The Monarchs

The miracle of life struck me early. I think I was about eleven. My brother and I immersed ourselves in science. To us, only science seemed real. It alone could be trusted. We however, yearned for a hands-on experience with science. We discovered bugs. They were all around us. We had moved to a new house that had just been wrung from the wilderness. Through poison (my father) and cleanliness (my mother), we gradually subdued the bugs.
Our semiweekly journeys to the public library were used to enlighten ourselves about bugs. We learned first that bugs were actually called insects and that bugs were only a small part of the total insect realm. We learned that insects came in different “orders” or groups with similar characteristics. We could soon distinguish order Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) from order Homoptera (true bugs).
We learned about butterflies. We discovered that butterflies laid their eggs on specific plants. Cabbage Butterflies laid their eggs on cabbage plants; Monarchs laid their eggs on milkweed. The eggs hatched as caterpillars. All summer, these caterpillars would eat the plants. We read that in the autumn the caterpillars would form chrysalises, and in that dormant state they would survive the winter. As spring arrived with leaf and flower, the sleeping chrysalis would burst with new life—the beautiful butterfly!
Our reading gave us a goal to seek during our wanderings over the fields and pastures that still dotted our new community. We spotted the prize in an overgrown orchard—a milkweed patch! We knew it was milkweed because it was overrun with Monarch caterpillars. We collected some of the caterpillars together with a few milkweed sprigs. We knew that more sprigs would need to be collected all summer. We watched as the caterpillars greedily consumed milkweed. Soon, our caterpillars were hanging from leaves and branches. Their skins were shriveling. They were dying before our eyes! Our scientific experiment had failed. Suddenly, the skin split and a shimmering, green chrysalis was revealed. It sparkled with flecks of gold. Others soon joined this first chrysalis. However, it was not fall. They were too soon! Could we wait until spring to see the butterflies? In a few days, we detected stirrings within one of the chrysalises. The skin of the chrysalis split open. A butterfly with crumpled wings deliberately crawled out. It clung to its burst container as its wings stiffened. Presently, we could detect movement in other chrysalises. Fresh butterflies appeared. Our container was awash in the brilliant orange of the monarch butterfly. We had never witnessed anything so dazzling. It was a miracle! From death came life; from dormancy—action. Some tried to fly in our cramped accommodations. They must be free. We had to release them. We carried our prison outdoors and released our captives. Sadness filled my heart as they floated away on the late-summer breeze. Why couldn’t I keep them? These creatures were mine! I created them; I nurtured them. But how could the miracle I had witnessed belong to anyone?

Doris Lessing

I’ve only read one short story by Doris Lessing, this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. It was a powerful story that affected me deeply. That story is “To Room Nineteen,” a story about communication in a marriage. I should say the lack of communication, and the alienation and death it leads to. I recall that when I read “The Hours” a few years ago, the awful foreboding and suspense were at one point heightened because I had read “To Room Nineteen.” In “The Hours” a woman in a marriage much like the marriage in “To Room Nineteen” goes to a downtown hotel and checks in to room nineteen. As I recall, it was decorated much like the room in Lessing’s story. Although the woman in the “The Hours” ultimately does not commit suicide, the suspense is heightened because of my knowledge of Lessing’s story.

I think complete understanding of another human being in a relationship is impossible. We want it to happen, but it does not. We can only try imperfectly to understand the other. We must be ever vigilant, but realize that we never completely succeed. Conrad was right when he had Marlow say in “heart of Darkness,” “No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence -- that which makes its truth; its meaning -- its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible; we live, as we dream -- alone.”

If Lessing’s other writings rise to the level of “To Room Nineteen” I must read more of her work.

Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Reality of Evil

I like "Heart of Darkness" first of all because it has both philosophical and psychological richness. It is also literary. The book discusses good and evil and unchecked power. It seems to me that the story is plausible on a psychological level, although I certainly am no psychologist.

First, something needs to be said regarding the problem of good and evil since I understand that liberals and conservatives view this concept differently. Dennis Prager, the radio talk show host, said, “No issue has a greater influence on determining your social and political views than whether you view human nature as basically good or not.” He further stated that his experience as radio talk show host had led him to conclude that “the major reason for political and other disagreements I had with callers was that they believed people are basically good, and [he] did not.” He believes that “we are born with tendencies toward both good and evil.”

