Anaximander

Anaximander:

The Classical Mind 2nd Edition
W.T. Jones
1980

- A younger contemporary of Thales
- One remaining sentence from his book: "From what source things arise, to that they return of necessity when they are destroyed; for they suffer punishment and make reparation to one another for their injustice according to the order of the time" (Jones, 11).
             - There is one stuff (monism)
             - There is a process by which the one becomes many stuffs
             - The process is necessary
- For Anaximander, the one stuff was not an element, but something called the 'boundless'
- Anaximander argued that the one stuff couldn't be an element from a logical standpoint. Water can't really become fire because that would be the thing becoming the opposite of itself. Since all the elements would have this problem, his one stuff had to be something entirely different in essence.
- For Anaximander the process was important. The boundless would become something, would return to the boundless and then become the opposite thing. It was cyclical.
-For Anaximander, "The world was still basically disorderly, and that what required explanation was its orderliness" (Jones, 12).
-Anaximander had an interesting theory of evolution that anticipated some basic Darwinian features.

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1972

-Born around 610 B.C.
- Second of the third Milesian philosophers
- His first substance was infinite, eternal and ageless. It encompasses all the world
- Thought our world was one of many
- His process of the boundless becoming other things and then back to being the boundless has an underpinning of cosmic justice.
- He believed "there should be a certain proportion of fire, of earth, and of water in the world, but each element (conceived as a god) is perpetually attempting to enlarge its empire. But there is a kind of necessity or natural law which perpetually redresses the balance; where there has been fire, for example, there are ashes, which are earth" (Russell, 27).
-The worlds that existed evolved, and were not created
-Believed that man descended from fish
-First man to make a map
-Earth is shaped like a cylinder

Early Greek Philosophy
Jonathan Barnes
2001

-Produced a star map and a map of the world
-The boundless contains all the world
-The boundless is also time
-Eternal motion exists and that brings the heavens into existence
-Earth is rounded like a stone pillar
-The number of worlds is limitless in number
-All things are constantly renewed after destruction (return to the boundless and then processed again)
-At the generation of earth something broke off from the eternal and formed a flame around the earth, like bark on a tree. Then the ball burst and the sun, moon and stars came into being.
- Censorinus - "Anaximander of Miletus says he thinks that from water and earth when they were heated, there arose fish, or animals very like fish, that humans grew in them, and that the embryos were retained inside up to puberty, whereupon the fish-like animals burst and men and women emerged already able to look after themselves" (Barnes, 20). That could be an interesting invasion story for Future Modern Ancient Greeks.
-The boundless is divine, because it is immortal and indestructible

Anaximander might be the best one to model the Future Modern Greek's new planet

Notes on The Flight of Icarus

Generally speaking I don't love to read plays. I like to watch plays, but reading them doesn't normally give me the same satisfaction as seeing them or as reading a novel. But, Raymond Queneau's The Flight of Icarus may have shifted that paradigm for me. I loved this book/play.

Morcol's line to Hubert "Die by all means but keep calm. My intellectual powers have caused me to change my mind" (Queneua, 33) is absolutely a double whammy. What a wonderful way of saying I was wrong without saying I was wrong.

The part about dicknapping on pages 39-40 made me laugh out loud and wake up my wife.

"Doctor: As we say in French: voila le hic.

Sir: Not the hic, the dick."

...

"Morcol: For some reasons of which I am unaware, no doubt because you considered that the work he has undertaken is injurious to his health, to prevent him from continuing it you have dicknapped the principal character of his novel.

Doctor: (stupefied by this neologism) Dicknapped?"

...

"Doctor: Since you don't want any bicarbonate of soda, lie down on that couch and tell me everything that comes into your head; it'll do you good.

Morcol: And will that help me find my Dick?"

Oh my gosh, the sophomoric humor is too much!

It has just dawned on me though that the Doctor unsuccessfully tries to get nearly every character to do the laying down on his couch thing and tell him what pops into their head unsuccessfully. The Surrealists loved psychoanalysis and since Queneau broke from them this might be a jab of repudiation at them.

