No it’s not out of Chaucer’s Canterbury’s Tales, but Matthew
went as a knight for Halloween this year.
People thought this was very original.
I think it was.
Here
are some pictures.
Here
is he is running after making a stash of candy.
Man, he filled that bag up in less than an hour. The dentist is not going to like this.
Here’s
an exchange Susan Margret and I had on the Goodreads Catholic Thought Book
Club.
Susan
Margret comments:
I just finished reading
chapter two. I am anxious to learn the story behind the character, Kichijiro.
When the priests first land on Japanese soil, Father Rodrigues suspects that
Kichijiro may have betrayed them. He compares Kichijiro to Judas. He appears to
be weak, lazy, and deceptive, possibly even hiding his Christian status from
the priests. Kichijiro is an interesting character and I am wondering if he
does turn out to be a Judas.
Also, I was not familiar
with the painting that Endō described in chapter one. Father Rodrigues
describes the painting as Christ having one foot on the sepulchre and holding a
crucifix in his right hand. He says he saw the picture in Borgo San Sepulchro.
I looked it up and it is a painting of The Resurrection by Piero della
Francesca. I don't know if Endō made an error or I was looking at the wrong
picture, but Christ is holding a flag, not a crucifix.
My
Reply:
Susan, what page is that
painting mentioned? I passed completely over it, and I now can't seem to find
it. This book is so tightly packed that everything has significance. I'll look
up the painting.
Susan
Margret:
Manny, I think I am
reading a different edition than you are. The painting is mentioned in the
second to the last paragraph in Chapter one. The paintings of Christ as a
shepherd, Christ as a King, and other descriptions of the face of Christ are
mentioned in this paragraph.
Me:
Susan, you are absolutely
right. That is the painting. I even had the paragraph highlighted in my
book. I don't know if I highlighted in
this current read or when I first read it five years ago. Here’s what I have highlighted:
(1) "What did the
face of Christ look like? This point the
Bible passes over in silence."
(2) "his face bears
the expression of encouragement it had when he commanded his disciples three
times, 'Feed my lambs, feed my lambs, feed my lambs ... ' It is a face filled
with vigor and strength. I feel great love for that face.”
The first note was over
the word “silence.” That’s the name of
the novel, so it carries significance.
You’ll find that the word “silence” comes up frequently as we read. I’ll get to that in a later chapter when it’s
more important to the story. But you can
see how the sentence is worded intentionally tries to emphasize the word
“silence.”
The second note focused
on the commandment to feed Christ’s lambs.
That is Rodrigues’ mission in going to Japan, to pastor (etymology:
pasture) the lambs, the innocent new Christians of Japan.
I have to say that is a
magnificent painting. I’ve seen it
before but I never really thought about it until now. And you’re right, he holds a banner, not a
crucifix. Is it an error by Endo or does
Endo have Rodrigues make a mistake, and if so for what reason? It is Christ triumphant. My only hunch (on the painting, not the
error) has to do with the ending, and I don’t want to spoil that yet for
anyone. Just a hunch, though, not
sure.
Rodrigues’ says that the
face in the painting “is a face filled with vigor and strength. I feel great
love for that face.” That is a
magnificent face. If you Google Image “The
Resurrection Piero della Francesca” you can get large details of the painting,
especially the face. Look here: It does have vigor and strength.
Kudos to you Susan for
picking up on the painting.
There’s a couple of more
things I wanted to point out in these early chapters. Sorry for being long winded in this first
week, but I think the opening parts of a book are important to understand since
it sets up reading the rest. I shouldn’t
be so intrusive in the other weeks.
In my first comment
above, I highlighted that last paragraph in the prologue where the narrator
says, “Today we can read…” I asked, when
is today? And who is “we”? Who is speaking there?
This brings us to
identifying the narrative perspective, or more commonly referred to as the
point of view. No question, this is a
modernist novel, and Endo using shifting perspective to achieve several
objectives. Chapters one through four
are clearly in the epistolary form, that is letters home written by Sabastian
Rodrigues. Chapters five through nine,
the point of view shifts to third person.
