I may have created the impression in my last post that I think music has to be dark and/or tragic to be deep and profound. This is not the case, not at all. The music of J. S. Bach, far and away my favorite composer, is often quite joyous and profound at the same time. To give just a few examples out of a great many: the 1st and 3rd movements of the Italian "concerto (in spite of the title, a solo keyboard work, often played on the piano today), the Prelude in E major from the unaccompanied violin partita in E major (often played quite effectively on the classical guitar also), many of the movements from the Goldberg Variations, and the opening chorus of the cantata "Wachtet Auf". Now, to be sure, many of his works are dark, indeed, "Gothic", almost in the modern sense of the word. A popular example would be the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor---a piece that has been used in horror movies, and is in the German organ tradition that Bach acquired partly from the great Herr Dietrich Buxtehude.
Examples of tragic pieces abound in Bach's output. Examples would be a significant portion of the Chaconne, also for solo violin, and portions of the St. Matthew Passion.
Then there are abstract pieces, which are perhaps also highly emotional and esthetically appealing to those of us with mathematical orientations, such as the Art of the Fugue, The Musical Offering, and a significant fraction of the Well Tempered Clavier. Some of this latter class of works could almost be heard as being contemporary, 20th century music.
As Kenneth Clark has pointed out in his celebrated "Civilization" program, Bach's art was "religious art", and it is probably helpful to understand some of Bach's Lutheran theology (but not necessarily to share in his beliefs) to fully appreciate his music. Maybe not mandatory---I like to think it is not---but likely it enhances the rapport to some degree.
However, it was notable, and surprising to some, that Richard Dawkins, today a prominent atheist, listed the St. Matthew Passion as the one work he would want to listen to if he could only take one to a deserted island. I might pick that too, only I would hate to have to pick only one work....could I maybe take a thousand?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Music from behind the Moon, from James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell wrote a seemingly little known work that passionately describes the aching that some of us feel for music that is strange, deep, otherworldly, and perhaps, to some extent, “dark”. “The Music from Behind the Moon” is a short story, which is a portion of a larger book called “The Witch Woman”. It concerns the quest of a bard, Madoc, to find the source of the “skirling” music of Etarre the witch woman that is all “a doubtfulness and a discontent”. Madoc is described as a skilled musician that plays upon a bronze harp, and sings beautifully. He is popular in the courts and with the heads of the regime in which he lives. However, he knows in his heart that his music is really nothing, that it just delivers to these followers of his art what they want to hear to feel, namely that everything is right in their world. He is tormented by the memory of Etarre’s music, which he once heard, but now has lost. The courtly, “patriotic” music that he plays and sings makes the courtiers feel that their country is the best that has ever been, but Madoc feels that such nationalistic fervor is delusional, that one’s country is an “insignificant pimple in the pages of history” from a more enlightened perspective. Only Etarre’s music will satisfy the yearning that he feels for something deeper and stranger, and he pursues it relentlessly.
This short work of Cabell’s is really a fable, and, in addition to beautifully making poignant observations about depth in music, also illuminates aspects of romantic love. Indeed, this work is, I believe, part of a series of books he has written which he describes as “woman worship”. Ironically, in this very same story, he also makes some moving comments about death and human mortality.
Let me add here before moving on to other examples that I love Cabell’s elegant style which involves, somehow, the ability to use whimsical humor and irony to evoke feelings of wonder, and often to make observations about life. Only he and Lord Dunsany, in my experience, seemed to be able to do this.
Two other works come to mind that present a related idea to the above: H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zahn”, and a French film “Tous les Matins du Monde”.
In the Lovecraft work, a short story that has been realized in short films that can be found on Youtube, a rather troubled and impoverished student of metaphysics takes a room in a desolate and unchartered area of a city, and he so happens to be in a room immediately below a most odd musical genius, a fiddler, Erich Zahn. He cannot help but hear the strange unearthly music from his room, and, as with Madoc, the student is obsessed with the weird music of Zahn and aggressively pursues hearing it from closer quarters. Zahn himself turns out to be a wildly tortured old man, and seems to be driven by something not of this world. I will not give away more of the story here, but just note that Lovecraft admirably captures the itch that so many of us have for the romantically strange (a desire that pervades a great deal of Lovecraft’s fiction).
