A short guide to Russian literature

I've just started reading War and Peace, on the grounds that I ought to make a start if I wanted to be sure of finishing. It make not be the greatest book ever written, but it's certainly one of the longest. I said to my wife, in astonishment, that it wasn't surprising that it was so long since in the first 50 pages the only thing that had happened was that someone had been to a party. She said she'd read a Russin novel once in which absolutely nothing happened; she then corrected herself: they had gone on a carriage ride once.

Fact and fiction and the Da Vinci code

The recent Court case between Dan Brown and authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is quite funny, really. The Bloodites claim he copied their book from his book. But they seem to have forgotten something. Dan Brown's book is a novel. It's fiction. It's made up. (I agree it's a little confusing that he says at the start that it is all true: a little post-modern prank, I think). But to say that his fiction rips off their book is to admit what they would usually try desperately NOT to admit, that THEIR book is fiction, made up, a story, NOT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. Because if their work was sober fact, that inspired someone else to write a novel, they would have no case, since copyright protection excludes creative works. Unless their lawyers decide to prove that Dan Brown's work is also sober fact. Now that might be worth watching, like his book might be worth reading. Oh. No it's not.

Overheard

"Which part of 'La la la, I'm not listening!' don't you understand?"

Matters of life and death

I heard an interview with someone who'd been campaigning against the death penalty: she brought out her trump card, that a large fraction of those condemned to death are later freed on appeal. I used to follow this line too: obviously if someone's been executed it's a bit late to find out they're innocent. But I'm not sure this argument holds: for while you cannot bring someone back to life, neither can you restore the health, liberty and freedom lost to someone under a long sentence, even if they are released eventually. The case for having a judicial system that doesn't make mistakes is a strong one: the precise nature of the punishments an ineffective one misapplies is not really relevant. I know there are subsidiary arguments: that juries will be wary of finding someone guilty if they know they are sentencing them to death. But then they damn well should be - that's the whole point of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. For me, the clinching argument has to be the paradox that those who argue for the sanctity of human life (in terms of murder victims) are those who wish the state to ignore such sanctity. This reminds me of the animal rights extremist who ended up justifying terrorist attacks on animal laboratories "I must do something to stop this animal holocaust, and if some people get killed in the process, well, the end justifies the means", when of course their objection in the first place was that no end could justify the application of immoral means.

In place of a profile

My user profile is rather enigmatic, containing no useful information. This post is intended to provide readers with some background about my poetry at Complete and Utter Poetry and related topics.

Q. There's a lot of Christian imagery in your poems. Are you a Christian?

A. No, I am, like Douglas Adams, a 'radical atheist' (a term he invented to avoid the 'I'm an atheist' 'Don't you mean agnostic' 'No, I mean atheist' conversation). However, my upbringing was very Christian, and as a result, the Anglican liturgy, hymns, and the Bible form part of my language. My shift towards agnosticism and then atheism was quite quick, and can be explained by the total absence of any spiritual experience: by the application of Occam's razor, the simplest solution, No God, stands until or unless this becomes untenable. However, Christian and Biblical stories are very useful in addressing philosophical issues; in much the same way Anglo-Saxon missionaries re-branded Christ as a hero-warrior, he can be re-packaged in several ways.

I have no interest in 'proving' that the Bible is wrong or inconsistent, although I do get a bit exasperated by fundamentalist arguments that it is all true and all correct and not at all inconsistent or open to interpretation. Thus when I looked at Genesis http://http://locock.blogspot.com/2005/10/theology-101.html and noted that God appeared to mislead Adam by saying that eating the Fruit would make him die, and it didn't, I later came across an explanation that when God said this he meant that Adam would start to die after eating it, not die on the spot. To which you might reasonably respond that God might have been a bit clearer on this fairly important issue.

I have no time for the woolly vague sort of Christian who believes that the world is a nice place in which nice things happen thanks to God; I do have some respect for the more thoughtful sort who acknowledge that much that happens is bad and that God is in no position to prevent it.


Q. Where do you think poems come from?

A. Mine emerge slowly from the subconcious. I will often feel an idea at the edge of my mind, and wait for it to emerge. It's usually a scenario or mood rather than a phrase. But as I say in my poem Ars poetica, that is really only the start of the work. I try to write down a narrative, not caring too much about the sound or form, and then rigorously edit it down so that it says only what needs to be said.

It is probably something to do with how Creative Writing is taught that so many people seem to think that having the inspiration is all that is needed.


