Catch – 22 (Joseph Heller. (Published in 1961))
The VERY enigmatic, and very satirically and abstractly intelligent - Catch 22…
I always advise people who are planning to read this novel that they should read the last chapter first! - I'm only half joking in that advice...
Catch - 22 is set in a U.S Airforce base in Italy during the latter years of World War II, and takes a satirical, often abstract and surreal look at the whole bizarre concept of war, and how it affecs the lives of the ordinary individuals involved...
The underlying theme of Heller's classic is a brilliant expose' of the true motivation for, and nature of, war -as a business enterprise in which the people running the show behind the scenes are not on any particular side, but will trade, barter and deal with anyone and everyone purely for profit and their own selfish gain.
Meanwhile, those on the ground range from reluctant order givers, to petty bureaucrats, to gung-ho idealists - to the John Yossarian's (main character) of the world: who don't much understand why they are there, just want to get through it all - and, preferably, get OUT of it...
This novel is a one-off - unique in its abstract style and satire. It is an example of how the art and culture of the era was used to challenge the established 'norms' - in this case by depicting the whole infrastructure, ethos and logistics of the enterprise of war (and, as stated, Catch 22's underlying theme is to show war up as just that: a business enterprise) by use of lampooning satire - and the complex abstraction which I have often heard criticized by people, and which puts some people off reading the novel...
But I suggest that this complex abstraction is, in fact, the key to really understanding the deeper message of the novel - and a literary device used to brilliant effect. I suggest that Heller is setting the reader this challenge to get us to realise that, really, it is the greater abstraction and complexity involved in the machinations of war that we are turning away from trying to understand – and by so doing allow to them go on their merry, manipulating, deceitful way…
By persevering with Catch 22, in all its weird and wonderful abstraction, all becomes clear (that last chapter..!) – and the reader (well, speaking for myself, anyway…) gets transported into a kind of reverie of re-capping the novel, and, as all the disjointed segments fall into place and form a cohesive, coherent whole… we suddenly understand the whole twisted corporate ‘con’ that the war scenario in this story is based on – and can apply the same reasoning to all war and war-mongering. Stay the course with Catch 22 – and see the waging of modern war for what it really is…
The term Catch - 22 has entered the English language as meaning a situation that it is impossible to get out of without incurring bad consequences - due to the entangled circumstances.
This is a true 20th Century classic novel – and should be on the book shelf of everyone who holds the values of the 1960s and 70s era dear…
(M).
Textual content of this review is copyright.
© Copyright MLM Arts. 11.06.2013. Edited and re-posted 02. 09. 2016. Edited and re-posted: 12. 01. 2018. Edited and re-posted: 19. 04. 2020
SYLVIA PLATH: THE BELL JAR (1963) (Originally published under the pseudonym: Victoria Lucas).
I have chosen this novel as the stand out novel from 1963. It is the only novel written by American poet Sylvia Plath, the wife of British poet / writer Ted Hughes. The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical work, in which the events in the life of the principal character, Esther, reflect events in Plath’s own life – in particular her career writing for a glitzy fashion magazine, which causes her inner turmoil as, although it is high profile and pays extremely well, it is shallow, corporate, and against her inner principles and her sense of the real value of life.
As well as this inner strife in her professional life, Esther goes through a difficult relationship (as did Plath in her marriage to Hughes). The character, like Plath, declines into depression…
Plath’s real life ended in her suicide in 1963 – the year that this novel was published - at the age of 30. She died from gas inhalation at her London flat; though many believe that, like her several previous attempted suicides, she did not intended for this one to succeed.
Besides reflecting Plath’s own life, this novel also says something about society during The Cold War. The Cold War was infamous for its spying scandals - with agents and informants on either side of the 'Iron Curtain' (the expression coined to describe the territorial barrier and ideological differences between the communists and capitalist alliances opposed to each other during The Cold War) ‘betraying’ their 'own people' by passing on secrets to the other side. It must be noted though that in most cases these ‘betrayals’ were carried out not out of motives of greed or for payment, but from ideological conviction on the part of the so-called ‘traitors': in other words, that they genuinely believed in the ideology of ‘the other side’.
