Tuesday, October 16, 2018

The Most Dangerous Game, and Another Better Game

Over the past few months I've tried to draw some connections between politics and theater, but more and more I'm thinking that the better analogy would be to games. Perhaps this is just because these days I tend to relate everything to games sooner or later :)

Image result for kim kipling original illustration

It's an old metaphor. Kipling displays it to great effect in Kim. But here's a way to describe the contemporary politics game: it's like that game people are always playing, where they lose if they remember they're playing--I lost the game!--only in this game, you score points by derailing conversations in a different way: by expressing indignation in such a way as to elicit indignation. The more the better, and perhaps it is cathartic if your indignations happen to line up, but perhaps it only starts a great wobbling and disintegration, like that bridge that collapsed from the little harmonious wobblings all piling up and amplifying each other in the wind. 

You keep your own score, of course, so you can decide if you prefer to get more points by aligning with others' indignation within echo chambers of ideology, or by cutting Sherman's marches across them, righteously pwning people who might think differently and at any rate express their outrage differently or even in direct opposition to yours. But in any case it seems to be about the most interesting game going right now to lots of people, pretty well overtaking Monday Night Football as the national sport. In the form of debates over the bias or appropriateness of the hugely popular CNN10 (formerly known as Student News), shown daily in schools all around the country, and much more evidently through the ever-evolving hallways of social media thronged by school-age kids, the game has already begun to be played at the little league level.

We can look back at still more gruesome entertainments, like Augustine's descriptions of gladiatorial contests and their effect on his friend Alypius, or the bear-baiting that used to be the entr'acte in Shakespeare's time, and recognize our own, more political and psychological gruesomeness, prefigured therein.

Whether by way of literary and historical perspective, or just out of simple humanity, let's play another, better game instead!

In this other game, we talk to people, whether they seem to agree or disagree with us, by asking them questions first, and asking ourselves inwardly or tacitly or aloud: why do you feel that way? Do you want to feel that way? Really? And then listening, with as much love and forgiveness as possible.

Because once indignation or anxiety or triggeredness or macro- or microaggression riles us up enough, it's bound to be painful rather than exhilarating or bonding or whatever thrill it is that it gives us, playing that game we were describing above. And once something is painful enough, we probably want to deal with it in a way that will be healthy, rather than pathological or sadistic. We should probably play this other game instead, listening to and building up selves and stories, whether through serious study or shared laughter, or both, rather than tearing ourselves and others to pieces. So we can say at the end of the game-play, "Oh, she's warm!" rather than exit, pursued by a bear.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Gamecool Books: The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman

The Bookwarm Games project continues with its sister series, Gamecool Books. I'll alternate between series on games and books, and when I talk about books part of what I'll be doing is imagining how to adapt them as games.

I begin with The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman. New episodes will be released every Tuesday evening for the next 30 weeks or so. Generally, we'll be reading one chapter a week; every third or fourth episode I hope to have guests to speak to, and contributors are welcome to help with production, the imaginary adaptation, and support in the form of likes, comments, and questions. So if you'd like to be involved, let me know! Comment here or on the podcasts/videos, or contact me via the email in the about section of this page.



Here is the running list of audio and recommended readings for the course:

Week 1: Lyra and her Daemon
The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman, front matter and Chapter 1: The Decanter of Tokay
Books I-II of Paradise Lost, with Pullman's Introduction
"I have the feeling this all belongs to me," Pullman's autobiographical sketch

Week 2: A Picture of the Aurora
The Golden Compass Chapter 2: The Idea of North
Genesis 1-3, KJV
"Miss Goddard's Grave," an essay by Pullman

Week 3: Conversation with Sparrow Alden
Sparrow's page on Signum University
Sparrow's blog

Week 4: Let's Play Kids and Gobblers!
The Golden Compass Chapter 3: Lyra's Jordan
Songs of Innocence and Experience, by William Blake
Map of Lyra's Oxford

Week 5: The Smell of Glamour
The Golden Compass Chapter 4: The Alethiometer
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake
Pullman's illustrations for the chapter headings

Week 6: Conversation with Verlyn Flieger
Verlyn's page on Signum University
Verlyn's site

Week 7: In Your Own Home
The Golden Compass Chapter 5: The Cocktail Party
Pullman's "Isis Lecture," on education
His "Reading in the Borderlands" talk on readers, books, and illustrations

