Page 127 "Orwell scares me."





[George Orwell (1903-1950) was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.  Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry and is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and the satirical novella Animal Farm. They have together sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author. His Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with his numerous essays on politics, literature, language and culture, are widely acclaimed.  Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues. Several of his neologisms, along with the term Orwellian, now a byword for any draconian or manipulative social phenomenon or concept inimical to a free society, have entered the vernacular.]


     From page 127 of the book:  "...Sarah was already charmed during the course of the evening. This latest compliment put her over the edge. She was completely in Ebert's hands. I still had reservations, since most of the conversation centered around our immediate past and what precipitated our emigration to France. Then there was talk of writing, of the many authors Ebert had met and known over the course of many decades. His fondest memory was that of knowing George Orwell for a brief period of time.
    "Orwell scares me," Owen admitted.
    "Well, Orwell saw the hard truth, and it wasn't a vision that he sentimentalized, I'll have you know."
    "That's why he scares me," said Owen.
    "That's why it's the hard truth," replied Ebert. "Later, during the Fifties, my own intimate circle in Paris denounced him as a mediocre talent, or a highbrow personality. What did they know?! The Left Bank. I liked him. I thought he was right. And I broke ranks with mes frères Parisiens. Snobs. I don't think you'd characterize any of his books as exciting."
    He puffed out some smoke and stared at the table.
    "Certainly Keep the Aspidistra Flying is sadly oppressive in its way."
He looked toward Sarah and me, as we weren't familiar with the novel, and then explained.
    "It was about a working-class fellow who wants to overcome his meager, penurious life. He wants to go beyond what everyone else will surely become; that is, a comfortable middle class life. Not a tragedy, but the truth."
    Ebert raised his eyebrows and looked at me.
    "Not a tragedy, but the truth," Owen echoed. "I'll drink to that.""

Page 124 "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist"




Arthur Conan Doyle



[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and nonfiction.]

     From page 124 of the book:  "...That day, the door to his room had been left ajar, as it would be during those baking, midwestern summer days, and I found him sitting at his desk reading. He was bathed in the bright sun streaming through venetian blinds, which in turn lit up the pale, cream-colored cinder block walls, providing a highlight of background against which he rested. His dark hair covered his ears, while his shoulders supported a grin which revealed two dimples. He hadn't the chance yet to furnish his room, so the emptiness of being newly arrived on campus was augmented by the room's hollow look. His book was opened to the first page of "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist," by Arthur Conan Doyle. How anyone could read in that late August heat was beyond me. How one could read Sherlock Holmes in that heat gave me pause for admiration."

                                                                                                                
The following link takes you to the full text of Conan Doyle's story: http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DoySoli.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

This link takes you to IMDB's entry for the PBS TV series episode (this series is one of the best things ever to have appeared on television): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506456/



Page 123 "It's like the Yeats poem," he said.



William Butler Yeats
(photographed by G. C. Beresford)

 

From page 123 of the book: "...I looked up and away from where we stood, observing the lazy green countryside, searching for nothing in particular under that bright Sunday heat, when suddenly I spotted the brown suit Revenant had pointed out hanging from a window. Owen noticed it, too.
    "It's like the Yeats poem," he said. "'Fifteen apparitions have I seen; the worst a coat upon a coat hanger.'"
    "What do we do with that?" I asked.
    "It remains to be seen," he said tiredly.
    The Yeats poem gave me a shudder; as I remembered it from years past. Largely an old man's sensations about solitude and mysteries of the night, it was written in 1938, a year before the poet had died. Owen had originally read it to me during our freshman year at college in Peoria. It was my introduction to Yeats, an introduction that would bring on the rest of modern literature like a flood. Three months prior to hearing the poem, I'd entered his room for the first time. I'd gone in to say "hello.""


                                                                                     

The Apparitions

William Butler Yeats

Because there is safety in derision
I talked about an apparition,
I took no trouble to convince,
Or seem plausible to a man of sense.
Distrustful of thar popular eye
Whether it be bold or sly.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.

