Selected Verse by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Source of book: I own this

 

It has been a rather long gap since I last posted about poetry. There are a few reasons for this, most connected to the fact that I like to read poetry aloud, which means I need time and space in which to do this without disturbing my family. 

 

One of the factors was my annual spring break camping trip, which was very nice, but which does not typically include bringing poetry. Second was that I have had a very busy spring for music gigs - which is great! But it also cuts down on the evenings available for poetry. Instead, you might have noticed I have gotten through some audiobooks - perfect for the commute to rehearsal and back. 

 

The final factor, though, is connected to the specific poet I chose to read. Gerard Manly Hopkins wrote amazing, brilliant, and forward-thinking poetry. But it is also often filled with difficult syntax, unexpected metaphors, unusual rhythms, and lots of rule-breaking. This makes it slow to read. You have to do it carefully, and usually multiple times before it becomes clear enough to read aloud coherently. 

 So who was Hopkins? 

 

To describe him as a British Victorian poet would be to miss his true trajectory. Sure, he wrote during the Victorian Era, and he was English. But his poetry was largely private and unknown during his lifetime, only published after his untimely death of Typhoid at age 44. It wasn’t until over 40 years after his death that his poems truly became mainstream, helped along by T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, among others, who promoted his work. 

 

In retrospect, the poems indeed served as an influence on a number of 20th Century poets, particularly those who, like Auden, combined traditional forms with experimentation. 

 

Although sometimes assigning modern categories to historical figures can be problematic, it is widely accepted that Hopkins was gay. His letters, journals, and a few episodes from his life give strong indication of his orientation. However, for religious and perhaps personal reasons, he chose to sublimate his sexuality into service to the church, becoming a Jesuit. 

 

It is fascinating to me that even now, there are people who seem determined to “prove” that Hopkins wasn’t gay - to find other ways of explaining away the things he said and wrote. For example, in his journal, he talked about his horror at finding himself aroused at portrayals of Christ on the cross. He scourged himself after disturbing erotic dreams. He had a huge crush on a college schoolmate to the point where his church supervisor forbade him to see the other man. (The crush was unrequited - he probably never knew who Hopkins was.) 

 

To me, even to read the poems themselves is to see the story. By Victorian standards, many of the poems are shockingly homoerotic, even as it often seems Hopkins is trying to convince himself otherwise. Where others would lovingly describe female features, Hopkins dwells on those of men. 

 

His devotional poetry - and there is a lot of it - is often on the edge of erotic, sometimes even over that line. His sexuality was, as it often was for those who passionately devoted themselves to religion, subsumed into his devotion to God. 

 

(This isn’t just a gay thing either - heterosexuals have channeled their desire into devotion as well.) 

 

There is something about a Hopkins poem that is instantly recognizable. He doesn’t write quite like anyone else. For example, nobody, and I mean nobody - not even Whitman - uses consonance and alliteration as effectively as Hopkins. The sounds tie whole poems together with multiple threads heading in different directions. 

 

He also did something unthinkable to most Victorians: his enjambment often broke not merely sentences but words themselves across lines and stanzas. For example, in “No Worst,” an otherwise standard Petrarchan sonnet, he breaks “lingering” over two lines - “ing” is his B rhyme. And in “To Seem the Stranger,” another sonnet, he breaks “weary” over the line, starting the new line with “y.” 

 

He also commonly writes with set numbers of syllables, rather than accents. So rather than strict iambic pentameter, he will write with ten syllables, and often fewer than five will be accented. 

 

Today, we find this normal enough in free verse. But back then? Crazy stuff!

 

Despite the forward-looking experimentation, the poems still retain traditional forms. In fact, many of the poems are in the traditional and rather rigid sonnet form, which is my favorite. It is this combination of tradition and progress that make for the unique sound and feel of the poetry. 

 

Here are the ones I particularly loved. Let’s start off with a sonnet. 

 

The Sea and the Skylark

 

On ear and ear two noises too old to end
      Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
      With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
      His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
      In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none’s to spill nor spend.

How these two shame this shallow and frail town!
      How ring right out our sordid turbid time,
Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown,

     Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime:
Our make and making break, are breaking, down
      To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.

 

Note throughout how the sounds are repeated and linked. Ear, ear, end. Flood, fall, off. Left, land, lark; combined with hand and land. Right out turbid time. The list goes on. Read any of the poems out loud, and the sounds become so apparent. And occasionally tough for tongues to say. 

 

And that’s before you get to the vivid imagery, and the contrast between the joy of life in the skylark and the awareness of mortality in humankind. 

 

Here is another one involving birds. 

 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

 

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

 

Another sonnet, this one combines nature, devotion, and a hint of erotic energy. Like the other, there are a lot of repeated sounds linking and tying together.

 

This next one isn’t a sonnet, but it does express a love of nature, specifically a lament for some iconic trees cut down. The trees in question were replanted, and lasted over 100 years before again having to be replaced due to age and safety. 

 

Binsey Poplars

 

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,

Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,

All felled, felled, are all felled;

    Of a fresh and following folded rank

            Not spared, not one

            That dandled a sandalled

            Shadow that swam or sank

On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

 

O if we but knew what we do

            When we delve or hew—

 

    Hack and rack the growing green!

            Since country is so tender

    To touch, her being so slender,

    That, like this sleek and seeing ball

    But a prick will make no eye at all,

            Where we, even where we mean

            To mend her we end her,

            When we hew or delve:

 

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

    Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve

            Strokes of havoc unselve

            The sweet especial scene,

            Rural scene, a rural scene,

            Sweet especial rural scene. 

 

Next up is this introspective gem. Written during Hopkins’ college years, it offers an insight into his decision to enter the priesthood. 

 

The Habit of Perfection

 

Elected Silence, sing to me
 And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
 Pipe me to pastures still and be
 The music that I care to hear.

 

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
 It is the shut, the curfew sent
 From there where all surrenders come
 Which only make you eloquent.

 

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
 And find the uncreated light:
 This ruck and reel which you remark
 Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

 

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
 Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
 The can must be so sweet, the crust
 So fresh that come in fasts divine!