He lists four reasons why this issue is so important. (1) If “people are born good” then evil has its source outside of the individual. Prager states that this often leads to the conclusion that the source of evil is poverty. (2) If people are born good, character development will not be stressed. “You will teach [children] how to struggle against the evils of society -- its sexism, its racism, its classism and its homophobia. But you will not teach them that the primary struggle they have to wage to make a better world is against their own nature.” (3) If “people are basically good, God and religion are morally unnecessary, even harmful. Why would basically good people need a God or religion to provide moral standards?” (4) If “people are basically good, you, of course, believe that you are good -- and therefore those who disagree with you must be bad, not merely wrong. You also believe that the more power that you and those you agree with have, the better the society will be. That is why such people are so committed to powerful government and to powerful judges. On the other hand, those of us who believe that people are not basically good do not want power concentrated in any one group, and are therefore profoundly suspicious of big government, big labor, big corporations, and even big religious institutions. As Lord Acton said long ago, ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Lord Acton did not believe people are basically good.”

Prager concludes his article by stating that if the West does not soon reject “humanism and begin to recognize evil, judge it and confront it, it will find itself incapable of fighting savages who are not noble.” [Note: all quotations are from Dennis Prager are from an internet article at http://jewishworldreview.com/0103/prager123102.asp] Individuals must be taught to do good. I agree with Prager that babies are born innocent but not good.

The characterization of Kurtz in the novella traces a person’s unchecked descent into absolute evil and final recognition of the horror of that descent. I think “Heart of Darkness” demonstrates brilliantly an individual’s as well as civilization’s capacity for evil.

My Antonia

How did I Come add My Antonia to my favorite books list? A number of years ago, some friends and I had an informal book group. Different members would pick the books we would read. A friend picked My Antonia. I know I would not have picked it up on my own. I started reading it grudgingly (I have since read 3 other novels by Willa Cather). However, I was quickly captured by the story and especially the shimmering beauty of the language. Descriptions such as the following captivated me.

" We sat looking off across the country, watching the sun go down. The curly grass about us was on fire now. The bark of the oaks turned red as copper. There was a shimmer of gold on the brown river. Out in the stream the sandbars glittered like glass, and the light trembled in the willow thickets as if little flames were leaping among them. The breeze sank to stillness. In the ravine a ringdove mourned plaintively, and somewhere off in the bushes an owl hooted. The girls sat listless, leaning against each other. The long fingers of the sun touched their foreheads.
"Presently we saw a curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share—black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.
"Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie."

How can one deny the sheer beauty of such language? However, the novel throbs with power as it tells the story of the pioneer who heroically breaks and tames the "wild Prairie", as his plough breaks the clods and renders the soil suitable for farming. Some are conquerors others are conquered. Then the time of the pioneer passes and fades into history.
At the close of the story, the narrator, Jim Burden, reminisces, "I took a long walk north of town, out into the pastures where the land was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red grass of early times still grew shaggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I felt at home again."
Cather has painted and woven a rich tapestry. The land itself throbs and vibrates with life. Some break themselves against the land, others flee from it, but the pioneer conquers it; and then fades away to a faint memory. But the land lives on forever.

Dostoevsky, the First Blogger

The great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky published the equivalent of a blog in the 1870s; it was called The Diary of a Writer. It was issued by Dostoevsky in monthly installments beginning in 1876. It ran until his death in January of 1881 except for when he was writing Brothers Karamazov. They have been translated and published in a book by Boris Brasol. He records in his preface:Even today the prolific literary heritage of Dostoievsky is not fully appraised and evaluated, If Pushkin can be called the Raphael of Russian literature, Dostoievsky should he recognized as its Michelangelo. His fame reached its climax in 1880, after his brilliant speech at the unveiling of the Pushkin monument in Moscow. This famous address is recorded in the Diary for the year 1880.Dostoievsky died in St. Petersburg, on January 28, 1881. Enormous crowds attended his funeral: men and women from all walks of life—statesmen of high rank and downtrodden prostitutes; illiterate peasants and distinguished men of letters; army officers and learned scientists; credulous priests and incredulous students—they were all there,Whom did Russia bury with so great a reverence? Was it only one of her famous men of letters? Indeed not, in that coffin lay a noble and lofty man, a prudent teacher, an inspired prophet whose thoughts, like mountain peaks, were always pointed toward heaven, and who had measured the depths of man’s quivering heart with all its struggles, sins, and tempests; its riddles, pains and sorrows; its unseen tears and burning passions. For he did teach men to live and love and suffer. And to the meekest he would offer his brotherly compassion—to all who labor and are heavy laden. He would come to them as an equal, laying before them the wisdom of his soul, his tender understanding of all that, in modern man, is human and even inhuman. He would counsel the doubting and soothe the wounds of those afflicted with distress. And many a hope would thus be restored, many a soul resurrected by the grand visions and magic of his genius.

Certainly what more need be said regarding Dostoevsky’s renown. His great novels require more than one careful reading to release their treasures. Dostoevsky was indeed “an inspired prophet whose thoughts, like mountain peaks, were always pointed toward heaven.” Like the bible his insights require study and careful mining to reveal its riches.