[lit-ideas] Sally Ann
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:05:45 -0800
JL,
I didn't respond to the note below and you wrote in a later note, not yet
posted to lit-ideas because of their Draconian policy against you, I wonder
if you failed to see (or indeed did see) my criticism to your short story.
Stupidly, or rather thoughtlessly, I changed the subject line from your
original, "Love is all you need" to my silly, slightly obsessive, "Swimming
Pool Library", but I felt Sally Ann could do with a splash!"
This because I see you are replying to every bit (or titbit, if you must) of
the Memphian, but failing to acknowledge this furriner."
Actually I did see your note and considered it, but wasn't sure how to
respond and then got to thinking about other things as you saw.
I read a biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne a few months ago. He poured over
his short stories, exhausting himself, rewriting them over and over again.
I am not like that. This short story, as they all are, is rather slap-dash.
Hawthorne needed to support his family with his writing. I have a nice
retirement and don't need to sell any stories, but I like to write and so
do.
This story was started the evening before it was posted and then finished
that morning. I guess I write short stories the way I do poetry. I write
it until it feels right and then let it go. Which doesn't exempt me from
criticism. I'm not suggesting that. I wrote this one in response to a
medley of posts written by various people that day, the day before the
evening I began it. Someone mentioned a Sally Ann something or other.
Geary mentioned the salamis and boloney, etc. I incorporated a number of
trains of thought including your "all you need is Loeb." So in a sense it
was intended it as one long joke, but it got away from me and took on a life
of its own and didn't end up a joke.
In regard to your comments, Sally Ann isn't just frustrated because she had
a frustrating day at the University. She is annoyed that Syd rushes in with
his own agenda without sounding her out first. He has done this before and
she doesn't like it. She wasn't so annoyed by her students that she reacted
to him, but it was there affecting her mood, and she is ready to blame her
students and let Syd off the hook when Syd starts behaving. Te ongoing
problem that no one appreciates Classics any longer . . . I won't point out
every parallel to things that went on in Lit-Ideas posts, but this was one.
Are her students Airheads? Or is anyone who rejects a study of the Classics
an airhead? What about people who simply aren't interested?
As to the Syd being "too much in the know of things Greek," I don't see that
as a problem. Every time I've been on an extensive study program I've had
countless discussions with my wife; such that she seems very much in the
know about details I've brought up. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that
Sally Ann would discuss the Classics with Syd. I don't describe Syd's
background, however. How do you know they didn't meet while they were both
studying the Classics.
As to teaching the Classics I was influenced by Victor Davis Hanson who
describes the state of Classics teaching in his Who Killed Homer? Thus I
wasn't assuming a full-fledged classics program but a mere class, something
provided in the English department, but it doesn't really make any
difference - aside from the fact that Classics are not doing well in this
country. Perhaps they are doing better in Argentina.
You suggest that Sally Ann wouldn't be interested in the same Classics that
we have here. She would care about Sapho and not Leonidas, but I envisioned
her of sterner stuff, like a Spartan wife who tells her husband to return
with his shield or on it. I rather admire tough women.
Let me tell a little story about my wife Susan. She has a serious illness
but that hasn't dampened her spirit any. She had one serious operation and
they let her come home to finish her recovery. She is 5' 6" and was down
from her normal 125 pounds to about 100. I told her I didn't want her going
any place without taking Trooper along, but Trooper and I were napping so
off she went to the market to walk around - it wasn't that far away, but
when she came out it was dark. She pushed her cart toward her car and
opened the back to put her groceries in it. Trooper should have been there
but he wasn't. A fellow described later as being over 200 pounds and over
six feet tall hopped out of his pickup truck, ran over and snatched her
purse. As he was running back toward his truck, Susan was in pursuit. He
hopped up into his truck, but by then Susan was upon him and grabbed hold of
her purse. He slammed the door on her arm until she let go.
People at the market witnessed this and one of them drove after the guy to
see if he could see where he went. Everyone including her husband told
Susan that she shouldn't have done what she did, and she says she doesn't
know what got into her, but it just made her mad that someone would steal
her purse. Susan is absolutely, definitely, not a Sapho sort of person.
Not that she would enjoy watching 300, but if we lived back then and I were
heading off to fight with Leonidas (not at Thermopylae of course), she would
be expecting me to come back with my shield - as Sally Ann would Syd.
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 5:03 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Swimming Pool Library
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
Excellent short story, L. K. Must say I identified with it more than with
your Friday one on the Civil War!
