Lie Down With Lions

Lie Down With Lions by Ken Follett is a mindless romantic/spy novel about the war between the Soviet Union and Afghan rebels. The book is about a supposedly well-educated woman who falls in love with a CIA agent and then a spy for the Soviet Union, who travels to Afghanistan to be with her husband, the Soviet spy. The novel describes the conflict between the two men, one of whom (the Soviet spy) conveniently becomes abusive toward her, giving her an excuse to kill him and marry the CIA agent. This book was not as good as some other romance novels and chicklit books I have read, but it was okay for the airplane and the ship.

The Year 1000 : What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium

The Year 1000 : What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium by Danny Danziger, Robert Lacey is a brief, light, easy-to-read overview of life in the year 1000 in England. I found the book very interesting and amusing, and not at all boring, as history can sometimes be. The book describes living conditions for average people at that time. There were no engines of any kind, so there was no noise from any engines. There were no written documents for people to read; 99 percent of the people were illiterate. There was no knowledge of sanitation or the cause of disease, and lifespan was about 40 years. Life was filled with terrible odors; barnyards were adjacent to houses, and dung was used as insulation. There was no coffee, tea, or sugar, and no potatoes. Some of the main issues of the day included the establishment of a calendar, and the annual date for Easter. Food was scarce at certain times of the year.

Reading the book reminded me that people at that time had no idea what the year 2000 might be like, and I suspect that we do not have any idea what the year 3000 might be like. For some years, I have thought about change in the world, and it has been my impression that slowly, inexorably, the world is improving. It also seems to me that the pace of change and improvement is accelerating, and vastly improved communication seems to me to be leading the way to the accelerated change. The Internet alone has had led to enormous changes, as has television. To me, the Internet has brought about the greatest change that has occurred in my lifetime. It has opened up communication among all people, increasing knowledge and understanding and friendship.

Change is usually led by youth, who don't want to be tied to the past; they want things to be better. They are not as afraid of change as older people are. I have thought for a long time that the old in society have to die, or at least step aside, before change can occur and progress made.

This little book also reminded me how brief our lives are in the grand scheme of history. If you think about the totality of history, or even the past 1000 or 2000 years (a mere drop in the ocean of all of history), our lives are miniscule, a mere speck in time. However, when added together, we all add to the change that is occurring.

Tamarind Woman

Tamarind Woman by Anita Rau Badami is the story of Saroja. The story is told first through the eyes of her daughter, Kamini, but then by Saroja herself. It is a sad story of a very bright girl, who wanted to become a doctor. However, she had a sharp tongue -- a Tamarind tongue -- and it resulted in her father deciding to find a husband for her rather than letting her continue her studies. The man who was found for her to marry was much older than she was, and he lived a traditional Indian life, in which he worked and his wife stayed at home. He worked for the Indian railway system, and was away from home three weeks of every month. When he was at home, he ignored Saroja, and seldom spoke to her. Thus, this very bright girl became very isolated, and her isolation was very hard for her to bear. She had two children, girls, who moved to North America when they were grown, thus increasing her isolation still further. After her husband's death, Saroja took trips on the Indian railway, but her isolation remained with her until the end. I did not care for The Hero's Walk, but I liked this book very much, although it was a sad book.

Flash House by Aimee Liu

Flash House is a mystery story set in the period 1949-1951, the time of the Chinese Communist revolution and the time of the McCarthy era in the United States. Some novels are simply entertaining stories, with no underlying moral, philosophical, or psychological theme. Brick Lane is a book about transitions in life, about human growth, about finding joy in life. Flash House is an entertaining story with no underlying theme; it could easily be imagined as a movie (although probably with a different ending). Flash House is well written, though Aimee Liu is not the writer that Monica Ali is. Written by a woman, the book was written from a feminine point of view, actually two feminine points of view. The book traces the lives of two principal characters – Kamla, a 10 year old girl who has been sold to the operator of a dirty, cheap house of prostitution in New Delhi, India, and Joanna Shaw, the wife of a newsman in New Delhi and a woman who runs a home that rescues young prostitutes and trains them for lives outside of prostitution. The novel switches back and forth between the voice of Kamla, who tells her story, and the voice of an unseen narrator, who tells the story of Joanna Shaw as well as other characters in the book. Kamla’s story is about her joyful rescue from the house of prostitution, her involvement with Joanna Shaw, her fear and eventual abandonment by Joanna Shaw, and her triumph in life after all of her ordeals. Joanna Shaw’s story is about the disappearance of her husband and her dogged tracking of him throughout China, helped by one of his friends, who turned out to be an Australian setting up a spy operation in Southeast Asia. The end of the book was unsatisfying for me, but it was positive and brought a feeling of completion to the story.