In the film mentioned above, the main character is a viola da gamba player and composer, an actual historical musician in the 16th century named St. Colombe, who writes and plays music that is dark, somber, brooding, etc. The young gambist that comes to him for lessons soon becomes seduced by the desire for facile fame and the pompous music of the courts. Perhaps the same kind of music that Madoc had to play---only the young student does not seem to hear the “skirling music that is a “doubtfulness and a discontent”. Even as the student begins to achieve renown, Colombe scolds him for “playing music for kings”, and at another time destroys the student’s instrument in disgust by bashing it against the hard floor. Painful, to be sure, for us musicians, but it makes the point.These three works of art thus have the common theme of showing how the deepest music is not usually the music that is popular, and often not the music that makes us simply “feel good and complacent”. There are many among us that yearn for the transcendent in music, even if it involves elements of tragedy. Of the three works mentioned here, for me, only the Cabell story is profoundly moving. But the other two, the Lovecraft short and the film, are memorable, capture truths about music, and provide a degree of validation for those of us who find ourselves defending our tastes for “darkness” in music and the arts in general.
This short work of Cabell’s is really a fable, and, in addition to beautifully making poignant observations about depth in music, also illuminates aspects of romantic love. Indeed, this work is, I believe, part of a series of books he has written which he describes as “woman worship”. Ironically, in this very same story, he also makes some moving comments about death and human mortality.
Let me add here before moving on to other examples that I love Cabell’s elegant style which involves, somehow, the ability to use whimsical humor and irony to evoke feelings of wonder, and often to make observations about life. Only he and Lord Dunsany, in my experience, seemed to be able to do this.
Two other works come to mind that present a related idea to the above: H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zahn”, and a French film “Tous les Matins du Monde”.
In the Lovecraft work, a short story that has been realized in short films that can be found on Youtube, a rather troubled and impoverished student of metaphysics takes a room in a desolate and unchartered area of a city, and he so happens to be in a room immediately below a most odd musical genius, a fiddler, Erich Zahn. He cannot help but hear the strange unearthly music from his room, and, as with Madoc, the student is obsessed with the weird music of Zahn and aggressively pursues hearing it from closer quarters. Zahn himself turns out to be a wildly tortured old man, and seems to be driven by something not of this world. I will not give away more of the story here, but just note that Lovecraft admirably captures the itch that so many of us have for the romantically strange (a desire that pervades a great deal of Lovecraft’s fiction).
In the film mentioned above, the main character is a viola da gamba player and composer, an actual historical musician in the 16th century named St. Colombe, who writes and plays music that is dark, somber, brooding, etc. The young gambist that comes to him for lessons soon becomes seduced by the desire for facile fame and the pompous music of the courts. Perhaps the same kind of music that Madoc had to play---only the young student does not seem to hear the “skirling music that is a “doubtfulness and a discontent”. Even as the student begins to achieve renown, Colombe scolds him for “playing music for kings”, and at another time destroys the student’s instrument in disgust by bashing it against the hard floor. Painful, to be sure, for us musicians, but it makes the point.These three works of art thus have the common theme of showing how the deepest music is not usually the music that is popular, and often not the music that makes us simply “feel good and complacent”. There are many among us that yearn for the transcendent in music, even if it involves elements of tragedy. Of the three works mentioned here, for me, only the Cabell story is profoundly moving. But the other two, the Lovecraft short and the film, are memorable, capture truths about music, and provide a degree of validation for those of us who find ourselves defending our tastes for “darkness” in music and the arts in general.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
More about "concealed ovulation"
Apropos of my previous entry: I just found a paper on the internet, albeit not a very recent one, that seems to hypothesize that the reason that ovulation is concealed from the female herself is indeed what I conjectured in my previous post (prehistoric women that avoided sex during fertile periods tended to be supplanted in the gene pool by those for whom ovulation was concealed). The article is titled "The Evolution of Concealed Ovulation", by Nancy Burley, and appears in the journal The American Naturalist, December 1979. Note that this paper was published almost 30 years ago, and it would seem that there has been adequate time to examine this hypothesis, and perhaps it has been largely rejected by evolutionary biologists. However, it is interesting that the Burley paper refers to, but apparently rejects, the Noonan-Alexander hypothesis (also 1979) cited by Linden in his book (see the previous post for the reference), so both hypotheses have been around about the same length of time.
So.......I continue to wonder, what is the current best theory among biologists to explain this feature of human biology. Anyone?
So.......I continue to wonder, what is the current best theory among biologists to explain this feature of human biology. Anyone?
