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1Michael_Welch
I read the excerpt "Old Ephraim" from Rick Harsch's own "book blog" and very much liked the as usual intricate, amusing and EXPANSIVE description of "the bear" but had a rough time with the argot of the "mountain man" types.
I once said that "Rick makes you work" when you read his stuff and he still does but it's "good work" although "Mister James Joyce" seems to have a role in it too, not to mention Bill Faulkner.
I started reading Arthur Koestler's "The Gladiators" for the THIRD time, after reading Kirk Douglas' recent "I'M SPARTACUS! The Making of a Movie, Breaking the Blacklist" -- by the way Douglas' short and very readable book is full of "behind the scenes" stuff and makes the point that the anti commie "blacklist" was STILL powerful as late as 1960.
KD by the way liked Howard Fast's version of the story but disliked Fast himself, a rather pedantic and egotistical guy it seems. (Not that Douglas couldn't be too.) Stanley Kubrick was only about thirty and a very quirky but brilliant director although HE didn't like the "I'M SPARTACUS!" sequence that Douglas thought up. (The sound of the "I'm Spartacus!" "I'M Spartacus!" etc., came from John Gavin, who played the young Julius Caesar in the movie, getting a I think it was Michigan State football crowd to yell it during a break in the game! How 'bout that!)
Anyway I think that Koestler's "version" of the historical tale is the most "intelligent" and "complex" -- i. e., K, an EX communist even before most, by 1935, presents the "growth" of a local gladiatorial school escape into a bandit like community and then swelling into something well "revolutionary" and How It All Went Bad and the "authorities" took over again as usual. (The "parallel" with How Communism Went Bad is the subtext hm.)
Koestler has a number of "ordinary" folk as characters as well as the "principles" and re the proposed United Artists picture that Douglas, going through Universal-International, beat out, Douglas would have been the best "Spartacus" (Yul Brynner is too "imperial," as wonderful an actor as he is however) and Anthony Quinn (UA had signed him as well as Brynner) would have been the best "Crixus." AND Charles Laughton, the Roman senator in "Spartacus" would have better fit Koestler's "Crassus" than Laurence Olivier in the KD picture!
Hmmmm...
I once said that "Rick makes you work" when you read his stuff and he still does but it's "good work" although "Mister James Joyce" seems to have a role in it too, not to mention Bill Faulkner.
I started reading Arthur Koestler's "The Gladiators" for the THIRD time, after reading Kirk Douglas' recent "I'M SPARTACUS! The Making of a Movie, Breaking the Blacklist" -- by the way Douglas' short and very readable book is full of "behind the scenes" stuff and makes the point that the anti commie "blacklist" was STILL powerful as late as 1960.
KD by the way liked Howard Fast's version of the story but disliked Fast himself, a rather pedantic and egotistical guy it seems. (Not that Douglas couldn't be too.) Stanley Kubrick was only about thirty and a very quirky but brilliant director although HE didn't like the "I'M SPARTACUS!" sequence that Douglas thought up. (The sound of the "I'm Spartacus!" "I'M Spartacus!" etc., came from John Gavin, who played the young Julius Caesar in the movie, getting a I think it was Michigan State football crowd to yell it during a break in the game! How 'bout that!)
Anyway I think that Koestler's "version" of the historical tale is the most "intelligent" and "complex" -- i. e., K, an EX communist even before most, by 1935, presents the "growth" of a local gladiatorial school escape into a bandit like community and then swelling into something well "revolutionary" and How It All Went Bad and the "authorities" took over again as usual. (The "parallel" with How Communism Went Bad is the subtext hm.)
Koestler has a number of "ordinary" folk as characters as well as the "principles" and re the proposed United Artists picture that Douglas, going through Universal-International, beat out, Douglas would have been the best "Spartacus" (Yul Brynner is too "imperial," as wonderful an actor as he is however) and Anthony Quinn (UA had signed him as well as Brynner) would have been the best "Crixus." AND Charles Laughton, the Roman senator in "Spartacus" would have better fit Koestler's "Crassus" than Laurence Olivier in the KD picture!
Hmmmm...
2RickHarsch
Well, Michael, thanks. Regarding the unreadable, what works is the same as what works for Joyce with Finnegan's Wake, and that's to actually read it aloud: read the mountain man lingo aloud. If nothing else, it's fun.
3Kuiperdolin
I've always liked the trivia that Koestler's original novel is lost - the German manuscript disappeared before it could be published, and the German version was back-translated from the English (presumably, Koestler also remembered some of what he'd written).
Mid-20th century seem awfully late for a book to only be known through at least one translation - you'd expect that, amusingly, of a work from antiquity.
Mid-20th century seem awfully late for a book to only be known through at least one translation - you'd expect that, amusingly, of a work from antiquity.
4Michael_Welch
Rick says I should take this topic to "Tropic of Ideas" but honestly I feel a bit "pretentious" there; I never consider myself an "intellectual" but a sort of "Eric Hoffer/Studs Terkel" who reads books.
Spent ALL my working life (even now) as a "proletarian" or "working class" if "prole" is too commie for ya huh.
Re Koestler that's exactly the subject -- all that commie stuff roughs up against "reality" but hey here's some interesting (to me at least) excerpts:
"'Tell me a story' said Spartacus. 'You talk from your palate so you must be either Syrian or Jewish.'
"'I'm an Essene.'
"'What's that?'
"'It's a long story.'...
"'Tell me.'
