Some Thoughts on "David Copperfield"

For some weeks now I’ve been following Robert McCrum’s weekly series listing the 100 best novels in English (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/22/100-best-novels-robert-mccrum).  It’s a fascinating series, and checking out the next book on the list has become a Monday ritual at morning coffee with Ray and Libby and Phil.  The list is historical; that is, he begins with his earliest choice (Pilgrim’s Progress) and moves forward in time.  He’s currently at number 61 (Murphy, by Samuel Beckett—1938).  There have been some revelations on the list: two books that I had not read nor heard of I picked up at the library and read and liked (Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, an early feminist novel, 1926; and The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells, definitely not science fiction, 1910).  Some choices I don’t think should be on the list (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe, 1838; and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet, 1929—as good as these books are).  Some I knew the author but not the work (Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, 1938).  And some I’ve never heard of the author nor title (Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe, 1904; and New Grub Street by George Gissing, 1891).  But some authors I knew would make the list; one of those is Charles Dickens.  The question was which book would McCrum choose?

Dickens came in at #15.  I fully expected the chosen novel to be Great Expectations, a book I have read and taught many times and consider the best of Dickens’s work (although I admit I haven’t read every single Dickens’s novel).  Somewhat to my surprise, McCrum chose David Copperfield. In his essay (he has one for each selection: (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/30/david-copperfield-dickens-100-best-novels), he anticipates “howls of rage” that one of Dickens’s other books wasn’t selected.  I didn’t howl—it is, after all, one man’s selection—but I was perplexed.  To decide for myself, as honestly as possible, I just reread David Copperfield.

In terms of plot, Great Expectations is clearly superior; David Copperfield has virtually no plot: it’s simply the story of one man and the problems he encounters growing up; there are conflicts, of course, but David moves forward through his life eventually facing and solving them all.  But this is a catalog of events, not a plot.  Great Expectations has a complex and ultimately satisfying plot.   

Those plot coincidences Dickens has been much criticized for are found in both novels.  I suppose that the fact that Dickens considered David Copperfield his favorite novel should count for something, but, frankly, not that much; it’s we, the readers in the 21st century who must make that decision.  In David Copperfield Dickens develops his major character in greater depth, helped, no doubt, by the novel’s autobiographical nature; but Pip in Great Expectations is a fully rounded character, too.  Both books are filled with memorable characters, David Copperfield perhaps more so: the delightful Mr. Micawber, the dastardly Uriah Heep, and the pesky but ultimately lovable Aunt Betsy.  But Great Expectations gave us Miss Havisham, surely one of the most memorable characters ever to grace the pages of English literature.

So it comes down to personal preference.  And I’m sticking with my choice for best Dickens novel: Great Expectations.  Feel free to argue with me!

Pride: The Movie

Last week I saw Pride, the new British film about gays and lesbians in London who pitched in to support the striking minors in Wales during the reign of the dreadful Margaret Thatcher—in spite of the deep cultural differences between the two groups.  It’s a wonderful movie and I was deeply touched by it, enough that I went back again this week to see it a second time.  Heck, I may even go a third time.

The story is real.  I watched a documentary about the actual events in the 1980s and the movie is surprisingly close to what actually happened.  Most of the characters are real (one major character is fictional) and the events happened pretty much as they are depicted in the movie.

The title resonates in several ways.  Obviously, there is the gay pride movement in London—at a time when gays and lesbians were being discriminated against and lived in physical danger—just like what the striking minors were going through.  So there’s also the pride of the Welsh minors in their struggle against the police and the attacks against them and the shameful attempt by the government to starve them into submission.  The title can even be extended to Thatcher herself and her astonishing ego and total failure to empathize in any way with the minors.  There is also the simple pride of coming out as reflected in the fictional gay character and his relationship with his family.

The movie is wonderfully filmed; the scenes in Wales are especially gorgeous, reflecting the harsh but beautiful landscape.  All of the acting is top notch and totally believable.  There are some truly memorable scenes: it’s almost worth the price of admission just to see Dominic West do his disco dance number!  And the ending, even though ultimately the minors lost their battle, is deeply moving and hopeful.  Bring a few hankies—not because it’s sad but because it’s so uplifting.

Please, go see this movie!

Language Adjustments

Language constantly changes; it’s the nature of the beast.  As a language conservative (the only place I’m a conservative), I fight what I consider frivolous and unwarranted changes in our language.  As far as I’m concerned, the only way to say ideology is  id-ee-ol-uh-jee, not ahy-dee-ol-uh-jee.  And harassment should be pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, not the second as is commonly heard.  And short-lived is pronounced with a long i.  Period.  I’m losing these battles (I’ve lost the last one already), but I gamely fight on.