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Evolutionary Puzzle of Concealed Ovulation
Comments on The Accidental Mind, by David J. Linden
I am fascinated by this excellent book. It deals with how the brain, especially the mind, has evolved, and emphasizes that the brain is not an efficiently designed gizmo. Rather, he arguer that it is a serendipitous kludge put together willy-nilly through many diverse evolutionary steps, with many subsystems inefficiently built on top of each other. It is a tightly argued book, and makes good cases for explaining how brain evolution gives rise to a wide range of human behaviors and emotions (love, memory, dreams, and God, as stated on the cover).
However, one argument he makes leaves me puzzled. He discusses, on page 149, the question “why do humans have concealed ovulation and recreational sex?”. This is, seemingly, two different questions, is it not? The first part, about concealed ovulation, is very interesting to speculate on from the perspective of evolution. The second part of the question though seems to me to be not a weighty one. For isn’t the obvious answer that it is fun and feels good? Don’t all animals, in a sense, engage in recreational sex? No animal, as far as I can tell, does it because it is intentionally going about the business of procreating. Now, that of course is the effect of it, and in fact why nature has made it feel good. If it didn’t, an animal would be disinclined to perform the act, and its genes would not be in the gene pool. So it seems to me. I am a simple layman in this area, so I could be way off base here, and maybe not fully understanding some subtlety in the question.
Let me turn to the first part of the question, that about concealed ovulation. He presents a hypothesis to answer this, attributed to Noonan and Alexander of the University of Michigan. This hypothesis is that concealed ovulation evolved as a means of keeping the male around. Reasonable sounding, as one can see that from a game theory perspective that if ovulation were evident to a male, he might leave upon having sex with an ovulating female to have impregnate another female. Since he is not sure, and he doesn’t want to take a chance that any offspring that the first women has are in fact from another male, he sticks around. He does not want to waste resources raising another males offspring (which would not propagate his genes). Presumably, a male sticking around does, according to this explanation, tend to increase the chances of the woman’s offspring surviving and passing on her genes. Amusing if this is true: maybe this is an indication that we males are good for something after all.
We must quickly add though that male usefulness may not follow as being true today. A protective male could have been much more useful in prehistoric times to provide protection against invaders, predators, and other violent enemies.
But it is not so clear to me that this hypothesis makes sense from a “selfish gene” point of view (the Richard Dawkins book of that name makes perfect sense to me, so I look at everything about evolution from that perspective). It seems to involve assuming that a given male consciously wants to maximize his genes representation in the gene pool, doesn’t it? And as I said above, it seems to me that all animals, including humans, engage in sexual activity because of the pleasure it brings. Putting ones genes into the gene pool, i.e., procreating, is a byproduct from the animal’s point of view.
The other thing that bothers me is that this Noonan-Alexander hypothesis only seems to explain why ovulation is hidden from the male. It is not clear that it explains why it is hidden from the female as well, who will have, presumably, a more nuanced sense of what her body is doing that an external male would have.
Why, I wonder, do people not consider what seems to me to be a more simple explanation of concealed ovulation? Namely this: humans have gradually evolved conceptual knowledge of consequences, or “cause and effect”, and must have long ago (in prehistoric times) figured out that the sex act could result in babies. Perhaps, once a woman knew that to be the case, she would be more inclined to abstain from sex when she was aware that she was ovulating. If she did abstain, she would be able to enjoy all the “recreational sex” she wanted, but she would less likely to be impregnated. To be sure, there have no doubt been times when a woman wanted to have children, but it is easy to imagine that babies could have been a severe burden at many times in human history. Hence, on this view, the woman that somehow mutated a tendency to conceal the fertile times could give rise to more offspring than would a woman that avoided sex when she knew she was ovulating. The latter type of woman would be gradually supplanted in the gene pool, and women with concealed ovulation would thrive.
I seem to recall that in one of the many books I have read on “evolutionary biology” that this theory of mine has been considered by others and soundly rejected. If anyone can enlighten me as to exactly why it is faulty, I would be most grateful.
Note: There is a wikipedia entry on "concealed ovulation", but it does not discuss why it evolved. It does point out that some other mammals, such as rhesus monkeys, have it.
I am fascinated by this excellent book. It deals with how the brain, especially the mind, has evolved, and emphasizes that the brain is not an efficiently designed gizmo. Rather, he arguer that it is a serendipitous kludge put together willy-nilly through many diverse evolutionary steps, with many subsystems inefficiently built on top of each other. It is a tightly argued book, and makes good cases for explaining how brain evolution gives rise to a wide range of human behaviors and emotions (love, memory, dreams, and God, as stated on the cover).