In ‘The Bell Jar’ mention is made of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, U.S citizens who were convicted of passing secrets to the communist USSR, and who died in the electric chair in Sing Sing prison, New York in 1953. Esther is sorry for the Rosenberg’s, and is chilled at the thought of their execution: “… like, being burned alive all along your nerves."
Later in the novel, as Esther becomes depressed due to her lifestyle and the inner conflict it causes her. After seeking professor psychiatric help, her depression is treated by electric shock therapy. I suggest that a link can be made between Esther being prescribed this treatment, the fate of the Rosenberg’s – and Esther’s feelings about their fate. Upon being prescribed electric shock therapy, Esther wonders: "what terrible thing it was that I had done…" She feels that she is being punished: punished for her depression and her rejection of the corporate, materialistic values of the ‘free’ West. Her rejection is in a milder way than the Rosenberg’s, and so her 'punishment' is a milder, though similar and painful, ‘punishment’: a 'punishment' that will ‘cure’ her of her malcontent, and make her an acceptable part of the Establishment.
The novel ends when Esther enters the room and the interview which will determine whether she is deemed fit to leave the psychiatric hospital where she is detained. It’s an open ended conclusion, which, I suggest, leaves the reader to consider the question: which is more wrong: the consumerist society which Esther’s spirit recoiled from, and which drove her to despair? Or Esther herself for rejecting a society that gave her so much opportunity? This begs another train of moral philosophical thinking: if she is found unfit to regain her place in that society – then is that, in fact, a victory for her spirit over a moral wrong? Or if she is deemed to be ‘cured’ – does that vindicate the society that she rejected, or condemn it as being as indoctrinating as any dictatorship..?
This novel is a fascinating insight both into the tortured soul of the literary genius that was Sylvia Plath, and into the intrigues, complexities, and the very psyche of society during the Cold War era.
(M).
Textual content: ©Copyright. MLM .Arts 10. 03. 2012 Edited and re-posted: 12. 06. 2015 Edited 13. 06. 2015; 11. 05. 2017. Edited and re-posted: 14. 06. 2019. Edited and re-posted: 25. 01. 2021
THE PILGRIMS PROGRESS. JOHN BUNYAN (1678)
This is what I've recently started to read. It's another book that I've had on my to-do list for years. 😏
'The Pilgrim's Progress' is one of the best known classic literature novels dealing with Christian doctrine and theology, described in a dramatized, allegorical narrative.
It's cleverly written, of course: the central character, a man called Christian, living in a town called Destruction, is aware of a heavy burden on his back - and meets a man called Evangelist, who tells him where he must go in order to loose his burden...
Christian is told to run away from Destruction - urging his wife and children and all the town's people to leave with him: as they are (literally / well, 8n this case allegorically) doomed to Destruction... 😳
Almost everyone laughs and thinks him mad: even his family... But two townsmen listen to him: one called Obstinate, and one called Pliable. Obstinate listens to Christian - but isn't convinced by him, and doesn't follow him. Pliable thinks that following Christian is worth taking a chance on - and follows Christian on his journey...
Christian and Pliable soon run into a big - called Despondency. Pliable climbs out, and quits the journey - as soon as it got rough.
Christian carries on, and meets a traveller called Mrr. Worldly Wiseman. Worldly persuades Christian that what he's after - losing his burden - cannot be achieved by following a path given to him on the strength of faith, without evidence. He directs Christian to the house of a man called Legality, in a town called Morality: and tells him that living there and sending for his family to join him, and listening to Mr. Legality, will relieve him of his burden.
Christian sets off to talk with Legality....
But Evangelist appears again, and tells him that that path and that answer will be easier: but it will with lead only to earthly, man made solutions: temporary and changing. To find permanent relief from his burden, Christian must resume the path that Evangelist had set him on...
