tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post6203469232411830432..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Experiencing nature with Peter the Wild Boy - John Williams argues with Emerson and ThoreauAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-33598661149328686622012-08-16T08:20:10.601-05:002012-08-16T08:20:10.601-05:00Brutally functional - that's pretty good. But ...Brutally functional - that's pretty good. But they also - this is Thoreau's point - <a href="http://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com/2012/08/all-bounds-seem-to-be-infinitely-removed.html" rel="nofollow">know the names of things</a>. They may not have the <i>attitude</i> we associate with love of nature, but they have <i>knowledge</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-7105451269355558772012-08-16T05:28:31.332-05:002012-08-16T05:28:31.332-05:00"Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others..."Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her." We live across the way from a family of shepherds. They have been shepherds for generations. When a fridge or similar domestic appliance breaks down and they can't fix it, they throw it in the river. <br /><br />I once thought that sheep herders were born Romantics. My recent experience tends me to believe that they are more likely to have a brutally functional attitude to the natural world. Torn Halveshttp://tornhalves.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-48215201141881119642011-05-25T22:48:12.488-05:002011-05-25T22:48:12.488-05:00Yes, the Sublime, it's all about the Sublime! ...Yes, the Sublime, it's all about the Sublime! Muir and Ruskin and Thoreau and young fictional Laura Ingalls encounter the Sublime in an entirely different way then Williams' characters. I don't want to go too far that way, though, since I squeezed the breath out of the idea writing about <i>Little House on the Prairie</i>. <br /><br />I'm going to use Muir to write more about that. I <i>almost</i> believe that Williams was at times deliberately parodying <i>My Summer in the Sierra</i>, and presumably, then, many other books in the genre.<br /><br />The Muir book is wonderful, but purple, oh yeah. Every once in a while I practically beg Muir to knock it off.<br /><br />Ah, the Melville quote is from the Missouri bachelor! Wonderful! <i>The Confidence Man</i>, by the way, has an unusual status for me - years ago I read part of it, a healthy piece, but lost the concentration to finish it. This is a rare occurrence. Someday I'll read it all.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-3085155543479584012011-05-25T20:50:35.780-05:002011-05-25T20:50:35.780-05:00Ah wait, just realized you didn't quote the wh...Ah wait, just realized you didn't quote the whole thing, so you knew about the context I gave. Anyway, still genius!nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-17115271260768183662011-05-25T20:49:41.431-05:002011-05-25T20:49:41.431-05:00Did you look up the Confidence Man line? Because a...Did you look up the <em>Confidence Man</em> line? Because as you say, the epigrams could replace the novel (going by what you've written of it, at least)—they are amazingly well chosen.<br /><br />It's my beloved Missouri bachelor, of course, and just a few lines earlier, in answer to the miser's question about whether sick men "ain't...sent out into the country; sent out to natur and grass":<br />"Aye, and poets send out the sick spirit to green pastures, like lame horses turned out unshod to the turf to renew their hoofs. A sort of yarb-doctors in their way, poets have it that for sore hearts, as for sore lungs, nature is the grand cure." <br /><br />And then, your line. Genius! And I marked this passage in my reading of <em>The Confidence Man</em> too. <em>Butcher's Crossing</em> has just gone to "must-read" status.nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-40375143391444071212011-05-25T20:37:21.554-05:002011-05-25T20:37:21.554-05:00Very good stuff. I wonder if the numbness and imm...Very good stuff. I wonder if the numbness and immersion and lack of expectation can relate to the Sublime, capital S, something I remember working over at length without every getting the theory handle on it everybody else seemed to enjoy. Wordsworth always helps here, a good and thorough warm up for Emerson and Thoreau, especially before heading up to the mountains. Poets and Ruskin (one of your guys, I believe, more or less) looked up with expectation and feelings and proper awe, and from what you mention Thoreau had a different experience in the Maine Woods than he did when he was at the pond, 10 minutes from the 7-11.<br /><br />Ismael, like the young Melville, gets on the boat, and Andrews isn't so different. Our John Muir (who knows his bible, and builds machines) walks from north to south, makes it to California, walks into the mountains, and never looks back. Immersed, brimming with enthusiasm, later on selling the mountains a little too purple and hard, but he was trying to avert environmental disaster, after all, so you can't blame him. I like my LS because he ran up and down the Cambridge rowing paths and did his Kant and Rationalism on his walk through Germany, got to the Alps and didn't stop to look and feel, but kept going to the top, a lot like Muir. Nothing against Thoreau and Ruskin and others, though, everybody just doing the best they can.<br /><br />And Williams has done well here. Would keep pushing you to veer towards Stoner.zhivhttp://zhiv.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com