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Just as Shantaram is a masculine book, Brick Lane is a feminine book. This book was written by a woman; its heroes are women; and all of its men are badly flawed and unattractive. Brick Lane is a book about the mental growth and transformations that occur in life. It is a book about women taking charge of their lives, rather than leaving Fate, or men, in charge. The book focuses on the transformation of one woman, Nazneen, from a poor, uneducated girl in Bangladesh, to a mature, independent woman, living in London. However, the book also traces the transformation of other characters in the book, particularly Nazneen’s husband, Chanu, who is portrayed as a pathetic man who, though educated, is completely lost in life, with delusions of his own self-importance, fumbling his way along, giving up his job and finally losing his family.

The story is complex, chronicling the lives of two sisters who begin life with completely opposite attitudes about life. The story contrasts Nazneen, who is taught to accept Fate (and who does) with her sister, Hasina, who from the beginning of her life, is determined to take charge of her own fate, is determined to have a happy life. The book carefully develops the transformation of Nazneen into a woman more like her sister, who gradually decides no longer to accept her fate or the inane whims of her husband or other men in her life, but who decides instead to take charge of her life and her fate, determined to find happiness both for herself and her two daughters. The story details the travails of both sisters, weaving their lives together, with Hasina never losing hope for happiness despite terrible hardships, and Nazneen finally finding that same hope and determination. Nazneen’s growth in life includes an affair with a young man, Karim, who also is struggling to find his own way in life. In the end, Nazneen lets him go as she realizes that he is moving toward an even deeper unreality, while the person to whom she thought she was attracted was only her own invention, her own imagination.

A good author must write well and have a good story to tell, and Monica Ali succeeds in both. This book is extremely well written, drawing the reader into the story with the words and the structure of the story. The story is believable and compelling. Brick Lane is a book about the triumph of hope over despair, of joy over sorrow, of determination over acceptance. One image is used to portray the growth and transformation of Nazneen. In her deepest despair, she is drawn to the hope and joy she feels in watching ice skaters on TV; and in the end, she finds that hope and joy in her own life as she becomes a joyful ice skater herself. Brick Lane is very good book, a very inspiring book that leaves the reader feeling happy to have read it. However, it is also a book that portrays women as needing to find their own hope and joy, and men as incompetent, unattractive and undesirable.

Cezanne in Provence

An exhibition of 117 of Cezanne's paintings is currently on display at the National Gallery of Art. Cezanne This exhibition focuses on the paintings of Cézanne in and around his native Aix-en-Provence, and the exhibit marks the centenary of the death of Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). This exhibition displays landscape paintings around Provence, and also many other paintings of Cezanne during his lifetime -- portraits, still lifes, and watercolors. The exhibit displays Cezanne's development as an artist during the years that he lived in Provence, from 1860 until the end of his life. The exhibit shows his Impressionist paintings, his palette knife paintings, and his progression as a painter leading up to the beginnings of Cubism.

I am not a fan of Cezanne. Although I do enjoy some of his early Impressionist paintings, and I find his palette knife paintings interesting, I find much of his techinque and his subject matter uninspiring. Many of his paintings seem to be unfinished, leaving parts of the canvas unexposed. His paintings focus on trees (often filling the entire canvas with trees), large rocks, and a single mountain, Mont Sainte-Victoire. His paintings are filled with greys and blues, and seem dark and gloomy and uninspired. And his technique of painting blocks of color seems childlike. As a person untrained in art, it is hard for me to understand Cezanne's place in art. His works pale by comparison with those of other Impressionists, such as Monet, Pizarro, Renoir, and Degas, whose paintings fill one with awe and inspiration. Compare, for example the richness of Degas' painting, L'absinthe with a comparable painting of Cezanne, The Card Players. I am pleased that I went to the exhibition, but I am left with wonder, rather than awe. This is the Washington Post review of the exhibition.

