Meandering

     I felt compelled to read The Storyteller.  One minute I see Conchis as a shaman and the next I'm not so sure, but Conchis is a storyteller.  In some cultures, one aspect of the shaman is storytelling.  Apparently in the Amazon, the seripigari or shaman does not take on that role exclusively.  Though the two roles intertwine in the culture, the storyteller walks and keeps the mythology of the people alive as long as he keep walking for the sun.
     At some point in The Magus, Conchis had some kind of initiation or revelation and now plays the role accordingly as he see's fit.  At first I thought he was an Evil Shaman and got off in fucking with our poor chap Nicholas.  However, the four stories in the text have a profound meaning with me for some reason.  I think the Norwegian Wood story is the most poignant and Nietzsche's Zarathustra jumped out to me when Gerrit was talking about the Norwegian Wood story.  I've read Zarathustra a couple of times but I'm hoping this time I'll find an interlink with the wood story.
     Back to The Storyteller, which could almost be argued as an epic except for founding a new city. Saul seeks for a culture to continue walking and living,  instead of the tribes in the Amazon conforming from paganism to the "true" religion of the world.
     Conchis always gave Nicholas the choice to leave and to end the initiation.  Nicholas refused.  Saul was going to settle down and marry a woman, but his bride to be killed herself because she would be the blame for no more stories.  Saul was given some advice, "It's a warning that you must either pay heed to or ignore," Tasurinchi said to me.  "If I were you, I wouldn't ignore it.  Because each man has his obligation."
     I'm curious what Nicholas's obligation was to life or my obligation to life.  Was Nicolas to love Alison and live the American dream? Je ne sais pas.  Are we to walk or conform? I prefer to walk.
    Saul thinks about becoming a shaman and going through the initiation, but he accepts his fate and keeps on walking and telling stories.  He knows and embraces his script or role in his story.
    I've often thought of freedom and especially in this country as one of the biggest myths and illusions in history.  Martin Luther King Jr. said something to the affect that a person sometimes has to walk through a prison before finding or experiencing freedom.  A few years ago I thought it would be a good idea to go to France and join the French Foreign Legion and if I was still alive after five years I would have had my freedom as a French citizen.  Then I blew out my knee fighting a forest fire and had to reconfigure.  I love what Frye said, "It's now what we do but what we read."
   Saul laid out his freedom, "What I really wanted to say is that, before, I wasn't what I am now.  I became a storyteller after being what you are at this moment: listeners.  That's what I was, a listener.  It happened without my willing it, little by little.  Without even realizing it, I began finding my destiny.  Slowly, calmly.  It appeared bit by bit.  Not with tobacco juice, or with ayahuasca brews.  Or with the help of the seripigari (shaman).  I discovered it all by myself."
   Perhaps Nicholas should have "paid attention" and listened.  Now I just need to find a piece of literature that parallels the freedom story.  I think I have some ideas but would gladly take suggestions.  Viva la republique!

For some reason the Norwegian Wood story reminded me of Nietzsche's Zarathustra.  By the brother going into solitude and being the over-man he reached that ecstasy moment or nirvana and was freed.  The four stories seemed like plays within plays and were all choices on different paths where Nicholas could have went down.  With all the deception going on Nicholas missed that he ultimately had choices.  Perhaps I'm reading into all of this too much.
I'm trying to get into poetry a little bit and started reading a little Wallace Stevens.  I randomly went to Dutch Graves In Bucks County and a poem I think about war, death, time, and archaic truth.  The whole piece is worth reading and maybe relevant or not.
An end must come in a merciless triumph,
An end of evil in a profounder logic,
In a peace that is more than a refuge,
In the will of what is common to all men,
Spelled from spent living and spent dying.
And you, my semblables, in gaffer-green,
Know that the past is not part of the present. (?????)
Who are the mossy cronies muttering,
Monsters antique and haggard with past thought?
What is the crackling of voices in the mind,
The pitter-pater of archaic freedom, 
Of the thousands of freedoms except our own?
And you, my semblables, whose ecstasy
Was the glory of heaven in the wilderness-

Time was not wasted in your subtle temples.
No: nor divergence made too steep to follow down.

I don't write or underline in books very often because it's distracting to me and feels like a chore.  In Ch. 24, Conchis is telling the story of when Lily said she wanted to marry him.  I actually underlined most of the paragraph, "But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion.  It is only species of animal that die out, but whole species of feeling.  And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did."

