Re: My Father's House / gjd (for new comments)

On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 18:28:12 +0000, HarryLime wrote:

On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 14:12:44 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
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On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 20:15:36 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
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On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 19:31:54 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
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On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 11:29:25 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:
>

George J. Dance wrote:

>
My Father's House
>
This is my father's house, although
The man died thirteen years ago.
They said it would be quite all right
To take a drive to see it now.
>
Dad laid those grey foundation blocks
And built the whole thing (from a box),
Toiling after each full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
>
Look, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
To enter; there I'd leave my things
And, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>
In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Oh, I guess!)
>
Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summers through,
While watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
>
That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such filthy things.)
Which, the corner where boys were put?
>
Oh ... down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To read or play alone, and then
>
Lights out: in bed by nine each night,
Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
Face and pyjama bottoms down
As for my father's belt I'd wait.
>
Oh, if I were a millionaire
I'd buy my father's house, and there
I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
Its flames would light up all the air.
>
~~
George J. Dance
from Logos and other logoi, 2021

>
Here it is, MFH.

>
Thank you for reposting this poem of mine, Will. While it's true that it
has been discussed a lot over the years, it also true that at least one
person wants to discuss it now; and this would be the appropriate place
to move those comments, rather than leaving them scattered all over the
group. So let's start with this one:
>
On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 16:15:27 +0000, Michael Monkey Peabrain (MPP) aka
"HarryLime" wrote:

On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 13:06:00 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:

Why do you lie so much, George?
(That's a rhetorical question, as you've already intimated that your
pathological lying stems from you having been abused as a child.)

>
No, Lying Michael: I have never said, or even "intimated" (!) that I was
pathological, lying, or
"abused as a child".

>

You wrote a "mostly autobiographical" poem detailing the abuses you
suffered as a child, George.  And you're demonstrating your pathological
obsession with lying in your trio of denials, listed above.

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article.php?id=15801&group=rec.arts.poems
>
HarryLiar has manufactured yet another fake quote; I have never called
this poem "mostly autobiographical" or autobiographical in many ways. I
have distinctly told him in the past that, while some of the speaker's
memories were based on my own childhood experiences, not all of them
were; I was using them in a work of creative fiction, not an
autobiography of any kind. So he lied and made up a fake quote to
support his lie.

>
I haven't the time to go searching for the exact quote, but you had
initially maintained that it was "mostly autobiographical" or "mostly
based on your childhood," or similar words expressing the same thing.

>
If you don't have time, get your NastyGoon to search for it. In this
case I have to call your bullshit. You claimed the poem was
"autobiographical", and I tried to explain to you the difference between
creative literature and autobiography - repeatedly. You believe it's
autobiographical because you said it was autobiographical, and for no
other reason.

>
George, George, George... no autobiography is 100% accurate.

As I've told you before, I don't think the difference between creative
literature and autobiography is merely one of "accuracy." The difference
is that in the latter one is trying to be as accurate and comprehensive
as possible: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. Whereas in the former, one is selectively recreating an
experience, using experiences that reinforce the story.

People
present *their* interpretation of the various events comprising their
lives.  And everyone's interpretation is colored by various factors.

The question, though, is whose interpretation? If I were writing an
autobiographical account, it surely wouldn't be 100% accurate; but in
this case I was creating a fictional persona, and giving his
"interpretation".
Your constant misrepresentation of the poem as an autobiography
(including misquoting me, as we've seen) indicates that you're convinced
that you just can't see that difference; you've got the idea in your
head that this is how I'd "interpret" the events of my childhood (not to
mention my young manhood).

This is why your perception of Dr. NancyGene's and my analyses of your
poem strike you as personal attacks, whereas from my perspective the
*only* way to examine a semi-autobiographical poem on child abuse is
consider the speaker and the poet as being essentially the same
individual.

Well, no, HarryLiar, I "interpret" your comments on the poem, and "Dr."
NastyGoon's as personal attacks because you use them for personal
attacks. A good example is your opening paragraph that I quoted, where
you use your account of the poem, plus your misinterpretation of
something else I'd said, to call me a "pathological liar". The more you
try to pretend comments like that that are not personal attacks, but
just comments on a poem, the harder it is to believe anything you say.

>
In fact, Karla's oft-quoted adage aside, one can *never* fully separate
the two.
For instance, all of the characters in any author's fictional novel are
going to represent some aspect of the author.  Every poem stems from its
author's imagination... regardless of what external persons and/or
events might have inspired it.

That sounds like another contradiction to me. Previously you said that
"every" character in a novel represents an aspect of the author, and now
you admit that at least some are actually inspired by other people. Of
course they're filtered through the author's imagination, but that's the
precisely the point I'm trying to make to you: that the poem is a work
of imagination, not simply a recitation of facts. The poem uses my
memories, but it's not based on my memories; it's based on my speakker's
memories as I imagined them to be.