----
My selected passage:
"That was a magnificent time: from the Persian war all the way through the
Peloponnesian war and beyond. It wasn't until Alexander full of scotch and
water set about outdoing Philip that everything was ruined, well not totally
ruined. A lot was saved. We have quite a lot from that period and we can
learn from it. We ought to be willing to learn.""
Too true. Sadly, though, Classicists refer to the period -- INCLUDING the
death of Alexander the 'classical' period. I beg to differ, of course. To
me, it's the archaic period which is the classiest!
-----
I loved your references to Salamis and Salami and Boetia and Baloney, etc. I
too enjoyed the description of the 'cute' protagonists.
It's true that Periclean is a period, but mind, if we are being Spartans, we
should talk Lycurgus and Pausanias too. Perikles was said to have
'prostituted' Athens with all that 'crap' which they called the new
Parthenon, etc. I say this because for Classicists, the Parthenon is the
epitome of the classical age, while it looks like a newish Brighton pavilion
to me!
------- My focus is sculpture, though, and I'm fascinated by the fact that
clumsy male statuettes achieved the contraposto that made Greek art a
_miracle_. Never mind architecture or vase painting! The Chinese did that
too!
----
I will not go into the details of your short story. So the female
protagonist is frustrated because she had a 'frustrating' day at the
university. But that's HER fault. No air head can be such an air head that
won't listen! I think you are being a bit patronising!
It's true that current Americans only care about actresses and singers,
especially if 'demens' (Britney Spears), but hey, there's the occasional
good film with classical references (like "Atonement" and the magnificent
episode by the Triton fountain of Graeco-Roman antiquity --, "in half-scale"
only, but better than a swimming pool in the eyes of the constructor.
The female protagonist talks about 'willing(ness) to learn', but we must
also consider what to do with the things we've learned. Learning is an
ongoing process, etc. I would not have an airhead recite Ovid, Tristia just
for the sake of it. I would rather have the airhead ... think? Dunno.
Airhead is not a word I use!
---- The male protagonist seems to be too much in the know of things Greek
and one wonders who's the Classics teacher there! I tend to think that there
is a gender difference.
Only today, I was reading Horace, and he refers to a philosopher (in what of
his Satires, Loeb),
"That was a good one. You deserve a barber"
-- there is a footnote at this point, and it goes, "Being a philosopher, he
would grow a beard"
which I think was a silly typically Loeb thing to say, knowing that I don't
grow one, and neither did Hanna Arendt. "En fin", as the French say.
But when it comes to the Classics, a male and a female are different.
Females will focus on Sappho, never Leonidas. And if they do, how can they
_identify_? A few Greek females were into the playing fields and war, I
grant.
The audience is also to be considered. Eton is not co-educational, and while
they may have the occasional female Greek tutor (Horace uses 'tutor' as
synonym with 'slave'!) it would be someone who's both proficient in cricket
and Homer.
This was transported to drama by Rattigan in his brilliant Browning Version
(new version with Albert Finney -- and this American actor playing the
sporty type who _commits adultery_ with the classics teacher).
There was a musical theatre success recently, "Spring Awakening". It's all
about the classics and it's set in Germany, being the adaptation of a
Wedekind play. But the issues are still relevant? What is appropriate for a
gymnasium worship of the 'great and dead'? What is what we expect from
necessarily airheads. For surely if their heads are already full of shit,
it's even a harder task!
Most classics teacher rely on the mechanics of grammar, as Andreas tried to
instill on us re: the grammar of Finnish that our new moderator manages, but
we don't. Latin and Greek were seen as mental gymnastics to contribute to
corporal gymnastics, and there may be some truth to it, but then I'm not a
dualist.
As a non-dualist, I don't believe in the primordial duality (neither did
Aristotle, the greatest of the dead and great) between soul and body. Today
I was browsing Lyra Graeca II, and there is indeed this discussion as to
whether upon dying, the soul leaves the body, or the body leaves the soul!
In my opinion, being a functionalist, neither leaves the other!
------- So the Classics, a period, provides a lot of food for thought and
gymnastics of all sorts. If you find that your day is frustrating ("as it
always must be if you try instill a love for the classics to a bunch of
airheads"), then the bimbo should considering outsourcing in France, since
The Classical Heritage is not for her! (And her 'students' deserve better!)
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
The Swimming Pool Librarian
Villa Speranza, Bordighera,
and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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