The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana XIV -- chapter 13: OF DEVILS AND MASONS

While this is my favorite chapter of the book so far, so it contains one of my favorite comparison: that of tapeworms and gall stones to bad poetry, and all its pathetic symptoms and affectations.  Here, though, we have to examine Eco's use of, what he considers as its his own, bad poetry.  The creation and strategic use of intentionally bad poetry is like the now-commonly mentioned (Michael Chabon) generation of intentional coincidences.  A wise student once commented hopefully and pointedly on the poetry I confessed I was writing for a then-current novel.  "I hope you're not trying to write intentionally bad poetry to make it look like a teenager did it," she said.  I admitted that indeed I was not and so assured her with a sincere expression of my insecurity as a poet, (more or less:) "I'm hoping the best poetry I can do can qualify as believably excellent or even just believable teen-poetry."  So I wonder how Eco, certainly an excellent writer, but not necessarily a poet (and so he sagely acknowledges in the end of the chapter in reference to another's poem, "This is beautiful because it is not mine"), approached his poetry attempts, or, as I suspect is the case as with other issues/references in the book, these are autobiographically accurate, and indeed pieces he composed as a precocious teen--that and, well, the poems' apparent and beyond-coincidentally prophetic natures for Yambo's unique future.  For example, bad poetry or not, this is quite telling:

you cannot enter twice

the kingdom of remembrance

and hope to find unspoiled

the unexpected freshness

of the first theft.

1. The poem of "three days before Christmas" interests me, as in subject (a purity in stark contrast to what we know of the adult Yambo) and prediction (the loss of memory) it is particularly prophetic, appropriate (even mysteriously coincidentally so, as already mentioned above), and perhaps directly metaphoric.  It may even offer a potential explanation for why the memory was lost in the first place (accurate as prediction or not, I don't remember).  Thoughts?
2. As there are literal rooms of memory in the house that align with Yambo's segmented memories of his past, all of which are natural divisions--segmentations--of life, and with a particularly sturdy and tall wall set ("to put a final seal on memories I was renouncing") between adolescence and young adulthood, high school and college, so his literal loss of memory builds a wall (even a "satanically masonic" wall) between his present and past.  Sounds like a classic, though thoroughly exaggerated, mid-life crisis.
3. Lila Saba: "saba" is the food for bacteria that create balsamic vinegar.  Consider the various classic metaphors of vinegar, not to mention grapes, as well as the definition of balsam against the mellifluous connection between Lila Saba and Sibilla (additional, of course, to the fact that Lila is a nickname for Sibilla anyway).
4. An affecting little book: "La Vita Nuova."  Beatrice penetrated all sorts of walls that otherwise held everyone else back in Dante's life; so similar to this Lila who is the only one, besides Gianni, who transcends all of Yambo's barriers, consciously and subconsciously--the "relay race across the years."