However, one argument he makes leaves me puzzled. He discusses, on page 149, the question “why do humans have concealed ovulation and recreational sex?”. This is, seemingly, two different questions, is it not? The first part, about concealed ovulation, is very interesting to speculate on from the perspective of evolution. The second part of the question though seems to me to be not a weighty one. For isn’t the obvious answer that it is fun and feels good? Don’t all animals, in a sense, engage in recreational sex? No animal, as far as I can tell, does it because it is intentionally going about the business of procreating. Now, that of course is the effect of it, and in fact why nature has made it feel good. If it didn’t, an animal would be disinclined to perform the act, and its genes would not be in the gene pool. So it seems to me. I am a simple layman in this area, so I could be way off base here, and maybe not fully understanding some subtlety in the question.
Let me turn to the first part of the question, that about concealed ovulation. He presents a hypothesis to answer this, attributed to Noonan and Alexander of the University of Michigan. This hypothesis is that concealed ovulation evolved as a means of keeping the male around. Reasonable sounding, as one can see that from a game theory perspective that if ovulation were evident to a male, he might leave upon having sex with an ovulating female to have impregnate another female. Since he is not sure, and he doesn’t want to take a chance that any offspring that the first women has are in fact from another male, he sticks around. He does not want to waste resources raising another males offspring (which would not propagate his genes). Presumably, a male sticking around does, according to this explanation, tend to increase the chances of the woman’s offspring surviving and passing on her genes. Amusing if this is true: maybe this is an indication that we males are good for something after all.
We must quickly add though that male usefulness may not follow as being true today. A protective male could have been much more useful in prehistoric times to provide protection against invaders, predators, and other violent enemies.
But it is not so clear to me that this hypothesis makes sense from a “selfish gene” point of view (the Richard Dawkins book of that name makes perfect sense to me, so I look at everything about evolution from that perspective). It seems to involve assuming that a given male consciously wants to maximize his genes representation in the gene pool, doesn’t it? And as I said above, it seems to me that all animals, including humans, engage in sexual activity because of the pleasure it brings. Putting ones genes into the gene pool, i.e., procreating, is a byproduct from the animal’s point of view.
The other thing that bothers me is that this Noonan-Alexander hypothesis only seems to explain why ovulation is hidden from the male. It is not clear that it explains why it is hidden from the female as well, who will have, presumably, a more nuanced sense of what her body is doing that an external male would have.
Why, I wonder, do people not consider what seems to me to be a more simple explanation of concealed ovulation? Namely this: humans have gradually evolved conceptual knowledge of consequences, or “cause and effect”, and must have long ago (in prehistoric times) figured out that the sex act could result in babies. Perhaps, once a woman knew that to be the case, she would be more inclined to abstain from sex when she was aware that she was ovulating. If she did abstain, she would be able to enjoy all the “recreational sex” she wanted, but she would less likely to be impregnated. To be sure, there have no doubt been times when a woman wanted to have children, but it is easy to imagine that babies could have been a severe burden at many times in human history. Hence, on this view, the woman that somehow mutated a tendency to conceal the fertile times could give rise to more offspring than would a woman that avoided sex when she knew she was ovulating. The latter type of woman would be gradually supplanted in the gene pool, and women with concealed ovulation would thrive.
I seem to recall that in one of the many books I have read on “evolutionary biology” that this theory of mine has been considered by others and soundly rejected. If anyone can enlighten me as to exactly why it is faulty, I would be most grateful.
Note: There is a wikipedia entry on "concealed ovulation", but it does not discuss why it evolved. It does point out that some other mammals, such as rhesus monkeys, have it.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Some Skeptical Reflections on Religious Belief…Part 1
Based on personal associations and numerous conversations with religious, church-going people, over the course of my 65 years of life, it seems to me that relatively few of them believe their religion to be actually true. The tendency is to believe it useful, either as way to make one feel secure, or often as a belief that the social ethics demand some measure of lip service to a superhuman, moral code-giving being. Maybe a strong element of hope, usually for a continued existence after death, enters in. I say this at some risk of stating what many skeptics might regard as obviously true. However, let us recognize, right off, that a given religion is either true or false. We cannot, of course, know by the methods of scientific inquiry whether they are true…if one of them is in fact true, I suppose we may find out “later” (upon death).