 

Nostrils, our careless breath that spend
 Upon the stir and keep of pride,
 What relish shall the censers send
 Along the sanctuary side!

 

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
 That want the yield of plushy sward,
 But you shall walk the golden street
 And you unhouse and house the Lord.

 

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
 And now the marriage feast begun,
 And lily-coloured clothes provide
 Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

 

This next one is one of his devotional poems, yet it also describes the silence of the heavens, the longing for closer access to the Divine that can only come in eternity. Like Christina Rossetti, I find Hopkins to be so sincere and genuinely devout that I do not find the devotional poems to be glurge. 

 

Nondum (Not Yet)

 

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise--

No answering voice comes from the skies;

To Thee the trembling sinner prays

But no forgiving voice replies;

Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,

Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

 

We see the glories of the earth

But not the hand that wrought them all:

Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,

Yet like a lighted empty hall

Where stands no host at door or hearth

Vacant creation's lamps appall.

 

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,

With attributes we deem are meet;

Each in his own imagining

Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;

Yet know not how our gifts to bring,

Where seek Thee with unsandalled feet.

 

And still the unbroken silence broods┬░

While ages and while aeons run,

As erst upon chaotic floods

The Spirit hovered ere the sun

Had called the seasons' changeful moods

And life's first germs from death had won.

 

And still the abysses infinite

Surround the peak from which we gaze.

Deep calls to deep, and blackest night┬░

Giddies the soul with blinding daze

That dares to cast its searching sight

On being's dread and vacant maze.

 

And Thou art silent, whilst Thy world

Contends about its many creeds

And hosts confront with flags unfurled

And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds

And truth is heard, with tears impearled,

A moaning voice among the reeds.

 

My hand upon my lips I lay;

The breast's desponding sob I quell;

I move along life's tomb-decked way

And listen to the passing bell

Summoning men from speechless day

To death's more silent, darker spell.

 

Oh! till Thou givest that sense beyond,

To shew Thee that Thou art, and near,

Let patience with her chastening wand

Dispel the doubt and dry the tear;

And lead me child-like by the hand

If still in darkness not in fear.

 

Speak! whisper to my watching heart

One word — as when a mother speaks

Soft, when she sees her infant start,

Till dimpled joy steals o'er its cheeks.

Then, to behold Thee as Thou art,

I'll wait till morn eternal breaks.

 

Probably my favorite of the devotional poems is this one, which again is more like Ecclesiastes or Job than the triumphal or dogmatic passages. 

 

Thou Art Indeed Just

 

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend

With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.

Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must

Disappointment all I endeavour end?

            Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,

How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost

Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust

Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes

Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again

With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,

Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

 

These days, “why do the wicked prosper?” seems so very much on point. And that last line. “Send my roots rain.” So very good.

 

Hopkins was categorically opposed to war - a traditional Christian belief before religion got thoroughly co-opted by Empire. This next poem challenges our current fetishization of the military here in the American empire.

 

The Soldier

 

Yes. Whý do we áll, séeing of a soldier, bless him? bléss

Our redcoats, our tars? Both thése being, the greater part,

But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Hére it is: the heart,

Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess

That, hopes that, mákesbelieve, the men must be no less;

It fancies, feigns, deems, déars the artist after his art;

And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart

And scarlet wéar the spirit of war thére express.

Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;

He of all can reave a rope best. There he bides in bliss

Now, and seeing somewhere some man do all that man can do,

For love he léans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,

And cry ‘O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:

Were I come o'er again’ cries Christ ‘it should be this.’

 

Jesus and John Wayne is nothing new. The British Empire, like all empires, glorifies violence as a “manly virtue,” rather than as a betrayal of Christian values. Hopkins calls for peace in another poem, part of a series featuring the Fruit of the Spirit.  

 

Peace

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
 Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
 When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
 To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
 That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
 Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
 Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
 That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
 He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
 He comes to brood and sit.

 

I’ll end with this one, which feels very modern. It also is one of the best examples of alliteration ever. Just read it aloud and enjoy all the repeated sounds, the rhythm of the sibilance. 

 

Spelt from Sybil’s Leaves

 

Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous, . . . stupendous

Evening strains to be time’s vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.

Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ' her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height

Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ' stárs principal, overbend us,

Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ' her being as unbound, her dapple is at an end, as-

tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; ' self ín self steepèd and páshed – quite

Disremembering, dísmémbering, ' áll now. Heart, you round me right

With: Óur évening is over us; óur night ' whélms, whélms, ánd will end us.

Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish ' damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black,

Ever so black on it. Óur tale, O óur oracle! ' Lét life, wáned, ah lét life wind

Off hér once skéined stained véined varíety ' upon áll on twó spools; párt, pen, páck

Now her áll in twó flocks, twó folds – black, white; ' right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind

But thése two; wáre of a wórld where bút these ' twó tell, each off the óther; of a rack

Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, ' thóughts agaínst thoughts ín groans grínd.

 

That’s just a total masterpiece. Hopkins may or may not be the best poet to start with as a novice, but his incredible talent and ear for sound is rewarding for those willing to read aloud and truly listen. Whatever his personal loss, pouring so much of himself into poems is certainly a gift to all of us who love poetry.  

 

Pragmatism by William James

 Source of book: I own this.

 

While I probably do not agree with any other person on this planet or in history about absolutely anything - let alone agree with any one philosopher - I must say that it is William James who comes closest to my own views. 

 

I have written previously about A Pluralistic Universe, and also about Paul Fisher’s excellent biography of the various members of the incredibly talented James family, House of Wits. Both of those posts give some background on William James and his contributions both to philosophy and psychology. 

 A younger William James, before he went "Epic Victorian Beard."

Perhaps a big reason that I find James’ ideas so refreshing is that they are a direct antidote to the Fundamentalist horseshit that I grew up with. Rather than ideas being used as weapons against other humans, to either bludgeon them into submission or destroy them, James sees ideas as simply our ways of understanding reality. Truth is not some decree imposed on the universe, but is the reality of the universe itself, to be discovered by curious minds. 

 

For this reason, ideas are judged by whether they “work.” That is, do they accurately reflect our experiences in a way that helps us live in the world we are in, or not. 

 

This pragmatic approach to philosophy is neither the strict “ideas-based” rationalism nor the full empiricism that sees the pluralism of the universe as unconnected to ideas. 

 

I am unqualified to explain all of James’ ideas in this post, but I do want to hit some highlights from the text. 

 

Like A Pluralistic Universe, Pragmatism is a series of eight lectures given by James. They build on one another, but are also self-contained arguments regarding one facet of his philosophy. 

 

This lecture-style format was quite popular in 19th Century America - you can find the same thing in Emerson’s writing, for example - and for the intelligentsia, attending these lectures was entertainment on the level of a good play or concert. 

 

It does sometimes feel a bit foreign to our modern way of reading non-fiction. Likewise, because the book is part of a broader discussion involving philosophers around the world, it occasionally feels dated in its focus. One is occasionally tempted to say “what about [insert 20th Century philosopher here]?” before remembering that this book predated those arguments. And also, not all of the 19th Century ideas turned out to have staying power - some of the names mentioned in the book are at best footnotes now. 

 

This is why, as always, I recommend getting a copy of Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy by Samuel Enoch Stumpf - it gives a chronological look at philosophy as a conversation. I still reference it whenever I read. 

 

I’ll just jump in with some quotes, and at least give some choice morsels of James’ thinking. First is this one on temperament, which makes a lot of sense to me. 

 

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. Undignified as such a treatment may seem to some of my colleagues, I shall have to take account of this clash and explain a good many of the divergencies of philosophers by it. Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher is, he tries, when philosophizing, to sink the fact of his temperament. Temperament is no conventionally recognized reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusion. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the evidence for him one way or the other, making for a more sentimental or a more hard-headed view of the universe, just as this fact or principle would. He trusts his temperament. Wanting a universe that suits it, he believes in any representation of the universe that does suit it. He feels men of opposite temper to be out of key with the world’s character, and in his heart considers them incompetent and ‘not in it,’ in the philosophic business, even though they may far excel him in dialectical ability. 

 

To further explain this, James then creates a chart of what he sees as the opposite temperaments, and their respective traits as philosophers. 

 

Under “Tender-minded,” he lists Rationalistic, Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-willist, Monistic, and Dogmatical. 

 

Under “Tough-minded,” he lists Empiricist, Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious, Fatalistic, Pluralistic, and Skeptical. 

 

Each corresponds to each other, so, to pick one, the one relies on intellectual exercise while the other relies on the senses. 

 

I read the list and realized that I by temperament tended to pull traits from both sides - and this is exactly what James does. He sees these two temperaments as representing the extremes, which is where philosophers tended to end up, following their temperaments to the furthest poles of ideas in reaction to the other. For pragmatists like James and myself, we tend to use both sides, seeing the opposing ideas as methods of finding what works in a given case. 

 

The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable. Is the world one or many? - fated or free? - material or spiritual? - here are notions either of which may or may not hold good of the world; and disputes over such notions are unending. The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatsoever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other’s being right. 

 

And later:

 

It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There can be no difference anywhere that doesn’t also make a difference elsewhere - no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen. The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one. 

 

This is one reason I really dislike most theological disputes. Many of them have no practical value whatsoever. And most of the ones that do have practical value end up being people making theological arguments for why it is good to hurt other people in the name of profit or self-righteousness. 

 

It is ultimately my pragmatism that led me away from Evangelical doctrine - it isn’t really “good for” anything. It just convinces people to embrace Trump’s evil. Does the doctrine of the Trinity make a damn bit of difference in how people live their lives? Absolutely not. But the unspoken believe if white supremacy and male supremacy certainly does. And that’s what we need to be talking about. 

 

James’ pragmatism is the perfect response to this: rather than dither about abstract doctrines, we need to be doing what Christ commanded us to do: look at the fruit. 

 

No particular results then, so far, but only an attitude of orientation, is what the pragmatic method means. The attitude of looking away from first things, principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts. 

 

There is no point in asking if the doctrine is true, when it is blindingly obvious that its fruit is utter shit. 

 

James also accurately describes how humans evolve in thinking over time. We almost never make a complete and sudden switch. Rather, changes accumulate as the result of new experiences. Those who refuse to incorporate these into their thinking fail to adapt, and instead build layer upon layer of cognitive dissonance. 

 

The process is always the same. The individual has a stock of old opinions already, but he meets a new experience that puts them to a strain. Somebody contradicts them; or in a reflective moment he discovers that they contradict each other; or he hears of facts with which they are incompatible; or desires arise in him which they cease to satisfy. The result is an inward trouble to which his mind till then had been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by modifying his previous mass of opinions. He saves as much of it as he can, for in this matter of believe we are all extreme conservatives. So he tries to change first this opinion, and then that (for they resist change very variously), until at last some new idea comes up wich he can graft upon the ancient stock with a minimum of disturbance of the latter, some idea that mediates between the stock and the new experience and runs them into one another most felicitiously and expediently. 

 

This has been my experience - I have undergone what many call a “deconstruction,” and that isn’t a bad term. But more than anything, it has been a gradual remodeling of my thought - I continue to have a fundamentally theological way of thinking and writing about many things, and I find, ironically, that my commitment to Christ-following has if anything grown stronger at the same time that my belief in Evangelical theology has crumbled. 

 

In a later chapter, James again returns to this process.

 

New truths thus are resultants of new experiences and of old truths combined and mutually modifying one another. And since this is the case in the changes of opinion of to-day, there is no reason to assume that it has not been so at all times. It follows that very ancient modes of thought may have survived through all the later changes in men’s opinions. The most primitive ways of thinking may not yet be wholly expunged. 

 

Here, James again expresses so well my relation to theology. 

 

Now pragmatism, devoted though she be to facts, has no such materialistic bias as ordinary empiricism labors under. Moreover, she has no objection whatever to the realizing of abstractions, so long as you get about among particulars with their aid and they actually carry you somewhere. Interested in no conclusions but those which our minds and our experiences work out together, she has no a priori prejudices against theology. If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being good for so much. For how much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relations to other truths that also have to be acknowledged.

 

In the chapter on metaphysical problems, James engages in an extended discussion about the existence of God. In it, he imagines that the world has ended - the heat death of the universe or whatever you believe may happen in the future. At that point, everything that has happened has happened. A theist and an atheist may disagree about the ultimate meaning and causes of it all, but the fact remains that at that point, the belief is completely irrelevant, as it cannot change one thing about the past. The past is exactly the same whether there was or was not a God. 

 

Wherein should we suffer loss, then, if we dropped God as an hypothesis and made the matter alone responsible? Where would any special deadness, or crassness, come in? And how, experience being what it is once for all, would God’s presence in it make it any more living or richer?

 

Good question - there is really no change in what has been based solely on the hypothesis - and that goes either way. 

 

Candidly, it is impossible to give any answer to this question. The actually experienced world is supposed to be the same in its details on either hypothesis, ‘the same, for our praise or blame,’ as Browning says. It stands therefore indefeasibly: a gift which can’t be taken back. Calling matter the cause of it retracts no single one of the items that have made it up, nor does calling God the cause augment them. They are the God or the atoms, respectively, of just that and no other world. The God, if there, has been doing just what atoms could do - appearing in the character of atoms, so to speak - and earning such gratitude as is due to atoms, and no more. If his presence lends no different turn or issue to the performance, it surely can lend it no increase of dignity. Nor would indignity come to it if her were absent, and did the atoms remain the only actors on the stage. When a play is once over, and the curtain down, you really make it no better by claiming an illustrious genius for its author, just as you make it no worse by calling him a common hack. 

 

Thus, arguments about the existence of God do not have any true meaning in and of themselves. The better question is always “what do your beliefs in God do to change your life and behavior.” Or its flip side, “what does your belief in materialism do to change your life and behavior.” It is always and forever about the fruit. 

 

James is hardly anti-religion, by the way. In an era roiled by the discoveries of Darwin, he defended religious experience as genuine, and something to be explored as part of the legitimate human experience. 

 

This need of an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast. And like those poets, like Dante and Wordsworth, who live on the conviction of such an order, owe to that fact the extraordinary tonic and consoling power of their verse. Here then, in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our concrete attitudes of hope and expectation, and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism - not in hair-splitting abstractions about matter’s inner essence, or about the metaphysical attributes of God. Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means the affirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope. Surely here is an issue genuine enough, for any one who feels it; and, as long as men are men, it will yield matter for a serious philosophical debate. 

 

Ironically, more of my atheist friends seem to deep down believe in an eternal moral order than my Evangelical former friends and acquaintances. In fact, I think most Evangelicals are characterized by a deep-down belief that there will never be consequences for their actions, that they can continue to hate and abuse their neighbors and God will never judge them for it. It is really very, very weird. 

 

James is correct, though, that most humans do feel a deep need for that eternal moral order - and for me, that is one reason that I still find elements of Christianity to hold great meaning for me. 

 

In a later chapter, James examines so-called “common sense,” which he argues is all too often just another word for unexamined and untested beliefs. Rather than relying on “common sense” and certainty, James argues we should see all of our understanding of truth to be what it is: provisional. Subject to modification upon receiving better information or finding better theories to explain what we experience. 

 

Ought not the existence of the various types of thinking which we have reviewed, each so splendid for certain purposes, yet all conflicting still, and neither one of them able to support a claim of absolute veracity, to awaken a presumption favorable to the pragmatistic view that all our theories are instrumental, are mental modes of adaptation to reality, rather than revelations or gnostic answers to some divinely instituted world-enigma? …May there not after all be a possible ambiguity in truth?

 

This, I think, is the great error of Fundamentalism, which believes that we already know everything - all the answers were given to dead white males of the past, and all there is to do is to “defend against error.” My own view - and that of James - is that we need to be open to changing our minds. And in fact, humans have always done so, despite the clearly false claims of Fundamentalists of all kinds. 

 

I want to quote James’ line from the chapter on Pragmatism’s conception of truth. It is pretty amusing, in addition to being pretty accurate. 

 

I fully expect to see the pragmatist view of truth run through the classic stages of a theory’s career. First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it. 

 

I could write a whole post on how this works within Evangelicalism. But a mention of the ludicrous claim that conservative religious people were responsible for feminist gains rather than the truth that they fought against women’s rights and continue to do so is one example. 

 

Also excellent in this chapter is the concise summary of Pragmatism. 

 

Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual question. “Grant an idea or belief to be true,” it says, “what concrete difference will its being make in any one’s actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth’s cash-value in experiential terms?”

The moment pragmatism asks this question, it sees the answer: True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as.

 

In our place and time, denialism has become the bedrock of an entire political party and religion. The existence of both are only sustained by a vast superstructure of lies and falsehoods, and maintained by the cognitive dissonance of much of the population. This will not end well. 

 

The importance to human life of having true beliefs about matters of fact is a thing too notorious. We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely useful or infinitely harmful. Ideas that tell us which of them to expect count as the true ideas in all this primary sphere of verification, and the pursuit of such ideas is a primary human duty. 

 

To name just one example from recent headlines are the children who have died of measles, a preventable disease, due to the wrong ideas about reality being accepted by their parents. (Who, by the way, have been appallingly cavalier in talking about their children’s deaths - the child in each case seems to have been viewed as expendable, rather than a beloved human.) 

 

Later in the chapter, James again notes that ideas change only in response to new information. 

 

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs ‘pass,’ so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-to-face verifications somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification of one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other’s truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts of the whole superstructure.  

 

This is where MAGA will eventually collapse - it is built entirely on fiat truth - truth unbacked by any experiential evidence. Nobody was running a child prostitution ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor in a building that literally does not have a basement. Thus for every single undergirding belief of MAGA, from white male superiority to tariffs being paid by foreign countries rather than consumers. 

 

The chapter on pragmatism and humanism is also very good. As a Christian Humanist myself, I think that James explains how humanistic beliefs are in fact pragmatic. We wish to make life better for all humans, and whether something “works” toward that goal is the all-important question. We cannot accept bare dogma. 

 

What hardens the heart of every one I approach with the view of truth sketched in my last lecture is that typical idol of the tribe, the notion of the Truth, conceived as the one answer, determinate and complete, to the one fixed enigma which the world is believed to propound. For popular tradition, it is all the better if the answer be oracular, so as itself to awaken wonder as an enigma of the second order, veiling rather than revealing what its profundities are supposed to contain. All the great single-word answers to the world’s riddle, such as God, the One, Reason, Law, Spirit, Matter, Nature, Polarity, the Dialectic Process, the Idea, the Self, the Oversoul, draw from the admiration that men have lavished on them from this oracular role. By amateurs in philosophy and professionals alike, the universe is represented as a queer sort of petrified sphinx whose appeal to men consists in a monotonous challenge to his divining powers. The Truth: what a perfect idol of the rationalistic mind!

 

That is simply outstanding. I love that. It really does explain why I no longer engage with MAGA voters on politics, doctrinaire Evangelicals about religion, or my parents about anything. They already know they know the One True Truth About Everything™, and the rest of us are just evil rebels for disagreeing with them. But the fact is, there is no One Truth. There is only provisional truth, that we see “through a glass, darkly.” 

 

Common-law judges sometimes talk about the law, and schoolmasters talk about the latin tongue, in a way to make their hearers think they mean entities pre-existent to the decisions or to the words and syntax, determining them unequivocally and requiring them to obey. But the slightest exercise of reflexion makes us see that, instead of being principles of this kind, both law and latin are results. Distinctions between the lawful and the unlawful in conduct, or between the correct and incorrect in speech, have grown up incidentally among the interactions of men’s experiences in detail; and in no other way do distinctions between the true and the false in belief ever grow up. Truth grafts itself on previous truth, modifying it in the process, just as idiom grafts itself on previous idiom, and law on previous law. Given previous law and a novel case, and the judge will twist them into fresh law. Previous idiom; new slang or metaphor or oddity that hits the public taste; - and presto, a new idiom is made. Previous truth; fresh facts: - and our mind finds a new truth. 

 

Exactly. James grew up in a family that learned broadly, and his description of the common law here is spot on. As is his description of language. And, for that matter, truth. He continues:

 

All the while, however, we pretend that the eternal is unrolling, that the one previous justice, grammar, or truth is simply fulgurating and not being made. 

 

This is the Big Lie of the right wing. That “we have always been at war with EastAsia” - that we have always believed the same thing, that truth is exactly what they say it is now and forever. And that experiences, perspectives, and new ideas do not matter. Defending the dogmas and the injustices those dogmas in turn defend is all that matters to them. Again, why I have refused to further engage. Their minds are not open. And their hearts are not open. That makes me deeply sad. It will only be once reality breaks through the cognitive dissonance that change will come. And for many, insulated from the consequences of their beliefs by their wealth and privilege, it may never come. 

 

I’ll end with a final thought:

 

Sensations are forced upon us, coming we know not whence. Over their nature, order, and quantity we have as good as no control. They are neither true nor false; they simply are. It is only what we say about them, only the names we give them, our theories of their source and nature and remote relations, that may be true or not. 

 

I found this book very thought-provoking, and found once again that William James is able to cut through so much of the bullshit to what actually matters. As far as philosophers go, he isn’t the most difficult read, although that may be damning with faint praise. It is a bit of work to read his stuff, but he is nowhere near as dense as so many of his fellow philosophers. I own both Library of America volumes of his works, and look forward to continuing my exploration of his ideas. 

Life for Sale by Yukio Mishima

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

It is impossible to separate the works of Yukio Mishima entirely from the man himself, and particularly the trajectory of his life toward the end. 

 

Mushima is best known for his second novel, Confessions of a Mask (which is on my list), a semi-autobiographical account of growing up as a repressed homosexual. This repressed and redirected sexuality pervades his work, for good and ill. He himself noted that his feelings of insufficient masculinity drove him to a fetishization of war and violence, and his books show a disturbing difficulty in seeing women as individual humans with dreams of their own. 

 

But it was after the end of World War Two that Mishima went pretty sideways. Always a traditionalist, he slid further and further to the right wing after the perceived humiliation of the surrender and the transition to representative government rather than monarchy. 

 

Mishima was hardly the only Japanese author to give into nostalgia for an imagined past - everything from the intentional isolation of the nation from the world through the ongoing conflict between patriarchal norms and modern needs is a part of this. 

 

In 1968, Mishima took part in the formation of a private militia group, intent on revolution. And by revolution, they meant the restoration of the monarchy by a military coup, and the purging of “Western” influences. 

 

In 1970, they took action: five members including Mishima entered a military base, took the commander hostage, and attempted to kick off the coup. Mishima’s stirring speech to the army resulted, not in revolution as he hoped, but in derisive laughter. The attempt had failed, and Mishima committed seppuku - suicide by ritual disembowelment.

 

A sad and pointless end for a brilliant writer. To me, it is also a reminder that you can’t go back to a non-existent past. And all idolized pasts are phantasms. They never really existed except in fantasy - or on television. 

Mishima with some cadets. 

 

I have been playing a lot of gigs lately, some with a bit of a commute, so I have filled the gaps with audiobooks - that’s one reason for all the reviews lately. Confessions of a Mask wasn’t available, but Life For Sale was, and the premise sounded interesting. 

 

The book is a dark comedy. Hanio is a 20-something copywriter, stuck in a soul-sucking job. He has no family, no friends, and no purpose in life. On a sudden whim, he ducks into a pharmacy and attempts to overdose himself on the subway. He wakes up in a hospital, all too alive. 

 

From there, deciding that his life is worthless anyway, he takes out an ad in the paper, offering to sell his life. 

 

At this point, a succession of odd characters come to buy his life. Except that, despite his full intention to die, he somehow ends up living. And the women involved in these escapades tend to end up dead, either of suicide, or maybe a mob hit. 

 

The situations go from implausible to outright fantastic: an old man wants to provoke his unfaithful wife into being killed by her new lover. A professor wants to test a beetle that supposedly can turn a person into a zombie. A vampire needs fresh blood. An international incident involving stolen codes turns on the question of poisoned carrots. A young woman is convinced she has congenital syphilis, and expects to go insane - so she wants to live richly, then go out in a suicide pact. 

 

And running through much of this is the Asia Confidential Service, a mysterious multinational organized crime and spy ring. 

 

Don’t expect this book to be “realistic” in that sense. If nothing else, the ACS seems to be a shockingly incompetent organization, only marginally better than the police. And Hanio is a seriously unreliable narrator. 

 

By the end of the book, I was seriously wondering if the ACS actually existed, or if it was all in Hanio’s increasingly paranoid imagination. 

 

As I noted, the book does tend to treat women as expendable, which was noted even at the time it was published - as a serial in the Weekly Playboy, kind of an upscale Japanese combination of smut and literature. 

 

To say that the book is cynical is an understatement. The only remotely likeable character is the young son of the vampire, Kaoru - he is just looking for some sort of family normalcy, which is pretty impossible when your mom is a vampire. 

 

Hanio is definitely an unpleasant sort. A nihilist who seems to care about exactly nothing, he sees other lives as having the same zero value as his own. That said, he is in some ways sympathetic, and he has a point about one key thing:

 

Working in a pointless job is a form of selling one’s life. It is done on the installment plan, but it is the same thing. This is a problem of industrial and post-industrial society generally. Most “jobs” are doing fairly meaningless tasks in order to enrich the capitalist class. 

 

That is what the book ultimately invites the reader to contemplate. Is there any meaning to our lives in the society we are in? Are our lives treated as valuable, or just as meat robots to enrich others? 

 

The book also, unsurprisingly, contains some pointed dislike directed at outsiders. All of the “westerners” are villains, and villains with terrible taste. Hanio expresses contempt for “western style” houses, with their carpet and lack of ventilation and utter lack of any sense of beauty. 

 

To the extent that Hanio actually enjoys anything, it is always connected to the past, to traditional Japanese art, or housing, or ways of being. 

 

Of course, this is both the promise and the delusion of nostalgia. If we just went back to “the old ways” (whatever version of that we envision), we could find meaning and belonging and purpose in life. 

 

Which is bullshit. 

 

There is no past in which utopia existed. Was your “golden age” the 1950s in America? Yes, there were some good things - strong unions, government that built infrastructure and taxed the rich. But also Jim Crow, high rates of depression and suicide by women, the threat of nuclear annihilation. 

 

Was it the 1800s? How about those low lifespans for most people, the deadly factory and mining jobs for the lower classes? How about the constant threat of bankruptcy among small farmers - and famine for that matter? 

 

Was it the Middle Ages? When Europe was locked in centuries of near-constant warfare, serfs were essentially slaves tied to the land and the nobility? 

 

At best, times in the past were “great for a few people.” If you just happened to be rich, yeah, life was probably pretty good. Except for the diseases and stuff. And wars. 

 

But most of us would not have been rich in the past. Or even middle class. And being poor sucked just as much back then. 

 

Nostalgia always comes down to something like that. A delusion of a magical golden age where meaning and purpose were clear, and suffering was somehow pleasant or noble. 

 

Hanio’s rejection of the pointlessness of his life is fully justifiable. But he also finds he really hasn’t found meaning in dying either. It just makes him feel more alive. At the end of the book (and the ending is definitely ambiguous), he still hasn’t found a purpose beyond trying not to die, and he may have wrecked what little mental health he had. 

 

Ironically, the closest he gets to a life with purpose that satisfies him is when he is literally getting his blood sucked by a vampire. 

 

There is plenty of this existentialist crisis going on, but the book is also quite funny at times. Even if you haven’t read much Japanese literature and are unfamiliar with the culture, much of the satire carries over fairly well to American life. The silliness of social conventions, particularly surrounding consumerism, is on full display. 

 

I listened to this on audiobook, which has Kotaro Watanabe as the narrator. This was a weird experience. English is clearly not Watanabe’s first language. It’s not that he is bad at it, but the cadence is off. You would never mistake the rhythm of the words for a native speaker. This means that you really have to pay attention, because you will miss things otherwise. There are also numerous instances of completely mispronounced words. This happens in audiobooks read by native speakers too, of course - I have noted it a few times. But there is a lot of this in the audiobook. Just something to consider. 

The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France

Source of book: I own this

 

This book is one of the random finds I made in late 2023, during our epic holiday season of used book shopping in multiple states. 

 

I had not read any Anatole France before, but had heard that he was considered one of the best satirists in the French language. The Revolt of the Angels is also the sort of book that got mentioned and alluded to by numerous authors of the 20th Century - Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Henry Miller, among others. 

 

In any case, finding a boxed Heritage edition in good shape and at a good price was a bit of a no-brainer. 

 

And, now that I have read it, I can attest that it is indeed quite funny, and a wicked satire on human nature. 

 One of many lovely etchings by Pierre Watrin to illustrate this edition.

 

The book picks up the story of Paradise Lost some time after the end of that classic. As in, the book starts in modern (for 1914) Paris, France, which is where many of those fallen angels have chosen to take up residence. And, let’s just say that I would be surprised if Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett hadn’t read this book, because there are some ideas in this book that are taken up in Good Omens. Including the central idea that there are fallen angels who actually love humanity and work to better their lives. 

 

We first meet the d’Esparveiu family - an old, respectable family, whose patriarch has established a rather immense and incredible library of books, most of them about theology and philosophy. The library is managed rather dictatorially by the eccentric librarian, Sariette, who prefers that the books stay where they are, rather than being touched by others. 

 

But things go wrong for him when, suddenly, books start going missing. And occasionally turning up in strange places: a gutter in town, the guest house,  for example, but mostly in careless stacks elsewhere in the library. The worst part is that there is no feasible way anyone could be breaking in and stealing them. 

 

Sariette tries multiple ways of catching the thief, but nothing works. Finally, he spends the night, and sees books literally floating around in the air. Everyone decides he is just going crazy. 

 

But then, the next incident throws light on the events. Young Maurice d’Esparveiu is, as is his custom, getting it on with his current mistress, when suddenly a shadowy figure gradually comes into view. 

 

It turns out that Maurice’s guardian angel, bored and frustrated that Maurice continues to indulge in the sins of the flesh, has taken to reading through the theological works in the library (hence the book issues), and has, shall we say, lost his faith. 

 

It is difficult to describe just how funny this scene is - getting caught by your guardian angel in flagrante delicto - the way France writes it. 

 

He has realized that God is no more than a minor angel who has convinced everyone that he is the creator of the universe. (This is a Gnostic teaching in certain traditions.) 

 

In any case, he has decided to give up his heavenly job and rebel, which makes him become visible. It turns out that there are many like him, living in the world as if they were humans - an artist, a book collector, a banker, and an anarchist chemist are a few of the characters in the story. 

 

Arcade, as the angel calls himself, has decided that he will now try to incite a second attempt at the overthrow of Heaven - another Revolt of the Angels. 

 

Here, I do have to give a spoiler alert, because I want to talk about the ending later, because it is, in my view, the core idea of the book. If you don’t want a spoiler, just go with “things happen” and leave it at that. On the other hand, I do not feel bad about spoiling a book well over 100 years old. 

 

It helps to understand that France was a socialist, in that era before Stalin and Mao remade Marx’s diagnosis of the ills of society and a utopian vision for a better world into just another brand of totalitarian abuse of humanity and a rigid ideology to sacrifice people to. (In other words, a practice far closer to Fascism than to either the prior socialist experiments or the social democracies of today.) 

 

A lot of what France satires in this book still plagues our society today, from the way financiers get rich off of wars to the hypocrisy of religious leaders ignoring real social issues while lining their own pockets. 

 

There are a few things that are not as familiar to 21st Century American readers, but will get a smile from those of us who have read French literature since childhood. The French concept of the mistress isn’t really a thing in America, but it is certainly ripe for a good satire. (I mean, at least as far back as Rabelais, this has been done. Some forms of humor never get old.) 

 

The one thing about the book that I didn’t find as good was the middle section, which is a rather long diatribe about history. I mean, the idea is interesting: that the fallen angels have done the work of Prometheus in introducing humans to fire and culture. And also that much of what religion - particularly post-Constantine Christianity - has been negative, and an actual fight against equality and human thriving. This is sad, but pretty true, unfortunately. 

 

I was less convinced of the claim that Ancient Greece and Rome were the pinnacle of human development, however. Not diminishing the culture of that time, but it wasn’t the utopia a lot of people - particularly white supremacist and authoritarian sympathizers these days - claim it was. 

 

My bigger issue with this section is that it went on and on for chapters, and bogged down the actual narrative. It could have made the same point with fewer words, or, alternately, been broken up with other narrative. 

 

I should also note a certain amount of casual anti-semitism, which is pretty much endemic in European literature before Hitler - even among Jewish writers. 

 

But notwithstanding, the book is really a good read, and the story on the sides of the dissertation make the rest of it worth it. 

 

The humor is rarely in the form of one-line quips, but more in slowly unfolding scenes with satirical details that gradually form into increasingly absurd and humorous observations. That said, I do want to quote some lines. 

 

At twenty-five Maurice possessed the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. Doubting whether a man hath any profit of all his labour which he taketh under the sun he never put himself out about anything. From his earliest childhood this young hopeful’s sole concern with work had been considering how he might best avoid it, and it was through his remaining ignorant of the teaching of the Ecole de Droit that he became a doctor of law and a barrister at the Court of Appeal. 

 

Yes, that is a lawyer joke slipped in there. 

 

Although he had enjoyed Madame de Aubel’s favours for six whole months, Maurice still loved her…No other woman had inspired him with feelings of such constancy and fidelity. 

 

I am reminded a bit of the poem by Sir John Suckling:

 

Out upon it, I have lov'd

Three whole days together;

And am like to love three more,

If it prove fair weather.

 

Time shall molt away his wings

Ere he shall discover

In such whole wide world again

Such a constant lover.

 

But the spite on't is, no praise

Is due at all to me:

Love with me had made no stays

Had it any been but she.

 

Had it any been but she

And that very face,

There had been at least ere this

A dozen dozen in her place.

 

I also want to quote Arcade’s description of his deconstruction. 

 

“I have lost my faith.”

“What? You no longer believe in God?”

“I believe in Him, since my existence depends on His, and if He should fail to exist, I myself should fall into nothingness. I believe in Him, even as the Satyrs and Maenads believed in Dionysus and for the same reason. I believe in the God of the Jews and the Christians. But I deny that He created the world; at the most He organized but an inferior part of it, and all that He touched bears the mark of His rough and unforeseen touch. I do not think He is either eternal or infinite, for it is absurd to conceive of a being who is not bounded by space or time. I think Him limited, even very limited. I no longer believe Him to be the only God. For a long time He did not believe it Himself; in the beginning He was a polytheist; later, His pride and the flattery of His worshippers made Him a monotheist.”

 

This is a fascinating passage, not least because the earliest-written portions of the Bible assume a polytheistic universe, with YHWH as merely one of the gods. 

 

So why does Arcade decide to incite a revolt, rather than just find a place in Paris? 

 

Having, he explained, studied Nature, he had found her in perpetual conflict with the teachings of the Master he served. This Master, greedy of praise, whom he had for a long time adored, appeared to him now as an ignorant, stupid, and cruel tyrant. 

