Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

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  • ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’, by T.S. Eliot – review

    Old Possum's Book of Practical CatsOld Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by Eliot T. S. (Thomas Stearns)

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    It was like being transported to Hayao Miyazaki’s beautiful, fanciful animated world to discover that T.S. Eliot wrote this delightfully whimsical book because, to quote himself, he was of “a Catholic cast of mind, a Puritanical temperament, and a Calvinist heritage.” To me, Eliot was always a grim, grave intellectual who would not deign to regale himself with anthropomorphic cats. It was part of curiosity about the writer himself and my interest in anything about cats because of my first cat at home. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is a compact collection of amusingly scintillating and elegantly profound poems about why cats behave the way they do and who they are really.

    And the more I read, the more I enjoyed it because it was full of wittily whimsical rhythms and brilliantly capricious expressions like a pleasant medley of amiable Dickensian characters. The psychology of the indomitable, the incredible cats through his amiably keen observation of feline behaviors in everyday life is conveyed through the live practical cats:

    • Jennyany dots, a neat, elegant tabby Molly living in a tidy, smart household.
    • Growltiger, a sailor cat., living in the harbor, who knows all the taverns and pubs around, the
    • Rum Tum Tugger, who is and will always be himself

    According to nominative determinism principles, Eliot gives the inscrutably and ineffably particular names to the cats that befit their characteristics and personalities. The names become the cats, and the cats become the peculiar existence.

    The poetry was the inspiration of the mega Broadway musical hit “The Cats.” However, to go against the grain, I think that rather than the famed musical version, Hiroyuki Morita’s animated version of “Whisper of the Heart” about a good-hearted high school girl traveling to the land of talking biped clothed cats because of her kindness to cats, is close to Eliot’s idea of practical cats. The anthropomorphic cats in animation are free in all expression that human actors cannot perform with theatrical effects, which forces the audience to believe that what they see are cats. It is impossible to disassociate the visual fact from visceral imagery. The humans in makeup imitating cats render the feline characters fatuous and clownish. Ben Jonson, the great Elizabethan English playwright, would have adopted Eliot’s practical cats with his superb masks and sans the ludicrously exaggerated makeup and costumes.

    In conclusion, with wits and simplicity, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is a hidden gem of Eliot’s works that is enjoyable by general readers, even if they do not have cats at home. Indeed, Eliot himself was a cat lover, and this adorable collection of poems might have been the whimsical scribbling of his cats at home from his daily lives with them. But what a way of tribute to his lovely creatures it is! Upon reading this book, you might want to write like him about your cats or other pets you have at home. I should think so, for I want to and am doing.

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  • The Lonely Heart

    The Romp Pomp Bunter is a Little Kitten living on Kenmore Avenue
    Whose natural curiosity becomes day by day Curiouser and Curiouser.
    From the windows, he watches the World below and the Sky above
    Day and night, till the Doves on the roof fly away higher and farther.

    Left in the silence of loneliness that becomes the sound of sadness,
    The Little Cat, friendless always, goes to a Fish called Hope, as always
    In the vain hope of friendship, for he is also alone, or so it seems,
    And knocks on the door of the aquarium and waves at him with his paws.

    Alas, Poor Little Cat! I know him! Hope wants no friendship with the Cat! 
    He hides in the pineapple castle in his watery kingdom, safe and sound
    For his loneliness is submerged in water and dissolves into watery mote,
    Leaving the Little Cat in the silence of friendlessness round and around.

  • From Egypt with Meow: ‘The Cat in Ancient Egypt’, by Jaromir Malek – review

    The Cat in Ancient EgyptThe Cat in Ancient Egypt by Jaromir Malek

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    I admit that most of my posts relate to the cat nowadays. But what else should I write about when an orphan kitten enters my castle and in need of care and love? My five-month-old cat Toro is a domestic short-haired breed as subsumed by a vet at the shelter, but his appearance and characteristics make me believe that he must be a descendent of Egyptian Mau. My conjectural reconstruction of Toro’s possible ancient scroll of his family (paternal) led me to  Jaromir Malek’s  The Cat in Ancient Egypt, which tells all about how cats became naturally harmonious with humans, which played a significant role in the anthropological and social aspects of splendid ancient Egyptian civilization.

