The writing show getting published with Jean Tennant

The Writing Show continued with a long forgotten rubric 'getting published with ...' The so-called reality show in which aspiring writers are interviewed following up on their progress writing and getting published. One the two writers currently in the spotlight (though issues of the rubric have been scarce of late) is Jean Tennant. Jean has published a series of novels under the name Jean Simon in the late eighties, early nineties, but after a long period of no fictional writing activity she is trying to return with a newly finished novel: Karaoke Nights at the Twilight Lounge. Getting published with this novel, in spite of her experience in the past, proves so difficult, Jean has taken up new projects on the side.

As to the publishing the novel, she still hasn't managed to find an agent, let alone get a publisher interested. In the early reality shows she explained why she felt she needed an agent: publishers tend to ignore unsolicited work and will mostly attend to the material brought to them via agents. Hence, she chose to look for an agent in stead. Now, after a year, no agent has accepted representing her work. Few of them even did not take the time to make a clear rejection.

In the mean time Jean has rewritten the beginning of the book. Writing show listeners who can read the first chapters on the writing show pages, were a bit taken aback, in the previous shows, but in the latest show, the new version wins acclaim. There is still one agent who has not yet rejected the material. The agent's office has requested to see the full novel and has let Tennant know, she must be ready to wait up to a year before receiving an answer. Tennant by then fears, to want to completely rewrite the work. You know, after having not looked at it for such a long time and gained new perspectives.

The Prelude - In Our Time

The poet William Wordsworth is one of the most influential of English poets in the romantic age, mostly mentioned together with Coleridge. BBC's In Our Time discusses Wordsworth, developing the dialog to what is considered the poet's masterpiece: the poem The Prelude. A work the poet continued to revise throughout his life and which was only published afterwards.

By then Romanticism had developed such, the poem was less influential than it could have been. Or such is claimed by Bragg's guests and I wonder why it is still considered Wordsworth's greatest work. From the guests in the studio nothing but acclaim - also from host Melvyn Bragg, who is, after all a writer and shows a certain level of identification with the subject of the show, he doesn't have normally.

Fortunately there is enough recitation to let Wordsworth speak for himself a bit. It is also analyzed what it was in his work that made him so influential. In the end, it is argued he was the better poet between him and Coleridge and Coleridge is claimed to have known it. But Wordsworth adored Coleridge and The Prelude, was known also, even before publication it was known somewhat, as the poem 'to Coleridge'.

Naar aanleiding van Willem Elsschot

Tegen het eind van het interview vraagt Martin Simek aan Ida de Ridder of haar kinderen ook een boek over haar zullen schrijven en het antwoord luidt: "Neuh, dat denkiknie." Net verschenen is het boek waarin de negentigjarige Ida de Ridder de herinneringen aan haar moeder Fine heeft opgeschreven. In 1994 publiceerde ze al het relaas over haar vader Alfons de Ridder. Pas wanneer ze op het lyceum zit komt ze erachter dat vader Alfons een schrijver is, onder hte pseudoniem Willem Elsschot. In haar optiek rechtvaardigt hij alle geschrijf. Over hem, over zijn vrouw, maar daar houdt het dan kennelijk op. Alles naar aanleiding van Willem Elsschot.

Het mooist in deze podcast op locatie (in Antwerpen bij Ida thuis) zijn de voorgedragen gedichten. Van het scabreuze 'schele vanderlinden' het subtiele protest over de executie van oorlogsmisdadiger Borm en het poetische en hartverscheurende protest over Marinus van der Lubbe. Simek laat het lezen aan Ida over, maar doet het haar niet aan om Schele Vanderlinden uit te dragen, dus dat doet hijzelf.

Als het gaat over het huwelijk van Alfons met Fine en de kinderherinneringen van Ida, dan klinkt in de achtergrond de lach van regisseur Gijs Groenteman. Simek laat hem daarop onvoorbereid het gedicht Het Huwelijk voordragen - een cynische zang op de teloorgang van liefde in treurnis. Ida wil niet weten van betrekking op haar ouders, maar wil wel even iets rechtzetten. Het gedicht spreekt van 'grootse zonde' en niet, zoals Gijs het declameerde: grootste zonde.

V. V. Raman's marriage of ratio and religion

The last edition of Speaking of Faith invited the physicist V. V. Raman to speak of his way of combining science and his Hindu religion. As usual the program offers a transcript and one can acclaim this particular episode with a few wonderful quotes from Mr. Raman.

