Awe

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  Hyde hobbled in, leaning heavily on a black cane. As he made his way toward his chair, he drily noted, “My trick knee is warning me that we might have some rain. So prepare yourselves.” He stood in front of his chair, leaned back cautiously, grabbed it with both hands, and collapsed into the chair with a series of quick, shallow breaths—like a woman in labor. “Although it isn’t due for more than two months, you’ll be receiving your paper topic for this semester today. Now, I’m quite sure that you’ve all read the syllabus for this class with such frequency and seriousness that by now you’ve committed it to memory.” He smirked. “But a reminder: This paper is fifty percent of your grade. I encourage you to take it seriously. Now, about this Jesus fellow.” Hyde talked about the Gospel of Mark, which I hadn’t read until the day before, although I was a Christian. I guess. I’d been to church, uh, like four times. Which is more frequently than I’d been to a mosque or a synagogue. He told us that in the first century, around the time of Jesus, some of the Roman coins had a picture of the Emperor Augustus on them, and that beneath his picture were inscribed the words Filius Dei. The Son of God. “We are speaking,” he said, “of a time in which gods had sons. It was not so unusual to be a son of God. The miracle, at least in that time and in that place, was that Jesus—a peasant, a Jew, a nobody in an empire ruled exclusively by somebodies—was the son of that God, the all-powerful God of Abraham and Moses. That God’s son was not an emperor. Not even a trained rabbi. A peasant and a Jew. A nobody like you. While the Buddha was special because he abandoned his wealth and noble birth to seek enlightenment, Jesus was special because he lacked wealth and noble birth, but inherited the ultimate nobility: King of Kings. Class over. You can pick up a copy of your final exam on the way out. Stay dry.” It wasn’t until I stood up to leave that I noticed Alaska had skipped class—how could she skip the only class worth attending? I grabbed a copy of the final for her. The final exam: What is the most important question human beings must answer? Choose your question wisely, and then examine how Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity attempt to answer it. “I hope that poor bastard lives the rest of the school year,” the Colonel said as we jogged home through the rain, “because I’m sure starting to enjoy that class. What’s your most important question?” After thirty seconds of running, I was already winded. “What happens...to us...when we die?” “Christ, Pudge, if you don’t stop running, you’re going to find out.” He slowed to a walk. “My question is: Why do good people get rotten lots in life? Holy shit, is that Alaska?”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The character was most likely inspired by the real-life seducer Fujiwara no to the maid, saying, "Well Korechika. then, tell her that I sent In his seduction of Tamakazura, Genji's strategy was simple: he would you with these," • "What a strange present to send" make her realize indirectly how charming and irresistible he was by sur-the maid smiled. "What rounding her with unspoken details. He also brought her in contact with does she want two old his brother; comparison with this drab, stiff figure would make Genji's su- handkerchiefs for? She will periority clear. The night Hotaru first visited her, Genji set everything up, be angry again and say that you are trying to make as if to support Hotaru's seducing—the mysterious scent, then the flash of fun of her." • "Don't light by the screen. (The light came from a novel effect: earlier in the eve- worry" Pao-yu assured her. ning, Genji had collected hundreds of fireflies in a cloth bag. At the proper "She will understand." • Black Jade had already moment he let them all go at once.) But when Tamakazura saw Genji en-retired when Bright Design couraging Hotaru's pursuit of her, her defenses against her protector re- arrived at the Bamboo laxed, allowing her senses to be filled by this master of seductive effects. Retreat. "What brought you at this hour?" Black Genji orchestrated every possible detail—the scented paper, the colored Jade asked. • " [ Pao-yu] robes, the lights in the garden, the wild carnations, the apt poetry, the koto asked me to bring these lessons which induced an irresistible feeling of harmony. Tamakazura found handkerchiefs for [ Black Jade] ." • For a moment herself dragged into a sensual whirlpool. Bypassing the shyness and mistrust Black Jade was at a loss to that words or actions would only have worsened, Genji surrounded his see why Pao-yu should ward with objects, sights, sounds, and scents that symbolized the pleasure of send her such a present at his company far more than his actual physical presence would have—in fact that particular moment. She said, "I suppose they his presence could only have been threatening. He knew that a young girl's must be something unusual senses are her most vulnerable point. that somebody gave him. The key to Genji's masterful orchestration of detail was his attention to Tell him to keep them himself or give them to the target of his seduction. Like Genji, you must attune your own senses to someone who will your targets, watching them carefully, adapting to their moods. You sense appreciate them. I have no when they are defensive and retreat. You also sense when they are giving in, need of them." • "They are nothing unusual," and move forward. In between, the details you set up—gifts, entertain-Bright Design said. "Just ments, the clothes you wear, the flowers you choose—are aimed precisely two ordinary handkerchiefs

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  — I H A R A SAIKAKU, THE LIFE OF emperor was fine, and the empress could be trusted. AN AMOROUS WOMAN, AND OTHER WRITINGS, TRANSLATED BY IVAN M O R R I S Interpretation. The foreign contingent in China had no idea what was really happening in the Forbidden City. In truth, the emperor had conFor such men as have spired to arrest and possibly murder his aunt. Discovering the plot, a terri-practised love, have ever ble crime in Confucian terms, she forced him to sign his own abdication, held this a sound maxim had him confined, and told the outside world that he was ill. As part of his that there is naught to be punishment, he was to appear at state functions and act as if nothing had compared with a woman in her clothes. Again when happened. you reflect how a man doth The empress dowager loathed Westerners, whom she considered bar-brave, rumple, squeeze and barians. She disliked the ambassadors' wives, with their ugly fashions and make light of his lady's finery, and how he doth simpering ways. The banquet was a show, a