Week 8: Into that Dark Maze
The Golden Compass Chapter 6: The Throwing Nets
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glassby Lewis Carroll
Pullman's "Let's Write it in Red," "The Writing of Stories," and "Let's Pretend," essays in Daemon Voices

Week 9: Conversation with Gabriel Schenk
Gabriel's page on Signum University

Week 10: Don't Leave Anything Out
The Golden Compass Chapter 7: John Faa
Keats' Letter on Negative Capability
Pullman's "The Path through the Wood" in Daemon Voices
"The language of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials,'" by Simon Horobin

Week 11: The Work You Have to Do
The Golden Compass Chapter 8: Frustration
"Leave the Libraries Alone," speech by Pullman
"Far from Narnia," article by Laura Miller
"Heat and Dust," interview by Huw Spanner
Interview on Textualities, by Jennie Renton

Week 12: You Oughter Stayed Below
The Golden Compass Chapter 9: The Spies
Clockwork, or All Wound Up
The alethiometer replica commissioned by Pullman and made by Tony Thompson, on display at the Bodleian

Week 13: Conversation with Mark Vernon
Mark's webpage
Mark's Guardian review of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Understand Humanism, by Mark Vernon, with a foreword by Pullman

Week 14: What Question Would You Ask?
The Golden Compass Chapter 10: The Consul and the Bear
Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North, by Philip Pullman
"Soft Beulah's Night," by Pullman (also subtitled "William Blake and Vision")

Week 15: Difficult Critters
The Golden Compass Chapter 11: Armor
His Dark Materials Illuminated: Critical Essays on Philip Pullman's Trilogy, edited by Millicent Lenz with Carole Scott
"Darkness Visible: An Interview with Philip Pullman," by Kerry Fried
Peril of the Pole board game included in Once Upon a Time in the North

Week 16: Conversation with Kevin Hensler
Kevin's page on Temple University

Week 17: Like Riding the Bear
The Golden Compass Chapter 12: The Lost Boy
"So She Went Into the Garden," Pullman's 2002 Arbuthnot Lecture (still trying to hunt this one down)
"I'm Quite Against a Sentimental Vision of Childhood," interview by Nicholas Tucker
"What Makes a Children's Classic? Daemons and Dual Audience..." by Susan R. Bobby

Week 18: Do You Want To See Proof?
The Golden Compass Chapter 13: Fencing
von Kleist, "On the Marionette Theatre"
Pullman's "Heinrich von Kleist: On the Marionette Theatre - Grace Lost and Regained," in Daemon Voices
"A word or two about myths," originally accompanying Karen Armstrong's Myths Series

Week 19: Conversation with Marek Oziewicz
Marek's page on UMN
Papers available on academia.edu

Week 20: Nice Place. Nice Peoples.
The Golden Compass Chapter 14: Bolvangar Lights
Pullman's talk on A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (audio)
Pullman's Introduction to the Folio Society edition of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (excerpt)

Week 21: ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN
The Golden Compass Chapter 15: The Daemon Cages
Gospels of Mark and John, in any red-letter edition
Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ, along with the Afterword included in the paperback edition and/or the related essay "How to Read The Good Man Jesus..."

Week 22: Conversation with Lauren Shohet
Lauren's page

Week 23: As a Compass Needle is Drawn to the Pole
The Golden Compass Chapter 16: The Silver Guillotine
Ian Beck's Appendix materials in the Tenth Anniversary Edition
The Broken Bridge, by Pullman

Week 24: We Are Strong
The Golden Compass Chapter 17: The Witches
The Firework-Maker's Daughter, by Philip Pullman
with his essay, "The Firework-Maker's Daughter on Stage"

Week 25: Conversation with Maggie Parke
Maggie's page
Her profile on Signum

Week 26: We Can't Read the Darkness (or, Mayhem and Ructions)
The Golden Compass Chapter 18: Fog and Ice
"Magic Carpets," "Balloon Debate," and "Writing Fantasy Realistically" essays in Daemon Voices
The Scarecrow and his Servant, by Pullman
(or maybe The White Mercedes, aka The Butterfly Tattoo)

Week 27: True, Every Word
The Golden Compass Chapter 19: Captivity
"Poco a Poco," in Daemon Voices
I Was a Rat! and Count Karlstein, two more of Pullman's shorter books

Week 28: A Ritual Faithfully Followed
The Golden Compass Chapter 20: Mortal Combat
Pullman's essays "Epics," "As Clear as Water," and "Imaginary Friends," in Daemon Voices
Some of his retellings of Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm 