    The domestication of cats resulted from the advent of agriculture when man began to settle on the farm, and civilization came to blossom. It was about 1,500 years later than the domestication of dogs as hunting assistants to men. Of all the ancient civilizations, the Egyptians sow the seeds of love between the cats and humankind. Abounded with various fauna and flora benign to the human inhabitants, the jungle cats and African cats thrived and became familiar animals to the Egyptians, who began to use the cats to drive off pesky mice poisonous snakes threatening their lives and crops. Naturally, wild cats gradually learned to adapt their wild instinct to their new protective human environs. 

    The frequency of cats’ representations in ancient Egyptian art is a creditable source to understand cats’ familiarity and recognition as pets in the overall culture and society. The images of cats first sporadically appeared in the tombs of pharaohs built during the Old Kingdom period (2647 -2124 B.C) and became widespread mural art features by the New Kingdom (1549-1069 B.C.), which is also called the renaissance of the pyramids. Maybe it was because of the mysterious aura surrounding the inscrutable demureness of a cat, or it was the otherwordly aloofness wrapt in ethereal agility. Cats became popular hieroglyphic and effigial motifs for artists and priests alike in cultural and religious contexts decorating chambers within sacred tombs and temples. Also, cats were the aesthetic muse for women’s high fashion, used as motifs for the jewelry of queens and women of high society.

    What evolved from a quid pro quo relationship between man and beast for the survival of the species found its way to the high seat in the eternal world. The familiarity and recognition of cats’ usefulness blessed with physical charm elevated the beastly origin into a divine status in the statuesque form of goddess Bastet, the sister of the Sun god Ra, representing female sexuality and fertility, which reflected the specific characteristics of the animal. The Sun god himself was also called the Great Tomcat because the god meowed during what he was doing. So much so that the ancient Persians used to equip the shields with live cats at war with the Egyptians, who dared not to harm their sacred animals.

    On the other hand, cats were not altogether distant from the everyday lives of the ancient Egyptians. The Greek historian Herodotus further corroborated that the Egyptians shaved their eyebrows when their cats died as a sign of mourning. The more cats became domesticated, the more multiferous their features became. Artists started using cats as a caricature of specific human characteristics illustration of fables with a moral content, representing the absurdities of reality in a humorously wise way. Such artistic trend was most conspicuous during the Ptolomy period when Egypt was under the Hellenistic influence to resist foreign cultural force. Cats were symbolized as the animal inherently Egyptian to the land of pharaohs.

    Beautifully written with sentences that conjure up the images of ancient Egyptian cats, Malek’s The Cat in Ancient Egypt serves its purpose of educating and entertaining the curious reader who wants to know more about his or her beloved feline creature at home. That doesn’t mean that this book is reserved only for cat owners or lovers. This book has refreshingly excellent archeological and anthropological knowledge about human civilization, impacting animal life. The affection is the elder sister of the understanding. I personally selected this book to read because I wanted to know more about my cat. Likewise, this book is for readers who want to know more about Nature and People’s history.

     

     

  • New Possum’s Book of the Curious Cat

     

    There’s once a cat name Romp Pomp Bunter, aka the Curious Cat,
    who liked to romp with pomp and bunt his head against
    his guardian, the woman with the beautiful but lonely heart.
    She named him in rapt contemplation of the thought, of the thought
    of his name; his ineffable, effable name, debonair and extraordinary.

    The Romp Pomp Bunter has a secret that no one knows it:
    The Romp Pomp Bunter once saw a grand statue of Bastet
    In a book on the history of cats originating in ancient Egypt
    And was so impressed with the splendid grace of the goddess
    That he wanted to emulate the mysteriously beguiling poise
    Even if he was a Californian moggie tomcat of Los Angeles.

    But the Romp Pomp Bunter, ever the Curious and Adventurous,
    An orphan kitten whose parents nobody knew or cared even,
    Felt that he was originally from the Ancient World with a reason
    That he looked nothing like the ordinary domestic short-haired,
    The insignificant, the common, the trite, the obsequiously tamed
    Breed of Cats that contrasted the Egyptian Mau, the First of Firsts
    Endeared to Pharaohs, Queens, Priests, Soldiers, Farmers, and Artists.