Through the Looking Glass III -- chapter 1: SNOW DAY

1. The contrast between the kittens' colors leads to a short stack of fairly obvious observations of good and evil.  Is there more than this here?  Look at the kitten receiving the majority of Alice's attention; the behavior of the kitten compared to Alice's behavior (as she reports it); and never forget Carroll.
2. Remember what snow and winter classically represent.  Combine this with Carroll's separation from Alice and the fact that he very much enjoyed offering kisses to his child friends.  Additionally, notice how favorably Alice describes the snow, as well as the mentions of "blanket" and "sleep."  These allusions and metaphors, I think, describe perfectly Carroll's feelings of distance and loss for Alice.  (Potential aside: does Alice's playful threat to Kitty to shut it out in the snow play into this at all?)
3. Alice's mention of the bonfire preparations and the general time of year suggest Guy Fawkes Day is tomorrow, making today November 4, exactly 6 months after Alice in Wonderland.  This is augmented by a later mention that, while through the looking-glass, she is exactly seven-and-a-half years old.
4. Alice's play-maternal treatment of Kitty suggests that she is growing up.
5. "And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say...."  I don't recall if it happens again in Looking-Glass, but it never happened at all in Wonderland that Carroll employed first-person narration.  Why is it particularly fitting here and now?  It is also significant that this sentence hints at significant distance between the time of the storytelling and events it narrates.  (Later in this chapter, he employs a similar distancing: "She said afterward that she had never seen in all her life such a face as the King made....")
6. While Alice's sisters make regular appearances, albeit primarily via puns and jokes, they are all but removed from Looking-Glass, save this impersonal mention of Alice's practical sister.
7. (I just love this line: "Nurse!  Do let's pretend that I'm a hungry hyena, and you're a bone!")
8. Mysterious things, dreams.  Duh, right?  If you go through chapter 1 and look carefully, there are a number of events, thoughts, and observations of and around Alice and her surroundings that suggest--or foreshadow--the "dream" to come.
9. Pay close attention (if you'd like; it's not always significant to our reading here) to reversals in the "other" house and of the "other" Alice, both through the looking-glass.  Interesting:  It was another Alice, a distant cousin of Carroll's in fact, who inspired the narrative reversals.  Carroll, visiting his uncle, came upon this other Alice and said, "So you are another Alice.  I'm very fond of Alices.  Would you like to come and see something which is rather puzzling," upon which they entered the home and Carroll pointed out the intrigues of looking in a mirror.  He gave her an orange and asked which hand it was in, then why it appeared in the other hand in her reflection.  She said, "If I was on the other side of the glass, wouldn't the orange still be in my right hand?"
10. Tenniel's two illustrations of Alice passing through the looking-glass are meant to appear on opposite sides of the same page, to add to the appearance of Alice actually passing through the mirror.  Notice she is the only item not reversed or otherwise changed.  Even Tenniel's signature and the name "Dalziel" (the company which did the wood-cut engraving of Tenniel's illustrations) is reversed.
11. How easily Alice checkmates the White King, who, by all appearances, is now, though only temporarily, dead--or dead to her.
12. Notice the automatic writing of the King, controlled, as it were, by a virtual god--an almighty, invisible force.
13. Funny that holding "Jabberwocky" up to the mirror did little to make it more understandable.  (I'm not going into all the "definitions" of the non-/sense words in the poem, though I'm happy to answer questions, if there are any.)

Through the Looking Glass II -- DEAR ALICE A-DISTANCED

This poem, I think, is Carroll's very best "literary" work.  Here he is at his most vulnerable, least satiric, and here it is that he most skillfully and sincerely uses the greatest of his lyrical strength.  It is subtle, lulling, and peaceful, despite the winter storming beyond the "pleasance" of this sitting room.

I don't like to reduce a poem to a chart, especially one so lovely as this, but in this context such is the most efficient way to connect thought to stanza.  If you have comments or questions, reference them by stanza.

1 Child of the pure unclouded brow       And dreaming eyes of wonder! Though time be fleet, and I and thou      Are half a life asunder, Thy loving smile will surely hail The love-gift of a fairy-tale.	If we take this as a continuation from Wonderland and those final words offered by Alice’s older sister (really Carroll), then this idealization makes sense.  Remember, though only 6 months pass (exactly 6) between the fictional events two books, 6 years have pass between their publication dates, and in reality, Alice, who was 10 when she requested that Wonderland be written, is now actually 19.
2 I have not seen thy sunny face,      Nor heard thy silver laughter; No thought of me shall find a place      In thy young life's hereafter - Enough that now thou wilt not fail To listen to my fairy-tale.	Carroll is pretty meek now, and he seems to assume that he’s made less of an impression than he actually has; however, as he knows Alice as a person,   and what with her child-like mind, despite her forgetfulness of him—i.e.his assumption (accurate) that she’s moved on in her life, and he’s not part of the new one now she’s older—so he knows she will be adequately interested in the new story to read it, and that she will be amused.
3 A tale begun in other days,      When summer suns were glowing - A simple chime, that served to time      The rhythm of our rowing - Whose echoes live in memory yet, Though envious years would say 'forget'.	The summer days not only reference the eponymous golden afternoon in July, but the sunny, un-jaded days of youth.  He’s confident that this particular past is indelible, no matter what’s going on now—or not going on—between them; and those “envious years” are easily those first after they were separated by fiat of Mrs. Liddell.
4 Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,      With bitter tidings laden, Shall summon to unwelcome bed      A melancholy maiden! We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.	No matter the Freudians, this bed is not the wedding bed, but a reference to the generalized Christian belief  that death is but a sleep: temporary, passive, innocuous.
5 Without, the frost, the blinding snow,      The storm-wind's moody madness - Within, the firelight's ruddy glow,      And childhood's nest of gladness. The magic words shall hold thee fast: Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.	This is the setting that begins chapter 1 of Looking-Glass: winter, indoors, before the fireplace.
6 And though the shadow of a sigh      May tremble through the story, For 'happy summer days' gone by,      And vanish'd summer glory - It shall not touch with breath of bale The pleasance of our fairy-tale.	As he introduces the setting in 5, so he introduces the tone here in 6: this is the belated, melancholy epilogue of the love story—not unrequited, but only outgrown.  He points out that despite the distance and the “winter” (compared to summer's youth) –especially whose weather will surely run throughout the story, though only in tone, not precipitation and temperature— “it shall not touch with breath of bale” (think “baleful,” which is the correlating adjective) the “pleasance,” which, interestingly, is Alice’s middle name, whom he specifically introduces as he did tone and setting, of the tale.

