Shelley and Book One

Amorella returns to the British Museum for this photograph. First, a word of explanation via Wikipedia.

“Ozymandias was another name for Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt.[4]Ozymandias represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses' throne name,User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus Siculus as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."[5] Shelley's poem is often said to have been inspired by the arrival in London of a colossal statue of Ramesses II, acquired for the British Museum by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816. . . . It may have been [the statue’s] repute or news of its imminent arrival [to the museum] rather than [Shelley] seeing the statue itself which provided the inspiration.”

I wondered where Amorella was going to go today as Italy has been posted. I suspected a bit of simple nature in the United States. Thus, this is a surprise. I always took pleasure in teaching Shelley and Keats equally. Only a poem or two though as we had to move on in a survey course to the likes of William Blake whom I personally enjoy more than either of the two Romantic poets. 

I let orndorff interrupt here to show his lack of decorum. I thought he would be pleased by my inclusion from Wikipedia but that was not enough to satisfy his need to inject personal thoughts which were not requested here. 

This is indeed a major problem. I like to talk (and think and relate) and at school I loved lecturing, though even then I would interrupt myself and tell some little story or two along the way. The students usually didn’t mind but some could hardly stand my drifting off task for one inane  reason or another. I have this same problem here, with Amorella. I forget she is talking and begin talking myself. It is no wonder I have false starts on books. I move right in, taking over for Amorella, until I eventually realize it is just me. I can be as an old fart in a windsock.

Sorry, Amorella and to all the others I have impolitely interrupted in my lifetime. I was raised to be polite but obviously I slip. Too much built in arrogance. Too much ‘self’ orientation. This is probably the reason I haven’t decided what a human being is. It’s a wonder Amorella was able to produce a book a year for three years. I have to continually set myself aside and let her do her work. 

                                      “Ozymandias”

                            By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Some say the theme in Shelley’s poem can be reduced to the lines found in Proverbs 16:18. However, “Ozymandias” is not a translation. A likeness of Ozymandias remains in both the British and Cairo Egyptian Museum(s) (which also has Ramesses II’s mummified remains) and Shelley’s works remain in English literature. ‘Something remains in biography and history. Nothing, by definition, cannot remain.

Yes. I like the humor which seems reasonable at first glance anyway. The world changes. Geopolitical landscapes change with it. In Book One, in an alternate dimension, where almost everyone in the world dies within about twenty minutes, no Americans survive. One Brazilian, one South African, one European and an Australian are alive when the alien marsupials finally arrive, obviously too late to be of much help – four adults and a tiny baby (half South African and half European) actually. Two aliens discover the earthlings and help them survive. That is basically one of the subplots in a couple of sentences. It doesn’t seem like it should have taken so many words to say but it did. I suppose I thought of Shelley’s  “Ozymandias” when I was scribing that section. 

Do you remember what killed most everyone?

I’d have to re-read the book. No one was sure. Personally, at first I assumed it was the Wrath of G---D because the Marsupials had a prophet or two who thought it was going to happen in their planetary system but it didn’t, it happened in ours instead. I enjoyed the humor. Prophets picking up on the future and they get one from across the galaxy instead. 

Then, after I thought about it more I considered some terrible disease that destroys the heart, not the blood-pumper but the one that holds our humanity.I figured an Angel took our humanity back because we weren’t using it anyway, at least not for everyone equally, particularly the children of the world. Or, the heart of humanity just withered away from lack of use. The latter is more reasonable. Use it or lose it. That’s easy enough to remember. 

Besides, why send an Angel to do something we can do ourselves? Angel-sending would show a lack of efficiency. I cannot imagine G---D not being super efficient, the ECOLOGIST, so to speak. That is part of the satire in the story. You have to see the humor, otherwise parts of the story are just downright depressing.

Okay, orndorff. Enough for tonight. I do see the humor though, it is rather funny. Living people sometimes have a tendency to take themselves too seriously. The Dead in these stories are surrounded by self-effacing humor, otherwise, who is the joke going to be on?