The Vulgar Eclectic
Vulgar: of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind
definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster
Eclectic: composed of elements drawn from various sources
recent blog posts
- Dreamers (Sværmere) by Knut Hamsun
I just finished reading Dreamers (Sværmere; 1904) by Knut Hamsun, translated by W. W. Worster. In this short work, Hamsun tells the story of a handful of characters living in a small fishing village. With spare description he constructs a bright, crisp world that, despite the novel’s brevity, feels somehow real.
I enjoyed the prose and setting and, even though the reader isn’t really allowed inside the characters’ heads, they felt like distinct entities with particular idiosyncrasies. I found myself feeling unsure of what to think of the main character by the end. The author’s touch felt light and fleeting but tinged with something sympathetic for the characters and their lives.
But some go dreaming all their lives; go fluttering mothwise all their lives, and never can make an end.
- Mithridates by Jean Racine
I just finished reading the play Mithridates (1673) by Jean Racine. This tragedy is set near the end of the Third Mithridatic War, a ten year conflict between the forces of Mithridates VI of Pontus and the Roman Republic.
The story involves star-crossed lovers and a web of love and deceit, betrayal and loyalty. At first, my attention was waning but soon the writing drew me in and, by the end, I loved the play. The second half was especially compelling and I found the writing to be increasingly powerful as the play progressed; likewise, the characters’ personalities became more defined as their choices and actions culminated in certain consequences.
“Henceforth be all my mind bent upon vengeance.”
marble bust of Mithridates VI as Heracles; Roman imperial period (1st century); Louvre Museum - Foxglove
- Youth by Leo Tolstoy
Book jot from January 2022:
I just finished reading Youth by Leo Tolstoy (1857), translated by Judson Rosengrant. This is the third and final part of a series of autobiographical novels Tolstoy published early in his writing life.
In Youth, the narrator enters university life and becomes “grown up”. As he enters this phase of life, the concept of “comme il faut” (proper and respectable) becomes a guiding principle in his changing world. He uses it both to judge and sort those he encounters, as well as an end for which to strive. As he comes into contact with an increasing number of people outside his social circle and changes happen within his family, he begins to doubt the wisdom of using this as a governing precept.
The narrator is extremely self-conscious and it is easy to see oneself in his moments of petty vanity and anxieties. Even though it was written more than 150 years ago, I was often reminded of scenes and thoughts from my own youth. Combined with the other two novels, Tolstoy has rendered a vivid depiction of the early life of a single individual in a specific time and place that manages to transcend those particularities.
“And although I was alone, it would still seem to me that the mystery and majesty of nature, and the bright, alluring circle of the moon, stopped for some reason at a single high, indefinite point in the pale-blue sky, yet shining everywhere as if filling the immensity of space with itself, and I an insignificant worm soiled by every petty, wretched human passion, yet with all the immense, mighty power of imagination and love – it would still seem to me in those moments that nature and the moon and I were one and the same.”
- Mural
