St. “I-Was-A-Jerk-And-I-Really-Need-To-Vent” Augustine

Hi, all. For a minute I just considered writing “ditto” to Ben’s posting, but then I realized that I should probably go a bit further. I read the first five books of Confessions a couple of weeks ago, and since then—to be honest—I’ve kind of been skipping around. A lot of the book was really interesting, but at a certain point I couldn’t quite listen to him go on about being a wretch in his youth anymore.

So, at the risk of directly echoing Ben, I will say that I was also surprised by how readable most of this was. (Note: I also got a version with “you,” as opposed to “thou” and I can only imagine it has saved me some time and frustration.) I also second (as pre-reading advice, for anyone who’s looking) the “sit down for about an hour” rule with this. It’s too big for much less time than that—and I, for one, couldn’t handle distraction at all as I was working my way through it (as evidenced by the 15 pages I had to reread after attempting the first time in a busy café).

One of the things I find interesting, and difficult, in talking about St. Augustine is that it’s really hard to talk about the writing when the ideas and concepts are both so old and so enormous. Do I really want to point out his use of metaphor when we’re discussing stuff that’s so much bigger than writing? I don’t know. Maybe.

Okay, I do. In book three, this one passage really struck me:

“…although they have been reckoned sinners by men who are not qualified to judge, for they try them by human standards and assess all the rights and wrongs of the human race by the measure of their own customs. Anyone who does this behaves like a man who knows nothing about armour and cannot tell which piece is meant for which part of the body, so that he tries to cover his head with a shin-piece and fix a helmet to his foot, and then complains because they will not fit.”

This is just awesome. I read it a few times just to sort of see how he arrived at the metaphor and just wanted to point it out here as something very textually based before I wander off into the content and the writer himself.

I was more taken with the content, the stories, than anything. The Destroyers—awesome. I also got really pulled into some of the anecdotes that gave some insight (that I wish I had) about what life was really like then—how marriage worked, or engagement, or parent-child relationships, or academica. It’s so valuable in that way. Also, the little contextual oddities threw me and made me laugh, like the story he tells about being in a bath house with his father when “he saw the signs of active virility coming to life in me and this was enough to make him relish the thought of having grandchildren”—and then the father runs off to tell the mother. That’s odd and creepy and funny. Or when he, I think, confesses to having had sex inside the church—these long, drawn out explanations get so interesting in one facet, and yet I really do find myself wondering why he’s giving them away. Maybe it is just his position, but then why so much of it, still? I’ve done some outside reading and covered the introduction, but I still found myself stopping every once in a while to think, “Okay, but why is he telling us this?”

What it really came down to for me was that—despite the fact that it’s called Confessions—I got really sick of feeling like I was the bored priest in a really small town, sitting on the other side of the curtain at 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday, waiting for all of the townsfolk to tell me that they had lustful thoughts or stole milk money. I’m concerned that I got so sick of him, to put it bluntly. I wouldn’t say this in a classroom, but I have to make a confession of my own: I started making notes in the margins that said things like, “Enough already!” Yeah.

On a last note, I’m considering putting the following Confessions quote on the syllabus for the classes I’m teaching in the fall:

“For I understood not a single word and I was constantly subjected to violent threats and cruel punishment to make me learn.”

A mission statement, of sorts.

Oh, also, I just wanted to mention something I’ve been reading that I have enjoyed, The New Kings of Nonfiction. It’s edited by Ira Glass and has some great stories from all kinds of different publications from the past few years. If anyone would like to borrow it when I get back, just say the word. Hope you’re all doing well!

J.

P.S. I recognize that this post is a little disjointed, so please let me know if sections (all of it) are confusing. I’m on a very odd sleeping schedule down here and I think it’s throwing off my clear thinking, but wanted to get all of this out while I was reading and thinking so much about it. 

