tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69292234779636442172024-03-13T09:47:48.896-07:00Goodlife MojoBenedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-12704046437403048382019-10-21T10:04:00.000-07:002019-10-21T10:04:20.924-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There are 6 shitzu (all together) up for adoption. The owner died suddenly and the husband can’t manage. Call +91 97691 99652 for details </div>
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Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-51313252523118008812019-10-21T05:07:00.000-07:002019-10-21T05:07:30.880-07:00Freegos in Chennai central station <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-72345599607733361602008-09-28T07:49:00.000-07:002008-09-28T07:54:53.747-07:00Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-91807302452993003612008-09-27T23:36:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:51:57.619-07:00Astrology, Fortune Speak and MacbethWe are surrounded with people who can read our palms, study our stars, use a parrot or a tarrot... whatever and millions are being spent to understand what the future holds for us. Am I saying this is wrong or right? Thats not the issue, though I have had animated discussions with my friends on the futility of such an exercise. For long I look at this entire subject from a very religious eye glasses and condemned it with the belief that God holds the future.<br /><br />Off late I am trying hard to look at things very differently, as a human being with no eye glasses at all. After all when you are trying to talk to your friend its best to be like them, understand them and deal the way they want to be dealt. I have removed these glasses now and I have plunged myself into having a normal vision. The best source of my understanding comes from reading. And Shakespeare influenced the climate of modern thought. <br /><br />Macbeth gives us an excellent way to handle superstition. I am not using the word superstition pejoratively. <br /><br />Lady Macbeth particularly, and Macbeth are greatly influenced by what the witches had predicted. They were driven by this and changed their behavior (completely rewired themselves is a better word). So they actually departed from the normal character. This is the gravest mistake when we get so influenced by the prediction of an event that we try to manipulate the process leading to the event. By doing this the Mabeth's lead a life which was not their own, and indulged in violent acts that bruised their own conscience.<br /><br />The book must be read by every Indian who believes in Furture speak. It will help them handle themselves better. For Macbeth who believed in what the witches said wanted to erase their next prediction of what will happen to him through his enemies. <br /><br />Funny when you get caught into this intricate web of stars and signs, you need to realize this maze of movement will conflict with a star or the future of another and thus jeopardize your own life and future. You get so dependent on the web and not on your self. Is it best to stay out? No its not like that. Its best to handle such things wiselyBenedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-27011994400499302302008-09-27T23:20:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:21:32.089-07:00MagicMagic 1: Puck is introduced, epitomizing the very nature of magic in the play. He is a fairy with special powers to transform his voice and appearance so that he may "lurk in gossip bowls" Act 2, Scene 1, line 47 and cause mischief. His conversation with the fairy is very magical and fantastical and sets the scene for the rest of the play.<br /><br />Magic 2: Titania's story of the origin of the Indian boy is very fantastical in nature. She talks about magical events in nature and immortality. Immortality is a magical characteristic that only the fairies possess.<br /><br />Magic 3: Oberon tells Puck of the magic flower juice that when placed on sleeping eyelids, makes that person fall in love with the first creature it sees upon awakening. The flower is magical because it was hit by one of Cupid's arrows and now contains this fantastical love-transforming juice.<br /><br />Magic 4: Oberon places the magic juice on Titania's eyes to play a trick on her. Here, magic is used as a tool for him to get what he wants: the Indian boy.<br /><br />Magic 5: When Lysander awakens, he falls in love magically with Helena, fantastically forgetting Hermia. This transformation is only due to the magic flower juice mistakenly placed on his eyelids by Puck. Because of this change, the rest of the lovers' entangled plot grows and Lysander abandons Hermia to follow Helena.<br /><br />Act III, Scenes 1-2: "The same spot in the wood" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Magic 6: Puck sees the silly production of Pyramus and Thisbe and plans to cause mischief. He follows Puck and transforms Bottom's head into that of a donkey. He has the magical power to do so because he is a fairy. This transformation scares away the other players; however, Bottom is unaware of his change.<br /><br />Magic 7: Puck tells Oberon of Titania's new love, Bottom the ass. Oberon laughs at what happens because of the little magic juice. He asks about the Athenian couple and Puck explains that he did place the magic juice on the man. This discussion is purely about the power of magic and what changes it can make and trouble it can stir with love.<br /><br />Magic 8: Puck is ordered to correct the wrong done because of the magical mistakes. He uses his magical powers of voice transformation and invisibility to trick the Athenian men into a slumber. He then places more magic juice in the eyes of Lysander in order to correct the wrongs.<br /><br />Act IV, Scenes 1-2: "The same portion of the wood" & "Athens, A room in Quince's house"<br /><br />Magic 9: Oberon rids Titania of the magic spell and she awakens thinking she was dreaming. However, it was no dream that she "was enamored of an ass," Act 4, Scene 1, line 80 for everything is real and due to magic. Puck removes the donkey head from Bottom by magic, as well. Everything goes back to normal, after everything has been mended because of the fairies and magic.<br /><br />Magic 10: Theseus, Egeus, and Hippolyta have trouble believing the stories of the four lovers, for they seem too fantastical. The magic of the woods cannot truly reach Athens' credibility. However, Hippolyta believes them a little more than the others for, although they all seem too magical to believe, they do correspond with one another.<br /><br />Act V: "Athens, The great hall in the palace of Theseus"<br /><br />Magic 11: The play concludes with the fairies singing and Puck addressing the audience. The ending is magical and leaves the audience with a fantastical sentiment. Their mystical presence is magical as they bless the newlyweds.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-36345664887105075472008-09-27T23:19:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:20:28.542-07:00Love's FoolishnessLove's Foolishness 1: The mockery made of love in this play is evident from the first scene until the last. The play opens as a wedding is supposed to take place, the realization of a holy union of bliss. However, that union is interrupted by a plea from outside. The very fact that the symbol of love, a wedding, begins the play, but never truly takes place sets a precedent for the illustration of the foolishness of love for the rest of the play.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 2: Young Helena is unabashedly in love with Demetrius, a man who not only despises her, but is in love with her close friend, Hermia. The roles seem to reverse in this "couple," for Helena is the person who pursues an unwieldy Demetrius, while he chases another. This is a game of cat and mouse. These characters have turned love into a game.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 3: This time, love is mocked in a play within a play. The commoners (and comic relief of this Shakespearean play) decide to put on the lamentable tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, a great love story. They torture it to laughter by selecting it as their drama to enact, and they inadvertently mock the ideal of love by assigning the parts randomly. This theme will be revisited in Act 5.<br /><br />Act II, Scenes 1-2: "Night, A wood near Athens" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 4: Titania and Oberon enter, enraged with one another although supposedly in love. Their image in the play is of a fairy couple who currently hates each other. They discuss supposed loves each has with other people, minimizing the love they have together.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 5: Helena woos Demetrius harshly, unrelenting to his cruel treatment of her. She states that men are meant to woo women, not women to men. This reversal of identities in Shakespeare's time is slightly absurd and foolish.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 6: Oberon places the magic juice on Titania's eyes hoping that she will fall in love with "something vile" Act 2, Scene 2, lines 33-34. Enabling this fairy queen to fall in love with a vile creature mocks the validity of love.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 7: Helena cannot believe that these men love her. She believes that their love to her is a cruel joke, foolish treatment. She is upset with Lysander for doting over her, for she simply does not nor cannot believe it to be true. Furthermore, the love that Lysander at one point has for Hermia, suddenly transforms into adoration for Helena instantaneously from the magic juice. A simple drop of juice can change love quickly and foolishly.<br /><br />Act III, Scenes 1-2: "The same spot in the wood" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 8: In the players' production of Pyramus and Thisbe, they believe that a wall must physically separate the lovers. They assign the role of the wall to Snout a man, loaning loads of laughter and comedy to the serious love story.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 9: The image of Titania waking up to fall in love with the donkey-faced Bottom is pure mockery of the ideal of love. A beautiful fairy doting on and seducing not only a common man, but an ass is foolish, funny, and fearful. How much more can love be made fun of?<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 10: Seeing the spectacle of the four Athenian lovers quarrel is humorous to the fairy Puck. He states in the most famous line from the play, "What fools these mortals be!" Act 3, Scene 2, line 115 implying that their foolishness arises because of love. Love makes the mortals act foolish and Puck notices it.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 11: This memorable scene of the love quadrangle all entangled is hysterical and foolish. Each man keeps changing the woman he loves, and each woman cannot believe the reality of the love proclaimed. Demetrius dotes on Helena, the woman he scorns, and Lysander abandons his true love Hermia, to dote on Helena as well. The two even become foolish fighters and prepare to duel for love. Furthermore, Helena and Hermia become foolish cat-fighters as well, all in the name of love.<br /><br />Act IV, Scenes 1-2: "The same portion of the wood" & "Athens, A room in Quince's house"<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 12: The image of Titania entangled and sleeping above an ass is both daring and shocking. This play seems to take the mockery of love to extreme illustrations to prove a point.<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 13: Love is also given a foolish name in the character of Bottom. He is desperately in love with himself, loves to hear himself speak, and wants to take every role in the play, and plans to write a prologue about his "dream." Having Bottom dote upon himself is the illustration of a foolish and comic character mocking a different type of love.<br /><br />Act V: "Athens, The great hall in the palace of Theseus"<br /><br />Love's Foolishness 14: The play concludes with the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta that was interrupted in the first act. However, this time, instead of focusing exclusively on the beautiful union of one couple, the play allows a triple wedding to occur. This triple wedding takes away the importance of each couple's love and diminishes its importance somewhat.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-5957530072729044622008-09-27T23:17:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:18:23.018-07:00JealousyJealousy 1: This first hint of jealousy is seen as Egeus claims to Theseus that Demetrius has stolen Hermia's obedience and love. He is slightly jealous of the new man in his daughter's life. This father/daughter jealousy is of course natural, but is taken to extremes is the play. It is also just one type of jealousy explored in the five acts.<br /><br />Jealousy 2: Helena is deeply in love with Demetrius, who is in love with Hermia. Therefore, Helena is jealous of Hermia's beauty and she claims that she too is as beautiful. She wonders what Hermia has that she doesn't that makes men follow her everywhere. So, out of jealousy, Helena tells Demetrius that Hermia and Lysander plan to escape to the woods so that he will follow them and she will follow him.