Alice (Liddell) Hargreaves, all grown up.

Alice in Wonderland XV -- chapter 11 & 12: ALICE GROWS UP

Portrait of Alice Liddell,
by Charles Dodgson

The trial is the final scene before Alice awakes and book ends.  While there are some points of interest through the course of the trial, the real discussion begins at its completion with the few paragraphs of epilogue of the older sister's dream of Alice's dream.  It is here in this final moment that Carroll makes another anonymous appearance, this time seemingly to wave goodbye.

1. Wonderland is not a large place.  Nearly all of its characters are present in the trial, or appeared, also recently, at the croquet game.
2. Alice imagines the the animals out of the juror box will not survive, as surely as goldfish out of their bowl will not survive.  This is very much like the creatures of Wonderland and the "bowl" of Alice's dream.
3. Alice's growth through the second half of chapter 11 and through the end of the trial in chapter 12 is unmotivated by any contrivances of the dream.  She is growing on her own.  As Carroll controls the elements of the dream and Alice is growing independently of it and him, might this not symbolize the very maturing of Alice that Carroll dreads?  The Dream--his dreams of her, his wish for a different reality--will inevitably conclude.
4. In Carroll's eye, is Alice perhaps the guilty one--the one who committed, and as unwittingly as any Wonderland creature, the crime? tarts and hearts, and whoever stole them?
5. (42 is a bit of a magic number for Carroll and other writers, including Douglas Adams.)
6. The verses read by W. Rabbit (or maybe Herald/Harold?) is the second layer of parody of a near-thoroughly buried original song (below), the first of which was published by Carroll as "She's All My Fancy Painted Him."
7. Notice that in Tenniel's final illustration (of which there are 42, by the way) W. Rabbit has lost his costume, and the cards, with the exception of a few noses, have lost their personifications.
8. What is the determining factor (for it's not the trial) that wake's Alice?
9. Alice's older sister, I think, is channeling Carroll here at the end.  She re-dreams (remembers fondly, really) Alice's experiences and adventures, and is generally idealized by her.  Remember, this book was written as a gift for Alice.  The dream seems to me to be a dramatization of time spent together by Alice and Carroll.  Unfortunately, and no matter how beautiful, wonderful, confusing, or terrible, dreams end; and dreams like this tend to end most commonly when their subject grows up.  The beauty of a pleasant dream is that it is forever idealized (like Carroll's own idealization of it through the here-unnamed older sister) by she who had it.  Alice will remember it fondly forever, regardless of what may or may not happen through her future within reality.  (Interestingly, the way its all put together, and appropriately so, the dream is more Carroll's than Alice's, yet it is Alice who ends it.)

from John Shaw's booklet 

(I don't know more about it than this)

She's all my fancy painted her,

She's lovely, she's divine,

But her heart it is another's,

She never can be mine.

Yet loved I as man never loved,

A love without decay,

O, my heart, my heart is breaking

For the love of Alice Gray.

Drawing by Carroll in his hand-penned
copy of Alice's Adventures Underground

This portrait of Alice
was pasted into the
original book over
the drawing above.

Alice in Wonderland XIV -- chapter 10: STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

I've said before that this isn't my favorite chapter, and I hope Alice found it tremendously entertaining, else for my money it's a relative failure (by comparison, and all old grudges left aside, I find far less of value here than in "The Caucus Race," which I finally recognize to have failed for years to adequately appreciate).  As entertainment--silliness for silly's sake--there's not much here for the modern reader, and little more than mockery of lessons for its once-readers; regarding substance, there may be something to parse from it, but, well ... I'll be honest with myself: there's little more than none, and only very slightly more than the offering of respite from the lunatic gravity of the Court.  Thoughts?

1. "Alice began to say 'I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily, and said 'No, never':  Is this a hint of character arc after all, albeit rather weak (see the 3rd and 4th comments HERE)?
2. Carroll's relationship with dancing was a little like his relationship with any given Institution--or at least the "World of Grownups"; he generally recoiled from the constraints of rules and did what he wanted, or otherwise mocked it later.
3. Once again, what do you make of the relationship between the source poetry, "The Spider and the Fly," and the parody?
4. Earlier in the book, Alice went with a "porpoise."  What is it now?  (Of course, this answer depends at least somewhat upon whether or not you believe she has found the Garden.)
5. What do you make of Alice's line, "I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning, but it's no used going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then"?  