... And that's where I'm up to... It's enough to give you an idea of how the book is written - and the points that it makes...
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it... 🙂
Textual content )Review): Copyright MLM Arts 19. 06. 2025. Edited and re-posted: 18. 05. 2026
'TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY' (John Le Carre'. (1974))
INTRODUCTION
'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' is a gritty, realistic Cold War spying novel by Cold War spy novel maestro John Le Carre'. Le Carrie's novels are the antithesis to the fantasy hokum of James Bond: they depict the harsh, seedy, dangerous, cold blooded side of the secret service agent: and the subterfuge, scheming, double crossing, and cold, calculating methods used by all sides in the Cold War in order to undermine, infiltrate, corrupt and attempt to ultimately defeat each other...
PLOT OVERVIEW
In the UK, 'The Circus' is the name given to the British Secret Service department. It is located at Cambridge Circus in Central London.
Behind the Iron Curtain, Moscow Centre is in charge of the Soviet Secret Service - and overseas the secret service departments of the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact Cold War allies / satellites in Eastern Europe.
Between the early 1960s and 1974 'The Circus' has had a series of setbacks. Moscow Centre master infiltrator, known only as Karla, has thwarted British Secret Service missions and broken up spy networks throughout Eastern Europe.
In the early 1970s a disastrous 'Circus' operation - Testify: involving sending a British Secret Service operative into Warsaw Pact Czechoslovakia to meet with a potential Czech defector, General Stevcek - results in the capture of the British Secret Service operative - and his severe wounding after being shot in the shoulder - and the capture, interrogation, and execution of dissent Czechs working undercover in Czechoslovakia for the British Secret Service.
As a result of this latest disaster, heads rolled at 'The Circus': the head of 'The Circus', known as 'Control', was under pressure - and died from the stress of it; top, highly experienced operatives, like George Smiley and Connie Sachs were forced to quit.
They were all suspected of being the 'Mole' (a double agent secretly working for the Soviet Secret Service) who is undermining 'The Circus': and given the investigative code names (from the well known nursery rhyme): Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief'.
The British operative captured during the 'Testify' operation has his release from capture arranged by another 'Circus' operative - Bill Haydon: who offers an exchange of prisoners with the Soviet authorities.
With 'The Circus' leadership structure reduced to a shambles, agents like the ambitious Percy Alleline, the efficient Toby Esterase, charismatic Bill Haydon, and pragmatic schemer Roy Bland - manoeuvre for the top jobs. Alleline was appointed 'Control'.
Some time later...
...A shady, freebooter, renegade, crook, smuggler, - and occasional hired employee of the British Secret Service - Ricky Tarr, arranges a very clandestine meeting with British Secret Service top brass: people who are outside of the influence even of 'The Circus'. He says that he has information about a Soviet 'Mole' operating within 'The Circus'. He came by the information having struck up a relationship with a Czech woman who was working for the Soviet Secret Service. The woman, Irina, is an idealistic dreamer: who'd become disillusioned with communism - and dreamed of a life of quiet freedom, with Tarr - in a secluded part of Scotland.
Tarr is not so idealistic or romantic; he's a hard-nosed realist; and he had another woman, the mother of his daughter, in the Far East; but he was indebted to Irina for help and information; he genuinely wanted to help her to escape. Moreover, the information that she supplied him with was gold dust for 'The Circus'.
George Smiley is 'persuaded' out of retirement - to lead the very secret investigations into Tarr's information: to search out the 'Mole' - without 'The Circus' knowing anything about the investigation: because all of its top people are suspects... 😲
Smiley has assistance from relative rookie agent, Peter Guillam, and hardman bodyguard and enforcer Maxim Fawn.
