I shall not be moved by Maya Anglou

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Maya Angelou’s birthday is April 4th, 2018 when she would have been 90 years old. Her book “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” is well known. Freedom resonates, and her life resonates with many who have struggled and have compassion.  She writes with a passionate intensity and her book of poetry, “I shall not be moved”, touches our hearts with the collection of poems it presents.

She captures the pain and progress of being black and struggling to be free. Her poems are deep with wisdom, reflecting the feelings of spirituals, jazz and the blues. They celebrate life and reflect the true nature of forgiveness. Old people look back at life and laugh at what it did to them, and the young still suffer. The phrase, “I shall not be moved” is from her poem, “Our Grandmothers” . A slave mother is running away with her children, because her master wants to sell them and split up the family. The more modern day working poor have their place in the poem, standing and waiting for welfare.

Her poems seem to offer forgiveness for slavery and she uses the beauty of nature to soften her tone and message. The book has several poems. Some show, like the blossoms in nature, a blooming of a better day. She overcomes. She is indeed not moved, and hopefully we will not be moved from the poignancy and relevance of her messa

See the Literary Favorites Section for more on Maya Angelou

She used her skills to leave people feeling different because of what she wrote. Her writing approach has been sometimes labeled "autobiographical fiction" because it went beyond some traditional bounds....................................more on this in Literary Favorites section

Quotes

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.  Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
 

The Stand, by Stephen King

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Biological weapons have only become more of a potential world-wide threat since “The Stand” was re-released in 1990. With all that has happened since then this novel may be more relevant today. 


The story starts with an accident on an Army base. The virus, called “Captain Trips”, kills 99.4% of the entire world’s population. The few survivors left dream about two leaders that now represent good and evil, Randall Flagg, The Dark Man, and Mother Abagail, who represents God.

All at the Army base are killed but one person gets past the quarantine guards and goes to get his family and they take off to Texas. They don’t get any father than a gas station where they stop infecting everyone they meet. The super flu type plague kills everyone who breaths the air, unless that person has a natural immunity - soon it spreads throughout America and then the world. 

We meet other survivors on the roads trying to get away. Along the way we meet many who were just stopped in their tracks suffering gruesome and awful deaths. One man, Stu Redman, lived in Texas but was found to have immunity, so he was taken to a disease control center in Vermont where a special team worked to find a cure for others using him. The settings don’t offer any hope, just different views of how people deal with death. Some make it through New York and go on toward Maine but eventually they go West.

When the only ones left alive are the immune ones, they hit the roads most of which are full of cars just sitting with those inside dead. Travel is by walking, motorcycles, bicycles and a variety of vehicles. 

Some survivors feel a pull to go to Boulder, Colorado and many have seen Mother Abigail in dreams and heard her voice telling them to come. She is felt to be God’s representative on earth. The community wants to plan a new society and when they are gathered they talk about setting rules for behavior. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all discussed. The question of whether America even exists, or is just an idea, is debated. 


Good is mostly found in Boulder but Las Vegas attracts evil and, according to Mother Abagail, also attracts people who like order and stability, as well as the weak ones, the lonely ones, and those who have left God out of their hearts. 

Randall Flagg is the Satan like leader referred to as the “Dark Man” in Las Vegas, Nevada (seems a natural destination). Flagg controls all that happens there and keeps the people in line using, rank and position for following, and crucifixion and torture, for disobedience. Flagg is very aware of those in Boulder Colorado and Mother Abigail.

Boulder is referred to as the “Free Zone”, and spies from Boulder are sent to Las Vegas to gain information on Flagg. The spies are captured and about to be executed when one of Flagg's military experts named "Trashcan Man" drives into town after weeks searching the desert around military bases for a nuclear weapon. He has found a warhead and brought it with him as planned to use against Mother Abigail's people. Instead he detonates the bomb and he destroys Flagg and his people. 