I’ll lay my cards on the table here, and say that my strong suspicion is that they are all, in essence, false. There might be elements of truth to some or even all of them, but I am speaking here of taking any particular one of them as a whole.
I am an American, born and raised in what might be called “Christian bible belt” regions of the US, so I will also confess to having a limited perspective on all of this. I have had very limited direct social exposure to people of the Islamic persuasion, and here have to rely on what I have read. I have had slightly more exposure to those of the Judaic faith, but considerably more to those within the various Christian sects. Indeed, as a child, I was raised Presbyterian, but rather quickly, in my formative years of college, rejected it all as being largely delusional.
I have no quarrel with those who believe their religion to be true. I will refer to these as “Type 1”, or simply T1, believers, while the ones basing their association on tradition and/or usefulness, I will call “Type 2” (T2) believers. My guess is that T1’s are not the ones committing the atrocities, terror, and wars (recently so thoroughly illuminated and expounded upon by such writers of an atheistic persuasion such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins).
An important element in the faith of many people is the ethnic or family tradition associated with their particular religion. We can scarcely doubt this, can we?---just look at the world. Is it a coincidence that those raised in Christian countries are Christian, etc etc? This group-tribe-family-clan association with a particular belief, a given tradition that one is born into, has surely been a predominant factor throughout all of human and perhaps pre-human history.
It is easy to regard those of a different tradition are somehow strange, bizarre, odd, less good and wholesome than those of ones own tribal belief. Compounding this is the fact that often the religions are associated with groups of humans having recognizably different anatomical features, making it easier to view each other as less intrinsically important, or worthy of being allowed to live in peace. We humans have a very strong inclination to be “group-ish”, a phenomena well investigated by Matt Ridley in his book “The Origins of Human Virtue”, and this groupishness has bad consequences in more global contexts.
Does a T1 really want to kill or injure someone who believes a different religion? I very much doubt it. It is the T2’s, driven mainly by group identity and an atavistic hatred for groups that are recognizably “other”, that gravitate toward violence.
One very strong hint that, in the US at least, Christian T1’s are rare is that death seems to be widely lamented as tragic. Yet Christianity seems to promise, for the “good” believers at least, a blissful post-death existence. Do people grieve because they fear their lost loved one has gone to Hell? I doubt it, though maybe this is occasionally the case. Rather, I imagine, they really hold a deep-down fear that the departed loved one has ceased to exist. In effect, they are “T2’s”.
We often see books of a Christian persuasion asking “Why do bad things [e.g., death from cancer or accident] happen to good [usually read “Christian”] people”. But, come on---if death is a release from this “vale of tears” and fallen world, as they seem to maintain that it is----would they not rejoice at the “good people” being “rescued” from it? The simple explanation for this excessive lamenting—and I of course do not blame them from my point of view, since I think it quite possible that death is non-existence---is that they do not really believe, with their whole hearts, the eschatological teachings of their religion. Yep---T2’s!
Now to be fair, I recall that a Christian philosopher—it may have been Scott Peck---said that he “believed” Christianity [and Heaven] to be true, but did not “know” it to be true. An interesting, and perhaps valid, distinction. We could digress here, and consider what “belief” means, and what “knowing” means, but I shall postpone it.
I also want to draw a sharp distinction between belief in any of the world’s religions, and a suspicion that “there is something behind the universe”. Indeed, the old question “Why is there something rather than nothing” seems to me to be at least a justified emotion, albeit a question that we cannot answer by methods of science (or any other method that I can think of). It does not follow that it is a meaningless question, but I realize I need more space to establish this, and will also postpone that for now. My guess is that there is “something”, but whatever it is as far beyond our comprehension as general relativity is beyond a dog or cat. Is there any kind of continued, post death, existence?---I do not know. Do I hope there is? I am really not sure of that, especially since I cannot really imagine what form that might take. And as Woody Allen has the fantastically advanced alien say, in hurriedly departing in his spacecraft, “we may be asking the wrong questions”, but we may not be able to even comprehend what questions we should be asking.
This is “to be continued” in a later post.
I’ll lay my cards on the table here, and say that my strong suspicion is that they are all, in essence, false. There might be elements of truth to some or even all of them, but I am speaking here of taking any particular one of them as a whole.