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts
Amazon
Shantaram
Wikipedia

As of today, January 20, 2006, the Amazon sales rank for Shantaram is #3,350. Many people have not yet discovered this book. Although this book is long and at times somewhat tedious, it is a very interesting story based on the life of the author. This book is very masculine. It is a book about men -- rough men -- and the rough life they lead in the Bombay mafia. It is a book about violence. This book reminds me of The Godfather. Gregory David Roberts is a gifted author who writes with such skill that the reader is almost mesmerized by the story and hungry to continue to read, not wanting to stop until the story is completed, and yet never wanting the story to end. Shantaram is a story of a man who makes "wrong" decisions, and suffers the consequences of those decisions. Over and over again throughout the book, I found myself anguished by his decisions, wanting to make other decisions for him, not wanting him to continue to cause himself to suffer. I wanted him to be happy, to enjoy life, to be at peace. And yet, his decisions and the consequences of those decisions result in a wonderful story. This book is one of the three best books I have read in the past five years -- along with The Da Vinci Code and A Suitable Boy. This book will not enjoy the success of The Da Vinci Code because it is too long and not fast-paced enough, but I will read this book again. It is a great story, written in a wonderful way.

Wicked

Wicked Kennedy Center

The link to the Washington Post review is on the site, and it is well worth reading.

As always, I judge shows and movies by the way they make me feel. If I pay money to be entertained, I like to feel good afterward, and this show did not let me down. I thought the show was very good -- not exceptional, but very good. It is a musical, of course, and it is really for children, but it was very good. Of course, the staging at the Kennedy Center is always overwhelming. The sets are incredible, and they add a lot to the feeling of the performance. This show was about a little girl who was different from the other little girls, so she was scorned and told she was a witch. The show is all about her trials and tribulations as she grew up different from the other little girls. Not pretty like them. But with a very loving heart, who wanted to help animals and people who needed help. The show was a contrast between her and the pretty girl who had all the friends and the wonderful boyfriend, just because she was pretty. But the ugly girl befriended the pretty girl, despite the mean things the pretty girl did, and in the end, the handsome boyfriend went with the ugly girl with the wonderful heart, rather than the pretty girl who was selfish. So it ended well. The place was filled with children, especially little girls, and they loved it. The music was good, but not memorable. Stephanie Block, who plays Elphaba, the "witch", had a wonderful voice; she was incredible. All in all, a very good performance of a children's story.

Comedy of Errors

Comedy of Errors Shakespeare Theater

Although this was Shakespeare's first play, and is considered an "apprentice's play", it is delightful and fun. From the beginning, Shakespeare had fun in his plays -- fun with words and fun with situations. He was a master entertainer, who created situations and wrote words that were playful, that made his audience feel happy. He left them laughing and wanting more. In this play as in some of his other plays, he was able to take a well-known story and enhance it, making it more complex and more entertaining than the original. As usual, the staging at the Shakespeare Theater was spartan, but more elaborate sets are not needed for Shakespeare's plays. The imagination is sufficient. Seeing this play was a wonderful experience, and left me feeling happy -- the true purpose of entertainment.

Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov

Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov (Paperback) Amazon
Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

I am told by Russian friends that Chekhov's stories are realistic descriptions of prerevolutionary Russia. If that is so, then it was truly a horrible place in every respect -- living conditions and customs and thinking of its people. I found this book devoid of value to me. Chekhov was not the great writer that Gogol was, with wonderful descriptions of places and motivations and actions of his characters. And his stories had no value to me but to describe one horrible situation after another. I had incredible difficulty forcing myself to complete this book, and I was very happy when I had finished it. I truly do not understand why Chekhov is considered a great writer.

Windmills

Windmills offshore in Copenhagen. Wind power now accounts for one-half of all public power in Denmark. The Danes have reduced their reliance on oil.
The windmills are huge, about 250 feet high.

Windmills in Amsterdam.

And now we see that windmills have been constructed in the Philippines. As oil becomes more scarce, and the price increases, greater reliance on wind to generate electric power seems inevitable.(Link)

Madame Matisse

Madame Matisse
Helen Frankenthaler, 1983
Acrylic on canvas, 60x122 1/2 inches
University Art Museum
State University of New York at Albany

Born in 1928 in New York City.

