Main Frame in Reading Matters Vol7 No2

With the start of a new year, I remember once again why we read great books. I am reminded of the need we feel to come together and reflect upon great questions. Last August attendees at the Long Novel Weekend discussed Crime and Punishment. For two days we pondered Raskolnikov’s theory that some individuals were “super.” These people, he cites Napoleon, can murder others, then suffer no qualms and endure no punishment. Raskolnikov, to test whether he is one of the super people, commits murder. He selects a woman he considers to be useless to society. After all, he thinks, the world will be better off without yet another money-grubbing pawnbroker.

Much to his chagrin, Raskolnikov quickly finds that he is not made of the same stuff as Napoleon. He is consumed by guilt and paranoia. His already pathetic life gets even more horrible as he descends rapidly into delirium and near-madness.

Is anyone really a “super” person? Can there still be persons in our society who feel that they can be Napoleons, that they can blithely decide the fate of other human beings and not suffer torment?

We learn from our reading and discussion the large truths of hearts and minds. Great authors such as Dostoevsky show us these truths in many ways. To ignore or overlook them will only create a terrible suffering perhaps now, or certainly later.

I say, keep reading and discussing. The ripple effect must eventually reach those less in touch with the great truths. In the meantime, how much better are our own lives for it!

A call for Articles: Reading Matters welcomes reviews of the Asilomar readings, or a summary of your Asilomar experience. Send by April 30 to Mary Wood, 1001 Shoreline Drive #207, Alameda, CA 94501 or marylwood@prodigy.net

“Deluxe rooms are still available,” says Jimmie Harvey, registrar for Asilomar, “but not the historic rooms.” Prices, including six meals and readings, are $412 for a private room, $280 each person for a double, $236 for multiple (3 or 4). This annual event—the best cheap vacation available in Monterey—will be held April 11 through 13. To apply, call Jimmie at (415) 383-1319.

The readings are the play The Sea Gull, by Anton Chekhov; the essay The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer; the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; and selected poems.

The first production of The Sea Gull almost ended Chekhov’s playwriting career. “[D]ue to a complete misunderstanding of the work by the director and actors [it] was a dismal failure, prompting Chekhov to declare he would never write another play.” (From the Note to the Dover edition.) The play explores loneliness and alienation.

The True Believer is an outstanding choice this year. Increasingly, mass movements, usually elsewhere, affect our lives. “When people are ripe for a mass movement, they are really ripe for any effective movement, and not solely for one with a particular doctrine or program. In pre-Hitlerian Germany it was often a tossup whether a restless youth would join the Communists or the Nazis,” writes Hoffer.

For the poetry, Carmel Point by Robinson Jeffers ties in with our location. Other water-related poems are The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop, and Wave by P. Virgilius. A charming Billie Collins poem, a serious George Herbert, and a devastating Sylvia Plath round out the program.

According to the introduction to our edition, the original 1925 printing of The Great Gatsby sold out, but after that it was not a popular success. Fitzgerald’s last royalty statement showed seven copies in the first half of 1940. Yet in the preface to a recent edition, it is described as “the most widely read, translated, admired, imitated, and studied twentieth-century work of American fiction.”

Want a brush-up before Asilomar on leading? Or want to try it out in a safe environment? Or just want an opportunity to discuss ideas about leading? A four- hour Leader Skills-Polishing Workshop is scheduled for Saturday February 9, 2003. The event will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Jewish Home at 302 Silver Avenue, San Francisco. Wine and cheese will be served.

“We will use Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for our sessions, “ says Wallis Leslie, leader trainer. “We will discuss and practice generating effective questions, avoiding leaders’ pitfalls, and creating a positive environment for discussion.”

Last year’s event was a full day jam-packed with ideas. This shorter session will be easier to fit into busy schedules. A $10 fee is charged for expenses. Register by mailing a $10 check made out to San Francisco Great Books Council to Wallis Leslie, 27240 Moody Rd, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022. For questions or for encouragement to take this step, call Wallis at (650) 941-6206.

Thirty people paid a “Visit to the Other-World” October 26. By registering promptly, these lucky individuals got into the sold out mini-retreat held at the elegant Metropolitan Club in downtown San Francisco. The six-hour event featured discussion of Ghost Stories by Edith Wharton and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Event organizer Claudia O’Callaghan led as did leader trainer Wallis Leslie. Also leading were Norman Roth, Filomena Pacheco, and Edith Newton.