"The place where the most famous adulteries are consummated and consumed" (Queneau, 53). What a wonderful pun. There are a lot of puns in here, most of which are intended I think, to make the reader groan. This one got a good groan from me.

Scene 34 where Hubert's rivals and friends kidnap the returned Icarus to interrogate him is hysterical. While they are busy pontificating Icarus sneaks out the bathroom window and into the wide world yet again.

Morcol is scouring the Bois de Boulogne in search of Icarus when he is nearly run over by Icarus on the bicycle. "Morcol: Clumsy oaf! I was in a very dangerous situation, there. I'm quite upset. I can't even remember why I'm in the Bois de Boulogne. Let me think... Ah yes. Well, even so, there's not much point in trying to run after him" (Queneau, 122). This was another line that had me laughing and disturbing my wife's slumber.

Morcol reminds me a little bit of Dirk Gently in methodology. Dirk solves the whole crime and the whole person through the interconnectedness of everything. "Morcol: The Bois de Boulogne. Everything leads back there. Reason, flair, intuition, not to mention my method of free association - everything sends me in that direction. Unfortunately the Bois de Boulogne is vast; what's more, it's dangerous. You keep nearly getting run over" (Queneau, 125). Just like Dirk, Morcol is fated to go where it won't end well for him because their methodologies, however odd, are correct.

"I'm giving up, Monsieur Surget. I'm giving up. No more shadowing. And above all, no more shadowing of shadows - meaning insubstantial images of authors' imaginations" (Queneau, 140). A little self-deprecation never hurt anyone.

"Surget: You have no pity.

Morcol: I have some for myself" (Queneau, 140). Man that was another good zinger.

"Well well! so that's where we've got with popular medicine and the pharmaceutical advertisements which are displayed not insidiously but in abundance in the daily and even weekly papers. So that's where we've got: the patient wants to heal himself! Any minute now he'll be wanting to write out his own prescription!" (Queneau, 141). Apparently Queneau and Dr. Lajoie could see the state of 21st century medicine and the advent of WebMD.

"Doctor: It's the paying that counts; you'll see how much good it'll do you" (Queneau, 160). Not much explanation needed there.

Two things that sort of sum up the best part of this story, the characters knowing they are characters, the fiction within the fiction, the surrealism, the meta...

"Icarus: Oh, I'm more read about than a reader" (Queneau, 164). Very good.
"Icarus: How do we know? It may all come to the same thing. They may be the characters of some other sort of author" (Queneau, 166-167)

The part where Icarus is offered Balbine by Monsieur Berrrier as a wife is great.

"Icarus: The thing is, I'm already engaged.
Balbine: Oh God! (she faints in her father's arms)
Icarus: Only I don't particularly want to marry my fiancée, alas.
Balbine (coming out of her coma). Heaven be praised.
Icarus: But I've got what they call a mistress.
Monsieur Berrrier: A liaison. They're made to be broken.
Icarus: And there's a society lady chasing me.
Balbine: Monsieur is very much in demand" (Queneau, 170).

Another thing I just noticed is Monsieur Berrrier's name. In reading it I had not noticed the triple R. It's weird that the mind only sees what it is accustomed to seeing.

Secular Humanism: Threat & Challenge Revisited

It's been ten years since I've read the book Secular Humanism: Threat and Challenge by Robert E. Webber. It's been thirty-two years since Robert E. Webber has written the book. Some of its tone seems to be as current as ever. Its rhetoric is definitely current. But, in typing the notes I've noticed a few things about my own thoughts on these topics in my current mindset. I've matured; become less naïve and developed a more nuanced view of the world. I'm not sure if that's always the best thing in the world, but it is the brute fact. But, I've become a little bit more open-minded to things as well. I think I'd be less apt to label secular humanism as hypocritical in the margins of my notes today. I might not; I once yelled at an Ayn Rand book and scared some poor Starbucks sipping soccer moms to death.

I reject the dichotomy between science and Christianity that has plagued us since the renaissance. I accept that the Church has at times been a source of blocking progress in numerous fields of knowledge. But, I reject that it blocks progress in the fields of ethics. Ethics is a field in which progress ought not to be made.