I have found nothing half so good
As my long-planned half solitude,
Where I can sit up half the night
With some friend that has the wit
Not to allow his looks to tell
When I am unintelligible.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.

When a man grows old his joy
Grows more deep day after day,
His empty heart is full at length,
But he has need of all that strength
Because of the increasing Night
That opens her mystery and fright.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.

Page 110 "...symbols reminding one of John Dee"

From page 110 of the book:   "...I looked at my watch and, just realizing how late it was, and that I might be arrested for vagrancy or prowling (the French word for it was rôder; je rôde: I prowl, therefore I am). I wondered if I were going mad. I searched for the hallway to the front door and quietly let myself out.  

   After securing the front door, I stepped back a few feet to examine the rectory. The number thirteen was posted on the left. The windows, each divided into eighteen individual glass panes, were paired up with wooden shutters, which were in desperate need of paint and which were etched upon with symbols reminding one of John Dee. There was the archangel Uriel, holding his bronze disk marked with the symbols of the zodiac; there were crystals and bulls framed by the overgrowth of ivy. One in particular displayed the fish-entwined anchor of Jacopo Sannazaro. Vines of healthy, arcadian ivy grew up the sides of the house and around the windows, giving me the impression at first that they were closing in. On further inspection, I realized that the windows assumed personalities all their own; cajoling the ivy, inviting it, "Come in. Come in." I walked in the direction of la Fontaine and tried to restrain the presence of the metaphysical in my life."
                                                                   

(Clockwise from top left: Portrait of John Dee [artist unknown];
various occultic symbols associated with Dee.

[John Dee (1527-1608) was a noted English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist,[4] and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy.  Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. Dee was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert in navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England's voyages of discovery. In one of several tracts which Dee wrote in the 1580s encouraging British exploratory expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage, he appears to have coined (or at least introduced into print) the term "British Empire."]

Archangel Uriel (illustration courtesy of
Order of the White Lion)

["In all their affliction he was afflicted,

and the angel of his presence saved them:

in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

and he bare them, and carried them

all the days of old." (Isaiah 63:9 King James Version)]

[In Christian apocryphal gospels, Uriel plays a role in the rescue of Jesus's cousin John the Baptist from the Massacre of the Innocents ordered by King Herod. He carries John and his mother Elizabeth to join the Holy Family after their Flight into Egypt. Uriel is often identified as a cherub and angel of repentance. He "stands at the Gate of Eden with a fiery sword," or as the angel who "watches over thunder and terror." In the Apocalypse of Peter he appears as the Angel of Repentance, who is graphically represented as being as pitiless as any demon. In the Life of Adam and Eve, Uriel is regarded as the spirit of the third chapter of Genesis. He is also identified as one of the angels who helped bury Adam and Abel in Paradise.]

Portrait of Jacopo Sannazaro by Titian, 1660
and his epigraph of a fish-entwined anchor

[Jacopo Sannazaro (1457-1530) was a poet whose work both in Latin and Italian was extremely fashionable in its own time. The court poet of King Ferdinand I of Naples, Sannazaro was a member and then leader of Pontano's humanist academy from the 1480s on.]

Page 108 "..."John the Baptist?" he reflected, finishing his own brandy."



"Preaching of St John the Baptist" by Baciccio, 1690

From page 108 of the book:  "..."Fr. Revenent," I looked across the room, out of focus, out of color, "how did you know I was going to follow you?"
He sat up, gazed at the couch opposite him, facing the dormant fireplace and the two fragile, antique end-tables.  A leather hassock lay in front of his feet; I could tell that he rarely used it.
"I didn't know you would follow me," he said.  "It was a discovery that was as wonderful to me as it was to you."
We smiled together at his conclusion.  My eyes roved over indistinguishable shapes of pictures on the walls, as well as over two ceramic cherubim heads which hung near the doorway.  The unlighted figures of a fresco hailed from the last wall as I brought my perusal to a complete stop.  I sipped my brandy and winced from its strength.
"Who painted that thing?" I asked, trying to sound less like a critic and more like a friend.
 "John the Baptist?" he reflected, finishing his own brandy. "It was here when I arrived. Painted by a young art student, I'm told. He was eventually killed in Indochina, in October 1950. A certain General Carpentier had delivered his soldiers along Rout Coloniale 4, to retreat from a Viet Minh onslaught. My dear Walter, there were six thousand French troops lost; they just disappeared, in the jungle, without a trace."
It was the worst overseas defeat of the French since Wolfe beat Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, in 1759." 