seduction, to appease the West- Pay Attention to Detail • 269 ern powers, which had been threatening invasion if the emperor had been work ruin and loss to the killed. The goal of the seduction was simple: dazzle the wives with color, grand cloth of gold and web of silver, to tinsel spectacle, theater. The empress applied all her expertise to the task, and she and silken stuffs, pearls and was a genius for detail. She had designed the spectacles in a rising order— precious stones, 'tis plain the uniformed eunuchs first, then the Manchu ladies in their headdresses, how his ardour and and finally the empress herself. It was pure theater, and it was overwhelm- satisfaction be increased manifold— far more than ing. Then the empress brought the spectacle down a notch, humanizing it with some simple with gifts, warm greetings, the reassuring presence of the emperor, teas, shepherdess or other woman and entertainments, which were in no way inferior to anything in the West. of like quality, be she as fair as she may. • And why She ended the banquet on another high note—the little drama with the of yore was Venus found so sharing of the teacups, followed by even more magnificent gifts. The fair and so desirable, if not women's heads were spinning when they left. In truth they had never seen that with all her beauty she was always gracefully such exotic splendor—and they never understood how carefully its details attired likewise, and had been orchestrated by the empress. Charmed by the spectacle, they trans- generally scented, that she ferred their happy feelings to the empress and gave her their approval—all did ever smell sweet an hundred paces away? For it that she required. hath ever been held of all

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  chards with rare fruits from the Orient, silkworm farms, new towns with Apollo Belvedere. This bustling marketplaces. On a visit to the empress in 1785, Potemkin talked much is certain: as a of these things as if they already existed, so vivid were his descriptions. The performance it's like empress was delighted, but her ministers were skeptical—Potemkin loved nothing you ever saw before in your life. We have to talk. Ignoring their warnings, in 1787 Catherine arranged for a tour already enjoyed it on two of the area. She asked Joseph II to join her—he would be so impressed evenings." with the modernization of the Crimea that he would immediately sign on —FLORA FRASER, for the war against Turkey. Potemkin, naturally, was to organize the whole EMMA, LADY HAMILTON affair. And so, in May of that year, after the Dnieper had thawed, Catherine prepared for a journey from Kiev, in the Ukraine, to Sebastopol, in the For this uncanny is in Crimea. Potemkin arranged for seven floating palaces to carry Catherine reality nothing new or and her retinue down the river. The journey began, and as Catherine, alien, but something which is familiar and old-Joseph, and the courtiers looked at the shores to either side, they saw tri- established in the mind umphal arches in front of clean-looking towns, their walls freshly painted; and which has become healthy-looking cattle grazing in the pastures; streams of marching troops alienated from it only through the process of on the roads; buildings going up everywhere. At dusk they were enter- repression. This reference to tained by bright-costumed peasants, and smiling girls with flowers in their the factor of repression hair, dancing on the shore. Catherine had traveled through this area many enables us, furthermore, to understand Schelling's years before, and the poverty of the peasantry there had saddened her—she definition of the uncanny had determined then that she would somehow change their lot. To see be- as something which ought fore her eyes the signs of such a transformation overwhelmed her, and she to have remained hidden berated Potemkin's critics: Look at what my favorite has accomplished, but has come to light. . . . • . . . There is one more look at these miracles! point of general application They anchored at three towns along the way, staying in each place in a which I should like to add. magnificent, newly built palace with artificial waterfalls in the English-style . . . This is that an uncanny efect is often and gardens. On land they moved through villages with vibrant marketplaces; easily produced when the the peasants were happily at work, building and repairing. Everywhere they distinction between spent the night, some spectacle filled their eyes—dances, parades, mytho- imagination and reality is effaced, as when something logical tableaux vivants, artificial volcanoes illuminating Moorish gardens. that we have hitherto Finally, at the end of the trip, in the palace at Sebastopol, Catherine and regarded as imaginary 302 • The Art of Seduction

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  who had died forty years earlier as if he had known him personally; had having reached the end of this been so, the count would have had to be in his eighties, although he her speech, the lady bowed looked to be in his forties. He mentioned the elixir of life. . . . he seems so her head as though she young. . . . were going to burst into tears. • The reverend friar The key to the count's words was vagueness. He always dropped his realized immediately who hints into a lively conversation, grace notes in an ongoing melody. Only it was to whom she was later would people reflect on what he had said. After a while, people started referring, and having warmly commended her to come to him, inquiring about the philosopher's stone and the elixir of purity of mind . . . he life, not realizing that it was he who had planted these ideas in their minds. promised to take all Remember: to sow a seductive idea you must engage people's imaginations, necessary steps to ensure that the fellow ceased to their fantasies, their deepest yearnings. What sets the wheels spinning is annoy her. . . . • Shortly suggesting things that people already want to hear—the possibility of plea-afterward, the gentleman in sure, wealth, health, adventure. In the end, these good things turn out to be question paid one of his regular visits to the precisely what you seem to offer them. They will come to you as if on reverend friar, and after their own, unaware that you insinuated the idea in their heads. they had conversed together In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte decided it was critical for him to win for a while on general the Russian Czar Alexander I to his side. He wanted two things out of the Master the Art of Insinuation • 217 czar: a peace treaty in which they agreed to carve up Europe and the Mid- topics, the friar drew him to dle East; and a marriage alliance, in which he would divorce his wife one side and reproached him in a very kindly sort of Josephine and marry into the czar's family. Instead of proposing these way for the amorous things directly, Napoleon decided to seduce the czar. Using polite social glances which, as the lady encounters and friendly conversations as his battlefields, he went to work. had given him to An apparent slip of the tongue revealed that Josephine could not bear chil- understand, he believed him to be casting in her dren; Napoleon quickly changed the subject. A comment here and there direction. • Not seemed to suggest a linking of the destinies of France and Russia. Just be- unnaturally, the gentleman fore they were to part one evening, he talked of his desire for children, was amazed, for he had never so much as looked at

