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Absolutely hysterical, Manny. This would not have worked on me, although I would have enjoyed hearing it.

I love the Wasteland and hadn't even thought of it recently. My goodness, what a waste! Do you think I have to work? Why won't someone pay me to read books for pleasure? I would talk about them (just not grade hundreds of papers). I have so many books I want to read and re-read now that it is not funny...and I have so many books I've forgotten I've read that I occasionally realize I've read something...How do you do it? Jess

Jess,

Manny has a rather good memory. Maybe Manny might like to comment on what happened when he and our mutual friend Dave each bought copy of "Teach yourself Swedish in 28 days" and decided to have a "Learn Swedish" competition.

My recollection of The Wasteland anecdote is slightly different and I was indeed the cad with the poor memory.

I recall it stemming from our discussions on some of Manny's theories of picking up girls - Manny do recall your theory of "proxing"?

One of these involved the use of poetry to establish a rapor with the, eehm, test subject . Now, my memory is that I questioned my ability to deploy this approach due to my inability to memorise significant chunks of poetry and we devised the poetry-lite approach as a consequence.

It worked remarkably well for creating opportunities but less well for closing them.

My thanks to Natasha for helping trial the beta-version of this technique.

"Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman!" wasn't published until 1985 so we had to do our own, original, research on the topic rather than simply reviewing the liturature, you understand.

Good grief. "Proxing". Thank you for the compliments on my memory, but I haven't thought about this for over 30 years, and am having real trouble reconstructing how the theory was supposed to work. Maybe, if I dunked the right kind of biscuit in my tea, I would have a Proust moment.

I believe that the contest with Dave actually involved learning Norwegian, and was declared a draw. But since I've now read Lars Saabye Christensen's "Halvbroren" in the original, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't, I would like to claim that I'm the moral victor :)

Happy Christmas!

Proxing involved getting progressively more close or proximate to the test subject in increments sufficiently small so as not to trigger defense mechanisms.

Attempts to formalise the technique using were not productive.

A romantic stalking technique, basically? That's perfectly horrible. If I was indeed the inventor, I repudiate it utterly. Anyone who's interested is more than welcome to the IP rights.

How refreshingly easy to break with the past! I feel like the hero of Anouilh's "Le Voyageur Sans Bagage". No one seems to have posted a review yet, I must do that :)

Love this thread! In my day, and in Canada, the poet of choice for aspiring undergraduate seducers was Leonard Cohen.

But I must say, if anyone had tried Eliot on me (even now), I'd be putty in their hands.

;-)

And you dare to say that openly on the Internet? You are indeed a brave woman, Madame :)

While we are on the subject, I recall an incident a few years ago when I found myself, on a long train ride, sitting opposite a very charming young French woman. I was reading "Le Rouge et le Noir", which she didn't know. I gave her a precis of the plot, we talked about how it related to our lives, and we got on remarkably well. Under different circumstances, I felt there was no saying what might have happened next.

So, for people taking notes: Stendhal is maybe also worth trying!

Manny, will you (1) knee me in the groin and/or (2) think ill of me if I confess to you that I absolutely hate The Wasteland? HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE it. Because, y'know, if you will, then I won't tell you...

My intellectual curiosity is too great - I want to understand this, so I'll offer you safe passage. No one will attack this gentleman, he is our honored guest, though his customs be strange. Now tell me, good sir, why do you speak so of Mr. Eliot's great poem?

To Manny @ #7: Ah yes, but here I can coquettishly hide behind the anonymity of my user ID. :-)

For the women in the audience, I urge caution if ever carrying any D.H. Lawrence. In my experience (on more than one occasion, in fact), this has aroused conversation of a very specific intent--once while I was trapped in the middle seat on a 3-hr airplane ride. I thought I was going to have to pull out something by Simone du Beauvoir to counter the effect. (Nothing like a bitter French existentialist to cool one's ardour).

