~ The Elegant Dodo ~
Sadly the dodo is no more, hunted to extinction in the 17th century. It was a large (over three feet tall and weighing as much as 47 pounds) flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. For years some people believed it was a mythical creature and never existed at all, until fossilized remains were found and studied. Author Lewis Carroll popularized the dodo bird by having one appear in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
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There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. ~ Ernest Hemingway
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René Magritte ~ Belgian Surrealist Artist
René Magritte lived from 1898 to 1967. He was a surrealist painter who challenged people’s preconditioned perceptions of reality. Below are a couple of examples of his work.
Kryptonite is the thing that Superman fears most:
A heart is the thing the Tin Man wants most:
Kingsman: The Secret Service ~ A Capsule Movie Review
by Allen Kopp
Kingsman: The Secret Service is based on a comic book, so you know about what to expect. Wait a minute, though. It’s better than you probably think it is. It’s literate and well-made, full of action sequences (no matter how implausible they are) in the style of James Bond, without any of the tiresome romantic interludes with bosomy super models.
“Manners maketh the man,” agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth) says, just before he single-handedly reduces a roomful of thugs to a pile of bleeding corpses. If manners maketh the man, so does his clothing. The well-tailored suit (not off the peg) is equivalent to the suit of armor worn by knights of old, says Harry Hart, and the secret service agent the equivalent of the knight.
Harry must find a suitable candidate to put forward to his bosses as a possible secret service agent to replace one who was killed. He recruits a young man from a squalid environment named Gary (known as “Eggsy”) Unwin (played by Taron Egerton). Eggsy’s father saved Harry’s life, so Harry has every reason to believe that Eggsy might have what it takes.
Each of the other agents puts forward their own candidate, so there are eight or so at the beginning. (The number dwindles as they are disqualified one by one.) The training they are subjected to is grueling, difficult and scary. For example, when they are sleeping, the room they are in is flooded with water. They must think fast, as an agent would have to do, or they die. In another scene, they all jump out of a plane at 35,000 feet. They are told after they jump (by radio communication) that one of them doesn’t have a parachute. It’s up to the others to save the life of the one who doesn’t have the chute, while hurtling through space. And if that isn’t difficult enough, they must land in a small circle on the ground. It makes Navy Seal training look like kindergarten.
Of course, there always has to be an arch-villain in a spy movie. The arch-villain here is named Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson). He is an eccentric and colorful tech billionaire with a lisp. He is also an environmental lunatic who believes the earth will survive only if the population is reduced. He devises a plan whereby he offers free Internet and cell phone service to anybody who wants it. (If you give something away, people have to bite. Thus is human nature.) All people have to do is pick up their SIM card that will allow them to get the free service. The thing about the SIM card that people don’t know is that it makes people ultra-violent and instills in them a desire to kill each other. One half the earth’s population kills the other half. In this way the population is reduced and the planet is saved. How are the Kingsmen going to foil this plot? They need lots of help.
Kingsman: The Secret Service is clever and derivative, but aren’t all spy movies derivative of other spy movies? The characters are interesting and engaging. (I could have done without the bitch with blades for legs, though…ho-hum.) If this movie does nothing else, it revives a stale genre and makes it fresh by giving it a different twist. I see there are going to be a whole spate of spy movies out this year. Don’t people who make movies have any originality? I guess the answer to that question is: Whatever makes money. As the saying goes, “Everything that’s old is new again.”
Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp
Marcel Proust ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp
French author Marcel Proust lived from the Belle Époque (born 1871) to the Roaring Twenties (died 1922.) Of all the writing that he did in his relatively short life, he is best known for his monumental seven-volume novel (approximately 4300 pages), In Search of Lost Time, or, as it has previously been translated, Remembrance of Things Past. Many people believe In Search of Lost Time to be the ultimate in novelistic art and Proust the greatest writer of his time.
Proust didn’t always enjoy such a lofty reputation, however. Early in his writing career he was dismissed as a socialite and a snob, incapable of producing anything of lasting value. He was slight of stature (one hundred pounds), always in poor health from asthma (there were times when he was virtually an invalid); had piercing dark eyes and a small black moustache. His homosexuality (which he took pains to conceal in certain quarters) led him into inappropriate liaisons, often with heterosexual social climbers who used him to get from him what they could.