Chapter ten is in the form of a diary, written by a character who I
think doesn’t even show up in the novel before this. And the Epilogue is in the form of another
diary of another character who also doesn’t show up before. And then we have that authorial intrusion in
the Prologue, “Today we can read…” Discussing
why the shifts and how they create a unified aesthetic is a discussion best
held after completing the work. But I do
want to point out these shifts so you can see it as you read.
Another element in these
early chapters that should be noted is irony.
Irony plays an important part of the ending.
It’s subtly throughout the novel.
Here are three examples from Chapter 1.
First, Rodrigues repeats in
his letter back home about the openness of the Japanese to Christianity: “On this point Japan is undoubtedly, as Saint
Francis Xavier said, 'the country in the Orient most suited to Christianity'.” (p.
16). Further then he expresses his joy of meeting
his first Japanese. “Today I have
wonderful news for you. Yesterday we at last succeeded in meeting a Japanese.” So who does this Japanese who is open to
Christianity turn out to be?
What am I to say about
this man, this first Japanese I ever met in my life? Reeling from excess of
alcohol, a drunken man staggered into the room. About twenty-eight or nine
years of age, he was dressed in rags. His name was Kichijiro.
The first Japanese turns
out to be a drunken slob, hardly an ideal Christian.
Second, while the three
Jesuits are stuck in Macau waiting for a ship that will take them to Japan,
they finally get a Junk, a Chinese sailing ship, to take them.
Anyhow, thanks to Father
Valignano it looks as if we are going to get hold of a big junk. Yet how frail
and passing are the plans of men! Today we got news that the ship is eaten up
by white ants. And here it is terribly difficult to get hold of iron and pitch. (p. 18)
“Frail and passing the
plans of men” ironically will foreshadow the Jesuit’s plans.
Third, after Father
Valignano expresses his belief that the situation in Japan has changed and that
their mission should be aborted. Juan de
Santa Marta expresses his optimism:
'And yet our secret
mission could with God's help turn out successful,' said Juan de Santa Marta,
blinking his eyes fervently. 'In that stricken land the Christians have lost
their priests and are like a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Some one must
go to give them courage and to ensure that the tiny flame of faith does not die
out.' (p. 13)
That’s how the chapter
opens. But the chapter ends with the
very person who expressed such optimism to die and not be able to make the trip
at all.
At last our departure is
only five days away. We have absolutely no luggage to bring to Japan except our
own hearts. We are preoccupied with spiritual preparation only. Alas, I feel no
inclination to write about Santa Marta. God did not grant to our poor companion
the joy of being restored to health. But everything that God does is for the
best. No doubt God is secretly preparing the mission that some day will be his. (p. 22)
In all three cases the
optimism is undercut with a harsh reality.
These subtle situational ironies set a rhythm and tone within the novel
and foreshadow the ironic ending.
Oxford University Press
has announced that its new edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare
will credit Christopher Marlowe as a co-author on the three Henry VI plays.
Despite years of
controversy about the authorship of some of Shakespeare's work, this is the
first time a major publishing house has formally named Marlowe as a co-author.
Christopher Marlowe is a
16th century British poet and playwright. The extent of his possible influence
on (or even collaboration with) William Shakespeare is the subject of much
academic scholarship, as NPR has reported, but for many years, mainstream
academics had mostly derided efforts of independent scholars who challenged the
authorship of plays attributed to Shakespeare.
Christopher Marlowe was a contemporary playwright to Shakespeare and a great poet in his
own right. Marlowe and Shakespeare were born the same
year (1564) and Marlowe was a great playwright before Shakespeare. But Marlowe died young at 29 years old,
stabbed to death. A lot of allegations swirled
around Marlowe’s life, but it was uncertain if his murder was related. It was alleged that Marlowe was an atheist
and was to be arrested, but he died before that happened. All those allegations are rather nebulous, if
you ask me, so it’s hard to say what is true.
The NPR article goes on to say:
Much of the authorship
analysis is quite technical because it involves analyzing every word of entire
plays, looking for patterns and clues.
I
would love to see the analysis in some detail. However this is not a consensus
opinion. The article continues:
Carol Rutter, a professor
of Shakespeare and performance studies at the University of Warwick, told the
BBC, "It will still be open for people to make up their own minds. I don't
think [Oxford University Press] putting their brand mark on an attribution settles
the issue for most people.