Lambert Sustris, "Baptism of Christ"
(1591)

 
















Gen. Carpentier





Route Coloniale 4 (RC4, also known as Highway 4) is a road in Vietnam, bordering the Chinese border from Hanoi to Cao Bang. It is famous for a French military disaster in 1950 in which several units of the French army, including some battalions of the Foreign Legion, were decimated by the Viet Minh and essentially ceased to exist as fighting units.



Rout Coloniale 4




French troops in Vietnam, circa 1950




Along the Rout Coloniale 4




Map showing whereabouts of Rout Coloniale 4

The Battle of Quebec (aka The Battle of the Plains of Abraham), September 13, 1759


Essentially the outcome of this battle, the military defeat of the French forces, represented a transfer of colonial power from one European country to another. The British ejected the French elite, installed their own, and picked up the colonial project where the French had left off. The remaining French-speakers were relegated to second class citizenship, and the First Nations were not consulted at all, despite the fact that this is their ancient territory. Despite francophone re-empowerment following the Quiet Revolution, the Plains of Abraham battle is still a touchy subject because it signifies domination over French-speakers by the British and later on Canadian governments.



French General Montcalm

 

British General Wolf





Postcard showing Quebec City. The yellow line and
dot points to the Plains of Abraham

Page 99 "...Albert Camus was buried there,..."

From page 99 of the book:  "...The driver spoke English and was grateful for Owen's request to stop at the cemetery in Lourmarin on the way to Gordes.  Albert Camus was buried there and Owen felt it would be a disgrace not to pay his respects to the man he referred to as the conscience of the 20th century."



This picture is known as "the famous pose of Albert Camus."

Camus' grave in Lourmarin.



Page 96 "Gordes would do them good."

From page 96 of the book:    "...That morning, I was waiting for a car.  Owen and Sarah were being driven to Gordes, a village on the edge of the Vaucluse plateau, nearly 20 kilometers north of Cadenet and the Luberon mountain range.  They were taking a couple of days to  be alone, to investigate the land without me.  I knew that at times I must have acted like a meddlesome nurse, or a nagging orderly; available, helping, knowledgeable, unavoidable.
     Gordes would do them good.  They were going to visit three things: a castle; a bizarre cluster of cone-shaped, stone huts called the village des bories (origin unknown); and the Senanque Abbey, built by the Cistercians in the 12 century.  Owen wouldn't pass up the Abbey for, as I've said, he was attached to history.  It was, I hoped, what would give him strength."

Gordes

Map showing Luberon range, Cadenet, Gordes, etc.

Village des  bories



Detail of Village des Bories



Senanque Abbey

Page 88 "What's going on, Catullus?"

From page 88 of the book:  "..."What's going on, Catullus?" he asked, kicking off his shoes.  "Reading dirting poems?  Thinking about unnatural acts?"
"No," I smiled, avoiding his eyes, drinking my wine."

[Gaius Catullus (84 BC to 54 BC), Latin poet of the Roman Republic.  His poems have been preserved in an anthology of 116 carmina, which can be divided into three formal parts: short poems in varying metres, longer poems, and epigrams.

    The short poems and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups (ignoring a rather large number of poems eluding such categorization):

a.  poems to and about his friends (e.g., an invitation like poem 13).

b.  erotic poems: some of them indicate homosexual penchants (50 and 99), but most are about women, especially about one he calls "Lesbia" (in honour of the poetess Sappho of Lesbos, source and inspiration of many of his poems).

c.  invectives: often rude and sometimes downright obscene poems targeted at friends-turned-traitors (e.g., poem 30), other lovers of Lesbia, well known poets, politicians (e.g., Julius Caesar) and rhetors, including Cicero.

d.  condolences: some poems of Catullus are solemn in nature. 96 comforts a friend in the death of a loved one; several others, most famously 101, lament the death of his brother.

