Breaking: Students Protest Gustatory Insensitivity

We interrupt this venue’s usual programming for an urgent news bulletin from the Real World.

Yesterday, at 11 a.m. EST, as residents of Washington, D.C., New York City, and various other population centers along the eastern seaboard prepared for the immanent appearance of Leviathan, students at two U.S. college campuses launched a new protest against their universities’ gustatory insensitivity.

“When I first came here,” said sophomore Julienne Almonde, “I didn’t know how bad it was.  I expected life outside my little city to be different—less friendly, welcoming.  But I didn’t know there would be cornflakes on the breakfast menu.”

While whole sectors of D.C. were swept by emergency personnel, seeking to ascertain that evacuations were complete, we asked Almonde to provide more detail about his shock. Almonde said that for gluten intolerant people like himself, life in the presence of wheat was a constant struggle.

“But then some bright student gets the idea for a hazing—oh, here’s the guy who only eats cornflakes—and you’re the target of instant mockery.  I mean, yes, I eat corn; but only when it’s organically grown and stone ground—but not the kind of grinding that’s done by undocumented workers, Gaia bless their souls.  The kind of grinding, you know, that I would do in my spare time.”

Pressed for more details, Almonde admitted that he had last prepared his own meal when his grandparents gave him a KiddieMill for his eighth birthday.

“Since then, my mom’s ground everything for me.  I mean, she just does a much better job.  Hey, I’ll be sensitive enough to admit that,” laughed Almonde.

As citizens on the East Coast scrambled onto the last metro trains out of the city, junior Marilyn Toufeux made the case against her own school.

“President Blackhatte has completely ignored the fact that the containers in which we carry food are the virtual receptacles of mass discrimination.  Basically, if you look at the shape, every single one is circular.  Plates, cups—even the weird plastic containers that you pick up at the salad bar.  I mean, they’re not, like, ACTUAL CIRCLES, but they have these rounded edges.  It’s an insult to women everywhere.  I mean, if you’re skinny, it’s like they’re saying, ‘curves, what?’  And if you’re curvy, they’re basically just implying that you’re fat.”

With scientists at MIT desperately reviewing calculations from the latest sightings of the famed sea monster, hoping to buy Americans a few more hours of time—or at least of hope—Toufeux explained that her father had hand-carved a special set of wasabi-tree inspired dining dishes for her bat-mitz-moon-confirmation party.

Artist's rendering based on Toufeux's description.

“We’re a pretty diverse family,” she admitted, with her typical coy modesty.  “And the complexity of the shapes just expressed—you know, me, individually.  So it’s really, really hard to come here and see these PEOPLE—just eating—out of those THINGS.”

As sources announced that the President and members of the houses of Congress and Cabinet had been safely enclosed in separate facilities, designed to one-better the bunkers constructed after 9-11, Talon Sawteye related the harrowing tale of his encounter with an unsympathic teacher.

“I told her—expecting sympathy, I guess—that every time I passed the egg salad in the salad bar, I got these visions of chickens, caged ... my ancestors ... the chicken was our totem, you see.  I could feel their feathers, in my eyes; see their wings beating; feel their panic, caged; feel the blinding light of the cage lamps, the sleep deprivation, the torture ... She said maybe I should wear sunglasses.”

Sources within the university confirmed that the teacher had since stepped down.  It is unknown, however, whether she was actually fired by the university after Sawteye and his friends began egging the university administration buildings, or whether she had simply obeyed the evacuation orders issued by FEMA forty-eight hours before.

Asked whether he will also be leaving campus, Sawteye says he plans to stay right where he is.

“Leviathan?” he repeated when asked how he planned to deal with the inevitable guest.  “My parents used to talk about the guy.  I don’t think they really understood what he was all about.  I expect, once we figure out what kind of meals he prefers, we could sit down and actually have a really good conversation about what would make the world a better place.”

Saints' Insides, Part 2

I concluded my last post by saying that, within the context of evangelization my problem, as a literary artist, is whether and how it is possible to create a Hero, and indeed a Saint, who is neither a rogue, nor a naïve, nor a bore.  Obviously the only satisfactory answer to this problem is to produce a performance which can be judged on its merits.  But it seems worthwhile to sketch out some reasons, theoretically speaking, for why the performance ought not to be considered fruitless on the face of it.

Typically, the reason given for disliking noble characters—be they saints in the strict sense, or simply that flavor of unblemished cowboy, superhero, or soldier whom the critics tend to despise—is that they are boring.  There is no interior conflict, or no real conflict, in such characters; they are, we are told, unrelatable.  Superman and Captain America are bland compared to Batman and Iron Man.