I have the greatest respect for reason and rationality, but I also think of, you know, from the Ecclesiastics who may say, "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven," which has been articulated by thinkers through the ages in all the cultures, I would say. When Pascal wrote his famous statement, you know, "Le cour a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point" — "the heart has its reasons which reason doesn't understand" — those are ways by which the enlightened thinkers and visionaries understood that the world is far too complex for us to really rigidly put everything under the straitjacket of reason, as it were.

in the Rig Veda, the most important aphorism or statement is "Truth is one and the people call it by different names." And in Sanskrit, the word "truth" or sat — it's called ekam sat, "there is but one truth." I like to look at it as follows: If we talk about music, how many music are there? Even the question doesn't sound right. However, in order for anybody to understand or appreciate music, one can only do it in terms of a particular song or sonata or concert

Appropriately, you can analyze a poem and this understanding of the structure of the poem is a significant accomplishment but it tells us nothing about the meaning behind the poem or about the inspiration that the poem might give. And the universe, to me, is somewhat like that. Science enables us to understand the laws and principles by which the universe is constructed, its functions, and that is no trivial accomplishment. And I think that's one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the human mind, is what modern science has been able to do.

But there is always the question of meaning. And while it is possible to derive meaning without going beyond the physical world — and many people do it — it is no less inspiring and fulfilling to find meaning within religious framework insofar as it is not irrational. There's a difference between irrationality and transrationality, and, to me, many of the deeper messages of religions, such as the values it does or must inspire us to, such as caring and compassion and respect for others, helping others, love, reverence. These are not rational — these are not irrational, but these are transrational and they have their sources in the many religious frameworks of humankind. They not only carry the weight of centuries, but they also have something deep in them in the human cultural psyche.

Kissinger and the pres - NPR Fresh Air

Thanks to Dan Colman's blog Open Culture, I have found the podcasts published by NPR, especially Fresh Air. From Fresh Air I have listened to a rerun of an interview Terry Gross had with Robert Dallek about his book Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. The Nixon-Kissinger relationship comes to be identified by Terry Gross as a 'bad marriage', where both partners are terribly dependent and at the same time distrust, detest and fear each other. Dallek agrees.

What makes the interview so impressively relevant are the parallels one inescapably sees between the handling of the war and the retreat from Vietnam, with today's situation in Iraq. When Nixon and Kissinger still were feeding the public with rhetoric of impending victory and a glorious retreat from Vietnam, behind closed doors they were totally aware of the hopeless situation the US was in. Yet, their cynicism allowed them to scam their way. The highest good was to limit political losses, keep face and not the interests of the US let alone of the public. In away this also blinded them from the notion in the world at large: every additional minute the US stayed in Vietnam was rubbing off adversely.

Dallek makes the talk all the more actual, when he reveals (to me this was news) the Bush administration is seeking the advice of Mr. Kissinger. Dallek fears that he will instruct Bush to handle Iraq as Nixon and Kissinger handled Vietnam. Again the US administration fails to understand how bad it looks elsewhere anyway and will scheme with propaganda and a protracted retreat in an effort not to lose face. A face lost a long time ago.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (revisited)

On September 27, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were invited to the University of Chicago to speak about their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. On October 8 they were invited to deliver the same speech at Columbia University. Both lectures were recorded and published in the University Channel Podcast. (Chicago. Columbia) The talk is the same, obviously the questions by the end are different, but I cannot vouch for those in the second lecture as I couldn't sit through the same lecture twice especially since the second time round sound quality dropped dramatically. I will repost the review I wrote on the first appearance:

The University Channel Podcast published the audio of a lecture by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, about The Israel Lobby in the US, after their book about the same subject. This is a very vivid lecture with a good question round in the end. The authors get to make their point that there is a very effective Israel Lobby. The Lobby is not a lobby of the Jews, neither of the State of Israel, but rather an American interest group, backed by Jews and also Evangelical Christians. They claim that the lobby has a great influence on the US foreign policy and that this influence at times turns out to be neither beneficial to the US nor to Israel.

The Israel Lobby neither reflects the opinion of the vast majority of American Jews, nor, so it seems to me, represent the opinion of the Israeli government or even the majority of Israeli's. The lecture confirms my impression that those who are actively lobbying for Israel in Washington - or claim to do so - tend more to the hawkish, nationalistic side of the spectrum. This goes as well for the Jews involved as well as the Christians. It means for me, as an Israeli in favor of a peaceful Middle-East policy a lose-lose situation. Either one has this hawkish lobby or there is no lobby at all and in both cases my interests are not served. It calls for a lobby inside the lobby.

My stomach turns especially when I hear Mearsheimer and Walt claim that the Lobby was not particularly in favor of the Oslo agreements. They say that the Lobby 'grudgingly' went along. I would expect that an movement that grudgingly goes along with a certain development, will jump of the train at any moment. Was that what happened when Rabin was murdered? How bad was the grudge of the Lobby for the peace process at that turn of events and in how far could it have saved the process afterwards and maybe chose not do so? I would have loved to ask THAT question.