But there is one recent change in language that I wholeheartedly applaud: the necessary alterations in gender in reference to same-sex marriages.  But these changes are new and they still bring me up short.  I was recently reading about the opera singer Patricia Racette when I ran across this clause:  “. . . the decade that I’ve known her and her wife, mezzo Beth Clayton.”  I knew Racette was gay; she has long been open about it.  But that didn’t stop me from doing a double take when I read “her and her wife.”  60+ years of reading “he and his wife” make the new phraseology stand out.  I’m all for it, of course; it’s just different and I’m having to adjust.

And I need to get used to it.  The same issue of Opera News had a news item about the great countertenor David Daniels marrying his partner, conductor Scott Walters; the ceremony was performed by none other than Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (photo above).  It was just another news item.

I remember when the former ABC weatherman Sam Champion married his partner: the wedding was announced on GMA, complete with photos.  No big deal.

And just today I was watching Jeopardy!, and when one of the contestants was interviewed, he mentioned that he “and his boyfriend” went on a safari to see the great apes.  No one batted an eye.

For each of these events the world didn’t end.  Civilization as we know it didn’t come crashing down.  The institution of marriage did not crumble, as the Bible-thumpers told us it would.  In fact, Massachusetts has had legal gay marriage since 2004—a decade—and the state hasn’t fallen into the ocean.   Same sex marriage is legal in many countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, and Uruguay; and in parts of other countries (the US for one)—and right here in Illinois.

And the world moves right ahead.  And that’s the way it should be.  Still, for those of us who watch language closely, some adjustments will need to be made.  I will gladly do that for this important step forward in human rights, even though for every “he and his husband” or “she and her wife” I do a double take.  I’ll get there; I’m just slow to adapt.

“Early though the laurel grows . . . ”

Facebook is a puzzlement.  I hardly ever understand what is going on.  My friend Sue recently sent me an important private message—and Facebook didn’t notify me.  Isn’t it supposed to do that?  If she hadn’t mentioned it in a “regular” post, I wouldn’t have known.  And I never understand who sees what or where anything shows up.  But, Facebook has done one really good thing:  it has kept me in touch with many former students, which is a delight.  And recently there was a post from Alyssa, one of my favorites.  She put up a picture of two books, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman, that I must have discussed in class or perhaps even given out copies; I did that sometimes.  That simple post sent me on a trip down memory lane.

A Shropshire Lad was the first book of poetry I ever bought.  I still have it and there’s a photo of that book above.  That edition is copyrighted 1950, but I know I didn’t buy it then; in the 50s I was still a hick down on the farm and certainly wasn’t out buying poetry, although I was already reading it in school books.  I’m guessing I got it in the early 60s; I have a very faint recollection that I got it at an English language book store in Hong Kong or Kowloon (still a British colony in those days).  But I’m not sure.  I could have got it in Oklahoma City or Washington, D.C.  My memory, like the color in the cover of the book, has faded seriously with time.

Oh but I loved that book and those poems!  Instinctively, I think I understood that I had more in common with Housman than just poetry, but that revelation was to come much later.  Somehow, those simple poems would waft me away to someplace—undefined—where life was different, and oh so melancholy.  These are lovely poems, beautiful of language, but they have a great sadness to them.  Just what a young 20-something wants as he—I, that is—mooned about steeped in self-pity.  Who misses those years?

The most famous poem from the book is probably “XIX: To An Athlete Dying Young”: 

     Smart lad, to slip betimes away

     From fields where glory does not stay

     And early though the laurel grows

     It withers quicker than the rose.

And one of my favorites and, perhaps, a poem written in reference to Housman’s great unrequited love for Moses Jackson, is “XIII”:

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard a wise man say,

“Give crowns and pounds and guineas

       But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

       But keep your fancy free.”

But I was one-and-twenty,

       No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

       I heard him say again,

“The heart out of the bosom

       Was never given in vain;

’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

       And sold for endless rue.”

And I am two-and-twenty,

       And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Rereading these poems led me to Tom Stoppard’s brilliant modern play, The Invention of Love, which deals with Housman’s love for Jackson.  Interestingly, the two actors in the play portraying the young Housman and the older Housman, Robert Sean Leonard and Richard Easton, both won Tonys for portraying the same person in the same play at different ages.  If you like A Shropshire Lad, this play is well worth seeking out.

One final poem from A Shropshire Lad, the last poem, “LVIII”:

I hoed and trenched and weeded,

  And took the flowers to fair:

I brought them home unheeded;

  The hue was not the wear.