Stephen King has said that longer novels like this one give him a chance to let us really get to know the characters and see them mature. That certainly does happen. Two of the key characters, Stu and Fran decide to return to Maine. (Interesting the way Maine makes it into King’s books, one way or another) They also ponder what humanity has learned? 

The Stand is never dull, hard to put down, and one of King’s best stories.
 

Quotes by Stephen King

“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet.”

“People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.”

 “A person can't change all at once.”

 “You couldn't not like someone who liked the guitar.”

 “Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it.” 

“Even the company of the mad was better than the company of the dead.”

 “If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness.” 

Stephen King's The Stand
By Stephen King's the Stand
Buy on Amazon
 

1984 by George Orwell

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This novel introduces many terms that have now are in common usage in our language. Orwellian, Big Brother, Doublethink, 1984, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, 2+2 =5, and Memory Hole are now common terms.

It takes place in  Oceania in a town called Airstrip One where London once was and during the time of an ongoing war. The government oversees their lives with surveillance and cameras. Even the language is being changed to further insures loyalty and devotion. Condensing the speech and writing leads to the complete subjection of every thought, action and word and then  even to the elimination of truth and history. Newspeak is replacing Oldspeak and the “Thought Police” enforce it, and watch for other thought crimes. Things are run by the Party and the Party is run by Big Brother.

 

Winston Smith is not a Party member. He works in the Ministry of Truth and works on historical revisionism, but he justifies what he does because he has been told he is correcting mistakes. He secretly hates the Party and wants to get away from it.  He begins a sexual relationship, a rule violation, with Julia, who works in the Fiction Department. He makes friends with O’Brien who he believes has the same thoughts as he does, but he is a double agent, and he is arrested.  O’Brien works at the Ministry of Love and his main job is torturing those he catches being disloyal. The most feared torture is Room 101 where people are confronted with their worst fears. He confesses and betrays Julie. For the balance of the story he evolves, and the book ends with him watching a TV story about Big Brother and his strong feelings of love for him. 

The novel was considered one of the top 100 of the last century. The very term, 1984, has taken on an influence of its own pointing to the entire book and the total control of the mind that takes place.  

"1984", a dystopian novel, vs's "Animal Farm", an allegorical novella, are both satires on society. They both focus on corruption of power and the adoption of collectivism-Stalin's Russia inspired much about both of them.  Link to the review on Animal Farm & Orwell's book on book covers click to link or use Past Reviews. 

Quotes by George Orwell

 

“Big Brother is Watching You.” 

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” 

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” 

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” 

“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

 “We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”

“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” 

click on the buy button to link to Amazon and buy the book in your own account - Thanks

1984
By Gorge Orwell
Buy on Amazon

Imagine, How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer

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Jonah Lehrer tells us: “For most of human history, people have believed that the imagination is inherently inscrutable, an impenetrable biological gift. As a result, we cling to a series of false myths about what creativity is and where it comes from.”

Lehrer tells us that the brain is hard wired with creative impulses and is constantly forming associations that lead to creativity. Using neuroscientists and psychologists research and interviews, he attempts to get inside the minds of Bob Dylan, Yo-Yo Ma, and others, as well as circumstances that are found in Silicon Valley, Shakespeare’s London, Pixar and others.

Shakespeare's London, according to Lehrer, was a place where some key things came together to spark creativity. The critical density of population and an explosion of literacy brought people together to collaborate, and the collective effort was an example of the brain seeking new connections.

Bob Dylan’s story explores his radical change in style from presenting, serious lyrics on serious topics, to an opposite approach, of celebrating vagueness.  Dylan changed and focused on finding a way to make something new from a list of varied influences. The exact word didn’t carry the message anymore, but instead it was his connection and focus between words.

Lehrer says that something very special happens when you when you concentrate talent in one area, as well as when you add new people with new backgrounds. Fresh viewpoints help spark those individuals that are stuck in their ways. He suggests changes in immigration laws to attract more people, and discussed and the fact that immigrants invent patents at double the rate of non-immigrants.

