Books

[jochen stremmel]

You didn't say anything about my mentioning Clough - perhaps you
didn't know what I was talking about?

I had to go a long way in the 70s to identify the poem - and then for
quite a time I asked friends, quoting it, what they thought when it
was written: nobody said even 19th century.

I just found that in the www:

I saw a car with a vanity plate the other day spelling out "Phat Kat."
This is my attempt at a sketch of the fantasy that ensued when I was
reminded of the 19th century English poet, A. H. Clough, whose 1850
poem "Dipsychus" includes these lines.

    I drive through the streets, and I care not a damn;
    The people they stare, and they ask who I am;
    And if I should chance to run over a cad,
    I can pay for the damage if ever so bad.
    So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
    So pleasant it is to have money.

We're once again becoming as sharply divided between rich and poor as
they were during Victorian times, and it's getting worse. If you've
got it, many people seem think, you might as well flaunt it -- they've
got theirs, and other people really aren't their concern.

"I didn't come across Clough's poem on my own. I first read these
lines many years ago in The Quiet American, where Greene's protagonist
and narrator Fowler reads them to the American, Pyle.

    "That's a funny kind of poem," Pyle said with a note of disapproval.

    "He was an adult poet of the nineteenth century. There weren't so
many of them" I looked down into the street again. The trishaw driver
had moved away.

Greene felt no need to identify the poet, probably because the
reference would have been clear to an educated British reader of the
time. As for Americans -- well, that was the point, wasn't it? But the
lines stuck in my mind even when I didn't know who had writen them.
Tracking down obscure references like this was difficult in the days
before Google. If your edition of Bartlett's didn't have it, you were
out of luck -- or in for a lot of work. Now, of course it's easy.

While search methods have changed, economic reality hasn't changed all
that much. The fault lines have just become more visible. In good
times, when the American pie is big enough for most everyone to get at
least enough of a slice to keep hope alive, it's easy to forget who
owns what and how much. Now we're being reminded all over again, with
a callousness that's appalling.

Keep your eyes open -- or you might get run over."

2012/9/5 Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com>:
> Cool. This is your site? Nice.
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/
>>
>> Bek
>>
>> On Sep 5, 2012, at 8:20 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
>>
>> > After finishing M & D a couple weeks ago, I decided to read some shorter
>> > stuff.
>> >
>> > The Quiet American by Graham Greene, I'm sure many of you have read. Saw
>> > the movie with Michael Caine and Tarzan (never
>> > can remember that guy's name) last year, and didn't realize it came from
>> > this book. Great read.
>> >
>> > The Long Fall by Walter Moseley. Detective fiction. Good page turner.
>> > I'll read more of his stuff.
>> >
>> > Breaking and Entering by Joy Williams. Anyone familiar with her? Kind of
>> > strange and dark, but good.
>> >
>> > Slowly reading a book of short stories by Hughes Rudd, because I don't
>> > want it to end. Really dark and twisted and excellent.
>> >
>> > Then some Borges and Hunter S. Thompson thrown in.
>> >
>> > Ascension by Eric Nisenson, about the music of John Coltrane.
>> >
>> > Next? Conrad, "The Secret Agent", Alison Lurie, Barbara
>> > Kingsolver....suggestions?
>> >
>> > --
>> > www.innergroovemusic.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com