Journal 2

 

12/24/2000

Jerusalem Delivered  by Torquate Tasso (trans. Anthony M Esalen

“When rule is not untied in Form/where verdicts deal rewards and punishment/who delegates responisblites/you have a facile and wandering government” (31. 1-4, 23)

               Sounds familiar

               Very much like the Orlando Furioso.  Same type of characters and action.  Tancred and Clorinda are like Artgell and Britomart gone made.  But story is very moving.

 

12/28/2000

The Truth  by Terry Pratchett

               On Tulip and Pin being robbed by a thief, “Instead they looked like a pair of lepidopterists who’d stumbeled across entirely new kind of butterfly and found it trying to wave a tiny little net” (139).

               “Pulling together is the aim of nepotism and tyranny.  Free men pull in all kinds of directions .  . .Its the only way to make progress” (317).  

               Like the fact that the printer dwarf appears to be female.   Glad that the Watch did make an appearance.  Nobbs as the werewolf is a good guess.  He makes William pushy but believable.  Drawing clear line between tabloid journalism and straight journalism.  William makes both but seems to rely mostly on straight journalist.

               Reminds me of His Girl Friday.  Pratchett has the ability to make even minor character three dimensional.  Mr. Tulip was rather interesting character.              

               Like Vimes, I can’t imagine Venturi saying he is sorry.  Even if he has progressed from a simple Medici.  Gasopede seems to have a good life with Foul Ole Ron.

 

12/29/2000

Myth Directions by Robert Asprin

               Can’t get though it.

 

12/29/2000

Ulysses  by James Joyce

               On Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, “A man of genius makes no mistakes.  His errors are volitional and are the portents of discovery” (190).

               I wonder how much Joyce believed of the ideas about Shakespeare the he put into Stephen’s mouth.  He does have a good point about the plays toward of the end of Shakespeare’s life being more of a reconciling.  Nice that he didn’t ignore Hathaway.  He sees her as false but also as a driving creative force.  Couldn’t you argue that Anne might have been falsely accused of adultery, hence the reason for Shakespeare including all falsely accused girls and women in his plays. 

               Is Ulysses the greatest  novel of the past century?  No.  Joyce seems to be experimentally for the sake of experimenting.  He does seem to touch on issues (esp. like sex) reversed in the play sequence  but her seems to get bogged down in his brilliance.  The novel seems to be about life, the dreams a living person has that reflect life.  The play sequence seems to illstruate this.  Daedalus and Bloom are two sides of the same coin.  Could Daedalus (flight) become Bloom (opening)?  They each seem to muddle though and are muddled themselves. 

               Why the play sequence because it foretells it in the beginning of the book.  The play sequence shifts the tone of the novel.

               The sexual frustration of the two men .  Most prominent use of the women in the book is as whores.  Viewpoint of women.  Trying to find and discover self.    Bloom being referred to as she – treatment of him by his wife?  He cooks for her, serves her. Though she is obviously able to take are of herself.  Bello becomes his  wife then?  Symbol of emasculation.  Daedalus too has womanish qualities.  Homosexuality?  Both Bloom and Daedalus are out of place.  But book also shows the similarities and differences between the two of them.     

               Change in book reflects Joyce’s travels?  Does the book reflect his varying moves.  Young and middle age view of life.  Why no elder viewpoint of life?  Continuous though at the end.  Female.  Milly.  Why?  Seems out of place compared with he rest of the book.

               Little or no plot.

               Clear images, diverse imagery and symbolism.

               How on earth did he get it published?