"Frankenthaler is best known for changing the direction of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s when she began pouring cans of paint directly onto unsized, unstretched canvas. Madame Matisse is an example of how acrylic paint improved Frankenthaler's technique. The water-based paint helped intensify color stains and control the halo effect that oil paint produced." (From website of SUNY Albany, Art Museum Link)

Although I do not really care for much of Frankenthaler's work, I do like this piece very much. (I judge all art work in the same way -- by the feeling it evokes in me.)

Nude Descending a Staircase, Marcel Duchamp

Nude Descending a Staircase
(No. 2)
Marcel Duchamp
American, born in France
1887-1968
1912 Oil on canvas


This painting created a sensation when it was exhibited in New York in February 1913 at the historic Armory Show of contemporary art, where perplexed Americans saw it as representing all the tricks they felt European artists were playing at their expense. The picture's outrageousness surely lay in its seemingly mechanical portrayal of a subject at once so sensual and time-honored. The Nude's destiny as a symbol also stemmed from its remarkable aggregation of avant-garde concerns: the birth of cinema; the Cubists' fracturing of form; the Futurists' depiction of movement; the chromophotography of Etienne-Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge, and Thomas Eakins; and the redefinitions of time and space by scientists and philosophers. The painting was bought directly from the Armory Show for three hundred dollars by a San Francisco dealer. Marcel Duchamp's great collector-friend Walter Arensberg was able to buy the work in 1927, eleven years after Duchamp had obligingly made him a hand-colored, actual-size photographic copy. Today both the copy and the original, together with a preparatory study, are owned by the Museum. (Description taken from the website of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Nude)

This painting was not intended to depict the Madonna, but that is the image that comes to my mind when I look at it. It is my favorite painting of all time. I have a copy hanging in my home, and I feel a sense of reverence when I look at it, as I do every day.

Othello, The National Shakespeare Theater

Hundreds of books have been written by learned scholars about Shakespeare's Othello. I will not try to write anything learned about the play, but will simply give my own impressions. As we know, the play is a tragedy about a man who is led to feel the deep pangs of jealousy and fear that his wife is having an affair with another man. Jealousy stems from insecurity, from fear of loss of someone held dear, and that particular type of insecurity can be inflamed by one so inclined. A rational person would question information given to him regarding the infidelity of his love, would check it out to ensure that it is accurate, would not jump to conclusions. But people who are jealous are not entirely rational people; they are insecure, often extremely insecure. As we know, murders of wives, former wives, and girlfriends are among the most common of all murders, and even more women suffer ongoing physical and mental abuse by jealous men. Women who make the mistake, often unknowing, of becoming involved with jealous men suffer dearly for their mistake.

As was the case with Othello, some men may not be aware of their tendency toward jealousy until they fall deeply in love. Like Othello, some men may live their lives with no feelings of insecurity and jealousy until they find a woman they simply cannot live without. They develop feelings of dependency on a particular woman; they come to believe that their happiness depends on her, and they make her their slave, a slave to serve their own happiness. They demand total allegiance, total subjugation to their desires, their whims. Constantly, they are plagued by their fear of loss. Nor can they help themselves. Their fear is a disease, completely outside their own control, and it plagues not only them, but also the object of their fear.

In Othello, Shakespeare added complexity to the basic exploration of jealousy. He added the complexity of a man of a different race, different religion, and different age from his wife. In addition, he added the complexity of Iago, a Machiavellian mind bent on the destruction of Othello. Shakespeare also created characters who were naive, simple people who could easily be manipulated by the evil Iago; indeed, the only character in the play who is not simple and naive is Iago. He manipulated everyone else in the play. Thus, to some extent, it seemed to me that the play would more appropriately have been named Iago rather than Othello.

I was pleased that I had reread the play before seeing it. It helped me to follow the dialogue and more importantly, it helped me not to be affected by the emotions of the play. I like happiness and joy; I don't like sadness. And I like plays that are happy plays, rather than plays that are sad. Rereading the play in advance helped me to react more technically to the play rather than emotionally.