I am no longer stand vehemently against the theory of evolution. It seems to be, at the moment, the best paradigm we posses for how man came to be in the physical state he is at the moment. It has nothing to do with his moral state though. Physical evolution cannot produce morality. But, as a Christian I am confident that whether the Genesis account of creation was supposed to be literal or figurative or something in between, it has no bearing on the salvation offered by Jesus Christ. Whether God used words and instant gratification, or a form of evolution, the fact of the matter is that when God created the world He had already set into motion His plans to redeem mankind.

I am still very much against abortion except in rare circumstances. I have no problem with state sanctioned marriages because they have nothing to do with the marriage that is sacred in the Bible. The Bible puts marriage up as a union between a man, a woman and God. Secular marriage should be meaningless to the purely Christian viewpoint. Now, pastors or priests who marry someone in a non-Biblical fashion, they are going to have to answer for that some day. But, that has nothing to do with a state sanctioning.

The secularist optimistic view of man is hopelessly flawed as well. Man is inherently evil. While it is possible for the most evil of person to do something good or for less evil men to suppress their evil for awhile, that evil always lurks in the back and given the right circumstances will manifest itself. If those right circumstances happen to be when a given individual is in a powerful position, the manifestation will bring about powerful consequences. The good that even the most heinous of men possess is the remnant of the Imago Dei shining through the darkness. The difference between the Christians and the non-Christian is that darkness has been overcome by the light in a reunion with Christ. That is it.

The separation of Church and State used to be a hot topic for me. I thought it was awful that God was being blocked from public forums. The fact of the matter is though that a government cannot block God from coming into the public domain. I don't need to worry about that. God will manifest Himself whether a secularist government wants Him to or not. That isn't a battle worth fighting because it is already won. While I feel that I would be less inclined to nod my head along if I were to read this book now as I find myself agreeing on a couple of things he said about politics.

"The Church should not seek to accomplish its task in society through political power or legislative force" (Webber, 109). The Church isn't supposed to be a political vehicle. Divorce your politics from your faith. That doesn't mean accepting recent legislation as being the new ethically right standpoint. Ethics don't evolve because moral absolutes still exist, regardless of what man thinks of them. What it means is that your political agenda shouldn't influence your walk with Christ and it shouldn't move the Church in any particular way. The Church can recognize the brokenness that some secularist laws create the conditions for. But, when your political affiliation or your patriotism begins to move your walk with God or your church's agenda you can be pretty sure that you'll end up down a path that isn't authentically Christian.

Notes on Timequake - Kurt Vonnegut

I finished Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut the other day, probably the first time I have finished a book by him. I think there was a time I picked up Slaughterhouse Five in the previous century but I'm not sure if I finished it. If I did, it left no lasting impact on me - which, speaks more to my maturity in the previous century than any thing Vonnegut did or did not do with his masterpiece. I enjoyed Timequake very much. I gave it a four-star on my goodreads account. I loved the cynicism and the style. I think it played a part in my short-story entitled The Trade, at least in the tone of the story. I didn't mean to copy his style but it definitely bled through my subconscious. But that is neither here nor there. These are some of the things I really liked about the book:

"Hooray for fireman!
Scum of the Earth as some may be in their daily lives, they can all be saints in emergencies.
Hooray for fireman" (Vonnegut, 7).

First, of this sentence is funny. Second, it points out the fact that as horrible as people can be, they have the capacity to be good, and even better than good.

"People so smart you can't believe it, and people so dumb you can't believe it. People so nice you can't believe it, and people so mean you can't believe it" (Vonnegut, 14).  I just really liked the double emphasis in this passage.

"He commented unfavorably on the camouflage suits our own generals wear nowadays on TV, when they describe blasting the bejesus out of some Third World country because of petroleum. 'I can't imagine,' he said, 'any part of the world where such garish pajamas would make a soldier less rather than more visible. We are evidently preparing.' he said, 'to fight World War Three in the midst of an enormous Spanish omelet" (Vonnegut, 27). That's just hysterical to me. Subversive, cynical and distrustful of the government, but hysterical.

