The Panchatantra

 As with any fabliau, this volume errs on the side of entertainment at the expense of practicality. this is to be expected from the framing conceit: a wise man promises to teach the recalcitrant young princes virtue, so naturally he does it in the most entertaining way possible.  As such, there is as large a share of contradiction as there is in the body of aphorisms as a whole.  A stitch in time saves nine, but don't count your chickens before  they're hatched.  Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, but beware of Greeks bearing gifts.  Etc.  

In the Panchatantra, this fault is almost glaring.  Should you make use of your enemy, or distrust them?  Be clever and sneaky, or honest and forthright?  There are stories to support both sides of every argument, and no conclusion seems reachable.  Entertaining, but hardly instructive.

Until, that is, the fifth and final tantra.  Under the heading "Action Without Due Consideration", we find a series of stories almost satirizing the exact phenomenon observed above.  In several variations, learned men come to ruin because they overrely on the shastras to solve their problems.  What a lesson!  The narrator:

Promised to teach the dull-witted princes everything they needed.

Proceeded to offer four books of colorful but contradictory lessons.

Tie it up with how colorful but contradictory lessons are dangerous, and how real wisdom is to just be good and use common sense. 

Misson accomplished!  This too is foma!  All hail Bokonon!

In other words, this book was fun and engaging on its own, easily as good as Aesop or La Fontaine--but it ended up being even better because it knew to wink at itself, and address the central questions on a much deeper level than could be done with a simple fable. 

Sandra Anne Taylor: The Akashic Records Made Easy

 Here is an example of a title that is both true and false in equally upsetting measure.  The book itself is too easy to be useful, and what it advertises as easy is in fact ineffable and impossible.  It fails to reach any depth, and correspondingly is ineffective.  I am left with the question, as I ever am, is what I experience when I follow the instructions in this sort of book merely the product of my own imagination, or does it come from without?  My own dreams are consistently vivid and fantastic.  It is clearly well within the ability of my own mind to invent things that have the trappings of reality, and are alien enough to seem to come from without.  Surely the relatively less vivid and fantastic things I perceive in meditation could be of the same source. 

Alternatively, have I had it backward all along?  Are the things I see in dreams the real thing, and those I see in meditation the pale reflection?  At any rate, this book was zero help in either clarifying or deepening my experience.

Godfre Ray King: Unvelied Mysteries, and Darby & Joan: Our Unseen Guest

 It's been a while since I saw fit to write about two books in the same post, but I find that the questions with which I am left after reading each of these overlap almost perfectly. In fact, they are really the same questions that led me to pick them up in the first place, and so I suppose I shall spoil my conclusions by saying up front that both books left me almost exactly where I started.  I am faced with the same dilemmae over which I have been puzzling since long before picking them up:

1. Are those, including these authors, who claim to have touched the unseen in earnest, or are they playing with us for amusement or gain?  As an extreme example of the former, one might look to Teresa of Avila.  Whatever it is she saw and experienced, there can be little doubt that she was in earnest and thoroughly believed her own writings.  In the former set, we might look to Joseph Smith or Uri Geller, manifest charlatans whose corrupting and greedy influence cannot be excused in this life, and in any other lives that may exist.  The answer is therefore, "There are some of each."

2. For those that are in earnest (and let us assume for the sake of discourse that the authors in question are, though such is by no means certain), does what they experienced accurately relate to some external reality, or is it merely an internal construction? On this point, Darby and Joan make some effort and, in fact, seem to be asking themselves the same question throughout their experience.  They go to great lengths to prove, to themselves at least, that there is no way that their supposed contact with the afterlife is the product of some internal delusion, or even of some such lesser phenomenon as telepathy or group consciousness.  If we take them at their word, then they have indeed touched on and even proved the existence of other planes of existence.