I am an American, born and raised in what might be called “Christian bible belt” regions of the US, so I will also confess to having a limited perspective on all of this. I have had very limited direct social exposure to people of the Islamic persuasion, and here have to rely on what I have read. I have had slightly more exposure to those of the Judaic faith, but considerably more to those within the various Christian sects. Indeed, as a child, I was raised Presbyterian, but rather quickly, in my formative years of college, rejected it all as being largely delusional.
I have no quarrel with those who believe their religion to be true. I will refer to these as “Type 1”, or simply T1, believers, while the ones basing their association on tradition and/or usefulness, I will call “Type 2” (T2) believers. My guess is that T1’s are not the ones committing the atrocities, terror, and wars (recently so thoroughly illuminated and expounded upon by such writers of an atheistic persuasion such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins).
An important element in the faith of many people is the ethnic or family tradition associated with their particular religion. We can scarcely doubt this, can we?---just look at the world. Is it a coincidence that those raised in Christian countries are Christian, etc etc? This group-tribe-family-clan association with a particular belief, a given tradition that one is born into, has surely been a predominant factor throughout all of human and perhaps pre-human history.
It is easy to regard those of a different tradition are somehow strange, bizarre, odd, less good and wholesome than those of ones own tribal belief. Compounding this is the fact that often the religions are associated with groups of humans having recognizably different anatomical features, making it easier to view each other as less intrinsically important, or worthy of being allowed to live in peace. We humans have a very strong inclination to be “group-ish”, a phenomena well investigated by Matt Ridley in his book “The Origins of Human Virtue”, and this groupishness has bad consequences in more global contexts.
Does a T1 really want to kill or injure someone who believes a different religion? I very much doubt it. It is the T2’s, driven mainly by group identity and an atavistic hatred for groups that are recognizably “other”, that gravitate toward violence.
One very strong hint that, in the US at least, Christian T1’s are rare is that death seems to be widely lamented as tragic. Yet Christianity seems to promise, for the “good” believers at least, a blissful post-death existence. Do people grieve because they fear their lost loved one has gone to Hell? I doubt it, though maybe this is occasionally the case. Rather, I imagine, they really hold a deep-down fear that the departed loved one has ceased to exist. In effect, they are “T2’s”.
We often see books of a Christian persuasion asking “Why do bad things [e.g., death from cancer or accident] happen to good [usually read “Christian”] people”. But, come on---if death is a release from this “vale of tears” and fallen world, as they seem to maintain that it is----would they not rejoice at the “good people” being “rescued” from it? The simple explanation for this excessive lamenting—and I of course do not blame them from my point of view, since I think it quite possible that death is non-existence---is that they do not really believe, with their whole hearts, the eschatological teachings of their religion. Yep---T2’s!
Now to be fair, I recall that a Christian philosopher—it may have been Scott Peck---said that he “believed” Christianity [and Heaven] to be true, but did not “know” it to be true. An interesting, and perhaps valid, distinction. We could digress here, and consider what “belief” means, and what “knowing” means, but I shall postpone it.
I also want to draw a sharp distinction between belief in any of the world’s religions, and a suspicion that “there is something behind the universe”. Indeed, the old question “Why is there something rather than nothing” seems to me to be at least a justified emotion, albeit a question that we cannot answer by methods of science (or any other method that I can think of). It does not follow that it is a meaningless question, but I realize I need more space to establish this, and will also postpone that for now. My guess is that there is “something”, but whatever it is as far beyond our comprehension as general relativity is beyond a dog or cat. Is there any kind of continued, post death, existence?---I do not know. Do I hope there is? I am really not sure of that, especially since I cannot really imagine what form that might take. And as Woody Allen has the fantastically advanced alien say, in hurriedly departing in his spacecraft, “we may be asking the wrong questions”, but we may not be able to even comprehend what questions we should be asking.
This is “to be continued” in a later post.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
On the short stories of Lord Dunsany
Many of the fantasy short stories of Lord Dunsany, written in the early 20th century, evoke a certain odd flavor, an atmosphere of magic, somehow child-like in perspective, but at the same time sophisticated and droll. He had the unusual ability to combine humor with seriousness. I always get the feeling that the humor is rather in the spirit of saying, with a wink to the comprehending reader, "You and I know this is serious, and full of wonder....but we need to act as if we mean it in fun, lest we embarrass ourselves to those who do not believe in, or understand, the wonderful tales of old". Something like that anyway. As I think Ursala K LeGuin has somewhere pointed out, Dunsany (along with James Branch Cabell), was able to use humor without undercutting the sense of wonder.