This is a long passage, but it's a good one: "'God created the heaven and the earth,' the old, long out-of-print science fiction writer went on. 'And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Satan could have done this herself, but she thought it was stupid, action for the sake of action. What was the point? She didn't say anything at first. But Satan began to worry about God when He said, let there be light and there was light. She had to wonder, What in the heck does he think he's doing? How far does he intend to go, and does he expect me to help him take care of all this crazy stuff? And then the shit really hit the fan. God made man and woman, beautiful little miniatures of Him and her and turned them loose to see what might become of them. The Garden of Eden' said Trout, 'might be considered the prototype for the Colosseum and the Roman Games'" (Vonnegut, 29). A fascinating retelling of the Genesis account.

Chapter 14 might be my favorite chapter in the whole book. I won't quote the whole thing, but Trout's explanation of 'ting-a-ling' is hysterical and sad all at once. "It was nothing but a dirty joke, but this poor, sick man had come to believe it a parable about the awful blows that life had dealt him" (Vonnegut, 58). Ting-a-ling indeed.

"Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is just too awful" (Vonnegut, 121). Vonnegut, being a humanist recognizes some of the flaws that a purely naturalistic viewpoint has. He presents it in his gallows humor type of way, but he recognizes the flaws. The problem here is his pride. His pride in himself and his pride in the humans who can achieve happiness without religion. Somewhere else in the book he praises his ex-wife who died without losing faith. He seems genuinely happy about that. I'm not sure if he was mocking her or not. It felt a bit more sincere. But, earlier on this page he lets his feelings be known about religion by relating a story about Isaac Newton. "That Newton was advised by those who were his nominal supervisors to take time out of the hard truths of science to brush up on theology. I like to think they did this not because they were foolish, but to remind him of how comforting and encouraging the make-believe of religion can be for common folk" (Vonnegut, 121). First, I reject out of hand the false dichotomy set up between religion and science. Second, I find this sad. Lastly, I sense a bit of elitism from Vonnegut when dealing with the common folk who still hold religious sentiments. I disagree with his philosophy of religion.

While I disagree with Vonnegut on his philosophy of religion, I found myself nodding my head to his amusing and simplified aesthetic theory. "I was pleased to reply with an epistle which was frankly vengeful, since he and Father had screwed me out of a liberal arts college education: 'Dear Brother: This is almost like telling you about the birds and the bees,' I began. 'There are many good people who are beneficially stimulated by some, but not all, manmade arrangements of colors and shapes on flat surfaces, essentially nonsense. You yourself are gratified by some music, arrangements of noises, and again essentially nonsense. If I were to kick a bucket down the cellar stairs, and then say to you that the racket I had made was philosophically on a par with The Magic Flute, this would not be the beginning of a long and upsetting debate. An utterly satisfactory and complete response on your part would be, 'I like what Mozart did, and I hate what the bucket did'. Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time, or you don't. You don't have to say why afterward. You don't have to say anything. You are a justly revered experimentalist, dear Brother. If you really want to know whether your pictures are, as you say, 'art or not,' you must display them in a public place somewhere, and see if strangers like to look at them. That is the way the game is played. Let me know what happens. I went on: 'People capable of liking some paintings or prints or whatever can rarely do so without knowing something about the artist. Again, the situation is social rather than scientific. Any work of art is half of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you. Does he or she have a reputation for seriousness, for religiosity, for suffering, for concupiscence, for rebellion, for sincerity, for jokes?" (Vonnegut, 167-168). Art as a conversation between two or more people. A simplified definition of what art is. I can dig it.

Overall, I loved this book. I can't wait to pick up another Vonnegut book in the near future.

God's role in the creation of sin revisited

The post below was written on November 18, 2005. Oh, to be 21 again! Typing that up here makes me realize that I've lost something in the past ten years. I've lost an innocence, a naïve world in which everything was black and white. If I had written that now as a more mature individual, with a little more schooling and personal experience I would hope to be shred to smithereens. But, life was different for me at in 2005. The world still existed as black and white and nuance was only a word I couldn't pronounce. That said, I stand behind the conclusion of my little essay, even if that essay sounds and was pompous. To hold the notion that 'God created sin' is logically indefensible.