An introductory quote to this book is taken from T.S. Eliot’s, Introduction to Dante’s Inferno: “Hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing”.  That message seems to define the book as an effort to see connections in everything and show how creativity happens.

Instead of being born with creativity skills and just being stuck with that, Lehrer shows that imagination is inspired by the everyday world, by its flaws and beauty, and that we are able to see beyond our own sources and to imagine things that exist only in the mind.”

Qutoes

“And so we keep on thinking, because the next thought might be the answer.” 

“...the imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.” 

“Every creative story is different. And every creative story is the same “It doesn't matter if people are playing jazz or writing poetry -- if they want to be successful, they need to learn how to persist and persevere, how to keep on working until the work is done. Woody Allen famously declared that "eighty percent of success is showing up."

“Every creative story is different. And every creative story is the same. There was nothing. Now there is something. It's almost like magic.” 

“The great ages did not perhaps produce much more talent than ours,' [T.S.] Eliot wrote. 'But less talent was wasted.” 

 

 

Every Note Played, by Lisa Genova →

(see links at the bottom of this post to Lisa Genova's other books)

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This novel by Lisa Genova focuses on ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). It captures the sequence of events that the body goes through as its life is taken away, beginning with paralysis and progressing to death.  The experience that the disease presents in loss of muscle control and degeneration is so clearly shown that it alone may leave the reader in tears, but Genova brings Richard Evans the person, clearly into focus.

Richard is a famous concert classical pianist, known for his technique, and he loses any use of his hands early in the story. Every finger of his hands was like a finely calibrated instrument, and his music was exact and flawless.

His ex-wife, who is also an accomplished pianist can clearly relate to what those losses mean, but their marriage ended years ago and she and her daughter, Grace, have only had a distant relationship with Richard for years. Their relationships have ample issues and faults that must be dealt with as Richards’s life comes apart.

The emotional strain on Richard, his wife, and his daughter, is met head-on in dealing with this disease, and in some ways, their life's issues seem to be the more important message of the book. The step-by-step debilitation of Richards’s body and the treatments and life-sustaining equipment challenges seem to fold into situations that force him to deal with his failed marriage, estranged daughter, and unresolved feelings towards his father.

The thought of Richard having to be left with nothing but these unresolved issues and only the blink of an eye to communicate and hope to resolve them is an additional level of terror that this disease offers. Somehow, they do find some resolution.

It might be possible that ALS was the only way he had to resolve his more significant life issues, but that seems beyond fair.

This may be Lisa Genova's best book yet.

Quotes

“What’s the saying? Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." 

“Everything begins and ends. Every day and night, every concerto, every relationship, every life. Everything ends eventually.” 

“Love isn’t measured by the number of hours a person logs.” 

 

Lisa Genoa

Neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author

Link to reviews of books below by clicking on the book

 

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

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Love and compassion is found among those that live in poverty-"the miserable" ones.  This is the most important gift that one person can give another in life & this is the clear message of Les Miserables, the book.

It was one of the greatest novels of the 19th century and it starts out with Jean Valjean just released from 19 years' in prison, for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family. He can't find a place to stay because of his prison time is clearly marked on his passport.

A church bishop helps him and he narrowly escapes being arrested again. Valjean steals again, is discovered and he leaves the area with the police on his trail. 

He establishes himself with another name, in another town, where during the 6 years he spends there, he becomes a wealthy factory owner, and is appointed mayor of a town. One day he is walking down the street and he stops and lifts a loaded cart, to free a trapped man. This raises the curiosity of the local police inspector who knew Valjean years ago-he remembers how strong he was.