And there is a certain amount of truth in that criticism.  We literary artists tend to present noble men blandly—and, I would argue, badly—in the sense that a bland presentation of a noble man is, in fact, an inaccurate presentation.  The comment on my previous post suggested that this is perhaps because “nemo dat quod non got” (my preferred presentation of the adage): the artist cannot portray what he does not have or know.  Artists do not know what it is like to be noble, not because they are particularly bad men, but because few men in general are noble; having few examples of nobility around them, artists have difficulty in portraying nobility.  The unswerving exterior of a noble man—for it appears unswerving and unclouded from a distance—becomes for these distance-artists a key to his interior character.   The inner debate which ordinary selfish human beings experience, the should-I-shouldn’t-I, is removed from the representation of noble man’s psyche, and nothing is put in to replace it.  The noble man is empty or at best filled with a single-minded and undynamic interest in the pursuit of a severe ideal.  He is “too good” to be tempted from the ideal; but too good looks to most of us to be only too cold.

In some sense this portrait is correct.  The good man is unswerving in his devotion of the ideal; thinkers from Aristotle onwards have understood that true virtue entails such a love of the good as to reduce temptations from the interior to a negligible minimum ( barring special cases of testing, through which God will sometimes put his favorites).

Our Lady is the paradigmatic example of this nobility: “full of grace” by the gift of God, she was not subject to the struggles native to fallen human nature.  In fact, if Aristotle’s magnanimous man is not incompatible with the Christian ideal, one might say that Our Lady is the only truly magnanimous being to ever walk the earth.

“Magnificat anima mea Dominum …”

If she experienced sorrow or some sense of conflict, it was not due to her sin or imperfection, but to the sins and imperfections of others.  And lest this other-directed sorrow sound overbearing or holier-than thou, I submit the parallel case of a child, learning for the first time of some grownup failing.  We do not look the innocent in the eye and suppose that we are being judged—or, if we are being judged, we know it is only because we richly deserve it.  So, I would imagine, with Our Lady: not that she is ignorant, as the child is, but innocent, not knowing good an evil with that unfortunate intimacy which is part and parcel of daily existence for the rest of us.

If, then, Our Lady experienced some sort of internal conflict, it will not be from temptations rooted in her own soul—and likewise, the noble man qua noble will not be self-tempted.  I do not say noble men are never self-tempted—of course they are; no one is perfect in the way that Our Lady is.  But the whole question of this series is whether perfection can be portrayed in an appealing way; and hence it is the noble man on a good day, as it were, who concerns us here.

But even if his own imperfection is ruled out as a source of interior interest, there are three conceivable sources of interior conflict left to the good man: temptations from the exterior, sorrow at the sins of others, and intellectual doubts.  The first, what I am calling “temptations from the exterior,” is better known under the name “the dark night of the soul”—and while it certainly belongs to the experience of many saints, it suffers from the same flaw, artistically, as self-temptation: it is a deeply felt temptation to sin, albeit one for which the saint is not blamed.  It is an imperfection, not natural but supernatural in origin; a test, and a glorious one for those who, from St. Paul to Mother Theresa, succeed in passing it.  But however glorious the flaw, a flaw it is—and thus once again inadmissible in light of the original problem.

The literary artist desirous of portraying perfection is left, then, with two kinds of conflict in the soul of the noble man: sorrow at the sins of others, and intellectual doubts.  I would argue that both interior tendencies provide potentially fruitful sources of conflict for the literary artist—but more of that to come.

Saints' Insides, Part 1

Milton wrote his great epic, so he said, to “assert th’eternal Providence / And justify the ways of God to man.”  What it says about my theology, psychology, or spirituality I do not know, but for me the problem of theodicy has never been a particularly compelling one.  Moreover (though this is a separate issue), I am not convinced that attempting to assert God’s care for men, or to defend his actions in general, is a particularly fruitful way of proceeding for a Christian literary artist.  What comes off as majestic in painting or sculpture is apt on the page to seem overbearing, so that for every cool-headed Stanley Fish there is a legion of underdistinguished and underdistinguishing Keatses claiming Milton for the devil’s party.

Much more helpful, I think—if we are to talk about evangelization through art—than the image of a good God is the image of the good man—or it would be, could be, if it were ever done well—for two reasons.  On the one hand, it is broadly helpful (as Aristotle says) to begin not with things that are best known in themselves, but things best known to us.  God, in His simplicity, must be much better integrated (if I may speak so without heresy) than even the simplest of the saints; but we, fools that we are, have a better chance of understanding the saint than of understanding God.

