Like looking in a mirror...

Just thought I'd share a couple photos that I've taken.  The first is an "American goods" store in Stratford, England.

The second is a "British goods" store from Ventura, California.

I don't have any point to make here.  Our special relationship seems to be going strong (cheerio!)

The Itsy-Bitsy Spider Has a Name, pero Solo en la Hispanidad

One fun thing about living abroad and meeting expats from all over the world is seeing how bits of culture make their way from place to place and the often unpredictable changes they undergo in the process.  I was speaking with some grad students from Bolivia and China, the latter explaining how, due to the difficulty most westerners have with pronouncing the different tonalities in Chinese names, she uses a transliterated version of her real name pronounced in Spanish or English, depending on who she's talking to.  (N.B.  This is actually a trend I've noticed among Chinese students here in Madrid, although many I've met have chosen a typical American/Spanish name rather than a direct transliteration of their real name.)  Her name, in Spanish, is pronounced "Huizi" (woo-EET-zee), which the Bolivian pointed out was just like the name of the spider from the kid's song she grew up with.

Witsi Witsi Araña trepó a la canaleta,

vino la lluvia y se la llevó.

Luego salió el sol, y la lluvia evaporó,

y Witsi Witsi Araña de nuevo subió.

"Witsi Witsi" seems to be the most popular version of the name, but there are variations ranging from "Huitzi Huitzi" to "Gusi Gusi."  Otherswise, the lyrics are pretty much identical to the English version of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider," as is the melody.  Any suspicion that this might have been a local variation or the creation of a particular teacher evaporated when one of the student's friends arrived and recognized the song.  The friend was from Ecuador. (For those without maps handy, Ecuador and Bolivia aren't exactly neighbors.)

I haven't drawn any special insights from this.  I just think it's an interesting example of cultural transmission.

The Shapes of Stories (Part 2)

A while ago I posted a video from Kurt Vonnegut's famous "Shapes of Stories" lecture.  In the decades following the lecture, we've seen the rise of what's been dubbed the 'digital humanities.'  This doesn't refer to hyptertext fiction or anything like that, but rather the use of mathematical algorithms to process data, often from thousands of books at once.  The Paris Review has a great write-up on Matthew Jockers' process of doing what Vonnegut tried to do when he was studying at the University of Chicago: figure out how plots are shaped, and just how many different shapes there are.  A more technical write-up can be found on Jockers' blog.

                                                                                                                                                                from matthewjockers.net

Lit Brick

I've recently come across an excellent webcomic by John S. Troutman called Lit Brick.  The premise, as stated in the first comic: "I'm gonna read the entire Norton Anthology of English Literature and draw comics about it."  It's a wonderful mix of archaic literature and modern pop culture.  For example, strip #2:

Included with each comic is a brief post about the source material.  The whole thing is pretty cool.  you should check it out.

Heart of Darkness: the Orson Welles Radio Adaptation

Welles bought the film rights to Heart of Darkness, and generated a script that was, sadly, never filmed.  Years later, though, Coppola made his masterpiece adaptation, Apocalypse Now.

1946: The King's General by Daphne du Maurier

The Author:

            Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) was born in London, the daughter of an influential actor’s manager, Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of George du Maurier, a hugely successful author known best for his novel Trilby and the character Svengali.  

            Daphne du Maurier published her first novel in 1931 and went on to publish dozens of novels, short story collections, and biographies.   In 1932 she married Major Frederick Browning (Mr. and Mrs. Browning became Sir and Lady Browning in 1946).  Her marriage was problematic: Browning, a veteran of World War One, suffered psychologically from the experience, and there were affairs.   Browning passed away in 1965.  In 1969 du Maurier was given the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire.  

            Du Maurier was extremely successful, appearing on the Publishers’ Weekly’s list of the top ten bestselling books of the year twelve times, between 1938 and 1969.  Her most famous book, Rebecca (1938) was adapted into the classic Hitchcock film of the same name.  The film adaptation of her short story, The Birds (1952), is still famous as well.

            There is a lot of debate about du Maurier’s sexual orientation and her views thereof.  I don’t feel confident enough in my knowledge of du Maurier to make a definitive statement one way or the other.  There is significant evidence that she was bisexual, but as to her feelings or actions on the matter, may your own research help you draw a conclusion.   

The Book:

First edition cover

            The King’s General takes place during the English Civil War and is told as a reminiscence of the middle-aged Honor Harris.  Those who follow my blog may recognize that this is the second novel in a row to be set in this time period.  But whereas the previous year’s Forever Amber was a romance, The King’s General fits more into the realm of gothic mystery. 

            The narrator, Honor Harris, is the daughter of minor nobility in Cornwall.  Through her brother’s marriage, the family is tied to the illustrious Grenviles.  Honor (quite rightly) sees her new sister-in-law Gartred as manipulative and dangerous.  A few years later, after her brother’s death, Honor is reintroduced to the Grenviles and falls in love with Gartred’s brother Richard, who is thought of as a great soldier, but a cad (e.g. Forever Amber’s Bruce Carlton or Gone with the Wind’s Rhett Butler).  Very early in the novel, they are engaged to be married and the story seems to be leading to a typical romance.  Then, as Honor, Gartred, and Richard are on a hunt, Honor’s horse falls and Honor is crippled for life. 