    All these poems describe the lifestyle of Catullus and his friends, who, despite Catullus's temporary political post in Bithynia, lived their lives withdrawn from politics. They were interested mainly in poetry and love. Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have sought venustas, or charm, in his acquaintances, a theme which he explores in a number of his poems. The ancient Roman concept of virtus (i.e. of virtue that had to be proved by a political or military career), which Cicero suggested as the solution to the societal problems of the late Republic, meant little to them.]

Page 86 "...a Cezanne-like bowl of fruit,"

From page 86 of the book:  "...Gloria silently opened a concealed bottle of bourbon and grouped it between our glasses, along with bottles of white and red wine, a tray of cheeses, a plate of prosciutto ham, a Cezanne-like bowl of fruit, and some bread."

Page 81 "...the four-knights' opening."

From page 81 of the book:  "..."How do you play chess?" asked Ebert, watching Owen's move, which mirrored Ebert's.
"What do you mean?" asked Owen, as Ebert moved his queen's knight to bishop-three. Owen copied the move, thus completing the four-knights opening.
"What is your plan?"
"My plan?" replied Owen, as Ebert moved king's bishop to bishop-four. "You ever read Magister Ludi?" "
                                                                           

[The Four Knights Game is a chess opening starting with the moves
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6

This is the most common sequence but the knights may be developed in any order. The ECO codes for the Four Knights Game are C47 (alternatives to 4.Bb5), C48 (4.Bb5 without 4...Bb4), and C49 (the Symmetrical Variation, 4.Bb5 Bb4).]

[The Four Knights is fairly popular with beginners who strictly adhere to the opening principle "develop knights before bishops." It was one of the workhorses in the family of the Open Game, at even the highest levels, until World War I. Thereafter it fell by the wayside, along with a number of open games. In this period ambitious players explored the Ruy Lopez, believing it a better attempt for White to exploit the advantage of the first move. In the 1990s, this opening saw a renaissance, and is now seen in the praxis of players from beginner to grandmaster. The Four Knights usually leads to quiet positional play, though there are some sharp variations.]  See this video link: http://chrisrecord.com/chess-com-the-four-knights-opening-intro/

Magister Ludi was originally published under the title: The Glass Bead Game (German: Das Glasperlenspiel).  It is the last work and magnum opus of the German author Hermann Hesse. Published in Switzerland in 1943, after being rejected for publication in Germany, the book was mentioned in Hesse's citation for the 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature.  Glass Bead Game is a literal translation of the German title, but the book has also been published under the title Magister Ludi, Latin for "master of the game," which is an honorific title awarded to the book's central character. "Magister Ludi" can also be seen as a pun: lud- is a Latin stem meaning both "game" and "school."

Hermann Hesse

The Glass Bead Game takes place at an unspecified date, centuries into the future. Hesse suggested that he imagined the book's narrator writing around the start of the 25th century. The setting is a fictional province of central Europe called Castalia, reserved by political decision for the life of the mind; technology and economic life are kept to a strict minimum. Castalia is home to an austere order of intellectuals with a twofold mission: to run boarding schools for boys, and to nurture and play the Glass Bead Game, whose exact nature remains elusive and whose devotees occupy a special school within Castalia known as Waldzell. The rules of the game are only alluded to, and are so sophisticated that they are not easy to imagine. Playing the game well requires years of hard study of music, mathematics, and cultural history. Essentially the game is an abstract synthesis of all arts and sciences. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics.

Page 76 "...from local wines to Jean Paul Sartre, from sexuality to Dostoyevsky"

From page 76 of the book:  "...The two men walked on. They crossed the street and finally stepped over the threshold of Ebert's home.  Their talk ran from local wines to Jean-Paul Sartre, from sexuality to Fyodor Dostoyevsky." 