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  A witness of one of these speeches, the American writer Walter Starkie, was initially disappointed at the appearance of the famous D'Annunzio on a balcony in Venice; he was short, and looked grotesque. "Little by little, however, I began to sink under the fascination of the voice, which penetrated into my consciousness. . . . His very successes in love, even more than the marvellous voice of this little, bald seducer with a nose like Punch, swept along in his train a whole procession of enamoured women, both opulent and tormented. D'Annunzio had successfully revived the Byronic legend: as he passed by full-breasted women, standing in his way as Boldoni would paint them, strings of pearls anchoring them to life—princesses and actresses, great Russian ladies and even middle- class Bordeaux housewives—they would offer themselves up to him. —PHILIPPE JULLIAN, PRINCE OF AESTHETES: COUNT ROBERT DE MONTESQUIEOU, TRANSLATED BY JOHN HAYLOCK AND FRANCIS KING In short, nothing is so sweet as to triumph over the Resistance of a beautiful Person; and in that I have the Ambition of Conquerors, who fly perpetually from Victory to Victory and can never prevail with themselves to put a bound to their Wishes. Nothing can restrain the Impetuosity of my Desires; I have an Heart for the whole Earth; and like Alexander, I could wish for New Worlds wherein to extend my Amorous Conquests. —MOLIÈRE, DON JOHN OR THE LIBERTINE, TRANSLATED BY JOHN OZELL The Rake • 23 Never a hurried, jerky gesture. . . . He played upon the emotions of the crowd as a supreme violinist does upon a Stradivarius. The eyes of the thousands were fixed upon him as though hypnotized by his power." Once again, it was the sound of the voice and the poetic connotations of the words that seduced the masses. Arguing that modern Italy should reclaim the greatness of the Roman Empire, D'Annunzio would craft slogans for the audience to repeat, or would ask emotionally loaded questions for them to answer. He flattered the crowd, made them feel they were part of some drama. Everything was vague and suggestive. The issue of the day was the ownership of the city of Fiume, just across the border in neighboring Yugoslavia. Many Italians believed that Italy's re- ward for siding with the Allies in the recent war should be the annexation of Fiume. D'Annunzio championed this cause, and because of his status as a war hero the army was ready to side with him, although the government opposed any action. In September of 1919, with soldiers rallying around him, D'Annunzio led his infamous march on Fiume. When an Italian gen- eral stopped him along the way, and threatened to shoot him, D'Annunzio opened his coat to show his medals, and said in his magnetic voice, "If you must kill me, fire first on this!"

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  10. Granero’s Eye On May 7, 1922, the toreadors La Rosa, Lalanda, and Granero were to fight in the arena of Madrid; the last two were renowned as the best matadors in Spain, and Granero was generally considered superior to Lalanda. He had only just turned twenty, yet he was already extremely popular, being handsome, tall and of a still childlike simplicity. Simone had been deeply interested in his story, and, exceptionally, had shown genuine pleasure when Sir Edmund announced that the celebrated bull-killer had agreed to dine with us the evening of the fight. Granero stood out from the rest of the matadors because there was nothing of the butcher about him; he looked more like a very manly Prince Charming with a perfectly elegant figure. In this respect, the matador’s costume is quite expressive, for it safeguards the straight line shooting up so rigid and erect every time the lunging bull grazes the body and because the pants so tightly sheathe the behind. A bright red cloth and a brilliant sword (before the dying bull whose hide steams with sweat and blood) complete the metamorphosis, bringing out the most captivating feature of the game. One must also bear in mind the typically torrid Spanish sky, which never has the colour or harshness one imagines: it is just perfectly sunny with a dazzling but mellow sheen, hot, turbid, at times even unreal when the combined intensities of light and heat suggest the freedom of the senses. Now this extreme unreality of the solar blaze was so closely attached to everything happening around me during the bullfight on May 7, that the only objects I have ever carefully preserved are a round paper fan, half yellow, half blue, that Simone had that day, and a small illustrated brochure with a description of all the circumstances and a few photographs. Later on, during an embarkment, the small valise containing those two souvenirs tumbled into the sea, and was fished out by an Arab with a long pole, which is why the objects are in such a bad state. But I need them to fix that event to the earthly soil, to a geographic point and a precise date, an event that my imagination compulsively pictures as a simple vision of solar deliquescence. The first bull, the one whose balls Simone looked forward to having served raw on a plate, was a kind of black monster, who shot out of the pen so quickly that despite all efforts and all shouts, he disembowelled three horses in a row before an orderly fight could take place; one horse and rider were hurled aloft together, loudly crashing down behind the horns.