Gaslight digest of discussion from 97-apr-04 to 97-apr-07
----------------------------THE HEADERS---------------------------
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 10:13:36 -0700 (MST)
From: "STEPHEN DAVIES, MT. ROYAL COLLEGE"
Subject: BJB: _The detective and Mr. Dickens_ by William J. Palmer [11172]
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 14:25:07 -0600
From: "Marsha J. Valance"
Subject: Re: BJB: _The detective and Mr. Dickens_ by Willia [11173]
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 17:38:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Re: "Afterwards" [11174]
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 00:02:12 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
Subject: Afterwards [11175]
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 13:17:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: An unlikely connection [11176]
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 15:50:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Mark Twain Predicts... [11177]
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 01:36:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178]
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 22:15:05 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
Subject: Re: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178] [11179]
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 15:50:13 -0500
From: "Richard L. King"
Subject: Re: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178] [11180]
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 17:26:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Lawrence webpage [11181]
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 06:05:16 -0700 (MST)
Date-warning: Date header was inserted by MtRoyal.AB.CA
From: hillside(at)algonet.se
Subject: Reissue of book [11182]
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 09:02:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Ever "Afterwards" [11183]
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 12:33:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Kelly
Subject: Re: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178] [11179] [11184]
-----------------------------THE POSTS-----------------------------
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 10:13:36 -0700 (MST)
From: "STEPHEN DAVIES, MT. ROYAL COLLEGE"
Subject: BJB: _The detective and Mr. Dickens_ by William J. Palmer [11172]
I picked this title out of some paperbacks being discarded
by my Library:
_The detective and Mr. Dickens_ (1990, 1992 ed.)
by William J. Palmer
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It
was a time of glorious wealth and wretched poverty, of
highborn manners and base immorality living side by
side. This was Victorian London, where Charles Dickens,
the most lionized writer of his day, and his protege,
author Wilkie Collins, made the acquaintance of the
shrewdest mind either would ever encounter: Inspector
William Field of the newly formed Metropolitan
Protectives.
It was a gentleman's brutal murder that brought the
three men together in an extraordinary investigation,
related here in the form of a secret journal kept by
Collins. And it was this investigation that led
Dickens to the beautiful young actress Ellen Ternan,
who would become the love of his life, but who now
stood guiltily at the center of the murder case...
(End quote)
Has anyone read this novel? It seems well received,
judging by the review quotes. "Fun it is," says _The
New York Times Book Review_.
It spawned a sequel, _The highwayman and Mr. Dickens_.
The Collins manuscript is allegedly edited by Palmer.
He thanks the University of North Anglia for permission
to access this, until recently sealed, journal. I
presume there is NO University of North Anglia.
Stephen D
SDavies(at)mtroyal.ab.ca
===0===
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 14:25:07 -0600
From: "Marsha J. Valance"
Subject: Re: BJB: _The detective and Mr. Dickens_ by Willia [11173]
Stephen, I read _The Detective and Mr. Dickens_ some years ago, and found
it very effective. I remember finding the Collins character especially
well done. I'm sorry I can't give you a more detailed review.
Marsha in Milwaukee (where the crocus finally are up)
===0===
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 17:38:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Re: "Afterwards" [11174]
One reason I suggested that Edward Boyne might have left Mary is
that the story is not, IMO, purely a ghost story, but a piece of social
criticism. Wharton is pointing out the consequences that the
over-protection of woman-this sheltering of them from the realities of
life--can have on women themselves. As we learn, Edward has deceived
Mary all along: he isn't the fine, sensitive man she thought him to be
but something of a cut-throat. The Edward of the business world is
someone Mary doesn't know and could never bring herself to believe in.
But if she isn't aware of this important aspect of him, she might, in all
probability, be deceived by him in other ways as well-for instance, as
husband and lover. I suspect, really, that Edward is bored at Lyng, that
he is a man of action rather than a writer, and that Mary herself has begun
to pall on him, especially since at Lyng they are thrown so much in each
other's company. In such circumstances, men have been known to leave
women. Mary, through whose rather weak eyes we see all this, ascribes
all his actions--especially his absences from her--to business worries.
