No 3581 Set by George Cowley
Geoffrey Wheatcroft recently wrote: "Great writers have always been open to widely differing readings and interpretations . . . " We asked for contrasting interpretations of a writer of your choice.
Report by Grace Elegy
Some very good offerings this week. I pondered for a time over John O'Byrne's entry: "I have examined Mr Joyce's works in their entirety . . . and have discovered some 368,024 errors (as verified by Spellcheck) . . . I am astounded that the publishers allowed these works to go to print without the intervention of a team of editors/proof-readers . . . Did no one spot the missing apostrophe in Finnegans Wake?" In the end, I felt Joyce's punctuation was just too easy a target and that therefore this entry should be pulled back into fourth place. Sadly this meant it got an hon mensh, rather than a prize.
The winners get the usual £15, Gerard Benson also can have an hon mensh for his interpretations of Homer, and Ian Birchall receives the bottle of champagne. For all those who've not been following what's going on in Kosovo, Jamie Shea is Nato's spokesman.
Mr Kafka's little books have always delighted children. There is that love of the puzzle, the enigma, the unknown, that delightfully sentimental streak which reminds us of Miss Hodgson Burnett. What is his penal colony but a secret garden? And who but Mr Kafka could make us sympathise with a beetle, who delights his readers by sticking to pictures, or refusing to come out to breakfast when required? His is a Just Gregor, and a worthy rival in book-at-bedtime affection with naughty Mr K. Just what did Mr K do which so upsets the starchy old men in suits? Wonderful!
* * *
Franz Kafka's oeuvre is a deep affront to liberal conscience. His heroes collude with the reactionary state, repeatedly legitimising their violence, both economic and political, against the individual. There is a troubling sonority in his style which makes arch-conservatives slaver, and a disgraceful obsession with the machinations of totalitarian "justice". In his fables, the working classes are depicted as slavish adherents to the bureaucracy of repression, to the tyranny of trade, the farrago of urban life. His drolleries are sub-Pooterish expressions of inappropriate emotion, freely marked by the autobiographical egotism of using his own initial letter. Required reading for the Cheka.
Will Bellenger
Mr Homer gives a splendid account of a just war, launched by the united Greek forces after outrageous human rights abuses by the Priam government. He shows clearly that deaths of Trojan civilians were accidents, whereas Trojan atrocities were intentional. Unfortunately he makes too much of the minor disagreement between Achilles and Agamemnon, instead of stressing the unity of the Greek forces. The war reached a successful conclusion with the straightforward and honest use of the wooden horse. Admittedly, Odysseus suffered minor delays on his homeward journey, but arrived safely to discover that subversive rumours about Penelope were entirely false. (Jamie Shea)
* * *
Homer gives an uncritical account of the war from the standpoint of the Greek apologists who have dominated our schools and universities for the past 600 years. In fact the Greek war machine deliberately escalated a minor domestic quarrel. They promised victory within a few weeks, but the conflict dragged on for ten years. Homer glosses over the disgraceful deception of the wooden horse; it was to be centuries before Virgil gave us the full details. As for Odysseus's disastrous journey home, Homer attributes it to mere misfortune, when it is clear he was using an out-of-date map. (John Pilger)
Ian Birchall
"I wandered lonely as a cloud . . . " Familiar lines, deceptively simple. Surely there's more to Wordsworth than this? There is. Drugs. Drugs are everywhere n Wordsworth's writing, from the "Lucy" poems (the words "sky" and "diamonds" come readily to mind) to the lines written while floating "above Tintern Abbey". As the poet wanders alone with his guilty secret, he "floats on high". The substances take effect until "all at once" he starts to hallucinate. He sees golden (not yellow) daffodils dancing in the breeze - presumably under tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Clearly Coleridge introduced his friend to more than poetic licence.
* * *
William Wordsworth was a French spy. In regular communication with his "sister", codename Dorothy, Wordsworth's lonely wanderings were almost certainly to transmitters hidden among the Lakeland crags. Published in 1805, this poem contains intelligence of troop movements. The "host" (ie, army) of daffodils refers to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Their location is pinpointed with laser-like precision. They are in "the breeze" (La Brise, 20 kilometres west of Cambrai), beside the lake, beneath the trees. The fact that the British were, in fact, off the coast of Spain, south of Gibraltar, raises the intriguing possibility that Wordsworth was a double agent.
David Silverman
No 3584 Set by Margaret Rogers
Robert McCrum in the Observer wrote that Wodehouse never takes the reader "beyond the bedroom door". This applies to many great writers - Austen, Dickens, even Shakespeare himself. We would like a bedroom scene from any great writer who has always kept the bedroom door firmly shut. Max 200 words by 24 June.
E-mail: comp@ newstatesman.co.uk
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by using the 'report this comment' facility or by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
