Tag Archives: classics

Jan 25 2015
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Books

Polonius’ Advice to Laertes – Shakespeare – Hamlet

At some point, you must have heard these infamous words:

“This above all, to your own self be true!”

They originate with the bard himself – William Shakespeare.  And “truer” words were never spoken.  If you aren’t being true to yourself – i.e. if you are trying to be someone you aren’t, then you are just not going to be happy.

It is a scene that plays out all the time – a parent gives advice to a child who is heading off for college.  Here is what Polonius had to say before his son, Laertes, set sail to pursue his studies:

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,  But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.  Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

What say you, readers?  Did Polonius give good advice?  Bad advice?  Discuss in the comments!

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Jan 24 2015
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Shakespeare

Deflategate Shakespearized

I like to Shakespearize things – movies, TV shows, songs.  I love Shakespeare.  Maybe it’s trite, but I do feel that the English language’s greatest author walked the earth around 500 years or so ago (give or take a few years here or there).

I hope to turn this into a new feature, and if you have something you’d like to see Shakespearized, let me know.

Without further ado…

DEFLATEGATE SHAKESPEARIZED

By:  Bookshelf Q.  Battler

A Tale Told in the Tradition of the Bard

PRESS MAN #1 – In fair New England where we begin our tale, a legend of great treachery and sanctimonious chicanery, of gladiators of the gridiron and air dispersion most foul.

RANDOM COLTS PLAYER (staring at and holding up a football as if it were a skull) – Is this a ball I see before me?  It’s lack of weight disturbeth me with the passion of the Gods who once clapped in thunderous combat above the skies of Ancient Rome. Fi on thee, Knaves of New England, Mercenaries of the Villainous Cheese Baron!  Something is rotten in the State of the NFL.

ENTER KING BELICHIK –  Friends, Romans, Countrymen!  Lend me your ears!  Good sirs, rest thine ears upon my voice, and hear me as I say that in my four score years of leading mine knights into carefully manicured grassy fields of battle all across our land, this is the first and only time that anyone hath raised the issue of mine balls!  Merry, it surpriseth me greatly to hear men complain of a trivial happenstance, as surely as it would surpriseth me were I to waken on the morrow to find that the sun’s exuberant colors had transferred from yellow to green.

PRESS MAN #2 – Foul!  Foul!  Scandal most foul!  A plague on your house, King Belichik!  For thou failest to taketh the fall in this fake story that we hath manufactured out of whole cloth!  Thou hast thrown Sir Thomas of Brady under the bus!

TYPICAL COLTS FAN –  To inflate or not to inflate?  That is the question.  Whether tis nobler in the mind to inflate your balls to 12.5 pounds per square inch, or to take air out of your balls until they are 11.5 pounds per square inch, and in doing so, ruin them?  To inflate, to deflate, to inflate perchance to dream?  Ay, there’s the rub…on our balls!

SIR THOMAS OF BRADY – Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow…inflated balls are a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying slow news days…

COLTS FAN #2 – O, I see Queen Mab!  Come she does, the Queen of the Fairies!  And she telleth me true, she fills my ears with the melodious truth, that had our balls been comprised of more air, we surely would not have had our asses handed to us in a massacre in which we lost by 40 points!  Fi!  By the beard of God I say had the game ball had one but one more pound of pressure inside of it, we would have fought boldly like the mighty warriors of the coliseum of old!

ENTER FOX AND COMPANIONS – Forsooth and hark, for we are Fox and Companions!  Bringeth yon noble viewers news of the death of the Saudi Arabian King?  Nay!  Bringeth ye news of the resignation of the Yemen Government?  Nay!  Gather round and hear a tale of balls deflated with vigorous gusto!

PRESS MAN #3 – But soft!  What lies through yonder window breaks?!  It tis the east, and the underinflated balls are the sun!  Arise fair balls, and kill the envious moon, whose maid art sick and pale with grief, that her maid’s balls are far more inflated than yours!

PATRIOTS FAN -(also holding a football like it was a skull) –  Alas, poor football, I knew him, Horatio.  Twas a football of great jest and most excellent fancy!  Once inflated to 12.5 pounds per square inch and then alas, deflated to a paltry 11.5 square pounds per inch by rapscallions of ignominious cunning and unscrupulous alacrity. Our knights, once a great bastion of the game, now reduced to wicked pissah jokes about deflated balls.