Dunsany almost never used dialogue in his stories, choosing instead his own characteristic way of paraphrasing what a character said or thought. Many have said that he was long on style, but short on plot, and this is probably true. But it is irrelevant to what we might find special in his works. He was really more of a poet. The vantage point is often that of the small child who maybe thinks that the world is flat, that rainbows are other-worldly, and that amazingly different beings and creatures of faery dwell just over the next hill, or over the horizon. Many realists will probably find his stories silly, but, according to LeGuin, Dunsany has a widespread appeal to scientists. Oddly, Dunsany was apparently fascinated by technology--in contrast to, say, Tolkein and Lewis who seemed to evince "Luddite"-like distrust of it.
Today, most people you meet do not seem to have even heard of Dunsany, even though a web search will turn up sites written by a great many enthusiasts. H. P. Lovecraft was an adorer of Dunsany's work, calling it "crystalline singing prose", and himself went through an early phase where he imitated the style. Arthur C. Clark considered the last pages of The Charwoman's Shadow as the most beautiful and sadly nostalgic ever written. Philosopher Martin Gardner is also a Dunsany lover, and titled one of his books after a Dunsany phrase, "The Night is Large and Full of Wonder".
Those who want an epic fantasy, such as Lord of the Rings, will probably want to look elsewhere. As will those, I think, who want deep and subtle characterization, for it is largely absent in Dunsany's fantasy work. By the way, Dunsay also wrote plays of a more realistic nature, which were rather more well known in the mid 20th century. For example, I recall that the main character in Sinclair Lewis's novel Main Street, a culturally ambitious woman named Carol, living in the small town of Gopher, Minnesota, organizes a production of one of Dunsany's plays.
He wrote two fantasy novels, The King of Elfland's Daughter, and The Charwoman's Shadow. Both contain some beautiful passages, but tend to be a bit hard to get into.
My favorites are his short stories. I especially love "The Last Journey of the King", "The Ebb and Flow", "The Sword of Welleran", "Blagdross", "The Kith of the Elf-folk", and "The Three Sailor's Gambit". This last one is a quite amusing chess tale (Dunsany was a chess master, one of the highest ranked in Ireland at the time, I believe), but also contains many poetical passages.
"The Last Journey of the King" is a heart breaker, and concerns an aging king inquiring of his bevy of wise men what awaits him in the after-life. They each have their own versions to tell him, and each tale is of astonishing and soul wrenching beauty. There is always a thread of cynicism toward worldly things running through Dunsany's stories, and "The Kith of the Elf-folk" contains a heady dose of it while remaining gloriously poetical. The central character is a small marsh elf who has a go at being human with a "soul", but decides to go back to its Elvin existence in the end. His cynicism toward worldly pursuits comes out in "Blagdross", where he makes the poignant observation that sometimes, upon "seeing gold", people grow larger in their bodies while shrinking in their soul. I think will few dispute that, but none can put it so marvelously.
Dunsany almost never used dialogue in his stories, choosing instead his own characteristic way of paraphrasing what a character said or thought. Many have said that he was long on style, but short on plot, and this is probably true. But it is irrelevant to what we might find special in his works. He was really more of a poet. The vantage point is often that of the small child who maybe thinks that the world is flat, that rainbows are other-worldly, and that amazingly different beings and creatures of faery dwell just over the next hill, or over the horizon. Many realists will probably find his stories silly, but, according to LeGuin, Dunsany has a widespread appeal to scientists. Oddly, Dunsany was apparently fascinated by technology--in contrast to, say, Tolkein and Lewis who seemed to evince "Luddite"-like distrust of it.
Today, most people you meet do not seem to have even heard of Dunsany, even though a web search will turn up sites written by a great many enthusiasts. H. P. Lovecraft was an adorer of Dunsany's work, calling it "crystalline singing prose", and himself went through an early phase where he imitated the style. Arthur C. Clark considered the last pages of The Charwoman's Shadow as the most beautiful and sadly nostalgic ever written. Philosopher Martin Gardner is also a Dunsany lover, and titled one of his books after a Dunsany phrase, "The Night is Large and Full of Wonder".
Those who want an epic fantasy, such as Lord of the Rings, will probably want to look elsewhere. As will those, I think, who want deep and subtle characterization, for it is largely absent in Dunsany's fantasy work. By the way, Dunsay also wrote plays of a more realistic nature, which were rather more well known in the mid 20th century. For example, I recall that the main character in Sinclair Lewis's novel Main Street, a culturally ambitious woman named Carol, living in the small town of Gopher, Minnesota, organizes a production of one of Dunsany's plays.
