Diary

I have been preoccupied for a few days with a visitor and therefore have not spent much time thinking about this blog. I have also been casually reading two books. One, I decided, wasn't worth the time, and the other, though of some interest to me, is on an obscure topic that would not interest many readers, so I'm setting it aside for now. I did, however, also receive a new book by Giorgio Vallortigara, which looks very promising, and I will be starting on it soon.

We had a few dry, sunny autumnal days, and the leaves are past their peak colors. They are now falling rapidly, with wind and rain at the moment. It is relatively warm for this time of year, and it may not cool off significantly for several weeks. I still have a few edible tomatoes left.

There remains the background noise of the Trump administration and Washington politics, which, as I've said, I try not to dwell on. While I'm reluctant to make an explicit prediction about Trump's demise, it does currently seem to be proceeding at an accelerating pace. His popularity is continuing to decline. He hasn't created new jobs and the economy is somewhat stagnant. The Republican-controlled Congress also isn't producing results which will encourage ordinary workers. Generally, healthcare costs will rise and government services will be reduced. Trump's tariff plan still seems like a fiasco and is unlikely to produce desirable results. His skill in international diplomacy is pretty much nonexistent. Under conditions like this, he tends distract from his incompetence with actions that violate the Constitution in new ways. I think that he may have imagined that by this point in his current term he would have charged up the economy so that he would win votes, but that isn't happening. As of now, he may be more inclined to contemplate an actual takeover of the U.S. government with the military. However, since such an action would be considered unacceptable by the Supreme Court, Congress and nearly all voters, it would be far more challenging than anything that he has attempted so far. While he has been able to control the U.S. military up to now, his actions could precipitate a rebellion within the military, and, in the end, he might be found guilty of treason. I don't think that he has the intellectual resources to extract himself from this mess of his own making, and the Republicans and the billionaires aren't really his friends and will dump him at some point. Furthermore, the "No Kings" movement has a lot of momentum currently and is unlikely to dissipate.

The other aspect of this, that I've mentioned before, is investing. The uncertainty of the effects of Trump's tariff plan has been evaporating. But there is still uncertainty over the AI industry and the meme investing that has been revived recently. Under these conditions, I now have a fairly normal portfolio. I had large portions in money markets and gold for a while, but I have recently returned to stocks.

Diary

We are about at peak fall colors now. Some leaves have fallen, but there is still a long way to go. Technically we are still in a drought, but it has been raining, and there is more rain in the forecast. I've put away the lawn tractor for the winter and the snow blower is ready for action. It probably won't snow for a few weeks. There is a gigantic harvest of acorns this year, probably because of the wet spring. With the dry summer, the bears may not have found enough berries, and they were in the yard during the day eating acorns. I also saw a bear on one of my hikes. Fortunately, black bears are not normally dangerous to humans. Currently there are no longer any mice hanging around outside the house at night, since this is no longer their domicile, but there may be a mouse population explosion next year because of all the acorns. The squirrels are also having a feast. I've done a little stargazing, with Saturn and Jupiter visible now. I can see the Orion Nebula lying in bed, but I haven't felt like getting up at 3:00 A.M. to look at it through the telescope. I plan to wait until it rises earlier, and after that I'll put away the telescope for the winter.

I've been reading a couple of different books. One I didn't like much, and I've given up on it. Another is somewhat interesting to me, but it's on an obscure subject that wouldn't interest most others, so I'm not going to write about it. The popularity of this blog is of some concern to me because it keeps growing. Originally, I thought that I might have a few regulars and have some low-key discussions. Since the pandemic there has been a steady rise in pageviews, and I'm currently up to about forty thousand pageviews per month, according to the data provided. Strangely, in the last month the blog has been more popular in China than in the U.S. And almost as many pageviews came from Singapore as the U.S. I had been sort of avoiding catchy titles for my posts, but I slipped up with "Brain Death by Technological Innovation," and it became one of my most popular posts almost immediately. That may be because it seems to be a popular topic now, and I've seen other articles on it since then.