Slowly, meticulously, Smiley goes over files, reports, data, and personal interviews with 'Circus' top people from the past several years... He is gradually homing-in on the traitor... Or are there in fact TRAITORS - plural...? Might there be people playing each other off against one another - each for their own personal motives of ambition, greed, or ideological conviction....? 😲
Aware of spoilers - I'll leave it there... 😏
STORY OVERVIEW
Bill Roach, a chubby, loner new boy at a rural English boys preparatory (Prep) school* watches from his dormitory window as a ramshackle car towing a ramshackle caravan bobbles through the hilly fields adjoining the school. He races out to investigate. In a dip between two shallow hills he finds the vehicles parked - and a raggedy, but formidable looking man settling the caravan. The man appears to have a shoulder injury or deformity, which he occasionally reaches back to massage.
The man, Jim Prideaux, notices Bill and invites him to help to secure the caravan. It turns out that he's the new modern languages teacher.
Prideaux recognises the boy as an awkward, friendliness loner - and makes a in point of befriending him and building his confidence.
Nothing much is known about Prideaux's past, but he has the teaching credential and references - and the school is desperate for a new languages teacher...
(*Prep schools are private schools for primary school aged pupils.)
The scene shifts... George Smiley ambles to his London home at night, via tiresome social meetings in central London... He's bored in his involuntary retirement... And he's troubled by the break up of his marriage to Ann. Ann has run off with her latest lover: Smiley's former friend and colleague: the artistic, debonair, charismatic Bill Haydon. George is not supposed to know it's Haydon - but George is an experienced spy master...
When George gets home he is quickly aware that his apartment has been entered - and knows from experience that a member of the British Secret Service is waiting for him. It's up-and-coming agent Peter Guillam. Guillam drives George to a secret meeting with top brass - and the mysterious Ricki Tarr: who has information of great value...
By the end of the meeting, George Smiley is unofficially out of retirement - and has the task of tracking down the 'Mole'; the 'Mole' is given the code name 'Gerald'...
As the story unfolds, Jim Prideaux's part in the whole scenario becomes more and more central... Jim just wants to become anonymous and forgotten... But when Smiley tracks him down for information - and tells him what became of the Czech agents working for the British Secret Service - Jim wants vengeance...
ROUNDING UP
A John Le Carre' Cold War spy novel is NOT James Bond hokum - as stated above. The life of a spy is not glamorous: it's edgy, continuously unsettled, cold, and if not necessarily emotionless, then always emotionally guarded and subdued. It's a world of uncertain loyalties: where ideological convictions can become disillusioned; become changed... or can be bought-off...
'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' exposes all of that seedy lifestyle. If James Bond ever made young guys wish they were spies - John Le Carre' probably made them glad that they were not...
(I found this image of a Penguin books edition of 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' online. My acknowledgement and thanks to whoever posted it / owns it (identity unknown to me); and of course to Penguin books and to the artists who created the graphic (identity unknown to me. 🙂) (M).
Textual content © Copyright MLM Arts 17. 05. 2026. Edited and re-posted: 18. 05. 2026
THE SECRET GARDEN. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT (1911)
I just finished this children's classic: a charming and delightful novel. 🙂
It bridges the British class system divide; and subtly weaves belief in the spiritual with the workings of the natural world - seamlessly: without ever asserting the one over the other; and without demeaning or understating either... That's very clever writing: especially in a children's novel. 🙂
The novel starts in India: Mary is a child of 10: the only child of a privileged British family. Her parents ignore and neglect her: leaving her to be brought up by Indian servant: who must obey her every command.
Consequently, Mary is a spoilt: both from indulgence - and from neglect. 😔
Very suddenly - and without much drama, Mary's family dies in a cholera outbreak. 😔
Mary is sent to live we with her only surviving relative: a reclusive uncle, who lives in a brooding, gothic remote mansion - Misselthwaite Manor - on a moor in Yorkshire, England.
Mary arrives during the beginning of Spring: but the end of Winter.
The house is occupied by servants: the master of the house, Mr. Archibald Craven: a hunchback, with a melancholy temperament, is rarely there: he travels a lot to remote places. On his one meeting with Mary, before going abroad again, he is cold, emotionally, but promises her that she may have anything she wants or needs: just don't trouble him, personally. 😳
Mary is left just as alone and emotionally neglected as when she was in India.