<br /><br />Act II, Scenes 1-2: "Night, A wood near Athens" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Jealousy 3: Oberon and Titania bicker over many issues, including their supposed "other" loves and the possession of the little Indian boy. These arguments stem both from jealousy. The fairy without the Indian boy is jealous of the other and will go to any length to get him back.<br /><br />Jealousy 4: Helena, again, is in bitter sentiment over her mistreatment from Demetrius. However, she is hurt not simply because he is rude and mean to her, but because she is jealous of Hermia. She tells the audience that she is thought as beautiful as Hermia all through Athens and cannot understand why Hermia gets the attention of her beloved Demetrius. This jealousy translates into her perpetual chase after Demetrius.<br /><br />Act III, Scenes 1-2: "The same spot in the wood" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Jealousy 5: When Lysander tells Hermia that he abandoned her in the middle of the night for Helena, Hermia is enraged with jealousy. The words that come out of Lysander's mouth hit Hermia and injure her, building her jealousy of Helena instead of building her frustration with Lysander.<br /><br />Jealousy 6: The fights between both Lysander and Demetrius and Hermia and Helena all have something to do with jealousy. Lysander and Demetrius are jealous of one another and both want Helena, where they used to want Hermia. And Hermia and Helena fight because Hermia is jealous of Helena as the reverse used to be true.<br /><br />Act IV, Scenes 1-2: "The same portion of the wood" & "Athens, A room in Quince's house"<br /><br />Jealousy 7: Oberon decides that the trick has gone far enough and will restore Titania to her normal self. Whether he is jealous of Bottom's position with her or not is unknown. But, he does see her in love with another creature and then decides that the magic must end.<br /><br />Jealousy 8: Oberon also decides that everything will go back to normal with all creatures in the forest. He has possession of the Indian boy and that fact illustrates that he is no longer jealous of Titania. Therefore, with his jealousy gone, everything is fine to go back to normal in the woods.<br /><br />Jealousy 9: When Theseus sees the four lovers sleeping peacefully together, he is shocked because he knows how much they all hate each other. He says that jealousy is not far from hatred. This statement from Theseus resonates throughout the play and is illustrated through the characters' behavior. When they are jealous, they act enraged and as if they hate each other.<br /><br />Act V: "Athens, The great hall in the palace of Theseus"<br /><br />Jealousy 10: Jealousy exists in another form with Bottom. He loves attention and loves to speak. Therefore, he is jealous of stage time and plans to take all of it that he can. He overacts, speaks too much, and dies an elongated stage-death, stealing scenes from everyone on stage.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-28145899331722996972008-09-27T23:16:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:17:03.348-07:00Dreams/SleepingDreams 1: The title holds the word "dream," inferring that the play will be either a dream or will talk about dreams. The interpretation is up to the audience member or reader. However, the title foreshadows so many events that occur in the play and also subconsciously sets a mood before the first line is even uttered.<br /><br />Act II, Scenes 1-2: "Night, A wood near Athens" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Dreams 2: As Oberon explains the nature of the magic flower juice, he mentions that it must be placed upon sleeping eyelids. Dreams come to life during sleep. So, the magic juice works in collaboration with dreams and only works when the person is asleep, perhaps dreaming or perhaps awaking to a new dream.<br /><br />Dreams 3: This is the first placement of the magic juice on sleeping eyelids. Oberon uses the flower juice on Titania to play a trick on her/teach her a lesson. He whispers into her sleeping ears that when she wakes, she will fall in love with something vile. She is sleeping as he whispers so his words could be heard in a dream.<br /><br />Dreams 4: Hermia and Lysander slow down so that they may sleep for the night. However, they sleep separately, cueing Puck and perhaps separating their possible dreams. Hermia sleeps far from Lysander because her chastity as a maid is important.<br /><br />Dreams 5: Puck has placed the magic juice in Lysander's eyes, so when Helena spots him on the ground, she wakes him up for fear of death or injury. He is sleeping and awakens in love with Helena, entering a new dream, a new fantasy. He has transformed his feelings in his dream.<br /><br />Dreams 6: Hermia awakens in the woods, alone, looking for her beloved Lysander. She has had a horrible nightmare and wants Lysander to comfort her. In her nightmare, a serpent is eating her heart and Lysander sits "smiling at his cruel prey" Act 2, Scene 2, line 150. She is frightened and alone. Her nightmare foreshadows the treatment she will soon receive from Lysander.<br /><br />Act III, Scenes 1-2: "The same spot in the wood" & "Another part of the wood"<br /><br />Dreams 7: Titania wakes from her slumber to see Bottom as a donkey and immediately falls in love with him. This amity is because of the magic juice placed on her during her sleep. When she awakens, like the Athenians, she is entering another dreamlike state, an altered reality transformed from her sleep.<br /><br />Dreams 8: Oberon places the magic juice on the sleeping eyes of Demetrius so that he will wake and fall in love with Helena. This was the original plan confused by Puck that started the chaos in the woods.<br /><br />Dreams 9: Oberon now makes sure that he uses the sleeping-dream state to right all of these wrongs. He commands Puck to fix everything. Puck tricks the two men into a slumber and places the magic juice on Lysander's eyes. The four lovers fall asleep together, in blissful harmony.<br /><br />Act IV, Scenes 1-2: "The same portion of the wood" & "Athens, A room in Quince's house"<br /><br />Dreams 10: Oberon plans to return the fairy world to normal, since he has already done so with the mortal world. He plans to awaken his Titania from her dreamlike trance of being in love with Bottom, the ass. He plans to have the evening remembered "as the fierce vexation of a dream" Act 4, Scene 1, lines 70-72. The king of the fairies plans to have the magic translated into dreams for those who experience it.<br /><br />Dreams 11: Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus see the four lovers sleeping in the woods peacefully. They are shocked at the happy slumber, and the play seems to have come full circle as they wake up into their new happy world. They wake up from their magical dream in the woods to get married.<br /><br />Dreams 12: Bottom returns to his players in Athens with his normal head. He is recovering from his "dream," and tells his players that he has had the most incredible dream and will write it into the play as "Bottom's Dream." Everything magical seems to be explained through dreams.<br /><br />Act V: "Athens, The great hall in the palace of Theseus"<br /><br />Dreams 13: Puck addresses the audience in the closing lines of the play telling them that everything they have just seen is a dream. Every vision, every touch of magic that was just enacted, he tells them, can all be explained by dreams and slumber.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-71503143116332083342008-09-27T23:13:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:15:57.758-07:00Book SummaryThe play opens in a palace in Athens one hour before the wedding of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to his newly conquered Amazonian queen, Hippolyta. Their nuptials are interrupted by Egeus, an Athenian father begging help of Theseus. His daughter, Hermia, is in love with young Lysander, and wants to marry him. Egeus already bequeathed her to Demetrius, who is also in love with her. Hermia's childhood friend, Helena, is in love with Demetrius, and follows him around like a lost puppy. Theseus tells Hermia that she has until morn to decide to marry Demetrius, join a nunnery, or die.<br />Lysander and Hermia decide to run away together into the woods and elope near his aunt's home. They get ready to leave as they see Helena ranting about her love for Demetrius and her unhappiness that he puts her down all the time. They tell her of their plan to escape.<br /><br />In a room in the carpenter Quince's house in Athens, six commoners discuss their plan to put on the play, Pyramus and Thisbe, at the Duke's wedding. Quince dispenses the roles to the players, most notably the over-dramatic weaver Bottom. He will play Pyramus, while Flute will play Thisbe.<br /><br />In the woods, the sprightly fairy Puck addresses the audience with his mischievous nature. Oberon and Titania enter the woods, furious with one another over the possession of a little Indian boy. Oberon spot Demetrius running into the woods looking for Hermia, followed by a doting Helena, whom he hates. He tells Puck to find a magic flower that holds juice that when placed on sleeping eyelids, makes the person sleeping fall in love with the first creature he or she sees upon waking. He tells Puck to place it on the sleeping eyes of a man he will notice by the Athenian clothes he has on (namely Demetrius). Puck plans to obey these orders.<br /><br />Oberon sees Titania and plans to play a trick on her by placing the magic juice on her eyes, as well, allowing her to fall in love with a fool.<br /><br />Lysander and Hermia go to sleep, separately because they are not yet married. Puck sees them and thinks that Lysander is the man on whose eyes Oberon wants the magic juice placed. He does so. Helena runs into the woods at the same spot, sees Lysander, wakes him for fear of death, and Lysander falls in love with her. He leaves the sleeping Hermia to follow Helena and win her heart.<br /><br />The six players rehearse in the woods. Puck plays a trick on Bottom by transforming his head into that of a donkey's. The rest of the men are frightened off. Bottom is unaware of his appearance. Titania awakens, sees Bottom, and falls in love. She and her fairies adorn him with flowers, attention, and "love."<br /><br />Demetrius follows a lonely and distressed Hermia through the woods looking for Lysander. She blames him for Lysander's disappearance. They bicker as Oberon and Puck watch, realizing that Puck placed the juice in the wrong's Athenian's eyes. They sleep and Oberon squeezes the juice into Demetrius's eyes for Helena. He awakens, sees Helena, and falls in love. Lysander and Demetrius now fight for Helena, where they used to fight for Hermia. Hermia is now cast aside and cursed by the two men. Helena believes they are all playing a cruel joke on her. Hermia attacks Helena for stealing her lover and the insults fly on both parties' end. The two women then run away enraged.<br /><br />Oberon reprimands Puck for his negligence and vows to make peace of the chaos. Puck tricks the two men into falling asleep and places the juice back in Lysander's eyes. He gets all four lovers to sleep in one location and says that in the morning, both couples will be happy and all will be well.<br /><br />Titania still tends to Bottom, but they get tired and lay down to nap. Oberon, pleased with his handiwork, places the juice back in her eyes and allows her to return to her normal state. She awakens and returns to Oberon, thinking it was all a dream. Bottom's head returns to human status and he returns to Athens finding the players at Quince's house worried. They prepare to perform the play at the Duke's wedding night.<br /><br />Egeus, Theseus, and Hippolyta are on a hunting trip in the woods and spot the four lovers asleep together. They are shocked at the amiability between the four, but welcome the new couples.<br /><br />The three happy couples, Theseus and Hippolyta, Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena return to the palace for a triple wedding. The play concludes with a hysterical presentation of Pyramus and Thisbe by the six players and a fantastical closing by Titania, Oberon, and Puck.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-33005221221390847632008-09-27T23:12:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:13:20.378-07:00Macbeth Plot SummaryMacbeth is a Scottish general who is loyal to Duncan, the Scottish king. But after Macbeth meets three witches who prophesy that Macbeth will be king, the general is no longer satisfied to remain loyal to his king.<br />Macbeth and his wife hatch a plot to kill the king under their own roof and frame the guards outside the king's bedroom for the murder. Although Macbeth has misgivings about killing the king, his wife convinces him that it is the thing to do. Macbeth kills Duncan with his wife's help, but he is plagued with guilt for the crime.<br /><br />When Duncan's murdered body is discovered, Macbeth immediately kills the accused guards so that he can cover his tracks. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee Macbeth's castle in fear for their lives, and they are suspected of bribing the guards to kill their father.