Ten years on I can look at that essay and see the flaws in my thinking. Ten years from now I'll probably see the same in this little rereading (hopefully I'll still be using this platform so I don't have to go through the arduous process of bringing the diaspora of my thoughts into another single volume again). But, it does mark a point in my growth where I started to think about things that still pick at my mind today.

First, Original Sin and the Problem of Evil are things that are still very relevant to my thinking today. They interest me on a number of levels. But, at 21 I thought I could tell the rational girl Penny that she was irrational and because of that inherent irrationality she would have to accept my rational argument. In that way, I would win her over back to God. That's obviously not how this works. That's not how any of this works...

Second, because those interests were just at their formative stages back then, I see that ten years on I don't have the answers still perfectly before me. That leads me to believe that either I am not capable of having all the answers or that no one in particular is capable of possessing them. Some of the naïve nature of my research and thinking is gone, which is a good thing. Some of my innocence has been lost through life, which is a bad thing.

Third, at this point in 2005 I hadn't quite figured the entrenchment of ideas thing yet. I assumed that as I was moldable so was everyone else. I still like to think that the only thing that has crystalized in me is my music taste. Every once and a while a new song will come out, or a band that I liked that existed 10-20 years ago will come out with a new album that will capture my attention, but for the most part I return to certain songs and groups from years ago. I like to think that I am ever learning and ever open to having my mind blown and my thoughts on things blown up with the explosion to begin anew. But I know that ideas are entrenched in others and to disagree with them is a personal affront. That's when the exchange of ideas ends and the personal attacks begin. My essay may have been pedantic in nature ten years ago, but it was not an attack. Though, after I wrote that last sentence I realize that telling somebody they don't always think rationally, especially somebody who prides themselves on their rationality, probably came across an attack.

But, here is the point of my interrupting the 31 year old version of me digitizing the 21 year old version of me at this point - the essay I wrote ten years ago, as naïve as it was, it came to a correct conclusion. It came to the conclusion that to blame God for the evils of this world is logically indefensible. That said, I hope that as a slightly more mature human being, I don't offer a logical argument to someone who is searching through hard stuff as an approach to evangelizing.

Notes on the Story of the Eye

The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille is the most disgusting book I've ever read. I get that there is some value to his claims, but the language he uses is disturbing. But, since I have a newfound interest in Surrealism in Literature I suffered through it. And, while I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone that I know, I did find some interesting things in it.

"But I was unable to see as far up as the cunt (this name, which I always used with Simone, is, I think, by far the loveliest names for the vagina)" (Bataille, 4). This pretty much sets the tone for the book. It works to shock, which isn't that bad in and of itself. But, my problem with shock is when it is used for the sake of shock itself.

"And indeed, we blithely strolled out as though the woman had been reduced to a family portrait" (Bataille, 11). After witnessing her daughter's lewd sex acts the woman was frozen. I like the sentence and I think it's a good description of what would happen. It also has a vivid imagery.

"Little by little, I even thought I might kill myself, and, taking the revolver in hand, I managed to lose any sense of words like hope or despair" (Bataille, 18). I like that lack of emotional context, the moment where you simply exist without hope or despair. Brute fact.

"We pedalled rapidly, without laughing or speaking, peculiarly satisfied with our mutual presences, akin to one another in the common isolation of lewdness, weariness, and absurdity" (Bataille, 31). I think this sentence sums up about what I don't like about this book. It isn't just that its shocking, or even that it's shocking solely for the sake of being shocking. It is that Bataille is celebrating what ought to be condemned. His characters are reveling in the isolation that their lewdness brings about.