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Perhaps that power is regressive, recalling the ability of the mother's voice Falling in love with statues and paintings, even making love to them is an ancient fantasy, one of which the Renaissance was keenly aware. Giorgio Vasari, writing in the introductory section of the Lives about art in antiquity, tells how men violated the laws, going into the temples at night and making love with statues of Venus. In the morning, priests would enter the sanctuaries to find stains on the marble figures. —LYNNE LAWNER, LIVES OF THE COURTESANS 14 • The Art of Seduction to calm or excite her child even before the child understood what she was saying. The Siren must have an insinuating voice that hints at the erotic, more often subliminally than overtly. Almost everyone who met Cleopatra commented on her delightful, sweet-sounding voice, which had a mesmer- izing quality. The Empress Josephine, one of the great seductresses of the late eighteenth century, had a languorous voice that men found exotic, and suggestive of her Creole origins. Marilyn Monroe was born with her breathy, childlike voice, but she learned to lower to make it truly seductive. Lauren Bacall's voice is naturally low; its seductive power comes from its slow, suggestive delivery. The Siren never speaks quickly, aggressively, or at a high pitch. Her voice is calm and unhurried, as if she had never quite woken up—or left her bed. Body and adornment. If the voice must lull, the body and its adornment must dazzle. It is with her clothes that the Siren aims to create the god- dess effect that Baudelaire described in his essay "In Praise of Makeup": "Woman is well within her rights, and indeed she is accomplishing a kind of duty in striving to appear magical and supernatural. She must astonish and bewitch; an idol, she must adorn herself with gold in order to be adored. She must borrow from all of the arts in order to raise herself above nature, the better to subjugate hearts and stir souls." A Siren who was a genius of clothes and adornment was Pauline Bona- parte, sister of Napoleon. Pauline consciously strove for a goddess effect, fashioning hair, makeup, and clothes to evoke the look and air of Venus, the goddess of love. No one in history could boast a more extensive and elaborate wardrobe. Pauline's entrance at a ball in 1798 created an astound- ing effect. She asked the hostess, Madame Permon, if she could dress at her house, so no one would see her clothes as she came in. When she came down the stairs, everyone stopped dead in stunned silence. She wore the headdress of a bacchante—clusters of gold grapes interlaced in her hair, which was done up in the Greek style. Her Greek tunic, with its gold- embroidered hem, showed off her goddesslike figure. Below her breasts was a girdle of burnished gold, held by a magnificent jewel.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  And even as certain major gods of the ancient pantheons meta- morphose themselves into hero -gods of salvation, th e star-goddesses humanize themselves and become new mediators between the fantastic world of dreams and man's daily life on earth. ...• The heroes of the movies . . . are, in an obviously attenuated way, mythological heroes in this sense of becoming divine. The star is the actor or actress who absorbs some of the heroic—i.e., divinized and mythic—substance of the hero or heroine of the movies, and who in turn enriches this substance by The Star • 125 Kennedy's father, Joseph, had once been a movie producer, and Kennedy himself had spent time in Hollywood, hobnobbing with actors and trying to figure out what made them stars. He was particularly fascinated with Gary Cooper, Montgomery Clift, and Cary Grant; he often called Grant for advice. Hollywood had found ways to unite the entire country around cer- tain themes, or myths—often the great American myth of the West. The great stars embodied mythic types: John Wayne the patriarch, Clift the Promethean rebel, Jimmy Stewart the noble hero, Marilyn Monroe the siren. These were not mere mortals but gods and goddesses to be dreamed and fantasized about. All of Kennedy's actions were framed in the conven- tions of Hollywood. He did not argue with his opponents, he confronted them dramatically. He posed, and in visually fascinating ways—whether with his wife, with his children, or alone onstage. He copied the facial expressions, the presence, of a Dean or a Cooper. He did not discuss policy details but waxed eloquent about grand mythic themes, the kind that could unite a divided nation. And all this was calculated for television, for Kennedy mostly existed as a televised image. That image haunted our dreams. Well before his assassination, Kennedy attracted fantasies of America's lost innocence with his call for a renaissance of the pioneer spirit, a New Frontier. Of all the character types, the Mythic Star is perhaps the most powerful of all. People are divided by all kinds of consciously recognized categories— race, gender, class, religion, politics. It is impossible, then, to gain power on a grand scale, or to win an election, by drawing on conscious awareness; an appeal to any one group will only alienate another. Unconsciously, how- ever, there is much we share. All of us are mortal, all of us know fear, all of us have been stamped with the imprint of parent figures; and nothing con- jures up this shared experience more than myth. The patterns of myth, born out of warring feelings of helplessness on the one hand and thirst for immortality on the other, are deeply engraved in us all.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  65 citizens. Citizens of Athens had the freedom to live as they chose. They enjoyed a tolerant lifestyle, and individual rights were protected by law. Athenian drama, the tragedy, was the cultural statement of the Athenian democracy. It was the public forum that every Athenian citizen attended and in which questions with profound moral consequences were debated. Athenians believed that all political decisions had a moral dimension. Citizenship in Athens depended on being able to serve in the Athenian army. Because only males could serve in the army, only males could be citizens. Each spring, the Athenians held a dramatic festival in honor of the god Dionysos. This festival was held in a magni fi cent theater. A typical play included three actors and a chorus. The chorus represented traditional, conventional wisdom. The usual theme of these plays was moderation. Athenian democracy unleashed a cultural creativity that has been unparalleled until our own day. The freedom of the Athenians sparked a questioning of all values. The fi rst history was written in 5 th-century Athens, and scienti fi c medicine began there. Sophists educated young Athenians. They taught their pupils the arts of oratory and persuasion and to think critically, that is, to question values. These sophists believed that circumstances determine our perceptions of events and our perceptions of the divine world. In his plays, Euripides questioned traditional perceptions of right and wrong, normal and abnormal, excess and moderation. In the Bacchae, his last play, he also asked what makes a god and how we know what a god is. Euripides wrote the Bacchae in 406 B.C. in Pella, in Macedonia. The play was produced in Athens by his son. The play was the last of the great Athenian tragedies, the last product of the golden age of Athenian tragedy, which lasted from the time of the Battle of Marathon to the defeat of Athens by Sparta, the same period as the golden age of Greek democracy. The Bacchae takes place in the city of Thebes. Dionysos, who appears in the form of a handsome stranger, a mortal man, addresses the audience Each spring, the Athenians held a dramatic festival in honor of the god Dionysos.