Archive for the Literature Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The Bravery of Being out of Range

Posted in Poetry, Politics with tags , , , , , on April 16, 2013 by telescoper

I’ve been planning for some time to post the lyrics of the song The Bravery of being out of Range by Roger Waters (ex Pink Floyd) as a response to the  ongoing covert war being waged by the United States, which has claimed thousands of innocent lives in Pakistan and elsewhere. The terrible events at the Boston Marathon yesterday reminded me of this intention.  Violence always  begets violence, but the circle becomes all the more vicious when the agressor doesn’t have to display a jot of personal courage. And that goes just as much to those who planted the bombs in Boston as those who aim the drones in Pakistan. Regardless of whether the Boston bombs had anything to do with American policy, when violence is made easy there’s bound to be more of it.

You have a natural tendency
To squeeze off a shot
You’re good fun at parties
You wear the right masks
You’re old but you still
Like a laugh in the locker room
You can’t abide change
And you’re home on the range
You opened the suitcase
Behind the old workings
To show off the magnum
You deafened the canyon
A comfort a friend
Only upstaged in the end
By the Uzi machine gun
Does the recoil remind you
Remind you of sex
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer, who you gonna kill next

I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps
And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the front line boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find on their desert stage
And the bravery of being out of range
Yeah the question is vexed
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next

Hey bartender, over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir, turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
They’re really great for righting wrongs
You hit the target, win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim
With the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train
With the bravery of being out of range
We gain terrain
With the bravery of being out of range
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range

4 Comments »

Sometimes it happens…

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 10, 2013 by telescoper

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then
You do not want to speak,
Then the opportunity has passed.
Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then
There is somewhere to go,
Then you have bypassed.
And the years flare up and are gone,
Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.
You wonder if these things matter and then
As soon you begin to wonder if these things matter
They cease to matter,
And caring is past.
And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

by Brian Patten (b. 1946)

1 Comment »

A Century of R.S. Thomas

Posted in Poetry with tags on March 29, 2013 by telescoper

It’s Good Friday, and it’s also a hundred years to the day since the birth of the great Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas. I thought I’d mark the centenary in a small way by posting one of his most famous poems, A Blackbird Singing

It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes’
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history’s overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.

4 Comments »

The Secret

Posted in Poetry with tags , on March 24, 2013 by telescoper

I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.

And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

by John Clare (1793-1864).

 

Leave a comment »

Before life and after

Posted in Poetry with tags , on March 18, 2013 by telescoper

A time there was – as one may guess
And as, indeed, earth’s testimonies tell –
Before the birth of consciousness,
When all went well.

None suffered sickness, love, or loss,
None knew regret, starved hope, or heart-burnings;
None cared whatever crash or cross
Brought wrack to things.

If something ceased, no tongue bewailed,
If something winced and waned, no heart was wrung;
If brightness dimmed, and dark prevailed,
No sense was stung.

But the disease of feeling germed,
And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong;
Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed
How long, how long?

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

1 Comment »

Snow, by Louis MacNeice

Posted in Poetry with tags , on March 13, 2013 by telescoper

I’ve posted this before, but it seems appropriate to post it again today…

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes–
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of your hands–
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963).

1 Comment »

Always seeking greater silence

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 11, 2013 by telescoper

Just a quick plug for a fascinating programme I heard on BBC Radio 3 last night about the great Welsh poet R.S. Thomas. It’s called Always Seeking Greater Silence and it is available on iPlayer for your listening pleasure.

Here’s an excerpt from the published description of the programme:

RS Thomas was a man full of contradictions, but one constant was his passion for birdwatching. Towards the end of his life he said that ‘the deity has chosen to reveal himself to me via the world of nature’. He also declared that he preferred to be alone with nature than be with human beings. Bird imagery in particular provided him with a means of symbolising renewal, nourishment and femininity in his poetry, but also of exploring his faith in God. Increasingly towards the end of his life, his bird poems explored the space between faith and doubt. In ‘Sea-watching,’ he directly associates bird-watching with prayer: ‘Ah, but a rare bird is/ rare. It is when one is not looking/ at times one is not there/ that it comes’.

I have the utmost admiration for R.S. Thomas as a poet, but I do wonder how effective he was as a priest looking after his flock when he could come out with statements like the following:

I’ve had more pleasure from being alone with the natural creation than I have with human beings. Human beings are responsible for so much unhappiness and cruelty and failure that one is not terribly enthusiastic about them.

This rather bleak view of humanity explains to some extent why so many of his poems are about the natural world rather than people, but he is unlike many other “nature poets” in that his voice is unflinching and devoid of sentimentality. Although not religious myself, I also deeply respect his openness about his struggle with faith and doubt – he seems to me to have been a man who was deeply allergic to superficiality, a trait which also manifests itself in his verse.

It is the centenary of the birth of R.S. Thomas on 29th March 2013. I hope I remember to mark the occasion with an appropriate poem.