Rutter
told the BBC, "I believe Shakespeare collaborated with all kinds of people
... but I would be very surprised if Marlowe was one of them."
As for how Marlowe's
vocabulary and style could have made it into Shakespeare's work without direct
collaboration, Rutter said: "It's much more likely that he started his
career working for a company where he was already an actor, and collaborated
not with another playwright but with the actors — who will have had Marlowe
very much in their heads, on the stage, in their voices. ... They were the ones
putting Marlowe's influence into the plays."
Either
way, this is big in the Shakespeare criticism world.
Here’s
a little mini biography of Christopher Marlowe.
I’m
almost a month behind from posting my reads for the third quarter. I had a massive shift in plans, which I’m
afraid will cause me not to complete the plans from the beginning of the
year. Most of the summer was taken up by
the planned read of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks:
The Decline of a Family. This was
the main read for my year of emphasizing German literature. I’m a good 75% of the way completed, but it
is a long book, and I have trouble keeping my attention on one book for that
long. So I added two unplanned books.
One
was a biography of St. Dominic de Guzmán, titled after the subject and written
by the Dominican Sister, Mary Jean Dorcy.
2016 is the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Dominican
Order, and I wanted to commemorate the occasion in some fashion. The other iun[lanned book was Romano Guardini’s
Learning the Virtures that Lead you to
God, which was a selection for my Goodreads Catholic Thought Book
Club. When it was selected as the Book
Club read, I decided to join in despite my busy schedule. It was a book that had count my attention a
while back. Actually Guardini, despite
his Italian name, is actually German, so it kept with the German literature
based theme.
I
read a couple of short stories—neither all that interesting—and two essays,
which each are about the length of a short story. One was a a personal essay by D. H. Lawrence
about traversing through the German Alps and coming across crosses at the
peaks, and the other by Joyce Carol Oats on Emily Dickenson’s crush on a
particular pastor who she traded letters with.
Both very good reads.
I
also finished reading all the Psalms in both the King James Version and in the
modern Ignatius RSV translations. I am
also continuing this year’s poetry read, Some
Desperate Glory.
I
don’t know what of my original plans I will be able to complete in the remaining
couple of months. I’ve taken another
excursion by reading Shūsaku Endō’s novel, Silence. It too is a Catholic Thought Book Club
choice, but I’m afraid I was the one who pushed this book to be read. It will be coming out in December as a major
motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and I wanted to reread it before the
movie. Please join me in reading Silence. I've been posting quite a bit on it. I will certainly be able to
complete Buddenbrooks, and then I
will have to choose between some of the remaining planned reads. I am still working on works from last
year.
Here
are my completed reads for the third quarter.
Completed
3rd Quarter:
Saint Dominic, a biography by Sr. Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P.
“Clair
de Lune,” a short story by Guy de Maupassant.
“The
Crucifix across the Mountains,” a personal essay by D. H. Lawrence.
“The
Woman In White: Emily Dickinson and Friends,” an essay by Joyce Carol Oats.
“The
State of Grace,” a short story by Harold Brodkey.
The
Book of Psalms,(Psalms 101-150) KJV and Ignatius
RSV Translations.
Learning the
Virtues That Lead You to God, a non-fiction book of Christian devotion by Romano
Guardini.
Currently Reading:
Julius Caesar: Life of a Colossus, a biography by Adrian Goldsworthy.
Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, a non-fiction book on writing by Virginia Tufte.
Some Desperate Glory: The First
World War the Poets Knew, a book of
history and collected poetry by Max Egremont.
Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a
Family, a novel by Thomas Mann.
Silence, a novel by Shūsaku Endō.
Upcoming Plans:
“Gods,” a short story by Vladimir Nabokov.
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” a short story
by Ernest Hemingway.
“The Light of the World,”
a short story by Ernest Hemingway.
“Marius,”
Volume III of Les Misérables, a novel by Victor Hugo.
My
completed works from earlier in the year are the following:
Completed: First Quarter
“Master
and Man,” a short story by Leo Tolstoy.
Interior
Castle, a non-fiction book on spirituality by St. Theresa of Avila.