Q. You use a range of poetic forms: how do you choose them?

A. In general, I will use a form if I can fit the thought to it. Ideally, a poem should effortlessly sit in its structure as if that is how it would have been written anyway. The great advantage of forms like the haiku / senryu is that they provide an organising principle without constraining the content. It is a commonplace to say that free verse is usually terrible; I would add that so is most rhyme, because the most worthless poem might be held to have some merit if it rhymed. No. My advice to aspiring poets is to forget rhyme, and concentrate instead on economy of expression and clarity of thought. The other main form I use is the villanelle, which allows a refrain structure without imposing an unnatural word order or stress.

Q. How would you define poetry?

A. There's a lot to be said for Auden's definiton as 'memorable speech'. That leaves it quite open, while reflecting the basic principle that it is a medium in which the words matter. In fact my definition would be 'carefully chosen words'.

Q. Which contemporary poets do you admire?

A. I don't read much poetry, I must say. This is partly because I don't have much time for reading at all, but in any case I find that reading modern poetry is hard work. Published, literary, poetry, seems too smug and complicated; internet poetry too simple and banal. Ideally, I'd like to read short, snappy, witty, clever, poems, conscious of literary forms, and not mentioning rainbows, cats or gardens. Wendy Cope's good. Of earlier poets, I like Larkin and Amis, Eliot and Auden.

Q. You often include quotations as part of the titles of your poems. Why?

A. The inclusion of epigraphs wasn't something I had thought about: it seemed natural at first, since all of those I mentioned do it quite a lot. It's not intended to show off: I try to find quotations which bear on the subject of the poem, hinting at its approach. For example, the long poem Seven Cities starts with a quote from the book of Jonah and another from Eliot so that before starting the poem proper, the reader is already being led to expect an allegory about destruction, cities, and salvation. It's only recently that I realised how old-fashioned the inclusion of epigraphs looks, not that that will stop me.

Armed and dangerous

I was reading someone complaining about a proposed law on gun ownership in California; he said he had this nightmare vision of a future in which only the police and the criminals had guns. Strangely enough, my nightmare vision would be the exact opposite. Quite apart from the practical dangers associated with having guns in the house- accidents and domestic disputes; there's also the question of suicide. One of the surprising but consistent findings of research into suicide attempts is that, rather than having made a firm decision to die the suicidee chooses a method and carries it out, they are rather in a state of not minding either way. This leaves libertarians like me in a dilemma, since we would endorse the right of those who wished to kill themselves to do so, but would nevertheless be obliged to try to prevent them in case they hadn't quite made their mind up. [Attempting suicide is still treated by many countries as a crime (because you are robbing the state of your contribution to it); according to my son, they take a very dim view of it, and they sentence repeat offenders to death]

But crime is where it matters most. Guns change things. Almost all interactions with others are bound by social norms as much as anything. This is why a small old woman can scare away a crowd of teenage yobs: although they could easily physically overpower her, their brains respond with instinctive respect for an older person who is in the right. A weaker version of the same moral force allows teachers to subdue unruly classes. It is this moral force which keeps the law. That's why riots are followed by copycat disturbances: people suddenly relaise that there is very little that the few police can do to enforce the law. Chesterton says somewhere that the countryside is full of sin, because of the absence of others to observe. But put a gun in the equation and social factors are set aside.