<br /><br />Macbeth assumes the Scottish throne. In order to secure the throne for his descendants, he must kill Banquo, the other army general, and Banquo's son because the witches' told Macbeth that Banquo's descendants would have the throne after Macbeth. So Macbeth sets a trap and hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son, but Banquo's son escapes. Shortly after Banquo is killed on his way to a banquet at Macbeth's palace, Macbeth is haunted by Banquo's ghost. In the middle of the banquet he sees the ghost of the murdered man there and he makes a scene in front of the Scottish lords who are at the banquet. This outburst makes the lords suspicious although Lady Macbeth tries to play it off as just an illness that Macbeth has.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Macduff, a Scottish noble who suspects that Macbeth murdered Duncan, goes to England to get help to reclaim the throne.<br /><br />Macbeth goes to see the witches again to learn his fate. They tell him to beware Macduff; that he will not be defeated until Birnam wood moves to Dunsinane; and that Macbeth will not be killed by someone born of a woman. Macbeth takes all of these signs to mean that he is invincible.<br /><br />In England Macduff and Malcolm, the rightful heir, ban together to fight Macbeth. When Macbeth learns of Macduff's treachery, he sends murderers to Macduff's home to kill his wife and children. When Macduff hears of this, his resolve to kill Macbeth grows even stronger.<br /><br />With ten thousand English troops they go to fight Macbeth. Macbeth is unafraid until he learns that the troops have camouflaged themselves with wood from the Birnam forest and are moving toward Dunsinane. When Macbeth comes face to face with Macduff he learns that Macduff was removed from his mother's womb, and was, thus, never born. Macduff kills Macbeth and Malcolm is returned to the throne.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-18090851951980158132008-09-27T23:10:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:11:23.400-07:00Quotes from MacbethQuote 1: "When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?" Act 1, Scene 1, lines 1-2<br /><br />Quote 2: "screw [his] courage to the sticking-place." Act 1, Scene 7, line 60<br /><br />Quote 3: "not confessing / Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers / With strange invention." Act 3, Scene 1, lines 31-3<br /><br />Quote 4: "Things without all remedy / Should be without regard: what's done is done." Act 3, Scene 2, lines 11-2<br /><br />Quote 5: "And you all know, security / Is mortals' chiefest enemy." Act 3, Scene 5, lines 32-3<br /><br />Quote 6: "Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth." Act 4, Scene 1, lines 79-81<br /><br />Quote 7: "Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him." Act 4, Scene 1, lines 92-4<br /><br />Quote 8: "The flighty purpose never is o'ertook / Unless the deed go with it: from this moment / The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand." Act 4, Scene 1, lines 145-8<br /><br />Quote 9: "when our actions do not, / Our fears do make us traitors." Act 4, Scene 2, lines 2-3<br /><br />Quote 10: "Out damned spot! out, I say! . . . who would have thought the old man to have had so / much blood in him." Act 5, Scene 1, lines 34-9<br /><br />Quote 11: "Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing." Act 5, Scene 5, lines 23-8Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-38370874179175793272008-09-27T23:08:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:09:22.330-07:00GuiltGuilt 1: Guilt has a large part in manipulating how Macbeth and his wife act after they have committed their crimes. It is their guilt that drives them both mad. Before they have even killed Duncan, Macbeth feels guilty and considers backing out of the murder, but Lady Macbeth won't let him.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 1<br /><br />Guilt 2: Once again Macbeth sees that what he is doing is morally wrong, but he doesn't let that stop him. He kills the king despite his misgivings.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 2<br /><br />Guilt 3: Macbeth begins hearing things as soon as the murder is completed. He cannot even pray because he is so guilt-ridden over his crime.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 3<br /><br />Guilt 4: Lady Macbeth faints at the news that Duncan is dead. Whether it is a trick on her part to throw the others off the trail, or if she has finally seen the weight of the crime that she and her husband have committed is unspecified in the text. Either way, this action is either a realization of guilt or a disguise of it.<br /><br />Act 3, Scene 2<br /><br />Guilt 5: Lady Macbeth feels that her husband is thinking too much of his guilt and not enjoying his royalty as he should be.<br /><br />Act 3, Scene 4<br /><br />Guilt 6: Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost at the banquet table and it freaks him out. His guilty conscience is projecting visions of Banquo because he is responsible for the man's murder. Outbursts like these hint at his guilt and make the thanes suspicious of the new king.<br /><br />Guilt 7: After Macbeth's breakdown in front of the thanes, Lady Macbeth tells him to get some rest. Macbeth hasn't been sleeping well because he feels so guilty.<br /><br />Act 5, Scene 1<br /><br />Guilt 8: Lady Macbeth's guilt is finally getting to her, too. She sleepwalks and tries to wash the blood from her hands. This routine and her sleep talking are manifestations and proof of her guilt.<br /><br />Act 5, Scene 2<br /><br />Guilt 9: Malcolm and the thanes who have sided with him have heard that Macbeth is going mad, and they assume that his madness is a result of the guilt for his crimes.<br /><br />Act 5, Scene 5<br /><br />Guilt 10: Lady Macbeth has died (perhaps suicide), and her guilt is believed to be the cause of her death. Her conscience got the better of her in the end.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-61007312758163875852008-09-27T23:04:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:07:40.741-07:00Foreshadowing.<span style="font-style:italic;">Foreshadowing:To present an indication or a suggestion of beforehand; presage. </span><br /><br /><br />Foreshadowing 1: <br /><br />Foreshadowing plays an important role in Macbeth because most of the action of the play is hinted at before it happens. The three witches have a heavy hand in the foreshadowing because their prophecies are the motivation for Macbeth's actions. Appearing in the first act of the play shows the significance of the witches and their prophetic powers.<br /><br />Act 1, Scene 2<br /><br />Foreshadowing 2: When Duncan awards Macbeth the title that has been taken from a traitor, Shakespeare hints that Macbeth will follow in Cawdor's footsteps and betray the king.<br /><br />Act 1, Scene 3<br /><br />Foreshadowing 3: Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches and hear their predictions. This is Shakespeare's way of preparing the audience for what is going to happen.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 3<br /><br />Foreshadowing 4: Lennox tells of the mourning cries of birds that were believed to foreshadow death. These cries kept them awake all night, and signaled Duncan's death.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 4<br /><br />Foreshadowing 5: The horses destroying one another foreshadowed Duncan's death for the characters in the play. It is only after the fact that the characters can see the events as foreshadowing, however. As the audience, the foreshadowing is much more obvious.<br /><br />Act 3, Scene 1<br /><br />Foreshadowing 6: Banquo remembers the witches' prophecy, and so he suspects that Macbeth has killed the king to get the throne. Banquo also knows that the witches said that his descendants would be king. This serves to remind that audience that Macbeth is not finished securing the throne, and we know that Banquo is now in danger.<br /><br />Act 3, Scene 5<br /><br />Foreshadowing 7: The words of the witches are a sneak-preview for the upcoming action of the play.<br /><br />Act 4, Scene 1<br /><br />Foreshadowing 8: This encounter with the witches sets Macbeth up to feel invincible. He thinks that he is seeing the glory of his future, but what they have really shown him is his downfall. They've just camouflaged it in a way that made him feel confident that he was safe and the throne secure.<br /><br />Act 5, Scene 5<br /><br />Foreshadowing 9: Macbeth has felt unworried by Malcolm's approaching army until he hears that it looks as if the Birnam wood is moving toward the castle. Macbeth realizes that part of the prophecy is coming true, but not in the way that he expected it to.<br /><br />Act 5, Scene 8<br /><br />Foreshadowing 10: When Macbeth learns that Macduff was removed from his mother's womb and not born, he realizes that the witches' foretold of his doom and not his success. His arrogance after hearing their prophecy has enabled his own defeatBenedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-64174496340330710782008-09-27T23:02:00.000-07:002008-09-27T23:04:28.798-07:00Macbeth- BetrayalBetrayal 1: Betrayal is an important part of the play because that is how the changes in power occur. Macbeth is rewarded for his loyalty to the king while the Thane of Cawdor is stripped of his title because of his betrayal.<br /><br />Act 1, Scene 3<br /><br />Betrayal 2: Both Banquo and Macbeth are slightly disturbed by the witches' predictions because they are afraid that it will trick them into betraying the king.<br /><br />Act 1, Scene 4<br /><br />Betrayal 3: Duncan is shocked by his misplaced trust in the Thane of Cawdor. He is hurt that someone close to him could turn on him like that, and this sets the stage for the disappointment and tragedy of Macbeth's betrayal.<br /><br />Betrayal 4: Macbeth begins to plan his treachery against Duncan as soon as he sees that Malcolm stands in the way of Macbeth gaining the throne.<br /><br />Act 1, Scene 5<br /><br />Betrayal 5: Lady Macbeth happily jumps on the bandwagon to kill the king and take the throne. She has no qualms about the betrayal because it will lead to power.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 1<br /><br />Betrayal 6: Banquo makes it clear that he has not interest in betraying Duncan, and it's almost as if he knows that Macbeth is plotting against the king.<br /><br />Act 2, Scene 2<br /><br />Betrayal 7: The betrayal against Duncan is complete when Macbeth murders him. Now Macbeth must frame the guards and try to cover up his crime, which can only lead to more murder.<br /><br />Act 3, Scene 1<br /><br />Betrayal 8: Macbeth begins to plan Banquo's death so that he can secure the throne for himself and his descendants.<br /><br />Act 4, Scene 2<br /><br />Betrayal 9: Macbeth has Lady Macduff and her children all killed because her husband went to England to find help against Macbeth. They were punished for Macduff's betrayal.<br /><br />Act 5, Scene 8<br /><br />Betrayal 10: Macbeth's betrayal is finally punished when Macduff cuts off his head and the throne is restored to Malcolm.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-6552823708447191442008-09-27T10:08:00.000-07:002008-09-27T10:16:33.780-07:00Book extract1st Chapter<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />One weekday afternoon in May 2004, General George Casey bounded up the stairs to the third floor of his government-furnished quarters, a beautiful old brick mansion on the Potomac River at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. His wife, Sheila, was packing for a move across the river to Fort Myer, in Virginia, the designated quarters of the Army's vice chief of staff.<br /><br />"Please, sit down," Casey said.<br /><br />In 34 years of marriage, he had never made such a request.<br /><br />President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Army chief of staff had asked him to become the top U.S. commander in Iraq, he said.<br /><br />Sheila Casey burst into tears. Like any military spouse, she dreaded the long absences and endless anxieties of separation, the strains of a marriage carried out half a world apart. But she also recognized it was an incredible opportunity for her husband. Casey saw the Iraq War as a pivot point, one of history's hinges, a conflict that would likely define America's future standing in the world, Bush's legacy and his own reputation as a general.<br /><br />"This is going to be hard," Casey said, but he felt as qualified as anyone else.<br /><br />Casey's climb to four-star status had been unusual. Instead of graduating from West Point, he had studied international relations at Georgetown University. He'd been there during the Vietnam War and was a member of ROTC, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. He remembered how some students had spit on him and hurled things when he crossed campus in uniform. In 1970, after his graduation and commissioning as an Army second lieutenant, his father and namesake, a two-star Army general commanding the celebrated 1st Cavalry Division, was killed in Vietnam when his helicopter crashed en route to visit wounded soldiers.<br /><br />Casey had never intended to make the Army his career. And yet he fell in love with the sense of total responsibility that even a young second lieutenant was given for the well-being of his men. Now, after 34 years in the Army, he was going to be the commander on the ground, as General William Westmoreland had been in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968. Casey had no intention of ending up like Westmoreland, whom history had judged as that era's poster boy for quagmire and failure.<br /><br />Casey had never been in combat. His most relevant experience was in the Balkans — Bosnia and Kosovo — where irregular warfare had been the order of the day. He had held some of the most visible "thinker" positions in the Pentagon — head of the Joint Staff strategic plans and policy directorate, J-5, and then the prestigious directorship of the Joint Staff, which served the chiefs. But aside from a 1981 stint in Cairo as a United Nations military observer, he had spent little time in the Middle East.<br /><br />After getting Sheila's blessing, Casey met with Rumsfeld. The two sat at a small table in the center of the secretary's office. "Attitude" was important, Rumsfeld explained — Casey must instill a frame of mind among the soldiers to let the Iraqis grow and do what they needed to do themselves. The general attitude in the U.S. military was "We can do this. Get out of our way. We'll take care of it. You guys stand over there." That would not spell success in Iraq, Rumsfeld explained. As he often would describe it later, the task in Iraq was to remove the training wheels and get American hands off the back of the Iraqi bicycle seat.<br /><br />For the most part, Casey agreed.<br /><br />"Take about 30 days, and then give me your assessment," Rumsfeld directed.<br /><br />Casey was heartened that Rumsfeld and he shared a common vision. But he was surprised that the secretary of defense had devoted only about 10 minutes for a meeting with the man about to take over the most important assignment in the U.S. military.<br /><br />The president held a small dinner at the White House for Casey and John Negroponte, the newly designated ambassador to Iraq, their spouses and a few friends. It was a social event, a way to say good luck.<br /><br />Casey went to see Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had served in the Army for 35 years and been the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War. Powell did not conceal his bitterness. Rumsfeld is screwing it all up, he told Casey. Marc Grossman, one of Powell's senior deputies and an old friend of Casey's, put it more pointedly. "These guys at DOD are just [expletive]," he said, "and I don't have any more patience for them."<br /><br />Casey concluded that there was no clear direction on Iraq, so he invited Negroponte to his office at the Pentagon.<br /><br />Negroponte, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had volunteered for the Iraq ambassadorship. At 64, he was a 40-year veteran of the Foreign Service. He believed that an ambassador was the executor of policy made in Washington. He and Casey agreed that they weren't getting much guidance from above.<br /><br />"What are we going to accomplish when we get over there?" Casey asked, and they started to hammer out a brief statement of purpose. The goal was a country at peace with its neighbors, with a representative government, which respected human rights for all Iraqis and would not become a safe haven for terrorists.<br /><br />The general and the ambassador were pleased with their draft. They had laid out mostly political goals, despite the fact that the United States' main leverage was its nearly 150,000 troops on the ground.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />In Iraq, Casey relieved Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who had been the junior three-star in the Army when he had taken command of the forces the previous year. Casey asked him to stick around for a while after the change of command ceremony. Over dinner, Sanchez unloaded his bitterness about the lack of support he felt he had received from the Army, the Pentagon and Washington. "This is ten times harder than Kosovo," he said.<br /><br />Casey could relate. He was familiar with the deep, irrational hatred that had driven the ethnic cleansing and other violence in the Balkans.<br /><br />He met with officers from the CIA station in Baghdad. They posed ominous questions: Could the whole enterprise work? What was the relationship between the political and military goals? Casey and Negroponte had settled on the political goals, but how would Casey achieve the military goal of keeping Iraq from becoming a safe haven for terrorists? As he was briefed and as he read the intelligence, he saw that terrorists had safe havens in at least four Iraq cities — Fallujah, Najaf, Samarra and, for all practical purposes, the Sadr City neighborhood in Baghdad.<br /><br />As Casey had passed through neighboring Kuwait on his way to Baghdad, the Third Army officers had a message for him: "If you want to understand this, you need to talk to Derek Harvey."<br /><br />Harvey, a 49-year-old retired Army colonel and Middle East specialist who worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, was a controversial figure within the U.S. intelligence world. He believed in immersion intelligence work, spending months at a time gathering information in the field rather than relying solely on reports and statistics.<br /><br />In the late 1980s, Harvey traveled throughout Iraq by taxicab — 500 miles, village to village — interviewing locals, sleeping on mud floors with a shower curtain for a door. He resembled the television detective Columbo — full of questions, intensely curious and entirely nonthreatening. After the 1991 Gulf War, when the CIA was predicting the inevitable fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Harvey, then a major, insisted that Hussein would survive because members of the Sunni community knew their fortunes were tied to his. He was right. Months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Harvey wrote an intelligence paper declaring that al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan posed a strategic threat to the United States.<br /><br />After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Harvey had intermittent Army assignments in the country, traveling quietly, talking to insurgents, sitting in interrogation rooms.<br /><br />One of his approaches was so-called DOCEX — document exploitation. He spent hours poring over files found in safe houses and financial data discovered in Saddam's briefcases. It was clear to him early on that a vacuum existed in Baghdad. Where was political power?<br /><br />Harvey made scouting missions into the provinces in an SUV, making contact with tribes, learning that former Baathist regime leaders, generals and other former officers were reuniting. He studied documents and letters found in buildings that U.S. forces had raided. Together with his interviews, they told a story: The old regime elements had plans to create a violent, hostile environment.<br /><br />Within U.S. intelligence agencies, a debate was taking place about how much real organization existed among the insurgents. Who was really in control? Harvey found that the insurgency was based on the old trust networks of professional, tribal and family relationships connected with the mosques. Guidance, instructions and exhortation — even the planning documents for operations — were often written in the religious language of holy war.<br /><br />Harvey found that U.S. units had reported a lot of attacks when they first arrived, but the longer they stayed in Iraq, the fewer they reported. It wasn't because the troops had appeased or vanquished the insurgents. Rather, near the end of their tours, they ventured out into the population less and less — sometimes never. He also concluded that only 22 to 26 percent of the violence directed at U.S. forces was being reported.<br /><br />General Sanchez never bought into Harvey's conclusions about the insurgency, even as officially measured violence in the classified SECRET reports kept rising. During one four-month period in mid-2004, the attacks doubled from about 1,000 a month to 2,000.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Casey summoned Harvey to a meeting in early July 2004. Harvey found the general on a balcony at his new headquarters at Camp Victory, gazing out over Baghdad. Casey held up two cigars.<br /><br />"Do you smoke?"<br /><br />Harvey nodded.<br /><br />"Okay, come with me."<br /><br />What's really going on in Iraq? Casey asked.<br /><br />The Sunni insurgency is growing and getting worse, Harvey explained. It's organized. It's coherent. And its members have a strategy. They are gaining popular support. They believe they are doing well, and by any measurement they are — the number of attacks, their logistics, their financing, their external support, freedom of movement, ability to recruit. Every trend line was going up. Way up.<br /><br />The insurgency is not a guerrilla war designed to win political power, he said. "It's all about wearing you out, getting you to leave and subverting the existing order, and infiltrating and co-opting the emerging Iraqi institutions."<br /><br />The Iraqi government was weak, he added. It needed to be stronger, much stronger, but the United States was not going to change the attitudes or the culture. "We have to work around them," he said. "You're not going to force them to make decisions that they're not comfortable with. We don't have the leverage. We really don't."<br /><br />Harvey said the Americans must learn to operate with humility, because there was so much they didn't understand about how and why the Iraqis made decisions. We think we know, but we're delusional. We get these glimpses, and we extrapolate. But if you really dig, what's it all really based on? Only whispers of the truth. "We don't understand the fight we're in," he said.<br /><br />Harvey said the revelations about abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib months earlier had inflamed Iraqis. Photographs of smiling U.S. soldiers alongside naked, hooded, manacled and leashed inmates had flooded newspapers, television screens and the Internet. They had spread like a lightning bolt through Iraqi society and sent a devastating message: The U.S. occupation was the new oppressor.<br /><br />As their cigars burned down and their conversation drew to a close, Harvey fixed his gaze on the new commanding general. "We're in trouble."<br /><br />In Washington, infighting over the war had gone from bad to worse within the administration since the 2003 invasion.<br /><br />"Control is what politics is all about," legendary journalist Theodore H. White wrote. War is also about control — both on the battlefield and in Washington, where the strategy and policy are supposed to be set. But from the start, no one in the administration had control over Iraq policy.<br /><br />In the early days of the war, the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Hadley, her deputy at the time, had worked on Iraq nonstop and yet they never got control over the policy making. They were no match for Rumsfeld. The president had signed a directive before the invasion, giving the authority for an occupation to the Defense Department.<br /><br />Bush and Rumsfeld's selection of L. Paul Bremer, a career diplomat, to act as the viceroy of Iraq further diminished the role of Rice and Hadley, as well as Powell at the State Department. Bremer all but ignored the National Security Council.<br /><br />"We're all told to stay out of it," Hadley complained to a colleague. "This is Don Rumsfeld's thing."<br /><br />Bremer, who as a presidential envoy had a direct reporting line to the president, bypassed even Rumsfeld and made important decisions unilaterally and abruptly. Some of those decisions proved disastrous, such as disbanding the Iraqi army and excluding from government service tens of thousands of former members of Saddam's Baath Party.<br /><br />Rumsfeld had his own view of how the U.S. should proceed. He would send out one of his "snowflakes," brief documents asking questions, looking for details, demanding answers, when it was unclear to him what had happened. Though unsigned, everyone knew they represented his orders or questions. But if a snowflake leaked, it provided deniability.<br /><br />The snowflake sent on October 28, 2003, was two pages long and classified SECRET: "Subject: Risk and the way ahead in Iraq. In discussing the way ahead in Iraq, all agree that we should give Iraqis more authority more quickly."<br /><br />Powell had a different view. Control was about security. In the first year after the invasion, Bush and Rice repeatedly expressed worry that the oil production in Iraq and availability of electricity were dropping — visible signs that conditions were worse in Iraq than prior to the invasion.<br /><br />"Petroleum is interesting. Electricity is interesting," Powell said, but added, "Mr. President, none of this makes any difference unless there's security ... Security is all that counts right now."Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-48245423550521958522008-09-27T09:03:00.000-07:002008-09-27T10:13:57.374-07:00BookTHE WAR WITHIN<br /><br />A Secret White House History 2006–2008<br /><br />By Bob Woodward<br /><br />The Bob Woodward rollout is always strictly scripted. His books are “held back,” meaning that no advance copies are available for reviewers and that pain-of-death secrecy vows are extracted from book review editors. His “bombshells,” those fly-on-the-wall details from inside the power dome and classified memos impossible to obtain (for all except Woodward), are disclosed in multipart, front-page articles in The Washington Post, where for decades the author was an assistant managing editor. (He is now an associate editor.) Then there is the bump from exclusive interviews on “60 Minutes” followed by more televised amplification, an éclat that almost always results in a No. 1 best seller.<br />This time, with the arrival of “The War Within,” the final volume in his four-part Bush oeuvre, the script is the same, but the headlines mask what is really newsworthy about the book. The reported bombshells — that the Bush administration has secretly monitored nearly every move and word of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and that American military and intelligence officials have used top-secret spying methods to zap foreign terrorists in Iraq — are hardly shocking. And this final narrative, which glacially explores the nearly three-year process by which President Bush and his counselors came to the epiphany that they needed a new strategy for the spiraling violence in Iraq, is far less gripping than any of the previous Woodward books on Bush.<br /><br />What is most consequential about “The War Within” is the evolutionary shift it marks for the author. Woodward is famous for his flat, just-the-facts-ma’am style, if one can call it that. It is the old-fashioned newspaperman’s credo of show, don’t tell. He rarely pauses in his narratives to synthesize or analyze, let alone to judge his powerful subjects, especially those who have been his sources. He has only one angle, the close-up. The striking lack of contextual analysis in all his books about presidents going back to Richard Nixon has angered some readers and critics, most famously Joan Didion, who in an appraisal of six Woodward volumes (from the 1980s and ’90s) wrote, “These are books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent.”<br /><br />In contrast to his other Bush volumes, “The War Within” does provide interstitial analysis and judgments throughout. It also renders an extremely harsh final appraisal of President Bush. In a stinging epilogue, Woodward concludes: “For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. The result has too often been impulsiveness and carelessness and, perhaps most troubling, a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut.”<br /><br />SOME will deem this judgment obvious and long overdue. They will also come away hungry if they expect Woodward to grapple with the central question surrounding the Iraq war: whether it was launched and fought with just cause. Still, Woodward has traveled far since the publication of his first two volumes; in both he viewed events through an overly heroic prism in the aftermath of 9/11. In his third volume, “State of Denial,” the author took a mulligan. Writing as the insurgency in Iraq was spinning out of control, he rewound the story back to the beginning and offered a much tougher account of Bush’s war policies and their executors.<br /><br />In “The War Within,” more judgmental still, President Bush shrinks in stature as the narrator’s presence grows. Cynics will say that Woodward waited until the last book to fully criticize the president and his closest advisers because he no longer needs access to them.<br /><br />Certainly, Woodward’s conclusions about President Bush’s certitude, intolerance of dissent and poor management of Iraq policy, including the legal overreaching of his antiterror campaign, have been explored more deeply in earlier fine books by Thomas Ricks, Michael Gordon, Ron Suskind, Robert Draper, George Packer and Jane Mayer, among others. But, on balance, it is impossible not to be impressed by Woodward’s reporting, which provides a vivid week-by-week chronology, from the post-9/11 attack on Afghanistan to the Iraq surge, of how the president’s war policy unspooled and of its consequences. His unadorned factual accounts have supplied many other authors and reporters with an invaluable record of what happened and what was said at pivotal junctures during this presidency.<br /><br />In fact, some of the defining details of the Bush administration’s missteps have come directly from Woodward. There is former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule (“You break it, you own it”); the former director of central intelligence George Tenet’s infamous “slam dunk” description of the faulty case on Iraq’s W.M.D. programs; Vice President Dick Cheney and Powell going after each other in a blistering argument over Iraq policy; Senator Chuck Hagel telling Bush he has gone too deep into the bunker; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s face sinking when the retired Army general Jack Keane presents him with irrefutable evidence that more troops are needed if security is ever to be attained in Iraq. In the new book, there is a remarkable scene that captures it all, as an obtuse President Bush demands that the words “victory,” “win” and “success” be restored to a speech given when the violence in Iraq is spiking. More than mere anecdotal detail, this is the memorable stuff of history.<br /><br />And with a White House as secretive as this one, where few of the most important participants are likely to write honestly or insightfully anytime soon (at least if Tenet’s recent memoir is any indication), there is immense value in the Woodward quartet. The fine detail is wonderfully illuminating, and cumulatively these books may be the best record we will ever get of the events they cover.<br /><br />It isn’t fair to take any author to task for not writing the books that others would have preferred him to write. In Woodward’s case, he is nonideological, so his books bitterly disappoint the cable shouters, left and right. In any case, contemporaneous reporting seldom, if ever, can deliver the brilliant texture of, say, Robert Caro’s three volumes (with another in the works) on Lyndon Johnson, unmatched in their scrupulous combination of documentation and interviews, which together reflect the wisdom of passing time. As the protagonist in Woodward’s massive narrative, George W. Bush does not evolve or deepen from book to book, as Franklin D. Roosevelt does in Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s cycle on the New Deal. But Woodward does capture the essence of his subject. With his optimistic bromides and certainty, Bush emerges as a president at once consequential and shallow, physically aged but intellectually and psychologically untouched. “In some ways,” Woodward observes, “President Bush has changed very little since my first interview with him on Dec. 20, 2001.” What is surprising when you read the four books in sequence, as I did this spring and summer, is that despite Woodward’s neutral approach, all the failings of the president and his cabinet are plainly visible, especially in the case of the central character, Bush. The books offer a definitive portrait of him even if, in real time, Woodward sometimes seems unaware of what he has.<br /><br />Indeed, Woodward’s evolving consciousness furnishes the true drama of these books. There is damning material in all four volumes, but in the first two, Woodward was unable or unwilling to fully acknowledge this. As the war turned sour and Bush’s flaws overwhelmed his strengths, Woodward began to reassess both Bush and his own earlier views. He ends by providing readers not just the material to draw their own judgments but a harsh judgment of Bush himself. In so doing, he has stepped much closer to the role of biographer, not just stenographer.<br /><br />“Bush at War,” the first book, published in 2002, was justifiably criticized at the time for being glossy and credulous. The accusation holds today. The reader flinches at some junctures, as when, before beginning the war in Afghanistan, Bush asks if humanitarian aid can be airlifted there. “For Bush, it was fundamental to what he sees as the moral mission of the United States,” Woodward faithfully writes. At another point, Woodward transcribes, rather than analyzes, the Bush worldview: “His vision clearly includes an ambitious reordering of the world through pre-emptive and, if necessary, unilateral action to reduce suffering and bring peace.” Yet even in this first book Woodward gives a clear foreshadowing of the most fatal failing of the White House. “Bush’s leadership style bordered on the hurried,” he writes. “He wanted actions, solutions. Once on a course, he directed his energy at forging on, rarely looking back, scoffing at — even ridiculing — doubt and anything less than 100 percent commitment.”<br /><br />In the second book, “Plan of Attack,” about the decision to go to war in Iraq, President Bush becomes even more dismissive of advisers who issue pleas of caution but fear being banished for disloyalty. The full consequences of the dead certainty inside the White House come fully into focus in “State of Denial,” with its account of the chaos that Iraq became in the three years after the war began. Now, in this concluding volume, Woodward finally shows the full “Kabuki” of generals knowing they are losing but telling Bush he is beloved on the streets of Iraq. Too slowly, the president and his team accept that a new strategy with higher troop levels is needed to calm the storm.<br /><br />Read together, the four Bush volumes trace a strange arc, with the third and fourth acts seeming to belong to a different play. In three of them, the most valuable synthesis of the material is tacked on as epilogues that all but scream, “My editor made me do it.” (Perhaps Woodward should follow the example of Francis Ford Coppola, who restitched his “Godfather” sagas into a single movie.) Throughout, Woodward’s writing style can be so clunky that it is unintentionally comic, as in this beginning for a chapter in which Iraq’s violence verges on Hobbesian anarchy: “Condi Rice’s worries were escalating.”<br /><br />These books offer a chilling lesson in how not to lead. They also describe the tragic pattern of a president who operates impulsively, guided solely by his instincts, abetted but ill-served by advisers who fail in the crucial task of speaking truth to power. Even in “Bush at War,” the book most favorable to the White House, President Bush’s leadership mode combines grandiosity (“We’re going to rout out terror wherever it may exist”) and bluster (“We’re going to find out who did this,” Bush tells Cheney, “and we’re going to kick their asses”). His bottom line, as expressed to Woodward in two interviews, is: “A president has got to be the calcium in the backbone.”<br /><br />Thus, he resists any suggestion that more time is needed to hit back at the terrorists after 9/11. When former Senator Thomas Daschle reminds the president that war is a powerful word and Cofer Black of the C.I.A. warns that the fighting in Afghanistan will be neither bloodless nor easy, the president counters: “That’s war. That’s what we’re here to win.” In his interviews with Woodward, the president constantly refers to his “instincts” and gut reactions. From the beginning the author senses danger in a leader whose “instincts are almost his second religion.”<br /><br />But Bush doesn’t listen only to his inner voice. He also receives a powerful early lesson from Karl Rove: history always goes to the victor, whatever mistakes may be committed along the way. And so, in the subsequent three books, Bush is obsessed with being able to claim a win in Iraq.<br /><br />In “Plan of Attack,” the author’s doubts grow. When Bush tells him that “freedom is God’s gift to everybody in the world. . . . I believe we have a duty to free people,” Woodward, in a rare interpolation, asks whether such a conviction might seem “dangerously paternalistic.” “Those who become free appreciate the zeal” is the president’s retort.<br /><br />So too, in the early deliberations over Iraq, George Tenet realizes that with President Bush, “you paid the biggest price by doubting,” which meant, in turn, that “suddenly there seemed to be no penalty for taking risks and making mistakes.” No wonder we arrive later at “slam dunk.”<br /><br />Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, are among the sources who are let off too lightly. Powell “senses a war fever” emitted by the White House and requests an audience with the president. But once in his presence, Powell doesn’t really take his full say and fails to toss “his heart on the table.” Then, on the eve of the war, Woodward accepts that it was unthinkable for Powell, despite his reservations, to walk away and not put his “war uniform on.” But what if Powell had publicly broken with the president over the war? Might it have made a difference? It is a question Woodward fails to ask.<br /><br />(In “The War Within,” Woodward at last confronts the reality that the casus belli had been discredited: “No W.M.D. had been found, many saw the war as a catastrophe and Powell’s reputation was irretrievably linked to it, forever damaged.” And he quotes James A. Baker III, the principal voice of the Iraq Study Group, who says that Powell might have been the one person who could have prevented the war.)<br /><br />In “Plan of Attack” Woodward acknowledges an error of his own: he admits he should have pushed The Washington Post to publish a front-page article about the flimsiness of the intelligence on W.M.D. I was Washington bureau chief for The Times while this was happening, and I failed to push hard enough for an almost identical, skeptical article, written by James Risen. This was a period when there were too many credulous accounts of the administration’s claims about Iraq’s W.M.D. (including some published in The Times and The Post). Woodward, with whom I had a few professional encounters (being on panels and such) during my 20 years as a reporter and editor in Washington, does not provide as full a story of the administration’s W.M.D. campaign as do two other excellent books, Frank Rich’s “Greatest Story Ever Sold” and Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s “Hubris.”<br /><br />In “State of Denial,” Woodward, no longer the passive observer of events, charts the period during the insurgency when the obdurate optimism of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld became a refusal to confront reality. Woodward challenges Rumsfeld on the rising number of attacks in Iraq and is left “speechless” when Rumsfeld likens the situation to a bowl of fruit. Today this book may be better remembered for the fart jokes with which Bush and Rove amuse themselves, or for the disclosure that the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, and the first lady, Laura Bush, wanted the president to dump Rumsfeld. But its most powerful pages relate the dawning realization by the president’s men that “Bush was in denial about Iraq.”<br /><br />The fact that Woodward was unable to interview Bush for his third book may have liberated him to reach sharper conclusions, though again the result is marred by Woodward’s cozy relationships with some sources. Too many of the descriptions of Bush come from Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, a longtime Woodward source who may be more self-serving than reliable.<br /><br />IN “The War Within,” Bush remains inured to harsh truths. Gen. George Casey concludes that the principal problem with Iraq “is the president himself,” a perception that informs the narrative as it records years of dithering during which the president stubbornly refuses to accept, even as the evidence mounts, that a military strategy based on Rumsfeld’s lean troop levels and the lack of a viable post-invasion plan make the “victory” he demands thoroughly unachievable. And the White House’s insistence on loyalty and optimism inhibits even the few realists left on the team, like the National Security Council aide Meghan L. O’Sullivan and the State Department deputy Philip Zelikow. O’Sullivan finally brings herself to tell Bush that Iraq is “hell,” but Zelikow, who made more than a dozen visits to Iraq and recognized the bleakness of the picture, sheds his pessimism in Bush’s presence. “Perhaps Zelikow didn’t want to be entirely out of step with the optimism or didn’t want to be seen as a naysayer,” Woodward speculates. “Perhaps he could not overcome the old cliché that advisers fold in front of the president.” Zelikow’s boss, Condoleezza Rice, is also complicit. She knows that Bush needs to hear the skeptical, not only the best, case from his military men, but she too softens the reality for the president, first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state. And she doesn’t dare go around Cheney or Rumsfeld to deliver the truth.<br /><br />In interviews with Woodward, Bush praises Rice’s successor as national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, as the architect of the surge, which has reduced the number of attacks in Baghdad and other parts of the country (helped by a new alliance with some Iraqi tribal leaders and Sunnis). But Woodward, appalled that Bush outsourced a failing war to his national security adviser, faults Hadley for being awe-struck by a president he calls a “visionary.”<br /><br />Yet he is a visionary whose sight is sometimes cloudy. In his big interviewwith Bush for this last book, Woodward asks the president to pinpoint the moment he decided to change his war policy and approve the surge. Stumped by the question, Bush recommends Woodward consult Hadley — “Maybe Steve knows it.” This is a jaw-dropper quite like the moment in “State of Denial” when Woodward asks Rumsfeld to describe an instance in which Bush revealed himself as a wartime leader and Rumsfeld can’t come up with one.<br /><br />Woodward himself is most shocked by Bush’s admission that in June 2006 he realized Iraq strategy wasn’t working, but took no positive action to revise it. When Woodward asks him whether he should have sent more troops earlier, Bush responds, “I haven’t spent a lot of time analyzing whether more troops in 2003” would have changed the situation. At the height of the insurgent attacks, Bush demands the impossible: “I want to be able to say we have a plan to punch back,” in order to “fight off the impression that this is not winnable.”<br /><br />If there is a hero in this sad tale, it is Gen. David Petraeus, the prosecutor of the surge, on whom the author, back in heroizing mode, seems to have a man crush: “At 53, Petraeus remained a slim man with boyish features, famously smart, articulate and motivated.”<br /><br />But even Petraeus, competent though he is, remains subordinate to the single figure who dominates this four-book narrative. “In the end, one lesson remained,” Woodward concludes, “a lesson played out again and again through the history of American government: of all the forceful personalities pacing the halls of power, of all the obdurate cabinet officers, wily deputies and steely-eyed generals in or out of uniform, of all the voices in the chorus of Congress clamoring to make themselves heard, one person mattered most.”<br /><br />“The War Within” includes one last epilogue — or apologia. In an effort at self-justification, Woodward points out that the seeds that grew into “State of Denial” and “The War Within” were planted and indeed had sprouted in his first two volumes. He makes a plausible case, though it would have been better, for him and for us, if his judgments had been woven into the original texts. Even now Woodward doesn’t divulge his own view of the war itself, beyond saying the obvious: “The outcome of the Iraq war, now in its sixth year, remains uncertain.”<br /><br />But Woodward’s own judgment of the war and of Bush doesn’t really matter. In the course of four books he has given readers the conversations and documents we need to reach our own judgments. He has also, however unevenly and imperfectly, supplied enough synthesis and analysis to make that judgment genuinely informed. Sure, these books can be a slog. But they stand as the fullest story yet of the Bush presidency and of the war that is likely to be its most important legacy.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-1912872095432431072008-09-27T09:00:00.000-07:002008-09-27T09:03:37.979-07:00BooksDemonic Muse ..By LIESL SCHILLINGER<br /><br />In this satirical, erotic allegory of the post-Soviet and post-9/11 world, Victor Pelevin gives new meaning to the words “unreliable narrator.” The story is told by a shape-shifting nymphet named A Hu-Li, a red-haired Asiatic call girl who is some 2,000 years old but looks 14. Her name, said aloud, sounds like a Russian obscenity, but it derives from the Chinese expression for fox spirit, huli jing — an epithet that doubles in China as a put-down for a lascivious home-wrecker. By day, A Hu-Li lives in a dark warren under the bleachers at an equestrian complex in Bitsevsky Park in Moscow; by night, she works the high-end Hotel National, hunting investment bankers.<br /><br />While she may look like an ordinary (albeit exceptionally alluring) sex worker, A Hu-Li is a supernatural creature, a “professional impersonator of an adolescent girl with big innocent eyes” who ensorcells her clients by whipping out her luxuriant fox tail before each tryst and setting it a-whir like a pinwheeling ray gun, beaming hypnotic carnal fantasies into her customers’ minds. Although the men feel the telepathic pleasures in the flesh, a hotel spy-cam would reveal that the vixen took no physical part in the gymnastics. The men frolic alone.<br /><br />In Russia, enthralled critics have called “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” “literaturnaya Viagra.” The Viagra effect is what makes the medicine go down — the medicine, that is, of Pelevin’s bereft philosophy of modern times, presented in statements like “The whole of human history for the last 10,000 years is nothing but a constant revision of the results of privatization.” It’s a bitter message that this dark fairy tale makes not only palatable but irresistible.<br /><br />Pelevin, an introspective Russian trickster now in his mid-40s, has made his name over the last 20 years by writing queerly unsettling fiction that grafts social and political reality to both Western and Eastern philosophies, binding them with the gauze of science fiction and taping them with literary allusion. Pelevin’s broad preoccupation is the meaning (or increasing lack thereof) of the human condition. His narrower focus is the change that has occurred in Russia since the rise and fall of Gorbachev, among the “generation that was programmed for life in one sociocultural paradigm but has found itself living in a quite different one.” He has called this group Generation P, for Pepsi, because “once upon a time in Russia there really was a carefree, youthful generation that smiled in joy at the summer, the sea and the sun, and chose Pepsi.” What happens to such a generation when Coke and capitalism invade, and when, after that, authoritarianism returns? “When established connections in the real world collapse,” Pelevin writes, “the same thing happens in the human psyche.”<br /><br />In an early novel, “The Life of Insects,” he projected this disconnect onto the body. His characters slipped between human and insect form without any warning or interruption in dialogue, leaving the reader to untangle their metamorphoses and make the mind-body connection. His most successful later novels, “Buddha’s Little Finger” and “Homo Zapiens,” made even more demands on his readers’ powers of ironic association, with brilliant set pieces reminiscent of “Gravity’s Rainbow.”<br /><br />In “Buddha’s Little Finger,” Pelevin imagined the merging of post-Communist Russia and consumerist America as a doomed joyride on a jet fighter piloted by Arnold Schwarzenegger, taken by a Russian mental patient who goes by the name Maria. Unseatbelted and exposed to the elements, she straddled a wing of the plane, clutching a tumescent antenna as Schwarzenegger zoomed impassively through the sky, ultimately crashing. In “Homo Zapiens,” a poetry translator changes careers after the U.S.S.R. “improved so much that it ceased to exist.” He becomes an advertising copywriter, creating impenetrable ads that impress the boorish, money-hungry “New Russian” target audience — because the ads’ inane content proves that the company paying for the advertising is so stinking rich, it can afford to “simply flush a million dollars down the tubes.” Confused by what all this means? So is the novel’s hero, but he receives clarifications from Che Guevara, who sends him lengthy communiqués about television, identity and dualism via Ouija board. One of the adman’s bosses also helps direct his mission. “First you try to understand what people will like,” he tells him, “and then you hand it to them in the form of a lie. But what people want is for you to hand them the same thing in the form of the truth.”<br /><br />That insight underlies Pelevin’s new novel; and though it may sound cynical, it’s not meant that way. He doesn’t understand “truth” and “lie” as a simpler thinker might, and by grounding his ideas in fantasy, putting them in the words of his demonic muse, he has removed the need to make the distinction. In her guileful storytelling, the supervixen enfolds the precepts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Sikhism, along with the theories of Wittgenstein, William of Occam, Freud, Foucault and, especially, Berkeley. (A Hu-Li’s lover’s idea of pillow talk: “Everything only exists by virtue of perception.”) While writing her own Internet pornography ad for whores.ru, A Hu-Li teasingly draws from the fairy tales of Aksakov, the poetry of Blok, the writings of Nabokov. To spice up a casual encounter, she daydreams of Suetonius — who inspires one of her especially sadistic group sex sessions. Needless to say, she handles the allusions with an admirably deft touch.<br /><br />The resulting novel is what Pelevin would call an “aporia” containing an “irresolvable contradiction.” It’s an encyclopedic catalog of Pelevin’s philosophical and political thought wrapped in a fairy tale: imagine Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense” as manga. To A Hu-Li, this aporia is a synonym for life. “The substance of life doesn’t change much from one culture to another,” she observes, “but the human soul requires a beautiful wrapper.” Racy, playful, thought-provoking and perverse, “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” lends itself to both highlighting by the grad student’s yellow marker and underscoring by the thrill-seeker’s red pen.<br /><br />Early in the novel, as A Hu-Li plies her trade, her signals get jammed when she brushes up against a member of the F.S.B. (the new K.G.B.), the “captain of the hit men’s brigade.” Alexander Sery (his surname, which means “gray” in Russian, is also a euphemism for the black market) is “unshaven, sullen and very good-looking,” with a “fierce, wolfish” mien, for which there’s a very good reason. Alexander is a werewolf, and A Hu-Li’s shifty vulpine defenses prove useless against his crude lupine brio. His grayish-yellow eyes burn into her retinas, but the “most significant thing,” she notes, is that his face “was a face from the past. There used to be a lot of faces like that around in the old days, when people believed in love and God.”<br /><br />Alexander calls his lover Ada — a nod to her Internet name, to Nabokov and to the Russian word for hell. She nicknames him Shurik, deliberately suggesting the name of the dog Sharik from Bulgakov’s story (famous in Russia) “Heart of a Dog,” about a cur who turns into a proletarian and becomes so annoying that he has to be stopped. Their werefox and werewolf games begin with lovestruck “tailechery” (a form of transcendental canine commingling) but detour into more dangerous sport as A Hu-Li and Shurik initiate each other into secret passions. She likes to put on an evening gown, drop by farmhouses and horrify the occupants by nabbing their hens and bolting, transforming into a werefox as she flees. He likes to rally with other F.S.B. werewolves in the frozen north, howling at a cow skull on a stake in hopes of necromantically summoning oil from the substrate into Mother Russia’s waiting pipelines. Watching this scene, seeing the cow’s skull, A Hu-Li is reminded of a grim Russian fairy tale about a slaughtered cow who takes pity on an orphan and sends the girl gold from the grave. Touched, A Hu-Li adds her own soulful lament to the cacophony: “We were all howling, with our faces turned to the moon, howling and weeping for ourselves and for our impossible country, for our pitiful life, stupid death and sacred $100 a barrel.” In response to her emotion (she thinks), oil comes burbling up the stake. Shurik laughs at her sentimentality. “It’s my job to get the oil flowing,” he scoffs. “And for that, the skull has to cry.”<br /><br />It’s a joy to read Pelevin’s phantasmagoria so brilliantly translated by Andrew Bromfield, a crowning achievement of the pair’s longtime association. Complex ideas are rendered simply and organically, never disturbing the narrative flow. Bromfield’s English text is fleet and magical.<br /><br />Animal parables lie at the heart of every culture. Usually such tales are meant to instruct human behavior, but Russian folktales are unusual because they so often lack a moral. Instead, they portray bleak or unjust situations in mesmerizing language, making a fable of resignation itself. Russian children grow up on stories like the adventures of Alyonushka and her thirsty brother, Ivanushka, who turned into a goat after he drank water from a hoof print.<br /><br />Werewolf literature is an offshoot of the man-and-beast genre and an abiding preoccupation of this author. In his early story “A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia,” Pelevin sent an unsuspecting young man to a village near an old collective farm to take part in a gathering of werewolves, creatures whose existence he had not previously suspected. “What are werewolves, really?” he asks the leader of the pack. “What are people, really?” the leader retorts, baring his teeth.<br /><br />For a man as steeped in Nabokovian wordplay as Pelevin is, it can be no mistake that in the Russian version of “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” he chose the word oboroten, which means shape-shifter or, literally, someone who turns back to what he was before, instead of vervolk, which he used for his earlier werewolf tale. Could this choice be a comment on present-day Russia? Is there a moral to Pelevin’s story? What are changelings, really? Those are questions best answered by A Hu-Li.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-929311279335875652008-09-27T08:59:00.000-07:002008-09-27T09:00:46.260-07:00ExcerptsTHE FATHER. Pastor Pagán knows how to wink. He's a professional at winking. For him, winking an eye — just one — is a way to be courteous. All the people he deals with conclude their business with a wink. The bank manager when he approves a loan. The teller when he cashes a check. The administrator when he hands it to him. The cashier when he plays the fool and doesn't inspect it. The chief's assistant when he tells him to go to the bank. The porter. The chauffeur. The gardener. The maid. Everybody winks at him. Headlights on cars wink, traffic lights, lightning in the sky, grass in the ground, eagles in the air, not to mention the planes that fly over the house of Pastor Pagán and his family the whole blessed day. The feline purr of the engines is interrupted only by the winking of the traffic on Avenida Revolución. Pastor responds to them with his own wink, moved by the certainty that this is dictated by good manners. Now that he's on a pension, he thinks of himself as a professional winker who never opened both eyes at the same time, and when he did, it was already too late. One wink too many, he thinks in self-recrimination, one wink too many. He didn't retire. He was retired at the age of fifty-two. What could he complain about? Instead of punishing him, they gave him nice compensation. Along with early retirement came the gift of this house, not a great mansion but a decent place to live. A relic of the distant "Aztec" period in Mexico City, when the nationalistic architects of the 1930s decided to build houses that looked like Indian pyramids. In other words, the house tapered between the ground floor and the third floor, which was so narrow it was uninhabitable. But his daughter, Alma, found it ideal for her equally narrow life, devoted to surfing on the Internet and finding in its virtual world a necessary — or sufficient — amount of life so she did not have to leave the house but felt herself part of a vast invisible tribe connected to her, as she was connected to and stimulated by a universe that she thought the only one worthy to take possession of "culture." The ground floor, really the basement, is occupied now by his son, Abel, who rejoined the family at the age of thirty-two after a failed attempt at leading an independent life. He came back proudly in order not to show that he was coming back contrite. Pastor received him without saying a word. As if nothing had happened. But Elvira, Pastor's wife, reclaimed her son with signs of jubilation. No one remarked that Abel, by coming home, was admitting that at his age, the only way he could live was free of charge in the bosom of his family. Like a child. Except that the child accepts his situation with no problems. With joy.<br />Skip to next paragraph<br />Related<br />'Happy Families: Stories,' by Carlos Fuentes: Traditions of Suffering (September 28, 2008)<br /><br />THE MOTHER. Elvira Morales sang boleros. That was where Pastor Pagán met her, in a second-rate club near the Monumento a la Madre, on Avenida Villalongín. From the time she was very young, Elvira sang boleros at home, when she took a bath or helped to clean, and before she went to sleep. Songs were her prayers. They helped her endure the sad life of a daughter without a father and with a grieving mother. Nobody helped her. She made herself on her own, on her own she asked for a job at a club in Rosales, was taken on, liked it, then went to a better neighborhood and began to believe everything she was singing. The bolero isn't good to women. It calls the female a "hypocrite, simply a hypocrite," and adds: "perverse one, you deceived me." Elvira Morales, to give conviction to her songs, took on the guilt in the lyrics, wondered if her fatal sap really poisoned men and if her sex was the ivy of evil. She took the lyrics of boleros very seriously. Which was why she inspired enthusiasm, convinced her audience, and provoked applause night after night in the white spotlights that fortunately obscured the patrons' faces. The public was the dark side of the moon, and Elvira Morales could give herself blindly to the passions she sang about, convinced they were true and that, since in song she was an "adventuress on earth," she would not be one in real life. On the contrary, she let it be known that the price of her love was high, very high, and whoever wanted the honey of her mouth would pay for the sin in diamonds. Elvira Morales could sing melodically about the abjectness of her fate, but offstage she jealously preserved the "springtime of her worth" (it rhymed with "adventuress on earth"). After the show, she never mixed with the audience. She would return to her dressing room, change, and go home, where her unfortunate mother was waiting for her. The patrons' invitations — a drink, a dance, a little love — were turned down, the flowers tossed into the trash, the small gifts returned. And the fact is that Elvira Morales, in every sense, took what she sang seriously. She knew through the bolero the dangers of life: lies, weariness, misery. But the lyrics authorized her to believe, to really believe, that "true affection, with no lies, no wickedness," can be found when "love is sincere."<br /><br />THE DAUGHTER. Alma Pagán made an effort to find a place in the world. Let no one say she did not try. At eighteen, she realized she could not have a career. There was no time and no money. Secondary school was the most she could hope for, especially if the family's resources (so limited) would go to help her brother, Abel, at the university. Alma was a very attractive girl. Tall, slim, with long legs and a narrow waist, black hair in a helmet cut, a bust ample but not exaggerated, a matte complexion and veiled eyes, a partially open mouth, and a small, nervous nose, Alma seemed made to order for the recent occupation of aide at official ceremonies. Alma dressed just like the other three or six or twelve girls selected for business shows, international conferences, official ceremonies, in a white blouse and navy blue jacket and skirt, dark stockings, and high heels; her function was to stand quietly behind the speaker, refill glasses of water for panels, and never smile, much less disapprove of anything. Expel her emotions and be the perfect mannequin. One day she joined five colleagues at a charity event, and she saw herself as identical to them, all of them exactly the same, all differences erased. They were clones of one another. They had no other destiny but to be identical among themselves without ever being identical to themselves, to resemble one another in immobility and then disappear, retired because of their age, their weight, or a run in a black stocking. This idea horrified Alma Pagán. She quit, and since she was young and pretty, she found a job as a flight attendant on an airline that served the interior of the country. She didn't want to be far from her family and therefore didn't look for work on international flights. Perhaps she guessed her own destiny. That happens. And it also happens that on night flights the male passengers, as soon as the lights were lowered, took advantage of the situation and caressed her legs as she passed, or stared hungrily at her neckline, or simply pinched a buttock as she served drinks and Cokes. The drop that filled her glass — of alcohol, of Coca-Cola — to overflowing was the attack of a fat Yucatecan when she was coming out of the lavatory. He pushed her inside, closed the door, and began to paw at her and call her "good-looking beauty." With a knee to his belly, Alma left the peninsular resident sitting on the toilet, pawing not Alma's breasts but the paunch of his guayabera. Alma did not file a complaint. It was useless. The passenger was always right. They wouldn't do anything to the pigheaded Yucatecan. They would accuse her of being overly familiar with the passengers, and if she weren't fired, she'd be fined. This was why Alma withdrew from all activity in the world and settled into the top floor of her parents' house with all the audiovisual equipment that from then on would constitute her secure, comfortable, and satisfactory universe. She had saved money and paid for the equipment herself.<br /><br />THE SON. Abel Pagán did not finish his studies in economics at the Autonomous University of Mexico because he thought he was smarter than his instructors. The boy's agile, curious mind searched for and found the obscure fact that would leave his professors astounded. He spoke with self-assurance of the "harmonies" of Bastiat and the GOP in the Republic of Congo, but if they asked him to locate that country on the map or to make the leap from the forgotten Bastiat to the very well-remembered Adam Smith, Abel was lost. He had learned the superfluous at the expense of the necessary. This made him feel at once superior to his professors and misunderstood by them. He left school and returned home, but his father told him he could stay only if he found work, this house wasn't for slackers, and he, Pastor Pagán, hadn't been lucky enough to go to college. Abel responded that it was true, one bum was enough. His father slapped him, his mother cried, and Abel sailed away on the ship of his dignity. He went out to find a job. He longed for freedom. He wanted to return home in triumph. The prodigal son. He confused freedom with revenge. He applied to the firm where his father worked. The office of Leonardo Barroso. Abel told himself he would show that he, the son, could handle the position that had destroyed his father. "Do I care about Barrosos? Little authoritarian bosses? Tin-hat desk dictators? Let them act tough with me!" He didn't have to wink. They received him with smiles, which he returned. He didn't realize that fangs lie halfway between smiles and grimaces. Big fangs. They took him on without further negotiations. Not even how easy it was perked up his antennae. They needled him, as if they were afraid that Abel was spying for his father, which meant he had to prove he was his father's enemy, and this led him to rail against Pastor Pagán, his weakness and his laziness, his lack of gratitude toward the Barrosos, who had given him work for over twenty years. The son's attitude seemed to please the company. The fact is they gave him a job as assistant floorwalker in one of the firm's stores, where his occupation consisted of walking among possible buyers and impossible sellers, watching them all to make sure that one didn't steal the merchandise and the other didn't take little breaks. Abel was the elegant civilian gendarme of the store. He became bored. He began to long for his university days, the protection of the family, their savings destined for his education. He felt uncomfortable, unappreciated. His own filial insolence, his own love of easy living, his ingratitude, appeared to him like habitual, ungraspable ghosts. He felt that the carpets in the store were clearly wearing out under his useless walking back and forth. He made friends. The best salespeople received commissions and appeared in the weekly celebratory bulletin. Abel Pagán never appeared in the bulletin. His bad reputation spread. "Be more accommodating with people, Abel." "I can't help it, Señor. I've always been rude to stupid people." "Listen, Abel, you saw that Pepe was in the bulletin this week." "How little intelligence you need to succeed." "Why don't you try to get into the bulletin?" "Because I don't care." "Don't be so difficult, kid." "I'm not difficult. I'm just taking on the disgust all of you ought to feel, a bunch of brownnosers." "Why don't you accept things the way they are and try to improve them every day, Abel?" "Because everything is the way it is, and it's not my style." "I wish I understood you, pal." Life was turning into a very long walk between the shoe department and the shirt department. Then the unforeseeable happened.<br /><br />THE FATHER. Looking back at the past, Pastor Pagán asked himself, Why wasn't I dishonest when I had the chance? Weren't they all thieves? Except me? Why did I have to speak to Señor Barroso himself and tell him that everybody had gotten rich but me, Señor? Why did I settle for the pittance — a check for five thousand dollars — that they gave me as a consolation prize? Why, from that time on, did they stop winking at me? What crime did I commit by talking to the big fish, to the boss? He soon found out. When he presented himself as the only honest employee, he implied that the others were not. For Barroso, this meant he was belittling his fellow workers. A real lack of solidarity. And without internal solidarity, the company didn't work. When he set himself up as the one employee above suspicion, Pastor aroused Barroso's perverse intelligence. As far as the boss was concerned, they were all corruptible. This was the central premise at all levels in Mexico, from the government to the company and from the grocery store to the communal pasture. How could Pastor Pagán presume to be the exception? Barroso the boss must have laughed to himself. Pastor did not commit the crime of asking for a taste, he committed the crime of calling himself honest. He did not understand that it wasn't enough for a powerful man like Leonardo Barroso to give an improper commission to a minor employee. Pastor offered up his naked breast so his boss would try to really corrupt him. Now, forced into retirement with a pension for life, Pastor had time to reflect on the motives that drive each person to destroy others. Sometimes it's necessity, when the enemy is dangerous. Sometimes vanity, when he is stronger than you. Sometimes the simple indifference with which you squash a fly. But on occasion it's also to eliminate the threat of the weak man when the weak man knows a secret that the powerful one wants to keep hidden. Pastor Pagán lived in retirement, shuffling the possibilities of his destiny, which, after all, had already been fulfilled. The truth was they exchanged the whip for the cudgel. When he asked his employer to let him be another militant in the gigantic army of corruption, he committed the crime of accusing others while excusing himself. From that moment on, he was in the hands of the boss, which is to say, power. After that, Pastor would lack moral authority. He would be just another crook. The rule, not the exception he had been before. What would he have gained by not asking his employer for anything? Would he be freer, more respected, still employed? The bitterest day of Pastor Pagán's life was the one on which he realized that whatever he did, and without even knowing it, he was now part of the web of bribery in the small country of his own job. For years he had served corruption, carrying checks back and forth, accepting false accounts, winking, being winked at, morally captured at that photographic moment when a single eye closes in complicity and the other stays open in shame.Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-73918690826477073382008-09-27T08:55:00.000-07:002008-09-27T08:58:57.078-07:00The book ... Happy Families<span style="font-weight:bold;">HAPPY FAMILIES Stories</span><br />By Carlos Fuentes. Translated by Edith Grossman<br /><br />Did Tolstoy really believe the throw-down challenge with which he began “Anna Karenina”? Are happy families really all alike? Is every unhappy family unhappy in its own way?Carlos Fuentes’s new story collection not only takes its title and epigraph from Tolstoy’s famous opening, but also makes us reconsider the bold statement the Russian writer uses to draw us into his novel.<br /><br />It’s true that the households at the center of these 16 stories could hardly be gloomier or, on the surface, more dissimilar, as each labors under its own burden of tragedy and grief. Yet as we read through this offering from one of Mexico’s most celebrated literary figures, the author of more than 20 books, certain patterns emerge, likenesses suggesting that the wildly dysfunctional may share more in common than do their harmonious neighbors.<br /><br />Children repeat and compound the mistakes that have ruined their parents’ lives; loving marriages devolve into rancor and resentment; poisonous secrets explode at the most destructive moments. The thread that runs through many of these tales seems, if not exclusively Mexican, then characteristic of a Latin culture, still predominantly Roman Catholic. North of the Rio Grande, these cases might be likely to wind up in divorce court and inheritance litigation. But in the cities and villages, mansions and modest dwellings where Fuentes’s stories are set, suffering and tradition are what bind these mismatched couples and their ungrateful offspring. The closer your family is, Fuentes seems to suggest, the greater the chance you’ll sustain major psychological violence and lasting damage. <br /><br />Possibly the most useful lesson to be extracted from “Happy Families” is that it’s smart to stay single. Among the most content (or anyway, the least tormented) characters are bachelors: Leo, who in a pair of stories turns out to be having simultaneous affairs with two married women, and the elderly traveler in “Sweethearts,” a regretful ballad of lost love that evokes an off-key karaoke version of Gabriel García Márquez’s gorgeous “Love in the Time of Cholera.”<br /><br />The hero of “A Cousin Without Charm” destroys his marriage when, to amuse his cherished wife, he invites a group of relatives to visit, and the ugly spinster-cousin turns out to be hot. Sons grow up to despise their fathers; siblings betray one another; one mother mourns the terrible fate that has befallen her daughter, while another, overwhelmed by motherhood, gives her baby to his movie-star father. The bond that links a homosexual couple in “The Gay Divorcee” falters when they take on a sort of adoptive son, a serpent who reveals and widens the fault lines in their supposedly Edenic relationship.<br /><br />Early on, we begin to notice details and plot turns that seem, at best, tasteless and unfeeling. In the opening story, “A Family Like Any Other,” a woman retreats from the gropings and humiliations of her job as a flight attendant and returns to her parents’ home, where she spends her days watching reality TV. One program features a race from northern Mexico to the Guatemalan border, during which two gringa contestants are murdered and found in a ditch near the Rio Grande — a bizarrely jocular reference to the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez.<br /><br />Some of the most off-putting stories are those that function partly as political or social critiques and wind up seeming nearly self-parodic. In “The Armed Family,” an ambitious man reveals his rebel brother’s hiding place to the military because having a guerrilla in the family is bad for business. In “Mater Dolorosa,” a woman corresponds with her daughter’s imprisoned killer, a man whose homicidal impulses are somehow linked to the injustices he suffered as a member of the country’s indigenous population.<br /><br />Throughout, one senses Edith Grossman — the expert translator who made the language of “Don Quixote” newly accessible — working to persuade us that a character could deliver a line like “My specialty is launching penury in pursuit of wealth,” or to find lucidity and originality in observations that are either gnomic and incomprehensible or, alternately, sententious and obvious: “The storm of nominal and adjectival scorn that poured down on Mexican homosexuals perhaps only hid, crudely, the very disguised inclinations of the most macho of machos: those who deceived their wives with men and brought venereal disease into their decent homes.” Even with Grossman’s help, it’s hard to read the poems narrated in collective voices (“Chorus of the Children of Good Families,” “Chorus of the Rancorous Families” and so forth) that separate the stories and that, in several instances, provide sensationalistic recountings of the massacres of the peasants at El Mozote and elsewhere. Fuentes’s excursions into the incantatory suggest that the novels of William Faulkner may have had mixed effects on certain South and Central American writers.<br /><br />How troubling to realize that the author of “Happy Families” is the same one whose novel “The Death of Artemio Cruz” was suffused with so much complicated humanity. Perhaps what’s most troubling about the new book is that we are so often made aware of what can only be a gap between intention and execution, between Fuentes’s apparent desire to inspire empathy for his characters and the way we’re made to feel contempt and even repulsion for these inadequate fathers, aging wives, oppressed peasants and philandering husbands, for the decrepitude of the old and the impotence of the helpless. Too often, the construction of the plots and the rendering of the characters seem simply inattentive or lazy, and there are hints of the telenovela, though not, it would seem, deliberate ones.<br /><br />So we come full circle to Tolstoy, who also wound up doing something different from what he’d intended, though he took the opposite route. If Fuentes makes us impatient with those we’re supposed to support, Tolstoy set out to condemn his adulterous heroine and ended up being swept away — and sweeping away his readers — in a torrential compassion for the sinners and the sinned against, for every family, happy and unhappy alike.<br /><br />Obviously, it’s unfair to measure Fuentes against Tolstoy. But if you’re worried about your next novel being compared with Melville’s, think twice before calling it “Moby-Dick.”Ultimately, though, none of that matters very much. The problem with “Happy Families” is neither its title nor the fact that it isn’t by Tolstoy. The problem is that we sense these stories are getting something wrong. And that makes us question how much energy Fuentes has put into creating a world, real or imaginary, that we can believe in.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/books/review/Prose-t.html">Original Review in New York Times</a>Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6929223477963644217.post-1940849843606104132008-09-26T13:11:00.001-07:002008-09-26T13:21:40.666-07:00<p><a href="http://www.magmypic.com"><img border="0" src="http://c1.magmypic.com/usermags/c/40/1db39bbe5badb98a035c03255b116_4600.jpg"></a><br>Create <a href="http://www.magmypic.com">Fake Magazine Covers</a> with your own picture at <a href="http://www.magmypic.com">MagMyPic.com</a></p><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.4NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyMjI*NjA*NjIzMTImcHQ9MTIyMjQ2MDQ3ODE1NiZwPTU*NzgxJmQ9cGFydG5lcitkYXRhJm49Jmc9MSZ*PSZvPTA*Yzk5MTE4M2U4ZDQ1M2NiMWRhNTUwYzI2MTc1N2Ji.gif" />Benedict Ghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06441940265052166004noreply@blogger.com0