Vain Repetitions

I started reading "A"-10 this morning, which deals with the Nazi occupation of Paris. So far I have completed each section on the corresponding day. Friday looks like a challenge, with the long section 12. I remember the first time I tried to read the "A" 1 - 23 during Advent two years ago. I didn't finish section 12 on 12/12/12/ as I recall. I do remember that I had a cold.

Two years ago I read Barry Ahearn's book on "A" while reading the poem, and that helped me understand it. Last year the memory of the Ahearn book still seemed fresh. This year the poem makes less sense to me. You might say, why not reread the Ahearn? Well, I don't want to rely on his interpretations too much. I want to confront the poem on its own terms. I remember that Roland McHugh devoted a few years to Finnegans Wake before reading any of the secondary materials. Hugh Kenner said of Peter Makin's wonderful book Pound's Cantos that Makin never lost sight of the Cantos' difficulties.

Catullus 21

Well, I don't get much sense from the Zukofskys' translation. They chose against frankness in their translation, although they capture much of the music of the Latin.  I just finished reading a book called How to Read a Latin Poem - If You Can't Read Latin Yet, from which I learned that classical Latin authors tended to avoid explicit sexual language in love poems, but they used if profusely in poems of invective such as Catullus 21.

I've begun my annual Advent reading of "A". It has put me in the mood to listen to Bach. Some people, like Pound, Zukofsky, and Michael Johnson, see Bach as the greatest composer in the European tradition. Others, like Robert Anton Wilson and myself, tend to see Beethoven in that position. I thought about this driving into work this morning. I think the composers I first fell in love with prepared me to prefer Beethoven to Bach (much as I love Bach's music). A teacher in first grade played Haydn's Surprise Symphony for us, and I thought it the greatest thing I'd ever heard. I grudgingly approved of Beethoven at the time because he studied with my man Haydn. I studiously avoided the fact that Beethoven didn't like Haydn as a teacher and had few kind word for Haydn until the end of Beethoven's life.  A few years later I glanced at a collection of light classical music from my parents' collection and noticed a composer who shared my last name. Wagner and Haydn lay the groundwork, and I started listening to Beethoven around seventh grade, an eight track of Van Cliburn playing some famous sonatas.  I really fell for Beethoven at eighteen. I had a cold and stayed home from my summer job at IBM. I put on Toscanini's recording of the Seventh Symphony and entered a whole new world.

Catullus 17

Well, I couldn't find a German translation of Catullus 17 online.  I read the Zukofskys' English version twice, read another English version and read the Latin original for the music.  My Latin does not yet seem up for the task of understanding Catullus.

Just a few days until Advent.  I look forward to rereading "A".

I looked over the preview to Robert Anton Wilson's unwritten The Tale of the Tribe at the end of his TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution the other day because I wanted to see what Bob said about Bucky Fuller there.  A friend of mine had posted some stuff about Bucky on Facebook recently.  I had forgotten that Bob mentioned Louis Zukofsky in that preview, as one of the poets who continued the tradition of Ezra Pound, along with Basil Bunting, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Olson.

I just noticed that the Zukofsky edition of Catullus jumps from 17 to 21.   (Other editions do as well.) I hope to post on Catullus 21 next week, but with Thanksgiving, I don't know if I'll get the chance.

Live long and prosper.

11/12/14

Finishing chapter 16 of Little/for careenagers, I wonder what Louis Zukofsky would have thought of the play and film Amadeus.  I suspect he would not have liked it.

I started this blog a year ago today.  I had hoped to post every week, but I have only done 47 posts before this one, many of them very short (like this one).  I had thought to try post every six days to try to catch up, but I think I would rather try to post every Wednesday with perhaps a few extra posts along the way.

I look forward to rereading "A" next month.

Catullus 16 and Missing the Point

Well, Wikipedia says no explicit translation of the first line of this poem appeared in English until the late 20th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16 . I had read the Zukofskys' version a number of times, but I did not understand the explicit meaning of the poem or of the first line until today.  I just read the more literal translation over at Wikipedia, and the poem, as well as the Zukofskys' version, makes more sense now. I don't like some things about 2014, but I do like the available frankness.  I've read about half of the Ellmann's biography of Joyce, and it makes clear the success we've had in the war against censorship in the last century.  (I plan to finish the Ellmann in the next month.)

Once again I find myself enjoying reading a German version of my poem.  My weak German can make out the meaning of the poem better than my weaker Latin can. If I end up teaching Latin again next fall I will have to dedicate myself to developing my Latin.  I find it humbling reading about Joyce's skill in other languages, as well as Zukofsky, Eliot, and Pound's similar skills.

Catullus 15 and/or Fate

The Zukofsky's translation of Catullus 15 contains the word "fate".  The index to "A" lists five pages under the entry for "fate".  I don't think they intended any reference to Dr. Fate.  I smiled when Eric Strauss became the new Dr. Fate.  His name reminded me of my own, with a different German composer linked to Naziism.

I wonder whether I have a fate and/or a purpose.  Why have anti-Semites  like Richard Wagner and Ezra Pound played such a large role in my life?

Page 141 of "A" refers to "the Fates" but not "fate".  The index does not have an entry for "Fates".  The other four pages indicated in the index do use the word fate. When I think of the Fates I think of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.  Man, comic books do form a big part of my mind.  Bob Wilson said, "Mind and its contents are functionally identical."  Tunes by Charles Mingus and the Monkees run through my mind as I think about things I need to do.

I read a little of the Night Lessons chapter of Finnegans Wake last night.  One of the footnotes reminded me of Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew.  I haven't finished the Sorrentino, but I think that footnote inspired the novel, at least in part.  I remembered that Mr. Sorrentino wrote the forward to Zukofsky's Collected Fiction.

Catullus 14a

Catullus refers to his future readers in this poem.  In the future I hope to improve my Latin and read this poem in Latin with comprehension.  Last weekend I finished reading How to Read a Latin Poem (If You Can't Read Latin Yet).  I enjoyed it mildly.  This week the Latin and German clubs at my high school decided which Christmas carols to sing this year.  Today I printed a copy of the three carols, and I plan to practice them from now until December 9 for my daily dose of Latin and German.  After that I may return to reading Catullus in Latin and Kafka in German.