The Yorkshire moor is very different from India: in the late Winter it looks cold, bleak and harsh.
Mary's personal maid, Martha, is a young Yorkshire woman - cheerful and plain speaking, with a broad Yorkshire accent and dialect. Mary tries to boss her around like she did her servants in India: but Martha laughs that off, and cheerfully tells Mary that it's about time she was more independent. Mary is taken aback at first; but as Martha is so cheerful and friendly, she grows to like her. 🙂
Martha tells Mary all about the moor and how beautiful it will be in the Spring and Summer. She also tells Mary that she really should go out into the manor's gardens for fresh air and excercise.
Mary finally agrees. In the garden she meets a grumpy old gardener, called Ben: whose best friend is a robin that he'd rescued as a fledgling, when it fell out of its nest.
Mary is surprised to find that for the first time in her life she likes people: Martha, Ben, and the robin. 🙂
In the meantime, Mary becomes aware that this mansion has secrets... 😳 There's a secret resident hidden away - whom she can hear sobbing and throwing tantrums... 😳 There's a secret garden: locked up 10 years ago - and left to wither away... 😳
And the master of the house - Mr. Craven - has a secret in his past. 😳
All three secrets are connected, as Mary discovers by and by: the resident is Mr Craven's 10 year old son, Colin: whose birth had caused the death of his mother, Mr Craven's beloved wife; the garden was Mrs. Craven's own garden, which she loved; and Mr. Craven's secret, is that he fled the house after his son was born: in grief about the passing of his wife; and fearing that his son would grow up a hunchback too. It was Mr. Craven who locked up the garden forever. 😳
Colin was brought up by servants; they believed that he was a sickly, weak child, who would certainly die young. They had been instructed to obey Colin in everything.
Colin was not only spoilt and neglected: he also believed what he heard the servants whisper: that he was sickly and sure to die. He never left his room... 😔 That's why he threw tantrums: he was a deeply unhappy and isolated child. 😔
THE GARDEN
One day, Mary is out in the manor grounds. The robin guides her to door of the locked garden: hidden under climbing ivy; and shows her where the key is buried. 😳
Mary goes into the garden... It's wintery and bleak - but shows signs of new springtime life. She decides that she wants to bring it back to life - planting and pruning: but it must be a secret: the garden is officially out of bounds to everyone. 😲
Then Mary asks Martha about gardening tips. Martha introduces Mary to her younger brother, 12 year old Dickon: a Yorkshire lad who spends most of his time on the moor - making friends with animals and learning about all the plants.
Mary shares the secret of the garden with Dickon: and then two of them work together to get the garden back in shape for springtime. 🙂
Mary now has a fourth friend: Dickon... She even starts to speak like in the Yorkshire dialect now and then. 🙂
All the hard work, fresh air, and happiness has made Mary a strong, healthy, happy child. She believes that it's because of Magic in the garden; Dickon agrees with her: it must be Magic. 🤔
MARY AND COLIN
One rainy night, Mary hears the sobbing and wailing that she'd heard in the house before... She goes round the many corridors to try to find out who's making the sound... And finds Colin's room... 😲
Both are shocked and surprised; but Colin stops crying and they talk and talk... Mary tells Colin about how there's Magic outdoors - Magic that made her healthy and happy... He's fascinated... 😲 The servants arrive - but Colin tells them that they must allow Mary to visit - everyday.
In time, Mary tells Colin all about the Secret Garden, and its Magic - and about Dickon, the Yorkshire lad who has outdoor Magic himself - and can make friends with animals. 😲 She suggests that if Colin could get into the Secret Garden, the Magic might make him strong, healthy and happy too... 😲
No spoilers here... If you want to know the rest - you'll have to read it... 😏
Textual content (review) © Copyright MLM Arts 28. 10. 2025. Edited and re-posted: 18. 05. 2025
Death Of A Naturalist (Poetry Collection) SEAMUS HEANEY (Published in 1966)
Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 into a Roman Catholic family who owned a small farm in County Derry, in British ruled, Protestant dominated Northern Ireland. In such circumstances his life was, or would have been, predestined to be one that followed in the ploughed furrows of his father, but Heaney was a child of exceptional intelligence and outstanding academic ability, and was determined to break the mould and pursue his scholarly dream.
