phespirit.now:   words

Year 2008 reading matter

JAMES BOSWELL
"Life Of Johnson (Unabridged)"

At a mighty 1402 pages - with a further 36 for the introduction (Oxford World's Classics edition) - this biography is great in every sense, mirroring its subject. Boswell does not disect or pick apart the life and character of Samual Johnson. Rather he builds it up, layer upon layer, just as a Buddhist devotee will take an unornamented statue and slowly, deliberately, reverentially, apply tiny leafs of gold over many years to create a glorious, dazzling, fully-gilded icon as fitting tribute in a dull world. Johnson himself never appears dull; setting aside his single-minded Toryism and devout Christianity, his every recorded saying could be regarded as pure, crystalised wisdom. His more mundane concerns are reflected through the inclusion of selected letters. These are anchored as beacons of plodding reality within the ocean of philosophy. Anecdotes presenting the sharpest of Johnson's wit come early in the book, usually at the expense of some other group or individual, and often in a manner that is unlikely to be revived from the eighteenth century. For example:
"Dr. Adams found him one day busy at his Dictionary, when the following dialogue ensued. 'ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? JOHNSON. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch. ADAMS. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. I have no doubt I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.'"
"Sir Joshua told me of a pleasant characteristical anecdote of Johnson about the time of their first acquaintance. When they were one evening together at the Miss Cotterells', the then Duchess of Argyle and another lady of high rank came in. Johnson thinking that the Miss Cotterells were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friend were neglected, as low company of whom they were somewhat ashamed, grew angry; and resolving to shock their supposed pride, by making their great visitors imagine that his friend and he were low indeed, he addressed himself in a loud tone to Mr. Reynolds, saying, 'How much do you think you and I could get in a week, if we were to work as hard as we could?' - as if they had been common mechanicks."
"Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. 'Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog walking on its hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.'"
All in all, a constantly interesting view of an intriguing man, his mind and morality, the circles in which he moved, and the times in which he lived.

EDGAR ALLEN POE
"The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym Of Nantucket, And Related Tales"

This book is the Master of the Unnatural's one attempt at that which did not come naturally to him: writing a novel rather than a short story. The fact that it is a very short novel, and one structured like a sequence of short stories that could stand in isolation, is neither here nor there. Whilst fault picking, it could also be noted that there are a number of continuity errors and lost threads, but no matter; it is Poe, and remains a grimly compelling read through all adversities. Among the 'Related Tales' in this Oxford World's Classic compilation, 'The Pit and the Pendulum' is the star - quite unlike the Roger Corman movie of the same name, which is wonderful in its own macabre way.