“A
Cup of Cold Water,” a short story by Edith Wharton.
“In
the Garden of the North American Martyrs,” a short story by Tobias Wolff.
To
Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee.
Prayer
for Beginners, a non-fiction book of devotion by Peter Kreeft.
“Saint
Dymphna,” a short story by Mary O’Connell.
Completed
2nd Quarter:
“A House of Gentlefolks,” a short
story by Evelyn Waugh.
The
Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times,
a non-fiction book by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B.
White
Fang,
a novella by Jack London.
The
Book of Psalms,(Psalms 51-100) KJV and Ignatius
RSV Translations.
“Hallelujah,
Family,” a short story by Ludmilla Petrushevkaya, translated by Anna Summers.
“Wingstroke,:
a short story by Vladimir Nabokov.
“A
House of Gentlefolks,” a short story by Evelyn Waugh.
“Miles
City, Montana,” a short story by Alice Munro.
“The
Cabuliwallah,” a short story by Rabindranath Tagore.
“1933,”
a short story by Mavis Gallant.
“The
Man Born Blind,” a short story by C. S. Lewis.
“After
the Storm,” a short story by Earnest Hemingway.
You can read Part 1 in this series, here. It
occurs to me that some people may have different introductions. My edition, first published in 1980 by
Taplinger Publishing Company, is the thirteenth printing and has a good size
Preface written by the translator William Johnston. If people have picked up the current edition
that highlights the movie, you may not have the Translator’s Preface. Does everyone’s edition have the Translator’s
Preface?
What
I’ve seen is that some editions list a Forward by Martin Scorsese. What I don’t know is if Scorsese’s Forward is
in addition to the Translator’s Forward or in lieu of the Translator’s Forward. I don’t know what Scorsese’s Forward says,
but if you’re missing the Translator’s Forward, then you’re missing some
information.
The
Translator’s Forward walks you through some of the history (which I’ve provided
and gone beyond with my background post) but it also provides some context of
Christianity in Endo’s life and in Japan.
For instance there is this statement Endo made in an interview:
“I received baptism when
I was a child ..... in other words, my Catholicism was a kind of readymade suit
..... I had to decide either to make this ready-made suit fit my body or get
rid of it and find another suit that fitted ..... There were many times when I
felt I wanted to get rid of my Catholicism, but I was finally unable to do so.
It is not just that I did not throw it off, but that I was unable to throw it
off. The reason for this must be that it had become a part of me after all. The
fact that it had penetrated me so deeply in my youth was a sign, I thought,
that it had, in part at least, become coextensive with me. Still, there was
always that feeling in my heart that it was something borrowed, and I began to
wonder what my real self was like. This I think is the 'mud swamp' Japanese in
me. From the time I first began to write novels even to the present day, this
confrontation of my Catholic self with the self that lies underneath has, like
an idiot's constant refrain, echoed and reechoed in my work. I felt that I had
to find some way to reconcile the two. “
Johnston,
the translator, goes on to explain:
'The mud swamp Japanese
in me'.....Japan is a swamp because it sucks up all sorts of ideologies,
transforming them into itself and distorting them in the process. It is the
spider's web that destroys the butterfly, leaving only the ugly skeleton.
Besides
Johnston’s point of how Japan transforms ideologies (which culture doesn’t?)
the point I think is noteworthy in Endo’s comment is that Catholicism felt “in
my heart that it was something borrowed,” that there was a real self
“underneath.” Well, that would be quite
understandable, and I think it hints on understanding one of the themes in the
novel. That is, how does a religion from
the other side of the world, take root in a vastly foreign culture?
Johnston
takes that theme and sets it beside another Shusaku Endo comment:
For a long time I was
attracted to a meaningless nihilism and when I finally came to realize the
fearfulness of such a void I was struck once again with the grandeur of the
Catholic Faith. This problem of the reconciliation of my Catholicism with my
Japanese blood ... has taught me one thing: that is, that the Japanese must
absorb Christianity without the support of a Christian tradition or history or
legacy or sensibility. Even this attempt is the occasion of much resistance and
anguish and pain, still it is impossible to counter by closing one's eyes to
the difficulties. No doubt this is the peculiar cross that God has given to the
Japanese.
