little terms as possible. The variety of life is always reduced to some underlying principle that explains the whole mess of things with one fundamental.

The Greek word kosmos (from which comes our cosmos & cosmology) was used a lot by the Presocratics. It means "the world as a whole" on the lips of the Presocratic philosophers. A kosmos is an orderly and beautiful arrangement of the totality of the universe. It is not only beautiful, but pleasant to contemplate. Thus, if the cosmos is the totality of things, and beautiful, and ordered, then it must, at least in principle, be abled to be explained.

There is a great distinction between the natural world (things that occur in nature) and the artefacts (things that are man-made, physical like arts and plows, and non-physical like laws, societies and governments). These artefacts were artificial and non-natural; thus, they had no nature. When the Presocratics studied the natural world, the studied also the nature of those things in the natural world. It was assumed that every natural thing, everything that grows, had its own nature. This also tied into the Presocratic desire to explain things: the nature of any object explains why it behaves in its own unique way.

Arche was another fundamental principle in Presocratic thought. It is a beginning or origin and also a rule or  ruling principle.

Presocratics often asked questions like, if nature is growth "what, then does growth start from? What are the principles of growth, the origins of natural phenomena?..."How did [the cosmos] begin? What are its first principles? What are the fundamental elements from which it is made and the fundamental operations which determine its structure and career?" (Barnes, XXII).

The Presocratics, in their desire to explain the natural world in the most simplest of terms then boiled everything in the cosmos down into the first stuff or stuffs. Questions then pertaining to the principles of the cosmos is a question as to what those first stuff or stuffs are.

Another fundamental term for the Presocratics was the Greek logos, a notoriously tricky word to translate. It means to say or state, but entails more. To give a logos or an account of something is to both describe what it is but also explain why it is what it is. Logos also implies reason and logic. It is possible to contrast the logos of a situation with the perception of a situation. It marks a distinction between how things appear and the way things are, which might not necessarily be the same.

The Presocratics emphasized the use of reason and rationality. They were not, generally speaking, dogmatic in their thinking. Even in some things that seem blatantly crazy, like Thales assertion that everything has a soul were supported by logical and rational thinking. Thales claimed that a magnet, though a stone, has a soul because it causes motion in other things. While this might not be exactly true, the use of reason versus declaring something dogmatically shows the change in thinking that the Presocratics had.

"Parmenides urged his readers to test with their reason what he had said: his urgings went unanswered" (Barnes, XXV). That's funny and could be worked into the Future Modern Ancient Greeks.

What we know about the Presocratics is not usually from surviving works of their own, which exist only in fragmentary form. Quotes from later writers harkening back to these thinkers' now lost works give light on their otherwise lost thought. Other sources are much later thinkers writing and using the Presocratics as examplars or something to be renounced. The latter is less reliable as a source to what the Presocratics actually thought for a variety of reasons.

Some things I liked stylistically in Hopscotch

As I've stated earlier in this blog, reading Hopscotch was quite difficult and since I've only read it in the 'traditional' way and still have to hopscotch through it, I'm withholding my final judgment until then. After hopscotching through it I'm also going to do some research to help me understand some of the more difficult parts. Some of it is lost on me. For instance, I'm really unsure of how baby Rocamador died and am hoping that some of the 'extra chapters' reveal the answer. Second, chapter 34 was the most insanely frustrating chapter of a book I've ever read, but after the fourth reading I sort of figured it out.

But, here are some of the things I really liked from a pure style standpoint in the book. The following short list has just some of the things I labeled as "Good Imagery, Wording & Style". There is a whole lot more that could be added but these stood out to me at the time of reading.

1) [We] "used to get together to talk to a blind seer, a stimulating paradox" (Cortázar, 6). I just liked the 'blind seer' paradox and it being pointed out. Somehow the pointing out of the paradoxical nature of it wasn't overkill or stating the obvious.

2) Those that search, those “who go out at night with noting in mind, the motives of a destroyer of compasses” (Cortázar, 7). I like the idea of those who are searching with an openness in their head aren't really searching in the normal sense, but looking to smash the conventional ways of searching for that which I know not what.

3) “As if it were some sort of mean and sticky vengeance” (Cortázar, 10). I just really liked the sentence a lot. 'Mean and sticky vengeance' just hopped off the page and gave me a visual and tactile image in my head.