    So, the Romp Pomp Bunter believed that he was the Royal Descendant,
    The indolently elegant, adoringly capricious, the inscrutably alluring
    Egyptian Mau, the paragon of the goddess Bastet, divinely beguiling.
    You see, that is why his name is the Romp Pomp Bunter, the Curious Cat.

     

  • The Song of the Romp Pomp Bunter

    The Romp Pomp Bunter is a Curious Cat:
    If you give him a toy, he would prefer a bottle cap,
    If you offer him a play, he would rather sit by the window atop,
    If you feed him a chicken pate, he wants a tuna fillet.

    The Romp Pomp Bunter is a Green-Eyed Beast:
    He wants you to be with him when you don’t,
    He wants to eat what you eat when he shouldn’t,
    He wants to play with you when you can’t.

    The Romp Pomp Bunter is a Timid Kitten:
    He would startle at the drop of a needle,
    He would tremble at the sounds of rain,
    He would tremor when birds flap the wings.  

    Yes, the Romp Pomp Bunter is a Curious Cat,
    And there’s no use in changing him anyway.
    For he will do so as he does so, and that’s that,
    And there’s nothing you can do about it!

  • ‘Brief Lives’, by Paul Johnson – review

    Brief LivesBrief Lives by Paul Johnson

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars


    Biography is an ancient branch of literature that attests to the unchangeability of human nature against the flow of time. In its literary context, the Bible, composed of 66 books, is about the prophets, kings, sinners, let alone Christ and his disciples. Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad recite the ancient Greek heroes’ honors and foibles during the Trojan War and the aftermath. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives reveal the naked truth about the ancient Greek and Roman powers-that-be who seem to be no less different than their modern descendants in power. There are no other types of writing that are intuitively intriguing than an honest biography. A good biography gives the reader a sensation of reading a private diary that lays bare the subject person’s real persona. Out of this ancient tradition of biography comes Paul Johnson’s Brief Lives of the famous people he has met from all over the world told in episodic vignettes.

    The book tells Johnson’s reminiscences of historically notable personalities he has met directly and indirectly throughout his long journalistic career. Ernest Hemingway was not a Pooterish famed writer but a down-to-earth bon vivant with a love of wine. John Paul II was a true vicar of Christ gifted to our mad secular world. Princess Diana had incredible intuition, which was of prime kind channeled into high and low people’s feelings. However, Pablo Picasso was the artist as rich as Croesus with the matching haughtiness. C.S. Lewis was an excellent lecturer whose populous lecture rooms were also an intellectual version of dating hippodrome. And Richard Nixon, regardless of his Watergate infamy, proved himself to be a diligent scholar of history with the admirable zeal of continuous learning. Johnson is a keen observer of people with a prism through which people’s true colors are reflected. It is refreshingly educating to learn about the other, overlooked sides of the infamous and the famous without a gloss of the uniformed panegyrics or accusations, and doing justice to the publicly ill-informed.

    It is also interesting to compare the book with Plutarch’s Parallel Lives in terms of its episodic vignette form of writing, making both books more comfortable to read and stimulating to delve into. Johnson’s episodes are vivaciously sprightful and wittily feisty, grasping the reader’s attention from page to page with irresistible curiosity. Johnson and Plutarch use the ordinary language about the extraordinary to serve the purpose of writing biographies for the public with the knowledge about humankind that even the powerful and the beautiful are subject to anfractuous ridges that all humans have to climb in life.

    I have read several books by Paul Johnson. All of them are packed full of his trademark wits, conservative but not chauvinistic perspectives on morality, and admirable erudition, thrown into a brilliant bonfire of words enjoyable by general readers. Brief Lives is no exception to the rule, showing that Johnson has ways with the words that make them vernacular in his choice of vocabulary he conjures and scholarly of the sentences he alloys. Samuel Johnson defined an excellent biography that should disclose the person’s human side to show that no one is utterly powerful and beautiful. The book Brief Lives echoes the same.




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