As stated on the website for The Shakespeare Theater, "Shakespeare's principal source for the plot was a short story by the Italian writer Cinthio Giambattista Giraldi (1504-1574), who included it in a collection of 100 domestic stories titled Hecatommithi, published in Venice in 1566. No English translation is believed to have existed before 1753, so Shakespeare may have read it in either the original Italian or in a French translation published in 1584. A handful of lines from Shakespeare's text recall phrases from the Italian and French versions, suggesting that he may have read it in both languages."

Othello was first performed on November 1, 1604, and has been in constant production for most of the past 400 hundred years. Insecurity and the pain that it causes continues to be a human condition that people can relate to and find sympathy for. I continue to admire Shakespeare for his professionalism, his ability to write and produce plays that were commercial successes. He had great technical ability to take an idea and turn it into a successful play.

Othello, The Shakespeare Theater
http://www.shakespearedc.org/othello.html

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

To me, Gogol summarized his writing best: "But what is strangest, what is most incomprehensible of all is how authors can choose such subjects. I confess, that is utterly inconceivable, it is...no, no, I utterly fail to understand. In the first place, there is decidedly no benefit to the fatherland; in the second place...but in the second place, there is also no benefit. I simply do not know what it...." I would ask the question in a different way: How can such a brilliant writer waste his talents writing such drivel.

When I read Vikram Seth, I wondered why such a good writer would always write stories in which his central character was so stupid. When I read D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" I wondered again why such a brilliant writer would write a book with such a stupid ending. It seems that some brilliant writers have difficulty with their story lines; a brilliant author is one who combines brilliant writing with a brilliant story. Some writers are brilliant writers, but not brilliant authors because they are lacking in their ability to write good stories. To me, Gogol falls into this category. His writing is truly brilliant, but his stories are completely intellectually vacuous.

On the other hand, I am very pleased that I read this book. Reading one story was worth reading the entire book -- "The Diary of a Madman." That is one of the most moving stories I have ever read -- exceedingly sad and moving. In addition, Gogol's writing, even about inane subjects, is truly wonderful. Sometimes I found myself forgetting the story and simply marveling at the words he used and the way he wrote. He was a truly brilliant writer. I feel good about reading the book; I learned something about a renowned writer, I read one truly great story, and I was mesmerized by his writing ability. So I feel good about reading the book.

Hairspray

Last night, I went to the Kennedy Center to see "Hairspray". The show was a movie in 1988, but was produced on Broadway in 2002. If you Google John Waters, you will get about 60,000 hits, you can get a professional description of "Hairspray". It is particularly interesting to see the movie stars who were in the original movie. I will give you my strictly amateur version. John Waters grew up in Baltimore, and like most writers, he wrote about his own observations in life. In this show, he created caricatures of people he saw in real life in Baltimore in the 1950s. Television stations in many East Coast cities during the late 50s and early 60s had afternoon shows for teenagers in which teens danced to popular rock music, and this show was about the teen dance show in Baltimore, or more precisely, about the integration of the show by both unattractive teens and Blacks. Waters wrote characters who were caricatures of people. The lead in the show was a "chunky" girl who wanted to be a dancer on the show, but was not "beautiful" enough to be on TV. Her mother was an obese woman, and her dad was was a very thin man who owned a souvenier stand. Her best friend was a pretty dull girl, whose mother was even less brilliant. The pretty girl on the TV show was the daughter of the show's producer, and a spoiled brat. The tension of the show was in the struggle of the plump girl to get on the show. An added struggle was also introduced when she was sent to detention at school and there, learned new dance steps from Black kids who were also in detention. In the end, all worked out happily. The music of the show was good, upbeat, but not memorable. An added bonus in the show last night was that the normal lead in the show was not able to perform and was replaced by her understudy, who was brilliant -- Katrina Rose Dideriksen. When she came out for her bow at the end of the show, she got a standing ovation, and she cried at that. It was quite touching. A very good show. Here is the link:
http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showEvent&event=TFTSH#details

Lady Windermere's Fan, June 30, 2005

I have seen many plays; I estimate 150 at least. This play was in the top group, perhaps the top 10 of all the plays I have seen. The set alone was one of the most beautiful, most wonderful sets I have ever seen. It was incredibly grand and beautiful. The actors were dressed in formal costumes most of the play, and that added to the beauty and elegance. Dixie Carter was the lead, Mrs. Erlynne, and she was wonderful, and her husband of many years, Hal Holbrook, was in the audience. And of course, the play itself is wonderful. It is truly a wonderful play. I was in awe. They got a standing ovation, and I was among those standing. What a wonderful play. Here is the link:

http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/lwf.html

Here are some wonderful quotes from the play:

LORD DARLINGTON. Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. I take the side of the charming, and you, Lady Windermere, can't help belonging to them.