The second reason is related to and perhaps an elaboration of the first.  The literary saint can evangelize in a way that portraits of God cannot, because in comprehending the saint the emotions as well as the intellect come into play.  God, though He is Love, is Love in such a peculiar way as to make our attempts at explaining Him either saccharine or paradoxical; and the language of paradox is suited at best for poetry.  I am not convinced that a metaphysical conceit or an objective correlative is much good for getting at God either; but they seem rather more plausible candidates, belonging as they do to the more pictoral or even musical side of art, than an extended narrative with or without an argument-driven plot.  Impressionism and philosophy are the best we are likely to do in coming to grips with God in art; open-faced philosophy has no place in literature, and impressionism is unsatisfying over an epic or novelistic expanse.

Dostoyevsky of course spoils my point by using both.   
But in The Brother Karamazov (to take one well-known example) 
the characters are so strongly developed that he can get away with it.

Rather than impressionism or philosophizing, the novel calls for activity on the part of the central characters, and most importantly the interior activity of the most central character of all.  The protagonist of a modern novel or drama is generally supposed to be quite active in this way—“conflicted” is one word sometimes used, approvingly or not.  It is generally supposed that the more conflicted a character is, the more interesting he or she will be; if a central character has no great moral conflict, we consider the work in which they appear to be of less artistic significance.  This is why Nolan’s Batman series and Inception are generally given greater respect than, say, anything Indiana Jones or Star Wars: all the films are obviously designed to entertain, and to entertain the masses; but only some of them pretend to do more—and they pretend to more in no small part by offering central characters who are more “interesting” than Jones or Luke Skywalker.

Thus, it seems that, though the saint—or, since so many examples come from the realm of the secular, the Hero with a capital H—may be more understandable than God, he is not necessarily more respectable.  Indeed, he is hardly more likeable; for the same people who take exception to God’s judgments and His tendency to recline in eternal bliss also find the Hero’s moral self-assuredness and invulnerability to temptation galling.  We do not like Aeneas; and we only find Luke and Indiana Jones tolerable because they are rogues as well as Heroes.

My question then—my problem, as a literary artist—is whether and how it is possible to create a Hero, and indeed a Saint, who is neither a rogue, nor a naïve, nor a bore.

Of Men and Melon Ballers

Now that the dreaded comps demon is behind me I have time for nonoptional things, like seeing people, and optional ones, like reading Facebook.  And it has come to my attention, in the course of the latter—shall we say—activity, that certain of my friends were having quite a discussion about a certain post in The New York Times entitled “27 Ways to Be a Modern Man.”  (Admittedly, this was about a week ago.)  For the record, if any representative of the Times stumbles across the post, congratulations: you have succeeded in making a group of highly intelligent people very confused about whether or not this piece was intended as a parody.  Perhaps we have found the right wing (by which I really mean, the left wing) answer to Stephen Colbert?

In any case, I don’t mean to argue with the “27 Ways.”  Far be it from me, a woman (or girl) of no particular century (we are ageless and unique, to paraphrase Simon de Beauvoir), to suggest whether or not these are in fact representative ways of being manly in the twenty-first century.  I wouldn’t know, and I’m not sure my husband the medieval philosopher would be much help.

But—probably because I have been so completely immersed in preparation for my exams—it struck me in reading the Times piece that this list sounded familiar.  The author was definitely going for a particular overall impression—a man who is strong, sensitive, knowledgeable, and intelligent.  A family man, but suave.  A gunless man, equipped with melon ballers.  You get the picture.

It—not the actual picture, but the carefully poised contrasts—reminded me of something, possibly in a negative way.  Of Sir Thomas More.  Of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano as translated by Hoby.  Of sprezzatura which is (in the imperfect English) “the true perfection” of a courtier, “a grace” which “ought to accompany all his doings, gestures, demeanors, … [and] motions”; “a sauce to everything, without the which all his other properties and good conditions were little worth,” which is above all bound up in the avoiding of that “sharp and dangerous rock, Affectation or curiosity,” and demands that its possessor

use in everything a certain Recklessness, to cover art withal, and seem whatsoever he doeth and sayeth to do it without pain, and (as it were) not minding it. … Therefore that may be said to be a very art that appeareth not to be art …

The Courtier, as this English translation was called, became the veritable Bible of the English gentleman: the perfect picture of the Renaissance Man—the original Renaissance Man.  (Similar things were happening in Italy, France, and Spain, but we didn’t take comps in those literatures, so why bother?  No word yet on whether or not China invented the Renaissance Man first.)

But this is all rather cold and academic compared to the personal examples and musings of Mr. Lombardi (himself clearly an Italian American—and with that name, possibly a distant relative of Castiglione’s, since the latter was born in Lombardy?).  So I propose, rather than elaborating on Castiglione/Hoby’s ”Courtier” at greater abstract length, to give you a portrait of a real early modern man of the courtier class who surely, like Sir Philip Sidney, “never stirred abroad without The Courtier in his pocket.”