"And it struck me that death was the sole outcome of my erection, and if Simone and I were killed, the the universe of our unbearable personal vision was certain to be replaced by the pure stars, fully unrelated to any external gazes and realizing in a cold state, without human delays or detours, something that strikes me as the goal of my sexual licentiousness: a geometric incandescence (among other things, the coinciding point of life and death, being and nothingness), perfectly fulgurating" Bataille, 33). Here again, I find why this book disturbs me so much. Once again, Bataille is celebrating what shouldn't be celebrated. Death was going to be the outcome of his erection, but in that death he was finding nirvana. He found the point of nothingness and being colliding to be so desirable that he was willing to debase himself in any means necessary to get there.

What is also disturbing is some of his descriptions. It's a lengthy section so I'm just going to paraphrase. Bataille states that "I began writing with no precise goal, animated chiefly by a desire to forget, at least for the time being, the things I can be or do personally. Thus, at first, I thought that the character speaking in the first person had no relation to me" (Bataille, 89). Fine, sometimes I come up with sick things on paper, things that I never intended because I wrote something with no precise goal in mind. That's how I normally write a story. But, when you find a connection between an innocent event like your brother scaring you and a group of girls in childhood and the things written in the book there is a sickness underlying your thought process.

"I never linger over such memories, for they have long since lost any emotional significance for me. There was no way I could restore them to life except by transforming them and making them unrecognizable, at first glance, to my eyes, solely because during that deformation they acquired the lewdest of meanings" (Bataille, 96). I found much of this book absolutely repugnant. But, this paragraph I found to be profoundly sad. To reignite his memories he had to deform them and debase them. That is truly a sad thing to me.

"In 1920, I changed again, I stopped believing in anything but my future chances. My piety was merely an attempt at evasion: I wanted to escape my destiny at any price, I was abandoning my father. Today, I know I am 'blind', immeasurable, I am man 'abandoned' on the globe like my father at N. No one on earth or in heaven cared about my father's dying terror. Still, I believe he faced up to it, as always. What a 'horrible pride,' at moments, in Dad's blind smile!" (Bataille, 101). I found this profoundly sad again. First, I disagree wholly with the premise that religion is an attempt at evasion. That is simply philosophically unfounded in spite of years of trying to make this fact. Second, to hold on to pride in the face of such things for pride's sake solely is as revolting and wrongheaded as to be shocking for the sake of being shocking.

Notes on Trimalchio's Feast

I was hitherto unfamiliar with The Satyricon by Petronius. On my good reads I gave this 80p Penguin Classics a so-so rating. This was because the satire was particularly blunt and it felt a bit overdone. Second, it was because of my unfamiliarity with Petronius. So I've put his complete book on my to read list and hope that it has a little more oomph than this section of the whole book.

But that said, it was enjoyable and there were a few things I rather enjoyed in it. I liked Trimalchio's extravagance when he said "Wine has a longer life than us poor folks. So let's wet our whistles" (Petronius, 8).

I don't pay much attention (or give any worth) to astrological readings, but every now and then I find a capricorn reading to be mildly humorous when I apply it to my circumstances. "Under Capricorn, people in trouble who sprout horns through their worries" (Petronius, 15). I might be myself a little devilish under worries...

A funny line that was actually a little more subtle in the satire than the rest was, "I damned my own stupidity and asked no more questions in case I looked like someone who had never dined in decent company" (Petronius, 16).

"People today are lions at home and foxes outside" (Petronius, 19). That's funny.

"Nobody believes in heaven, see, nobody fasts, nobody gives a damn for the Almighty. No, people only bow their heads to count their money" (Petronius, 20). This was probably the best piece of satire in the book. Here we have people living lavish lives condemning the lavishness of the common folk. Hypocritical and timeless. It could be leveled against a number of the pious today.

I Finished The Trade

Today, July 15, 2015 I finished a short story. Well, I finished the first draft of the story. Now I'm going to give it to my wife to edit for grammatical mistakes.

The name of this story is called: The Trade, Or, How I was Banished From France. There are a couple of things about this that are interesting to me. First, it's the first short story that I've ever used myself and my wife as characters. Second, it is amazing how what I am reading at the time really impacts my writing. I'm nearly finished with Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake and halfway through this first draft I suddenly became conscious of the impact that Vonnegut was having on my writing. I hope that I haven't simply mimicked or copied him, but there is at least in my mind, an obvious tone. Thankfully, I had finished the Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille before I came up with that story. I don't think I'd like to do a memoir-style short story in that story involving my wife.