One
of the themes in the novel is whether Japan is ready to receive Christianity,
and how would it do so? Was seventeenth
century Japan ready for Christianity?
Well it was amazing how many converted in such a short order. But obviously as will see in the end, the
answer has to be no.
Johnston
also has a third quote which I think projects Endo’s thoughts on the future of
Japan and Christianity:
But after all it seems to me that Catholicism
is not a solo, but a symphony ..... If I have trust in Catholicism, it is
because I find in it much more possibility than in any other religion for
presenting the full symphony of humanity. The other religions have almost no
fullness; they have but solo parts. Only Catholicism can present the full
symphony. And unless there is in that symphony a part that corresponds to
Japan's mud swamp, it cannot be a true religion. What exactly this part is-that
is what I want to find out.
What
I think Endo is saying there is that Japan will one day have the grace of
accepting Christianity—when it is ready—because whatever worldview it relies on
now, is not the fullness of theology and humanity. Only Catholicism can provide that. As a Catholic, I find that the highest
honor. How wonderful.
The
Prologue formally starts the novel, and Endo starts with journeys in search of
the Jesuit Christovao Ferreira, the leading evangelist in Japan, who if rumors
are correct has apostatized. There is
the 1635 journey from Rome of five priests led by a Father Rubino (p. 7), and then the
more central to the novel journey of 1637 of the three Portuguese Jesuits, Francisco
Garpe, Juan de Santa Marta, and the protagonist of the novel, Sabastian
Rodrigues (pp. 7-8). These three had studied under
Ferreira and could not believe their mentor had not chosen “glorious martyrdom”
over apostatizing. I don’t recall if the
five Roman priests have any significance in the rest of the novel, but it’s
interesting to note the different and contrasting rationales for their journeys. While the Jesuits embark to investigate the
Ferreira matter, the Roman priests go “to carry on an underground missionary
apostolate and to atone for the apostasy.”
The priests go to atone while the Jesuits go for self-satisfaction. I think it’s subtle, but there is a sense of
egotism in the motivations of the Jesuits.
In
broad strokes Endo outlines the Jesuits’ journey in the Prologue as they go
from Europe to the Canary Islands then around the Cape of Good Hope to Gao in
India and finally to Macau in China.
From Macau they will sneak into Japan (pp. 9-11).
But Juan de Santa Marta prematurely dies and while both Garpa and
Rodrigues both make it onto Japanese soil, Garpa is soon split off, and so we
have the journey of Rodrigues in search of Ferreira. This journey constitutes the form of the
novel, and it starkly—and I believe intentionally—recalls the form of the great
early twentieth century novel, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Heart
of Darkness too has a journey of a European into a far different cultural
world in search of, if not a spiritual leader, a man of incredible wisdom (“a
very remarkable man”) who has deteriorated into depravity. Charles Marlow goes up the Congo and into the
heart of the African jungle to find the dissolute Mr. Kutz. Sabastian Rodrigues goes into Japan to find the
apostate Christovao Ferreira.
And
Heart of Darkness itself was modeled
on a prior great work, Dante Alighieri’s Infernosection of his Divine Comedy. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante the
character travels into the heart of Hell, not to find a leader—though perhaps
one could make the case he’s symbolically in search of his beloved Beatrice—but
to find his way out of his midlife crises.
At the end of their journeys Marlow and Dante gain wisdom, and so too
will Rodrigues. It is interesting to
note that in the Inferno hell is
shaped in the form of a spiraling pit in which Satan is at the bottom. Rodrigues too will come to a pit, though a
very different type of pit, at the climax of his journey.
But
Endo doesn’t begin the Prologue with the journeys per se, but with Christovao Ferreira and his character before his apostasy.
News reached the Church
in Rome. Christovao Ferreira, sent to Japan by the Society of Jesus in
Portugal, after undergoing the torture of 'the pit' at Nagasaki had
apostatized. An experienced missionary held in the highest respect, he had
spent thirty-three years in Japan, had occupied the high position of provincial
and had been a source of inspiration to priests and faithful alike.