So up and down I sow them

  For lads like me to find,

When I shall lie below them,

  A dead man out of mind.

Some seed the birds devour,

  And some the season mars,

But here and there will flower

  The solitary stars.

And fields will yearly bear them

  As light-leaved spring comes on,

And luckless lads will wear them

  When I am dead and gone.

Newly Discovered Gems

Lists are a guilty pleasure of mine—one of many.  I keep all sorts of lists, from groceries to what to take on an upcoming trip, from all the lottery scratchers I’ve bought (and lost money on) to my CD collection (by genre and then alphabetically by composer).  If a magazine, newspaper, or internet article that has “10 Best” in front of it, you can bet I’m going to read it.  The end of the year is a lister’s paradise; every type media has its lists.  Okay, most of them are just plain silly (does one really need to know the ten worse Canadian cities to visit?).  I read them anyway.  But some have to be taken a bit more seriously; when The New York Times lists the ten best books of the year (they also do the 100 best books of the year) one had best pay attention, even if, depressingly, I haven’t read any of them.

And right now one of The Guardian’s (theguardian.com/us) book bloggers, Robert McCrum, is running a list of 100 of the best novels in English.  Frustratingly, he’s only releasing one a week, moving historically from the past to the present.  So every Monday my little coffee klatch gathers around the latest release to see if we have read it, or, more importantly, see if we approve of his selection.  And sometimes, to marvel that he lists a book that we (usually I) have never heard of.

McCrum’s surprising first selection (remember, this is historical, not in order of preference) was The Pilgrim’s Progress, by Paul Bunyan.  After a little reflection, I agreed with this.  I read this novel as a teenager and thinking back as I read McCrum’s short essay (which accompanies each release), I was flooded with memories of the novel, even after all these years.  I won’t read it again, but it’s nice that 50 years later it has stuck with me.  Some of the selections are obvious choices and couldn’t be left off:  Gulliver’s Travels; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; Frankenstein; Moby Dick; others are expected authors, but perhaps not the work I would have chosen: Jane Austen’s Emma rather than Mansfield Park; David Copperfield rather than Great Expectations.

Some are just plain head-scratchers (for me, anyway): Edgar Allen Poe’s only novel, The Narrative of Gordon Arthur Pym, is included; Little Women by Louise May Alcott; and the Sign of the Four by Author Conan Doyle (a terrific novel, to be sure, but one of the best 100 ever?).  Wind in the Willows comes in at number 38, and what a terrific novel it is, but to make the final cut?  Other great books are going to have to be eliminated for these, and I’m not entirely comfortable with that.

And then there are books I’ve never even heard of.  I expected a good many on the list to be books I’ve never read, but surely I would have heard of them all.  Nope.  Number 20 was Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.  Who?  What?  Number 37:  Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe; never heard of it.  Nor number 40, Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.  At least I’ve heard of Beerbohm, even if I haven’t read a thing by him.

Some books on the list I’ve heard of the author but don’t know that particular work.

Released this Monday was his selection number 41:  The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford.  This is one I haven’t read, but at least I’ve heard of it.  Everyone has heard of Benjamin Disraeli but how many people have read Sybil, McCrum’s number 11.

Which leads me to the book pictured above: The History of Mr. Polly.  Eveyone knows H. G. Wells.  How many know he wrote 50 novels!  And not all science fiction.  From McCrum’s discussion of  The History of Mr. Polly I decided to read it.  And what a delight it was.  Mr. Polly is sort of an Everyman at failure, in his life, his work, and his marriage; early on he declares he “hated Fishbourne, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours. But most of all Mr Polly "hated himself.”  But Mr. Polly is a master neologist.  Some examples (I kept a list): sesquippledan verboojuice, eloquent rapsodooce, intrudacious, jawbacious, and retrospectatiousness.  Spellcheck might not like these words, but I love them! 

The History of Mr. Polly, a newly discovered gem indeed.  And surely that’s the main function of my beloved lists.

Why I'm Skipping the Pride Parade

Today is the Chicago Pride Parade.  This is one of the premier pride events in the world; the crowd this year is predicted to be up near 1,000,000.  It’s a colorful and fun-filled day, and everyone should go at least once to such an event.  But I’m skipping it this year, even though the route passes less than a mile from where I live.  The explanation is simple: I’m just getting too old.