3.  Is what such earnest accounts reveal about the unseen accurate and reliable? Again, Darby and Joan take the role of skeptics, and introduce the idea of "coloring" to caution the reader about taking such phenomenal accounts literally.  They assert that they did indeed touch the unseen, but that there is also the constant danger of the perceiver shaping and warping the experience so that it can be understood and fit in a certain framework.  I take from this the caution that an overdeveloped ego, such as Godfre Ray King exhibits, could easily urn an authentic experience into a useless muddle.  The best way to remove the ego is that taken by William James: to ignore individual accounts, and to bother only with the overlap of multiple accounts, thereby presumably isolating only that which is universal.

4. If there is an unseen out there, and humans have been able in some cases to perceive it, is it possible then for me to do the same?  And it is on this point that I find myself frustrated.  It is basically the same question I have been asking myself for decades.  How do I go to the next level?  This life bores and frustrates me.  What else is there, and how do I learn more about it?  The further I go along this path, the more I encounter those who say how easy it is, and how natural, and feel left out, blocked, and broken because I cannot perceive what earnest, sane, and perceptive people in books and in my personal acquaintance do.  It is always there, tickling my temple, but ever with plenty of room for doubt and disbelief.  Am I pursuing an end as dead as if it were a religion? Is this merely wishful thinking, cognitive dissonance, and self-delusion?  Or worse yet, is it real and simply closed to me?

Gene Stratton Porter: A Girl of the Limberlost

 There remains, in my grandmother's house, in a room that was my mother's fifty years ago, a bookshelf filled with yellowed volumes, perhaps fifty of them, each a hundred years old.  Rows and rows of books by an author dear to my gramma, then to my mom, and now to me.  

It is curious that it has taken me so long to read a book by this author.  As dear as my gramma was, and as fiercely as I cling to anything that was hers, one might think I would have done it decades ago.  Part of me assumed it would be treacly fluff, along the lines of Pollyanna or Anne of Green Gables, neither of which spoke to me; her taste was definitely along such lines.  Another part of me simply didn't want to think about that part of her, the Romantic romantic, a hothouse flower whose ways of escaping her reality were often unhealthy and destructive.  

And so it was not until I spent some time in her abandoned house, with nothing else to distract me, that I actually picked up one of those old books and allowed myself to be encased in it.  The treacle was there, yes.  There is an unshakeable faith in the goodness of humanity that colors Porter's world.  There is also darkness: death, child abuse, betrayal, event the hint of rape.  Unlike many other books of this genre and era, Porter does not flinch from the darkness in humanity.  The light is merely stronger.  I may never know exactly what drove my gramma to do the things she did, what her inner world was like, but surely her affinity for this writer is a clue.

Later today I will meet my second cousin once removed, a seventeen year old girl who is going through many of the same things Elnora did in this book.  I cannot say that this book helped me to face the darkness; I have long come to my own way of doing that.  But perhaps it helped my dear, sweet gramma, long gone from this world, to see something bright in it, and perhaps it can help others yet.

Arthur Schopenhauer: On Human Nature, The Art of Controversy, Counsels and Maxims

Where did Schopenhauer go wrong?  How did a man capable of unearthing such marvelous insights as 

"When you come into contact with a man, no matter whom, do not attempt an objective appreciation of him according to his worth and dignity.  Do not consider his bad will, or his narrow understanding and perverse ideas; as the former may easily lead you to hate and the latter to despise him; but fix your attention only upon his sufferings, his needs, his anxieties, his pains.  Then you will always feel your kinship with him; and instead of hatred or contepmt, you will experience the sommiseration that alone is the peace to which the gospel calls us" (On human Nature, 7)

Find the nerve and the obliviousness to utter with the same pen:

"Hence it will be found that the fundamental fault of the female character is that it has no sense of justice.  This is mainly due to the fact, already mentioned, that women are defective in the powers of reasoning and deliberation" (Studies in Pessimism, 65)?

My working framework was to assume that Schopenhauer was the proverbial frog in a well, which is to say that he saw rather clearly the things that were in his own experience as a cis, straight, educated, comfortable, white man; and that when presented with anything that was at all removed from that world, he was utterly unable to conceive of it.  This reading served me well, and it wasn't until the last essay in this collection, "Genius and Virtue", that I recognized it as a symptom of a larger failure on his part.

