Michael & Lori, As you know (having only recently started reading) I'm far behind, but I've been jumping forward in order to share in some of this real time exchange, so Chapter 72 is tonight's destination. But as I was reading your letter, a few initial answers to your questions popped into my head.
(1) I've used the word "rich" in my earlier comments a few times (not in the pejorative capitalist sense, but in the Cajun cookin' sense of a really good & thick sauce that demands savoring). "Copious" is worth considering to tap into the word's mythological origins and of course yielding an abundance (there we have it!) of fruit. Excess certainly does what you ask it to ... pointing toward the darkness, the abyss ... just how much darkness do we really want? (Ask Leonard Cohen, I guess.) Let's keep all these descriptive words ... let them dance together.
(2) (I'll answer this later.)
(3) Just a guess based on what I read so far ... escape & what the Enlightenment taught us about the world we live in is bunk ... the Enlightenment view is the wishful thinking of people who know nothing of darkness and who don't want to know. (Requires more reading & thought.)
(4) I'm guessing this question is rhetorical.
(5) Maybe this doubles back to how I described Enlightenment thinking ... our society labels anything that doesn't conform to ... let's call it "sanctioned reality" for now ... is somehow aberrant and if you think differently or see the world differently then you are labeled as pathological. I do like the sense of the word madness in the Wonderland sense, but what's clear from Moby-Dick is that madness operates in the realm of the divine. The fool has seen god (not just thinks they have) and that's why the Enlightenment world thinks them the fool.
(6) My Everything Book is The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.
Indispensable in the sense of inexhaustible. I've read this book through many times (there are two versions available in English) and return to it often reading the passages I've marked and always finding new connections. I just opened to the first chapter in the version curated by Richard Zenith and found this: "I see life as a roadside inn where I have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don't know where it will take me, because I don't know anything. I could see this inn as a prison, for I'm compelled to wait in it..." Diners where the patrons wait for a bus from the abyss ... sounds familiar, eh? Here's something else from the version curated by Jerónimo Pizarro, trans. by Margaret Jull Costa and published by ND, chapter 65 "In me the habit of dreaming and the ability to dream are primordial. [...] I would like to put into words all the mental processes that in me are but one thing: a life devoted to dreaming, a soul brought up only to dream. [...] For I am not merely a dreamer, I am exclusively a dreamer. The singlemindedness with which I cultivate the habit of dreaming has given me an extraordinary clarity of inner vision. Not only do I see in frightening and, at times, disturbing relief the figures and backdrops of my dreams but, just as clearly, I see my abstract ideas, my human feelings--what's left of them--my secret impulses..."
Michael & Lori, As you know (having only recently started reading) I'm far behind, but I've been jumping forward in order to share in some of this real time exchange, so Chapter 72 is tonight's destination. But as I was reading your letter, a few initial answers to your questions popped into my head.
(1) I've used the word "rich" in my earlier comments a few times (not in the pejorative capitalist sense, but in the Cajun cookin' sense of a really good & thick sauce that demands savoring). "Copious" is worth considering to tap into the word's mythological origins and of course yielding an abundance (there we have it!) of fruit. Excess certainly does what you ask it to ... pointing toward the darkness, the abyss ... just how much darkness do we really want? (Ask Leonard Cohen, I guess.) Let's keep all these descriptive words ... let them dance together.
(2) (I'll answer this later.)
(3) Just a guess based on what I read so far ... escape & what the Enlightenment taught us about the world we live in is bunk ... the Enlightenment view is the wishful thinking of people who know nothing of darkness and who don't want to know. (Requires more reading & thought.)
(4) I'm guessing this question is rhetorical.
(5) Maybe this doubles back to how I described Enlightenment thinking ... our society labels anything that doesn't conform to ... let's call it "sanctioned reality" for now ... is somehow aberrant and if you think differently or see the world differently then you are labeled as pathological. I do like the sense of the word madness in the Wonderland sense, but what's clear from Moby-Dick is that madness operates in the realm of the divine. The fool has seen god (not just thinks they have) and that's why the Enlightenment world thinks them the fool.
(6) My Everything Book is The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.
Twisty: Thanks for these responses. Could you provide us with a few sentences why The Book of Disquiet is the “Indispensable” book for you?—MS
Indispensable in the sense of inexhaustible. I've read this book through many times (there are two versions available in English) and return to it often reading the passages I've marked and always finding new connections. I just opened to the first chapter in the version curated by Richard Zenith and found this: "I see life as a roadside inn where I have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don't know where it will take me, because I don't know anything. I could see this inn as a prison, for I'm compelled to wait in it..." Diners where the patrons wait for a bus from the abyss ... sounds familiar, eh? Here's something else from the version curated by Jerónimo Pizarro, trans. by Margaret Jull Costa and published by ND, chapter 65 "In me the habit of dreaming and the ability to dream are primordial. [...] I would like to put into words all the mental processes that in me are but one thing: a life devoted to dreaming, a soul brought up only to dream. [...] For I am not merely a dreamer, I am exclusively a dreamer. The singlemindedness with which I cultivate the habit of dreaming has given me an extraordinary clarity of inner vision. Not only do I see in frightening and, at times, disturbing relief the figures and backdrops of my dreams but, just as clearly, I see my abstract ideas, my human feelings--what's left of them--my secret impulses..."