But are we willing to accept this as his _only_ motive? I wonder if,
instead, we are not to see Mary's interpretation of his state of mind
during this period as the ultimate example of her myopia.
And then, of course, she loses him--the greatest blow that could possibly
happen to her. Is it not possible that she would misinterpret this loss as
she has everything else and blame it on a ghost, the presence of which
may have been planted in her mind by Edward himself? Remember that
he is the one who first sees the ghost in the guise of a visitor; he is also
the one who later tells her that their "visitor" simply disappeared. Now,
we have no particular reason, other than Mary's say-so, to suppose that
the man she sees in the garden is a ghost, either. He may simply be an
accomplice of Edward's. How well, after all, did Mary look at the
newspaper photograph of Elwell; how well could she see the visitor in
the garden? Why is it that the servants see this ghost, too?
It may well be possible to draw a line between Mary's blindness to
Edward the businessman and Edward's abandonment of her as wife. He
seems to be fairly good at abandoning people in any case, as the instance
of Elwell shows. If Wharton is here criticizing her society, she may
well be using Mary's myopia simply as a metaphor for the blinders
society erects in the minds of young women concerning the worlds their
husbands inhabit. I think this would have been very apparent to Wharton,
who must have seen at firsthand the disjunction between the world of the
robber barons on one hand and the world of their society-conscious wives
on the other. Perhaps her final question is: Can love really exist between
two people who understand each other so little, who are so willing to
engage in deceit of others and self-deceit?
I wouldn't argue that there is no ghost. Rather, I think Wharton gives us
the option of reading her story either way-just as James, for instance,
leaves it up to us to decide whether the governess in _Turn of the Screw_
is really witness to a haunting or simply mad. I wouldn't even argue that
it is an either/or story, perhaps a both/and one. I'm not so willing to give
up the ghost either .
Anyway, these are some thoughts about a story I find brilliantly written,
highly evocative, and touching in its presentation of a character who may
well need a man's protection but also sorely needs a better sense of male
character--something her society seems not to have prepared her to acquire.
Bob Champ
rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
===0===
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 00:02:12 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
Subject: Afterwards [11175]
I know this is long afterwards, but this is one of my favorite ghost
stories, and indeed, any and all short stories. Why? because it gloriously
accomplishes what it sets out as a maxim ("you will not know"), setting the
reader on guard, and then ambushing her. And it's one that surely grows and
crawls upon you: think about what Elwell would have become, and the
confrontation with Mary's husband. And all accomplished within the grace of
an rented English estate.
As good as "The Jolly Corner" and possibly better than "The Turn of the Screw."
Jack Kolb
Dept. of English, UCLA
kolb(at)ucla.edu
===0===
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 13:17:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: An unlikely connection [11176]
The following is an except from an article that appears in the webzine
_Nebula_. It suggests an unlikely connection to one of the mysteries
surrounding the mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate cult near San Diego.
>>What was the significance of the driver's licenses, passports, five dollar
bills and quarters each cultist had in their pocket? Blame Mark Twain.
The famed American humorist wrote a short story called "Extract from
Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" in 1907. In it the protagonist
departs earth on a whimsical trip through outer space. His transportation:
a comet's tail. His fare for the celestial voyage: $5.75. And like a good
American tourist, he had his passport. (Twain's life was entwined with
another comet. He died in 1910, when Halley's Comet was in th e sky.
He was born in 1835, during Halley's previous visit to our end of the
solar system.<<
"Go Quietly Into That Good Night: The Life and Death of A UFO Cult"
Peter Thompson
I can well imagine how Mark Twain would have raged over all of this.
But then again he always said, "Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead."
Bob Champ
rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
===0===
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 15:50:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Mark Twain Predicts... [11177]
Part of Joel 2: 28 reads: "your old men will dream dreams and your young
men will see visions." I sometimes wonder if Mark Twain, a student of
the Bible (as many atheists are), didn't know this passage and take it
to heart--for at the end of his life he did have some extraordinary dreams,
some of which he laid out as fictions. Indeed, he had enough
dreams to set up for a prophet. In one of the late works, in the guise of
a "Mad Philosopher," he recounts what he saw happening to America
in the coming twentieth century.
