Critic Cal

The story  poem of my life...          i am through with words let me make something of myself.                   i am through with words;          let me make something of myself.          i am through –          with words, let me make something          of myself.          i am:          through/with words          let me make something of myself.          i am;          through with          words let me make something of myself. ...

I am endlessly intrigued by allusion to Jesus in literature. Intentional or inci-/accidental, affirmatory or critical – it all expands on the conversation; all highlights and reinforces the permeation of his shaping presence in reality. There's lots of examples to choose from. Writers, it seems, are themselves endlessly intrigued by him – at least, within the largely Western, recent centuries' traditions that encompass most of my reading choices. It's the subtle instances that most delight me, like the following scene in the pleasingly quirky  White Noise  by Don DeLillo [1]... The family of college professor Jack Gladney – along the rest of their town and the inhabitants of the surrounding region – are displaced by an 'airborne toxic event'. They are temporarily housed in an abandoned scout camp. The place is rife with uncertainty; rumours of varying degrees of extremity proliferate; concrete information is scarce. Anyone boa...

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.  (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, c.1609)  Was ever arrogance so eloquent! He's basically saying, "Look, love, you're a bit of alright. And I can write, right? In fact, I'm a big-shot playwright. Will's words won't wilt, I'll warrant you. Some centuries' time this rhyme'll be a rite of educational passage for school kids up and down our Scepter'd Isle and where'er else our native tongue be known." Only, he's Shakespeare, so he's saying it in words so Shakespe hear ianly splendid as to render them self-fulfilling. (Well, four hundred years and counting, at least ... so far, so good). Many of Shakespeare's sonnets are pre-occupied with the idea of immortalisation through the written word. The fact that most are addressed to a man (scholars are unable to unambiguously conclude that the relationship was a romantic one but much o...

CARRION COMFORT Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan, O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?     Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer. Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.  Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918...

[NB: On several occasions, lovely, generous-hearted people have informed me with a blend of enthusiasm and compassion that they "like my blog but don't understand it". The following was written to address the issue. Only, it became indulgently self-illustrative (i.e., makes even less sense than usual).  It is a shameful thing to plead 'irony'; let's hope I've at least "got it out of my system" for now... Time will tell. Meanwhile, apologies :-/ ] I recently read  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  --  Joyce's prequel to Ulysses , charting the childhood and coming-of-age of Stephen Dedalus as he awakens to religious uncertainty, political dissatisfaction and literary aspiration. The character of Stephen is widely acknowledged to be a bit of a fictional alter-ego to Joyce himself, so it's sorta semi-autobiographical. There's a big 'religious anxiety' theme going on with it, which I was thinking about thinking about writi...