tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post4957028123348042438..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: "You Linger Your Little Hour And Are Gone, And Still The Woods Sweep Leafily On"Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-88861165063266657772014-11-14T03:04:34.624-08:002014-11-14T03:04:34.624-08:00Anonymous: Thank you for your thoughts. I defer ...Anonymous: Thank you for your thoughts. I defer to you on McCarthy's grammatical quiddities. I confess that I have never read anything by him, so I am not one to judge. I do remember reading somewhere that he has a touch of Faulkner to his writing, which occurred to me when I read the passage you quoted. Such a style perhaps requires allowances.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-58818003775845481282014-11-12T09:29:13.302-08:002014-11-12T09:29:13.302-08:00We all know that even the great Homer nodded somet...We all know that even the great Homer nodded sometimes and so does McCarthy in the passage quoted in a comment to your blog. <br /><br />A cliché-ridden pedant would say that McCarthy commits "a grammatical howler." To notice the grammatical error might be construed as nitpicking, but one need not be censorious and acerbic in pointing it out. <br /><br />One wonders how McCarthy and his editor missed the error. Some might say that long sentences up the chances of grammatical mistakes. <br /><br />The error diminishes the passage's beauty in no way at all. <br /><br />McCarthy writes,<br /><br />". . . and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she."<br /><br />It should be "him or her" at the end. The pronouns are objects of the preposition "for."<br /><br />I am sure McCarthy would have never written " . . .and seemed to care nothing for "he or she." My guess is that the serial objects of "for" led to the mistake.<br /><br />For the record: McCarthy is my favorite contemporary novelist, and I would read him with delight and wonder if he had made manifold grammatical errors. He doesn't though.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-30637341011121657772014-11-12T03:22:24.816-08:002014-11-12T03:22:24.816-08:00Susan: Hah! You and I think alike: I had the sa...Susan: Hah! You and I think alike: I had the same thought about "twitters" when I typed out the text of "Acceptance"! Very unfortunate, isn't it? It feels like it has been stolen. But, then, I'm not a Twitter user. I agree with your: "Oh for the days . . ."<br /><br />Thank you very much for bringing in "Come In." It is one of my favorite Frost poems. You're right: it goes very well with the other poems, both in terms of darkness ("Now if it was dusk outside,/Inside it was dark"; "Far in the pillared dark"; "a call to come in/To the dark and lament") and in terms of Nature's distance ("I meant not even if asked;/And I hadn't been." Wonderful.<br /><br />As ever, it is very nice to hear from you, and I appreciate your stopping by.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-56032581611355594282014-11-12T03:03:10.619-08:002014-11-12T03:03:10.619-08:00Anonymous: Thank you for sharing the lovely passa...Anonymous: Thank you for sharing the lovely passage from Cormac McCarthy, which is new to me. It fits perfectly here, and is very moving. Thanks again.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-20573923919142049292014-11-12T02:55:17.791-08:002014-11-12T02:55:17.791-08:00Mr. Floyd: Thank you very much for the kind words...Mr. Floyd: Thank you very much for the kind words -- although Auden is infinitely more "succinct" and "eloquent" than I am, needless to say! And thank you as well for sharing "Musee des Beaux Arts," which I hadn't thought of in this context. But I agree that it goes quite well here.<br /><br />As always, thank you for visiting, and for your thoughts.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-89410297151097377742014-11-11T18:16:37.311-08:002014-11-11T18:16:37.311-08:00Oh for the days when a poet could put the word &qu...Oh for the days when a poet could put the word "twitter" into a poem without discomfort.<br />I too am happy to have made the acquaintance of "Acceptance". Interesting that one of my favorite Frost poems, "Come In", is much taken up with birds singing in the woods as dark approaches. That is a poem that flirts with very dark matter.<br />Susan<br />SusanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-55631878312936467222014-11-11T09:33:41.933-08:002014-11-11T09:33:41.933-08:00This passage (see below) from "All the Pretty...This passage (see below) from "All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy illustrates the disturbing (sometimes terrifying) thought that we are aliens in our world, alone and abandoned, under a heaven stitched shut. <br /><br />Would it be incorrect to say that McCarthy's words are, if you allow latitude, a prose poem?<br /><br />“He stood hat in hand over the unmarked earth. This woman who had worked for his family fifty years. She had cared for his mother as a baby and she had worked for his family long before his mother was born and she had known and cared for the wild Grady boys who were his mother's uncles and who had all died so long ago and he stood holding his hat and he called her his abuela and he said goodbye to her in Spanish and then turned and put on his hat and turned his wet face to the wind and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-88228222887173766232014-11-11T09:19:17.868-08:002014-11-11T09:19:17.868-08:00Auden catches the truth almost as succinctly as yo...Auden catches the truth almost as succinctly as you do (see his poem below). Your words bore to the marrow of the human plight: we live and die, suffer and revel, under indifferent skies. <br /><br />When we are gone spring will come around again, the dogwoods blooming, not mourning us or anyone, and autumn, ever faithful in arriving, will find the afternoon wind stripping the leaves from the trees and layering them atop the ground in which we lie.<br /><br />You write, eloquently I think:<br /><br />As I stood beneath the trees, I had another thought: All of this goes on quite well with or without us. No waiting around. Indifference? Impassivity? Those are human concepts.<br /><br />Auden writes:<br /><br />About suffering they were never wrong, <br />The Old Masters; how well, they understood <br />Its human position; how it takes place <br />While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; <br />How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting <br />For the miraculous birth, there always must be <br />Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating <br />On a pond at the edge of the wood: <br />They never forgot <br />That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course <br />Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot <br />Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse <br />Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. <br />In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away <br />Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may <br />Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, <br />But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone <br />As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green <br />Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen <br />Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, <br />had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.<br />Bruce Floydnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-69582135084669369832014-11-10T15:49:08.573-08:002014-11-10T15:49:08.573-08:00Fred: Thank you very much. I'm pleased you l...Fred: Thank you very much. I'm pleased you liked the poems. Each time I visit his poems, I make it a point to visit out-of-the-way poems, in addition to the old chestnuts. I have to remind myself not to neglect poems such as these.<br /><br />I agree that "something like despair" accurately describes the mood of some of his poems. Which I confess I prefer to his jocular, Yankee philosopher persona, which to me strikes a false note.<br /><br />It's always good to hear from you. Thank you for stopping by.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-38501125562147628452014-11-10T06:46:31.462-08:002014-11-10T06:46:31.462-08:00Stephen,
Marvelous. I have not yet encountered t...Stephen,<br /><br />Marvelous. I have not yet encountered those poems by Frost during my own visits to his works.<br /><br />I agree. Even in his most bucolic moments, there is a darker current underneath. Sometimes loneliness, sometimes something like despair.Fredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10233846613173866140noreply@blogger.com