Week 29: Conversation with Leanna, aka Musical33, of HDM Fandom
His Dark Materials fandom wiki

Week 30: A Prisoner Acting Like a King
The Golden Compass Chapter 21: Lord Asriel's Welcome
"Dreaming of Spires" and "God and Dust" in Daemon Voices
Tony Watkins' interview with Pullman

Week 31: Beyond Sleep and Waking
The Golden Compass Chapter 22: Betrayal
"The Republic of Heaven," by Pullman
"On Fairy-stories," by JRR Tolkien

Week 32: Forms Among the Dust
The Golden Compass Chapter 23: The Bridge to the Stars
Entruckung [Transcendence], Stefan George
Schoenberg String Quartet no. 2

Week 33: Concluding Q&A on The Golden Compass
(With special attention to da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, and special thanks to the Bells and Mom and Dad)
Recorded live 4/30/19 on the Bookwarm Games Twitch channel

A rough transcript of the lectures can be found here.

If this were a real course, there'd be a writing component. For research, I'm working on an updated bibliography. I've also started reviewing the scholarly literature. And I submitted an essay of my own to a peer-reviewed journal, which was very exciting!

The project continues here with discussions of The Subtle Knife. Following which, more episodes about The Amber Spyglass. Forthcoming are more episodes about other aspects of Pullman's life and work. 

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Droit du Seigneur: Henry IV, The Marriage of Figaro, and the Supreme Court

A quick search suggests at least one major publication has picked up on the historical parallel between the Kavanaugh controversy and the droit du seigneur, the practice of the feudal lord playing the part of the husband on the wedding night for anyone under his demesne.

From that evocative association, here are a few more examples of art imitating life, if politics and history are legitimately parts of life and not just distractions from it--viable alternatives to internet indignation and social media signalling:

On the theme of the supposed reformation of the young rake into an esteemed leader, what better time to revisit Shakespeare's Henry IV plays? Is Hal a lovable apotheosis of boys will be boys, or simply a bully? Is Falstaff's gleeful disregard for the truth reminiscent of Trump, or a powerful corrective for calcified order? We're meeting again at Bellwether next month to talk about Part 2, so join us if you're in the area!

On the effort to overcome historical privilege in the name of social progress and personal integrity, what better time to revisit Mozart's Marriage of Figaro? We recently had a chance to see this performed live in Spokane; I think it's remarkable that such a civilized pastime as attending the opera is still possible at all. It makes me think of the theater scene in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, too, which might even quote some of Hal's barbs at Falstaff. But key to the comical plot is the Count's willing suspension of the feudal droit, a generous promise he immediately plans to renege upon when the marriage of Figaro places the lovely Susanna at his seigneurial disposal. Hilarity ensues, and all ends well, but not without giving us the strong sense that it might well have gone otherwise, shorn of the magical atmosphere of Mozart's art.

Lastly, in Mimesis Auerbach reflects on Goethe's anxiety about the limiting effects of socio-economic position on his personal development as an artist, both in his letters and his Wilhelm Meister, who in turn reflects on Hamlet's potential and how it is twisted by his circumstances. Auerbach sums up the pinnacle of French theater, epitomized in Racine, as an attempt to show human beings at their utmost freedom, hence atop any socio-economic hierarchy, with the free play of their mighty passions supplying the drama. It makes me think that history itself, and the history of art which represents and shapes it, are the strongest counter-argument against the assertion of individual responsibility to the exclusion of any socio-economic considerations when elaborating one's philosophy, political or otherwise. For whenever those few human beings had the perfect freedom of their position granted them by the providence of high birth, they were as likely to squander it in debauchery and the old in-out as to lead their people to glorious victory in the fifth act.

Regardless of politics, though, may these great works bring perspective, consolation, and delight. And if it's all too heavy, try Maniac. There's a trial subplot there that seems relevant, though I haven't got far enough into it to be able to spoil it any further.

Monday, October 1, 2018

From the Scar to the Stocking: Mimesis, by Erich Auerbach

Another in the series of distillations of major intellectual works from the fields of science and literature--my pace of reading's slowed significantly with school starting up again, and I'll be giving shorter shrift to quotations than I might have liked, but the project of reading and synthesis is endlessly beckoning, and so I'm proceeding as best I can--

Mimesis, by Erich Auerbach, traces the realistic portrayal of human life through the whole of western literature from Homer to Virginia Woolf. Instead of an exhaustive historical or philological survey, Auerbach provides a series of close readings of substantial, representative passages from the wide sweep of writing under his masterful purview. They are given in the original languages and then followed (in most cases) by English renderings in Trask's excellent translation, so the amateur Romance language-learner is richly challenged and rewarded by the author's patient explications and illuminating arguments, solidly grounded in the texts, which are allowed to stand on their own as well as being contextualized and brought into conversation with one another across the centuries.