Participant Daryle Corr had done extra reading for the event. Here are some of her thoughts:

We had wonderful conversations and arguments in the beautiful Metropolitan Club. At the conclusion, Wallis asked us to comment on the relationship of the two writers. Both of them mined much the same social material because of their similar social standing—which is to say, similar constrictions. For both of these authors, ghosts are the resonating shadows of human failings and frailties—that is what is scary and unsettling about their writing. They are plotters in the modern psychological vein, in that for them every decision for human action is ultimately significant.

As destructive as not anticipating the intentions of others is the failure of self-knowledge. Ignorance -- of the world and of oneself -- is always punished in Wharton and James. They are realists, even cynics, though empathetic ones. Any weakness in character, slack morality or simple mistake in social judgment (as in a misunderstanding of class boundaries) can be fatal. Women are overly reliant on romantic imagination; men fail from carelessness or insufficiency of heart. Both sexes suffer an inability to see things as they are.

Ghosts reference moral behavior-- disturbingly so, as the slips are so incrementally small. People who are not "evil" can initiate harm by selfish inattention, the opacity of egotism, or simply the desire for more than their allotment in life. Generous action is most often initiated by patterns of obligation, rather than by impulsive kindness--though one suspects that even such kindness would prove a weakness to be regretted.

Years ago, Masterpiece Theatre put on exquisite English productions of Jamesian fiction, and in the introduction Alistair Cooke commented that "James can make taking a walk the turning point of a life."

Both writers explored not just action but inaction, hesitation, and indecision as more subtly but equally destructive. Thus, classic tragedy is joined with a modern consciousness. The latter may enable one to recognize his folly, but his character is either too weak or too lazy for him to rise to the available responsibilities. Such a response might make life safer, or it might not. The uncertainty casts dark, unsettling shadows in the work of both writers.

"Never say you know the last word about the human heart," James admonished. Though the intricacy of James’s language and the slow pace of his story-telling have gone out of fashion, as has the level of Wharton’s melodrama, the acute observations by both are recognizable, their characters pitiable. Both excelled at the creation of foolish characters of the opposite sex, as well as stripping down their own; and their flaws are ours--for which we are haunted by guilt, rue and retrospective wisdom.

Perhaps it is because the rigors and cruelties of class are unfamiliar to Americans that all the film adaptations of Jamesian novels have been disappointing, with the notable exception of The Europeans, a lively study which has the appropriate ambiguity. The film of Wharton's Age of Innocence, by the way, is splendid.

A Russian party and movie highlighted the Long Novel Weekend held in Northern Marin County. Russian pastries donated by Cinderella Bakery added authenticity. Chuck Scarcliff displayed lacquered Russian boxes on Saturday evening. His collection included both nested and square. Others brought art books. Many bottles of vodka were consumed.

The movie was Man with a Camera, a silent film that follows a cameraman around a Russian city for one day. Henri Ducharme provided live music. “Henri played the accordion and it sounded as if the music was made in Russia to go with the movie” says Louise DiMattio. “I was turning the pages for Henri, and I could see that most people adored it.” Henri composed the music to synchronize with the film at 250 points, for instance at doors opening. The music blended original work, Russian folk music, and that of classical composers, including Prokofiev. The Fine Arts Cinema in Berkeley had asked Henri to write and perform this score when the movie played there.

“Crime and Punishment has so much in it,” says Louise, weekend chair. “The three discussions barely scratched the surface.” Louise was full of praise for the attendees, most of whom had read the novel twice in preparation. Jim Stabenau, Wallis Leslie, Chuck Scarcliff, Kathleen Conneely, Gary Geltemeyer, Claudia O’Callaghan, Rudy Johnson, and Henri Ducharme led.

The novel was written in Czarist 1866, but the movie dates from the Soviet period and glorifies Soviet life. It is famous for its montages—images appearing rapidly to create an idea. “One of the greatest pleasures in the whole of cinema” says an online review of the movie by Darragh O’Donoghue. It is the opposite of Dostoevsky, says Henri. “It is outward, exterior, a panorama with masses of people. Crime and Punishment takes place mostly within walking distance of Raskolnikov’s room.”

Next year’s reading will be Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford. Louise says long-time Great Bookies will remember reading The Good Soldier by the same author at Asilomar.

“We’re already signed up for Walker Ranch next year,” says Louise. The warm August days and the beautiful surrounding farmlands were quite a contrast to the settings in Crime and Punishment. The novel takes place primarily in tiny, grim rooms of the urban poor. The rainy Ralston White setting, with 40 people sleeping in the bare attic, might have been better suited to this novel than the lovely hills of Walker Creek Ranch!