LADY WINDERMERE. Are ALL men bad?
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. Pretty child! I was like that once. Now I know that all men are monsters. [LADY WINDERMERE rings bell.] The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders, and that I know you have. My dear Margaret, you are not going to cry?
LADY WINDERMERE. You needn't be afraid, Duchess, I never cry.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. That's quite right, dear. Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.

LORD WINDERMERE. How hard good women are!
LADY WINDERMERE. How weak bad men are!

MRS ERLYNNE. I can fancy dancing through life with you and finding it charming.

LADY PLYMDALE. How very interesting! How intensely interesting! I really must have a good stare at her. [Goes to door of ball-room and looks in.] I have heard the most shocking things about her. They say she is ruining poor Windermere. And Lady Windermere, who goes in for being so proper, invites her! How extremely amusing! It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.

DUMBY. Sensible woman, Lady Windermere. Lots of wives would have objected to Mrs. Erlynne coming. But Lady Windermere has that uncommon thing called common sense.

LADY PLYMDALE. Because I want you to take my husband with you. He has been so attentive lately, that he has become a perfect nuisance. Now, this woman is just the thing for him. He'll dance attendance upon her as long as she lets him, and won't bother me. I assure you, women of that kind are most useful. They form the basis of other people's marriages.
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. [L.C.] Yes, dear, these wicked women get our husbands away from us, but they always come back, slightly damaged, of course.
DUMBY. What a mystery you are!

LORD DARLINGTON. Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. I love you –

LORD WINDERMERE. Well, that is no business of yours, is it, Cecil?
CECIL GRAHAM. None! That is why it interests me. My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's.

LORD AUGUSTUS. I prefer women with a past. They're always so demmed amusing to talk to.

CECIL GRAHAM. [Coming towards him L.C.] My dear Arthur, I never talk scandal. I only talk gossip.
LORD WINDERMERE. What is the difference between scandal and gossip?
CECIL GRAHAM. Oh! gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain. There is nothing in the whole world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. And most women know it, I'm glad to say.

CECIL GRAHAM. Now, my dear Tuppy, don't be led astray into the paths of virtue. Reformed, you would be perfectly tedious. That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.

DUMBY. I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy! But I am interested to hear she does not love you. How long could you love a woman who didn't love you, Cecil?

CECIL GRAHAM. What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]
LORD DARLINGTON. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
CECIL GRAHAM. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.

DUMBY. Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
CECIL GRAHAM. [Standing with his back to the fireplace.] One shouldn't commit any. [Sees LADY WINDERMERE'S fan on sofa.]
DUMBY. Life would be very dull without them.

LADY WINDERMERE. [Rising.] She is sure to tell him. I can fancy a person doing a wonderful act of self-sacrifice, doing it spontaneously, recklessly, nobly--and afterwards finding out that it costs too much. Why should she hesitate between her ruin and mine? . . How strange! I would have publicly disgraced her in my own house. She accepts public disgrace in the house of another to save me. . . . There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women. . . . Oh, what a lesson! and what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn't tell, I must. Oh! the shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . . Oh!

LADY WINDERMERE. [Rising.] There is a bitter irony in things, a bitter irony in the way we talk of good and bad women. . . . Oh, what a lesson! and what a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us! For even if she doesn't tell, I must. Oh! the shame of it, the shame of it. To tell it is to live through it all again. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . . Oh!

LADY WINDERMERE. Arthur, Arthur, don't talk so bitterly about any woman. I don't think now that people can be divided into the good and the bad as though they were two separate races or creations. What are called good women may have terrible things in them, mad moods of recklessness, assertion, jealousy, sin. Bad women, as they are termed, may have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. And I don't think Mrs. Erlynne a bad woman--I know she's not.
LORD WINDERMERE. [Smiling as he strokes her hair.] Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered.
LADY WINDERMERE. Don't say that, Arthur. There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Rising.] I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don't do such things--not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No--what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake--I discovered that last night.
LORD WINDERMERE. A fatal mistake.
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Smiling.] Almost fatal.
LORD WINDERMERE. I am sorry now I did not tell my wife the whole thing at once.
MRS. ERLYNNE. I regret my bad actions. You regret your good ones- -that is the difference between us.

