tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post7007098112100420332..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Some German books I read recently - Rilke, Kafka, Brecht - In the dark times / Will there also be singing?Amateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-86087207867672016082018-09-25T16:56:24.460-05:002018-09-25T16:56:24.460-05:00It has been a surprise, how much substantial Kafka...It has been a surprise, how much substantial Kafka fiction is in his diaries and notebooks.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80050789545871479752018-09-25T12:59:45.326-05:002018-09-25T12:59:45.326-05:00One of Blumenberg's last books was called Lion...One of Blumenberg's last books was called Lions/Löwen (as Shakira pointed out in her blog: https://chakira.org/2012/07/21/hans-blumenberg-what-is-absent-about-the-lion/)<br /><br />One last thing about Blumenberg: on his Passion According to Matthew, Blumenberg remarks how Kafka in just a few lines from his Octavo Notebooks deconstructed the myth of the Fall, and he quotes:<br /><br />"Why do we complain about the Fall? It is not on its account that we were expelled from Paradise, but on account of the Tree of Life, lest we might eat of it.<br /><br />We were expelled from Paradise, but it was not destroyed. The expulsion from Paradise was in one sense a piece of good fortune, for if we had not been expelled, Paradise would have had to be destroyed" (cf. 'The crows claim that a single crow could destroy the heavens.This is certainly true, but it proves nothing against the heavens,because heaven means precisely:the absence of crows'.)<br /><br />"We are separated from God on two sides: the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.<br /><br />We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt."Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-53443961821527827652018-09-20T22:23:45.667-05:002018-09-20T22:23:45.667-05:00It is not a novel where the exact order of events ...It is not a novel where the exact order of events matters all that much.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-37433015678270503552018-09-20T21:46:08.218-05:002018-09-20T21:46:08.218-05:00I see a wonderful second career for you in essay w...I see a wonderful second career for you in essay writing for dubious sites... Though you're going to need to dumb your material down a little.<br /><br />Ah I remember the tree as one of the first things, but it's been twenty plus years since I read that thing, and I have obviously forgotten pretty much everything.Dorian Stuberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10502464360299604387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80032276082607979732018-09-20T16:21:33.703-05:002018-09-20T16:21:33.703-05:00Wait, I love that. "Mankind has always done ...Wait, I love that. "Mankind has always done its greatest philosophical work in the presence of lions, but with recent trends in trends in poaching and habitat destruction" etc. etc. decline of civilization etc.<br /><br />Now we have shifted to cats. There is a cat behind my laptop as I type this. They, I can tell you, are useless.<br /><br />I have a ways to go, I think, before I meet the once-famous chestnut tree. Maybe this weekend.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-75871608095490760342018-09-20T15:29:08.288-05:002018-09-20T15:29:08.288-05:00I find mine prefer the lofty (and gag-inducing), &...I find mine prefer the lofty (and gag-inducing), "Mankind has always..." (or, in your case, never).<br />La Nausee? Yeah that is a book that fits well with Malte. Existential dread. Roquentin with the tree--that's Malte all the time.Dorian Stuberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10502464360299604387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-70838589617500703242018-09-20T08:48:21.329-05:002018-09-20T08:48:21.329-05:00Well, sure, representations of St. Jerome. But th...Well, sure, representations of St. Jerome. But the painters was presumably modeling their paintings after ordinary scenes from daily life. <br /><br />I think in Mediterranean climates, it was more common to leave the door open, allowing friendly lions to wander in. Or maybe doors had not yet been invented, back in the day. <br /><br /><i>Meine Frau</i> says that is how woozly undergraduates specify the vague and distant past in papers - "back in the day."Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55198477777975047612018-09-20T08:31:17.472-05:002018-09-20T08:31:17.472-05:00The philosopher with the lion was probably Saint J...The philosopher with the lion was probably Saint Jerome. There are a lot of paintings of him at his desk with his pet lion snoozing beside him.Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-60619195221643854832018-09-19T22:24:18.020-05:002018-09-19T22:24:18.020-05:00Hey, that is a description the book I am bashing m...Hey, that is a description the book I am bashing my way through now, the Sartre novel. I just read an episode where the guy sees some portraits of successful people and begins to fear he does not exist. He is one odd dude, this narrator. Although in an important sense he is right.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55875001066082290002018-09-19T21:56:05.832-05:002018-09-19T21:56:05.832-05:00Been a while since I read the Rilke, but one thing...Been a while since I read the Rilke, but one thing I remember running through the book is anxiety over the body--dawning horror that other bodies are empty vessels, and that one's own body might be too.<br />Is it a novel? Who the heck knows. <br />I like your lion jokes.Dorian Stuberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10502464360299604387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-14261224646537780252018-09-17T16:54:36.722-05:002018-09-17T16:54:36.722-05:00I have seen it must be a hundred paintings of a ph...I have seen it must be a hundred paintings of a philosopher of some sort at his desk with a lion. It can't have been that uncommon an incident, in the past at least. Maybe it does not happen so much anymore. I don't know.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-9662341720887225402018-09-17T15:37:57.037-05:002018-09-17T15:37:57.037-05:00From the Univ. of Chicago blurb on the Lewitscharo...From the Univ. of Chicago blurb on the Lewitscharoff Blumenberg book: <i>One night, German philosopher Hans Blumenberg returns to his study to find a shocking sight—a lion lying on the floor as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. The lion stretches comfortably on the Turkmen rug, eyes resting on Blumenberg. The philosopher with some effort retains his composure, even when the next day during his lecture the lion makes another appearance, ambling slowly down the center aisle. Blumenberg glances around; the seats are full, but none of his students seem to see the lion. What is going on here?</i><br /><br />This is the first I've heard of Blumenberg and his lion, but Russell Hoban must have heard of them since this same conceit lies at the center of Hoban's curious little novel, "The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz."seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-874415119593848882018-09-17T14:31:58.236-05:002018-09-17T14:31:58.236-05:00Lewitscharoff's cheeky, a lover of erudite jok...Lewitscharoff's cheeky, a lover of erudite jokes. For example, in her novel about philosopher Hans Blumenberg (and his visitation by a Lion) she wrote: "The lion thing did not work out as Wittgenstein had said. 'If a lion could speak, we would not understand it.' Blumenberg certainly understood it."Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80523195591321408192018-09-17T13:28:22.171-05:002018-09-17T13:28:22.171-05:00I clearly need to work on my hyperbole.I clearly need to work on my hyperbole.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-37620422803704196422018-09-17T10:56:27.172-05:002018-09-17T10:56:27.172-05:00Terezia Mora and Sibylle Lewitscharoff are the two...Terezia Mora and Sibylle Lewitscharoff are the two recent German language writers who've won the largest number of big literary prizes. Lewitscharoff's stuff is particularly enjoyable. To [mis-]translate a little bit from an interview with her: <br /><br />"It's true that I'm not very interested in Post-WWII German literature, but I greatly admire Thomas Bernhardt and Paul Nizon; the earlier literary tradition is to me of the highest importance, not only because I spent most of my time reading it. [From those belonging to that tradition] I must name Kafka above everybody else; the literary work he created is so thorough in its achievement that, as human beings, we can appreciate it to such an extent that even things like The Bible seem pretty pale by comparison."Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32319957265613519022018-09-17T10:26:15.597-05:002018-09-17T10:26:15.597-05:00The Rilke I value - or, right, understand - is the...The Rilke I value - or, right, understand - is the one who wrote the "Thing poems," the concrete Rilke. And there is some of that in <i>Notebooks</i>, and I enjoyed it, but I did not understand how it functioned as a novel.<br /><br />Kafka, as a person, is pretty interesting, and as a self-tormented writer, one of the most interesting.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65792519188746772132018-09-17T10:00:54.739-05:002018-09-17T10:00:54.739-05:00Ahaha, let us assume that I didn't understand ...Ahaha, let us assume that I didn't understand that Rilke novel either. I do want to read more Kafka pretty soon, those beginnings sound kind of interesting.Jeanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14247515387599954817noreply@blogger.com