As much as I enjoy being a deconstructionist about America and having actually read Hobbes and Locke seeing what social contract was all about (keeping rich white people rich).  I do forget about sacrifices my grandparents and parents have made for me to have life.  Some question and answers are perhaps better off not being answered since the answer equates death.

Quality Shmality

     I like to think back to the Greeks and the seven books of a liberal arts education that every citizen should have to become a better citizen.  America used to be deeply rooted in the Classics for education.  People got their undergraduate degree and then if they so desired went on to obtain a graduate or professional degree. 
    In the last 30 years, America's promising wanted accelerated programs and many went into finance.  Instead of two years of graduate school, why not one? The late 80s' had the savings and loans bust and hundreds of assholes went to jail for insider trading and fraudulent loans.  The "Great Recession" only a handful of people have went to jail and every body blames someone else.
     I study literature because it makes me want to be a better man and human being.  I almost switched majors to Econ and Accounting last semester.  The tests were objective and my "education" was very measurable.  However, there was a problem, I looked at things on how to monetize them.  I didn't want to become a business man with no ethics.  My insurance guy who I got my workers comp,  proudly told me he never read a book in college.  When I blew out my knee fighting forest fires, the doctor said it was a bad sprain.  When it got worse he told me the pain was in my head.  Then an MRI showed I had the triage and needed reconstructive surgery.  If these two hacks would have read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich they might have some compassion to fellow human beings and heaven forbid, be better at their jobs.
     Colleges today have something like a 50% percent graduation rate. I know its hard for out of touch politicians in an Oligarchy to quantify inspiration and passion, but what happens when a student takes a geology class and finds a passion for the outdoors instead of an accounting class?  My brother graduated in Finance and had no job offers upon graduation.  I did an internship at a paper in North Dakota this summer and received two job offers.  I'm rather certain I don't want to live in North Dakota, but I'll stick with English.  Plus my blood pressure is lower than my brother even though he has more money than me.

I was startled...

I was startled while reading For The Time Being on how individual life can be represented in simple numbers.  When I hear how amazing China's Great Wall and Egypt's Pyramids are, thanks to Annie Dillard I can't but help think about all of the deaths that went into the creation of the objects.  My dad told me that when he was in Rome at the Coliseum that it was pretty eerie to think that over a million people had died there.
The Stalin quote was disturbing where something about when one person is killed its a tragedy, and when a thousand die it's a statistic.  I've often wondered about Stalin and how he over saw "Marxism" and the death of upwards of 30 million people, and yet we always hear about Hitler and the Nazis. 
I once heard that when a family found out that their next child had down syndrome and they were okay with it because, "It's a test from god," or something, that seemed like one of the most fucked up statements I've ever heard.  I've heard many Christians say that god is all powerful and knowing.  I like how Dillard left it as an either or, when she brought up is god passive, oblivious, or simply selective in the world's affairs.  Some of the Atheists and Christian writers I've read turned me off by their arrogance and certainty of the subject of god.
The question on page 95, What are we doing here? actually kind of freaked me out, because I don't know.  Je ne sais pas sounds much better to my ears, but even the Frenchies haven't answered that question and I don't know if anyone has.
I always get a kick when people ask me what I'm going to do with an English degree.  Je ne sais pas is a favorite, perhaps a goat herder in Kansas.  What I absolutely can't stand is when I hear god has a plan.  Life sounds pretty sad according to Dillard, "Time: You can't chock the wheels.  We sprout, ripen, fall, and roll under the turf again at a stroke."  Thank the high heavens for Caesar and his calender, it would have been awful to live so long in the old testament days.
I'm startled by the prayer, "que le garçon, dont j'ai reve, me parle."The angel collects the notes in a silk bag and delivers them.  I wonder to whom. god?  The bible says that children have a guardian angel over them to protect them until I guess they can fend for themselves.  Why does so much horrific shit then happen to children?  My latin professor at Carroll was Father Shea and if there is such a thing as a cool priest, he is.  We used to have a lot of debates over coffee and his answer was, "god gave us free will."  I slammed my hand on the table and said, "that's the biggest fucking cop out in history."  Such a simple and flat answer to a big question.  Gerrit and Jerrod are telling me that there is no such thing as "good" and "evil" though I disagree.  For the time being I'm going to stay with the Lucretius thought and once were dead, were dead and even if there was "higher beings" why would they give two shits about our mere mortal trifles.
Frye startled me because to go further in Literature I'm going to have to read the bible in a scholary fashion.  Spero that spark notes will work.