I daren't speak... I hear the twitching of yon branches which doth signal the lying in wait of some merciless ambush... I am verily outnumbered, I fear. So call it merely taste then, and allow me only to say that this work o'erflows with pomposity... and maketh me puke.

Good heavens, Eccentric Muse, you clearly like to challenge Fate! Any halfway competent hacker could uncover your true identity given your GoodReads user ID, we wouldn't need to call in Lisbeth Salander or one of her friends. But that pales into insignificance compared to your revelation that you read D.H. Lawrence in public places. I am amazed!

But wait. The pieces are starting to fall into place. We once had an 18 year old Swedish au pair who had done traditional Japanese karate training, and got to black belt level. There was an incident when she missed the last train home after a party in London, and had to spend the night at Kings Cross station, one of London's prime locations for picking up prostitutes. We were only concerned about the well-being of anyone who might have stupid enough to get too fresh with her. Am I on the right track here?

I like the poem (and love your review Manny and like this thread a great deal), but I suspect I'd not like it at all if I hadn't had such a brilliant teacher when I studied it. He made it approachable and ...fun somehow.
pls puketh not cher comrade...

David, your words fill me with puzzlement.

"When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get herself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army for four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look."

In your tongue, you would call this pompous?

Japanese karate instead of Beauvoir? Well, that would be a more direct approach, indeed.

Other than that, I can assure you I have no familiarity with Sweden whatsoever, beyond Ikea furniture and those tasty little meatballs.

David, fear not: we've barely touched Eliot's literary merits (or lack thereof, according to you). We are considering his more utilitarian aspects at the moment. ;-)

Does the de Beauvoir work? She had quite a wild side to her... look at the romance with Nelson Algren. Can't help thinking that some people would read it as a mixed message.

Japanese karate, on the other hand, definitely works. We had some wonderful stories from our au pair Jessica illustrating this.

Eccentric Muse wrote: "David, fear not: we've barely touched Eliot's literary merits (or lack thereof, according to you). We are considering his more utilitarian aspects at the moment. ;-)

"

Good point, Muse. Let's clearly distinguish between Eliot and "Eliot". Though as Kev says, he's the one who did all the field-work.

Okay. There's just too much allusion, too much show-offy intellectualism in this poem. It's not very accessible for an average reader; it's designed for a chummy cultural elite. I think that's what honks me off about it.

Plus, it has that whole "the world is going to hell"/"wasn't the classical era so much better?" conservative humbuggery about it...

I can't help it. It just irritates me.

Where else but on goodreads am I going to find a thread which mentions the Heine-Borel theorem? I'm having a Proustian moment right now, thinking of my third year topology course.

And I love "The Waste Land". Though I have no genuine understanding of what it means (if anything), the language is so freaking gorgeous.

Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot -
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

My take on it is that he employs a wide range of different registers for artistic reasons, but then he adds all the notes at the end so you can get any background you might be missing. His attitude to poetry was that you didn't necessarily have to understand it that well to appreciate it... I remember some essay of his where he says how he just dived into reading Dante in the original despite only having minimal Italian.

I like the Waste Land mostly because it sounds so gorgeous! I certainly don't claim to "understand" all of it, but as I said, I don't think you need to.

Hey David (in #20), we said almost exactly the same thing simultaneously! The moral is clear: you need to know the Heine-Borel theorem to get this poem.

took time off to commute home. On Eliot, more seriously, I'm with David@20 and Manny@21. The language is stunningly gorgeous, and the images--so surreal and jarringly incongruous at times--catch you by the short-and-curlies. You feel this poem, through the language and imagery, more than respond to it intellectually (but then, isn't that true of most poetry?). In particular, The Waste Land's allusions and references are pretty much irrelevant to its emotional and aesthetic impact.

But David@19: did I catch you say somewhere else (another one of the many threads I lurk but rarely post on) that you are not a poetry fan in general?

well-stated, I agree.

David G, I'd be willing to converse on the subject of topology if you'd like.