[The following is excerpted from a previously unknown work by the Russian novelist. It was discovered recently by Jim Stabenau.]

In writing “Crime and Punishment,” I closed the epilogue with these words about Raskolnikov and Sophia: “Seven years, only seven years! At the beginning of their happiness there were moments when they were both ready to look at those seven years as if they were seven days. He did not even know that a new life would not be given him for nothing, that it still had to be dearly bought, to be paid for with a great future deed.”

But herein I present a new account, the account of a man’s gradual renewal, the account of a man’s gradual regeneration, his gradual transition from one world to another, his acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unknown reality.

The book before you, Beyond Crime and Punishment is the story of this “new man,” this renewed Raskolnikov. But before you begin reading, I wish you to recall three crucial passages in my earlier Crime and Punishment that set the stage in the new book for unveiling our “new man.”

In the first of these passages, Raskolnikov muses on the role of society in the destitution of Sonya’s family (and indirectly in his own poverty). He is tortured by the regime’s lack of attention to the poor, especially to those with “no place to go.” “Bravo, Sonya!” he exclaims, and goes on something like, “What a well they’ve dug for themselves! And they use it! They really do use it! They got accustomed to it, wept a bit and got accustomed. Man gets accustomed to everything, the scoundrel.” He falls into silent thought for a time, then erupts. “But if that’s a lie! If man in fact is not a scoundrel to—in general, that is, the whole human race—then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers, and that’s just how it should be!”

Does not this hint that Raskolnikov will achieve greatness through removing “barriers” and ”prejudices” and thereby clear away poverty and destitution? I draw the reader’s attention to my second crucial passage in the earlier book, which describes how a “great man” will achieve greatness. It sets forth Raskolnikov’s political tract as it was published in the journal Periodical Discourse, where he outlines the moral justification for himself to become a “great man,” and as the police investigator Porfiry says, he still has time for greatness. Porfiry says to Raskolnikov, “In short, if you recall, you hint that there exist certain persons who can…that is, who not only can but are fully entitled to commit all sorts of crimes and excesses and to whom [morally] the law does not apply.” And later, “Your whole point in the article is that people somehow divide into ordinary and extraordinary. The ordinary must live in obedience and have no right to transgress the law because they are, after all, ordinary. The extraordinary have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and in various ways to transgress the law because they are extraordinary. That is how you had it, unless I’m mistaken?”

Raskolnikov responds, “I admit that your summary is almost correct, even perfectly correct, if you like….The only difference is that I do not at all insist that extraordinary people absolutely must and are duty-bound at all times to do all sorts of excesses, as you say. Such an article would never be accepted for publication. I merely suggest that an ‘extraordinary’ man has the right….that is, not an official right, but his own right, to allow his conscience to…step over certain obstacles, and then only in the event that the fulfillment of his idea—sometimes perhaps salutary for the whole of mankind—calls for it.”

And finally, recall this third passage in the original book, where Raskolnikov defines his crime as something other than murder. “Raskolnikov mused as he relived that conversation later when in prison. ‘Now, what did they find so hideous in my action?’ He kept saying to himself that it was ‘an evildoing.’ What does the world evildoing mean? My conscience is clear. Of course, a criminal act was committed; of course, the letter of the law was broken and blood was shed; well, then, have my head for the letter of the law…and enough! Of course in that case even many benefactors of mankind, who did not inherit power but seized it for themselves, ought to have been executed at their very first steps. But those men endured their steps, and therefore they were right, while I did not endure, and so I had no right to permit myself that step.”

This alone he recognized as his crime: that he had not endured it, but had gone and confessed. That, my dear readers, was when Raskolnikov saw what his role for greatness would be when he and Sonya left prison. Raskonikov concluded that man is not a scoundrel, that the human race must be helped over its prejudices and barriers, and that as an entitled person, one of the extraordinary, he could now use power to step over obstacles: power not inherited but seized by an such an extraordinary person.

At the beginning of July 1917, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening a not so young man left modest rooms, walked out to the street, and slowly, as if indecisively, headed for the Kremlin.

Masses of people lined the streets of Moscow. Banners flew above the square. All eyes fastened on a huge reviewing stand and a balcony where the Kremlin overlooked the vast teaming space.