2 Comments »

A Song for St David’s Day

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 1, 2013 by telescoper

It’s St David’s Day today, so

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

I’m about to head off to three hours of mandatory Health and Safety Training so I’ll do a quick but appropriate post. I have posted this before, but I think it’s beautiful so make no apology for posting it again. It’s called Children’s Song and it’s by the great Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas.

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

by R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)

Leave a comment »

You will be hearing from us shortly

Posted in Poetry with tags , on February 26, 2013 by telescoper 
 You feel adequate to the demands of this position?
 What qualities do you feel you
 Personally have to offer?
                                        Ah.

 Let us consider your application form.
 Your qualifications, though impressive, are
 Not, we must admit, precisely what
 We had in mind. Would you care
 To defend their relevance?
                                        Indeed.

 Now your age. Perhaps you feel able
 To make your own comment about that,
 Too? We are conscious ourselves
 Of the need for a candidate with precisely
 The right degree of immaturity.
                                        So glad we agree.

 And now a delicate matter: your looks.
 You do appreciate this work involves
 Contact with the actual public? Might they,
 Perhaps, find your appearance
 Disturbing?
                                        Quite so.

 And your accent. That is the way
 You have always spoken, is it? What
 Of your education? We mean, of course,
 Where were you educated?
                                And how
 Much of a handicap is that to you,
 Would you say?

                Married, children,
 We see. The usual dubious
 Desire to perpetuate what had better
 Not have happened at all. We do not
 Ask what domestic desires shimmer
 Behind that vaguely unsuitable address.

 And you were born--?
                                        Yes. Pity.

 So glad we agree.

by U. A. Fanthorpe (1929-2009).

5 Comments »

Gremlins in the Vault

Posted in Literature with tags , , , on February 24, 2013 by telescoper

Here I am, on campus again (this time on a Sunday). Just going to finish off some urgent things in advance of a busy week next week: tomorrow in London for the first meeting of the 2013 Astronomy Grants Panel; Tuesday all day interviewing for a new faculty position in Physics, Wednesday preparing the University’s equivalent of the 5-year plan; most of Thursday interviewing prospective PhD students; continued, p. 94….

Anyway, I thought I’d warm up my typing fingers this afternoon with a quick post that’s got nothing to do with my job and will probably generate negligible interest among my readers, but the subject got on my mind so here goes anyway. Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know that I’m a bit of a fan of detective stories. I haven’t blogged much about Crime Fiction per se but I have referred to various examples in the course of other posts. Having recently given up entirely on television and done a bit more travelling on buses and trains, I’ve had a bit more time to read so have started to clear the sizable backlog of books I’ve bought but never actually opened.

All of which brings me to The Vault by Ruth Rendell. This is the 24th book to feature her detective Inspector Wexford, although Wexford, having retired,  is no longer an Inspector in this book. The plot of The Vault revolves around the discovery of four bodies (two male, and two female) in a coal hole belonging to a posh house in St John’s Wood. Wexford is drawn into the subsequent investigation by a friend of his who is still a policeman and thereafter the story interweaves two different genres (the Police procedural and the psychological thriller) in Rendell’s inimitable style, alongside beautifully nuanced description of the parts of London in which the drama unfolds.

In parenthesis I’d say that Ruth Rendell is one of the few crime novelists whose writing transcends the limitations of the crime genre and establishes her as a major literary figure in her own right, a feat only rarely accomplished in the history of detective fiction, the American Dashiel Hammett being another example.

When I bought it I didn’t realize that it was a kind of sequel to her earlier novel A Sight for Sore Eyes in which Wexford does not appear. In The Vault, set 12 later, Wexford only has the four initially unidentified bodies to work on; he hasn’t read the earlier book either. Anyway, to cut a long (detective) story short, three of the bodies relate to the earlier plot whereas the fourth was added to the coal-hole collection about 10 years later. As for the initial three, it seems two were victims of the murderous third who accidentally fell into the hole after disposing of their bodies there.

I enjoyed the atmosphere and detail of Ruth Rendell’s writing as much as ever, but when I’d finished the book I was troubled by one glaring problem with the plot. If the murderer, Teddy Brex, had indeed fallen into the coal hole by accident, who closed the manhole cover that sealed him in? It’s essential to the plot that nobody find the bodies for a dozen years, but surely if the lid had been open someone would have looked inside? Worried that I was just being dense and had missed some detail, I searched around the net and found a blog review on which a similar comment was made.

Part of the pleasure of reading a mystery novel, as is the case with a crossword puzzle, is to see the pieces fall nearly into place at the end. That’s always happened with Ruth Rendell’s books before, but this one left me profoundly unsatisfied. For a writer of her quality, the lapse was most disappointing. It won’t put me off reading other books, of course. Maybe it’s all explained in the earlier book, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a flaw in this one.

Anyway, this particular fly in the ointment led to an interesting little exchange on Facebook about plot errors in The Day of the Jackal so I thought it might be fun to use it as an example, and see if anyone out there in internetshire can think of similar narrative gremlins affecting films or novels? They don’t have to be detective stories, of course, although for reasons described above I think they are especially irksome in that context.

The comment box beckons, but make sure you don’t fall in…

7 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »