Book Review: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Although many tried to establish objective criteria for beauty, the wisdom that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” could never be defeated. Nonetheless, it would be too easy to leave it at beauty being a matter of personal taste because from the moment we are born we are exposed to the opinion of others and we can’t help internalising their standards. In Europe the ideal of a beautiful body often tends to be Nordic, i.e. since Roman times or even longer, fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes have a particular appeal to beholders. European discoverers and settlers carried this idea of human beauty into the New World and so the African American protagonist of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison learnt early to despise herself for her looks. She prays to God for blue eyes that will make her beautiful and happy, but of course, that’s not how it works. 

Poetry Revisited: A Dream by Emily Lawless

A Dream

(from With the Wild Geese: 1902)

Last night in dreams I seemed to slowly wend
Along a coast like this, all seared and bare,
And met you there, my old, my long-time friend,
And breathed old fragrance lingering in the air.

For near a rock I found a curragh tied,
And, entering, floated down along the bay,
And now and then an idle oar I plied,
Then touched another headland, seared and grey.

There, in a cave, part open to the light,
I found you sitting, smiling, on the strand,
And all my heart sprang upwards at the sight,
And out I leaped, and gaily waved my hand.
“Old friend, what joy to find you here,” I said;
Then all at once remembered you were dead.

Emily Lawless
(1845-1913)

Book Review: The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

For Catholics this month started with two days dedicated to the commemoration of the dead, namely All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Not just during times of mourning, but also on Memorial Days, a special place to remember those who left for good can be a great consolation. Thus the habit of most civilisations to build cemeteries that, following regional, cultural and religious traditions, can be very different. They can be humble sites of recollection as well as pompous testimonials of wealth and glory both of those departed and of those bereaved. Americans in particular seem to like to “celebrate” the recently deceased in grand style and this gives morticians an important role in the funeral rites. The satirical novella The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh sets a love story against the backdrop of burials and cremations in two park-like cemeteries in Hollywood, one for humans and one for their pets.

Poetry Revisited: All Souls’ Day by Eugene Lee-Hamilton

All Souls’ Day

(from Sonnets of the Wingless Hours: 1894)

I

All Souls' Day's wintry light is on the wane;
The Tuscan furrows darken deeper brown;
And still the sower, ever up and down,
Is hard at work, broad-scattering his grain,

As, since dim times, again and yet again
(Beginning with old nations scarcely known,
Pelasgi and Etruscans) he has thrown
His seed upon this old Italic plain.

And what became of all those shadowy dead
Who sowed their wheat, built Cyclopean walls,
And left their lives unwritten on man's scrolls?

Just what became of what they sowed for bread –
Of grain that breeds fresh grain that falls and falls:
Earth had their bones; and who shall find their souls?

II

What heavens that grow, what hells that still expand,
Would hold the close-packed souls of all who found
Earth's bread or sweet or bitter, and were bound
In sheaves of shadow by the silent hand?

The close-packed souls of every time and land;
Millions of millions mingled with the ground;
Of all the mounded mummy-dust all round,
Who, back on earth, would fight for room to stand,

Nor find a square foot each? ... But dusk has grown;
The fields are empty; day is dying fast;
And, save one figure, all is grey and lone –

The figure of the sower who has cast
Wheat for the quick where countless dead have sown,
And passes ghost-like on his way at last.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton
(1845-1907)

Book Review: A Tale of False Fortunes by Enchi Fumiko

History is a matter of point of view. Despite dates and facts serving as cornerstones to reconstruct past events, our knowledge of times gone by is inevitably biased since it is always filtered by the historians who write it down according to their own backgrounds and interests. We never get a complete picture, we never know all sides to what happened. Thus especially the female dimension of history has been widely neglected, not to say passed over in silence for many centuries although there are traces of it to be found if thoroughly looked for. Historical fiction of merit and quality can help to bring back to light forgotten or misjudged women of the past. One such work is A Tale of False Fortunes by Enchi Fumiko that evokes the tragic events surrounding Fujiwara Teishi, the  first consort of Emperor Ichijō, who lived in Japan in the late tenth century.

New on Lagraziana's Kalliopeion: A Year of Revolutions by Fanny Lewald

Chronicles of Raised and Crushed Hopes:
A Year of Revolutions by Fanny Lewald

Undeniably, the year 1848 was one of unrest in Europe. Starting in France – once more – the spirit of revolution spread like a blaze over virtually the entire continent. The then famous and today largely forgotten German writer Fanny Lewald (1811-1889) witnessed...

Poetry Revisited: October by Jean Blewitt

October

(from The Cornflower and Other Poems: 1906)

Who is it says May is the crown of the year?
Who is it says June is the gladdest?
Who is it says Autumn is withered and sere,
The gloomiest season and saddest?

You shut to your doors as I come with my train,
And heed not the challenge I'm flinging,
The ruddy leaf washed by the fresh falling rain,
The scarlet vine creeping and clinging!

Come out where I'm holding my court like a queen,
With canopy rare stretching over;
Come out where I revel in amber and green,
And soon I may call you my lover!

Come out to the hillside, come out to the vale,
Come out ere your mood turns to blaming,
Come out where my gold is, my red gold and pale,
Come out where my banners are flaming!

Come out where the bare furrows stretch in the glow,
Come out where the stubble fields glisten,
Where the wind it blows high, and the wind it blows low,
And the lean grasses dance as they listen!

Jean Blewitt
(1862-1934)