As usual, I have been trying to limit my exposure to the Trump phenomenon. One of my favorite news sources is currently The Contrarian, and although they tend to focus on legal issues, it is one of the best places to find straightforward assessments of the pitfalls of the Trump administration. I still usually watch part of PBS NewsHour, where I find the news coverage uneven. The new blonde on the staff, Liz Landers, isn't too bad actually. It is probably a tactical advantage to have a blonde female cover the White House. Laura Barrón-López was probably discriminated against at the White House. Some of the NewsHour staff probably also got on her nerves because of their inappropriate neutrality on Trump. Fortunately, many news outlets now aren't afraid to report accurately on Donald Trump: he is a stupid, egocentric, unprincipled liar. He doesn't do anything systematically, and at best he may produce a random assortment of bad outcomes and good outcomes. In the long term, I don't see how he could benefit the Republican Party. He isn't going to make America great, and others will probably have to clean up after him – perhaps for decades. Trump may appeal to Nazi types, but the probable percentage of the population that would convert to Naziism now in the U.S. is tiny compared to Germany in the 1930's. Furthermore, much of Trump's appeal is based on promises that he will probably be unable to keep. He will be known for creating chaos rather than leading a disciplined movement.

I was glad that I came across the poet Jemma Borg. I like poems that describe human lives in the context of the natural world, without the usual filters imposed by transient styles or cultural norms. It is probably relevant that Borg studied zoology and evolutionary genetics. I think that science writers can make good poets. In other news, I was glad to see that László Krasznahorkai was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. I have found him talented and original, and I like the fact that his motivation isn't entirely pecuniary. In his case, his sales may go up a little, but he won't be the next Stephen King.

Before & after the night

 after Antonella Anedda

I

At last, what must be done falls away

undone          Darkness grows like headaches grow

from a hard seed & gathers as pain gathers

                                           the body in, the last note

of sunset paled behind the hill's shoulder

           Night muffles the windows of the house

& the fleet-beacons of cars blare in the dark

           then a quiet that had spread as shadows

from the trees' roots becomes whole

with the lights unfastening                        

                                               Sleep, eyes - let the heart speak -

& a cold air cracks & the bare, brown earth

listens, remembering ice

           The truce of an owl sounds in the wet-winged oak

II

Time stretches, filling the unburied dawn

with windows & cars & leaves - relinquishing

the silence, as songs do

                        when they sing the unsolvable pain

We have slept, contagiously, then rouse

to the road's slick roar, to clocks shaking out

          their numbers like an arcane dew

                                             What no longer mattered -

which was the night's comfort - picks up again

its substance like a ghost

& cleans its aching teeth

                      We enter our empty clothes: here

           comes a hand through a sleeve

like a worm        out of earth        into the blackbird's beak

—Jemma Borg

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson VI

I've finally reached the end of this long biography, and here is the wrap-up.  

Her 1862-to-1865 period, when she first corresponded with Higginson, was probably her most productive. However, she remained reclusive and did not meet Higginson until 1870, when he visited Amherst. Fortunately, he wrote a detailed account of this visit. So much of this book is a recording of her interactions with family members and routine acquaintances that I found Higginson's impressions far more useful: he was a worldly outsider and far better positioned to make an objective evaluation. He found the household strikingly individualistic.

In the entry hall he heard a "step like a pattering child's & in glided a little plain woman with two smooth bands of reddish hair...in a very plain & exquisitely clean white pique & a blue net worsted shawl."...Twice he used the word "childlike." His hostess presented him with two day lilies as her "introduction," then asking him to "[f]orgive me if I am frightened; I never see strangers & hardly know what I say," she began talking. She talked "continuously" but "deferentially–sometimes stopping to ask me to talk instead of her"–and then resuming....he judged her to be "thoroughly ingenuous & simple." Although he doubted his wife would care for her, he considered much of what she said "wise."

"Her father was not severe I should think but remote."

"I was never with any one who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her." Decades later, in a final attempt to sum up his impression, he availed himself of a newer psychological vocabulary: "The impression undoubtedly made on me was that of an excess of tension, and something abnormal." 

As Habegger notes, this is probably the best existing description of Dickinson and her household. Emily became increasingly reclusive as she aged, and she was only thirty-nine at the time of this visit. Higginson saw her only one other time, in 1873, and that appears to have been uneventful.

Edward, her father, died in 1874, at the age of seventy-one. In true patriarchal fashion, he left no will, and it was simply assumed that Austin would thereafter take control of the household, with the three women having no rights or inheritances. From here on, the book is mainly a sequence of deaths. In 1882, her probable "Master," the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, died. Emily came to know the popular judge, Otis Phillips Lord. He was about eighteen years older than her. His wife had died in 1877, and, after Emily's mother died in 1882, he apparently proposed to Emily. She did not accept. It's probably just as well, because he died in 1884. Emily herself died in 1886, at the age of fifty-five. At the time, the stated medical cause of death was basically mumbo jumbo. A more recent analysis suggests that she died from hypertension, which would certainly make sense.

 Austin was having an affair with Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) then. She was the wife of an astronomy professor at Amherst. She was a spirited person, liked sex, and had an open marriage – nothing like any of the Dickinsons. Todd worked with Higginson to produce the first book of Emily's poems. There has been criticism of their editing, but the book sold exceptionally well, and Emily's reputation as a poet was immediately established.

Habegger reproduces the entire title poem, which is about death:

My Wars are laid away in Books—

I have one Battle more—

A Foe whom I have never seen

But oft has scanned me o'er–

And hesitated me between

And others at my side,

But chose the best—Neglecting me—till

All the rest have died—

How sweet if I am not forgot

By Chums that passed away—

Since Playmates at threescore and ten

Are such a scarcity—

I've been thinking about the main influences on Emily Dickinson. Although she apparently admired Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her style is probably much closer to that of Emily Brontë. She also admired George Eliot, but George Eliot was vastly more knowledgeable than Emily – and a bad poet. While Emily seems to have been well-read – apparently she did like Henry David Thoreau – as a practical matter she was challenged by direct interactions with people, which excluded her from the kind of knowledge that makes good novelists. Still, I find some of Dickinson's poems to be remarkable little gems.

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson V

Emily Dickinson left behind three unsent drafts to a person who was addressed as "Master." This has caused a great deal of scholarly speculation, which, according to Habegger, isn't really all that important. One possible candidate was the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who had visited her at least once. They appear to have been written in the late 1850's and early 1860's. At a later date, in April, 1862, she read the article in Atlantic Monthly, written by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, which I discussed earlier here in connection with Renée Bergland's book, and Higginson thereafter became her de facto "Master," though probably not at an exalted level. The intellectual men who attracted Dickinson's attention tended to have religious training, and that even included Higginson.

Habegger's book is full of minutiae regarding boring bourgeois life in the last days of Puritan New England. He is dutifully reporting it, given that he is a scholar of the subject, but, understandably, this is not a particularly exciting topic, to me at least. Even so, it is still of some value to know that the people in Dickinson's life faced problems different from the ones we have now. Besides the Civil War, with a lack of effective contraception and a primitive state in medicine, people tended to have enormous families, and they were often ill, dying or going bankrupt. Dickinson herself had eye problems and spent a lot of time in Cambridge getting treatments.

As I am reaching the end of the book, I am tending to think about Dickinson in the context of the history of poetry. Since the only other poet I know much about is Denise Levertov, I am often making comparisons. They had a few things in common and a few major differences. They both had hard times establishing their footings as poets. Both wrestled with their religious backgrounds. Levertov's father was a fringe Jewish theologian who came to recognize Christ, and she grew up admiring Rilke. Dickinson's family consisted of rather bourgeois lawyers. Her brother, Austin, lived next door in a showy house; he became an art aficionado, making special trips to New York City to purchase art objects, and this perfectly fits my model of a social climber. Levertov had greater political proclivities than Dickinson; her sister had traveled to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and Denise actively opposed the Vietnam War. Both Dickinson and Levertov had very strong religious interests, and in this area, Dickinson seems to have been more sophisticated because of her awareness of science, as discussed in Natural Magic. Levertov, on the other hand, was scientifically illiterate, and she seemed to go off into a haphazard religious exploration at the end of her life. 

I was intrigued that both Dickinson and Levertov used the word "Master" to designate people who could guide them in their poetic development. In Dickinson's case, there was no existing blueprint for female poets in the U.S. at the time. She really wanted guidance, and I don't think that she ever found it. By 1862, she had settled into the idea of writing for posterity, and there does not seem to be any evidence that she wanted a public life. She was bound by her family culture and the artistic environment of Massachusetts at the time. Thus, for her, Walt Whitman was not an acceptable or even a readable model, and even Emerson and Thoreau may have been too risqué for her. In Levertov's case, she knew from an early age that she wanted to be a poet and unselfconsciously engaged in networking until she became established. Her transition to the poetry ecosystem within the U.S. after World War II was challenging, and she at one point designated Robert Duncan as her "Master." Because she had worked in Massachusetts for several years, she may have picked up the term from Dickinson. 

Dickinson and Levertov are two of my favorite poets, and they both occasionally seem like mystical visionaries. At the time and place of Dickinson's life, it was impossible for her to have experiences similar to those of Levertov. Thus, what we see is a restricted artistic expression, which I think demonstrates a restrained challenge to religious dogma, along with a remarkable linguistic inventiveness. Levertov lived during a far more propitious time for female poets, and her poems cover a wider range of human experience than Dickinson was capable. However, because Dickinson's work was essentially private during her lifetime, she never had to make compromises for commercial considerations or the prevailing views of the arts crowd.

I expect to finish the book soon and will make a final post.