Every literary work is similar to a
dream construct in that regard; and like a dream construct, can be
analyzed by a psychologist, a literary critic, or even the average
reader.  Since "My Father's House" was based to a large extent on your
own childhood experiences, it literally begs for a psychoanalytical
reading.

Forgive me if I use the term "psychobabble" again, but that's precisely
what your mention of "analyzing" dream constructs put into my head. It
reminded me of how your Dr. Freud came up with his theory of the Oedipus
Complex (which you and the other "doctor" claimed I suffered from) by
"analyzing" a child's dream about two giraffes.

Despite your claims of taking the reader through Little George's home
(with the same floor plan as its real life counterpart) on a
room-by-room basis, you jump from the kitchen to the garden.

Your insistence on calling the speaker "George" is annoying (although it
is preferable to the "Boy George" nickname you previously borrowed for
him him and then insisted on calling me). I think you're just playing
with words to blur the very distinction between speaker and writer that
I'm trying to make with you. So I'm going to start calling him "Bob"
instead.

I am
guessing that you'd originally written the garden stanza to come first
within the body of the narrative, but had later switched it with the
kitchen stanza based on the severity of the (potentially perceived)
abuses.

No, you guessed wrong again; the stanzas were not switched. The poem
switches from the kitchen to the garden because the speaker is looking
out the window, and in the floor plan of the house (which I've told you)
the kitchen window overlook s the garden at the back of it.

In this stanza, Little George is forced to spend his summers
working in the garden -- while enviously watching the neighborhood
children.  Because Little George describes their games as "mis

You seem to have "frozen up", HarryLiar. That's not a big deal, of
course; I realize that responding to a long post takes time: one often
gets interrupted, even in mid-sentence. I mentioned it only because you
and "Dr." NastyGoon have pointed to it, when I did it, as evidence that
I suffered from not just psychological but various neurological
diseases.

How autobiographical is your poem?  Let's see.
>
In the poem "Little George" states that the house came in a box, and
that he helped his father assemble it,  You had said that in real life,
your house came in a box, and that you helped your father assemble it.
>
Little George tells how he was made to use the back door, had to take
off his shoes (and things), and wait for permission to enter.  In real
life, you had to use the back door, and remove your shoes before
entering as well.  I don't recall whether you also had to wait for
permission.

True; in real life, the entire family removed their shoes on entering
the house, and that's a reason we used the back door (because it had a
landing where the shoes could be left. If I were writing an
autobiography, I'd mention it that way; but because I'm imagining a
fictional speaker's memories, I omitted that detail. As for needing to
have permission to enter; I recall a few times when I was chased back
outside, but it wasn't an everyday thing. Once again, I was not
recounting events as I remembered them, but events as how I'd imagine my
speaker remembering them.

>
You have also stated that the house in the poem is laid out exactly your
real life childhood house, and that you have intentionally chosen to
take the reader through this house room by room.  You have also said
that you intentionally chose to present each room along with a
description of a (possibly abusive) memory associated with it.

Yes I did. I gave you the latter description in the very post you're
replying to. Since you've buried it, it may be a good idea to move it up
here:

S1 - the speaker revisits the house (after getting permission from
someone unspecified).
S2 - the speaker remembers his father building the house.
S3 - the speaker enters the back door, and remembers having to always
have had to use that door.
S4 - the speaker goes into the kitchen, and recalls having to wash
dishes.
S5 - the speaker looks out the kitchen window at the garden, and recalls
having to work in it when he'd rather be playing.
S6 - the speaker goes into the living room, and recalls not being
allowed to sit  wherever he chose.
S7 - the speaker thinks about his bedroom (but does not go there) and
remembers being sent there to be alone after dinner until bedtime.
S8 - the speaker continues to think about his bedroom, and remembers
having an  early bedtime and being subject to corporal punishment.
S9 - the speaker wishes he could burn the house down.

The first room in Little George's house is the kitchen.  Little George
associates this room with having to wash dishes, while looking out the
window and wishing that he was some other place.  In real life, you were
also made to wash dishes.  This is not uncommon.  Most children 50 years
ago were given chores to perform.  I had chores to do as well.  The
difference is that I was paid a weekly allowance for doing them, and had
the option of quitting my "job" at my discretion.

Unlike you, I did not receive an allowance, and I was not able to walk
away and leave the dishes dirty when I wanted to do something else.
Unlike both you and Bob, I washed dishes twice a day with my sister (and
later with one of my step-nieces). That last is another detail I changed
for dramatic effect.