A women named Fantine had been abandoned, with her young child Cosette, years earlier in Paris. She had made her way to this same small town and left her daughter in the care of a local  corrupt innkeeper and his mean wife. Unlike the play where this couple was in some ways funny they were pure evil in the book. By working at a local plant owned by Valjean she is able to pay the innkeeper and his wife to take care of Cosette. Fantine doesn't know how bad it is for her daughter with these people. She loses her job in the factory and she is living on the street with no money to pay for her daughters care. She sells her hair and her front teeth to get money and then is forced to becomes a prostitute.  She knows she can't continue this way as she is dying from a disease. She is arrested and taken to a hospital.

The mayor, Valjean, learns where she is and feels bad that she is in this trouble, having had to fire her, so he tries to help. He gets Cosette at the innkeepers, and they go to the hospital.

This story has many twists and turns. Before long Valjean  is identified & imprisoned. This is such a shock to Fantine that she dies from it. Valjean escapes, but is  recaptured, and  sentenced to death.  While imprisoned he saves a sailors life. He then fakes his own death by appearing to have drowned. He goes to get Cosette and they run. 

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Years later Cosette has grown up. He has helped many people as well as helping the young revolutionaries of his day.  When he is finally found out again it is the kindness he has shown to so many over the years that saves him. 

Song: I Dreamed a Dream

The play, Les Miserables, has so many great songs.  The song “I Dreamed a Dream” is a favorite of mine. It is sung by the character Fantine, in the first act of the play.  She has just been fired from her job at the factory and thrown onto the streets. She thinks back to happier days and wonders at all that has gone wrong in her life. The song touches us, as we all think about our lives past and future

Quotes

“And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God.” 

“Nobody loves the light like the blind man.”

“Dying is nothing; what’s terrible is not to live.” 

 “People weighed down with troubles do not look back; they know only too well that misfortune stalks them.” 

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo is one of the greatest and best-known French writers. Outside of France, his most famous works are the novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

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Animal Farm, by George Orwell

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Take George Orwell at his word. As he reaffirmed in his book, “Why I Write” (see review of that book) he wrote that "Animal Farm was the first book that he wrote with full consciousness of what he was doing, to fuse political and artistic purpose into one whole". The political purpose was to speak out against Lenin, Stalin and those voices of communism that were being embraced in 1945 when this book was published. The farmyard and the animals were the allegorical means that Orwell used.

The story begins in the farmyard where the animals rebel. An old boar pig named Old Major and two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, call a meeting of the farm animals and they tell everyone that the humans are enemies. They adopt seven commandments of Animalism, the first of which is that “all animals are equal”. Then they drive off the farmer and all his help and take over the farm. Snowball distinguishes himself in the battle and ongoing efforts to protect the farm. Napoleon discredits Snowball and forces him out stealing his ideas and establishing himself as the clear leader.

Napoleon expands his power by using a committee of pigs who become the managers of the farm. A neighboring farmer attacks the farm, but he is defeated. A popular donkey , Benjamin, is hurt badly, and Napoleon has him taken away in a van. He is supposed to be going to a hospital but instead he is sold off to a glue factory and the money is used to buy whiskey for the pigs. The pigs are in full control and seem to be smart enough to run the farm, but they become corrupted with greed. The rest of the animals seem to have lost some of their initial concerns with the pigs with the loss of Benjamin they seem to resign themselves to the memory of one of the donkey sayings: “Life will go on as it has always gone on- that is, badly”. 

Years pass and many who fought for their freedom and better way of life are dead. The pigs begin wearing clothes and walking upwards and, in their meeting, they abolish the original commandments and change the most important one to say: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

With clothes, and walking on two legs, the pigs start to resemble humans. They decide to reach out to their neighbors and invite the farmers in the area to a dinner to build an alliance. The other animals notice when they come that they all seem to look alike.

The book raises just as many, if not more, questions today as it did in 1945 and is an important book.

Quotes

"Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer- except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs."

"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." 

"Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball." 

Orwell says in his book, "Why I write"

Write for a political purpose-"the desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter people's idea of the kind of society that they should strive after".