He wrote two fantasy novels, The King of Elfland's Daughter, and The Charwoman's Shadow. Both contain some beautiful passages, but tend to be a bit hard to get into.
My favorites are his short stories. I especially love "The Last Journey of the King", "The Ebb and Flow", "The Sword of Welleran", "Blagdross", "The Kith of the Elf-folk", and "The Three Sailor's Gambit". This last one is a quite amusing chess tale (Dunsany was a chess master, one of the highest ranked in Ireland at the time, I believe), but also contains many poetical passages.
"The Last Journey of the King" is a heart breaker, and concerns an aging king inquiring of his bevy of wise men what awaits him in the after-life. They each have their own versions to tell him, and each tale is of astonishing and soul wrenching beauty. There is always a thread of cynicism toward worldly things running through Dunsany's stories, and "The Kith of the Elf-folk" contains a heady dose of it while remaining gloriously poetical. The central character is a small marsh elf who has a go at being human with a "soul", but decides to go back to its Elvin existence in the end. His cynicism toward worldly pursuits comes out in "Blagdross", where he makes the poignant observation that sometimes, upon "seeing gold", people grow larger in their bodies while shrinking in their soul. I think will few dispute that, but none can put it so marvelously.
Christianity Useful or True? A seeming contradiction.
More often than not, it would seem to me, people don’t discuss Christianity in terms of its truth or falsity as such. Rather, they seem to assume that the issue is one of merely social convention. That is to say, they seem to assume it false, but then want to debate its usefulness nevertheless. I doubt if they would consciously admit to that, but perhaps it is somehow assumed under the conscious surface as the starting point.
That would be an odd attitude, in my view. If Christianity is false, then “to hell” with its usefulness---who wants to live a lie? (maybe this is the point that escapes me however---maybe most people feel deep down that the best strategy is to convince themselves at some conscious level of the truth of a comforting and personally rewarding religion, and then ignore any arguments against it, at least at a conscious level). I believe we can detect a sort of “double standard” here, which reinforces my suspicion that Christianity is not really as fully believed as would be expected based on church attendance or church affiliation. This particular religion involves the promise and the belief that this world is somehow, in some sense, fallen, and that a much better world (“Heaven”) potentially awaits those who qualify it (what exactly “qualify” means here is a topic that we must defer, because interpretations of Christianity by the various sects, denominations, and theologians, differ greatly---some argue that only a tiny fraction of humanity will go on to this greater reality, while at the other end, some argue that all will be “saved”, and enjoy a wonderful, everlasting, paradise.). But, in my experience, Christians still seem to mourn and grieve over the death of loved ones and friends, as if their death is a horrible thing. If they truly believed they had escaped this earthly quagmire of moral decay, and were enjoying infinite bliss at home with God, then they would rejoice (though perhaps still allowing some sadness because they missed the departed, much as an inmate of a concentration camp might view the escape his friend into freedom. He would miss the companionship of his friend, but would rejoice that at least he was now free).
That would be an odd attitude, in my view. If Christianity is false, then “to hell” with its usefulness---who wants to live a lie? (maybe this is the point that escapes me however---maybe most people feel deep down that the best strategy is to convince themselves at some conscious level of the truth of a comforting and personally rewarding religion, and then ignore any arguments against it, at least at a conscious level). I believe we can detect a sort of “double standard” here, which reinforces my suspicion that Christianity is not really as fully believed as would be expected based on church attendance or church affiliation. This particular religion involves the promise and the belief that this world is somehow, in some sense, fallen, and that a much better world (“Heaven”) potentially awaits those who qualify it (what exactly “qualify” means here is a topic that we must defer, because interpretations of Christianity by the various sects, denominations, and theologians, differ greatly---some argue that only a tiny fraction of humanity will go on to this greater reality, while at the other end, some argue that all will be “saved”, and enjoy a wonderful, everlasting, paradise.). But, in my experience, Christians still seem to mourn and grieve over the death of loved ones and friends, as if their death is a horrible thing. If they truly believed they had escaped this earthly quagmire of moral decay, and were enjoying infinite bliss at home with God, then they would rejoice (though perhaps still allowing some sadness because they missed the departed, much as an inmate of a concentration camp might view the escape his friend into freedom. He would miss the companionship of his friend, but would rejoice that at least he was now free).
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