In spite of your claim that you were taking the reader on a tour of
Little George's house (which has the same floorplan as your real life
childhood home), the narrative jumps from the kitchen to the garden.
I'm guessing that the garden stanza originally came before the kitchen
one, but that you later rearranged the stanzas to present the supposed
"abuses" in order of severity (as you have recently stated).  Little
George spends his summers working in the garden, all the while envious
of the neighborhood children who are free to play at their will.  The
fact that Little George calls their games "mysterious" and laments that
he "never knew" them implies both that he had to spend the entire day
doing chores and that he was not allowed to join the other children in
their games.

It sounds like you're repeating yourself; but maybe it's worth making
the same points in return. I wasn't *always* working in the garden,
while my friends were always working - though that's how it seemed
sometimes when I was working and they were playing - so that's how I had
Bob remember it.

Was George Dance also forced to work in the garden all day/denied the
fun of playing with the other children?  I don't know.  I'm guessing
that he was, because many children had gardens that they tended every
day.  I certainly did.  I would spend an hour or so tending my garden
every morning -- along with my mother and siblings.  I loved my garden
and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  I was also allowed to play with
the local kids who would drop by on an almost daily basis.

That sounds like a little flowerbed. Suffice it to say, both my father's
garden and my own were produce gardens, where we grew virtually all our
own vegetables. So it was a much bigger task, which took me at least a
couple of hours a day (and pretty much every day when school was out);
and again, like you, I could not simply drop everything and go off to
play during that time. There was plenty of times though that my friends
were doing work and my sister and I were the ones playing; and even more
when we all had free time and could play together.

Little George's next stanza opens with the line "That room's all
changed" implying either that the garden is a room, or that he is taking
the reader on a walking tour of his childhood house.  This appears to be
another problem caused by switching the kitchen and garden stanzas'
position in the narrative.

The "problem" seems to be caused by your either: (1) not realizing the
speaker could have been looking "outside" through a window; or (2) your
constant attempts, in your guise as literary critic, to find errors in
the poem. The garden stanza is deliberately s5 (the mid stanza of the
poem), for reasons I'll have to explain.
There are two stanzas where the D line is a rhymes perfectly with the
A-B lines; s5 and s9. The reason that the failure of the others to
rhyme, as I'm sure I've explained to you before, is to subliminally
reinforce the idea that Bob is having trouble completing his thoughts.
Whereas in s5 and s9 he does bring his thoughts to a conclusion; in s5
he realizes that (IHO) he's been deprived as a child, and in s9 he
realizes that he wants to be rid of those memories.

I'm assuming that it's the living room,
although Little George neither specifies nor gives us any other clue
than that it contains a chair on which he is forbidden to sit.

Actually, the room contains one chair in which Bob is allowed to sit.
But, yes, it's the living room. I don't know how things were in your
home, but in mine and most of the one's I've encountered, the living
room was where the family sat together. (In Britain it's actually called
the "sitting room").

IIRC,
George Dance stated that while he was also barred from using the living
room furniture, the parental description of boys as "filthy things" was
derived from the life of another boy that he knew.

There was in fact only one place for the children to sit in my family's
living room, though it was a couch (for all the children), not a
separate chair.

Last stop on the tour is the bedroom.  Little George is sent there after
dinner every night where he feels as if he is trapped within a tomb --
alone and forced to pass the time quietly playing by himself.  "Each
night" at 9pm, Little George was forced to turn out the lights,

Yes, I was, but "Each night" is a bit of an exaggeration; that was
actually each night in which I had school (or something equally
important) the next day. On weekends and in the summer, I could stay up
later, and go outside after dinner until dark, and that was all free
time. Once again, if I were relating an autobiography (which it looks
like you've forced me to do) I'd have mentioned those exceptions, but as
I was not recounting my memories but Bob's, I had him exaggerate.

and lie
face down in bed with his pajama pants pulled down and his bare behind
awaiting his father's belt.  George Dance hasn't said that this bedtime
ritual occurred on a daily basis in real life, but has intimated that
the "spankings" (which he refused to call "whippings" even though the
blows were delivered with a belt) frequently took place.

Well, being "whipped" (to use your preferred term though there was no
whip involved) took place too often for my liking, but I certainly
wouldn't call it a "bedtime ritual" (which does make it sound like it
happened on some fixed schedule irrespective of how I behaved). And Bob
clearly states that that happened only "some nights".

So, pretty much the entire "flashback" portion of the poem was based on
real events from George Dance's childhood.  Some of the events may have
been slightly exaggerated, or enhanced, for dramatic purposes, and one
item was interpolated from another boy's stories about his own
childhood.