The Spider and the Fly
by Mary Howitt
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the spider to the fly.

"'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.

The way into my parlour is up a winding stair;

And I've got many curious things to show you when you are there."

"On, no, no," said the little fly, "to ask me is in vain,

For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."

* Carroll's spin is not the same poem that appeared in the original manuscript.


The Sluggard
by Isaac Watts

'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,

"You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again."

As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed,

Turns his sides and his shoulders and his heavy head.

"A little more sleep, and a little more slumber;"

Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number,

And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands,

Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands.

I pass'd by his garden, and saw the wild brier,

The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher;

The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags;

And his money still wastes till he starves or he begs.

I made him a visit, still hoping to find

That he took better care for improving his mind:

He told me his dreams, talked of eating and drinking;

But scarce reads his Bible, and never loves thinking.

Said I then to my heart, "Here's a lesson for me,"

This man's but a picture of what I might be:

But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding,

Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.


Star of the Evening

by James M. Sayles

Beautiful star in heav'n so bright,

Softly falls they silv'ry light,

As thou movest from earth afar,

Star of the evening, Beautiful star.

(Chorus)

Beautiful star,

Beautiful star,

Star of the evening, beautiful star.

In Fancy's eye thou seem'st to say,

Follow me. come from earth away.

Upward thy spirit's pinions try,

To realms of love beyond the sky.

Shine on, oh star of love divine,

And may our soul's affection twine

Around thee as thou movest afar,

Star of the twilight, beautiful star.

* This song (yes, it was a song originally, and with music also by the same) was sung to Carroll by the Liddell sisters on August 1, 1862, as he records in his journal.  While I can't find much to be had by a cross-comparison between the original and the parody, I think there is significance somewhere between the nostalgic significance of the original and the manner in which its parody is sung by the Mock Turtle.  Additionally, consider the following:


On stars:  "Beautiful Star" is the second of two star songs mimicked by Carroll.  Recognizing simply that Carroll uses them at all (and his nostalgia connects more firmly to this second than the first) and what those originals may have meant for him, I can't conscionably employ "lampoon" to label his new renditions (I don't have any problem, however, labeling Carroll's rewrites of Watts' stuff as total derisive mockery).  I'll skip all the rhetoric: What if the central symbol of both, the star, is Alice?  Examine these two poems in their entirety and assume this metaphor.

The other star poem, whose original I failed to quote, shows up in "A Mad Tea-Party":


The Star

by Jane Taylor
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark:
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

IN HONOR OF THE DAY

There is perhaps no poetry worse 

than the youthfully sincere and woefully inept love poem.

First Crush
I developed a thing for you in 98'.
We've became really committed over ten years,
Every time I see you those butterflies come back.
Over the years we got to learn each other's thoughts,
We compliment each other as a 60 degree angle to a 30 degree.
A lot of times you have saved me from stupid actions.
I realized without you,
The _____________ everyone has grown to love wouldn't be
the same.

All that is You
My dear
Passion holds you
If we're near: a close grip
If we're apart: a distant grasp
The emotion always strong
Days, hours, minutes, seconds spent daydreaming
Not in vain though
All dreams of you are above earthly value

Completion as our eyes meet
How amazingly your eyes present themselves
They are strong, yet warm and kind
The gentility of your intellect as well as
your boisterous joyfulness: unmatchable by any
other
May I never care for another.
May you be my beautiful Princess always,
Choosing me for your Prince.

My Love
Me and you thought it could be
People thinking we go out on the down low
Teachers telling me to think about me
You had me just like whoa
You had me in the deep end of the swimming pool
I can't swim slay
Now you playing me like a fool
I'm drowning 'cause your love is fading away
Now I need to get away from you
My love hav to go somewhere 'cause this is making me blue

It has but I'm not tellin' who
Hope what I feel is true

My love for you must succumb
I will and must get over this hump.