He was a theologian, too,
of considerable ability, and in the time of persecution he had secretly made
his way into the Kamigata region to pursue his apostolic work. From here the
letters he sent to Rome overflowed with a spirit of indomitable courage. It was
unthinkable that such a man would betray the faith, however terrible the
circumstances in which he was placed. In the Society of Jesus as well as the
Church at large, people asked themselves if the whole thing were not just a
fictitious report invented by the Dutch or the Japanese. (p. 3)
Endo
needs to make clear up front what the goal of the journey is and why it is so
startling that Ferreira has apostatized.
He was a man “of indomitable courage.”
The word courage and its antonym, cowardice, are important themes—or
perhaps more accurately they are motifs—in the story. The Jesuit’s courage to face “glorious
martyrdom” is constantly contrasted with drunkard Kichijiro’s cowardice. Apostatizing then is a failure to uphold
one’s courage in the face of adversity, usually life risking adversity, and
give into humiliating cowardice. Here is
probably a good point to understand why the central characters are
Jesuits. The Society of Jesus, started
by St. Ignatius of Loyola, are the soldiers of the religious orders,
soldiers not in the sense of martial arts, but of spiritual warfare. Here are the opening two sentences of their
rule:
Whoever desires to serve
as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross in our Society, which we
desire to be designated by the Name of Jesus, and to serve the Lord alone and
the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth,
should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty and obedience, keep
what follows in mind. He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this
purpose: to strive especially for the defence and propagation of the faith and
for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public
preaching, lectures and any other ministration whatsoever of the Word of God,
and further by means of retreats, the education of children and unlettered
persons in Christianity, and the spiritual consolation of Christ's faithful
through hearing confessions and administering the other sacraments.
Notice
the military analogies: “soldier of God,” “serve,” “defense,” “propagate,
‘”retreat.” Their prayers are referred
to as “exercises,” and their particular charism is to go out into hostile
environment and preach and serve, knowing that they may be martyred. And so Jesuits were sent out across the world
to bring the Good News to places that had never heard it, such as Japan. They were (and still are) tough men who were
trained to go into inhospitable places. They
are the Navy Seals of the religious orders.
When I think of the Jesuit ethos, I’m reminded of the English Jesuit
martyrs, who were trained on the Continent but inserted into anti-Catholic
England to minister to the remaining Catholics.
I remember reading that when a particular group of Jesuits were ordained
prior to entering England, those attending the ordination fell to their knees
because they knew they were in the midst of sure martyrs and therefore future
saints. Many of the Jesuits expected
martyrdom. And so we hear Rodrigues
refer to it as “glorious martyrdom.”
We
should also keep in mind that Ferreira and Rodrigues are based on actual
historical figures. Any changes from the
historical facts that Endo makes in the novel is probably for some significant
reason. The details in the novel
surrounding Ferreira seem to coincide with the historical facts. The only possible change is the length of
time Ferreira has spent in Japan. In
that opening paragraph of the Prologue I quoted above, it says he had been in
Japan for thirty-three years. According
to his Wikipedia entry, Ferreira had been sent to Asia in 1609, which would
make the year the Narrator is speaking 1642.
The novel is supposedly set in 1643, but I think that’s close enough for
historical accuracy.
Now
with Rodrigues, Endo makes a significant change. The character Rodrigues is based on is the
person Giuseppe Chiara, an Italian Jesuit. What is the
significance of switching the central character’s nationality from Italian to
Portuguese? I can think of two. One, the Jesuit Order was started by
Spaniards and Portuguese, and so I think the switch emphasizes the Jesuit ethos
of spiritual toughness. I’m sure Italian
Jesuits were just as tough, but Endo is trying to associate Rodrigues with the
Order’s ideal. Second, and perhaps more
important, making the central character Portuguese links in the colonization
context of the back story. The
Portuguese and Spaniards (and Dutch and English) were colonizers, while Italy
not being unified until the nineteenth century, did not have colonies. The fear the Japanese rulers had of being
colonized is accentuated with Rodrigues being Portuguese.
