The Familar in Howards End

Today, I’ve been doing what others have complained to me about: smart things that are valuable but not my immediate homework. The coffee doesn’t taste good today. The blogs I read make me feel jealous of the words but energyless for my own. So haphazardly, I will muse because I should.

I miss color. I know absolutely everyone is saying this but I really do and I don’t care how much of a pucking foser I may seem like. The first day of Spring is March 20^th so the week afterwards I am going to buy a bouquet of flowers for my desk at work. I decided that while walking to class this morning in the snow – the plan soothes me and now I feel more patient with the weather because soon, soon I will get my color whether or not Nature offers it to me.

There have been so many things that I have been meaning to write about. Like the book I have been reading – was reading: Howards End by E. M. Forester. But I don’t feel prepared to say anything exceptional about it. I will remark that I have discovered a shocking sense of personal familiarity with almost every single major character in the novel.

I sympathize with Leonard Bast and his attempt to have Culture dawn on him. This passage encapsulates his context:

“But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming: ‘All men are equal – all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas,’ and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slipped into the abyss where nothing counts and the statements of Democracy are inaudible.”

More to characterize him:

“Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin: he understood  him to be the greatest master of English Prose. He read forward steadily, occasionally making notes… Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he adapt it to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with modifications, when he next wrote a letter to his brother…”

That passage above parallels with unbelievable accuracy my thinking. I write so many notes in my novels that it is annoying for anyone to go back and reread them (including me if much time has passed) but next to this passage I simply wrote “me.” After reading that I stared and reread the section over and over before I could move on with the novel.

“…he would one day push his head out of the grey waters and see the universe.”

The narrator says:

“To see life steadily and to see it whole was not for the likes of him.”

I despise but am very like Jacky, Leonard’s not respectable, boring and stupid fiancé:

She begs for affirmation at every turn. She clings to the man who puts himself in her path and she, in no way, cares for Leonard’s ambitions or ideas. Blind.

“Do you love me, Len?”

Always the same question. Although I may be more clever in begging and fishing… I do it. I hate her. She depresses me. Poor Len.

I do as Mrs. Munt does. The Schlegel sisters’ aunt. I collect and horde to later showoff.

“’But this is something quite new!’ said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that are portable.”

I adore but am not reasonable, honest or wise enough to be a Margaret Schlegel. She is the connection. Wonderfully written. Even in her flaws – I love her. Infact, it is because of those flaws that I love her.

“Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something… best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life.”

Somehow she is comfortable with her contradictions – a feat I work towards:

“she hated war and liked soldiers – it was one of her amiable inconsistencies.”

She loves and embraces risk. So many beautiful comments by the narrator about the armored men who prepare but are tragic. Preparation is not inherently good. People are worth risk. To trust people is part of paying dues to humanity as the late Mr. Schlegel believed.

In her belief that she can only reasonably hope to help a few this is her recognition of how she means to help this one:

“She (Margaret) might yet be able to help him (Mr. Wilcox) to the building of a rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man.”

And yet when he cannot connect and Helen is to be paternally protected/squashed, Margaret locks the men out. She disempowers them because there is no basis for their power over her sister. She risks great things because Helen is, Helen asks and because Margaret knows that a woman is a powerful thing. To be that sister! To be that independent of a woman! The whole picture is what she sees.

Helen is a beautiful girl albeit naïve and a somewhat destructive force. Idealism. Her good intentions cause devastating harms and her passion is not, early on, tempered with honesty and self reflection. I love her and I cry when she does – I don’t understand the same things as she. And I whispered encouragement to her as she poised to act for good only to blush and regret the harms that I feel we are both responsible for.

Mrs. Ruth Wilcox is magical. E. M. Forester awesomely fashioned a character I imagine to be indescribable. She is like Mother Nature, maybe. I see nothing of myself in her. Ruth Wilcox has not a single familiar characteristic to who I think I am or who I want to be and yet… I love her. Maybe because Margaret does. Can’t explain.

The Wilcoxes are silly folks who remind me of Mr. Babbitt in Sinclair Lewis’ novel, Babbitt. I, too, desire to appear as though I had my hands on all the ropes but there is that fear and emptiness at times. I like Mr. Babbitt so much more because Lewis told me his story – I could appreciate the awakening in each dimension it was manifested. I must think more on the Wilcoxes – each of them. This analysis is too shallow to do their characters justice.

Well… That is roughly what I wanted to cover for that book.

Debate winds down. Regionals is over now. I am supremely happy with many of the improvements I noticed there and am eager for the chance to foster and reveal more at nationals.

Jesus of the People

I was looking around the internet this morning for some information on a painting I am very fond of and read something alarming. Shreshth, my old debate partner and very good friend, gave me a copy of Jesus of the People by Janet McKenzie for my birthday. He knows I am fascinated by the background of the painting and that I am so proud of the acclaim and honor the Catholic church placed on it considering that the model for Jesus was a black female.

Damned Wikipedia doesn’t have an article on this but here’s some background:

“Late in 1999 Janet McKenzie’s painting “Jesus of the People” was selected winner of the National Catholic Reporter’s competition for a new image of Jesus by judge, Sister Wendy Beckett, host of the PBS show “Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting”. In the words of Sister Wendy, ‘This is a haunting image of a peasant Jesus – dark, thick-lipped, looking out on us with ineffable dignity, with sadness but with confidence. Over His white robe He draws the darkness of our lack of love, holding it to Himself, prepared to transform all sorrows if we will let Him.’”

-from the artist’s website

The painting is shown there too.

Now onto the alarming post I stumbled upon. George asks, on his website, if we should really take this painting seriously considering that A. it surely doesn’t look like Jesus and B. we shouldn’t fantasize about what he looked like anyway. First of all, when he asks what happened to the real Jesus who did all of these wonderful things I think he proves some ignorance.

1. If you suggest that a black and feminine depiction of Christ at all alters the story then you  seem to be suggesting that had God formed Christ as black or as female then he/she would not have been as good a Christ. (Of course assuming he was white to begin with – I don’t pretend to know.) Otherwise, why complain about this painting?

2. Whether or not he was the actual seed of David seems like a ridiculous thing to be concerned about anyway. There are many less believable events in his story that matter quite a bit more.

I may be misreading his words. Malicious intent probably isn’t there at all. He may be concerned that the image of Christ is being lauded simply for inclusion’s and diversity’s sake. The Catholic Church wants to get in with the times. But I ask you, George, what better depiction of Christ than one who is accepting of you? Christ the Includer. An image that someone can feel more connected with. Many probably feel they have little in common with the white, blue eyed male of a savior that everyone says loves them. This, my dear George, is the beauty of art. What he looks like doesn’t matter. What he means is expressed beautifully by the lovely Janet McKenzie.

I am very proud to hang this painting in my apartment. I have a wall that already has Bottecelli’s The Birth of Venus and other images that represent my fascination with the feminine, beauty, power and my exploration of feminism. I am not religious and if said to be spiritual I am not sure I seek the Christian’s Holy Spirit. However! I am excited to wake every morning to Jesus of the People. It will be like my Turkish sunrises a few days ago… Brilliant.