The Arrival: A Critical Reading of The Hard Way Out or The Man and the Satyr

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Notes

1. Heinz-Uwe Haus, “One Note and Three Poems for Sascha,” in Sascha Talmor, Living Novels: A Journey through Twentieth-Century Fiction (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2006), 239.

2. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794–1858) became known as the “father of the steam navy.” He served in several wars, including the American-English war of 1812. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819) was the hero at the decisive battle at Lake Erie in this war.

3. Jesus asks: “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and club?” (Luke 22.52) All quotations from the Bible are from the Revised Standard Version (http://www.biblestudytools.com/rsv/).

4. “The 24-year-old native of Crescent, Okla., is charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. He’s accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables while working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010. He’s also charged with leaking a 2007 video clip of a U.S. helicopter crew gunning down 11 men later found to have included a Reuters news photographer and his driver. The Pentagon concluded the troops acted appropriately, having mistaken the camera equipment for weapons.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/bradley-manning-hearing-_n_2243726.html.

5. There are countless artistic representations of The Tree of Jesse. The following image is from Master of James IV of Scotland Flemish, Bruges and Ghent or Mechelen, 1510–1520 by Simon Bening. Tempera colors, gold, and ink on parchment 9 1/8 x 6 9/16 in. Getty MS. LUDWIG IX 18, FOL. 65. At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Master_of_James_IV_of_Scotland_getty_Ms_ludwig_IX_18_f65_1510-20.jpg.

6. Bobbie Gentry, “Ode to Billie Joe,” Capitol Records, 1967.

7. Red Azalea is the memoir of the Chinese-American Anchee Min, recounting her life under Mao Zedong and her gradual disillusionments with Chinese communism from her early enthusiasm to her brutal awakening during the cultural revolution. Min, Anchee, Red Azalea.New York : Pantheon Books, 1994.

8. Mark 12.38–42:

And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” And he sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.

In other translations “mites” or “farthings” were used for “copper coins.”

9. Hebrew: תיקון עולם. Haus refers to this concept in “One Note and Three Poems for Sascha”: “These patterns, as shown in Greek tragedy, mean that we are prepared to take seriously the notions of duty, honor, justice, and seeds of hope for a better future, possibly even eternal verities. As the gospel says: The sower sows the word” (240).

10. Bertolt Brecht, Galileo Galilei (Berlin: Henschelverlag, [no year]), 57; my translation.