There
were a couple of other interesting tidbits I picked up in the Prologue. One was repeated use of the number
thirty-three. As I mentioned Ferreira
had spent thirty-three years in Japan, and two pages later in Ferreira’s letter
to Rome he mentions six priests “remaining in the mountains for thirty-three
days” (p. 6). That’s hardly a coincidence. Endo then mentions that Rodrigues was born in
1610 (p. 9), and if the novel is set in 1643 that would make him thirty-three years
old when the events unfold. Thirty-three
is Christ’s age at the time of His passion, so to give Rodrigues the same age
is to interconnect them. In what way is
Rodrigues Christ-like? That’s something
to explore, but it could also be to highlight a contrast. In what way is Rodriguez not Christ-like
might be as pertinent a question. As to
the repeated use of thirty-three, I’m not exactly sure what it’s supposed to
suggest. It does give the story a
Christian aura.
The
other tidbit comes at the end of the Prologue.
Today we can read some of
the letters of Sebastian Rodrigues in the library of the Portuguese 'Institute
for the Historical Study of Foreign Lands'. The first of these begins at the
time when he and his companions heard from Valignano about the situation in
Japan. (p. 12)
This
transitions into the novel’s first chapters which are epistles back home from
Rodrigues. But the narrator says “Today
we can read…” When is today? And who is “we”? Who is speaking there? This leads to the question of the novel’s
narrative perspective, which is complicated and for another discussion.
It
finally happened today at school. It
seemed that Matthew was late in losing his first baby tooth. He’s seven years old and one and a half
months. Is that late? I don’t know but it seemed the other kids
lost theirs earlier. The tooth had been
loose for the longest time and today biting into an apple at school, it finally
came out.
And
the school nurse put it in a baggy for him.
It’s there on the sticker by the shark’s tail.
Now
it’s under his pillow and he expects money for it from the tooth fairy…LOL. What should I give him?
I
thought this was a joke at first, but it’s true. The Swedish Academy that selects Nobel Prizes
has had some quirks over its life, but this takes the cake. If you haven’t heard, this year’s winner of
the Nobel Prize in Literature—yes, Literature—is none other than Bob
Dylan. From NBC News:
Bob Dylan was awarded the
Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday.
The 75-year-old music
legend was cited by the Swedish Academy for "having created new poetic
expressions within the great American song tradition." He will receive a
prize of $927,740.
Born Robert Allen
Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, Dylan became a prolific songwriter and penned some
of the most influential anti-war and civil rights anthems of the 1960s'
counterculture. They include "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times
They Are a-Changin" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
He has also had an
enormous impact on other artists of his generation and beyond, writing songs
that would later be covered by music legends ranging from Jimi Hendrix to
Adele.
I’m
not denying that Bob Dylan has had a large cultural impact, but is song writing
literature? When music and lyrics come
together to form a vocal piece, it’s the music that defines the work, not the
lyrics. The lyrics are a secondary
matter. Take opera for example. The author of an opera is the composer, not
the librettist. We know Le nozze di Figaro as a Mozart
opera. Opera buffs would know that the
librettist was Lorenzo Da Ponte, but even here that’s a special case. Da Ponte served as Mozart’s librettist for a
few of Mozart’s great operas, so he became famous in the opera world. But Mozart had other great operas without Da
Ponte and no one knows who the librettist were for those. How much did Da Ponte contribute in making those
operas with Mozart great? Well, no one
knows any of the operas Da Ponte wrote for other composers. No one knows the librettists for Giuseppe
Verdi’s great operas. Or Rossini’s. Or Pucini’s.
Or just about any other opera.
The
article goes on to say that Dylan’s songs are poetry:
Sara Danius, permanent
secretary of the Nobel Academy, told a news conference Thursday there was
"great unity" in the panel's decision.
"Bob Dylan writes
poetry for the ear," she added. "But it's perfectly fine to read his
works as poetry."
Now
I’m not saying that lyrics are not important to a song. It’s the lyrics that usually construct the
melody. Take for instance Dylan’s song,
“Rainy Day Women.” Here’s the first
verse and chorus from MetroLyrics:
:
Well, they'll stone you
when you're trying to be so good:
They'll stone you just
like they said they would
They'll stone you when
you're tryna go home
Then they'll stone you
when you're there all alone
But I would not feel so
all alone
Everybody must get stoned
The
verse part of the melody “They’ll sto-o-ne you when you’re try-y-ing to be so
goo-ood” is created by (1) the rough meter of the line, (2) the vowel length of
the words, and (3) a stretching of three words in the line, “stone,” a word
just before the final foot of the line (trying, said, tryna, there), and final
word of the line. Then the chorus part
of the melody still keeps that three stretched words, but the line is shorter
and now he shifts the first stretched word from the second word slot to the
first: “But” and “Ev.” Here’s the song
if you want to hear it.