Twain, as everyone knows, was a good deal of a pessimist in the latter
part of his life, and when he looked down the vista of years to come he
did not find much to be hopeful about. To him, the nineteenth century
was a period of great advance in civilization, a time when reason had gained
considerable ground, superstition had declined, and humanity had begun to
climb out of its long night. He didn't, however, believe this state of affairs
would last, and predicted that a new Dark Age was just around the corner, that
all the progress made in the nineteenth century would be disavowed and
lost.
One of the things he foresaw was the establishment of a state religion.
Perhaps in a satiric thrust at a popular, cult-like movement of the time, he
announced that this religion would be Christian Science. Now, a state
religion has never been established and Christian Science is not nearly
as impressive an organization now as it was in Twain's time. But we do have
more cult-based religions now than at any time I have read about (most
of them a curious blend of ersatz Christianity and New Age beliefs that some
might say bear a resemblance to CS), and an interest in the irrational
that is startling. If Twain were alive today, I think he would probably look
at this development and say, though ever so much more cleverly, "I told
you so."
Btw, Twain's own religious views were never as cut and dry as he sometimes
made them seem in his anti-religious screeds. He converted his wife to
his way of thinking-and later regretted it. When one of his daughters
expressed an interest in Catholicism, he did nothing to discourage it and
even said that, if he were ever to change his mind, he would certainly
become a Catholic. He wrote a book on Joan of Arc in which he takes all
the accounts of her miracles as fact (he refused to publish it under his
own name because he wanted people to take it seriously and realized that
they would not do so if "Mark Twain" was listed as the author). His best
friend, Joseph Twitchell, was a Protestant minister. Twain knew that
"there were more things in heaven and earth" than his philosophy could
account for. But he wasn't the sort of fellow who would have sat in on
a cult meeting for more than two minutes, unless he was gathering materials
for a satire.
Bob Champ
rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
===0===
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 01:36:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178]
I recall sitting, along with 75-100 other people, with Allen Ginzburg
in Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. We were
all in a circle, chanting OM in an attempt to calm the very charged
atmosphere of that day. I wasn't a Buddhist, I'll have to say, and
didn't have any real idea of what I was doing. But I was young, and
in love with poetry, and I suppose I was there chanting because of that
as much as for anything that had to do with the Convention. I had just
read _Howl and Other Poems_ for the first time several months before,
and was very curious about a man who could write poetry like that.
But I didn't have the courage to introduce myself. Besides, Allen was
busy chanting and trying to soothe down a young man near him who
seemed to be flipping out on LSD. After about thirty minutes our little
group of chanters was buzzed by heliocopters and suddenly cops were
chasing people through the streets right by us, so Allen broke up the
chant and everybody moved off, Allen talking animatedly to a young
Indian man as he disappeared into the Chicago night..
Not long before (or after, I forget which) I had seen William Burroughs,
Jean Genet, Norman Mailer, and a couple of other prominent
writers speak at Grant Park. There, too, the police had rushed the crowd
after some offstage provocation which I never really understood. It
was scary, and I was lucky not to have been sitting in up front. But the
famous writers seemed not to pay much attention to it, just left. In fact,
of all the writers, and rock celebs, gathered in Chicago for the Convention,
the only one I saw actually participating in any of the events, putting
his neck on the line with everybody else, was Allen Ginzburg. And that
_was_ impressive.
Almost thirty years have passed by since then and in the interim I've
changed in ways I couldn't have imagined then--certainly in ways that have
taken me far from the ideas of Ginzburg. Still, when I heard of his death
today I couldn't help feeling sad. I do wish now that I had been a
little grittier and summoned the courage at least to shake the man's
hand; it isn't every day, after all, that you get a chance to meet someone
who is destined to change the whole course of American poetry. So now,
he is gone and that chance will never come.
I do hope, though, that somewhere Allen has at last found his sunflower
body.
Sorry to post this to Gaslight, but there are some events that one
shouldn't let go by without comment on a literary list--even if it's
well outside the list's usual time span. The death of Allen Ginzburg, it
seems to me, is one of those.