He gained a scholarship to Saint Columba’s College in Derry, which he described as: "from the earth of farm labour to the heaven of education". From there he went on to gain a First Class honours degree from Queen’s University, Belfast. He later took up professorships at Trinity College, University of Dublin, and at Harvard University, in the USA.
1966 saw the publication of his first collection of poems: Death of a Naturalist. In 1992 Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In the circumstances and environment that Seamus Heaney grew up around, it was hardly possible for him to be other than an Irish republican in is his political views and his personal inclinations. He considered himself Irish rather than British, and carried an Irish passport. This is not to say that he was militantly partisan, nor that his ‘Irishness’ was bound up with anti – British sentiments. He was born a product of social and political circumstances that had been manufactured by events of several centuries earlier, but which continued (and still continue) to colour the collective psyche of the people of Ireland, and to blight the landscape of the island of Ireland. (For an overview of the history of the British / Irish ‘troubles’ please see our section: ‘Politics, Society, and the Quest for Change).
Much of Heaney’s poetry is concerned with this conflict, but does not strive to apportion blame or to demonise, on the one hand, nor to glorify on the other; rather, I suggest that his purpose is to impart to the reader an understanding of the long and bitter history of Ireland’s divisions and unrest, and the effect that this has inevitably had on the psyche of the people there, generation after generation… In what is described as his ‘Declaration of Independence’, Heaney stated that: “poetry can never be reduced to a political, historical or moral issue ". This must be borne in mind when attempting to analyse his work…
‘Death of a Naturalist’ is Heaney’s first published collection of poems. As with all great poetry (and all great literature) the work can be read and in interpreted in a number of different ways – and themes and possible inner meanings surmised and analysed.
On the surface the work appears to be a recollection of his childhood and youth spent on the family farm, and an overview of Irish life and history, but the opening poem ‘Digging’ (which has that theme – and is, ostensibly, about his memories of watching his father at work), is, I suggest, an invitation to the reader to do just that with his poems: dig deeper...
The poem itself suggests Heaney’s exploration of Irish history, and his personal search for an Ireland and an Irish identity that lived up to the myth and glorification that is the currency of all nationalities when describing their own – and he has to look for it in the past, because, in his honesty and truthfulness, he sees through this nationalistic mythology – and reality, in his lifetime, does not live up to it. In the short fifth stanza Heaney marvels:
‘By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man.’
The sixth stanza describes how his grandfather was even greater than his father:
‘My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.’
Tellingly the stanza concludes with:
‘Going down and down For the good turf. Digging.’
This is an indication of what I have suggested the poem to be about: Heaney’s search for that mythical Ireland and ‘Irishness’ – leading him to the past. The poem concludes with Heaney’s lamenting his own shortcomings, and, I contend, by extension the shortcomings of the present, and of reality – beside the radiant glow of the mythology, and all he can do is search for some trace of truth in that mythology in the only way he can:
‘But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.’
Mid-Term Break is the most poignant of the poems in the collection. In it Heaney recalls the tragic death of his younger brother, who died, aged just four, when he was struck by a car. He describes the grief of his father:
‘In the porch I met my father crying…’ (2nd Stanza line 1)
and his mother, stronger than his father in coping with her maternal grief:
‘…my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.’ (4th stanza line 3 – 5th stanza line 1).