4)  “Happiness must have been something else, something sadder perhaps than this peace, this pleasure, a mood of unicorn…” (Cortázar, 13). Again, I just really enjoyed this phrase, 'a mood of unicorn' denotes something like a childlike happiness, but also the realization that it, like the unicorn was a myth.

5) In my own writing, I've often had characters or scenarios where alcohol has played a part. I've always struggled with writing that because I don't want to give it a technical feel or a celebratory feel unless it's right for the current story. But in a couple of passages, Cortázar was able to once again make a great visual in my head that connected the story with some experiences that I'd like to incorporate into my own work:

[Gregorovius] “was at that vodka level where the night began to become magnanimous and everything promised him fidelity and hope… With his wits ajar Gregorovius managed to make out the corner where Ronald and Wong were selecting and passing records” (Cortázar, 43-44). I really liked that first sentence and how it showed what alcohol can do. Of course the night did not turn out how Gregorovius thought it would, as is often the case when vodka levels get to that point because the vodka level often rises and surpasses that point too and begins to careen downwards in spiral fashion rather quickly in the opposite direction of hope.

Then later, towards Babs: “Sh, darling, stop crying, the girl has really tied one on, even her soul smells of cognac” (Cortázar, 198). In this sentence, I'm not really sure who the narrator is, but 'even her soul smells of cognac' gave me as the reader, a knowledge of Babs' current state.
 

6) When La Maga & Horacio parts ways he feels he cannot chase back after her. He tells himself, “Go home and read Spinoza. La Maga doesn’t know who Spinoza is…She will never suspect that she has condemned me to read Spinoza” (Cortázar, 96).  I loved this sentence so much because of my feelings on having to read Spinoza back in college. To be condemned to read Spinoza is a perfect way of putting what it was like to have to read Spinoza for me all those years ago. 

Notes on Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales

After finishing the last book I read, I figured that it would be alright if I took an easier challenge. I picked up the Penguin Popular Classics' Scottish Folk & Fairy Tales edited by Gordon Jarvie. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, somewhere between an Arthurian legend or The Mabinogion or even something like a Grimm's. It was nothing like the Mabinogion and had an element of Grimm folk tale to it, but it was a lot lighter. In the moments it was a bit sinister, it was done almost at a Classic Disney level - enough to frighten younger readers, but not enough to offend the sensibilities of said young readers' parents. That said, the book was a pretty good read. I think it should be something read to children to get them interested in good literature and plan on making a note of that for the future. Some of this criticism is probably unfair because it really felt like a children's book in the beginning and that sort of dissipated the further into the book you got. It was an anthology and the tone was set by the first seven little folk tales written by the same author. It was her stories that really made it feel younger reader oriented.

But, as is the case with all anthologies, a couple of the stories really stood out to me. The story of Tam Lin, the first traditional folk tale in the order, was the salvation that kept me going through as it was relatively close to the beginning of the book. Which I am glad because there were a couple of really good stories later on. Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm was another one I enjoyed. Ever since I read the Orkneyinga Saga, I have found myself fascinated by Orkney and lo and behold, one of my favorite Scottish fairy tale comes from the Orkney Island. Plus, it was a genesis story of sorts and I always find those enthralling. The last big chunk of the Book was The Gold of Fairnilee, 'a classic victorian fairy tale'. Given that it was written by Andrew Lang, a specialist in Scottish folklore, it was probably the best story outside of Assipattle.

Lastly, the most intriguing story was by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His Through the Veil was excellent. The writing was good and its colloquial, phonetic writing of the Scottish dialogue was nice, but what set the story apart was the intriguing subject matter. After finishing that one, I thought it would be a good idea to appropriate the concept and turn it into a different short story of my own.

Brief thoughts on Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar

So, I finished Hopscotch a few days ago and I'm still a bit bemused. Finished might not be the proper word as I only read it in the 'normal fashion' and didn't hopscotch through the book. Also, I ignored the following chapters with a clean conscience, but a bit of residual puzzlement. On my Goodreads page I wrote, "I'm not sure of what I think of this book yet. It's clearly a well written book with a lot of good stuff in it and it's jam packed with insane literary style, but I've just finished reading it the traditional way and will withhold my final judgement until I have hopscotched my way through it. Since, I haven't read the "extra" chapters I find myself both enjoying and not enjoying this book. But, I will be re-reading it or reading it for the first time soon and hopscotching my way through."  So I will revisit my assessment on the entirety of the book at a later date. I will say this, without giving away anything, the ending is confusing.