Aesthetic Notes on Nadja

There is much about surrealist aesthetics that I don't understand. Here are some notes on Aesthetics from André Breton's Nadja.

Aesthetics:

"Chirico acknowledged at the time that he could paint only when surprised (surprised first of all) by certain arrangements of objects, and that the entire enigma of revelation consisted for him in the word: surprise" (Breton, 15). Breton goes on to note that the art that Chirico created certainly was linked with the object that inspired it, but only in a way that two brothers resemble on another or as a dream about a person resembles the actual person. Firstly, the dream part is a part of the surrealist fascination with dreams. But, the element of surprise seems to be essential to understanding the Surrealist aesthetic desire as well. I was not familiar with De Chirico until I looked him up, but after seeing some of his more famous paintings like Love Song, The Red Tower and The Disquieting Muses I realized I had at least seen some of his works. They encapsulate (at least his work during his 'metaphysical' period) what I've always considered surrealism's enjoyable aspects.

"I insist on knowing the names, on being interested only in books left ajar, like doors; I will not go looking for keys" (Breton, 18). This seems an interesting aesthetic ideal for Breton considering the surrealist paintings. I guess in some extent the door is left ajar in that a painting or drawing in that style naturally opens itself to multiple vantage points and interpretations. But, on the other hand the door seems firmly closed to getting to the meaning behind the works.

There is a long passage on Breton's concept of beauty after the dots on page 159 through the final page 160. But the final sentence of the book seems to articulate Breton's view on beauty well enough. "Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all". If something therefore, doesn't cause an unconscious reaction then it isn't beauty at all. Convulsions aren't usually something that I incorporate into my ideas of pleasurable experiences, but there are of course muscle convulsions that are. It's just an ugly word to associate with beauty. 

Literary Notes on Nadja

There are a number of ways of reading a book. But, the whole purpose of this blog was to hone my skills as a writer and glean literary technique to incorporate into my own style. Basically this is my fake book to steal other writers' style. I want to read as much and incorporate as much in such a subtle manner that nobody notices that I've stolen it. That said, the main reason to read a work of fiction is to enjoy the book and revel in its literary beauty. So, here are some of the literary qualities about Nadja by André Breton that I enjoyed the most.

Literary:

"I insist on knowing the names, on being interested only in books left ajar, like doors; I will not go looking for keys" (Breton, 18). I love the word 'ajar'. It just seems to make everything pop out from around it. But, the imagery about not wanting to search for keys to unlock a book is just a good image.

"I cannot see, as I hurry along, what could constitute for me, even without my knowing it, a magnetic pole in either space or time" (Breton, 32). In this little passage of the book Breton notes that if you visit Paris you can't help but see him because he always ends up in a single place. This struck me because of my idea to write a story about the Maria Maggiore, a basilica in Rome that no matter what happened on our vacation, Erin and I would inevitably end up in its piazza when we were lost. This happened every day of our Rome vacation. Perhaps, there was a magnetic pole in either space or time located somewhere beneath it? Or it was itself a magnetic pole?

"A faint smile may have been wandering across her face" (Breton, 64). This is just a beautifully simple sentence that encapsulates the moment. 

"Those provisional moments of grace, real death-traps of the soul, an abyss, an abyss into which the splendidly mournful bird of divination has vanished again" (Breton, 91). It's a good juxtaposition of opposites and the unexpected. Normally one would associate grace, even momentary grace as something to enjoy, but Breton calls them death-traps and an abyss. 

"Be careful: everything fades, everything vanishes Something must remain of us..." (Breton, 100). I think this might be the highlight of the love Nadja has for Breton. At this point things are breaking down, both Nadja's sanity and Breton's stomach for being with her. His fear is beginning to win over his love, which is sad. Nadja holds on for the immortality of the love by begging him to write a book about her (which she gains because he has). Nadja achieves immortalization of their love, even as the love is breaking down. 

