.i“ * ^ / . . . . . ` `~

Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration

(Four Quartets)

Compelling Noah Smith thread. Part of the story of our drift toward autocracy is that leftists won’t brook Democrats.

ngrams: funk, spunk

Interesting: Noah Smith thinks that what separates literary fiction from genre fiction is that literary fiction has unrealistically interesting characters (as opposed to sci-fi and mystery novels which have unrealistically interesting settings.) He also seems to think this creates a problem of thinking that people in real life are more interesting than they actually are.

I suppose my first response to this is that literature has many more uninteresting characters than it has interesting ones — to every Hamlet there are many Osrics and other bit players.

But secondly, even the Hamlets are interesting to us precisely because we recognize in them our own behavior. Achilles and Agamemnon, far from seeming strange to us, are like two kids quarrelling on a playground, (or more exactly, like two CEOs acting like two kids quarrelling on a playground.)

I think that the first thing people tend to notice about literary fiction is that it can be a little challenging to read and that this points to what really separates literary from genre fiction: its use of language. But perhaps an even more obvious answer is that it is just a story that is artfully constructed. You could of course have a sci-fi novel that was also a literary work, it would just have to be really well told.

As to his second point, about literature making people seem more extraordinary than they are, I think the danger lies the other way, and that readers of literature are apt to read themselves into books in a way that is not necessarily helpful: “Oh, I am just like King Lear,” etc.

Finally, as a side note, I’d observe that having read these Econ / data analysis types for years — Smith and Krugman and Yglesias and the late Kevin Drum — I’ve found it notable that these super smart guys (with Yglesias being somewhat of an outlier, particularly recently) don’t have a lot interest in the literary but are more about sci-fi and history. I don’t have anything to say about that, just something I’ve noticed.

Assassination of Henry IV

Feel that with each adventure we’re being shown a different aspect of Don Quixote’s folly.

In the adventure of the windmills, he mistakes windmills for giants. He says wizards changed the giants to windmills.

In the adventure of the sheep flocks, something similar happens but with a twist: he mistakes two approaching flocks of sheep for warring armies — he admits, after having been stoned, they look like sheep– then tells Sancho as soon as the sheep get out of visual range, they will reveal their true human forms again.

In the adventure of the fulling hammers, there’s a bit of an inversion; he at first believes the sound of the hammers to be something terrible and a source of adventure, then discovers them to be mere fulling hammers. (Why didn’t he imagine them to be Giants, like the windmills? In this instance, he goes from imagining something fantastic to realizing the banal reality, unlike the sheep and windmills.)

[Note: it is interesting Quixote encounters industrial things as antagonists. Quixote resists the world’s progress, while acknowledging and respecting this progress.]

With respect to the Helmet of Mambrino, he can see that it *looks like* a barber’s basin, but not that it is that and only that. (That it *looks like that* becomes part of the story of how it’s really not that.)

[Note: Quixote imbues the ordinary with the exceptional.]

In the whipping of the servant incident, he misapprehends the facts of the situation *and* misapplies chivalric code; while in the releasing of the prisoners incident, he seems to apprehend the situation clearly enough, but then he uses bad judgment.

In the Cardenio episodes, Cervantes purposely juxtaposes a truly dejected lover, with Quixote, who’s only pretending to be one. The *truly* mad one is Cardenio, who actually experiences fits of madness, while Quixote is quite rationally, but crazily, pretending to be something he’s not.

In chapters 29 and 31 Quixote’s forced to confront the ill consequences of have “rescued” the whipped servant and having freed the galley slaves (interesting that both these adventures involve the liberation of people who shouldn’t be, or shouldn’t necessarily be). In both cases, he seems clearly to realize the actual case, that he has done something egregiously stupid, but he is unable to draw any broader conclusions from that….

Conclusions. First, on a very perfunctory level, one observes a pattern, of Quixote imagining something that isn’t so, acting on it, often courageously, and then being badly beaten for it, often savagely. Secondly, as a person of my times, I am tempted to ponder whether Quixote’s pursuit of knight errantry might be compared to the pursuit of a political ideology, or conspiracy-theorizing — arranging contradictory facts to fit a preconceived outlook or disposition.

This is the first time the IPC has recorded famine outside of Africa… a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself […] People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing.”

Comparing Achilles’ and Agamemnon’s opening remarks in their dispute in book 1, (1.121-129) and (1.130-147).

Similarities in language:

Both Agamemnon and Achilles use flattering as well as slighting language in their addresses. Achilles calls Agamemnon “noblest” (κύδιστος) while Agamemnon calls Achilles “good” or “brave” (ἀγαθός) and “godlike” (θεοείκελος).

The slighting words they use of each other are both in the superlative. Achilles calls Agamemnon φιλοκτεανώτατε πάντων (“most greedy of all”), while Agamemnon calls Achilles πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ᾽ ἀνδρῶν (“most greedy of all men.”)

Both speeches also use the phrase “great hearted Achaians,” μεγάθυμοι Ἀχαιοί in statements that involve the Achaians giving (Achilles: “how can the great hearted Achaians give you a gift.” Agamemnon: “if the great hearted Achaians give me a gift”). Perhaps the phrase is meant to indicate the generosity of the Achaians.

Besides the similarities in language, there is a similarity in their arguments, in that both envision the source of dispute as being resolved in the indefinite future: for Achilles, Agamemnon does not need to worry about getting a prize now, as he will get it when Troy is sacked; for Agamemnon, he will worry about what prize the Achaians will give him, willingly or not, at some future time. Meanwhile, both agree that the important thing right now is returning Chrysies to her father.

Achilles’ remarks seem intended to reassure Agamemnon, that he will eventually get what is owed him; he tacitly acknowledges Agamemnon is due a prize and doesn’t blame Agamemnon for his disparagement of Chryses. Agamemnon’s remarks seem intended to say, while he’s serious about getting his due, what he really cares about is the safety of the people; he tacitly acknowledges his treatment of Chryses is to blame. They are both making an effort to preserve their own dignity, and each other’s, and do what’s right; but the good intentions don’t rate, and the situation escalates, indeed explodes.

A basic observation about these two speeches is that Agamamenon’s remarks seem to echo Achilles’, and I’ll be curious to see if that situation obtains as the dispute develops.

Kadavergehorsam: blind obedience, fanatical or excessive loyalty.

Iliad (1). Having noticed, not that it’s much, that Chryses, priest of Apollo, having walked “far from” (ἀπάνευθε) the Achaean camp, prays to Apollo (1.35), and Apollo “far from” (ἀπάνευθε — 1.48) the ships of their camp, starts to rain arrows upon them, in response to Chryses prayer.

We’re reminded often Apollo strikes from afar. Chryses, to consider it naturalistically, probably only had self-possession enough to pray once he felt physically safe, and was at a remove from the Achaean camp.

((Idea:… Apollo strikes from afar, so do priests in general?)

assart: To clear forest land for agriculture; remove stumps.

Tweet (FBI on high alert in Georgetown): “Trump is sending federal agents to walk circles in the safest parts of DC and I’m supposed to believe this is a real anti crime strategy.”