29 May 2004

Despair,
so fair
A lover,
rare,
A beauty,
sweet
So deep
I drink
of her.

( C: 1 )

25 May 2004

I’m curious are to your thoughts concerning artistic criticism. What makes great art just that? What delineates between the great artist and the good artist?

Clearly, there is a significant difference between Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and your average art major, in terms of the overall quality of their work. A poor artist can be identified by the nature of his/her work - the figures tend to be stiff, the eyes dead, and the proportions off. But how does one critique those artists whose art intentionally creates figures with those characteristics?

I would say consistency - that is, poor artists are unable to maintain uniformity throughout their art. Parts are well-done and parts are not; but the great artist is able to bring uniformity of style and skill to the entire work. And while the style may not require the greatest skill, the skill is still there, apparent in consistency.

This topic is brought on, first, through a discussion with a friend on critical reaction to Tolkien’s writing. As I was surprised to discover, the reaction to Tolkien was (and is) largely negative. I was surprised - in my mind, Tolkien was brilliant in language and story... especially in the Silmarillion, which is the crowning jewel of his literature. I find the language and story to be breathtaking. I always have. (And well it should be, since Tolkien was a philologist.) But to the critic (I suppose), Tolkien was dense and redundant. His stories, while seeped in historical depth, lacked character depth - that is, his characters were largely mythical characters. They are larger (or, as it were, smaller) than life, and therefore not easily identified as real - at least, not in the same way, say, Dickens’s characters are.

I’m intuiting the nature of the critiques, since I’ve not found them on the Net.

The problem with critiquing Tolkien is this: he was not writing a modern book, not following the modern thought on literary theory. He was writing a myth, something which is of a different texture than the modern book. (Tolkien himself wrote a paper on the literary merits of Beowulf - a story most critics judged harshly, since a “better” writer would not have needed to resort to creating monsters to tell a story.) Myths do not deal with people, per se - they are concerned with archetypes... which would be the “shallow” characters critics reject.

This leads me to a question: what determines great literature? By what standards do we judge it to be great? Does time prove a work great? Popularity surely doesn’t; neither does enjoyment - the mass of people enjoy the Da Vinci Code and yet the authors did not know enough of Leonardo to know that “Da Vinci” was not a surname, but rather a statement of his origins.

Does time prove the veracity of art? This, I would say, might be the greatest judge - for great authors and works tend to change the surroundings, and bend criticism and inspiration to their side.

This brought on, second, by this poem. It isn’t bad... but neither is it great. In fact, it is rather bland and passe, the kind of poem I’ve read a thousand times before. And yet the author is in a doctoral program for creative writing? One would expect more.

So, I ask - how do we judge art to be great?

( C: 3 )

23 May 2004

If you have no interest in a) short snippets of character interaction which are b) written for education purposes (i.e., in order to better write dialogue) and c) are given without context, do not read on. If you are interested in such things, read on. The final snippet is based on a genuine experience in New York.

Read on...

( C: 0 )

I apologize for the less-than-lucid thoughts over the last several days. The haze I live in has increased as of late; I’m almost wholly dependant on my intuition as a means of considering the world. I can perceive, but not understand. Feel but not reason. Observe but not control. Logic tends to flee me at these times, so forgive any ill-reasoned posts in the near past and near future. I am posting verbatim scrawing, and I have no idea if what I’ve written in my journals makes sense to anyone other than me - or, if understandable, the things I write are True. Caveat emptor.

With that in mind, to the main stage we go:

Christianity acknowledges the relativity of man -- that we, in the dark, will unwittingly go anywhere and do anything. In absolute dark, how does one know the right way? All directions are equal; none may say, “This way is better.” Well, one might say this, and guide others that way - but who knows if that is best? In darkness, none can truly know. Pain may be a warning - or evidence of a hallway wall, a path to a better place. Time might prove the veracity of the path, but the end of time is always death, and death (so absolute) does not allow for reflection. Yes, all things are relative.

Yet assume one could see in this dark - how would the others react to this? Vision would be ludicrous to them - it would be absurd, unnatural. Something utterly impossible to consider.

