Review: Claude Simon's The Flanders Road

© 1960; trans. Richard Howard © 1961, 1985

 

The central incident of The Flanders Road is that of four horseman retreating from the rout of the first days of the German invasion of France in WWII: the captain of the unit, his lieutenant, his lackey, and a forth cavalryman, the last the central voice of the book. They are all that remains of their unit, who were decimated in the first moments of battle, as would be expected when horsemen are sent forward against Panzers. Indeed, that absurdity is brought forward again and again, as with this passage:

Apparently they use those tanks as. . . then he was too far away I had forgotten that such things are merely called a 'business' the way you say 'that business' when you mean 'fighting a duel' a delicate euphemism a more discreet more elegant formula well so much the better not all was lost since we were still among well-bred people say don't say, example don't say 'the squadron has been massacred in an ambush', but 'we had a bad business outside the village of [. . .] (101)

But the incident is not merely the four of them trotting down Flanders Road, both them and their horses completely exhausted, most likely already behind the German advance if not, because of the age of their orders of retreat, on their way right to German forces, yet trotting nonetheless, the captain and his lieutenant talking about what the other two cannot hear, the captain leading the way, just trotting, head on into the sights of a german sniper, who kills the commander.

But then that is by extension the central incident of the squadron, riding head on, lead by a captain with sabre drawn, into the sights of advancing German armor. And yet again, it is the central incident of the "well-bred" French who "had a bad business" along the whole of the Eastern front. And there are plenty of moments in The Flanders Road that makes that extension clear.

Review: Neil Gaiman's American Gods

I will be honest. I want so very much to like Neil Gaiman's books. I do. Perhaps that is because I so enjoy the movies: Stardust, Coraline. (O.K., the tv show American Gods mostly bores me.) But, so far it just has not come to be to any great degree. The first one I read was Neverwhere, which I enjoyed enough but did not think much of. It was rather for me just this string of events happening one after the other, with only minimal connection between them (outside of what holds them onto that string). And, to be honest, if I am going to spend time entertaining myself with that kind of thing I would rather watch a shoot-em-up movie because it only takes two hours. But, I guess it was enjoyable enough. It did not wow me, but I did finish it. (And I will not finish something I am not enjoying.)

Now, I was teaching at the time and my class kind of agreed with me: Neverwhere was enjoyable enough, but nothing special. What I really needed to read, though, they all agreed, was American Gods. Which I finally got to, a few months ago. Between those two I have looked between the covers of others of his books. I eavesdropped on a conversation that said good things about The Graveyard Book, but when I looked for myself — and I read more than a few pages — I was not wowed enough to buy it. (Indeed, if I remember correctly, the writing put me off. Maybe I misremember, though.) And, perhaps, if I found cheap copies in the used (budget, you know) I might pick that up yet, or Coraline, or Stardust. Like I said, I do want to like Neil Gaiman.

Three Short Reviews: Mistborn, The Fifth Season, Dune

I have wanted to get back into reading fantasy and science fiction, and have been making slight effort to for a while. But now a little more effort to looking at contemporary fantasy. To be honest, most of it I look at in the stores and pass on. But I do give one here and there a chance. And then there is the going back to read the classics.

 

Mistborn. Brandon Sanderson (2006)

 

I bought a trade copy of this through the mail for two bits because it seemed well known and Sanderson seems everywhere.

I made it to page 70 and stopped with no desire to go forward. It was about as genre fantasy as genre fantasy can get. Which means it was not literary as not literary can get. And I rather found the premise daft, its execution unoriginal, and the writing mediocre at best.

Glass-bottomed Bridges

For this is usually how religions die. It happens when the mythical presuppositions of a religion become systematized as a finished sum of historical events under the severe, intellectual gaze of orthodox dogmatism, and people begin to defend anxiously the credibility of the myths while resisting every natural tendency within them to go on living and to throw out new shoots -- in other words, when the feeling for myth dies and is replaced by the claim of religion to have historical foundations.