Joined by Sonya, Raskolnikov mounted a series of stairways to arrive at this balcony. Sonya murmured softly in his ear, “Now, finally you have ‘stepped over’ to the right….or is it to the left? Today you shall take the place in history that you wished alongside other great lawmakers, alongside Lycergus, Solon, Mohammed, Napoleon. You had to step on a few toes to get here. The old crone had to die. It matters not that you’ll forever be known by an alias, for it is shorter and it is easier to spell than Raskolnikov.”

At that moment an Army general threw open drapes and ushered them to the ledge that faced the cheering Army squadrons and delirious masses of civilians. “Here, my comrades,” declaimed the general, “is the great man who will break down prejudices and barriers to free you from destitution and who will convert you from poverty to power…our leader, Comrade Lenin.” (To be continued.)

Since she could not find a group, she founded one. When Joyce Aoyagi moved to Aptos, south of Santa Cruz, there was no group. Joyce had belonged to Great Books and had enjoyed the people and books at Asilomar. But what really inspired her was a trip to Italy organized by Gary Geltemeyer and Alice Colby, veteran members of Great Books groups. It included readings. “It was such a wonderful trip, with the discussion intertwining with the place,” says Joyce.

To get a new group going, Joyce contacted Brent and Erma Browning in Los Gatos. At its inaugural meeting, Brent led a demonstration discussion of the Declaration of Independence.

Flyers in libraries and stores publicize the group. But word of mouth is really the way it has grown to 14 people, says Joyce. Brent still leads the meetings, but in February Joyce and at least one other group member will take leader training. For information on the Aptos discussion group call Joyce at (831) 688-1722.

The Visit, by Friedrich Durenmatt, almost chilled us on a hot summer day at the Great Books Triathlon—the annual meeting, picnic, and discussion. A turnout of nearly 60 pleased event organizer Kathleen Conneely. Picnickers brought food to share, and grills were available for cooking. “Some of the food almost melted in the heat,” says Kathleen, “so next year I’m planning to make a tent of sheets—something simple and inexpensive.”

Kathleen thanked committee members Vince Scardina, John and Kathy Kazan, Jack Stavert and Rob Calvert, as well as consultants Tom Cox and Chuck Scarcliff.

During the annual meeting portion of the event, Barbara McConnell thanked working committee chairs and Executive Committee members for their efforts during the year. Officers choosing not to run for re-election were Erma Browning, co-president, and Roy Harvey, secretary. Barbara was promptly re-elected co-president. Louise DiMattio was elected the other co-president. Additional officers are Vice-President Brian Mahoney, Secretary Mary Stuart, and Treasurer Grace Dennison. Other Executive Committee members include Lou Alanko, Brent Browning, Erma Browning, Rob Calvert, Jim Carbone, Kathleen Conneely, Wallis Leslie, Beatrice Petrocchi, Chuck Scarcliff, Vince Scardina, Jan Vargo, Tom Vargo, Rick White, and Mary Wood.

“We lack a publicity coordinator and a publicity committee,” says Barbara. “That is probably the one thing I’d like to change.” It is also an ongoing goal of the Council to create more groups, a movement spearheaded by Rick White when he was president. Most of the events have been designed to accept more participants. For example, the Long Novel was moved from the Ralston White Retreat on Mt. Tamalpais to the larger facility at Walker Creek Ranch.

Leading The Visit were Tom Cox and Henri Ducharme. Friedrich Dürenmatt fashioned a many-leveled play, says Kathleen, at once a macabre parable, a deeply moving tragedy, and a scathing indictment of the power of greed. “I picked it because I was trying to find something that was connected to what was happening in the world today in capsule form -- revenge, humiliation of women, and the power to buy morality.”

The story begins with a rich old woman revisiting her impoverished hometown. Her former lover, Alfred Ill, welcomes Claire and recounts fond memories. Everyone is hoping she will help the town out of poverty, and she says she will--if they kill Ill. It was he who not only refused to marry her when she was pregnant by him but bribed two young men to say they had had sex with her too so that he might not be the father. Claire left town, the baby died within a year and she became a prostitute.

The macabre prevails. It emerges that Claire herself had impoverished the town by buying up and shutting down its industries. Her two retainers, now blind and castrated, are the same two young men who had testified against her.

The town reacts with shock to Claire’s proposition, but slowly the idea takes hold; the townspeople begin running up debts, buying things and resenting Ill. Rick White commented that each person had the feeling “I wouldn’t do that but someone else will, so I might as well.”