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian writer and essayist, best known for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.  Dostoyevsky's literary works explored human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", was called the "best overture for existentialism ever written" by Walter Kaufmann.  Dostoyevsky is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. (Text & painting Courtesy of Wikipedia)

 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, existentialism, and Marxism, and his work continues to influence fields such as Marxist philosophy, sociology, critical theory and literary studies. Sartre was also noted for his long polyamorous relationship with the author and social theorist, Simone de Beauvoir. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused the honor. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Page 64 "Pissaladiere for the three of you?"

From page 64 of the book:  "..."Is it ready?" Shanzenbach asked.
"Yes," she replied. "Pissaladiere for the three of you?"
"Thank you, God!" answered Shanzenbach, bringing both his palms together.
"And we'll have two bottles of the Domaine Tempier," added Ebert. To Owen, Ebert explained the Pissaladiere: A large, rectangular flatbread, topped with tomatoes, onions, black olives, garlic, and anchovies, and baked until forgotten. It was usually served with red wine.
"It's typical in the Vaucluse," Ebert confirmed.
"I like it already," said Owen.
"What do you think?" Shanzenbach placed placing his hand on Owen's arm. "She has the buttocks of an angel, but the strength of a bull. My God, I would like to fuck her while she is making the pissaladiere."
"Arthur!" exclaimed Ebert."

Page 55 "...down in Little Italy"

 




















From page 55 of the book:  "...It was a party given by Aunt Gloria, who had splurged on her nephew nothing but the best food and wine at a restaurant down in Little Italy, and nothing nearly so grand as she would have given her daughters or her son and accompanied by the bold certainty that she would never find the cause to do so: She had wished her children could have been orphaned, like the Sarjevo children, so as to give her a rest from motherhood and give them the challenge to mature with punishment, the obstacles of compassionate hearts and deficiencies like gluttony to be worked out at a later date."

Page 52 "Blarney Rose bar on Ann Street"

From page 52 of the book:  "...We saw Leah and Thomas off at the top of the subway stairs and walked to the Blarney Rose bar on Ann Street.
"Interesting afternoon, isn't it," Owen said as he poured beer into my mug while I unburdened plates of bockwurst and cabbage, and napkin-rolled silverware from our two trays."

"...Interesting, yes, I thought, since you and your brother barely exchanged a dozen words where I would've expected a thousand. We sat surrounded by tables packed with executives, delivery men, secretaries, retail merchants, and financial wizards. The tavern was mediocre in appearance. Nothing hung on the walls. Philodendrons sat in plastic flower pots in the windows."

[Note: The sign on the bar shows Blarney Stone, another chain of bars that I and my friends often went to when I first came to NY in 1976.  I suppose some time during the last 30 years it went from Blarney Rose to Blarney Stone.  Same thing, basically. I just wanted to give you the feel of the street, the neighborhood, and at such a place there could be such a confluence of so many different kinds of people.] 

Page 49 "the opposite direction brought one to Trinity Church"

From page 49 of the book:  "...Later that afternoon, I made my way toward Union Square Station to take a downtown train to Owen's office in the financial district. Owen's building stood at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. Within a short walking distance lay Battery Park and New York's harbor, and the view to the Statue of Liberty. A couple blocks in the opposite direction brought one to Trinity Church, its historic graveyard taking up the corner lot of that block. I had often finished lunch with Owen and walked through it, marvelling at the above-ground tombs of Robert Fulton and Alexander Hamilton, the tilted, chipped gravestones of past New York governors, church ministers, children, sea captains, and Civil War soldiers."

Page 43 "...old Mr. Piso, begun in Bari, Italy..."

From page 43 of the book:  "...Her wretched marriage, to the man who was Sylvester's father, was a godsend to her parents and helped to end the blood feud between old Mr. Sarjevo and old Mr. Piso, begun in Bari, Italy, around the time of the outbreak of the First World War. (Old Mr. Piso had coveted and stolen old Mr. Sarjevo’s sweetheart: He’d reported him to the local conscription authorities, who’d needed men to fight the encroaching Austrians; one man went off to the Italian alps to dodge exploding shells and the other (old Mr. Piso) stayed behind as reward for more than one informative betrayal of the neighborhood’s single and eligible men."