tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055598777203654547.post954058198335726404..comments2024-03-01T06:20:29.087+00:00Comments on qualia and other wildlife: a sense of wonderrosellehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00971482422276765335noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055598777203654547.post-10129726905659598502015-03-08T16:03:49.842+00:002015-03-08T16:03:49.842+00:00Hi Robert: I can't really articulate what it i...Hi Robert: I can't really articulate what it is about Jon McGregor's book. It's a novel, and an urban novel (not my normal territory), that is also sad. But in the midst of tragedy, he places all the small wonders that nourish a life, exquisitely. It's a book of beauty.rosellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00971482422276765335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055598777203654547.post-87563514410407497272015-03-07T08:53:33.034+00:002015-03-07T08:53:33.034+00:00'Increasing numbers of others' — yes.
Lif...'Increasing numbers of others' — yes.<br /><br />Life, as well as rapturous, is painful, isn't it? We know that everything is dukkha, and that suffering and joy are always in the mix, but even so. Indeed, one might say that suffering is the springboard for ecstasy. As Joseph Campbell writes in 'The Power of Myth': 'Love thine enemies because they are the instruments of your destiny.'<br /><br />I don't know that Jon McGregor book. Do you want to say more about it?The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055598777203654547.post-86272494715692885592015-03-04T11:42:58.324+00:002015-03-04T11:42:58.324+00:00Robert, I value these exchanges - thank you. Thank...Robert, I value these exchanges - thank you. Thanks too for the vote of confidence - I woke up this morning sick of my own earnestness. I'd give a lot to be able to write humorously more often; it's hard when there's so much suffering in the world (and on a personal level I've had 12 extremely tough years with serious family illnesses and deaths) - and for that reason even more necessary. Eh bien. We do what we can.<br /><br />I like 'mild, slow-burning raptures' as a phrase, and I appreciate the experience of them so much more as I get older.<br /><br /><br />I agree, re Matthiessen and MacFarlane, and I find increasing numbers of others. And I want to mention a very different book, one that you might know, called 'if nobody speaks of remarkable things', by Jon McGregor. rosellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00971482422276765335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5055598777203654547.post-2520956889222466072015-03-04T08:40:49.202+00:002015-03-04T08:40:49.202+00:00The Dillard is a gem — also 'Teaching a Stone ...The Dillard is a gem — also 'Teaching a Stone to Talk'.<br /><br />Not Pollyanna-ish at all — and, if it is, long live Pollyanna!<br /><br />I, too, am blessed with a sense of wonder. It's funny how we can be reticent in talking about it — and using all those words to describe it like 'rapture' and 'epiphany' and 'spiritual' and 'revelation' and 'transcendent' and so on. I suppose it depends on the way we recount these momentous, personal experiences, the whole style of telling rather than individual, non-contextualised words. In the present day, writers like Peter Matthiessen and Robert Macfarlane show us how to do it — and Dillard too, of course.<br /><br />Such moments are the ones which shine in my Camino memory brighter than rational space-time events, specific geographies and biographies — subjective mysteries rather than historical facts (though most so-called historical facts get fictionalised), gateways to something deep within, meeting points of the temporal and the eternal. There, 'temporal' and 'eternal'! It's that language again...<br /><br />And you're right — these wonders we've experienced are more numerous than we think. Sometimes we realise this through memory, afterwards. They don't always have to be blinding illuminations; sometimes they are 'mild, slow-burning raptures', as Joseph Campbell calls them.The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.com