The Confessions of St. Benjamin

So, I haven't yet finished the whole thing, but I thought I'd post on the first few books - I've gotten through the first 4. In other words, I'm moving slowly, but, since no one but Jessica seems to be posting, I think I've got plenty of time to catch up.

Overall Impressions:

I don't know about you guys, but I expected Confessions to be pretty difficult reading - I guess because the author was writing about 1600 years ago. This actually hasn't been the case (though it's not exactly easy either - just easier than I expected). As a word of warning, I think the translation you have matters quite a bit on this. Augustine was well-known as a Latin rhetorician (something he wasn't so happy about, as you'll find) and his language skills don't always translate easily, or at least people have different ideas about how they do. There is a classic edition that was done sometime in the 40s that has been the model ever since - don't read this one. I started on it, and it was all Thee's and Thou's. With all the biblical allusions, it already feels somewhat like it was pulled straight out of the King James Bible - the older style translation doesn't help. So I picked up the Everyman's Library translation by Philip Burton at the library done in 2001, and I like it much better.

Also, though it is really a kind of attack on other Augustine scholars, I would read the introduction. It helps to have some context for Augustine's life and times - especially what he was dealing with when he wrote it. I tend to side with the introducer in saying that Augustine was likely writing with a specific purpose - to counter some attacks that he wasn't Christian enough. He was serving as the Bishop of Hippo at the time, and there were all kinds of schisms and controversies flying around that I can't even begin to understand. But it does seem that there was some opposition to him being Bishop, and people were attacking his faith. Things don't really change - even the Apostle Paul had to deal with splits in the Church. We Christians are good at flinging shit around.

So, beyond actual heartfelt belief, I think that some of his denunciations of his previous literary life have as much to do with his tenuous position as Bishop as they do with his conviction that it was sinful (more on that as I go).

Other general impressions: I expected the book to be hard, not only in terms of language, but in terms of religious philosophy, but, again, it both is hard and not nearly as hard as I expected. You may see it differently, of course (and some of this will only make sense once you've read it). He spends a lot of time attacking his younger self for a variety of reasons, some that at first glance may seem trivial. For example: he condemns his boyhood love of Latin verse and drama, even though they sparked his imagination. He describes them as "vain" pursuits - basically a waste of his time and effort when he should have been focusing on God. But I wonder how much he really believes this - he talks about them so much, and often in such glowing terms that I think he doesn't really regret that time at all, and only feels like he should. As the chapters unfold, he even puts these pursuits higher than his time spent with the Manichean cult (worth looking up for context) and their illusionary beliefs, crediting them with pointing him in the direction of God. His true criticism (I think) is one that I, as a christian, find very compelling - that good things like stories, or beauty, or even sex are good in so much as they are of God as all good things are. But if they are enjoyed without acknowledging them as a part of God and as gifts from God they ultimately come to nothing, and can even be harmful.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I have found Augustine not to be so hard as actually pretty wise.

It is hard to take so much wisdom at once though - and it is a book that requires a certain time commitment. On the one hand, it really needs longer reading stretches - say an hour minimum at a time. It's hard to pick much up from it, or even to pick it up again, with only 20 minutes here and there. On the other though, you can't read too much of it at once, because it really needs some digestion. It's the kind of book that while you are reading ideas will just suddenly jump into your mind and you'll think "Yes! that makes sense!" - sometimes even about things Augustine wasn't addressing at all. It's worth reading just for this, I think. I've only reliably found that kind of effect when reading Dostoevsky - really only with books that take a little effort to read.

Some notes:

Some of the book is hilarious, though I'm sure he didn't intend it to be so. There's a part where he runs around with a gang of fellow Rhetorician students who call themselves The Destroyers. Really. And they go around harassing people and stealing stuff, just like any gang of 16 year olds. He doesn't participate in everything they do, but just because he's too shy. It's very...modern. In fact, I find myself able to relate quite a bit, despite the 1600 years separating us. His growing up is remarkably similar to anyone who grows up in an educated environment.