Jane Eyre XXXVI -- chapter 35: GRILLED ALIVE

oldindianphotos.blogspot.com

1. Is St. John indeed punishing Jane?  She believes he incurs no guilt for what he is or, in this case, isn't doing.  What do you think?  --Or is Jane just reading her own impressions into the situation because she feels guilty for scorning him?
2. St. John's obstinacy, in the form of his intentional misunderstanding of Jane, is baffling.  Is his interest in marrying Jane exactly as simple as he pretends?  Or is it even really obstinacy?
3. "It remains for me, then, to remember you in my prayers; and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognized in you one of the chosen.  But God sees not as man sees: His will be done."  By this very declaration, does not St. John believe himself to "see" as God sees, thereby alluding to an inhuman godliness in and of himself?  In context of the story, has God called Jane to the ministry, or has St. John; is there a difference here?
4. "grilled alive in Calcutta" -- I'm surprised how early this shows up in literature.  (etymology of "grill")

*

DUBLINERS, by James Joyce: "Eveline"

cretonne

Finally my Dubliners experience has found a heart in Joyce!  So far (1) the stories, while undeniably, blindingly brilliant, have done virtually nothing to draw the reader--or me, anyway-- "into" the characters and "feel" for them.  Here in "Eveline" --well, how can you not feel sorry for this girl, stuck as she is between this rock and a hard place, understand why she chooses in the end what she does, and yet fervently wish she'd chosen the other?  Also (2) --and I wonder if this is related at all to, and even facilitates, the former (1) --this is the simplest of the stories thus far in the collection, at least as far as layers and symbols are concerned, or else I'm totally (and this is certainly not unlikely) missing the boat here.  Does the general simplicity of this story encourage its pathos?

The story is divided into, not the obvious two (obvious by marker of a printer's dividing line in my copy), but three sections.  The division between one and two is less superficially obvious--more a tonal division between act one and act two, if "acts" there may be in so short a story.  The dividing "line" here, I believe is the long descriptive paragraph for Frank.  Pre-Frank, the prose is markedly negative; the contrary, of course, is the case post-Frank.

Act I, samples of the negative: the evening invades; she was tired; dead, dead, dead; the more distant from the present, the more ideal; the brown and yellow, as opposed to the new and, by contrast, more ideal red; Miss Gavan; the arguments and abuses of her father.  The transition into something less negative is that very last sentence leading into Frank, and Act II:

"It was hard work--a hard life--but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life."  (Nice cadence here, by the way.)  Earlier, Joyce says, or has the girl think, "Everything changes."

The implications of these two sentences speak for the entire story--conflict, character, setting, everything.  The girl has before her a drastic change, and a change for the unknown.  The unknown is a typically scary place, and the known, often regardless of however miserable, is pretty much always preferable to the unknown, at least inasmuch as, again, the unknown is scary (and those naysayers who claim that the unknown--adventure--is not scary but exciting, well, if it were not scary it could in no wise create the adrenaline that verily lends the sensation of excitement in the first place; adrenaline junkies just like to get scared), and it is this that holds the intrigue.  Eveline is torn between, on one hand, staying where she is, despite its monotony, is discomfort, and its potential danger (her father's abuses, particularly as she increasingly gains similarity to her mother), and, on the other hand, embarking (literally) for the greener side across the sea.

Act II, examples of the positive: the white envelopes, indicating how she at least wants to feel for the coming adventure; "but she liked Harry too"; the distinct and abiding good of her father; the new connotation of the "odour of [the] dusty cretonne"; but we quickly slide back to the negative as memory of that good in father leads to his defense of his wife against the "damned Italians."  Eveline is stifled by recalled death and stands in eager/anxious anticipation of her escape.  ("Dereraun Seraun" is most likely--I had to look this up--invented by Joyce; however, the wide variety of implied "definitions" offer pretty idea for what he might have intended.)

Of course, she doesn't escape.  Wracked with fear, she opts for the grayish-brown constance of Dublin over the green adventure of Buenos Ayres (sic).

The theme of the story, I believe, is not change, but a derivative thereof: "the more things change the more they stay the same."  Cliche', sure, but in wording only, not application, and that simple, apparently oxymoronic sentence applies across the entire span of the story, much like the two sentences from before.  Nearly every line of the story holds indicator of something having changed, changing, or awaiting change.  In the end, however, and despite all this change all over the place, really, nothing changes: Eveline stays right where she is, and, interestingly, the things that drive her to seek change in the first place are, tit-for-tat, the very things she can't bear to leave behind.