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Jan 14 2015
6 Comments
Books

Literary Quotes – “The Count of Monte Cristo” – Alexandre Dumas

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words – Wait and Hope”

– Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

I’ve never read this book.  Its sheer size is intimidating.  I’ve read The Three Musketeers and thoroughly enjoyed it.  But this quote is accurate.  We spend so much of our lives waiting for what we want and hoping it will happen.

Have you read it?  If so, what did you think?

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Dec 21 2014
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Books

The Daily Scrooge – Part 4

How shall I ever understand this world? There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty, and yet, there is nothing it condemns with such severity as the pursuit of wealth.

You have to admit, he’s got a point.  Life is undeniably difficult, if not impossible, as a person in abject poverty.  Ironically, people who keep that fact in mind and work hard and find ways to put as much financial distance as they can between themselves and poverty get villainized.

Dickens may have considered that with the character of Fezziwig, Scrooge’s original boss who got him into the money counting game.  Even though Fezziwig was wealthy, he always threw a big party on Christmas, and one can assume he always helped the less fortunate he encountered.

It is all a balancing act.  You’d hate to be poor.  People will hate you if you’re rich.  Either way, someone is going to hate something.

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Dec 20 2014
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Books

The Daily Scrooge – Part 3

A conversation between Scrooge and the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley, who has been dead for seven years at the start of the book:

“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

“I do,” said Scrooge.  “I must.  But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.  It is doomed to wander through the world — oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling.  “Tell me why?”

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.  Is its pattern strange to you?”

Scrooge trembled more and more.

“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

“Jacob,” he said, imploringly.  “Old Jacob Marley, tell me more.  Speak comfort to me, Jacob!”

“I have none to give,” the Ghost replied.  “It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men.  Nor can I tell you what I would.  A very little more, is all permitted to me.  I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.  My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house — mark me! — in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!”

Marley and Scrooge had been cut from the same cloth – two penny pinchers who reveled in cheapskatery.  So arguably, Marley’s ghost being forced to drag around chains as punishment for the life he lived must be troubling for Scrooge, who lived the same life.  What is the significance of Marley having to wander around carrying chains?

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Nov 11 2014
3 Comments
Literary Quotes

Happy Veterans Day! (Literary War Quotes)

Happy Veterans Day!

For the past week, I’ve been offering “Literary War Quotes” – quotes from classic pieces of literature, as a tie in to my latest obsession with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.  I’m half-way through the campaign and have just learned that Kevin Spacey’s character is the bad guy.  Who knew?

It is probably about time to conclude this series of posts with this quote:

“You were just babies in the war – like the ones upstairs!  But you’re not going to write it that way, are you?  You’ll pretend that you were men instead of babies and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men.  And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them.  And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

This quote, taken from Vonnegut’s 1969 novel, illustrates an ongoing problem in pop culture – glorification of violence.  In TV, in movies, heck even in video games like the one I’m playing now, war is portrayed as exciting, noble, adventurous and so on.  The heroic parts are played by actors who have never seen war.  And while it is all well and good to portray the heroic and exciting aspects of war, there needs to be balance – the dark side of war needs to be shown as well.

Vonnegut’s point may have made more sense in his day.  In his day, Sinatra or John Wayne would go on screen, do heroic deeds, give patriotic speeches, and then the audience would rarely ever see the blood and guts that occurs during war.  Today, movies have done a complete turnaround and some may argue they show too much.

But overall, wars are usually fought by young people who are just starting out in life and learning about things – this is something we should keep in mind and it can be hard to do when Hollywood often portrays soldiers as battle hardened veterans ready for anything.

This may seem like a silly point to argue but the public can’t be led to think that wars are all flag waving and patriotic adventures, there is a steep price in human suffering that gets paid as well.

That concludes my series of quotes from literature about war.  Sorry if it bummed you out, my intention was more to get people thinking.  At any rate, it is time to move on to more lighthearted topics.

PS – Equally fitting because today is Kurt Vonnegut’s Birthday!  Happy Birthday Kurt!