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The general stood there stunned, then broke into tears. He joined up with D'Annunzio. When D'Annunzio entered Fiume, he was greeted as a liberator. The next day he was declared leader of the Free State of Fiume. Soon he was giving daily speeches from a balcony overlooking the town's main square, holding tens of thousands of people spellbound without benefit of loud- speakers. He initiated all kinds of celebrations and rituals harking back to the Roman Empire. The citizens of Fiume began to imitate him, particu- larly his sexual exploits; the city became like a giant bordello. His popu- larity was so high that the Italian government feared a march on Rome, which at that point, had D'Annunzio decided to do it—and he had the support of a large part of the military—might actually have succeeded; D'Annunzio could have beaten Mussolini to the punch and changed the course of history. (He was not a Fascist, but a kind of aesthetic socialist.) He decided to stay in Fiume, however, and ruled there for sixteen months before the Italian government finally bombed him out of the city. Seduction is a psychological process that transcends gender, except in a few key areas where each gender has its own weakness. The male is traditionally vulnerable to the visual. The Siren who can concoct the right physical ap- pearance will seduce in large numbers. For women the weakness is lan- guage and words: as was written by one of D'Annunzio's victims, the French actress Simone, "How can one explain his conquests except by his extraordinary verbal power, and the musical timbre of his voice, put to the service of exceptional eloquence? For my sex is susceptible to words, be- witched by them, longing to be dominated by them." The Rake is as promiscuous with words as he is with women. He chooses words for their ability to suggest, insinuate, hypnotize, elevate, in- Among the many modes of handling Don Juan's effect on women, the motif of the irresistible hero is worth singling out, for it illustrates a curious change in our sensibility. Don Juan did not become irresistible to women until the Romantic age, and I am disposed to think that it is a trait of the female imagination to make him so. When the female voice began to assert itself and even, perhaps, to dominate in literature, Don Juan evolved to become the women's rather than the man's ideal. . . . Don Juan is now the woman's dream of the perfect lover, fugitive, passionate, daring. He gives her the one unforgettable moment, the magnificent exaltation of the flesh which is too often denied her by the real husband, who thinks that men are gross and women spiritual.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  As we already saw in the discussion of relations between men and women, the curses in Genesis are descriptive, not prescriptive. It is simply the case that people contend with thorns and thistles and have an adversarial relationship with snakes and other animals. The relationship is not the ideal originally envisioned in creation. Rather, it is said to be the result of human sinfulness, which later tradition called fallen human nature. But the relationship is not entirely adversarial. Humanity still depends on the earth for its sustenance, and its fate is intimately bound up with it. Moreover, humanity and the earth are part of a moral continuum. Human behavior affects the earth. We meet this idea repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible. Take, for example, Isaiah 24:5: “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants.” To be sure, the pollution is not due to oil spills or toxic chemicals, as it is in the modern world, but it is due to human behavior nonetheless: “For they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant.” After the Flood, God promises that he will never again curse the earth because of human behavior (Genesis 8:21).18 A somewhat different view of creation is implied in Psalm 104 and in the divine speeches at the end of the Book of Job.19 In both cases, it is clear that the natural world does not exist just to serve the purposes of humanity. In modern parlance, all creatures have intrinsic worth; in biblical parlance, all are objects of God’s providential care. God provides grass for the animals as well as food for human beings. The trees are for birds to build their nests, the high mountains are for the wild goats, the rocks for the rabbits (Psalm 104:15–18). Darkness allows the animals of the forest to come creeping out. God puts Job in his place by asking whether he knows when the mountain goats give birth, or can observe the calving of the deer (Job 39:1). Throughout the book, Job assumes that God should be preoccupied with the fate of human beings, even specifically with Job and his family. The speeches from the whirlwind shunt that assumption aside. God has many more, and more important, things on his mind.20 Some of the hymns in the Psalms (e.g., Psalm 148) call on the elements of nature to praise God;21 indeed, Job 38:7 says that the morning stars sang together at the foundation of the earth. It may be argued that snow and rain and mountains and hills praise God just by their existence22 or, inversely, that their existence is reason to praise God. Again, in modern parlance, these passages affirm the intrinsic worth of nature, quite apart from its utility for humanity. Neither the psalm nor the Book of Job offers a romantic view of creation. The psalm notes that young lions roar for their prey, and God gives them food. This is nice for the lions, not so nice for their prey.