Fiction – Notes

Measure for Measure

October 2024

Reading as part of the Fall 2024 Shakespeare course — see general notes for more.

Precis of Measure for Measure

The Duke of Vienna (aka Friar Lodowick) plans to travel abroad, leaving young Angelo as regent, empowered to enforce laws that the Duke has allowed to go fallow. However, the Duke really plans to remain in Vienna, disguised as a Friar, to see how Angelo carries out his duties. Angelo immediately shuts down many of the houses of prostitution, and condemns Claudio, a man who has only erred in having sex after handfasting but before the banns were read, to be executed. This seems extreme and disturbs many: Escalus, a judge; the Provost, who runs the jail; and Lucio, a friend of Claudio and ne’r do well Viennese noble. Lucio seeks out Isabella, Claudio’s sister, who is in the process of joining a convent, to persuade Angelo to be merciful, after protests by Escalus and the Provost fail. Angelo speaks with Isabella, steadfastly refusing, until she asks him to look into his heart and see if has not had similar feelings that led Claudio to his current straits. Angelo wavers, and tells her to return tomorrow. In a soliloquy he reveals that is attracted to her virtue, and wishes to have sex with her. In a second interview he tells her he’ll free Claudio if she’ll sleep with him. She refuses, and he tells her if she does not relent he’ll torture Claudio to death.

The Tempest

October 2024

This is not being read as part of the Shakespeare course; there is a week’s break for midterms, and, as CT and I are discussing S’s plays as I read them for the course, we are adding in the Tempest for this playless week.

That said, here is a link to the Shakespeare course notes: general notes

Precis of The Tempest

Before the play: Duke Prospero deposed, with young Miranda cast adrift, but Gonzalo secreted food, water and books as gifts. Now magician-ruler of the isle, he’s bound Ariel, enslaved Caliban, and his magically-raised storm has brought his enemies to him. They are Sebastian, his usurping brother; King Alonso, who went along, and Antonio who has learnt sibling-treachery from Sebastian. Innocents too, are also present: Prince Ferdinand, Alonso’s son, and old Gonzales, faithful one.

The play itself: the travelers are cast separately, each group to take a journey. Ferdinand will Miranda woo; Caliban will revolt, but rue; Alonso’s overthrow is thwarted. Prospero has a change of heart, forgives those arrayed against him, All return, but Caliban, to rule Naples and Milan.

Much Ado about Nothing

October 2024

Reading as part of the Fall 2024 Shakespeare course — see general notes for more.

Precis of Much Ado About Nothing

Don Pedro and his cohort arrive at the residence of Leonato, governor of Messina, who has a daughter Hero and a niece, Beatrice. Beatrice, a witty and assertive woman has long been in a “merry war” of words with returning soldier Signor Benedict. Don Pedro decides to play match maker and deceives them both, leading each to think the other is in love with them, and so Beatrice is matched with the marriage-shy Benedict. At the same time, her cousin, Hero, is on course to wed Count Claudio, hero of the recent war, until she is framed by the villainous Don John, brother to Don Pedro. Don John’s ruse succeeds for some, pitting Beatrice and Benedict against Count Claudio, Leonato and others, until Dogberry, a crazy constable, exposes the deception carried out by John’s henchmen, Borrachio and Conrade, and everyone is reconciled and married.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

September 2024

Reading as part of the Fall 2024 Shakespeare course — see general notes for more.

Precis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Theseus, ruler of Athens, is to marry Hippolyta, conquered Amazon Queen, in four days. Two men, Demetrius and Lysander, are interested in Hermia; Hermia is promised to Demetrius, but is in love with Lysander. Helena, her friend from childhood, is in love with Demetrius, but he spurns her. Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Faeries, are amidst a long quarrel over an Indian boy. Oberon engages the Puck, Robin Goodfellow, to enchant Titania, and while he’s at it, tells puck to enchant Demetrius so that he will love Helena. Puck enchants the wrong person, Lysander, and then the right person, Demetrius, so that they are now both in pursuit of Helena, much to Hermia’s distress. Helena believes neither Lysander nor Demetrius, nor Hermia when she says she believes its true. Eventually Puck releases Lysander from the enchantment, and the marriage matches are now aligned.

Throughout the play, some humble townsfolk have been preparing a play for Theseus and Hippolyta’s marriage, interrupted only by Puck enchanting Bottom, the chief player, by turning his head to that of an ass. After Puck releases Bottom, the play is performed, and it is so bad that it amuses the wedding party. Puck concludes with a speech about creativity and airy nothings.

The Taming of the Shrew, WS

Reading as part of the Fall 2024 Shakespeare course — see general notes for more.

Precis of The Taming of the Shrew

All that follows is a play within a play, put on for Christopher Sly, a drunken beggar ejected from a tavern and berated by the barmaid. A Lord returning from the hunt has the unconscious Sly installed in a Lord’s bed and, when he is awakened, tricked into believing he is a Lord who has been insane for a decade. For his entertainment, traveling players put on a play for him: The play: Baptista will not allow Bianca, his desirable daughter, to marry until her shrewish sister Kate is wed. Bianco has three suitors, Gremio a rich old man, and Hortensio; but then Luciento, a younger man arrives, and falls in love with Banca as well. All three, through various deceptions, attempt to court Bianca. In the meantime, Petruccio, friend of Luciento, arrives and court’s Kate; he is interested only in Kate’s dowery, arranges for a marriage, and then ‘tames’ Kate via gaslighting, sleep deprivation and starvation. In the meantime, Luciento has won Bianca, Hortensio has found a wealthy widow, and Gremio has disappeared. There is a double wedding, and at the feast, after others’ make fun of Petruccio, he challenges them to a contest to see whose wife is most obedient: Kate comes when called; Bianca and the Widow do not, until Kate goes to fetch them. The moral is…

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig (1974)

I recall this book as having had a big impact on me during high school, though in looking at the copyright the soonest I would have read it would have been the last semester of my senior year. Looking back, I have only vague recollections of what was striking about it. Three impressions stand out: I remember resonating with the discussion of quality, and the connection between technology and what I then would have called mysticism; the sharpest memory I have remains the revelation, in the middle of the book, about Phaedrus; and many of the descriptions of landscapes and moving through them stayed with me – in particular, there is a passage I hope to encounter again (assuming I did not imagine it), about riding along a road and the landscape dropping away before them and opening a vast vista…

Zen and the Art: Short review

Thursday 15 August 2019

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I’m happy to have read it again. I’m surprised at how well it read a second time.

One thing that surprised me was how much I remembered. Not just the core ideas, or the revelation about who Phaedrus was, or the interplay between Chris and his father, but quite a few of the scenes. The descriptions of coming over a rise, and the landscape opening up.

I liked the interplay between the descriptions traveling through the landscape, and the conceptual work — the Chataqua — that was being done. It was not too tight, not lockstep, but every now and then there were correspondences that resonated. The transition from the midwest, where the landscape was ordered out of value, to the west, where the untidyness of the land reflected its loss of value. The high country with its clarity and deliniation, with the abstraction of ideas about quality. The parallel for riding upwards through the valley and coming to the source of the river, and the upward path to the root of the ideas.