Bob Champ
rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
===0===
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 1997 22:15:05 -0800
From: Jack Kolb
Subject: Re: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178] [11179]
Wonderful and appropriate sentiments, Bob (it's Ginsburg, incidentally). A
true American original, much in the tradition of Whitman, whom he admired
enormously. After Howard Nemerov, the greatest American poet since WWII.
Jack Kolb
Dept. of English, UCLA
kolb(at)ucla.edu
>I recall sitting, along with 75-100 other people, with Allen Ginzburg
>in Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. We were
>all in a circle, chanting OM in an attempt to calm the very charged
>atmosphere of that day. I wasn't a Buddhist, I'll have to say, and
>didn't have any real idea of what I was doing. But I was young, and
>in love with poetry, and I suppose I was there chanting because of that
>as much as for anything that had to do with the Convention. I had just
>read _Howl and Other Poems_ for the first time several months before,
>and was very curious about a man who could write poetry like that.
>But I didn't have the courage to introduce myself. Besides, Allen was
>busy chanting and trying to soothe down a young man near him who
>seemed to be flipping out on LSD. After about thirty minutes our little
>group of chanters was buzzed by heliocopters and suddenly cops were
>chasing people through the streets right by us, so Allen broke up the
>chant and everybody moved off, Allen talking animatedly to a young
>Indian man as he disappeared into the Chicago night..
>
>Not long before (or after, I forget which) I had seen William Burroughs,
>Jean Genet, Norman Mailer, and a couple of other prominent
>writers speak at Grant Park. There, too, the police had rushed the crowd
>after some offstage provocation which I never really understood. It
>was scary, and I was lucky not to have been sitting in up front. But the
>famous writers seemed not to pay much attention to it, just left. In fact,
>of all the writers, and rock celebs, gathered in Chicago for the Convention,
>the only one I saw actually participating in any of the events, putting
>his neck on the line with everybody else, was Allen Ginzburg. And that
>_was_ impressive.
>
>Almost thirty years have passed by since then and in the interim I've
>changed in ways I couldn't have imagined then--certainly in ways that have
>taken me far from the ideas of Ginzburg. Still, when I heard of his death
>today I couldn't help feeling sad. I do wish now that I had been a
>little grittier and summoned the courage at least to shake the man's
>hand; it isn't every day, after all, that you get a chance to meet someone
>who is destined to change the whole course of American poetry. So now,
>he is gone and that chance will never come.
>
>I do hope, though, that somewhere Allen has at last found his sunflower
>body.
>
>Sorry to post this to Gaslight, but there are some events that one
>shouldn't let go by without comment on a literary list--even if it's
>well outside the list's usual time span. The death of Allen Ginzburg, it
>seems to me, is one of those.
>
>Bob Champ
>rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
>
>
===0===
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 15:50:13 -0500
From: "Richard L. King"
Subject: Re: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178] [11180]
Well spoken, Bob. Just think, there is always a *first* time for
everyone to read "Howl," and then the moment is gone.
Richard King
===0===
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 17:26:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Lawrence webpage [11181]
Fans of David Lean's masterwork, _Lawrence of Arabia_, will be happy
to know that there is now a "Lawrence of Arabia Home Page" at the
following URL:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~tem/law
It features a number of .wav files of music and well-known lines from
the film, as well as various Lawrence links, including a FACTFILE maintained
by Lawrence's authorized biographer, Jeremy Wilson.
This page has room to grow, and I look forward to fine things from it.
Bob Champ
rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
===0===
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 06:05:16 -0700 (MST)
Date-warning: Date header was inserted by MtRoyal.AB.CA
From: hillside(at)algonet.se
Subject: Reissue of book [11182]
I gather (?) you've all seen a notice in the latest catalogue from Murder
One (p16) saying:
BARR Robert: The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont. Reissue of classic early 20th
century
French sleuth exploits. (Price is L 4.99)
===0===
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 09:02:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Champ
Subject: Ever "Afterwards" [11183]
Wharton divides her story into sections which she labels "chapters." I
was wondering if anyone has a theory as to why she might have done this.
Was she having fun with the idea of the gothic as a usually fat novel (like
the books of Marie Corelli, for instance)? Did she, in some way, think of
"Afterwards" as a novel? Was she just following through on a whim? I've
never read any criticism on this story and don't know whether Wharton
herself ever said anything about it. Perhaps there are more learned heads
about EW who can give us a hint.