Speaking of his fellow Rhetoricians - he spends a lot of these early chapters talking about Grammarians. It really was an interesting period of history, where speaking well could bring a great deal of success. He makes an excellent distinction in criticising himself and his fellow grammarians at the time - that they were in it only for their ambitions. It didn't matter what they said, so long as they said it well. They could happily expound on their own adulteries so long as they did it skillfully. Again, much of his criticism seems to be about the importance of motive - good things or bad, it matters why you are doing them.

Another point I like - he tackles the Manichees for dismissing the Patriarchs (the Jewish Fathers - Abraham, Moses, etc.) because they did things that in his time would be considered sinful (like having multiple wives). He points out that there are cultural laws and taboos that should be obeyed but that don't speak to one's basic righteousness. Times change, but God is bigger than time. We are called to treat one another justly, and with love - how that is done might be different depending on time and place. Human laws should be followed until they conflict with God's law, and then they should be resisted at all costs. Petty issues of theology, or matters of taste (religious calls to stop drinking, or eat a certain kind of food, or secular laws for public good, etc) matter only in so much as their relation to other human beings. He would argue, I think, that it didn't matter so much that the Patriarch's were permitted multiple wives at the time - though it would matter now - but how they interacted with their wives. He is articulating what I see as one of the main ideas that sets Christianity apart from many (but certainly not all) religions - the idea that there is more to following God than following any set of rules. There is some higher purpose and calling that may change with time and place that has to do with our relationship to one another.

Anyway, didn't meant to preach, I just like that point he was making. And it's one of the things that makes me feel that his theology isn't as hard as many seem to think - even if he is very hard on himself for actions that don't seem all that bad. He's examining why he did them, and that makes a difference.

And that's about all I've got at the moment. More later, as soon as I read a little more.

Hope all is well with your lives - literary and otherwise.

Indian Jugglers and Commentary on the Act of Writing: On Table-Talk

Maybe I’m not going to wholly embrace anything we’re reading this summer. I felt very similar about the Hazlitt as I did about Montaigne: Some of it was really engaging and great, and some of it I only felt myself slogging through because I felt like I had to. (All that writing to examine “whether actors ought to sit in the boxes”? Really??) I got some value out of the readings for sure, but I think I found myself just so much more into certain essays than others.

Jugglers

Essay IX: The Indian Jugglers was one of the essays I really dug. From the introduction (which I’ll discuss below) through the whole essay, it’s both entertaining and insightful. I also really liked the description he uses in this essay. Sentences like, “When I saw the Indian Juggler do the same things before, his feet were bare, and he had large rings on the toes, which kept turning round the time of the performance, as if they moved of themselves,” are simply lovely and vivid.

This particular essay also included some of my favorite lines from the whole book. I really liked, “Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter.”  (In another essay, I particularly liked “To succeed, a man should aim only at success”—apparently I’m okay with triteness if it’s 200 years old?)

Something else I noticed in this essay that was particularly well done were the outside examples he used: “A mathematician who solves a profound problem, a poet who creates an image of beauty in the mind that was not there before, imparts knowledge and power to others . . .” In my own writing, I always find myself hesitating to pull in metaphors/similes and it’s great to read them interspersed so seamlessly.

Introducing . . .

Another thing I really took note of in Hazlitt’s work was his introductions—so well done most of the time. A few choice intros:

·      From the Indian Jugglers: “Coming forward and seating himself on the ground in his white dress and tightened turban, the chief of the Indian Jugglers begins with tossing up two brass balls, which is what any of us could do, and concludes with keeping up four at the same time, which is what none of us could do to save our lives, nor if we were to take our whole lives to do it in.” Just great stuff—great imagery, great connection to the reader, etc.

