Unravelling themes, symbolism, continued

[Sitaram]

This morning, after several hours of problem-free posting, I am again experiencing crash after crash, in attempting to add to or update the original thread. So I am attempting to start this fresh thread, as a continuation, just to see if I will continue to experience the same difficulties.

Here is the Baudelair verse which I could not post with repeated attempts:

Nature is a temple where pillars, alive,
Sometimes emit indistinguishable words,
Man passes in there through forests of symbols
Which observe him with familiar looks.

Like lingering echoes that are mingled far off
In a one-ness tenebrous and profound,
Vast as the night and as the light of day,
Fragrances, colors, and sounds correspond.

There are fragrances fresh like the flesh of children,
Sweet like oboes, green like prairies
And others, corrupt, rich and triumphant,

Having the expansion of infinite things,
Like ambergris, musk, benjamin, and incense.
Which sing of the transports of mind and sense.

(my first attempt to add the QUOTE bb code crashed my machine, I am removing the dashes in the poem, which may be acting as some special character)

(well, try as I might this morning, each time I attempt to add the bb quote command around the above quotation, and then post, my machine crashes during the post...)

Could it POSSIBLY be some hidden character in the text itself?
Nature is a temple where pillars, alive,

Like lingering echoes that mingled afar off
In a oneness tenebrous and profound
Vast as the night and as the light of day
Fragrances, colors and sounds correspond

There are fragrances fresh like the flesh of children,
Sweet like oboes, green like prairies
And others, corrupt, rich and triumphant,

Having the expansion of infinite things,
Like ambergris, musk, benjamin, and incense.
Which sing of the transports of mind and sense.

 

[Peder]

Sitaram,
After reading you elegant and extended exposition I am inclined to feel that any ordinary response will sound foolish. But being undaunted by even that fear, I'll attempt a thought or two in response.
First of all, you have evidently thought long and perceptively about the question and are far beyond my simple knowledge and my limited background for attempting multivalent reading. So I wonder how you have achieved so much knowledge that you bring with you to any work you might read. The answer cannot simply be that you read faster and read more, even if those be true. But I thnk your answer perhaps might be that it is all in how you read.
Though there are many ways to describe it I would say that you, Sitaram, don't only read the words in a book, but also look at the words in a book. The former might loosely be termed reading for content, while the latter would be what I might term critical, or literary or artistic analysis of the words of the book. (Please bear in mnd that I am the last person in the world to be able to comment on what such terms mean or on their appropriateness.)
I make the distinction partly to understand what it takes to gain a deeper appreciation of a multivalent work, but mainly to observe that my reading is mainly reading for content, whether it be for entertainment or to gain actual knowledge.

The Annoated Lolita which I have recently read and reread, and reread portions of many times over, is a work that offers a self-contained example. It has many pages of notes at the end to explain allusions in the text itself, including a discussion by the author Nabokov himself. That work of genius can be read entirely for enjoyment without any reference to the notes, or at least I was able to enjoy it and be immensely moved by it on a first-through read. On a second read, flipping back and forth to the notes, I gained a greater understanding and appreciation for the word play and the author's sense of humor (as well as the unfortunate objects of his deprecation). And, finally, how wondrous it would be to appreciate all of the nuances of that great work through one's own knowledge, without having to refer to the notes!

So, after a lengthy first point, I get to my second point. Which is that I imagine your advice in answer to the question would be to not merely read the words on the page but to also look at them and wonder about them.
That's the best I can do in first draft. I hope that it is somewhat consistent with your thoughts?

Peder

 

[Sitaram]

I am most anxious to continue this discussion. I am having ENORMOUS problems today with hanging, after several hours of problem free posting here.

Bear in mind that I had 8 months of solid daily posting at another vBulliten (gelsoft) forum, hour upon hour, each day, over 500 lengthy posts, and never one problem....

anyway, lets see if this posts first.