            While Honor and Richard’s paths cross and there is love between them, this is not at all like Scarlett & Rhett or Amber & Bruce.  Although I can’t help but feel that Amber & Bruce are at least partially responsible for the commercial success of The King’s General.  Based on what people expected from du Maurier based on movies like 1940’s Rebecca, as well as a historical novel that takes place in the decade preceding the previous year’s runaway bestseller, and add to that du Maurier’s name recognition, The King’s General was poised to take the number one spot.  It is the only book of du Maurier’s to do so, despite being one of her marginal works and being one of the only three (so far) books on my list to not have had a film adaptation (the other two: Mr. Britling Sees It Through by H. G. Wells and Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith).  

            As a gothic mystery and as historical fiction, The King’s General is good.  The prose is what you would expect from a gothic mystery (which isn’t personally to my liking, but there’s no accounting for taste).  If either of the above-mentioned genres interest you, The King’s General is certainly worth a read.

Also published in 1946:  
Nikos Kazantzakis - Zorba the Greek
Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men
Eugene O'Neill - The Iceman Cometh

Sources:
Auerbach, Nina. Daphne du Maurier, Haunted Heiress. Philadelphia, PA: University of
            Pennsylvania Press. 2000. Print.  

du Maurier, Daphne. The King's General. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. 1946. Print.

1941: The Keys of the Kingdom by A. J. Cronin

The Author:

           Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896-1981) was born in Dunbartonshire, Scotland.  His father died when he was seven, and he and his mother lived with his maternal grandparents before eventually moving to Glasgow.  At the University of Glasgow, Cronin became a medical doctor, serving as a medical officer in the first world war and later as a general practitioner in small towns in Scotland and a mining town in Wales, before being appointed Medical Inspector of Mines.  At the university, he also met Agnes Mary Gibson, whom he married in 1921.  They had three children together and they were married for nearly sixty years.

            He was laid up with an ulcer in 1930, requiring six months recuperation, during which time he wrote his first novel, Hatter’s Castle, which was an immediate success.  He wrote several books before, in 1937, publishing The Citadel.  The Citadel is to the British National Health System (NHS) what Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is to the US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Not only a huge critical and commercial success, The Citadel established Cronin’s as an important literary figure of his time.

            In 1939, Cronin and his family moved to the US, settling in places as disparate as Bel Air, California and Blue Hill, Maine.  He remained a prolific writer for the rest of his life, and spent the last years of his life living in Switzerland.  He passed away in Montreux in 1981.

The Book: 

          The Keys of the Kingdom tells the life story of Francis Chisholm, a Scottish Catholic priest, from his childhood to his old age, focusing largely on his thirty five years spent in establishing a mission in Pai-Tan, China. Chisholm is an extremely sympathetic character, and, like most of the supporting characters, is written with a good amount of depth.  The characters are the greatest part of this novel.

         From the beginning, we know that Chisholm is not your dogmatic, stiff, hellfire-and-damnation cleric.  The first chapter takes place when Chisholm has a vocation in Scotland in his old age, and is being investigated by the local bishop (the rest of the novel is chronological, starting from his childhood).  He had complaints against him for saying things like, "Atheists may not all go to hell. I knew one who didn't," and "Christ was a perfect man, but Confucius had a better sense of humor."¹  This is a trend I've been finding in a lot of the books on this list: pro-religion via being anti-dogma.  That is to say, many of these books argue that reliance on dogma is not only bad, but directly detrimental to religion, arguing instead a form of what is essentially Humanism based on Christianity.  The first book I reviewed, The Inside of the Cup, dealt with a priest discovering this.  This trend continued.  There were the good preachers in Elmer Gantry, Dean Harcourt in Green Light, and Casey in The Grapes of Wrath.  Whereas a novel like Elmer Gantry tried to combat what Lewis saw as hypocrisy by exposing a negative figure, the others I've listed focus mainly on presenting a good preacher, an example of what religious officials should be. (I don't think it's a coincidence that the good preachers in the novels listed above rarely achieve any high status, as opposed to the Gantry-like characters.)

     Chisholm's life is one long attempt to make the world a better place, which he does, to the extent that he is able.  Other characters, often within the clergy, stand in his way, but this opposition is not generally due to malice or greed, but rather people who are more concerned with the number of baptisms at the missions than with the number of people who benefit from the mission.  The amount of philosophical and theological monologues alone suggests that Cronin is using Chisholm to state his own religious views, which seem to be humanistic.  Chisholm argues that the church should argue pacifism in times of war.  He argues that good works, regardless of religion, are paths to salvation.  Basically, he argues for human decency and kindness.

      Like pretty much every book I've read here so far, this one was adapted to film:

      The 1944 film starred Gregory Peck (who also played Pa Baxter in the film adaptation of The Yearling).  It seems, though, that Cronin is better known outside the U.S. Most of the search traffic for his name comes from India and the U.K.,² which is probably in no small part due to the importance of The Citadel in the U.K.

     I wouldn't try to stop anyone from reading The Keys to the Kingdom, and it is certainly an enjoyable book.  I don't feel that it's one that you need to go out of your way to read, though.

Also published 1941:
James M. Cain - Mildred Pierce   
C. S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters 
H. A. Rey and Margret Rey - Curious George 
Bertolt Brecht - Mother Courage and Her Children

1. Cronin, A. J. The Keys of the Kingdom. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1941. Print.
2. Google Trends page

     

A comic from SMBC

See the comic in its original context at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal!