Book Giveaway: The Overwrought Urn

 Darwin is traveling to Texas for a few days, so in lieu of a substantive post today, I offer another book giveaway from our inherited library. Up this time: The Overwrought Urn; a Potpourri of Parodies of Critics Who Triumphantly Present the Real Meaning of Authors From Jane Austen to J. D. Salinger, edited by Charles Kaplan.

The black spot in the photos is courtesy of my phone's camera and should be taken as no reflection on the book. 

The Overwrought Urn is a selection of parodies of lit crit, in the style of The Pooh Perplex (in fact, one of the Pooh Perplex essays is included). I would maintain that The Pooh Perplex is generally funnier and more enduring, but some of the essays here are brilliant. Jorge Luis Borges contributes a delightfully pompous analysis of Pierre Menard, a Frenchman whose aim was to immerse himself in the study of the life and times of Cervantes and thus to be able to write for himself, in the exact same words, Don Quixote.

The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say, but ambiguity is a richness.) It is a revelation to compare the Don Quixote of Menard with that of Cervantes. The latter, for instance, wrote (Don Quixote, Part One, Chapter Nine): 

...La verdad, cuya madre es la historia, emula del tiempo, deposito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir. 

[...truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future. ]

Written in the seventeenth century, written by the "ingenious layman" Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical eulogy of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes: 

...La verdad, cuya madre es la historia, emula del tiempo, deposito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir. 

[...truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future. ]

History, mother of truth; the idea is astounding. Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an investigation of reality, but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what took place; it is what we think took place. The final clauses -- example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future, are shamelessly pragmatic. 

Equally vivid is the contrast in styles. The archaic style of Menard -- in the last analysis, a foreigner -- suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his precursor, who handles easily the ordinary Spanish of his time.

I was also amused by W.B. Scott's Chicago Letter.

April, 1949
Agony, a sense of plight; a sense of agony, plight -- such, one soon preceives, are the attributes of the Chicago of our time. But I shall have more to say about them later in this letter.
I traveled by the Erie, as one must, I think, do, now and then. The trip is longer, to be sure, on its ancient twisting right-of-way than on other roads. But there one escapes the "lumpenaristokratie" (in Roscoe Chutney's phrase) of the Century or the Broadway, and it is only from the Eire, of course that one my catch those extraordinary night glimpses of Youngstown and Akron.

The longest and silliest essay contains a "new reading" of the old chestnut "Trees".

I think that I shall never see /A poem as lovely as a tree.

Instead, we are given to contemplate the original draft of the poem, written by one Joe E. Skilmer, entitled  "Therese".

I think? That I shall never, see?
Up, owe 'em love. Leah's a tree. 

The resulting analysis of the entire piece makes about as much sense as the version to which we're accustomed.

So. If you like that sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you'll like. A few of the essays fell rather flat, but most of them made me smile at least. And it's free -- you can't say fairer than that!

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing, and I'll have one of the kids draw names from a hat on Saturday.