On Family Business

choi

Charles Scribner III, On Family Business. Wall Street Journal, Dec 21, 2024, at page C8 (in the column "Five Best").
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture ... businesses-9dccc910

Note:
(a) The article introduces Charles Scribner III as "The author, most recently, of "Scribners, Five generations in publishing." (Lyons publishing, Nov 7, 2023)
(i) Charles Scribner's Sons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Scribner%27s_Sons
(1846- ; Parent company  Simon & Schuster)
(ii) five generations: Charles Scribner I
, whose second son was Charles Scribner II
, whose (only) son was Charles Scribner III
, whose (only) son was Charles Scribner IV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Scribner_IV
(1921-1995; also known as Charles Scribner Jr; section 2 Personal life: had three sons: the eldest son "Charles Scribner V, now usually known as Charles Scribner III, a graduate of Princeton University, an art historian and author")
(iii) The English surname Scrivener as well as its variant Scribner is "occupational name for a professional scribe copyist or clerk from Middle English scrivener scribe."


(b) I, Claudius
(i) Claudius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius
(section 1 Name)

I have had trouble with Roman name, in particular which is the surname.
(ii) Robert Graves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Graves
(1895-1985; English)
(c) Cornelius Vanderbilt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt
(section 1 Ancestry: name)


(d) Richard II: "The English monarchy, dubbed 'the Firm' by current royals * * * Richard II is a most eloquent CEO. The tragic young king insists he was 'not born to sue, but to command'; yet vain, foppish and irresolute, he proves a born poet, not a ruler. When his alpha-male cousin Henry Bolingbroke arrives with an army to challenge him, Richard laments, 'For God's sake let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.' In soaring cadences he vacillates between insistence on his divine right ('show us the hand of God that hath dismissed us from our stewardship') and mythic resignation ('down down I come like glistering Phaeton wanting the manage of unruly jades')."
(i) Father of future Elizabeth I, George VI stated, "We're not a family. We're a firm." The King's Speech )a 2010 film) reproduced the statement.
(ii) Richard II was eloquent
(A) Richard II of England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England
(1367 – c 1400, reign 1377-1400; introduction; section 6 Character and assessment: "He was athletic and tall; when his tomb was opened in 1871, he was found to be six feet (1.82 m) tall. He was also intelligent and well read, and when agitated he had a tendency to stammer. * * * The popular view of Richard has more than anything been influenced by Shakespeare's play about the King, Richard II. Shakespeare's Richard was a cruel, vindictive, and irresponsible king, who attained a semblance of greatness only after his fall from power [the first England's king to be replaced by a usurper, Richard II was starved to death while in prison (by new king Henry VI)]. Writing a work of fiction, Shakespeare took many liberties and made great omissions, basing his play on works by writers")
(B) Richard II (play)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_(play)
("The language of Richard II is more eloquent than that of the earlier history plays, and serves to set the tone and themes of the play. Shakespeare uses lengthy verses, metaphors, similes and soliloquies to reflect Richard's character as a man who likes to analyse situations rather than act upon them. He always speaks in tropes, using analogies such as the sun as a symbol of his kingly status. Richard places great emphasis on symbols that govern his behaviour. His crown serves as a symbol of his royal power and is of more concern to him than his actual kingly duties")
(iii) "not born to sue * * * foppish"

English dictionary:
* sue (vi): "to make a request or application : PLEAD—usually used with for or to   <sue for peace>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sue
   ^ sue for
   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sue%20for
* fop (n): "a man who is devoted to or vain about his appearance or dress"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fop
* nag (n): "HORSE especially : one that is old or in poor condition"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nag
(iv) "For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings."

Richard II, Act 3, Scene 2: "For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:         
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,         
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,         
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill'd [killed while sleeping],         
All murthered * * * "
(v) "show us the hand of God that hath dismissed us from our stewardship"

Richard II, Act 3, Scene 3: "To NORTHUMBERLAND

Because we thought ourself [sic] thy lawful king:
And if we be, how dare thy joints [how dare your body (represented by your joints)] forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship;
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp."