*

There are two other items that I want to point out (not the only potentially point-worthy, as there are many (though these others are generally indicative of trends and referents we've already dissected at length), but, I think--forgive me--the point-worthiest), one of foreshadowing, the second of contextualizing; both, however, are perhaps zoomed-in a little too far:

1. "Damned Italians" -- aside from the irony of racial abuse here (Joyce lived in Italy for most of his life--though this could be scorn from the one-eyed man in the form of mockery toward an assumed bigotry of his countrymen), I think the words from Eveline's father and where/how (from within the happy-ish Act II) they're written/remembered indicate a prejudice against if not travel then foreigners in general.  If she possesses any of the same bigotry of her father, then her fear of this adventure heightens;
2. "Eveline!  Evvy!" -- maybe I'm slow (likely), but I didn't notice until now the girl's similarity of name to Eve of Old Testament fame.  Hmm.  Is Joyce saying that if Eve had not been pushed out by God for her transgression....  No.  He's saying that Eveline is perhaps missing out on the knowledge and experience that simply cannot be had from within her little, well, garden, no matter how dark and dreary.  And maybe all of Dublin is an Eveline, not an Eve.  Perhaps Joyce sees himself as, by contrast and in context, a masculine incarnation (not an Adam, however) of the more laudable of the two women.  I expect he would see Eden as a prison; also he, in no way, sees himself as a holy or righteous man; so Eve, indeed, is the better woman, and Dublin is a, Eveline: a cowardly failure.

*

As I said at the beginning, I really see this as the first of the stories thus far to have some spark of life.  Despite the gray tragedy of it, it is a tragedy!  Whatever the other stories were, they were not tragedies, as--for me--a story for whose characters I care not can never come across as tragic.  This poor girl, Eveline!  What a hand she get dealt!  I wonder, and perhaps this is the most salient question: is it her fault?

Jane Eyre XXVII -- chapter 27: FAREWELL THORNFIELD

1. What is the greater problem: the deceit or the first wife?
2. Why would she forgive him so quickly?  Is she is so subject to her own fancy, injected as it is by his supercharged rhetoric and emotion?  Why does such quick revolution say about Jane and/or her love for Rochester?  Finally, how can she consider it forgiveness here if in the end she leaves anyway?
3. Maybe I watch too many romantic comedies now that I'm married, but I can't help but wonder (and such supposition is, at its heart, ridiculous, since characters of a book or movie do not exist beyond their pages, film, or bits and bites and pixels) if Rochester had some nagging doubt that he might be found out and so planned only the smallest wedding to be as little publicly humiliated as possible.  Contradict me, please: It seems out of Rochester's character, especially in view of his efforts to flood Jane with all the typical aristocratic accoutrement, to not have the grandest of available pomp and circumstance for such an occasion.  
4. I don't get this: Rochester has houses all over the place, right?  France, elsewhere in England....  Why did he keep his monstrous wife in the abode as his "home base?"  Why not put her elsewhere?
5. Who is the antagonist of this chapter?
6. "Birds were singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself."  Birds were a motif early on with that book she read at Gateshead, which put them in grave- and churchyards, and islands and shipwrecks.  Is there any connection between those birds and these now?
7. "May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips: for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love."  But we all hurt those whom we love.

Jane Eyre XXVI -- chapter 26: THE ROCHESTER TREE

*

I knew it was too good to be true.

awesome

(no, really)

*

Now apart from all that, let's throw back to that lightning-struck tree from chapter 23, because I think we've got all the pieces now.  See if you agree with me:

• The shepherd in the picture is, in this case, a secret shepherd and in the form of one, and to this point much maligned, Grace Poole;
• of course, if Grace Poole is the shepherd, then that would perforce render the lamb the wholly impure (or is she innocent by insanity? -- does it matter?) Bertha Mason;
• the tree in the picture here is struck by lightning, of course, and by strain of metaphor and imagery, we have in the book a tree split by lightning, which tree is a likely metaphor for the otherwise perfect (perfect as in "complete" and, in this case, would-be seamless) union of Jane and Rochester;
• the lamb is also the lightning.  Maybe.

But we run into a couple problems.  Is the tree truly irreparable?  Is it even dead?  And here again is the comparison to The Lord of the Rings, whose White Tree of Gondor represents the unity of a kingdom under rightfully inherited and ordained monarchy.  In the books the tree is dead, and Aragorn must solve the problem of no white tree, which, of course, he does.  Is there a solution to the dissolution of the Rochester kingdom?

The symbolism of trees generally is big, and nearly every culture in the world has some mythological application for them.  In Western culture (that's us) there are the obvious trees of Life and Knowledge; move Northward (and if we stick with proper name-bearing trees) and there is also Ygdrassil; more than that there all the various tree spirits and nymphs and a metaphors of strength and worship and so on from around the globe--at least wherever there are trees.  I think the most important piece of imagery here in Jane Eyre is that this tree, a chestnut and rooted as deeply in the earth as the Rochester line is rooted in the English countryside, and once reaching worshipfully into heaven, indeed represents not just the current Lord but the Rochester line.  This being the case, it can in no wise be Mrs. Bertha Mason Rochester who struck the tree, but Mr. Rochester who is the lightning, and not most importantly by the fall and death of the tree, but by the tree's dispirited failure to maintain devoted and worshipful arms extended to Heaven and God.  Mr. Rochester, as he admits in the chapel, has offended God with his presumption.  Is he without religious reverence?  