Everybody loathes Elton

Ben Elton is often mentioned by British comedians as the most-hated man in the business. It's a bit hard to see why, exactly, it's just that he is rich, successful and mainstream, and makes musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber (which is at least three strikes in most people's eyes, I suppose). His career has been odd, though: starting as a political firebrand and anarchist Young Ones writer, then moving to the high wit of Blackadder, before blanding out in his Man for Auntie sketch show and The Thin Blue Line anaemic police comedy, underusing Rowan Atkinson as almost a straight-main. From here it's easy to see his early radical days as a careerist stunt: that was where the buzz was at the time. I'm not sure that's right, though- his novels continue to reflect his passionate intensity, and even the Thin Blue Line was quite advanced in its philosophy considering its positioning: there were a lot of jokes about sex (that's not quite true: of the jokes there were, a lot were about sex), but the characters' sexual orientation and colour was never exploited, as it would have been in most comparable sitcoms. Given the widespread wish for Elton to fail, it's surprising how little anyone has had to say about his latest masterpiece, the couple-with-young children sitcom Blessed. Now, this may come as a revelation, but young children cry, and need feeding, and make a mess. Sometimes the parents get tetchy as a result. With hilarious consequences. Or not. Actually it's not entirely laugh-free. But what amuses is the plotting and the frustrated rants of the lead character, rather than verbal agility. One problem is the inaccuracy of the cultural references. The record producer hero has to deal with a manufactured Spice Girls grrl group, with the moral issues that raises about whether he should insist on his rights to his creative work or let them steal it in return for lots of money. The trouble with this is that he is starting from the view that groups should be talented and creative, not manufactured. It's hard to believe this when for a start, he works as a jobbing music producer churning out advertising jingles and backing tracks, and is hardly therefore at the 'art for art's sake' end of the business, but more importantly, his views are anachronistic: after all the Idols and X Factors, nobody seems to mind that stars and groups are designed by marketing consultants, publicised by publicists, and sold to the media in bite-size chunks from 'wow I won' to 'ex-singer in drug shame' to 'who?'. After Darius lost out to much laughter in the first Pop Idol, or whatever, and dismissed as a talentless poser, I thought I'd heard the last of him; I hardly expected him to crop up in 2005 as a credible and successful artist with fans and No. 1s and everything. So Elton here is being misled by what he thinks and feels, which is not believable as what his character thinks. The characterisation has another major flaw: the ageing rocker guitarist. With his wrinkled, twitching face and leathers, he models himself on Keith Richard. But Elton tries to have it both ways: sometimes, he is clearly a delusional loser whose pose is just that, masking an empty and tragically wasted life; but sometimes he really is a star, able to charm groupies and acquaintances. In general, I would think that the series owes its origins to Elton's life experiences, and would have been better if it had accepted the fact rather than mask it by, say, changing the father's job from comedian novelist living in London with his young family, to something totally different, like, record producer living...

What I don't understand, after all this, is the eerie silence. Shouldn't the airwaves be jammed with pundits queueing up to say it's terrible and Elton is finished? I can only suppose they have realised it's more cutting, in the long run, tosay nothing, just walk away.

Pranks and japes

The latest reality TV series, Space Cadets, has exposed what has lain mainly hidden in its predecessors like Game for a Laugh, Beadle's About, and Candid Camera: that its humour is derived from cruelty, or at the very least from exploitation of dramatic irony (the audience knowing something the protagonist does not). Hence it is an act of collusion by the viewers at the expense of the participants.

This is a strong but largely unexamined part of traditional humour. The attraction of the 'surprise party' is surely for the other attendees, who can smirk to themselves as they lead the dupe to believe that everyone has forgotten. And a similar pattern can be seen in the initiation of apprentices, who were sent off in search of tartan paint or for a long weight (wait): a rite of passage intended to remind the new workers that, however cocky they may be, in the workplace they are at the mercy of their bosses and colleagues. The humour is anaemic verging on albinoism: but humour is not the point.

TV programmers may not realise the danger they face. Newspapers these days very rarely present April Fool's stories; I think this is because they have realised that they rely on their readers gullibility, which offends them, or undermines the paper's credibility. If your newspaper tells you that Elvis is alive and well and living on the moon in a WW2 bomber, you are hardly likely to pay much attention when they tell you which political party to support. We do not expect, when being bombarded with information, to have to distinguish not just between hard fact and soft fact and opinion, but between fiction masquerading as fact and simple fact.

The irony is that the hapless and charmless space cadets, whose desire to be famous exceeds any talent that might justify such a desire, have proved to have some strength of character. Everyone else is smirking, but they have trusted in the
reliability and safety of Russian aeronautics, and have demonstrated that the Right Stuff can be found in all sorts of containers.

Winds of change

So Tony Blair's solution to future energy needs is the safest, cheapest and most efficient method, (nuclear energy, if you hadn't guessed). Not sure whether he's going to deal with the £4.5 billion decommissioning costs and storage of the nuclear waste from the last generation of cheap, clean energy first.

Credit where credit's due, though, he's right to take hard decisions to fulfil his Kyoto commitment to reduce CO2 emissions (and not just the hard decision of how to get out of it without anyone noticing). The tireless opposers of windfarm developments who have contributed so maturely to the energy debate over the last decade can take some comfort in their victory: for surely it is the recognition that any substantial increase in renewable exploitation would inspire protests that would make the pro-hunting lobby look like blood-stained sadists pussycats that lies behind this courageous step.

Of course, it leaves the problem of where to put the new nuclear stations- there's going to be a lot. Luckily, they don't spoil views for miles by intruding on the skyline, so presumably right next door to the NIMBYs would suit them fine. Or are they going to start whingeing about that too? Surely not!