(v) "down down I come like glistering Phaeton wanting the manage of unruly jades"
(A) Phaethon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaethon
(B) Richard II, Act 3, Scene 3: "Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades."
(C) Shakespeare used jade for horse many times. See jade: "worn-out horse, hack, worthless nag"
https://www.shakespeareswords.co ... px?headwordId=18843
(D) Sylvania Morris, Shakespeare's Horses: Nags, Jades and Steeds, or Wonders of Nature. The Shakespeare Blog, Apr 18, 2012
https://theshakespeareblog.com/2 ... -wonders-of-nature/
("And in Richard II it's a groom who visits Richard in prison to tell him how Bolingbroke, the new king 0Henry IV], rode Richard's own horse in his coronation procession:
* * *
Richard's initial reaction is to feel betrayed:
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand")

The nag is defined in (d)(iii) above.


(e) The Godfather: "Puzo's description of Michael conjures up F Scott Fitzgerald more than a ruthless capo: 'He did not have the heavy, Cupid-shaped face of the other children * * * His skin was a clear olive-brown that would have been called beautiful in a girl.' * * * Puzo's novel boasts more memorable quotations than 'Hamlet': 'I'll make him an offer he can't refuse' and '' "
(i) "Puzo's description of Michael conjures up F Scott Fitzgerald more than a ruthless capo"
(A) I am unsure what this sentence means.
(B) capo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo
(may refer to "capo, short for Caporegime, a rank in the Mafia")
(C) Italian-English dictionary:
* regime (noun masculine; from Latin [noun neuter] regimen): "regimen"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/regime
(D) The Great Gatsby
a 1925 novel by American writer
("a 1925 novel by American writer F Scott Fitzgerald". The novel had a fictional character Meyer Wolfsheim based on on Jazz Age real-life gangster Arnold Rothstein of New York City)
(ii)
(A) The entire sentence around the quotation is: "Michael Corleone was the youngest son of the Don and the only child who had refused the great man's direction. He did not have the heavy, Cupid-shaped face of the other children, and his jet black hair was straight rather than curly. His skin was a clear olive-brown that would have been called beautiful in a girl. He was handsome in a delicate way. Indeed there had been a time when the Don had worried about his youngest son’s masculinity. A worry that was put to rest when Michael Corleone became seventeen years old."
(B) Google "Cupid-shaped face" and you will know what it means.
(iii) "It's all personal, every bit of business."
(A) The entire paragraph (spoken by Michael) is: "Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That's what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult."

This quotation appeared only in the book, but NOT in the movie. In the book, the quotation is directed to Tom, but in the movie, a similar dialogue was directed to Santiago "Sonny" Corleone. See YossiN trying to find quote in the movie[.] Reddot, 2020
https://www.reddit.com/r/Godfath ... he_movie/?captcha=1
(DingoMcPhee: "It's only in Mario Puzo's novel. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/TheGodfather
bradybardybrady12: Not in any of the movie")
(B) Google AI states: " 'It's all personal, every bit of business' is a famous line from Mario Puzo's novel 'The Godfather,' which signifies that within the world of organized crime, even seemingly transactional business dealings are deeply intertwined with personal relationships, loyalty, and vendettas, meaning that any action taken against someone is not just a business decision, but a personal affront that will be met with a personal response")
(C) Why do they say "it's just business' in The Godfather when it’s obviously personal?  Quora, 2022
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the ... -obviously-personal
(Joshua answered: "Classic line from a classic movie.   Michael Corleone proclaims how he is going to kill the men who came after his family.  His brother Sonny replies by laughing and telling him he is taking it too personally, which leads Michael into saying it's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business. Sonny's comment about it being personal reminded Michael of his family obligation, omerta, and that all personal matters are also a matter of business")

choi

-------------WSJ
I, Claudius
By Robert Graves (1934)
1. Founding a family business for the ages? Think big. The Roman empire, for starters. That’s the subject of Robert Graves’s “I, Claudius,” a fictional memoir by the most unlikely emperor of them all. Writing as Claudius, Graves recounts with wit and candor the course of that Julio-Claudian family business founded by Claudius’ stepgrandfather, Caesar Augustus. In 40 years, Augustus doubled the size of his empire. His family proved more outrageous, conniving and deadly than the Sopranos. Next came Augustus’ stepson Tiberius, followed by the latter’s great-nephew Caligula, the apotheosis of depravity. Caligula’s uncle, the stuttering bookworm Claudius, survived to rule the business next since no one took him seriously enough to murder him. “I am supposed to be an utter fool,” he confesses, “and the more I read the more of a fool they think me.” Following his sudden crowning by the guardsmen who had just dispatched Caligula, Claudius muses, “so, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now.” His “confidential history,” as he calls it, is a Horatian “monument more durable than bronze.”