( C: 1 )

21 May 2004

[Reflections on a girl]

The far end of the room - there sits a girl. She speaks at her friend, who sits across the table, staring blankly at his magazine.

She leans back in her chair (Kris is her name; her friend finally spoke) and the words flow naturally from her mouth:

“That’s f***ing awesome, ” she snorts, expression unchanged.

Then leaning toward her friend, “I don’t f***ing understand.”

Her face mechanically forms expression, and her eyes... her eyes emptily do the same. I look again; and again the same face, the same practiced movements under the skin.

And she exclaims and argues and mutters and speaks. It (employment, I suppose... but I wonder if she speaks of life) is, “F***ing unbelievable”.

She is attractive, I suppose, though I cannot believe it. Physically - well, what is the physical? It is not the whole. It is a part, and therefore significant in its way. And yet it is transient - and therefore lacks ultimate significance. So what good is the temporary part when the eternal does not function?

At best, it is good for a moment of pleasure, a second of leisure, to be admired for a moment and walked away from - because, once the moment is gone, what more is there?

Can I blame those who do this? Who move on without thought? Do they display wisdom or ignorance?

For this is a paradox: no matter how fleeting, she is (fleeting as a feather is fleeting; unlike the towers which do not move), she is still eternal. Eternal and significant because someone has deemed her so. And yet she is fleeting. How can that be?

And so I can blame those who may pass her by. Were she merely what she was, I could not blame those people - because they would be displaying the wisdom of those who know things as they are.

“I mean, S**t, she didn’t...”

Call it the opinions of youth. Call it immaturity or cattishness. Call it what you will. I call it bile, for the words coming from her mouth are no different than that substance than that which the body secretes as a natural function.

For her, this is a natural function, for her, a thoughtless thing, constant and biological.

I wonder what natural purpose physical bile serves. But this bile... I see its purpose. Its color is black, like the lie it is the substance of. The lie of life - the lie she so desires to believe.

Well, does she believe this? Faith must be grounded in some reality. Belief, then, requires something to believe in - something substantial (Am I blurring definitions?) The centurion said, “I believe, help my unbelief” and Christ responded, “I have not seen faith such as this in all of Israel.” So, I do not blur definitions.

So, faith requires reality. If the reality isn’t there... it isn’t properly called faith. Call it what you will - spirituality, or new age mysticism. Neither of these requires substance, just a faithful non-faith, the kind which is sans the requirements of true faith.

[Coffee shop closes, and I walk out. Perhaps I’ll continue these ruminations another day.]

( C: 0 )

20 May 2004

This is an example of the beauty of language that can be discovered in Tolkien’s Silmarillion, and not (so much) in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It’s part of the “Lay of Leithian”, an epic poem several thousand lines long... Someday, I’d like to write something similar (Arden’s Battle was a beginning). This is the language which I love:
Read on...

( C: 3 )

C.S. Lewis answers the question, “Which books most influenced your life?”

I’m not sure how I’d answer that. I’ll list some influences, in no particular order. A list like this is difficult; the more I reflect on it, the more I realize that most of what I read (though I enjoy it) is nothing more than pulp fiction - it tilliates for the moment, then can be forgotten. For example, I love Stephen Lawhead, but his writing doesn’t have the lingering power of, say, Tolkien’s Silmarillion.

1. C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed
2. Kierkegaard (in general, since I have none of his full works)
3. John Eldridge’s “Sacred Romance” (though I haven’t re-read it lately to see if that should still be the case)
4. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, though I suppose that the Silmarillion has had a greater impact on me, in terms of my understanding of the beauty of language.

Ah, this is difficult. I need to read books of greater value. I can certainly list books which have influenced me greatly in the past, but whose influence has gone by the wayside.

( C: 2 )

An article on the possibility of intelligent design. It’s not overly technical, but its worth reading.

( C: 0 )

19 May 2004

Ever heard the comment, “Jesus was a rebel”?

It is a foolish statement, one that diminishes the person of Christ.