Weasel words

The Vocabulary Reclamation Project has raised the interesting question of Word Tanking, meaning the avoidance of using thenatural or correct term because it has acquired unwanted baggage. He says:

I tend to de-emphasize the word "Christianity." Instead, I employ phrases like "following Christ" and (rather obviously) "spiritual journey." It's often awkward to speak this way, but I find myself doing it—using ambiguous terms like "friend" and "follower" and "disciple" and "journey," and then qualifying them with the word "Jesus" or "Christ." In a very real sense, "Christianity" carries with it a host of connotations that I'd just as soon not deal with. I want people to think about what I'm saying, rather than be side-tracked by negative (and unrelated) associations.

There is always a tension between pedantically insisting on the 'correct' word and being understood. Sometimes this is cultural: there is the story of the American and British students who had gone see their lecturer, and upon being told by her secretary that she would be 'with them presently', the British student went back to the library and the American waited at the office. Or as my webstats page now says "the data will be displayed momentarily", probably meaning "in a moment" rather than "for a moment" (although with BlogPatrol's reliablity you cannot be sure).

I read a comment on the news coverage of Katrina that one startling change was that people were using the word 'poor' rather than 'disadvantaged' or 'economically deprived' or whatever. And on the whole it seems a more honest word, unless (as may be the case), the rich feel that it carries with it the implication that the poor will be always with us (and so nothing need be done about them) or that they are poor because they are made that way ditto).

Other words have dropped out entire. I was shocked to hear on 'Will and Grace' someone say "So that's Dr Motley- I imagined he was an old Jew saying 'You call this dinner?'". Not because it is intrinsically shocking (the speaking character was Jewish, by the way), but because I have grown completely unaccustomed to the use of the word 'Jew' in any sort of comic sense. What is still a bit troubling is that the joke was clearly using the word to imply a stereotype. Children's joke books have problems these days- the great stock-in-trade of Irish (Polish, etc.) jokes reliant on their butts' stupidity has become almost unusable that that they have to be re-cast as "did you hear about the stupid person who did something stupid?". Small loss, perhaps. It is notable that the 19th century Punch cartoons that kicked off the Irish joke tradition was less coarse than is often said. When the Irish peasant tells the lost motorist who asks for directions "I wouldn't start from here", the joke is on the motorist. Much more objectionable are the Punch cartoons whose humour relies on the stupidity of servants in interpreting the words of their wiser, richer, lazier, and better-educated masters. Ha bloody ha.

Word fashions come and go. To UK ears, the American 'person of color' hardly seemed an improvement on Negro, although that may not have been the word it was replacing. I think it will be something of a Red Letter day, though, on the first time I actually call someone a nigger on the grounds that they would want me to.

Sometimes people resist word tanking: Bob Dylan, on 'Time out of mind' goes out of his way to use the word 'gay' in its older, non-sexual, sense: "strumming a gay guitar", "I've been to London and I've been to gay Par-ee". In general, though, we have to face the fact that communication is communication, and it is our readers' verbal associations we must consider, not our own. This is the reason I would never say "I am a poet"; "I write poetry" is not just less of an extravagant claim, it also attempts to sidestep the opinion held by many that anyone making such a statement is bound to be sentimental, alcoholic, dying, or impractical.

Human nature

This is a story from before Windows NT, and before Windows 98, and before Windows 95, and before Windows 3.1, but I think it has a timeless message. In the old days, the last word in user friendliness was to have a start screen on your computer listing numbered options which started the various programs. My computer at work had ended up with a lot of options which either didn't work or led to removed programs, so I tidied up the menu page text to create new options. For obscure reasons, I found I couldn't remove or edit one of the numbered options, only change the text label: people could press it but nothing happened. To discourage them from doing so, I re-labelled it 'Self Destruct Device'. One of my colleagues used my computer one day, and came up to me afterwards. "You know that self-destruct option on your computer?", he said, "It doesn't work!".

Blogs and usability

Jakob Nielsen is a leading proponent of usability: the principle that the design of website and user interfaces should be based on how users behave, rather than how a crazed web designer wants to impress other crazed web designers. His website is usually a fount of common sense in a world where such things are still rare. However, in his most recent column, he addresses the principles of usability as applied to blogs. He says some sensible things: that a 'journal', sequential, structure, may be easy to set up but is a real pain for latecomers trying to find popular entries, so you really need to provide links to favourite old posts (it is no coincidence that I have done this already). But he also claims that users will judge a blog partly on its domain name, and be very sniffy about those who really of free resources like Blogger. To me this smacks of the mentality of those who buy a gold fountain pen to lend their writing style, or buy an expensive sports car so that they can sit in a traffic jam in style. The whole issue of domain squatting has a nostalgic feel to it these days- as if anyone tried to find Charles Dickens' website by typing in www.charlesdickens.com. They certainly wouldn't try it twice, since this would inevitably lead to a strange Biblical prophecy site, online poker, or dating (interesting sidelight on who they think uses the Internet, isn't it?).