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The following night, de Gaulle appeared once again on television, once again wearing his old uniform. He mocked the generals, comparing them to a South American junta. He talked calmly and sternly. Then, suddenly, at the very end of the address, his voice rose and even trembled as he called out to the audience: "Françaises, Français, aidez-moi!" ("Frenchwomen, Frenchmen, help me!") It was the most stirring moment of all his television appearances. French soldiers in Algeria, listening on transistor radios, were overwhelmed. The next day they held a mass demonstration in favor of de Gaulle. Two days later the generals surrendered. On July 1, 1962, de Gaulle proclaimed Algeria's independence. In 1940, after the German invasion of France, de Gaulle escaped to England to recruit an army that would eventually return to France for the liberation. At the beginning, he was alone, and his mission seemed hopeless. But he had the support of Winston Churchill, and with Churchill's blessing he gave a series of radio talks that the BBC broadcast to France. His strange, hypnotic voice, with its dramatic tremolos, would enter French living rooms in the evenings. Few of his listeners even knew what he looked like, but his tone was so confident, so stirring, that he recruited a silent army of believers. In person, de Gaulle was a strange, brooding man whose confident manner could just as easily irritate as win over. But over the radio that voice had intense charisma. De Gaulle was the first great master of modern media, for he easily transferred his dramatic skills to television, where his iciness, his calmness, his total self-possession, made audiences feel both comforted and inspired. The world has grown more fractured. A nation no longer conies together on the streets or in the squares; it is brought together in living rooms, where people watching television all over the country can simultaneously be alone and with others. Charisma must now be communicable over the airwaves or it has no power. But it is in some ways easier to project on television, both because television makes a direct one-on-one appeal (the Charismatic seems to address you) and because charisma is fairly easy to fake for the few moments you spend in front of the camera. As de Gaulle understood, when appearing on television it is best to radiate calmness and control, to use dramatic effects sparingly. De Gaulle's overall iciness made doubly effective the brief moments in which he raised his voice, or let loose a biting joke. By remaining calm and underplaying it, he hypnotized his audience. (Your face can express much more if your voice is less strident.) He conveyed emotion visually—the uniform, the setting—and through the use of certain charged words: the liberation, Joan of Arc. The less he strained for effect, the more sincere he appeared. 116 • The Art of Seduction

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Carved from olivewood, a little bigger than a shoe box, it had a tin lid perforated by tiny airholes and inset with the icon of an unrec- ognizable saint. The saint's face had been rubbed off, but the fingers of his right hand were raised to bless a short, purple, terrifically self- confident-looking mulberry tree. After gazing awhile at this vivid botanical presence, Chapter Eleven pulled the box from under the bed and opened it. Inside were the two wedding crowns made from rope and, coiled like snakes, the two long braids of hair, each tied with a crumbling black ribbon. He poked one of the braids with his index finger. Just then a parakeet squawked, making my brother jump, and he closed the box, tucked it under his arm, and carried it downstairs to Desdemona. She was still waiting in the doorway. Taking the silkworm box out of his hands, she turned back into the kitchen. At this point Chapter Eleven was granted a view of the room, where all the women now fell silent. They moved aside to let Desdemona pass and there, in the middle of the linoleum, was my mother. Tessie Stephanides was lean- ing back in a kitchen chair, pinned beneath the immense, drum-tight globe of her pregnant belly. She had a happy, helpless expression on her face, which was flushed and hot. Desdemona set the silkworm box on the kitchen table and opened the lid. She reached under the wedding crowns and the hair braids to come up with something Chapter Eleven hadn't seen: a silver spoon. She tied a piece of string to the spoon's handle. Then, stooping forward, she dangled the spoon over my mother's swollen belly. And, by extension, over me. Up until now Desdemona had had a perfect record: twenty- three correct guesses. She'd known that Tessie was going to be Tessie. She'd predicted the sex of my brother and of all the babies of her friends at church. The only children whose genders she hadn't di- vined were her own, because it was bad luck for a mother to plumb the mysteries of her own womb. Fearlessly, however, she plumbed my mother's. After some initial hesitation, the spoon swung north to south, which meant that I was going to be a boy.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  87 only major power in Greece. Cimon, who had helped Athens gain its empire, had supported and fostered the balanced constitution and the coalition with Sparta. The Athenians ostracized Cimon, that is, they voted to send him into exile. In Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus represents this new political situation in Athens and warns the Athenians that the majority can be just as tyrannical as one man. Aeschylus set Prometheus Bound in the mythological past, shortly after Zeus had come to power. Zeus had overthrown his father, Cronus, to become king of the gods, just as Cronus had overthrown his own father, Ouranus, to gain power. The children of Zeus—including Hera, Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Hephaestus—assisted Zeus in this war. The Titans, a race of giants, fought against the power of Zeus. Prometheus had aided Zeus against his fellow Titans. The Titans were punished for resisting Zeus. At fi rst Zeus, the new tyrant, honored Prometheus, but then realized that if Prometheus had turned against the Titans, he might just as easily turn against Zeus. Zeus believed that Prometheus had to be watched. Zeus believed that his own ideas were worth the sacri fi ce of millions of innocents and decided to destroy the human race. Prometheus intervened and saved humanity by giving to humans the arts and sciences that enabled them to cultivate the divine and protect themselves. He gave the human race everything that made people reasoning creatures. He taught people how to grow crops, write, understand the divine, read the signs of oracles, make sacri fi ces, sail, and domesticate wild animals. The play opens with Zeus carrying out the punishment of Prometheus. The name Prometheus means “foresight .” Prometheus could see what was going to happen, making him an even more tragic fi gure. Zeus punishes Prometheus by crucifi xion. Zeus, like many tyrants, does not do the dirty work himself. The personifi cation of the god Power and the god Hephaestus, the god of fi re, nail Prometheus to the mountain. Hephaestus represents one type of character who serves a tyrant. He apologizes to the victim for his cruelty but completes The name Prometheus means “foresight.” Prometheus could see what was going to happen, making him an even more tragic fi gure.