When Ill tries to leave, the whole town comes to the train station. He is so afraid that they will stop him that he can’t get on the train---even though everyone says they won’t stop him. At the end they praise him as a hero, and surround him. When the crowd clears, he is dead.

“During months having five Tuesdays, members tell me they experience withdrawal symptoms,” says Jim Carbone, who leads two North Bay groups in semi-monthly discussions. So Jim’s solution was to set up an e-mail discussion between meetings

Jim says that 'Tween Discussion On-Line is a means to share the familiarly irksome afterthought:

For those of you who are still computer holdouts, the way it works is that people send Jim e-mail. He consolidates their letters and forwards them electronically to the group. He adds subsequent responses to the top of the letter and sends it out again. Occasionally he purges the old. The process has the feel of a “bulletin board,” the term for a website where people “post” their letters.

True to his screen name jimnexus, Jim is the nexus, or, as he describes himself, referee. “Comity, cogency, and good humor” are Jim’s suggestions for good e-mail writing, pointing out that it is “a primitive discussion medium, pregnant with misunderstanding.

“We went on-line November 6, 2002. We have had thirteen (and counting) ‘Tween Discussions,’ each having several e-mails from members and all, I assume, read by all hands (in the fo’c’sle).”

Saturday morning of Poetry Weekend featured war poems. The session brought tears to some participant’s eyes. To offset the grimness, Kathleen Conneely and Natalie Dunn led a Saturday night session on writing humorous poems. Natalie read some of her own humorous sonnets to get us in the mood. “Bouts rimes,” or rhyming ends, formed one exercise as we tried to come up with humorous second lines to familiar ones such as “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?”

As a Poetry Committee member, Natalie did triple duty. She also brought wine and snacks for the afternoon party and served as a leader. Kathleen did double duty as leader of a discussion group. Committee member Wallis Leslie arranged the prediscussion and shared registration duties with Mary Wood. Other committee members who led were Steve Doherty, Brent Browning, and Kay White. Chuck Scarcliff, Gary Geltemeyer and Rick White rounded out the leader roster, with Wallis and Mary Wood as backup.

Poems for both Asilomar and the weekend are selected by the committee, which also includes Carol O’Toole, Ruth Korn, and Theda and Oscar Firschein.

From the afternoon session, Poems about Poetry, is a selection from a highly pictorial poem, Fragmented Solos, Patterns & Textures; Other Worlds: The Paintings of Philip Taaffe. This poem by Quincy Troupe raises the question whether it is necessary to view the paintings in order to appreciate the poem. Chuck Scarcliff and Steve Doherty brought examples of Taaffe’s painting to help us decide.

Troupe resigned as California’s poet laureate when it was revealed that he’d lied about having a college degree in applying to teach at the University of California’s San Diego campus. And though I detest lying, this poem convinced me that a BA shouldn’t be required for a poet to teach.

My final quote is from the Sunday morning Potpourri, and is from my favorite poem of the session. Forgetfulness by Billy Collins, is a wry, humorous look at that frightening event that hits us as early as our 40’s, the loss of memory.

Lou Alanko, Brian Mahoney, and Rudy Johnson actively promote Great Books in their community. Lou will lead a short-story discussion at the second annual Pleasanton Poetry and Arts Festival, March 29, at CarrAmerica conference center. Participants, namely the audience, will discuss a story by local author Kathleen Antrim.

At last year’s festival, Brian and Lou co-led a discussion. “It was a fun day,” says Lou. “By partnering with Brian, activities take half the energy since we divide up the work.” Rudy was on hand to assist.

Rudy, who chaired the Ulysses Long Novel Weekend, and Lou, serve on the Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council, sponsor of the festival. Admission is charged for some events, but everything is free 3 to 5:45 p.m., including the Great Books session. Other free events include a fine arts show, awards ceremony, readings, and a reception.

Another Great Books tie to the festival is our recent Poetry Weekend speaker, Susan Woolridge. Susan will offer free youth poetry workshops. For adults a fee of $65 is charged (until February 1, and $80 after), which covers a poetry or fiction workshop, continental breakfast, and buffet lunch and dinner. Contact Lou Alanko at (925)846-4031.)

Brian and Lou also generated Great Books publicity by partnering with Writer’s Roundtable, a local group. About 30 attended the event. Barnes & Noble, the site, provided the publicity. A brief Great Books discussion followed a dramatic reading by poet Kirk Ridgeway of Derek Walcott’s poetry. (A Ridgeway poem was discussed at one of our Poetry Weekends.) Then both Great Books and Writer’s Roundtable members answered questions about their respective groups.