UPDATE
Nielsen's comments have led to many responses, predicatbly, since he has been annoying web designers for years by saying things like 'Flash is crap'. I understand he now believes Flash is great, but, no, he was right first time. There's an interesting
parody of a usability report on a portal to initiate nuclear war. The authors do not realise, however, that they actually support what Nielsen is saying- that website users do not want to have to learn to use every new website from scratch, that poor usablity will discourage less-motivated users, and users need to be able to control their visiting experience. In recommending that (commercial) websites avoid 'cutting edge' untried innovative techniques in favour of established, dull, run-of-the-mill ones that work, he is giving good advice to the world outside the design community. I sometimes wonder whether Gutenberg spent his entire life trying to persuade his unadventurous customers to explore the potential of his new technology: "oh, sure, you can read it- but I have these flashy new typefaces which give a real trendy feeling-or we could print pages alternately up and down so that the reader isn't constrained by that stale old left-to-right start-to-finish straitjacket- or we could print on light-degradable papers so the user can experience the book falling apart as a he read it"

Yes, his site looks crap- it is simple and text-based. It's almost like a blog, strangely enough.

Theology 101

The Garden of Eden story is strange, isn't it. I assume you have a copy of Genesis 3 to hand:

v3 God says to Eve "You musn't eat the fruit of the tree of life or you will die"
v4 The serpent says "You won't die if you do"

v22 God says he must send Man out of Eden "lest he eat of the tree of life and live for ever"

So God was wrong in v3 and the serpent was right- eating the fruit does NOT kill you, it makes you live for ever.

They say that lies make a poor basis for a relationship.

Absolute power corrupts? Oh, absolutely!

As the ID Bill trundles inexorably on, we are finding out the cost of freedom. About £30 each, the charge to be imposed by the government on those applying for a card they are legally obliged to have. And legally obliged to replace whenever they move house. For some people, this hardly matters, since they are rich and have stable jobs and live in one place. For poor families, moving more frequently, this is a significant additional cost. But at least it will keep us safe.

The true cost of the cards is a bit higher: initial government estimates had put it at about £80, but it's now figured to be £300. So every time someone moves house, not only will they have to pay out, the government will too, spending tax money. But at least it will keep us safe.

One scene you don't see on CSI or Without a Trace, as they search across the criminal records database or look at the interactive street map or 3D model of virtual Miami, is the one where the master-criminal evades justice because someone has input his surname as 'Terry O'Rist' rather than Terrence O. Wrist. The government has cited as one of the benefits of ID cards that it can bring together all the data already held separately by various departments and agencies. So not only can we catch terrorists, we can fine them for not having a TV licence, and reclaim some tax credits, like those from people who spent money PAID OUT IN ERROR BECAUSE THE COMPUTER SYSTEM WASN'T WORKING PROPERLY. But at least it will keep us safe.

The trouble with wide-ranging arbitrary powers is not that it criminalises everyone. States wielding absolute powers have not all been draconian. For all the idiosyncratic power of a Roman emperor, his writ only really extended to the court. His plans, however mad, for the millions of citizens could only be carried out by his subordinates, whose efficiency and keenness depended on their view of the wisdom of the policy. Even in feudal states, where serfs belonged to their lords, tyranny was limited, since serfs could run away to other masters, or to towns, if it got too bad, and although their lords might hope for support from their peers, class solidarity seldom overcame personal interest. Even East Germany, where I understand 25% of the population was employed by or informants for the secret police, people slipped through. There was plenty of information, but no way to manage it. There is a paradox within Orwell's vision of 1984; even if surveillance was focused on the Party members, the Ministry of Truth employed a lot of people, who needed to be watched by another Ministry of Truth. So I do not believe that suddenly the government will micro-manage the entire population. No. It too will focus. It will focus on the poor, the black, the immigrant, the excluded. But at least it will keep us safe.

Now there are those who say that identity theft is an established part of terrorist operations, and therefore fake ID cards will be manufactured, which may not match the real ones but will be better than nothing. And there are those who say that the July 7 bombers were UK citizens and would no doubt have had ID cards anyway. And there are those who say that criminalizing the excluded does little to make them less excluded. And there are those who say that the government's record on data collection and the creation of large computer systems is appalling. And there are even those who say that pretending that the costs have been accurately estimated and will not eat significantly into spending money on more useful things is a deliberate attempt to side-step the issue. I'm one.

Wisdom

If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because man, they're gone.

SNL Deep thoughts