·      From On Living to One’s-Self: Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow… I never was in a better place or humour than I am at present for writing on this subject. I have a partridge getting ready for my supper, my fire is blazing on the hearth, the air is mild for the season of the year, I have had but a slight fit of indigestion to-day (the only thing that makes me abhor myself)…”
This is a really personal lead-in regarding his immediate life. This almost reads like a blog or a Facebook status. William Hazlitt only had minor digestion issues today.

·      From On Will-Making: “Few things show the human character in a more ridiculous light than the circumstance of will-making. It is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition, and we take care to make a good use of it. We husband it with jealousy, put it off as long as we can, and then use every precaution that the world shall be no gainer by our deaths. This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite . . . I have heard of an instance of one person who, having a feeling of this kind on his mind, and being teased into making his will by those about him, actually fell ill with pure apprehension, and thought he was going to die in good earnest…” This whole thing sounds as though it could have been written, verbatim, in current times. He starts out by relating the topic at hand directly to the reader, and then moves into an example, in order to ease us into deeper discussion. Really well done.

·      From On Going A Journey: “One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself.” This was just very catchy to me, and a great start.

·      “Corporate bodies have no soul.” !! (From On Corporate Bodies)

·      Hazlitt also used quotes to open a few essays, and this is really interesting to me. I’ve considered doing it myself but it kind of seems like a cop out. Thoughts? Do any of you ever do this? I feel like I love it when I read it elsewhere, but can’t get it to seem un-cheesy in my own work.

·      One last really great intro, from Why Distant Objects Please: “Distant objects please, because, in the first place, they imply an idea of space and magnitude, and because, not being obtruded too close upon the eye, we clothe them with the indistinct and airy colours of fancy. In looking at the misty mountain-tops that bound the horizon, the mind is as it were conscious of al the conceivable objects and interests that lie between; we imagine all sorts of adventures in the interim . . . “

I feel like I could really do with reading more and more essays with catchy/interesting introductions—it’s something I really struggle with—so these were particularly cool and helpful for me.

Style

Some notes on style, in terms of to using his writing as a model:

·      When I started really looking at Hazlitt’s style I found an odd discrepancy: He’s super readable on the sentence level (more so that I find in many writers), but not at all on the paragraph level. They just go on and on. Oddly, though, I didn’t notice until a few essays in that the paragraphs were so long. I knew I was finding myself getting a bit bored, but it wasn’t until I really started flipping around, looking at paragraph length, that I noticed how outrageously long some are (a few pages long in sections). I find it odd and interesting that he is so succinct and clear in almost every single sentence, and yet together the sentences often seem (to me) a bit unclear.

·      I liked how personal Hazlitt was able to make most of his essays, despite their “impersonal” topics in many cases. In the essay on Milton’s sonnets, he even notes this emphasis in others, stating that the elements of the personal are, “Compared with Paradise Lost, they are like tender flowers that adorn the base of some proud column or stately temple."

Hazlitt really uses some line breaks like poetry in places, but certainly not everywhere—really interesting. Did anyone else notice this in On Going A Journey? I actually liked almost everything about this one. He still seemed to veer off here and there, but I was able—and very willing—to follow him. He speaks very honestly about himself, and it’s funny as well: “Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them against objections…”

·      I won’t go into more quoting and such, but I do want to recommend the essay On Familiar Style if any of you are picking and choosing what to read from Hazlitt. It was an essay on writing, essentially, and talks at least a little bit about his casual style—how it requires more precision, etc. He also compares himself to his contemporaries and defends himself, generically, to some of his critics. Really interesting piece about writing as an art.

Other Notes

Finally, just out of curiosity, was the physical book you all bought really strange? Mine has no title page, and has this almost cartoonish cover font, and is very old-school in terms of typesetting (two spaces after periods, etc.). What kind of book doesn’t have a title page? And, it was outrageously expensive!

Anyway, onward and upward. I got the two (physically) heavy books out of the way and I’m leaving for South America tomorrow, so it will likely be a while before I post again—but I’m thrilled not have to carry these two with me!

Hope all is well.

Jessica