I attended my first Pride Parade was when I lived in San Diego.  It was an astonishing event, for this country boy from Oklahoma.  Three things about that first parade stand out.  One is that the superintendent of schools marched in the parade with a group of his gay and lesbian teachers.  Such a thing could never have happened in Oklahoma (probably still doesn’t) and I thought of all the closeted gay teachers back home who would lose their jobs for coming out.  Second were the contingents of police and firefighters marching in the parade, led by the fire chief and the police superintendent.  Again, such a thing was unimaginable back in Oklahoma.  And my third strongest memory of the parade is when we were all walking from the parade to the Pride Festival at Balboa Park: from a hilltop I turned and looked back down the hill and there were hundreds—thousands—of men and women celebrating gay pride, heading in a mass movement to the park.  It was a revelatory moment, and one I’ll never forget.

And then when I moved to Chicago I went to the parade my first few years here—it was a short walk there, after all.  These were much bigger parades, and I didn’t last the entire day (my knees couldn’t take it), but there were several things that stood out at those first parades.  One was that the governor walked the entire length of the parade (as well as many other politicians—but look at the size of the GLBT voting block!).  Again, there were contingents of teachers and firefighters and police.  Many businesses had floats, and all the media outlets had floats.  Gay bars were represented, but so were many organizations, both gay and straight; and many churches are represented also, something perhaps not seen much in Oklahoma and Texas.  Truly, this city turns out in support of equality and fairness.  Last year was the first year for the parade after Illinois joined the states allowing same-sex marriage; not surprisingly, the turnout last year was a record.  But the size of the audience keeps growing.  And judging by what I saw as I walked part of the route this morning heading for my regular Sunday-Morning-Coffee-with-Jack, there are as many straight people as gay, perhaps more.  And many people bring their children, too, both gay and straight couples.  Chicago does love a good parade/party.  And Chicago supports fairness and equality.

But it’s supposed to be 90 degrees today.  And my knees haven’t gotten any better over the years.  So I’ll stay home again today.  I’ve got good memories of the other parades I’ve been too.  And I’ll let the younger set do the celebrating for me.  They deserve it.  Okay, I deserve it too, but they will have to stand in my stead.

Fun and Games with the Texas Republicans

It’s that time again: the Texas GOP has published their new platform—for 2014—although it seriously looks like it’s for 1914.  It would be funnier if the platform didn’t hurt thousands of people in many different ways.  Here are a few of the ignorant and egregiously wrong elements of the platform:

1.  I can’t even imagine these sentiments in the year 2014: irrelevant and ignorant and completely out of touch with reality:  “Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that have been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. Additionally, we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.”*

2.  Every legitimate psychological and psychiatric association has disavowed the idea that “reparative therapy” works to “cure” the gay.  And anyone who knows anything about this dangerous and often damaging “treatment” knows it’s a fraud.  But facts just don’t seem to matter much those Texas GOPers:  “We recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy.”

3.  In line with the national GOP ideas, using the term lightly, Texas Republicans would do away with Social Security and transition to a private model.  We’ve seen how that would have worked after what happened in 2008: “We support an immediate and orderly transition to a system of private pensions based on the concept of individual retirement accounts, and gradually phasing out the Social Security tax.”

4.  Pornography is equated with cocaine and meth?!  “We encourage state and federal governments to severely prosecute illegal dealers and manufacturers of addictive substances, including pornography . . . “

5.  Not surprisingly,  they want nothing to do with climate change, completely ignoring science and the facts—again:  “While we all strive to be good stewards of the earth, ‘climate change’ is a political agenda which attempts to control every aspect of our lives. We urge government at all levels to ignore any plea for money to fund global climate change or ‘climate justice initiatives.’”

6.  Of course Islamophobia raises its ugly head as the GOP believes laws should be passed to prevent Sharia Law from becoming the law of the land, even though that hasn’t happened and couldn’t happen (and a federal appeals court blocked such a move for a similar law in Oklahoma as the court “did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or cultures, let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in concrete problems in Oklahoma”).  Texas either: “We also urge the Texas Legislature and the United States Congress to enact legislation prohibiting any judicial jurisdiction from allowing any substitute or parallel system of law, specifically foreign law (including Sharia Law), which is not in accordance with the United States or Texas Constitutions.”

There’s more, but I am sick to my stomach and have to stop.  Additional items include these GOP shibboleths: get out of the UN; lots of hate on immigration—but little on compassion; of course they don’t forget the rich, and they clearly support greater income inequality; and it wouldn’t be a good Republican document if it didn’t include Benghazi.

There are some terrific people in Texas, including relatives and friends of mine, but this GOP platform ought to horrify them.  It won’t.

*These quotes are from the released GOP platform available readily on-line.