"The well-known lack of frontiers between non-madness and madness does not induce me to accord a different value to the perceptions and ideas which are the result of one or the other" (Breton, 144). Once again Breton achieves an excellent juxtaposition.

"For fear of being fettered, never to be embraced at all" (Breton, 159). What a profoundly sad notion.

Philosophical Notes on Nadja

I finished Nadja by André Breton yesterday and am somewhat still digesting it. It is pretty out there in literary style, but it was not nearly as difficult in reading Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar. But there were stylistic similarities - the most notable of which were the various asides that the main characters had when you weren't sure if they were speaking or using interior monologue. I wish I had read Nadja first because I think that it would have helped me read Hopscotch. But, I'll read a couple more Surrealist novels before I reread Hopscotch and hopefully that will make the hopscotching reading of Hopscotch a little easier. But, that is neither here nor there.

Philosophical Concepts:

"What I must have ceased to be in order to be who I am" (Breton, 11). This idea of renunciation or to put it in economic terms, the opportunity cost of becoming who you are by ceasing who you were was just a fascinating thought for me.

"I strive, in relation to other men, to discover the nature, if not the necessity, of my difference from them" (Breton, 13). In this we see Breton struggling to discover once again who he is, by comparing himself to others to see who he is by negation. He is not the other by necessity.

The slope facts and the cliff facts that Breton references on page 20 is interesting to think about. Here he has a hierarchy of facts, some of which only he can be the witness of and others he flatters himself that he possesses the full details. But, some of those facts deny a person rational acknowledgement and it is only by "our very instinct of self-preservation to enable us to do so" (Breton, 20). Breton seems to state that some facts are so inescapable, so brute and thus, so horrifying that we can only escape them through a matter of self-preservation.

Breton has some interesting views on the moral value of work. "I am forced to accept the notion of work as a material necessity, and in this regard I strongly favor its better, that is its fairer, division. I admit life's grim obligations make it a necessity, but never that I should believe in its value, revere my own or that of other men" (Breton, 59-60). To Breton, work is a means to an end, a necessary evil. The only good that can come from work is the material gains that come from it, not the character that it can provide.

"But it's so easy to return slowly toward the Rue Lafayette, the Rue du Faubourg Poissoniere - to begin by going back to the very spot where we were" (Breton, 74). Interestingly, after leaving Nadja at her door where he discovers that she is at the extreme limit of the surrealist aspiration, he questions what now? So he goes back to where he was; to begin again anew. I'm not sure if this is to repeat the cycle, or if it is an act of cowardice.

"Unless you have been inside a sanitarium you do not know that madmen are made there, just as criminals are made in our reformatories. Is there anything more detestable than these systems of so-called social conservation which, for a peccadillo, some initial and exterior rejection of respectability or common sense, hurl an individual among others whose association can only be harmful to him and, above all, systematically deprive him of relations with everyone whose moral or practical sense is more firmly established than his own?" (Breton, 139). This is such a scathing rebuke of Breton's societal surroundings about prisons and mental health professionals. Madmen are made in the madhouse. Criminals are made in the prison system. And, what's worse, its done systematically. It's not an accident. The system is tragically flawed and will always produce those results. In spite of Breton writing in 1928 France, the same still stands here in 21st century. The criminals are hardened in their reforming prisons. Criminals are made in the prison system.

"The most absolute sense of love or revolution...involved the negation of everything else" (Breton, 153). This is a very true thing. Love and revolution require total commitment to the cause. That said, I find the surrealist touch here a bit interesting. There seems to be an equating going on between love and revolution as if they are one in the same.

"But that is the way of the world, isn't it, the outer world, that is - a matter of sleep-walking" (154). Again the surrealist applies the opposite of reality. The outer world is the sleep-walking world. Does this mean that the inner world, the world of sleep and dreams is the world of awareness?

The Hegel quote in the end is interesting: "each man hopes and believes he is better than the world which is his, but the man who is better merely expresses this same world better than the others" (Breton, 159).