10-01-2018, 12:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-01-2018, 12:44 AM by RiverNotch.)
Critical notes of one kind.
Although it is its own point, I find Cavafy's version of the last line of the second response stronger than the last line here, as it's no mere notion; also stronger is Cavafy's answer to why his brutes' secondary officers sparkle. Meanwhile, the lines on the sergeant-at-arms' regalia and on the panic of the bikers are particularly weak, the former copying too much of Cavafy (and being, in their context, a little too absurd), while the latter could have been more inventive (they're at a bar, after all).
Critical notes of another.
I'm not too familiar with biker culture, but I suspect that, in this case, whether the speaker is more knowledgeable doesn't matter. Every difference between the two kinds of brutes (the Romans and the bikers. I wouldn't consider the barbarians as brutish -- we only hear of the Wicker Man in one sentence of Caesar's commentaries, while Rome's love of the crucifix is more than well-known) supports a subtler point in conjunction with Cavafy's criticism of how societies work, a point that is perhaps more specific to our time. Politics for the bikers is a game, not to be treated as business, unlike their negotiations with the gays (and what those negotiations entail, I just noticed, is kept quite ambiguous, the rapist isn't the only one who can transmit). If the Romans make the divisions within their society clear, leaving the task of greeting the barbarians to their praetors and consuls and imperators, the bikers sustain their illusion of democracy. And the sinister purpose of the orators' silence is made more explicit by this modernized take. Overall, this is a good piece, turned great when compared to the original -- both make the same general point, but comparing the two yields something less "universal", and thus more potent. In fact, it's that very comparison that made me revisit the piece in the first place: a video I was watching mentioned Cavafy, and I was immediately reminded of this. Lovely work.
Although it is its own point, I find Cavafy's version of the last line of the second response stronger than the last line here, as it's no mere notion; also stronger is Cavafy's answer to why his brutes' secondary officers sparkle. Meanwhile, the lines on the sergeant-at-arms' regalia and on the panic of the bikers are particularly weak, the former copying too much of Cavafy (and being, in their context, a little too absurd), while the latter could have been more inventive (they're at a bar, after all).
Critical notes of another.
I'm not too familiar with biker culture, but I suspect that, in this case, whether the speaker is more knowledgeable doesn't matter. Every difference between the two kinds of brutes (the Romans and the bikers. I wouldn't consider the barbarians as brutish -- we only hear of the Wicker Man in one sentence of Caesar's commentaries, while Rome's love of the crucifix is more than well-known) supports a subtler point in conjunction with Cavafy's criticism of how societies work, a point that is perhaps more specific to our time. Politics for the bikers is a game, not to be treated as business, unlike their negotiations with the gays (and what those negotiations entail, I just noticed, is kept quite ambiguous, the rapist isn't the only one who can transmit). If the Romans make the divisions within their society clear, leaving the task of greeting the barbarians to their praetors and consuls and imperators, the bikers sustain their illusion of democracy. And the sinister purpose of the orators' silence is made more explicit by this modernized take. Overall, this is a good piece, turned great when compared to the original -- both make the same general point, but comparing the two yields something less "universal", and thus more potent. In fact, it's that very comparison that made me revisit the piece in the first place: a video I was watching mentioned Cavafy, and I was immediately reminded of this. Lovely work.