Nietzsche. The Birth of Tragedy. (Trans. Ronald Speirs)

 

An essay in brief, a mere outline of thoughts I've been carrying about in my pocket the last year plus.

Let's see if this works:

On December 23 a year ago China broke its own record for the longest glass-bottomed bridge. A casual stroll around the web gives the idea that China has become somewhat obsessed with building glass-bottomed bridges, walkways, and observation posts. Which is a curious thing, to me. This particular bridge crosses the Hongyagu Scenic Area in Pingshan county, is 1,600 feet long (that's shy a third of a mile, people) and is suspended 700 feet above the ground, which is a long way down. It is, says the article I link to below, designed to swing as people cross it, I am sure for engineering purposes. That in itself would be enough to keep me off it, glass-bottomed or not.

But it is glass-bottomed. And if you watch any of the videos on the web of these places you see that stepping on such a surface, over such a height, is not an easy thing. For some people a nearly impossible thing. And no wonder: humans are born with only two innate fears: loud noises and heights. We are hardwired to be afraid of heights. We are hardwired not to step on glass-bottomed bridges. To do so of your own free will requires an act of overcoming.

This seems to me a demonstration of the idea of faith. A person who fights through the fear and anxiety of walking across a glass-bottomed bridge is demonstrating faith: faith in the engineers who designed it, in the construction workers who built it, or in the park rangers (or whatever the attendants are called) who have themselves overcome the fear and assure everyone in their own act of walking, jumping, skipping upon the bridge that it is quite safe. A visitor steps on and walks across the bridge having faith in its safety despite their own minds screaming to them that it is absolutely not so. Indeed, the faith exists only because their minds are speaking so.

Because when you have achieved the point reached by those park rangers, where there is no fear whatsoever, there is no longer faith. To put it technically, the safety of the bridge has become for them a fact. And a person cannot have faith in something that it has been accepted as a fact. One does not have faith that two plus two equals four. One does not have faith that the distance to the moon at perigee is about 221,500 miles. One does not have faith that the sky is blue or that the sun will rise tomorrow. Those are things the mind accepts as facts, and facts neither require faith nor generate it.

Let me pull four points out of this, the first three of which are already present in the above.

First: I'll repeat myself, there is no such things as faith in facts. When walking upon a glass-bottomed bridge is no different than walking upon terra firma, then there is in the act no faith whatsoever. This can be said another way: facts, and acting upon facts, is spiritually a null event. Facts have zero faith value, zero spiritual value. When something becomes a fact, it no longer involves faith. Which is an interesting – and potentially profound – thought when you come to ideas of religious dogma.

Second: That faith exists for those walkers on glass-bottomed bridges overcoming their fear, opens up the curious recognition that faith only exists when there also exists its opposite: doubt. Faith is the overcoming of doubt. Without the latter, there cannot be the former. This to me is a big thing that I am saying very quickly. But we do see in it how, again, facts evince no faith.

Third: And again we also see something else inherent to faith: the overcoming. Faith requires action. A person does not demonstrate faith in a glass-bottomed bridge by waving to people on it from secure ground. You have to go out and walk on it yourself.

Finally, something that needs to be said just to be sure no false ideas arise: Faith is not in itself a 'good' thing. That is, just because a person has faith in something, does not mean either the faith itself or that something in which the faith is placed is spiritually positive. One might have 'faith' that the story of Noah's ark actually occurred despite the doubt created by the, shall we say, overwhelming obviousness that it did not. But that does not make you or your faith a spiritual positive. Though, to be honest, I am hesitant to call it spiritually negative. Perhaps, at times, it is merely spiritually immature. But, then, to the other side, if you accept Noah's ark as a fact, there is no faith to be found, is there? Ferventness in such a belief would really only be zealotry, which is never a good thing. (Which also raises interesting questions as concerns religious dogma.)