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The following night, de Gaulle appeared once again on television, once again wearing his old uniform. He mocked the generals, comparing them to a South American junta. He talked calmly and sternly. Then, suddenly, at the very end of the address, his voice rose and even trembled as he called out to the audience: "Françaises, Français, aidez-moi!" ("Frenchwomen, Frenchmen, help me!") It was the most stirring moment of all his television appearances. French soldiers in Algeria, listening on transistor radios, were overwhelmed. The next day they held a mass demonstration in favor of de Gaulle. Two days later the generals surrendered. On July 1, 1962, de Gaulle proclaimed Algeria's independence. In 1940, after the German invasion of France, de Gaulle escaped to England to recruit an army that would eventually return to France for the liberation. At the beginning, he was alone, and his mission seemed hopeless. But he had the support of Winston Churchill, and with Churchill's blessing he gave a series of radio talks that the BBC broadcast to France. His strange, hypnotic voice, with its dramatic tremolos, would enter French living rooms in the evenings. Few of his listeners even knew what he looked like, but his tone was so confident, so stirring, that he recruited a silent army of believers. In person, de Gaulle was a strange, brooding man whose confident manner could just as easily irritate as win over. But over the radio that voice had intense charisma. De Gaulle was the first great master of modern media, for he easily transferred his dramatic skills to television, where his iciness, his calmness, his total self-possession, made audiences feel both comforted and inspired. The world has grown more fractured. A nation no longer conies together on the streets or in the squares; it is brought together in living rooms, where people watching television all over the country can simultaneously be alone and with others. Charisma must now be communicable over the airwaves or it has no power. But it is in some ways easier to project on television, both because television makes a direct one-on-one appeal (the Charismatic seems to address you) and because charisma is fairly easy to fake for the few moments you spend in front of the camera. As de Gaulle understood, when appearing on television it is best to radiate calmness and control, to use dramatic effects sparingly. De Gaulle's overall iciness made doubly effective the brief moments in which he raised his voice, or let loose a biting joke. By remaining calm and underplaying it, he hypnotized his audience. (Your face can express much more if your voice is less strident.) He conveyed emotion visually—the uniform, the setting—and through the use of certain charged words: the liberation, Joan of Arc. The less he strained for effect, the more sincere he appeared. 116 • The Art of Seduction

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  appears before us in reality, Joseph discussed the war with Turkey. Joseph reiterated his concerns. Sud-or when a symbol takes denly Potemkin interrupted: "I have 100,000 troops waiting for me to say over the full functions of 'Go!' " At that moment the windows of the palace were flung open, and to the thing it symbolizes, and so on. It is this factor the sounds of booming cannons they saw lines of troops as far as the eye which contributes not a could see, and a fleet of ships filling the harbor. Awed by the sight, images little to the uncanny effect of Eastern European cities retaken from the Turks dancing in his mind, attaching to magical practices. The infantile Joseph II finally signed the treaty. Catherine was ecstatic, and her love for element in this, which also Potemkin reached new heights. He had made her dreams come true. dominates the minds of Catherine never suspected that almost everything she had seen was pure neurotics, is the overaccentuation of fakery, perhaps the most elaborate illusion ever conjured up by one man. psychical reality in comparison with material reality— a feature closely Interpretation. In the four years that he had been governor of the Crimea, allied to the belief in the omnipotence of thoughts. Potemkin had accomplished little, for this backwater would take decades to — S I G M U N D FREUD, improve. But in the few months before Catherine's visit he had done the " T H E U N C A N N Y , " I N following: every building that faced the road or the shore was given a fresh PSYCHOLOGICAL WRITINGS coat of paint; artificial trees were set up to hide unseemly spots in the view; AND LETTERS broken roofs were repaired with flimsy boards painted to look like tile; everyone the party would see was instructed to wear their best clothes and look happy; everyone old and infirm was to stay indoors. Floating in their palaces down the Dnieper, the imperial entourage saw brand-new villages, but most of the buildings were only facades. The herds of cattle were shipped from great distances, and were moved at night to fresh fields along the route. The dancing peasants were trained for the entertainments; after each one they were loaded into carts and hurriedly transported to a new downriver location, as were the marching soldiers who seemed to be everywhere. The gardens of the new palaces were filled with transplanted trees that died a few days later. The palaces themselves were quickly and badly built, but were so magnificently furnished that no one noticed. One fortress along the way had been built of sand, and was destroyed a little later by a thunderstorm.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  And now the station wagon is driving along a few weeks later. I'm looking out the window while Mrs. Drexel's cigarette uncoils a rope of smoke. We head into the heart of Grosse Pointe. We pass long, gated driveways, the kind that always fill my family with wonder and awe. But now Mrs. Drexel is turning up these drives. (It is my new classmates who live at the end of them.) We rumble past privet hedges and under topiary arches to arrive at secluded lakefront homes where girls wait with satchels, standing very straight. They wear the same uniform I do, but somehow it looks different on them, neater, more stylish. Occasionally there is also a well-coifed mother in the picture, clipping a rose from the garden. And next it is two months later, near the end of the fall term, and the station wagon is climbing the hill to my no-longer-brand-new school. The car is full of girls. Mrs. Drexel is lighting another ciga- rette. She's pulling up to the curb and getting ready to lay a curse on us. Shaking her head at the view— of the hilly, green campus, the lake in the distance— she says, "Youse girls better enjoy it now. Best time of life is when you're young." (At twelve, I hated her for saying that. I couldn't imagine a worse thing to tell a kid. But maybe also, due to certain other changes that began that year, I suspected that