For me this poem, like all of Heaney’s poems, is about more than a moving recollection of personal tragedy – it tells the reader that he is someone who has experience personal loss, and of the grief and pain that it causes. It is, I suggest, Heaney’s way of trying to caution people away from the rhetoric and the glorification of conflict – to bring home to them its consequences in personal grief. Stanza’s 6 and 7 suggest this theme most compellingly:
’ …Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside; I saw him for the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple… No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear…’
The scene is one of the deceased now sanitized – beautified – and serene. The ugliness of death and injury has been salved away. Yet in this depiction Heaney refers to a ’poppy bruise’, and ‘no gaudy scars’: I contend that this alludes to the poppy as a symbol of remembrance in the U.K – but used in a militaristic way which, in its way, glorifies conflict, and sanitizes the horrific reality of death in warfare. In this way, I suggest, Heaney cautions people about how we are fooled again and again into ‘airbrushing out’ the horrors, the grief and the pain of war – and duped into believing in its glory. Heaney experienced this pain and loss whilst still only a child himself. It must, surely, have coloured his thinking.
title poem in this collection, 'Death of a Naturalist', is a nice example of a poem that illustrates the freedom of analysis that makes literature a joy to study. Many years ago, after analysing that poem, I had a friendly debate (over a few beers!) about the piece - with a teacher of English Literature, and a few students. Ostensibly, ‘Death of a Naturalist’ is about Heaney, as a kid, falling out of love with squelching around in ponds and pools trawling for frogspawn and what not, and learning about nature in school:
‘But best of all was the warm thick slobber Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water…’ (1st stanza: lines 8-9);
‘Then one hot day when the fields were rank.
With cowdung in the grass and angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges to a coarse croaking…
…gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped: The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat poised like mud grenades…
… I was sickened, turned, and ran…’ (2nd stanza lines 1 – 13).
I contended that this might be seen as Heaney’s rejection of any consideration of his becoming militantly involved in the mechanisms of Irish nationalism – as a device or orator: a rhetorician.
Heaney will – like all kids at school in every country – have been taught about his country’s history in a favourable and glorifying light, at school and, I imagine, at home. (By this I mean Irish, rather than British history: Heaney attended Roman Catholic schools in British governed Ulster, and the education in these differed – if only somewhat – from that in the mainstream state schools). However, referring back to my analysis of the previous poems, I suggest that Heaney’s ‘seeing through’ the mythology – which is always based on glorified accounts of history - and his caution to people to hear the words of one who has experienced personal grief – and not to fall for rhetorical war mongering, along with his own ‘Declaration of Independence’ (see above: paragraph 3), supports my contention that ‘Death of a Naturalist’ may be read as Heaney’s refusal to become in any way militantly involved in the Irish nationalist cause – and have his poetry ‘reduced to a political, historical or moral issue.’
The imagery of ‘angry frogs’ (2:2); ‘a coarse croaking I had not heard before’ (2:4); gross-bellied frogs were cocked [military imagery: like a gun?]; ‘The slap and plop were obscene threats’; (2:9); ‘Poised like mud grenades’ (2;10), and finally the closing of the poem:
'The great slime kings were gathered there for vengeance and I knew that if my dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.’ (2: 11-13),
all indicates to me that Heaney had, as a child, revelled in the innocent telling of history in a glorified light, but in adulthood – in a troubled country – saw how this could be used and distorted to promote fear, conflict, and vengeance; and he, as a writer and intellectual, must not become the implement of that - but would be dragged into it if he ‘dipped his hand’…
My argument did not convince my companions – but that’s what makes great poetry – and all great literature: it’s open to interesting debate, opinion and analysis.... 🤔
This short sketch has, I hope, given some insight into genius of one of the greatest poets alive today – and one of the greatest poets who has ever lived…
I’ll end with a brief mention of another poem from the collection: the beautiful love poem, called simply: Poem (For Marie). It is dedicated to the woman who was the love of Seamus Heaney’s life: his wife Marie. I’ll leave this one un-picked over; I’ll just quote the opening two lines, and give the great man the last word:
‘Love, I shall perfect for you the child
Who diligently potters in my brain...’ (1:1-2).
(M).
Textual content:
© Copyright. MLM Arts 17. 07. 2012: Edited and re-posted: 20.10.2013. 19. 02. 2016. Edited and re-posted: 17. 07. 2019. Edited and re-posted: 06. 05. 2020