*

Finally, and about Jane now, is she still in love with Mr. Rochester?

• "I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him."
• "Be not far from me, [God,] for trouble is near: there is none to help."

Why didn't Mr. Rochester just tell the truth from the start?  Isn't that always better?


*


If you're at all interested in more tree symbolism, check THIS out, specifically about the chestnut tree.

chestnut tree

Jane Eyre XXIV -- chapter 24: A PLANE JANE

1. Such is the tone of this book that I am quite frequently reminded of EA Poe.  "I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket" I must say reminds me of Poe "Hop-Frog," though here, likely, is the least similar comparison between the two authors.  More, again, I think the recollection calls stronger attention to the issue of tone than any issue of conflict.
2. It seems that perhaps this, well, tirade of Mr.R's at the head of the chapter brings to the surface a distinct, and perhaps jarring, difference between the two lovers.  What is it?
3. Mr.R asks, "What do you anticipate of me?" and Jane's reply is bleak!  If she's right, what is her evidence, more than that of storybooks; if she is wrong, why is she perhaps naturally prone to such a misjudgment?
4. Mr.R pleads his case and Jane asks, "Had you ever experience of such a character, sir?  Did you ever love such an one?"  //  Mr.R: “I love it now.”  //  Jane: “But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult standard?” Is this not a question impossible to answer?  Why or why not?  Is she justified in asking it?
5. What do Hercules and Samson have to do with any of this?
6. What is the real argument going on here?  Why does Jane not want the jewels, and why is Mr.R so bent on receiving them to her?
7. And here it is!  Soon after reference to a biblical king comes, "but for God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for poison—don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands!"  Is she an Eve?  (Okay, I know that this is actually a pretty huge question.  Simplify.)
8. This, I think, is my new favorite line: "My principles were never trained, Jane; they may have grown a little awry for want of attention."
9. It is a hard thing for those of this current American culture to understand (and very little do I) the weight carried by "station" in Jane-Eyre period England.  What is Jane's station compared to Mr.R's, and what are the consequences both--NOT JUST MR. ROCHESTER--are accepting by marrying?
10. Is there yet disbelief within Jane that the marriage will happen?
11. All that glitters is not gold: HERE.
12. Of course, if Jane becomes a Rochester and inherits permanent residence at Thornfield, is she not bound to discover the mystery of the third floor, Mrs. Poole, and Mr. Mason?
13. brat and bairn
14. And as this chapter has produced my favorite line, so has it lent my favorite scene: the discussion of the moon and faeries between Mr.R and Adele.  Fantastic!
15. "I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol."

Jane Eyre XX -- chapter 20: A PEEK AT THE SKELETON

1. Jane is scared to death of Grace Poole.  Why has not made a bigger stink?  Is she so in control of her actions that she has set her concerns--even those most dire--by the wayside for the sake of or by trust in her boss?
2. The situation in the room next door to Mrs. Poole on one side and the howling, groaning canine thing on the other and with the injured man, locked in, the paintings, and the dying candle is a perfect storm for phantoms.  How does Jane hold up?
3. Crime versus Error; Sin versus Transgression
4. "Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant man justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him forever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger; thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?"
5. What does Mr.R mean by "instrument," and what does he intend when he says he believes to have found the instrument for his cure?
6. Poor Jane!  Cane anything but heartache come?

Jane Eyre XIX -- chapter 19: LAUGHING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR FACE

If you are a frequent visitor and reader, you will have noticed the list of blogs and sites which I follow over on the right.  One of my personal favorites is Sentence First, by Stan Carey.  (Read his "about" here, if you're remotely curious.)  Today, surprisingly, his post provided the perfect title for my own and for chapter 19 of our current book, Jane Eyre: "Laughing on the Other Side of Your Face."  So, by combination of Carey's post and in the spirit of chapter 19, be the gypsy and read my mind: what is the connection I'm getting at between Mr. Carey's and my own blog entries?

