A Thought On Beckett

I've been thinking for a couple of days about Beckett and been trying to make some sense of his writing which is simpler than Joyce's but that kind of goes without saying. What interests me the most is the idea of decay that we've been throwing around for a few days. Of course, obviously the first story actually deals with decay, but I think more than that, the writing itself almost seems to be decaying the further we go in the book. Where many would have created new paragraphs there are none. Where others would have used quotations, Beckett ignores them. It's as if the writing is slowly falling apart along with the characters in the story, as if it is somehow connected to the very characters that it tries to portray.

Anyway, just an idea that I had earlier and thought I'd put down.

3 Similarities

So I thought that I would write down a few of the similarities between "The Skin of Our Teeth" and Finnegans Wake.

1. The first I noticed was the continual references to the bible and Greek mythology, especially continual references to creation, Cain and Able, etc. There are also several references to the Muses as well as other myths. It seems that Wilder is, much like Joyce, trying to fit as much as possible into a few pages.

2. The second similarity that I noticed was that Wilder actually states what we have been discussing as part of the purpose of Finnegans Wake, that is the fact that in our dreams we are part of a different world from that when we are awake. In fact, one of the characters, Sabina I think, actually refers to this openly in the third Act.

3. The third similarity I would point out is the return to the beginning of the play much like Finnegans Wake returns to the beginning. The plays transition actually makes it obvious, literally restarting the play at the end but the concept is the same.

Thoughts on Skin of Our Teeth

I've been reading "The Skin of Our Teeth" and I thought that I would put down some thoughts that came to me while reading it. I have to say that the play itself is extremely confusing. One minute the people are in a modern setting and the next they are talking about inventing the wheel and the alphabet. There are a lot of references especially to the bible and classical literature in what I've read so far so its interesting to say the least.

I'm going to try and understand this a little more and I hope it starts to make more sense but right now it's almost as confusing as Finnegans Wake.

Finnegans Wake

I am going to focus on page 432 of Finnegans Wake. I haven't decided what 30 words or so that I will memorize, but that might be simply because I'm scared to death of this book and am going to try and maek some discoveries before anything else. We'll see how well I do. On my first read through I found nothing but I am going to try and "crack the code" as it were.

The Muses?

I think that I found the 9 Muses in "The Skin of Our Teeth." I'm not sure but the passage is on page 38 and reads "Up in town there are nine sisters. There are three or four of them here. They're sort of music teachers-- and one of them recites and one of them--" In case anyone is curious, here is a link to the 9 Muses and what they represent.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0881991.html

First Impressions of Haroun and the Sea of Stories

The first thing that really struck me while reading this book is something that we talked about in Sexson's Nabokov class last semester, that is the fact that everyone steals from everyone else. None of what we say is original because it has all been said before. But this does not seem like a bad thing to Rushdie. In fact, he seems to applaud the works of those authors who borrow from other stories, keeping older stories alive while injecting them with new twists and turns.

The image that he uses to convey this message is especially effective. First you have this enormous sea. Anyone who thinks of a sea will at first think of the ocean, or at least I did, and how vast it seems once you're out there. But the next thing I thought of was the fact that the ocean is always in a constant state of flux, constantly changing. It is not stagnant like an inland lake or a small pond.

But Rushdie does not stop there. Instead he immediately shows us the contents of this vast ocean, the thousands upon thousands of stories that make it. Each is of course a different color, and we, as good readers, instantly try to picture this vast swirling sea of infinite colors. I though of the world's biggest crayon box and tried to imagine all the colors I could in one ocean. It's a lot.

Now I am left with an image of an enormous swirling sea of color, each a story in and of itself, but each story mixing and mingling with other stories to create entirely new tales that can be told. On and on the cycle goes, and each time a story is retold it surfaces for one brief moment shining under the light of the moon which, if you think about it, is also a thief, but I think some guy already did.

First Thoughts on Class

I guess the first thing I should blog for class is make an observation on what I think the class will be like and what I think we are going to do. The first part I can't really begin to guess at. It's obvious that we are going to be reading some very complex books, most notably Finnigans Wake, but we should also be reading some lighter material and the movie selections look enjoyable. It will be interesting to see how we tackle the five major themes layed out in the syllabus. Actually, the more I think about it, the more excited I get.

As for what I hope to get from this class, I hope that it will expand my reading repertoire and allow me to escape from the shell that I have been living in over the years that has only allowed me to read some of the most low brow of books. Of course I got a taste of the high brow with the Nabokov novels last semester, however, now I must delve into some even harder material and I hope that it can give me the confidence to read more dense books and truly enjoy them.