Unlike other writers of his generation (the so-called “modernists”), Proust’s literary style is one of wordy, flowery sentences and the persistent use of metaphors. He practically invented a new style of writing fiction in which “involuntary memory” and autobiography play a large part. He frequently wrote about male partners with whom he shared dalliances and turned them into female characters in his writing. The “Narrator” of the novel (presumably Proust himself) is a raging heterosexual, even though many of his characters are gay.
Proust had a hard time finding a publisher for the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, which he called Swann’s Way. When it was published in 1913, it was dismissed as long and pointless by some leading critics. It wasn’t until subsequent volumes came out that people came to see it as a groundbreaking literary masterwork. (Apparently one has to read all seven volumes to get the full effect and understand Proust’s vision.) The final volume (volume 7) wasn’t published until 1927, five years after Proust’s death at the age of 51.
Edmund White, who has studied Proust at great length and taught courses about him, wrote this biography, Marcel Proust, for the Penguin Lives series. For the literature student who wants an overview of the life and times of Proust without spending too much time and effort, this book is an excellent choice. Edmund White concludes the book with an analysis of why Proust is even more popular today than ever before. In his words, “Proust is the first contemporary writer of the twentieth century, for he was the first to describe the permanent instability of our times.”
Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp
They Sailed Away for a Year and a Day ~ A Short Story
by Allen Kopp
It was a lonely, rocky place with liquid water and an atmosphere like earth’s. They had only each other to keep from going crazy while collecting the data they would take back home. Vance was older with other missions to his credit; Fiske younger, not long out of training.
Fiske was tired, had caught a bit of a cold. (“How do you catch a cold when there’s nobody to catch it from?”) Vance told him to relax while he prepared the evening meal. When the food was ready, Fiske was asleep. Vance touched him lightly on the shoulder. Fiske opened his eyes and sat up.
“Come and eat before I give it to the hogs,” Vance said.
“The nearest hog is millions of miles away,” Fiske said.
“We don’t know that for sure. I think I heard some rooting around outside last night.”
“Why didn’t you wake me earlier? Wasn’t it my turn to cook?”
“Thought you needed to sleep.”
“You’re too good to me.”
Before eating, Fiske did what he always did, marked another day off the calendar.
“How many to go?” Vance asked.
“A hundred and thirty-seven.”
“A cakewalk.”
A storm was brewing, so after the meal was finished Vance went outside to make sure everything was secure and nothing would blow away. When he came back inside, Fiske was checking the day’s transmissions from earth.
“Anything important?” Vance asked.
“Usual stuff. Status updates. Nothing very interesting.”
“No personal messages?”
“No.”
“Want to play a hand of cards before bed?”
“Not tonight,” Fiske said. “Headache.”
Vance opened the medicine chest and gave Fiske a couple of pills. “These will help you to sleep,” he said.
When they were in bed, Fiske turned his face toward the wall and made little snorting sounds.
“Having trouble breathing?” Vance asked.
“No, I guess I’ll live.”
“Are you crying?”
“Of course not.”
“If you want to cry, it’s all right.”
“I said I’m not crying!”
“What’s the matter, then?”
“I didn’t get a message from Linda. Again.”
“She’s probably busy with that day job of hers and taking care of her mother.”
“I think it’s more than that. It seems she no longer has anything to say to me. We were going to get married as soon as I got home.”
“Were?”
“I’m not so sure now that it’s the right thing to do.”
“Maybe you weren’t meant to marry Linda. Isn’t it better to know now before it’s too late?”
“Does it make any difference to you?” Fiske asked. “Not having anybody to go back to on earth?”
“What makes you think I don’t have anybody to go back to?”
“I don’t know. I just figured.”
“There is somebody, but I don’t talk about it to the people I work with.”
“You can talk about it to me.”
“It’s better if I don’t. You don’t expect me to give away all my secrets, do you?”
“Ever been married?”
“Once. We went our separate ways after five years.”
“Must have been tough.”
“Not really. Not as bad as having a tooth pulled.”
“Do you ever see her? Talk to her?”
“No. That was the point of getting the divorce.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“I don’t care.”
“Couldn’t you at least have remained friends with her?”
“No.”
“You’re a hard case.”
“Not really.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight,” Fiske said. “I keep thinking about Linda.”
“Read a book. Get your mind on something else.”
“I’ve never been much of a reader. I’m more of a doer.”