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Nov 07 2014
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Literary Quotes

Literary War Quote – 1984 by George Orwell

Bookshelf Battler here, reporting live from the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare battlefront.  I have to hand it to this game.  Such ultimate realism – the sights, the sounds, the blasts, the getting shot twenty times and then hiding behind a corner until you get better – ok, so maybe the realism factor isn’t all that high but still it is an all around A+ game.

This week I’m celebrating this game with a tie-in to literary war quotes – mentions in literature about that most necessary (or unnecessary?) of all evils – war.  War.  Ungh.  Goo God yah huh – what’s it even good for?  Absolutely nothin.’

In 1984, (the book, not the year that happened thirty years ago – hey what do you know, Happy Anniversary 1984!) by George Orwell, a vivid portrait the ultimate police state is created, so much so that the novel gave rise to the phrase, “Big Brother is watching you.”

What did this book have to say about violence – as in organized violence ,or in other words, war?  Check it out:

“Those who abjure violence can only do so by others committing violence on their behalf.”  – George Orwell, 1984

Don’t be fooled by the catchy use of the word, “Battle” in the title of this blog.  I’m all for peace, happiness, and tranquility.  But George makes a good point.  Constant threats abound – both from criminal degenerates at home and terrorists abroad.  We are able to sit around and type on our blogs, drink our Mountain Dew, and play our video games because “rough men,” i.e. police and soldiers are taking up arms on our behalf and keeping the bad guys at bay.  Here’s what else George had to say on the subject:

“People sleep peacefully in their beds only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”  – George Orwell, 1984

My opinion, police and military types often get a bad rap.  They’re often portrayed in pop culture  as savages, jerks, people on a power trip who just enjoy committing acts of violence and while I suppose there will always be a few bad apples in any bunch, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that we are able to live peaceful lives because the government employs “rough men” (and hey – even “rough women!” to fight on our behalf.

This concept was further immortalized in the 1992 military courtroom drama film, A Few Good Men.  Remember the character Col. Nathan Jessup played by Jack Nicholson?  Here’s the direct quote of his infamous “You Can’t Handle the Truth!” speech:

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.  Who’s gonna do it?  You?  You, Lt. Weinburg?  I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom.  You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines.  You have that luxury.  You have the luxury of not knowing what I know – that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives.  And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.  You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.  We use words like honor, code, loyalty.  We used these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something.  You use them as a punchline.  I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.  I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way.  Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.  Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.”  – Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan Jessup in A Few Good Men

Well, maybe this is not the best example since Jessup was the bad guy in the film but overall, the main point – if you feel the need to criticize police and the military for being “rough men,” try to also keep in mind that their “roughness” is very much needed.

And don’t forget – my Call of Duty character will be exploded 50 times tonight by frag grenades, many of which I tossed accidentally at my own feet, so that you can play peaceful video games like Mario Kart and Minecraft.

Full disclosure – I have to give props to NBC’s The Blacklist because Raymond “Red” Reddington used Orwell’s quote in this week’s episode.  When I heard it, I was like, “Thank you, James Spader!  There’s a blog post!”

In conclusion – don’t forget to subscribe to this blog and follow @bookshelfbattle.com on Twitter.

And if you’re a Walking Dead fan – stop by Sunday night to discuss the latest episode!  What is Carol going to do as a patient at the evil hospital, anyway?

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Nov 05 2014
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Books, Classics, Literary Quotes

Literary War Quotes – A Farewell to Arms

Bookshelf Battler here, reporting live from the Call of Duty home base.  I am working on my fighting skills and have perfect a move where I run my character into a wall for thirty seconds until another player stealthily sneaks up behind me and either a) rudely shoots me in the back b) knifes me in the back c) lobs a grenade at me or d) a combination of a, b, and c.

All part of my genius plan to wear the enemy down.  Once the opposing forces are exhausted from constantly throttling me, I’ll strike!  (And run into the wall for an entire minute before I figure out how to turn around).

Are you playing Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare?  Take a break to read today’s literary war quote:

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”  – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel, A Farewell to Arms is a classic love story set against the backdrop of World War I.  Heartbreaking and perhaps even depressing, it pulls no punches in illustrating the plight of those who fight.