Auerbach asks a seemingly simple question, as he explains in the Epilogue. What would it mean to pursue 'the category of "realistic works of serious style and character"'? His aim is not to define realism--perhaps this is why he leaves the abstract until the end--but through literature to grasp reality, and to reflect at some length on the greatest expressions of human experience.
The subject of this book, the interpretation of reality through literary representation or 'imitation,' has occupied me for a long time. My original starting point was Plato's discussion in book 10 of the Republic--mimesis ranking third after truth--in conjunction with Dante's assertion that in the Commedia he presented true reality...I came to realize that the revolution early in the nineteenth century against the classical doctrine of levels of style could not possibly have been the first of its kid. The barriers which the romanticists and the contemporary realists tore down had been erected only toward the end of the sixteenth century and during the seventeenth by the advocates of a rigorous imitation of antique literature. Before that time, both during the Middle Ages and on through the Renaissance, a serious realism had existed. It had been possible in literature as well as in the visual arts to represent the most everyday phenomena of reality in a serious and significant context...And it had long been clear to me how this medieval conception of art had evolved, and when and how the first break with the classical theory had come about. It was the story of Christ, with its ruthless mixture of everyday reality and the highest and most sublime tragedy... (554)
Once he's sharpened up his interpretative focus, however, Auerbach begins his study not with Plato but with Homer's Odyssey, contrasting it not with Dante or the Gospels but with Genesis. His opening chapter--surely one of the most brilliant essays on literature ever written, justifying by itself all the years of dogged teaching and grading of writing by all the teachers and magisters ludi down through the ages, sufficient to warm the cockles of their heart ad infinitum and make up for every piece of evasion, procrastination, and brazen bullshit perpetrated by their pupils come essay-writing time--poses the question of the serious realistic representation of ordinary life with reference to two great moments: Euryclea's discovery of Odysseus by his scar, and Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Analyzing the very different styles of the two works, and their effects and ramifications for the reader's view of the world, Auerbach proceeds to trace the development of the influence of each of these dominant threads, the Classical and the Judeo-Christian, through an array of famous authors and texts, as well as in more obscure ones. Along with their consummation in Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Cervantes, we read of the developments of these themes in Roman satire and history, in the church fathers, in medieval romances and mystery plays; the ribald Rabelais appears alongside the didactic Antoine de la Sale; the droll Voltaire is juxtaposed with the frank Saint-Simon; romantics, historists, and realists brandish their words, and finally we come full circle with a comparison of the stream of consciousness and kaleidoscopic perspectives of Proust, Woolf, Joyce, which recall the narrative clarity of the Odyssey leaping over breaks in time, or the voice of eternity speaking through the everyday in the Bible. Proust's petite madeleine in Swann's Way and Woolf's enigmatic Mrs Ramsay, measuring out a stocking against her son's leg in To the Lighthouse, become the counterparts to Odysseus' wounding by the boar and Abraham's proving his faith on Mount Moriah.

Auerbach leaves American authors out of consideration, suggesting that he considers the West to be bounded by the Old World, and whatever cross-fertilization has taken place in the New, as well as across the rest of the globe, to be outside the limits of his study. He highlights the works of the Spanish Golden Age and the Russian giants Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as ones he would have liked to touch upon, along with early German realism, the lights of antiquity, the scraps of the early Middle Ages. In the closing envoy, he bids his book, as complete as he could make it, farewell:
May it contribute to bringing together again those whose love for our western history has serenely persevered.
It is a fitting echo to the epigraph from Marvell:
Had we but world enough and time...
The tantalizing suggestion of these pages, first to last, is that figures of immortal significance still walk among us, but that we have all but unlearned the words with which to understand them. First and last, the themes of fleeting time for love and of fragmentation of even the deepest love, is opposed by patient study of the fruits of that love. Ultimately, then, I take the tone to be one of hope and generosity. In itself, Mimesis exemplifies the serious treatment of representations, which may well be the first step out of the cave and into the light, the yearning for which shines through even the clumsiest of them.