“Get up and do some work, then.”
“This storm has me on edge. Just listen to the wind howl!”
“I don’t mind it,” Vance said. “I’ve always liked being snug inside with a storm raging outside.”
“I’ve accepted that we’re going to die here.”
“From the storm? I don’t think so. We’ve seen worse storms than this.”
“People die on alien planets all the time.”
“I have no intention of dying.”
“What do you miss most about earth?”
“I don’t know,” Vance said. “Fresh fruits and vegetables, I suppose. Bananas. How about you? What do you miss most? Besides Linda, I mean?”
“Oh, everything,” Fiske said. “Trees and grass. Birds and flowers.”
“When people colonize this planet,” Vance said, “they’ll bring those things with them.”
“Maybe people have no business living in places like this,” Fiske said.
“Earth is no longer big enough. It’s time for the human population to expand beyond our puny little planet.”
“Humans! We think we’re so important but we’re not. The earth would be better off without us.”
“You don’t want to see other planets colonized?”
“Not especially. I just want to go home.”
“Go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Fiske said. “I would never have been able to stand this place without you.”
“That sounds strangely like a compliment,” Vance said.
“I just want you to know how I feel before it’s too late.”
The next day radio communication with earth was lost. Vance believed it was a temporary aberration that would correct itself in a day or two, but Fiske took it as another sign that he and Vance were going to die.
“They’re not coming to get us,” Fiske said.
“What do you mean?” Vance said. “Of course they’re coming, but it’s not time yet. They’ll come at the designated time.”
“We’ll be dead long before then.”
Fiske became ill with his lungs and Vance, not being a doctor, didn’t know what to do with him. All he could do was keep him comfortable the best he could.
“Soon you’ll be at home with Linda,” Vance said.
“That’s all over,” Fiske said. “I won’t ever see her again. She’s nothing to me. Only you matter to me now. I only want to be with you at the end.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Two weeks later, radio communication with earth still had not been restored.
“Maybe everybody on earth is dead,” Fiske said.
“That’s absurd,” Vance said. “Of course they’re not dead.”
“I wouldn’t care if they were.”
“You’ll feel better in a couple of days,” Vance said, “and you’ll stop having those gruesome thoughts.”
“It’s just you and me now and I’m happy.”
Soon Fiske was not able to leave the bed. Vance lay beside him for hours at a time and when Fiske needed something Vance got up and did it. If Fiske was shivering, Vance held him in his arms until they both slept.
Vance soon became ill in the same way that Fiske was. He was no longer able to take care of himself or Fiske either. He believed for the first time that he and Fiske were indeed going to die and it seemed proper and fitting that it should be so, just the way Fiske had said.
Sometimes when he slept he had frightening dreams about being in a place of inky blackness where he couldn’t move his arms and legs and where he called out for help but no help was forthcoming. Once when he awoke from one of these dreams, he stood up to get a drink of water and as he was crossing the tiny space in the dark, something odd about the radio registered in his brain. All the controls were turned off. He hadn’t thought to turn them on. That’s why radio communication with earth had been lost for all those weeks. He laughed at himself and returned to bed.
Fiske stirred in his sleep and Vance leaned his weight against him, threw his left arm over him and put his nose near Fiske’s ear the way he was used to doing, but something wasn’t right. Fiske didn’t have the bulk, the volume, of a human man. Vance turned on the light and gasped when he saw that what he thought was Fiske was a pillow and a rolled-up blanket.
He stood up and looked around the room to see what had become of Fiske. He called Fiske’s name but there was no answer, just the way it had been in his dream. It wasn’t until he saw his own reflection in a mirror that he knew that Fiske wasn’t there, had never been there.
Vance had been the only man to volunteer for the mission that could accommodate only one person. He didn’t mind the loneliness, he said. He had known loneliness before and loneliness was nothing.
Hadn’t there been someone named Fiske back on earth?
Oh, yes. Fiske was a dark-haired younger man with fetchingly arched eyebrows that Vance had been drawn to. Fiske was like no other, sensitive and sweet. The two of them became close in a way that nobody would have guessed, even if they had tried. When Vance saw that Fiske meant to marry a debutante named Linda, he was wounded. He had had too much to drink, made a scene at a party and embarrassed Fiske and himself. Everybody was talking about it. That was why he volunteered for the lonely mission. He hoped he would die and never have to face those people again.