Thoughts on Napolean

"Napoleon’s name is no accident. Historically Napoleon ruled France and conquered much of Europe before being defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1814. He too was originally a great liberator, overthrowing Europe’s kings and bringing freedom to its people. But he eventually crowned himself emperor of France, shattering the dreams of European liberalism"

 

Animal Farm
By George Orwell
Buy on Amazon

Left Neglected, Lisa Genova

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Lisa Genova's second novel tells the story of Sara Nickerson who, because of a traumatic injury to the right side of her brain, suffers from “Left Neglected,’’ also known as hemi spatial. The damage completely erases control of the left side of her body.

Sarah is a hyper-active, ambitious, 37-year-old mother of three young children. The children are each a challenge in their own way, and their life before the accident was soon going to require a bigger house and some live-in help to enable it to work.

Sara loves her job and works 80 hours a week as a vice president of human resources, commuting to Boston each day.  One Friday morning she looks at her cell phone to find a number and wakes up a week later after brain surgery. 

Her healing process reveals that besides what the loss of everything the left side of her body represents for her, that all the things that, up to this point, have been “left neglected” in her life become clear to her and additional issues that must be dealt with.

Her husband must help her floss her teeth. She can’t dress herself or walk without a cane. She can’t walk in a store or the neighborhood alone because she loses track of direction. Her mother had neglected her for many years, but now she comes forward to help. She begins to heal, but it seems to tie to her efforts to deal with those things in her life formerly neglected.  

Sarah intelligence remains intact, but she has been a workaholic and now struggles with the concept of not scoring 100 percent in everything she does in trying to recover.

Genova’s details about the damage done, and the therapy needed, blends into her personal needs and other life issues. Sarah’s change as a person suggests that she likely will be a better person when her recovery is complete to the point that it can be.

Lisa Genova has written 5 books with her newest one, “Every Note Played” being released this March 20th, 2018.  “Still Alice” had a movie made about it and has been considered her best. This new book may well be her best. See the review on this web site on March 22.

Quotes

“I smile, loving him for changing with me, for going where my Neglect has taken us, for getting the new me.”  

“To me, meditation sounds a whole lot like doing nothing. I don’t do nothing. I pack every second of every day with something that can get done.” 

“I know this looks pathetic, but I’m wearing black elastic-waist pants just like my mother’s, a hot-pink fleece hat, mismatched socks, and no makeup. I think it’s safe to say that vanity is no longer my biggest concern.”

 “Buttoning the length of my shirt with Left Neglect and one right hand takes the same kind of singular, intricate, held-breath concentration that I imagine someone trying to dismantle a bomb would need to have.”

Reading the Classics with C.S. Lewis

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"Reading the Classic’s with C.S. Lewis", does capture a lot of what is interesting about C.S. Lewis, but it seems like the contributor’s views of those classics chosen are just mixed with some of Lewis’s thoughts.

The bigger question is, which classics, and in what order, would have Lewis chosen to emphasis how he felt, because those choices would have defined his legacy for us, and I don’t think this book does that.

In an early chapter, “Entering Imagined Worlds”, Lewis viewpoint on literature in general is discussed. He says there that “the good of literature is that we want to be more than ourselves. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.” He adds to this, and ties the thought together, by saying “We demand windows, even doors, that admit us to experiences, other than our own.

He left the Christianity of his youth, but literature eventually brought him back. His approach to the classics, and to reading, was shown in his insistence that authors like Dante, Spenser or Milton need to be understood by looking deeper into their literary forbears. Seeing a train of thought for various authors suggests that we ought to know more about how Lewis would connect the classic’s presented and what his train of thought was?

Romanticism, as a literary genre, was discussed in the book showing that Lewis felt it was more than what was generally thought during his time. He added the idea that “Sweet Desire” was a concept that should be added to understanding Romanticism.  It explains that it was the search for both a moral direction, and a sense of belonging, in people. He said a longing for more was common in all people.