Gloriosky! It did post.... lets see if I can add to it with edit... and then, if this works, I shall attempt to reply, but avoid the evil bbquote codes, which seem to be causing some mischief

Yes, yes, Peder (i wont use the quote command)... but it is not a matter of how much or how fast I read, but HOW I READ, and how I intereact with each word.... and it is something I learned from my early teenage years....

It is not clear that everyone should be as I am. It is not clear that it is even desirable or advantageous to read in this fashion. Certainly I shall never be the stature even of a Nabokov, yet, when we read his essays and lectures, it is obvious that he is reading in a similar fashion, and making a very conscious effort to do so. The same may be said of Milan Kundera, and many others.

By analogy, I might point out that it is perfectly possible be born in this world, to live in it with enjoyment and happiness and fulfillment, to bounce ones infants upon the knee, occassionally become drunk, grow old and die, and never once feel the desire to understand a thing about the acceleration of gravity, or atoms, or quantum or relativity, or feel any sense of failure for the absence of that desire.

I am very fond of the cartoons in The New Yorker magazine.

Once I saw a cartoon of an old Frenchman, seated in his garden, and his young grandson stands before him with a textbook in hand. The old man has a troubled look as he stares out blankly into space, and says "I have lived 75 happy years and have never had to concern myself with the French passive pluperfect tense!" (I forget the exact, obscure grammatical term that was used.)

Words can have various meanings and make a great difference, sometimes.

There is a charming joke about a man who desires to enter a monastery. The abbot interviews him and says, "Well in this monastery, our work is to copy manuscripts. Here why dont you try making a copy of this manuscript which Brother Juniper has just finished." The man replied, "I would love to try making a copy, but shouldnt I by copying from the original, and not from a copy of a copy of a copy." The abbot felt it was a good point, so he excused himself and went down in the vault to fetch the original. One hour passed, then two, finally three hours and no sign of the abbot. The brothers became concerned and went down to the vault to investigate. There sat the abbot upon the floor, a book opened in his lap, weeping. "Whats wrong!?" cried all the brothers in unison. The abbot sobbed, "It does not say celebate it says CELEBRATE

http://thebookforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7594

Consider Pynchon's use of the simple word mercy in the phrase "chances of mercy"

Rain + Halos = Rainbows



"Chances of mercy" - page 46

"Halos of meaning" - page 145

One farmer will say to another "what is the chance of rain?"

The phrase "chances of mercy" has a halo of sorts in a native speaker's mind.

But, when is mercy like rain?

And what is rain's halo?

In that post on Gravity's Rainbow when I speak of ascending the Empire State building by kissing each brick, I am playfully suggesting that one savor each word and passage in this special way, seeing "halos of meaning".

Each of us speaks in our own voice, as unique as a fingerprint. Consider how the Unabomber was caught, by his own brother. "Eat your cake and have it too" was a phrase in the Unabomber's Manifesto. Most people say it the other way around "Have your cake and eat it."

Think of how much power is packed in a simple number. Jesus parable about the woman who looses a coin, and lights a candle of greater value than the coin, in order to fine the lost coin. It mentions that the woman had ten coins, but lost one. St. Paul names nine orders of angels, "Seraphim, cherubim, archangels, thones, dominions, powers, principalities,...(I can never remember all nine without google). Early Greek theologians speculate that the nine coins which are not lost are those nine angelic orders, and the one lost coin is humanity, and I shall leave you on your own to speculate upon who and what the candle is.

The late Jacob Kline, of St. Johns, was an expert on ancient mathematics. He was very fond of the number six because it is the first perfect number being a sum of its prime factors, e.g. 1 + 2 + 3 = 6.

Augustine asserted that the world was created in six days precisely because 6 is the first perfect number.

The second perfect number, 28, is equivalent to a lunar month.

Let's look at the definition of mandala

At its root it is the generic Sanskrit term for any plan, chart, or geometric pattern which represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the universe from the standpoint of man.


I think we should make up our own theory of literary analysis and use the word mandala to denote certain phrases sentences or passages.