MRS. ERLYNNE. Yes. [Pause.] You are devoted to your mother's memory, Lady Windermere, your husband tells me.
LADY WINDERMERE. We all have ideals in life. At least we all should have. Mine is my mother.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they're better.
LADY WINDERMERE. [Shaking her head.] If I lost my ideals, I should lose everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Everything?
LADY WINDERMERE. Yes. [Pause.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Did your father often speak to you of your mother?
LADY WINDERMERE. No, it gave him too much pain. He told me how my mother had died a few months after I was born. His eyes filled with tears as he spoke. Then he begged me never to mention her name to him again. It made him suffer even to hear it. My father- -my father really died of a broken heart. His was the most ruined life I know.
MRS. ERLYNNE. [Rising.] I am afraid I must go now, Lady Windermere.
LADY WINDERMERE. [To MRS. ERLYNNE.] Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night? [Goes towards her.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. Hush--don't speak of it.
LADY WINDERMERE. I must speak of it. I can't let you think that I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty.
MRS. ERLYNNE. It is not your duty--at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something?
LADY WINDERMERE. I owe you everything.
MRS. ERLYNNE. Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don't spoil the one good thing I have done in my life by telling it to any one. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband's life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh! how easily love is killed. Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Humbly.] Nothing. I know it--but I tell you that your husband loves you--that you may never meet with such love again in your whole life--that such love you will never meet--and that if you throw it away, the day may come when you will starve for love and it will not be given to you, beg for love and it will be denied you--Oh! Arthur loves you!

Hecuba, May 29, 2005

Saturday night, I attended the play "Hecuba" at the Kennedy Center. This play is a Greek tragedy written by Euripides in 425 BC. As advertised, the play was very tragic and very sad. It was extremely well done, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, but in the end, it was still a tragedy that left everyone feeling pretty horrible. Because I have season tickets, I sit near the same group of people most of the time. ALL of the women were of one mind about this play -- they did not like it. The play is about a woman whose last two remaining children were killed, and then in an act of revenge, she killed two young boys of the man who killed her last son. Everyone lost in this play. However, the play was a morality play -- about the morality of the time. It was a play whose message was that killing was hurtful, although killing for revenge was not only acceptable, but honored. It seems to me that society still believes that revenge killing is a good thing, so I am not sure how far we have come in the past 2500 years. In those days, when armies conquered a people, they killed all of the men and many of the children as well. The women were made slaves. Euripides tried to show that making the women slaves, and killing their children were wrong, and created great emotional pain and suffering. However, he still believed that slavery was okay, in general, and that if a woman's children were killed, revenge killing was right and honorable. Even now, the play was very thought provoking. I was not affected by the tragedy; I had read the play before going, and I knew what to expect. I found the morality of the play to be very interesting. It is also interesting that Euripides was permitted to stage such a play at that time.

Toulouse-Lautrec, April 18, 2005

Today I visited an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art -- "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre". It was a wonderful exhibit. Toulouse-Lautrec posters are happy posters; their purpose was advertising. Their intent was to convey happiness and joy, and they were incredibly successful. It is too bad that Toulouse-Lautrec died at the age of 36; he could have done so much more if he had lived to be an old man, as Picasso did. Here is the link to the exhibition: Toulouse Lautrec
If you love Paris, and love the Montmartre area of Paris, you will love this happy exhibit.

Mr. Roberts, April 3, 2002

Last night, I saw the play "Mr. Roberts" at the Kennedy Center. This play was on Broadway in 1948, and it is about men on a cargo ship in the Pacific Ocean during the second world war. I think the play is supposed to be a comedy, although it really was not funny to me. As a comedy, the play is supposed to be shallow, a light-hearted look at the war. To me, it is a characterization of what we think of when we think of sailors during the war -- a bunch of very aggressive young men, who complain constantly on the ship, and get drunk and fight and complain and fight some more. Although they talk constantly about women, they have no contact with women except a prostitute once in awhile. Mostly they drink and fight. Not a very attractive play.