A lunchtime Great Books group starts later this year as a result of other work by Lou and Rudy. In October, Lou led lunchtime discussions of Grapes of Wrath for five weeks at Towne Center Books in Pleasanton. Rudy and Lou led a town hall meeting on Grapes of Wrath, an evening discussion at the library. Governor Gray Davis had chosewn this book for reading by Californians during 2002.

Steve Doherty, Lou, and Brian share leadership of the Dublin Great Books group, which meets at Barnes & Noble. Lou and Brian share leadership of the Pleasanton group at Borders Books.

The moral of this story, says Lou, is to get involved in your community. Take Great Books on the road!

I almost didn’t sign up for Long Novel Weekend last year, because I hated Don Quixote the first three times I tried to read it. The humiliation, physical abuse, and mocking of the mad drove me from the book In Part One of this huge two-part novel, Don Quixote gets beaten up—a lot. On this fourth attempted reading, in the interest of an enjoyable and productive weekend I decided to suspend disgust. I accepted that Cervantes, as a professional soldier, had a pet peeve: he detested the chivalric novels popular in his time. Such novels Quixoticized fighting. In addition, Cervantes intended to satirize the neighborhood Don, a country gentleman with a little money and no training – not even a cardio-kickboxing class -- who thought he could fight. Paradoxically, we remember Don Quixote not so much as a ridiculous figure but as a valiant, although pathetic, dreamer. In the end, he dies because he regains his sanity and loses his dream.

But more than Don Quixote as hero, what I grew to love was the relationship between this knight errant and his sidekick Sancho Panza. This may be the original road buddies novel. Once the Don gives up trying to get Sancho to shut up and be respectful, he talks to Sancho as a friend instead of a servant. Although mouthy, Sancho shows his loyalty many times in trying to keep his master from shame. The two show a touching affection for one another.

As I said, my original dislike of the novel was its theme of humiliation. However, some participants at the Novel Weekend saw this humiliation from a religious point of view. They saw Quixote as a Christ-like figure, a militant Christian who tries to fight for good and ultimately dies. In this interpretation, Quixote’s failures and humiliations tell us about the world and its treatment of those who try to do good.

I have problems with this interpretation, mainly because Part Two is so funny. A rival author steals the Quixote character for a book (Shades of postmodernism!). People who meet the Don know who he is, because they have read Cervantes’ book. The truly mad Don Quixote pretends to go mad for love. He ventures into the wilderness, where he meets a man who has gone mad for love.

Cervantes’ point of view is hard to determine even though he wrote in need of aristocratic support. No character seems consistently to speak for the author. Few of them are one-dimensional, although all are at least a little mad. We hear Cervantes’ voice when Quixote in a campfire speech praises the common soldier. Miguel de Cervantes was a soldier who fought proudly for Spain. He was captured, and the ransom to obtain his release impoverished his family. A difference between knights and foot soldiers is that the former fight alone, soldiers do not. Knights fight for personal glory or the glory of their lady; soldiers presumably fight for their country.

But in most of the novel we hear mixed messages. Sancho is unsympathetic to a Moor he encounters who is on the way to exile from Spain. Although Moors had lived in the country for 500 years, the Inquisition was forcing them either to convert to Christianity or to depart. Sancho represented the anti-Moor view, politically correct at the time, but the exile is presented so sympathetically that I came away feeling sorry for the Moors.

The 47th annual Wachs Great Books Summer Institute presents a week of reading, discussion, fun, and friendship on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The theme for 2003 is Doubt and Belief, with discussion of selections from Miguel de Unanumo's The Tragic Sense of Life, selections from Fyodor Dostoevski's The Brothers Karamazov, Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, Franz Kafka's Investigations of a Dog, and poems by Philip Larkin. $480 includes room, meals, and books. Contact: Tom or Carol Beam, (215) 836-2380 or agreatbook@aol.com.

SAN FRANCISCO GREAT BOOKS COUNCIL

Serving Northern California

Louise DiMattio & Barbara McConnell, Co-Presidents

Brian Mahoney, Vice-President

Mary Stuart, Secretary

Grace Apple Dennison, Treasurer

Rick White, Past President

Reading Matters

Publisher, Rick White

Editor, Mary Wood

1001 Shoreline Drive #207, Alameda, CA 94501

e-mail marylwood@prodigy.net

Council website: www.greatbooks-sf.com

National website: www.greatbooks.org