The
point is the lyrics are important to the song but not in the way they are in
poetry. The words are selected not
according to verbal innovation but by commonplace. To be stoned for not following the rules is
actually cliché. The whole song is a cliché,
so that the interest in the song is in the articulation, not the language. Notice also that Dylan occasionally starts a
verse with “Well” or the chorus with “Tell you what” and “yes.” Those are what I call verbal ticks that
communicate attitude. They would be
meaningless in poetry. Notice too the
chuckles and tones in his voice as he articulates the song. Those are elements of songwriting and oral
communication, not literary poetry. The formulaic
repetition of each line simulates a chant.
Poetry would be boring with repetition like that, but because of the
articulation and melody, it holds musical interest. And I would put to you that the majority of
Bob Dylan’s songs contain more interest as a ditty and not as poetry.
Now
that doesn’t mean that there aren’t Dylan compositions where the lyrics could
stand alone as poetry. There are
some. Here’s one, “All Along the WatchTower.”
There must be some way
out of here
Said the joker to the
thief
There's too much
confusion, I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink
my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the
line know what any of it is worth
No reason to get excited,
the thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among
us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been
through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk
falsely now, the hour is getting late
All along the watchtower,
princes kept the view
While all the women came
and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a
wildcat did growl
Two riders were
approaching, the wind began to howl
It
still highly “songish,” mostly because the line forms a standard verse form,
but there’s a lot of interesting lines and imagery here to make it poetry. Here is a fascinating exegesis of the song:
Yes,
it still comes down to the song elements that enrich the song, but here I feel
confident to say that the poetic elements are of a high caliber here.
Those
two songs represent the extremes, a highly songish composition and a highly
poetic composition. How many songs are
closer to the poetic side? I find very
few. He has a body of work of great
songs, but they are songs, not poems.
Yes, he’s got some lines in songs that are poetic, but a line or two
does not make a poem. For him to receive
the Nobel Prize in Literature is a poor understanding of the distinction
between song and poetry. The Swedish
Academy really botched it.
So
what exactly separates music lyrics from poetry? I see at least three things. First, music lyrics rely heavily on formulaic,
repetitive structures. Poetry has
structure too, but nowhere near the level of structure of music. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that as
music has become recordable and mass produced that poetry in opposition has
become looser and less form dependent. Second,
music lyrics rely on common phrasing, if not clichéd phrases. Music requires the listener to identify with
the lyrics in order for the artistic experience to resonate. Commonplace language does that. Clichés are antithetical to poetry. Third, music relies on oral articulation and,
most important of all, the musical experience to carry meaning, There are jazz,
rock, and classical songs with just a handful of enigmatic words but where the music
makes the piece whole, gives it unity, completes the meaning. Those words alone are fragmented nothings,
but the music gives it coherence. Music
lyrics rely on the music to give it coherence, where poetry can’t rely on anything
but the words on the page. The more a
song relies on these three elements, the more “songish” I call it, and the less
poetic it is. For the most part, I find
Dylan’s work to be more songish than poetic.
That
is not to say that I dislike Dylan’s songs.
I love his songs. He’s got a
below average singing voice, he’s a mediocre guitar player, and a poor
harmonica player, but his songs are great!
How come? Because he’s a great
composer. Though not particularly
virtuosic, he’s a great song writer.
Might
as well give you another, one I really loved as a teen.
Take me on a trip upon
your magic swirlin' ship
My senses have been
stripped, my hands can't feel to grip
My toes too numb to step,
wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'
I'm ready to go anywhere,
I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast
your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man,
play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there
is no place I'm going to
Hey ! Mr Tambourine Man,
play a song for me
In the jingle jangle
morning I'll come followin' you.