1. "The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator."
2. Shortly after indirectly affirming his love for Miss Ingram, he proceeds to examine Jane's face with such exquisite attention and detail that we may wonder, can it be anything but love that sees her as he does now, for love is as interested in the faults as the assets, and sometimes the more so for them?  After all: "I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not."
3. In the moment of the fortune telling, was Mr.R simply and boldly stating his feelings, or was he lost in the moment and gushing as romantically as unwittingly?  Does it matter?
4. "Do you forgive me, Jane?"  Well?
5. Some have said that trust and love go hand in hand, others that they are one and the same.  Clearly Mr.R not only trusts Jane, and to the core, but loves her; he also admitted his love for Miss Ingram.  Can he love both?  Is it possible he trusts Miss Ingram as well?
6. More questions: who is Mr. Mason?  What is Mr.R's history with him?  Does this have anything to do with Mrs. Poole, with the fire?  Does Jane really know anything about our Mr. Rochester?  If not, what/whom is she in love with (and I don't think Jane is so impractical as to be one who is in love with being in love)?

East of Eden XXIX -- chpt28: LOVE. PERIOD. (not that kind of love)

I am always deconstructing authors' goals and intentions as I read.  What makes them tick, and how are they trying to accomplish exactly what they're trying to accomplish, and why did they do this that way or this way or how, and--in the case of Steinbeck and others whose work I'm always burrowing through and panning--why is it assembled as it is?  I mentioned quite some time ago the impression I get that this book was not planned out beyond a potential list of characters, general plot motivation, and a setting.  One of the reasons I feel this way is my inability (nearly always absent from a reading) of why a chapter was put together in such-and-such a way.  So many of these chapters with their mini-chapters stump me.  And perhaps this is one of the reasons Grapes of Wrath won all the awards and this is merely everyone else's favorite.  Yes, it is less polished, but I don't think it suffers from the lack of sheen; rather, I think its rustic quality enhances it.  But I look at chapter 28 specifically, and I can't figure out the assembly of these three parts--the thematic line drawn through them.  Shouldn't there be?  Such thematic drawstrings bind up all his paragraphs, bind up his sub-chapters, bind up the book as a whole.  Why not his chapters?  Or am I missing something--looking tooo hard?  I hate to say it, because it just seems to darn easy, but could it really be something as simple as time?  I don't want it to be; I want there to be more.  Why isn't it enough?

And yet, reading it again for the sake of writing these questions--and as I come up with a title for this entry--what about love?  Do we not see three distinct, and perhaps more fully demonstrated than the typical examinations, forms or manifestations of love?  Fatherly, communal, fraternal?  Perhaps this is the most Christian of chapters in the book, which book is profoundly Christian.  (And I hope I'm not overstepping myself by saying it.  Maybe "Christian" is a pigeonhole of the broader topic--just what I'm titling this entry....)

Reading Questions
Chapter 28.1

1. Hail the valient and hopelessly flawed father!  Every father is, and especially those who won't admit it or are totally oblivious to their ineptitude.
2. What about Cal's search for anthills?  I picture myself driving home in the fall back in my high school days and seeing mountains of leaves piled up along the side of the street.  Impulsively I swerve the car and splash up a great rooster tail and make it home a little more invigorated than I would have had I been just that much more conservative.  Then I hear on the news (later that very season in fact) about homeowners planting bricks, rocks, or cinder blocks under their leaves to get even with the careless drivers wrecking the fruits of their labors.  Needless to say, I don't go barelling through piles of leaves anymore.  But does Cal think ahead at all, and mean further than, "Hey, let's wreck something and if I kick it this way I know I'll really wreck it," or is his wrecking of anthills heedless and impulsive?

Chapter 28.2

1. Lee's story.  Who needs the telling of it more, Lee or Adam?  (Trick question.  The answer is neither.  Read my mind!  What am I talking about?) 
2. I will say no more; this story--and maybe I am satisfactorily like Samuel in this regard--is sacred and doesn't need my defense or pathetic disections, so I will leave it to you.  Regarding Samuel, consider Lee's words after Adam asks if he ever told the great man: "No.  I didn't.  I wish I had.  He loved a celebration of the human soul.  Such things were like a personal triumph to him."  What triumph's of the human soul have you recently witnessed and/or celebrated?

Chapter 28.3

1. Why is the re-newed impulse to write Charles suddenly strong enough--or Adam finally subjectible enough--to actually bring about a letter?  (And I love how obviously self-conscious the writing is, which writing doesn't even feel forced by Steinbeck.  That's talent, my friends.  Talent!  (Don't believe me?  Try it!))
2. Adam's PS is apropos.  Up to that point in the letter, ask yourself, why does Adam so love Charles?  A love that is clear--now, if it wasn't over the past ten years.  The answer is simple: "...because you were my brother."