Bob Champ
rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
===0===
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 12:33:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Kelly
Subject: Re: A memory of Allen Ginzburg [11178] [11179] [11184]
dear GAslight,
Champ's tribute to Ginsberg (it really is GinsbErg) was warm and
wonderful, especially about the man's willingness to put his life and
liberty on the line.
We were friends for thirty years or so, not so close, not seeing so much,
but a man of naked clarity and goodness -- a goodness very rare in
artists, let me say, and perhaps especially in poets, who tend to be
bitter, envious and mean.
Most of my anecdotes are not suitable to the Family Circle (another name
for Gaslight?), so just let me say, RC, that he would have been happy to
shake your hand. He was utterly marvellous with shy young people, putting
them at their ease, and welcoming them as his peers --- that was his
secret, he was a poet and a lover and in his heart he understood that we
all are, all of us are those Emersonian Bodhisattvas he yearned for us
to be publically and consciously--- and so we are all peers. So he
was at ease with everyone.
Thanks for speaking of him in this place.
Om Mani Peme Hung
R
==================================================
Robert Kelly
Division of Literature and Languages, Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson NY 12504
Voice Mail: 914-758-7600 Box 7205
kelly(at)bard.edu
On Sat, 5 Apr 1997, Jack Kolb wrote:
> Wonderful and appropriate sentiments, Bob (it's Ginsburg, incidentally). A
> true American original, much in the tradition of Whitman, whom he admired
> enormously. After Howard Nemerov, the greatest American poet since WWII.
>
> Jack Kolb
> Dept. of English, UCLA
> kolb(at)ucla.edu
>
>
> >I recall sitting, along with 75-100 other people, with Allen Ginzburg
> >in Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. We were
> >all in a circle, chanting OM in an attempt to calm the very charged
> >atmosphere of that day. I wasn't a Buddhist, I'll have to say, and
> >didn't have any real idea of what I was doing. But I was young, and
> >in love with poetry, and I suppose I was there chanting because of that
> >as much as for anything that had to do with the Convention. I had just
> >read _Howl and Other Poems_ for the first time several months before,
> >and was very curious about a man who could write poetry like that.
> >But I didn't have the courage to introduce myself. Besides, Allen was
> >busy chanting and trying to soothe down a young man near him who
> >seemed to be flipping out on LSD. After about thirty minutes our little
> >group of chanters was buzzed by heliocopters and suddenly cops were
> >chasing people through the streets right by us, so Allen broke up the
> >chant and everybody moved off, Allen talking animatedly to a young
> >Indian man as he disappeared into the Chicago night..
> >
> >Not long before (or after, I forget which) I had seen William Burroughs,
> >Jean Genet, Norman Mailer, and a couple of other prominent
> >writers speak at Grant Park. There, too, the police had rushed the crowd
> >after some offstage provocation which I never really understood. It
> >was scary, and I was lucky not to have been sitting in up front. But the
> >famous writers seemed not to pay much attention to it, just left. In fact,
> >of all the writers, and rock celebs, gathered in Chicago for the Convention,
> >the only one I saw actually participating in any of the events, putting
> >his neck on the line with everybody else, was Allen Ginzburg. And that
> >_was_ impressive.
> >
> >Almost thirty years have passed by since then and in the interim I've
> >changed in ways I couldn't have imagined then--certainly in ways that have
> >taken me far from the ideas of Ginzburg. Still, when I heard of his death
> >today I couldn't help feeling sad. I do wish now that I had been a
> >little grittier and summoned the courage at least to shake the man's
> >hand; it isn't every day, after all, that you get a chance to meet someone
> >who is destined to change the whole course of American poetry. So now,
> >he is gone and that chance will never come.
> >
> >I do hope, though, that somewhere Allen has at last found his sunflower
> >body.
> >
> >Sorry to post this to Gaslight, but there are some events that one
> >shouldn't let go by without comment on a literary list--even if it's
> >well outside the list's usual time span. The death of Allen Ginzburg, it
> >seems to me, is one of those.
> >
> >Bob Champ
> >rchamp(at)europa.umuc.edu
> >
> >
>
End of Gaslight digest.