Lewis’s writings about fantasy, science fiction, and imagination seem to have been the bridge back to Christianity for him, and a genre that allowed him to bring the scared into the mundane world. He said that fairy tales and the traditional treatment of the hero, was often a simile of the coming of Christ.  

Critics continue to try to explain the difference between science fiction and fantasy, but Lewis says that the difference is that science fiction writers expend more effort to make their imaginative worlds seem plausible.

Lewis said, both literary and unliterary, readers can be guilty of using a text by looking for validation of the reader's own beliefs in the work, rather than humbly "receiving" the story the author presented. He said his own view was that “in reading literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad of eye, but it is still I who see.”

I liked the book for the thoughts about Lewis that it pulled together but didn’t think the insight into the classics discussed was really Lewis’s thoughts

Quotes by C.S. Lewis Also see Literary Favorites Section 

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”  

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. 

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Educated, A Memoir, Tara Westover is the next post down

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, written by David Bayles and Ted Orland, is a small book, and is a shot in the arm for motivation and discouragement. The principles can be used by artists in any creative field. 

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The book came to be because of some questions the two authors asked themselves. Do artists have anything in common? How do artists become artists? How do artists learn to work on their work? How can I make work that will satisfy me?

 

Many of the chapters deal with fear. Some focus on what talent is, and it is claimed to be the least important ingredient. 

The shot in the arm is more motivational, in its intent, than technical. The deep secret discussed is that the artist needs to just keep working. Don’t stop. Speed is ok. Learn from your mistakes, but learn while you go, and don’t stop your work.  It’s ok if new work makes old work look weak. 

The book differs from art books which traditionally say little about making art, suggesting that it is the product of genius.  This book says that it doesn’t matter if you’re a Mozart and that there won’t be more Mozart’s anyway.  

The book brags about the fact that it doesn’t have a section on “creativity”, and boldly says; “Why should it”? The point being that all people can confront problems, dream, and live in the real world, and breathe air?

So, the book is useful for a shot in the arm, or if you want you can just skip that and get to work. Learn from what you have done not from thinking about it. 

Quotes

“When you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”

 “As far as most people are concerned, art may be acceptable as a profession, but certainly not as an occupation.”

“It’s been a tough century for modesty, craftsmanship and tenderness.”

 “Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself and fears about your reception by others.”

 “The only work really worth doing — the only work you can do convincingly — is the work that focuses on the things you care about. To not focus on those issues is to deny the constants in your life.

”Most artists don’t daydream about making great art—they daydream about having made great art.”

Walden; Or, Life In The Woods, by Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau was a transcendentalist who is best known for his book, Walden, Life in the Woods. Published in 1854, the book focuses on his experiences over two years, two months and two days in a cabin that he built near Walden Pond and the surrounding area. He was supposed to have, during this time, been so submerged in nature, living off the land and self-sufficient, that his transcendentalist philosophy was validated by this experience.

With the organized religions and political parties of the day behind him he was free to focus on nature. This time became a source of metaphorical and poetic insight into life. The plants and animals were part of a natural balance, personal declaration of independence, and self-reliance that connects him with the universe.

He said of this experience: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”

It was his friend Emerson that owned the land and even told him when it was time to come back. The cabin was built within sight if a road. His was indeed a Spartan-like approach, but it seems likely that the "meanness of life", he said he wanted to feel, may not have been as deep as he assumed.

Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

 “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” 

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

 “Things do not change; we change.”

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live"

Walden
By Henry David Thoreau
Buy on Amazon
 

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare →

This post has been moved forward, from May 5th, where it originally was reviewed. See the review of  "Shakespeare The Invention of the Human, by Harold Bloom" which is yesterdays post. Also she the "Literary Favorites" Tab for the current post on Shakespeare, or the Past Reviews for other reviews.

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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, usually just referred to as Hamlet takes place in Denmark. Claudius has murdered his brother, the King, and married his widow to take over the Kingdom. The Ghost of Hamlet’s father appears to Hamlet and the play focuses on Prince Hamlet’s revenge.