His fever broke and he drank some water and ate some food, after which he slept for many hours. When he awoke, he sent a transmission back to earth to the effect that he had been sick but now believed he would live. My head is bloody but unbowed, he said. I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
Copyright 2015 by Allen Kopp
~ That Ol’ Country Boy was Just Horsin’ Around ~
In Paper Moon, one of the best movies of the 1970s (and one of the prettiest to look at with its crisp black-and-white photography), there are some very funny scenes involving hoochie-coochie dancer Trixie Delight (Madeleine Kahn) and her “lady’s maid” Imogene (P. J. Johnson). In this scene in the car, Imogene is about to reveal some information to Trixie’s latest love interest Mose (Ryan O’Neal) that Trixie would rather he didn’t know.
“Tell him about the time that man tried to crack yo’ head open wif a bottle, Miss Trixie,” Imogene says.
“Oh, Imogene, you silly old thing! That ol’ country boy was just horsin’ around,” Miss Trixie says.
Mose gives Trixie an inquiring look and she says to him with an embarrassed little laugh, “Ask me real nice and I’ll tell you about that sometime.”
Later in the movie, Trixie is trying to persuade Addie to let her sit in the front seat (“cause that’s where grownups do the sittin”).
“Somehow or other I don’t manage to hold on real long,” Trixie says. “I might get a new pair of shoes…a new dress…a few laughs…times are hard.” (Choking back tears.) “So if you fool around on the hill up here, honey, you don’t get nothin’, I don’t get nothin’, he don’t get nothin’. So how about it, honey, just for a little while? Let ol’ Trixie sit up front with her big tits.”
~ Cardinalis Cardinalis ~
The Northern Cardinal, also known as the Redbird, is one of the most beautiful birds in North America. With its distinctive red coloring, it stands out among all the birds. In this picture, the female is on the left and the male on the right.
Virginia Woolf ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was one of the leading lights of English literature of the twentieth century. Her famous novels include Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Edward Albee’s play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, has added to her fame, or at least to her name recognition, even though it has nothing to do with her. She was married to Leonard Woolf, a publisher and writer, from 1912 until her death in 1941. They never had any children.
Besides being a brilliant writer, Virginia Woolf was a feminist (extreme in her views that women had always been held back by men), lecturer (she would spend a year preparing a series of lectures she was going to give), snob (she believed America or Americans had never produced anything of value), pacifist (her lack of patriotism and indifference in World War I were mitigated by her fear of Hitler and the outbreak of World War II), and a lesbian. One of her long-term lesbian lovers was the writer Vita Sackville-West. Vita was married to Harold Nicholson, a writer who was also a homosexual. In spite of their sexual proclivities, Vita and Harold had two sons, Ben and Nigel. Nigel Nicholson was born in 1917 and knew Virginia Woolf when he was a child and she was an adult. (We should assume, I suppose, that he didn’t know the nature of his mother’s relationship with Virginia Woolf until many years later.) Nigel Nicholson wrote this brief (190 pages), engaging biography, Virginia Woolf, for the Penguin Lives series.
During Virginia Woolf’s life, she was as famous for her day-to-day activities as for her writing. She was a leader and outspoken member of the Bloomsbury Group, an aggregation of writers, thinkers and intellectuals whose works and outlook influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism and modern outlooks on pacifism, feminism and sexuality. Members of the Bloomsbury Group were well-known for their love affairs and espoused what later would be called “free love.” The Bloomsbury Group included (among others) writers E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey and painters Dora Carrington and Virginia’s sister, Vanessa Bell.
What most people today know about Virginia Woolf (thanks, in part, to the novel and movie, The Hours) is that she had “bouts of insanity.” She suffered from a form of mental illness, probably manic depression or bipolar disorder, that could today be controlled by medication. After a number of suicide attempts throughout her life, she drowned herself in the River Ouse near her home in 1941 at the height (for Britain) of World War II, age fifty-nine. Her life and legacy live on in her work.
For students of twentieth century English literature, Virginia Woolf by Nigel Nicholson is a fascinating, easy-to-read overview of the author’s life and times. Nigel Nicholson has the added advantage of having known Virginia Woolf firsthand and says in 190 pages what other writers would say in 500.
Copyright © 2015 by Allen Kopp
Literary Fictions 