Indeed. The imagery is absolutely stunning in this work. Quite surreal in places, as Eccentric Muse just said.

The HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME bit elicits a feeling of profound disquiet, I can't explain why. It's pained somehow, filled with anguish...

Great story. I tended to quote from Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch' or something similar during those days, and therein was the problem I believe.

Please keep the thread going :)

tadpole, I truly enjoyed Naked Lunch, but don't have the memory for quoting it. :) jess

Thank you for the encouragement Jessica!

Well, now you mention it... that does remind me of something. In fact, how could I ever have forgotten it? The ultimate, the thermonuclear weapon of pickup books, so potent that its mere existence used to be a closely guarded secret. But with the Cold War well and truly over... yes, it may be possible to post about it. As the Terminator says, I'll Be Back.

Manny, I'm on pins and needles here.

Shall we guess in the meantime? John Donne? Or, is your target group broader, now, than just the English lit majors?

Matthew ... yes, the pervasive sense of anxiety in TWL is definitely a dominant theme. Among any number of other elements, this is what truly marks it as a modern poem, I think. The classical allusions, in contrast to that, serve even more to heighten that tone of anxiety. To David@19, I definitely get the first: "the world is going to hell"; but not the second "wasn't the classical era so much better."

I'm not trying to persuade you (well, yes I am)...just curious!

You'd never have guessed in a million years. Actually, this one is primarily aimed at scientists... I don't whether it works on Eng lit majors (of either sex), though, with the documentation now publicly available for the first time, reports may soon be coming in.

So, look at my review of Robin Baker's "Sperm Wars", which I have just posted. Needless to say, usual disclaimers, no personal experience, stuff I heard from friends, etc etc.

hah! No, you're right I wouldn't have. Having said that, I do know Baker's work. A fellow in grad school, an evolutionary psychologist, recommended it to me. Hmmmm ... now that I think about that ...

tadpole(!)--stick to Naked Lunch. I'm sure you can make it work for you.

There's something about Sperm Wars. When I read the Sermon on the Mount, I find it impossible not to think, as Douglas Adams put it, why not be nice to people for a change? When I read Kingsley Amis, I have to think, why am I not getting drunk more often? And when I read Robin Baker, I think, surely I should be having more sex with a whole lot of different people? There's something about it that completely gets in under your radar, as I tried to suggest in my Tribute. And most of the other people I know who've read it report similar feelings. So, Handle With Care :)

Manny wrote: "You'd never have guessed in a million years. Actually, this one is primarily aimed at scientists... I don't whether it works on Eng lit majors (of either sex), though, with the documentation now pu..."

What scientists is he going after? Or should I say what type of scientists? Thx, jess

Manny wrote: "There's something about Sperm Wars. When I read the Sermon on the Mount, I find it impossible not to think, as Douglas Adams put it, why not be nice to people for a change? When I read Kingsley Ami..."

I'm going to try to read some of these. You make interested points. jess

Jessica Frank wrote: "What scientists is he going after? Or should I say what type of scientists? Thx, jess"

All the people I know who have read this are computer scientists - my sample is small. It certainly works on them. I'd be very interested to know what a biologist or a non-scientist thought.

The reason why the book is so effective is that it argues, in a plausible scientific way, that women and men are both designed for infidelity. He also has all these short stories illustrating the theory in a pretty graphic way. After a while, you start thinking, well of course, that's what I should be doing too, I was made for it! As you can see in my Tribute :)

Everyone I know who's read it are psychologists--evolutionary, social and experimental, not clinical.

I have to confess, my knowledge of Baker's theories stems from a documentary I saw. Beyond his anecdotes, which is pretty much worthless as evidence, it seems to me the way he collected his data kind of points to a big problem with his theory and findings overall.

Who volunteers to participate in this kind of study, anyway?

(that's kind of a rhetorical question, but go ahead and answer, Manny. I know you want to!)

My god, where'd Eliot go? We've lost him ... he's out wandering the waste land somewhere.