Hamlet is one of if not the most performed plays of Shakespeare and is his longest play. William Shakespeare is considered the master of the human condition. That must mean all that a life encounters but here one of those conditions is death.

In Hamlet Act 3 the conditions of prayer, repentance, and perhaps murder is considered. Claudius wants to kill the King, who is watching a play, and so he waits for a chance to do so. After the play Claudius goes to do his deed and overhears him praying. He hesitates and waits. He fears that being killed in the act of prayer, may be like confession to God, would enable the person to go directly to heaven. Claudius leaves and Hamlet finishes his prayer and says these words:

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Is it just that prayer is often insincere? Is it that insincerity is judged by a God as He hears the words, or is it that the person knows as he prays that he doesn't mean it? He knows he didn't put much thought into?

What about words with thoughts? What does that really mean? How does that work? Is it enough, to have deep thoughts before speaking, to make what you say sincere? Does it take a lot of thought or is a certain amount of time required?

Maybe the human condition, as far as getting your words "up" and heard, is just one of intent? Are prayers offered to get gain and forgiveness, or to express sorrow or is it none of these?

These questions bring substance to the expression: "words fly up". Shakespeare seems to know that praying is something that needs some pondering

Quotes by William Shakespeare

There is nothing good or bad, only thinking makes it so.- Hamlet

Hell is empty and the devils are here.- William Shakespeare

Though this be madness yet their is method in it.- William Shakespeare

 

Hamlet
By William Shakespeare
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Shakespeare The Invention of the Human, by Harold Bloom

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Harold Bloom is a well-known American literary critic, and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University.   He has written over 40 books and often it is his opinions that  are most interesting and overshadow the book itself. It is clear, from all that he has written, that Shakespeare has a special almost scared place in his own literary hierarchy.

Bloom in the book gives analysis and overview of each of Shakespeare's 38 plays. Shakespeare’s characters in these plays reveal what it is to be human, because you see how life affects them. You see their growth and change with events.  “Shakespeare’s eminence was in a diversity of persons he presented. No one, before or since has had so many separate selves.”  Both Bloom and Shakespeare see literature as just an imitation of human character.

Bloom often says in his writings, that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare, but what he means is that the plays were written by the “social, political, and economic energies of his age”.  An interesting way to say listen to your characters and they will tell you what to write. This isn’t complicated. The same could be said about everything else. Bloom said in this book that “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” could just as soon be called “The Book of Reality”.

Bloom is the personification of the idea that in life our friends are the authors and characters we read about. In his own words he admits this saying; “I am naïve enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people, profoundly enough”.

Of all the plays presented, Sir John Falstaff of Henry IV, parts of V, and Hamlet, are the two favorites of Bloom. The key characters in each are ones Bloom knows well and even imagines them interacting with each other because of their very different natures. In a book about Falstaff, Bloom has Falstaff, Hamlet and Socrates sitting at a pub, having an intense discussion, so this seems to be a special way he has of his own to show the true nature of the characters. 


Falstaff is a character representing self-satisfaction, a happy guy.  He mocks faith, can be lewd, funny and reckless. 

Hamlet is self-loathing, and not a happy guy. Nietzsche said of Hamlet that he is “not a man who thinks too much, but rather a man who thinks too well”. Bloom says of Hamlet that he is an experimental thinker. 

See Review of "Falstaff Give Me My Life, by Harold Bloom" Click here to link

The claim by some scholars that Shakespeare didn’t write Hamlet is dissected and Bloom clearly shows why the final Hamlet had to be Shakespeare’s.

This is a big book that covers a lot, but Blooms thoughts are what make it so interesting

Quotes by Shakespeare and Harold Bloom

I am naive enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people, profoundly enough” - Harold Bloom

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.                             -William Shakespeare  

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.- William Shakespeare

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.-William Shakespeare
 

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