What about the above quote?  Essentially, Hemingway is saying that the world is such a harsh place that sooner or later it brings down everyone – pessimist and optimist alike.  Is that true?  Is there anyone who ever manages to get through life without being dragged down by some of the crueler aspects of the world?

Press the pause button on your remote control and share your thoughts in the comment section!  As always, thanks for dropping by and don’t forget to follow @bookshelfbattle on Twitter.

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Oct 31 2014
2 Comments
Classics, Horror

Double Double Toil and Trouble – The Witches of MacBeth

Happy Halloween!

Have you ever wondered how witches obtained their witchy personality traits?

***Crickets chirp***

Ahem.  This is your cue.

“Hey!  Bookshelf Battle Guy!  How did witches obtain their witchy personality traits?”

Oh thank you, Reader.  I thought you’d never ask.

Well, the common conception of a witch is a nasty old hag throwing all kinds of weird ingredients (usually animals or parts of animals) into a boiling cauldron.

We could discuss all day witch-tastic imagery from all sorts of literature but to me, Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth stands out.

So park your broomstick and grab your eye of newt, because here are some excerpts and quotes:

SCENE 1 – A cavern – in the middle is a boiling cauldron.

Thunder.  Enter the three witches.

FIRST WITCH

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d

SECOND WITCH

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined

BOOKSHELFBATTLE – So, four then?  The pig in your hedges whined four times?  Why are you hags making this so difficult?

THIRD WITCH

Harpier cries, ‘Tis time, ’tis time.

FIRST WITCH

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Swelter’d venom, sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot

BOOKSHELF BATTLE GUY: Pot of poisoned entrails?  That doesn’t sound charming at all.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble!

SECOND WITCH

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog

Wool of bat and tongue of dog

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

BOOKSHELFBATTLE GUY – My condolences, amputated animals.  Apparently witches used to think your parts were magical.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble

THIRD WITCH

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Silver’d in the moon’s eclips,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron

For the ingredients of our cauldron.

BOOKSHELF BATTLE GUY – OK, now they’re getting ridiculous.  I don’t even know where to begin.  First of all, allow me to apologize for the racial insensitivity.  What can I say?  This is an excerpt taking from a 1500’s era writer who was writing about ancient witches so it is not like you can really expect a lot of political correctness.  Also, how many babies were getting strangled in those days that their fingers were just apparently readily available to be tossed into witches’ brews?  Those were dark times, my friends, dark times indeed.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCH

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

BOOKSHELFBATTLE GUY: – This took place in Scotland, didn’t it?   Where would they have even found a baboon?

ENTER HECTATE to the other three Witches.

HECTATE

O well done!  I commend your pains;

And every one shall share i’ the gains;

And now about the cauldron sing,

Live elves and fairies in a ring,

Enchanting all that you put in.

MUSIC AND A SONG: Black spirits…

HECTATE retires

SECOND WITCH

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

Open, locks,

Whoever knocks!

ENTER MACBETH

MACBETH

How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!

What is’t you do?

BOOKSHELF BATTLE GUY:  I have no comment, other than I think it is funny that MacBeth openly refers to them as hags.  “Hello, hags!”

Well folks, that concludes my discussion of MacBeth’s witches.  Grab your wolf teeth and dragon scales and toss them into the comment section.

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Oct 29 2014
1 Comment
Books, Classics, Horror

Public Domain Horror Fiction – The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs

Readers, if there’s one lesson you ever learn from this humble book blog, I hope it is this one:

Never make a deal with something or someone evil.

You scoff but you know it is true.  Ask a source of evil to make you win the lottery and you will…only to get hit by a bus on the way to cash in the ticket.  Evil has one of the twisted view of irony ever known.

So tonight, in bookshelfbattle.com ‘s ongoing Public Domain Horror Fiction Series, check out the short story, The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, first published in the early 1900’s.  Short summary – A couple and their adult son find a Monkey’s Paw from India.  Supposedly, it has the power to grant wishes.  Sadly, they learn the hard way that with their wishes comes evil irony.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12122/12122-h/12122-h.htm

“The other two wishes,” she replied rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”
“Was not that enough?” he demanded fiercely.
“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”

– W.W. Jacobs, The Monkey’s Paw

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