the happy period of my childhood was coming to an end.) What else came back to me, as the hockey ball zeroed in? Just about everything a field hockey ball could symbolize. Field hockey, that New England game, handed down from old England, just like everything else in our school. The building with its long echoing 292 hallways and churchy smell, its leaded windows, its Gothic gloom. The Latin primers die color of gruel. The afternoon teas. The curtsy- ing of our tennis team. The tweediness of our faculty, and the cur- riculum itself, which began, Hellenically, Byronically, with Homer, and then skipped straight to Chaucer, moving on to Shakespeare, Donne, Swift, Wordsworth, Dickens, Tennyson, and E. M. Forster. Only connect. Miss Baker and Miss Inglis had founded the school back in 1911, in the words of the charter, "to educate girls in the humanities and sciences and to cultivate in them a love of learning, a modest com- portment, an amiable grace, and an interest in civic duty above all." The two women had lived together on the far side of the campus in "The Cottage," a shingled bower that occupied a place in school mythology akin to Lincoln's log cabin in national legend. Fifth graders were given a tour every spring. They filed by the two single bedrooms (which fooled them maybe), the founders' writing desks still laid with fountain pens and licorice drops, and the gramophone on which they'd listened to Sousa marches. Miss Baker's and Miss In-

• From Middlesex (2002)

  And so we come to May 1933. And to Desdemona, saying good- bye to the Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization Class. Head scarves frame faces streaked with tears. The girls file by, kissing Desdemona on both cheeks. (My grandmother will miss the girls. She has grown very fond of them.) "My mother used to tell me in bad times silkworms no can spin," she says. "Make bad silk. Make bad cocoons." The girls accept this truth and examine the newly hatched worms for signs of despair. In the Silk Room, all the shelves are empty. Fard Muhammad has transferred power to a new leader. Brother Karriem, the former Eli- jah Poole, is now Elijah Muhammad, Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad has a different vision for the Na- tion's economic future. From now on, it will be real estate, not cloth- ing. And now Desdemona is descending the stairs on her way out. She reaches the first floor and turns to look back at the lobby. For the first time ever, the Fruit of Islam do not guard the lobby entrance. The drapes hang open. Desdemona knows she should keep going out the back door, but she has nothing to lose now, and so ventures toward the front. She approaches the double doors and pushes her way into the sanctum sanctorum. For the first fifteen seconds, she stands still, as her idea of the room switches places with reality. She had imagined a soaring dome, a richly colored Ezine carpet, but the room is just a simple audito- rium. A small stage at one end, folding chairs stacked along the walls. She absorbs all this quietly. And then, once more, there is a voice: "Hello, Desdemona." On the empty stage, the Prophet, the Mahdi, Fard Muhammad, stands behind the podium. He is barely more than a silhouette, slen- der and elegant, wearing a fedora that shadows his face. 162 "You're not supposed to be in here," he says. "But I guess today it's all right." Desdemona, her heart in her throat, manages to ask, "How you know my name?" "Haven't you heard? I know everything." Coming through the heating vent, Fard Muhammad's deep voice had made her solar plexus vibrate. Now, closer up, it penetrates her entire body. The rumble spreads down her arms until her fingers are tingling. "How's Lefty?" This question rocks Desdemona back on her heels. She is speech- less. She is thinking many things at once, first of all, how can Fard know her husband's name, did she tell Sister Wanda? . . and, sec- ond, if it's true he knows everything, then the rest must be true, too, about the blue-eyed devils and the evil scientist and the Mother Plane from Japan that will come to destroy the world and take the Muslims away. Dread seizes her, while at the same time she is remembering . something, asking where she has heard that voice before . . .

• From Middlesex (2002)

  That's all that remains of the famous Woodward Plan. Drawn up in 1807 by the hard-drinking, eponymous judge. (Two years earlier, in 1805, the city had burned to the ground, the timber houses and ribbon farms of the settlement founded by Cadillac in 1701 going up in the span of three hours. And, in 1969, with my sharp vision, I can read the traces of that fire on the city's flag a half mile away in Grand Circus Park: Speramus meliom; resurget cineribus. "We hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes.") Judge Woodward envisioned the new Detroit as an urban Arcadia of interlocking hexagons. Each wheel was to be separate yet united, in accordance with the young nation's federalism, as well as classically symmetrical, in accordance with Jeffersonian aesthetics. This dream never quite came to be. Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to cul- ture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency. Since 1818, the city had spread out along the river, warehouse by warehouse, factory by factory. Judge Woodward's wheels had been squashed, bisected, pressed into the usual rectangles. 80 s Or seen another way (from a rooftop restaurant): the wheels hadn't vanished at all, they'd only changed form. By 1900 Detroit was the leading manufacturer of carriages and wagons. By 1922, when my grandparents arrived, Detroit made other spinning things, too: marine engines, bicycles, hand-rolled cigars. And yes, finally: cars. All this was visible from the train. Approaching along the shore of the Detroit River, Lefty and Desdemona watched their new home take shape. They saw farmland give way to fenced lots and cobble- stone streets. The sky darkened with smoke. Buildings flew by, brick warehouses painted in pragmatic Bookman white: WRIGHT AND KAY CO. . . DE- TROIT STOVE WORKS. Out on the water, squat, tar-colored barges dragged along, and people popped up on the streets, work- men in grimy overalls, clerks thumbing suspenders, the signs of eateries and boardinghouses appearing next: We Serve Stroll' . Make This Your Home Meals Temperance Beer . 15 cents . J. H. BLACK & SONS . . . . . . . ... As these new sights flooded my grandparents' brains, they jos- ded with images from the day before. Ellis Island, rising like a Doge's Palace on the water. The Baggage Room stacked to the ceiling with luggage. They'd been herded up a stairway to the Registry Room. Pinned with numbers from the Giulia's manifest, they'd filed past a line of health inspectors who'd looked in their eyes and ears, rubbed