I feel a bit guilty about the lack of respect we are showing to Mr. Eliot. Maybe he had it coming after the way he treated his first wife? But even so, I think we should reconvene on my review page for "Sperm Wars", that is the logical place to have this discussion. Will reply there.

I ACCIDENTALLY discovered the TSE Effect one night in a pub after a bunch of folks had been out to dinner - started talking Eliot to this woman I'd not met before - much enthusiasm ensues - her boy-friend goes bananas with jealousy. Everybody else laughs. I'm oblivious until told about it next day....

I've only just noticed this review and was going to say:

She stopped to look a moment in the glass
Hardly aware of her departed lover
Her mind allows one half-framed thought to pass
'Well, now that's done, and I'm glad it's over'

But I guess that by the time anyone gets all they way down to the bottom of this thread they will have forgotten what the hell I'm alluding too in the original post. Pity, as I thought it was rather funny.

Trevor wrote: "I've only just noticed this review and was going to say:

She stopped to look a moment in the glass
Hardly aware of her departed lover
Her mind allows one half-framed thought to pass
'Well, now that's done, and I'm glad it's over'

But I guess that by the time anyone gets all they way down to the bottom of this thread they will have forgotten what the hell I'm alluding too in the original post. Pity, as I thought it was rather funny.
"

That segment is remarkably quotable. I recall another incident from about the same period... I had somehow ended up going to watch the very disreputable Third Reich sex movie Salon Kitty with different friend. The plot, to the extent there is one, involves planting secret recording devices in a brothel and hoping that the girls will get the Nazi officers who frequent it to open up and say things they shouldn't - a sort of SS-run honeytrap.

So there's a scene where the good Nazi is saying stuff to one of the girls when he'd be better advised to keep his mouth shut, and you're shown the LP-like recording device capturing his words. Afterwards, you see the chick doing her best to look pensive. My friend, on the ball, leans over and says

When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about the room again, alone
She smooths her hair with automatic hand
And puts a record on the gramophone

I remember an English teacher telling me that he thought the best line in the poem was "a road that winds above among the mountains'. I was young at the time and thought he had lost his mind. This is a poem coming down with great lines and he picks that bit of dross - something that was little more than a bit of filler, as far as I could see. As I've gotten older I do see that it is a much better line than I had ever thought before.

MFSO sent me a link to a documentary on Maths called Dangerous Knowledge - I haven't finished watching it yet, but in it there is someone walking to the top of a mountain - like that painting that is the cover of every other book of Existentialist philosophy. One of the people interviewed in the doco says something like, "When you are walking to the top of a mountain all you can see are the trees and the ground and the snow at your feet - and then suddenly you are at the peak and your vision is unimpeded and just as suddenly you understand'. The Wasteland is just such a mountain - at first the reader is overwhelmed by the details and has to keep their eye fixed on the loose and uneven ground - but then suddenly all of the failed sexual relationships, all of the death and all of that water start to make sense in incredibly fascinating and interrelated ways - suddenly you can see for miles and each rock and branch you were forced to cross to get to the peak makes sense in ways that seemed totally arbitrary as you were crossing them on your way here.

This was one of the first poems that I knew I had to get some understanding of or I would have failed in some way - Eliot is an arrogant prick, there is no question, but he writes a mean poem.

Manny wrote: "You'd never have guessed in a million years. Actually, this one is primarily aimed at scientists... I don't whether it works on Eng lit majors (of either sex), though, with the documentation now pu..."

Manny did you delete your "Sperm Wars" review?

Isaiah wrote: "Manny did you delete your "Sperm Wars" review?"

No, it's still there... http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

ah, you had it hidden under a different edition. strange GR couldn't figure it out.

Oh I see the problem. Most people call him Robin Baker, but the man's name is actually R. Robin Baker? There are two different author listings. Some intrepid librarian should figure this all out.

