Journal #8

Reading The Iliad by Homer (translated by Richard Lattimore)

I remember reading The Odyssey in middle school, and how adventurous and thrilling it was, and I started off The Iliad expecting more of the same. However, I realize now that the Odyssey is the thrilling more light hearted follow-up to the more personality driven somber original. The Odyssey was the more digestible book. Also it doesn't describe how one guy killed another guy like a hundred times in detail. Also it (from what I can remember at least) does not have pages dedicated to a catalogue of ships.

One thing that I’m finding interesting about the epic is the sense of morality in the Greeks. The characters (both gods and men) in the epic seem to be motivated much more by a sense of personal honor/pride than by any absolute moral code. In the Iliad, for instance, it is foreshadowed that when Troy is taken, the women will be raped and the children sold into slavery. Desecration of bodies is the norm, and Achilles kidnaps and beheads a dozen Trojan children. None of the men or divines take issue with any of this. Ancient Greece was essentially a conglomeration of city-states, so I would assume each would have its own ideas about morality, but one thing that I find is universally condemned by the Greeks is parricide. For example, Ixion, the first perpetrator of parricide enduring eternal punishment for his evil and of course Oedipus who suffered immensely himself for his own patricide. When looking up information about the Greeks I also came across xenia, or the Greek concept of hospitality. Zeus is said to punish those hosts who prey upon their guests and guests who take advantage of a host. You can see the power of xenia in Greek culture in the Iliad when Glaukos and Diomedes call off their duel after releasing that their ancestors were 'guest-friends'. It seems odd to me that Greeks would feel so strongly about parricide (which is no doubt horrible) and xenia when they don’t seem to care as much about genocide/rape/slavery.

Journal #7

Reading Oedipus by Sophocles

Before I get into the Iliad I figure I should start by doing a journal on Oedipus, it only seems fitting. I remember learning in psychology class about the ‘Oedipus complex’ and after reading it I started to wonder whether Freud even read Oedipus himself. I thought “he didn’t kill his father and have children with his mother because he wanted to; he did it because he was cursed by fate”. However, I then realized that Oedipus willingly suppresses suspicions that his adopted parents may not be his biological parents, despite being told the contrary by a drunkard and receiving a worrying prophecy. He also disregards glaring similarities between the prophecy of Laius and his own prophecy. He uses the singular when talking about the incident where Laius was killed despite everyone else using the plural. So maybe he chose willful ignorance of the facts of his life. However, that still does not change the fact that he was absolutely devastated at the news and went so far as to blind and exile himself, so I still think that Freud picked the wrong story to base his odd theories off of.

I really enjoy Greek tragedies, but it’s hard for me to identify with their purpose exactly. There’s always some deus ex machina or fate that comes into play that start to bug me occasionally. It just doesn’t seem fair for someone to not be in control of their fate, and yet still be punished for it. It also seems like a cop out today for someone to add divine intervention into their story. Nowadays if someone did that they would be accused of lazy storytelling. I do like thinking about all of the “what ifs” in the story, however. If Laius had never received the prophecy, he wouldn't have tried to kill Oedipus; they would never have met at the point where the three roads meet and Oedipus would not have gone on (back) to Thebes and become king, thus marrying his mother. Prophecies and divine intervention are a giant part of Greek tragedy however, so I should try and get used to them before heading into the Iliad.

 

Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Journal #6

I realize that last time I may have gotten a bit carried away by the prose of the book instead of talking about the book itself. One thing that surprised me a bit was when the final few pages of the book switched from normal narration to journal entries (after Dedalus tells his friend what he is going to do). It seemed like an odd way to end the book and I’m not sure if I like it or not. Nevertheless, the book itself was a masterpiece that proves, at least to me, that plot is not the most important element of a book (something that I thought before I read this book). The fact that we’re stuck in Stephen’s mind certainly makes the book interesting enough. The echo chamber of his thoughts occasionally lends an untested, underdeveloped quality to things he seems to strongly believe, and the best examples I can think of are in the final chapter. Even when he talks to other people, he doesn't seem to converse with any intention of broadening his perspective with another's perspective, but instead tries to convey his thoughts to other people, feeling surprised and slightly frustrated when they don't see things his way (I'm recalling his separate conversations with a couple friends towards the end of the book, when he talks about, among other things, his definitions of beauty and art). Stephen’s character is a bit pretentious, sometimes he overvalues an established notion, but I think these are more humanizing moments than anything, reminders that we aren't totally right about everything throughout life, but also that we can be wrong but well-intentioned and hopefully still make our way.

Out of curiosity I picked up a copy of Finnegan’s Wake, read one page, and decided that I wouldn’t bother with that book, at least not until after I read more, well, normal things.

 

Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Journal #5

So I’ve finished reading Portrait of the Artist and really enjoyed it. It has noble originality and unique lucidity of thought and style. It is a masterpiece of 20^th century prose. And possibly the most beautiful section of prose that I have ever read would be the scene near the end of the book when Stephen wakes up in his bed. “That rose and ardent light was her strange willful heart, strange that no man had known or would know, willful from before the beginning of the world; and lured by that ardent rose-like glow the choirs of the seraphim were falling from heaven.”  It takes the whole book in context to see the beauty of the passage; perhaps also a similar personal experience of blossoming art and life triumphing over all old thoughts of depression and weariness. The fact that the passage quite humorously and slyly suggested that Stephen had a wet dream just blows my mind. Joyce has always had a reputation for vulgarity, but the fact that he could make something like that and transform it into one of the best things I’ve ever read is pure madness – and pure genius. 

Then there’s the shore scene, during his brief phase of religious asceticism, the large metaphorical passage of him being on the shore of a constant ebb and flow of tide, and being taken away from the water at the last moment when it verges on touching him. Well apparently that’s just him trying not to ejaculate. Of course, the tide could also mean him attempting to become an artist. That shore scene was his artistic epiphany, after all. So the double meaning is art and love, merging into life. Never before has prose seemed so much like poetry. It is actually pretty hilarious to me to think about the Victorian writers reading Joyce’s works and freaking out about vulgarity while today it seems rather mild (especially when compared to things like Fifty Shades of Grey which is both vulgar and has terrible prose).

Reading - Araby by James Joyce
Journal #4


        I realize now that I want to talk a little bit more about Araby . One thing that I forgot to comment on in my first journal was the fact that the narrator in this story in parentless. He lives with his aunt and uncle and when I read the story I wondered why.  I think I now have it figured out. After reading a little of Portrait of the Artist and then reading this story in class, I decided to try and learn more about what James Joyce was all about. It's all about deviating from the familiar. For Joyce, the “familiar” was exemplified by Ireland and the family unit. The extraordinary moment of revelation at the end of Araby (the strange curios, the bazaar) are just like the deviations from the ordinary, the national, and the familial. Basically, because it's a short story, he has to accelerate the deviation from normality, thus discarding the family unit from the picture. Even though I’m not sure that was the intention, it does seem like a really James Joyce thing to do. Also there's the fact that none of the characters have names. I think that might also be another rejection of normality, but I think it most likely is not. Perhaps he just chose to neglect the names because he thought it was unnecessary to have names in a story about the promise and eventually disappointment in a boy's idea of love. . I also wanted to talk about how the narrator pretty much abandons all of his friends and stops caring about schoolwork in pursuit of a girl that he doesn’t know anything about. Even thought none of the characters are named I wouldn't be surprised if the narrator simply didn't know hers. He truly was a creature derided and driven by vanity.  I really enjoyed Araby for what it was and I’m hoping that I can find that same enjoyment in Portrait. It is going rather slowly but I have high hopes for the second half of the book which I hear is phenomenal.