27 Ways to Be an Early Modern Man

Early Modern Manhood demands the same virtues we English practiced in the days of Chaucer: namely, cleaving to whatever monarch seems most like to a true king, and one not prone to betraying one’s family in the process.  Verily doth fashion alter, and the sciences improve; nor are our manners and mode of discourse unchanged.  But the early modern man, imbued with both the wisdom of the ancients and the truths of Revelation, and bucklered with the New Learning, is as it were a Renaissance to himself, a little world reflecting back the great one.

1. When the early modern man fits shoes for his future spouse, he speaks in pidgin Dutch.  That way he can hide from her relatives, who are seeking to discover their secret love affair.

2. The early modern man’s confidence does not sink.  He one-ups Aeneas.  In fact, he has probably translated the Aeneid, in case his acquaintances needed any light vernacular reading.  All in his spare time, of course.

3. The early modern man is considerate. At the theater, he finds his ladies a seat above the stage, where everyone can see them.

4. The early modern man eats meat.  He does not have heart attacks or cancer, and knows how to get out of town when the plague is in.  Pleurisy, however, may be a real concern.

5. The early modern man knows how to hire and keep a good horse boy.

6. Before the early modern man retires, he makes sure that his wife and children have blown out the candles.  There’s nothing like a good fire to get one’s family up before the end of first sleep, and cleaning up the ash really cuts into second sleep.

7. The early modern man drinks beer with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, just like Queen Elizabeth.  Preferably double double brew, until it was outlawed, also by Queen Elizabeth.  Maybe even after that.

8. The early modern man uses the proper names for things. He will never import a French or Latin term where the Anglo-Saxon one will do.

9. Having a daughter die makes the early modern man write a poem.  Having a son die has the same effect.  Surprisingly, the early modern man likes his children, even when they die.

10. The early modern man wipes his dishes with crusts, and eats them, so as not to waste any food.

11. The early modern man would not be caught dead publishing his work—unless an error-ridden edition just so happened to be prereleased by his enemies, in which case it is clearly his duty, as admonished by his friends, to publish a corrected copy, which will sell out multiple editions and protect his honor.

12. The early modern man has lots of clean linen, and changes it every time a miasma arises.

13. The early modern man writes his own lute melodies, and probably plays them, but only for his closest friends and family.

14. The early modern man buys and sells horses and property.  Everything else is his steward’s business.

15. The early modern man keeps clean rushes on the floor.  The children love playing down there, and it takes longer to notice when one of the dogs forgets itself.

16. The early modern man sleeps with his wife so that she won’t freeze to death on cold winter nights.  He doesn’t need to worry about the door, because even his enemies know that they will DIE if they think about attacking his family, because he will defend his chamber exactly like Lancelot did.

17. The early modern man’s kitchen definitely contains a waffle iron, a deep fryer, twig whisks, scales, and a cheese grater—how else did you think he was able to pull off stuffed grouse, fully refeathered?  But he doesn’t know about any of this, because his cook takes care of things, and won’t stand interference in the kitchen.

18. The early modern man has seriously bought two shoehorns.  Shoes are too expensive not to take care of.

19. The early modern man makes sure his wife always has a nosegay to ward off disease, especially when she is pregnant, which is often.

20. On occasion, the early modern man writes tormented love lyrics.  No one is ever sure whether or not to take them literally, but that’s all part of the mystique.  His wife doesn’t seem to mind.  He’s also translated most of the psalms, from the original Hebrew.  In his spare time, again.

21. The early modern man admonishes his children for minor mistakes only if he thinks it will aid in their moral and intellectual development.  Usually it will.

22. The early modern man knows from whom to get the court gossip, and to whom not to tell it.  He is good at writing letters, and at destroying them.  He has friends in the Tower, and friends who used to be in the Tower, and probably friends who took a short walk in the Tower.

23. The early modern man has read everything by Petrarch.

24. The early modern man fells no need to check his points.

25. The early modern man has no use for villainous saltpeter. A sword is far more deadly, provided one knows how to use it (and he does), and hunting is more safely and sportingly done with the primitive weapons of his ancestors.

26. The early modern man associates tears with women, except when male friends are saying goodbye to each other forever, like when one of them gets married.

27. People aren’t sure if the early modern man is really a player or not.  Then he has the nerve to advise the Queen on her marriage prospects, gets himself kicked out of court, goes to fight the Spanish oversees, gives his armor to an unequipped man immediately before battle, is wounded in the thigh as a result, and—lying on the field of battle—passes his water on to another wounded man, observing that “Thy necessity is greater than mine.”  After about a month, he dies of gangrene at the age of thirty-one.  Let the legends begin.