I've been thinking about this review and I think there is something very funny about using this poem to chat up women - particularly given that every sexual encounter in the poem is unrelentingly disappointing and seedy. I guess the idea is not to raise the expectations of the women too much so that they won't be so disappointed afterwards. "Well, what did you expect after I quoted the Wasteland at you?"

Ever since joining goodreads a week ago I am learning such useful things. I had the gas man come to read the meter a few days ago and I was hoping for sex, but. What happened was like this. He read the meter and then grabbed my hand and said:

'When you strip for me with your eyes closed
you fit into a glass that rests upon my tongue,
you fit into my hands like bread I'm hungry for,
you fit beneath my body more exactly than its shadow.'

Naturally I thought he was a pervert and quickly had the presence of mind to say that my husband was coming home in a moment, which unfortunately is not true, as you will see from my profile. Luckily, however, this particular gas meter reader is not on goodreads so he didn't know this.

Anyway, now what I'm learning from this is that really he just wanted sex and this is a normal way of asking for it if you are a man. Or at least a man who thinks you are literary, which I'm not, but I can see it is a compliment in the right circles.

I can imagine that he did Arts at uni which is why he is a gas meter reader now, whereas if he'd done something useful like computational linguistics he'd wouldn't be in that position.

When I think of it, actually, I think you would get better sex from somebody who quoted this poem than Wasteland. I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I have received a lot of useful tips from goodreads commentators and I would like to return the favour. Try Roque Dalton, forget Eliot.

Anyway, apparently there was a problem with the reading and he is coming back again. What I would like to know is how I should approach things now. Should I say something to him like:

'I love your nakedness
because naked you absorb me with your pores
like the water when I sink between its walls'

which is part of the same poem he quoted to me. Or is that too obvious?

I can see I could use The Wasteland, but would that be some sort of faux pas? Can girls quote it to boys or only the other way around? Also, not being as educated as the other commentators here, I don't really understand why that would get you sex. Wouldn't it be better just to ask for it? I'd prefer just to be asked, it would be less confusing. Not that I've done English lit, but.

Dear Not,

I can see that you and Trevor are in agreement about the kind of sex you might get from someone who tried to use The Wasteland as a pickup line. (I should point out that I've never actually done this, and I've already apologized for the advice I gave my friend in the late 70s). So, yes, absolutely, your gas meter reader seems to be quoting sexier poetry. I think though that your comment about its being better for him just to ask directly for sex cuts to the heart of the matter. You claim to be different, but, at least according to folk-lore, many women are put off by the direct approach. This perhaps explains the success of The Wasteland, and T.S. Eliot in general. It's all about sex, but it's still possible to pretend it isn't.

I don't know what to recommend concerning the gas meter man's next visit. From what you've said, he doesn't sound too bad. But bear in mind that, if he did an Arts degree and is now reading gas meters, he may be a swamp of festering resentment. Or, on the other hand, he's perhaps just doing this temporarily while he completes his first novel. I couldn't possibly guess. Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only GoodReader who's on the edge of his chair waiting for the next installment in your saga!

Manny

Let me see. I don't think I'd mind an indirect approach, but it has to be an indirect approach that you'd understand, doesn't it?

For example, suppose a man's sitting next to you in your apartment and says 'I think we should go to bed now' and takes you by the hand and leads you off....well, that's the sort of thing I mean. It is indirect, but not that indirect. You've got a pretty good idea of what is going to happen next.

Whereas if a man quoted The Wasteland at me I'd think he was interested in poetry. And if I did work out he was interested in sex, I'd expect he wanted some sort of weird intellectual sex, which to be honest, I don't think I could do. Not that I know exactly what it would be, but. I'm not that intellectual myself.

Anyway, thanks for you encouraging comments about the gas man and I will be sure to update this discussion about it next week.

It was interesting what you said about maybe he is writing his first novel. You've given me an idea. I'm writing a novel too and I could leave it lying about somewhere, maybe next to the gas meter and - so far I'm only up to page 2, so it wouldn't take long for him to read and if he liked it then -.