No, I did not say I got the expression "boys can be such filthy things"
from another boy's account to me. IIRC, it was just something I read
somewhere. I did a lot of reading as a child and as a young adult, and a
lot of the speakers' "memories" and other thoughts use what I've read
(and simply imagined) as well as what I directly experienced.

This leaves the "modern" portions of the narrative which
frame the flashback portion.

I don't think you can separate the poem like that. Bob's actions, and
Bob's memories, are fully integrated - you cannot separate the memories
from the fact that Bob's remembering them.

In the modern portion, it is strongly
implied (by George Dance's own explanation) that the speaker is
receiving some form of psychiatric care, and is probably residing in a
mental hospital.

I thought that was an interesting touch from the beginning, though (as I
made it clear in previous explanations) there is no reason to think,
from the fact that Bob was in the house with permission, that he was in
a mental hospital or that he was under psychiatric care. His mental
state is obviously disturbed - as noted, he has difficulty staying on
one subject and drawing conclusions - but I think those could follow
from the situation (he's experiencing childhood memories that he'd
rather not) rather than his own mental state.

He has permission to leave the grounds during the day,
and (unrealistically) to visit his childhood home that is now occupied
by another family.

Yes, the idea that someone confined to a mental hospital would be given
a day pass to go off on a road trip by himself is very "unrealistic" and
(while I liked it being as possibility) it's not a very logical
possibility. I believe you went for it because you wanted to and went on
to claim that Bob broke into the house, and you had to get rid of the
idea that he had permission to be there.
"Grownup George" ends the poem by expressing his

wish that he would like to burn his father's house to the ground.

So Bob does. It's a very dramatic ending, which could make a reader
think that he was a psycho -- iff the reader had already decided he was
a psycho. Which is why I had Bob daydream about being able to buy the
house and burn it, rather than simply start looking for matches and
gasoline. As I said, I wanted to balance things and let the reader draw
her own conclusions.

The framing story, is obviously fictional insofar as real life George
Dance is not living in a mental institution, and is not (to the best of
my knowledge) undergoing psychiatric care.

As I say, it's impossible to separate the two. The Bob who's walking
through the house, and looking out the window, is the same Bob who's
remembering these things; and the fact that Bob's having those memories,
is the same fact as that he's remembering them. If you decided, from s1,
that he's escaped from a mental institution (which is what you meant by
claiming it's "unrealistic" for him to have got permission to visit the
house), then you'd go on to look for confirming evidence in s2-s8, which
is what it sounds like you did.

It is, however, reasonable
to conclude that the author thinks of his childhood home as *his
father's house*

Yes, of course it was *his father's house*, just as the home I grew up
in was my own father's house. He built it with his own hands; but even
if he'd just bought it or even rented it, it would still be his, the
place he provided for his family to live. I'd consider a child's refusal
to acknowledge that fact to be a sign of rivalry and resentment, a
refusal to give one's father due credit.

and that he still harbors some anger toward his father
(even though his father is presumed to be deceased).

Bob certainly has unresolved issues with his father, but "anger" (much
less the desire for revenge "De." NastyGoon attributed to him) is a
matter of interpretation. OTOH, whether Bob's father is dead or not is
not a matter of interpretation; it's clearly stated in the poem.

In short, the bulk of the narrative is based on real life memories from
its author's childhood.

All my poetry is "based" on my memories, but (as I've told you) my
memories include much more than direct experience). In this case, I
mainly used my own memories of my childhood because they worked. I
certainly had issues with my father as a teenager when I lived there,
and for a small time after I ceased to do so, and I wanted to make Bob's
issues no different from mine.

Why then all the fuss about my having called it "autobiographical"?

Because you not only repeatedly insist that it's "autobiographical" when
you've been told it wasn't, you try to draw conclusions about me from
it. (One particularly funny example of that, which I have to mention, is
a claim you made that I call you and "Dr." NastyGoon malicious trolls,
not because I perceive the two of you as malicious trolls, but because I
perceive you as "parent figures" and I'm calling you both trolls just to
somehow get revenge on my real parents. "Psychobabble", as I've said.)

It's a typical Straw Man argument intended to divert the discussion from
examining the psychological aspects of the narrative, and to falsely
represent an attempt to provide an in-depth analysis of the poem as a
personal attack upon himself.

Not at all. Seeing the poem as "autobiographical" allows you to present
your so-called analysis of Bob as an analysis of me, and try to justify
your own "attacks" on me. As you often do, want to label the poem
"autobiographical"  (just as you want to call Bob "George") as if, a la
Orwell, the words you use somehow prove your arguments.

Good old paranoid, perpetually persecuted George.

And, since that last line of yours was what your "analysis" was meant to
establish, and your only reason for your undertaking it in the first
place, it's a good place to conclude this post.
snip