What is the nature of a rebel? A rebel is one who fights against the established order. That much is true. A rebel may fight for either a good or an evil, but a rebel is fundamentally one who comes against what is in the hope of destroying that thing, and creating a new order. A rebel is not an invader. He is a product of the system; a violent reformer. He was part of the system and now seeks to destroy it, since he believes he has found a better way. And he is at odds with that system for just those reasons.

Tell me, in what way is Christ a rebel?

Was he a product of the system? (That is, did his views develop because he saw something wrong with the world as it was? If so, Christ is nothing more than a social reformer. He is nothing more than a man.)

Was he that reformer? (Did he want to change the system, the religion? If so, he was no different than Martin Luther King. A good man, perhaps, but a man nonetheless.)

Did he seek to replace the system with a similar one? (There is nothing new on this earth. Governments may replace governments of different philosophies, but they are all fundamentally the same - man rules man. If Christ sought to tear down the government and place himself on the throne, then he was nothing more than a power monger.)

In what way did Christ behave as a rebel? He shares none of the characteristics of rebels - none of the desire for violent change, none of the desires for reform, and none of the desires for power. He behaves in a manner contrary to that of rebels. He tells his followers to submit to persecution peacefully (not only that, too expect and rejoice in it). He spurns those who would give him power, and sets events in motion that cause his death. Are these the actions of a rebel leader?

Christ did not seek revolution because revolution was unnecessary - to call for a revolution would be fatuous. For Christ is the King of this world; this was his claim. Can a king rebel? Against whom would he rebel? He could only rebel against himself, for the king is the de facto ruler, the government. He is the established ruler, against whom all others stand.

Explain to me again. How is Christ a rebel? Can he rebel against himself? Can a house divided stand?

No. To call Christ a rebel is to reduce him to merely human. And to worship such a man would be worthless.

( C: 4 )

I rarely delve into political issues, since they are of secondary concern for me, but here are two political blogs concerned with the Middle East which are must-reads. As they are written by Muslims in the Middle East, they’re more insightful than the news I read over here.

Iraq the Model, written by several men who live in Iraq (Baghdad, I believe).
The Religious Policeman, written by a man who lives in the oppressive Saudi Arabia.

( C: 0 )

17 May 2004

What is a poet? A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music. His fate is like that of the unfortunate victims whom the tyrant Phalaris imprisoned in a brazen bull and slowly tortured over a steady fire; their cries could not reach the tyrant’s ears so as to strike terror into his heart; when they reached his ears they sounded like sweet music. And men crowd about the poet and say to him: “Sing for us soon again”; that is as much as to say: “May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be formed as before; for the cries would only frighten us, but the music is delicious.” And the critics come, too, and say: “Quite correct, and so it ought to be according to the rules of aesthetics.” Now it is understood that a critic resembles a poet to a hair: he only lacks the suffering in his heart and the music upon his lips. Lo, therefore, I would rather be a swineherd from Amager, and be understood by the swine, than be a poet and be misunderstood by men.

( C: 1 )

16 May 2004

I’ll probably be posting now.

( C: 1 )

14 May 2004

I’ll be gone over the weekend. Light to no blogging. Alas and alack.

( C: 0 )

13 May 2004

Dinking around with this. More editing surely to come. It is based off an ancient Celtic poem.

The essence of the poem is the same, though I have changed the verbage, made it more rhythmic, and shifted the order around a bit. Poems lose much in translation - the literal meaning is there, but the power is often gone, since the greatest speakers tend to rely considerably on the natural ebb and flow of their language. I tried to add a bit of that flow back in.

I am high bard to Ephin,
Though my country is of the summer stars
My naming was Merridin,
But Taliesin shall be known to all.

I was with the Lord of the Heavens
When Satan fell into hell;
I bore Alexander’s banner,
I gave Moses strength of hand.

I saw the slaying of Absalom,
And protected the birth of Gwydion;
I shed tears at the death of Our Christ,
In Arianrod spent three lengths of life.

In the East I was there with Noah,
And fled Sodom and Gomorrah;
I was in India when they built Roma,
I now come to the remnant of Troia.

I guarded our Christ in the manger,
I know the names of the stars;
I will be until these days end,
I am not of this land.

I am Taliesin.

( C: 0 )