 

I am with Arcade here. Particularly when it comes to Evangelical God™, who so much resembled a cruel tyrant like Trump decades before the election, I do not see anything worthy of worship. One could certainly argue that Jesus Christ looks nothing like Evangelical God™ - and in fact not only me but most of the atheists I know have noticed this lack of resemblance. 

 

Speaking of humans and their tendencies, how about this on-point line from Zita, the hostile feminist of the fallen angels? 

 

“You, Arcade, you believe in Science; you deem that men and angels are capable of understanding, whereas, in point of fact, they are only creatures of sentiment. You may be quite sure that nothing is to be obtained from them by appealing to their intelligence; one must rouse their interests and their passions.” 

 

Sigh. I wish that were not true. 

 

There are a lot of references to art in this book. For example, one of my very favorite painters, Delacroix, is mentioned at various points.   

 

I won’t quote, but will mention the discussion of what angels do and do not look like (within the universe of the book.) Arcade notes that wings are optional, and only the old Greeks and Romans got the look right anyway - he specifically mentions the Victory of Brescia. Which is a pretty awesome first century bronze. 

 

The various other fallen angels are each satires of certain types. For example, Sophar (living as Max Everdingen, a Jewish banker) is in favor of the war because of the potential for profit. 

 

In the exercise of this function, Sophar contracted a love of riches which could not be satisfied in a state of society in which banks and stock exchanges are alike unknown. His heart flamed with an ardent love for the god of the Hebrews to whom he remained faithful during a long course of centuries. But at the commencement of the twentieth century of the Christian era, casting his eyes down from the height of the firmament upon France, he saw that this country, under the name of a Republic, was constituted as a plutocracy and that, under the appearance of a democratic government, high finance exercised sovereign sway, untrammeled and unchecked. 

 

That, unfortunately, also describes the United States of my lifetime, post Reagan, when the economy was handed over to the plutocrats, to plunder the rest of us. 

 

There is another rather funny scene. Theophile is an angel who does not want to join the revolt, because he prefers to spend his time with art and music - and especially with his human mistress, the dance hall singer Bouchette. Trouble comes later in the book, when Prince Istar, who is a bit too big for his wings, so to speak, decides to make a move on her. 

 

Now, Istar might have solicited Bouchotte’s favors; he might have invited her to a rapid, and, withal, mutual embrace, and, despite her preoccupation and excitement, she would not have refused him. But Bouchotte was a girl of spirit. The merest hint of coercion awoke all her untameable pride. She would consent of her own accord, yes; but be mastered, never! She would yield to love, curiosity, pity, to less than that even, but she would die rather than yield to force. Her surprise immediately gave place to fury.

 

As a result, Istar ends up soaking his bruised face in a bowl of haricot beans. The little touches like that make the humor. 

 

Bouchotte agrees to take part in fundraiser to preserve a country church, though. 

 

Bouchotte agreed to take part, and accepted the reduced fee with the accustomed liberality of the poor towards the rich and of artists towards society people. 

 

Meanwhile, Maurice is furious with Arcade for abandoning him. He tracks him down with the intention of convincing him to return to his post. But Arcade feels he cannot in good faith pretend to be what he no longer is. Poor Maurice. 

 

“No,” sighed Maurice. “You do not love me. You have never loved me. In a brother or a sister such indifference would be natural; in a friend, it would be ordinary; in a guardian angel it is monstrous. Arcade, you are an abominable being. I hate you.”

 

And later in the conversation:

 

“Stay-”

“I cannot.”

“I shall not let you go thus. You have deprived me of my guardian angel. It is for you to repair the injury you have caused me. Give me another one.” 

Arcade objected that it was difficult for him to satisfy such a demand. That having quarreled with the sovereign dispenser of guardian spirits, he could obtain nothing from that quarter. 

 

Maurice then decides that he must become Arcade’s guardian angel in that case. This leads to some unfortunate events. First, Maurice and the angels get into a confrontation with a local constable who dies of natural causes. Then, Arcade seduces Maurice’s mistress, leading to a duel, which ends badly for Maurice, because angels cannot die. It’s a real mess, and Maurice also ends up on the outs with his parents as a result of all this. 

 

All of these scenes are quite funny. The one where Maurice is confronted by his parents is particularly amusing, including this description of Maurice’s mother. 

 

He loved his mother and respected her. His love, however, was more a matter of duty than of inclination, and his respect arose from habit rather than from feeling. Madame Rene d’Esparvieu’s complexion was blotchy , and having powdered herself in order to appear to advantage at the domestic tribunal, the colour of her face suggested raspberries sprinkled over with sugar. 

 

Maurice also fails in convincing Arcade to give up his dream of overthrowing God. Arcade is hell-bent on this, even as the coalition seems shaky, with everyone having their own agenda. One of the interesting lines in this regard is this one. 

 

“Can it be that we are the sport of financiers?”

“Pooh!” said the beautiful archangel. “War is a business. It has always been a business.”

 

Eisenhower would approve of that line. Even at the big meeting, there are some who were there for…other reasons. 

 

French cooking is the best in the world. It is a glory that will transcend all others when humanity has grown wise enough to put the spit above the sword. 

 

I agree with that sentiment. And, to a degree, with the dig at American chefs. I mean, have you seen cookbooks from the 1910s? It’s not yet to the level of absurdity it would reach in the 1950s, but it leaves things to be desired. 

 

The ending, as I noted, is quite interesting. The angels make their plea to Satan to lead the revolt. He agrees to sleep on it, and give them the answer in the morning. After a dream of the final battle, he realizes the profound truth of human nature, and the nature of power. 

 

“Comrades,” said the great archangel, “no - we will not conquer the heavens. Enough to have the power. War engenders war, and victory defeat.

“God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this terrible lot.”

 

Or, as the Who put it, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…” Or Orwell’s Animal Farm. The structures of power must be dismantled, or oppression will simply be reconstructed with new faces in old places. Power corrupts. Equality creates a way forward. 

 

This was quite the fascinating book, hilarious at times, and one that has aged fairly well in most respects. I do hope to add some more Anatole France to my library in the future, if I can find good editions in translation like this one.