The Valley of Decision
By Marcia Davenport (1942)
2. Marcia Davenport, the author of the first American biography of Mozart (1932) and the best novel about opera, “Of Lena Geyer” (1936), didn’t stint on research. Mozart brought her to Prague; “Of Lena Geyer” drew deep from her mother, the Metropolitan Opera soprano Alma Gluck. Davenport’s unhappy first marriage found her in Pittsburgh for 18 months, which inspired her most famous novel, a family saga about the Pittsburgh industry that won two world wars: steel. “The Valley of Decision” follows the Scott family through four generations of industrial growth, labor unrest, strikes, a world war and the Depression. The protagonist of this riveting “upstairs/downstairs” drama is Mary Rafferty, a 16-year-old Irish immigrant who comes to work for the Scott family as a maid in 1873. The son and heir, Paul, introduces Mary to the world of books, through which she loses her brogue and gains her place as the family’s confidante and adviser. (Here, a curtain must be drawn: no spoilers!) Decades later, asked if she would change anything in “The Valley of Decision,” she replied: “adverbs.”


Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
By Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (2021)
3. The journalist Anderson Cooper first learned about his ancestor Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt as a 6-year-old, when seeing the bronze sculpture of the tycoon outside Grand Central Terminal. Vanderbilt was the richest American at his death in 1877. In this spirited personal history, Mr. Cooper recalls: “I was convinced that all grandparents turned into statues when they died.” A Dutch-American farm boy on Staten Island, Vanderbilt began with a rowboat and through sheer force of will built it into a ferry business that dominated New York Harbor. After the Supreme Court struck down the New York law that protected the steamboat monopoly, he turned to railroads. Making money thrilled Vanderbilt, not the pleasures wealth could bestow, or the social or political power it could buy. His son William doubled the fortune. The next three generations would spend it with a vengeance. By the time the author’s mother, the heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, died, it was gone—“the story of the greatest American fortune ever squandered,” Mr. Cooper writes. Yet this engrossing tale isn’t without a redeeming irony. The Commodore was no philanthropist, but the widower’s second wife persuaded him to make a singular donation: the founding of Vanderbilt University, his name writ large for the ages.


Richard II
By William Shakespeare (1597)
4. The English monarchy, dubbed “the Firm” by current royals, ranks high among ancient family businesses. But a “peaceful transfer of power” was not always the norm, as Shakespeare reminds us. Richard II is a most eloquent CEO. The tragic young king insists he was “not born to sue, but to command”; yet vain, foppish and irresolute, he proves a born poet, not a ruler. When his alpha-male cousin Henry Bolingbroke arrives with an army to challenge him, Richard laments, “For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.” In soaring cadences he vacillates between insistence on his divine right (“show us the hand of God that hath dismissed us from our stewardship”) and mythic resignation (“down down I come like glistering Phaeton wanting the manage of unruly jades”). John Gielgud virtually sang the title role on stage: This tale of troublesome succession almost begs for an opera.


The Godfather
By Mario Puzo (1969)
5. A family business need not be legal to thrive. In Mario Puzo’s epic, crime pays generational dividends. It’s all in the family, from Sicily to Long Island. “Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that’s why they have godfathers.” Again the question of succession is paramount. Don Vito Corleone’s golden son, Michael, a Marine back from World War II, seems at first unlikely because he is unwilling to join the brutal business. Puzo’s description of Michael conjures up F. Scott Fitzgerald more than a ruthless capo: “He did not have the heavy, Cupid-shaped face of the other children… . His skin was a clear olive-brown that would have been called beautiful in a girl.” (He is memorably portrayed in the 1972 film adaptation by a young Al Pacino.) But Michael rises to the occasion, albeit over several lifeless bodies. Puzo’s novel boasts more memorable quotations than “Hamlet”: “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse” and “It’s all personal, every bit of business.” If “The Godfather” weren’t fiction, it could be a handbook—too true to be good.