"'Right...It is written: "There are four kinds among men. The first say What is mine is mine and what is thine is thine: that is the tribe of the middle classes or as some say, Sodom.
"'The second sort say What is mine is thine and what is thine is mine: that is the people of the ordinary and the humble.
"'A third kind say What is mine is thine and what is thine is also thine: those are the pious.
"'Others again say What is mine is mine and what is thine is also mine: they are the wicked." Thus it is written.
"'The scholars say to this: the first among men to act in the mine is mine, thine is thine manner was Cain who murdered Abel his brother and founded the first city. Therefore this outlook is rejected though it is very common in our days and it is called the way of Sodom.
"'The third opinion, that of the pious, is also rejected. Because they possess not the goods of the earth they shed even the little that they have in order to prove that their need is virtue. That is a very special hypocrisy which one might call the haughtiness of the weak and which is above all stupid.
"'The fourth way is that of the great landowners and usurers. It is abominable and is rejected.
"'Remains the second kind -- "thine is mine and mine is thine" and that is ours {i. e., the Essenes}.'
"'You have common property then?'
"'We have.'
"'And are your slaves the common property of all?'
"'We have no slaves.'
"Spartacus deliberated: 'I see, so you are a tribe of hunters and herdsmen?'
"'We are not, we are farmers and craftsmen. We all work and we all share in the profits.'
"'Funny' said Spartacus. 'If you are freemen and work all the same you are your own slaves. Never have I heard anything like that.'..." (pp 71-72)
Which inspires Spartacus to attempt to construct "The Sun State," an "ideal" society, but in order to do so he must take into account "the law of detours":
"{S}aid Zozimos...'Your Spartacus is acting in a most dastardly manner. You talk of detours which lead to the goal? Dirty detours they are! DANGEROUS detours...for you never know where all those detours will land you in the end.
"'Many a man has strutted the road of tyranny, at the outset solely with the purpose of serving his lofty ideals and in the end the road alone made him carry on. Just remember the dictatorship of The People's Friend Marius and what became of it!'" (p 141)
Later the "Sun State" is established with all in common and no money allowed and share and share alike and anything that goes against these rules is punished by crucifixion. Initially the crosses are a small row but as time goes by the row gets longer and longer eh --
"{I}n the corner of the North Gate wall stood the crosses of those who broke the laws.
"Several died there every day in the interest of the common welfare, with fractured limbs and black tongues and in their last tremors they cursed the tent with the purple velum {where resided Spartacus} AND the Sun State." (p 172)...
Spent ALL my working life (even now) as a "proletarian" or "working class" if "prole" is too commie for ya huh.
Re Koestler that's exactly the subject -- all that commie stuff roughs up against "reality" but hey here's some interesting (to me at least) excerpts:
"'Tell me a story' said Spartacus. 'You talk from your palate so you must be either Syrian or Jewish.'
"'I'm an Essene.'
"'What's that?'
"'It's a long story.'...
"'Tell me.'
"'Right...It is written: "There are four kinds among men. The first say What is mine is mine and what is thine is thine: that is the tribe of the middle classes or as some say, Sodom.
"'The second sort say What is mine is thine and what is thine is mine: that is the people of the ordinary and the humble.
"'A third kind say What is mine is thine and what is thine is also thine: those are the pious.
"'Others again say What is mine is mine and what is thine is also mine: they are the wicked." Thus it is written.
"'The scholars say to this: the first among men to act in the mine is mine, thine is thine manner was Cain who murdered Abel his brother and founded the first city. Therefore this outlook is rejected though it is very common in our days and it is called the way of Sodom.
"'The third opinion, that of the pious, is also rejected. Because they possess not the goods of the earth they shed even the little that they have in order to prove that their need is virtue. That is a very special hypocrisy which one might call the haughtiness of the weak and which is above all stupid.
"'The fourth way is that of the great landowners and usurers. It is abominable and is rejected.
"'Remains the second kind -- "thine is mine and mine is thine" and that is ours {i. e., the Essenes}.'
"'You have common property then?'
"'We have.'
"'And are your slaves the common property of all?'
"'We have no slaves.'
"Spartacus deliberated: 'I see, so you are a tribe of hunters and herdsmen?'
"'We are not, we are farmers and craftsmen. We all work and we all share in the profits.'
"'Funny' said Spartacus. 'If you are freemen and work all the same you are your own slaves. Never have I heard anything like that.'..." (pp 71-72)
Which inspires Spartacus to attempt to construct "The Sun State," an "ideal" society, but in order to do so he must take into account "the law of detours":
"{S}aid Zozimos...'Your Spartacus is acting in a most dastardly manner. You talk of detours which lead to the goal? Dirty detours they are! DANGEROUS detours...for you never know where all those detours will land you in the end.
"'Many a man has strutted the road of tyranny, at the outset solely with the purpose of serving his lofty ideals and in the end the road alone made him carry on. Just remember the dictatorship of The People's Friend Marius and what became of it!'" (p 141)
Later the "Sun State" is established with all in common and no money allowed and share and share alike and anything that goes against these rules is punished by crucifixion. Initially the crosses are a small row but as time goes by the row gets longer and longer eh --
"{I}n the corner of the North Gate wall stood the crosses of those who broke the laws.
"Several died there every day in the interest of the common welfare, with fractured limbs and black tongues and in their last tremors they cursed the tent with the purple velum {where resided Spartacus} AND the Sun State." (p 172)...