The dichotomy that Schopenhauer sets up in this essay, namely that of the Intellect and the Will, is a theme that runs throughout these hundreds of pages.  It sometimes takes another guise--individuation and universality, Mind and Soul, Virtue and Genius--it is this central conflict that occupies the great majority of his deliberation. It is to be recognized in more modern works as the Subject and the Object, and though Sartre and de Beauvois would probably shoot him on sight, they are not immune to his influence.

Only in "Genius and Virtue" does it become clear the depth of Schopenhauer's error: he has misidentified the two, and accordingly chosen the wrong one.  For him, Genius, intellect, and Mind are the truly subjective states, those with true agency and clarity.  Will, soul and Virtue, on the other hand, and whimsical forces of nature, mere objects, that must be endured, if not disregarded entirely. How Sartre must have laughed.  

Is there anything more truly an object than the Mind?  For Schopenhauer, the Mind perceives and regards the soul as an object, but how thoroughly opposite is the reality.  I think.  I am.  Thinking does not me.  The I precedes the mind in every conceivable way, and it is only the Will that can be thought of as a true subject.  How terrifying such a thought would have been for Schopenhauer, and how utterly incapable of facing it he was.  All he had was his intellect.  It is no wonder that his Will, the finger of attention, pointed to it as the very end of existence. It's the oldest trick in the ego's book: look over there!  Schopenhauer saw his intellect as a penetrating beam of light that revealed the nature of all existence.  In reality, it was a mirror that revealed nothing but itself.

Seneca: Letters

Kant's critique of Utilitarianism, to the effect that if everyone practiced it everyone would be miserable, seems to apply equally well to Stoicism as it is commonly perceived.  Self-abnegation, unremitting seriousness, and general tsking at life hardly seems like a way of life worth the effort, however virtuous it may be.  Virtue is its own reward, of course, but too often it is also its own punishment.  Such a Calvinist belief in the virtue of suffering ends up responsible for far more human suffering than it prevents.

Militant Stoics look rather askance at Seneca, accusing him of lip service to Virtue without actual practice of it.  How hard is it to resign oneself to life when life is affluent and sociable, after all? Isn't Stoicism serious business?  Isn't life itself serious, dreary, and grim?  What business does one have owning a vineyard in the midst of all this, after all?

Whether he intended to or not, however, it is exactly through this "lip service" that Seneca revealed the purest form of Stoicism.  A true Stoic knows and embraces that money, vineyards, love, and friendship are of only illusory worth.  Seneca takes that assertion a step further, and says that not only are they ultimately worthless, but they are laughable.  They are not important, and therefore why should one go to any lengths to avoid them?  If one sees such things for what they truly are, they become not pitfalls to be avoided, but illusions to be enjoyed or not, as the occasion demands.  If my vineyard is of no consequence, why should I go to the effort of ridding myself of it?  If love and sex and friendship are vain and illusory, why go to the trouble of avoiding them?  Is not the whole picture of existence, namely that "whether a hundred or a thousand flagons go through your bladder, all you are is a strainer," rather more hilarious than grim (LXXVII)?  In which case, why not face it with a smirk and a quip than a frown and an empty stomach?

There's nothing better or worse about good bread than bad.  If presented with the latter, one has the choice of relishing in the suffering, or taking the more realistic (and practical) decision to "wait, then, and not eat until I either start getting good bread or cease to be fussy about bad bread" (CXXIII).

Simone de Beauvoir: The Ethics of Ambiguity

If de Beauvoir's goal in writing this was to demonstrate that it is possible to live with purpose and virtue in a world torn by the dichotomy of subject and object, of individual and collective, then surely she succeeded.  If it was her goal to clarify what the criteria of such a life are, what ethical standards could find application in such a world, the her success is less clear.

This is not surprising.  She herself asserts that "Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art" (134).  A set of rules and principles that could lead one to an ethical life would need to be infinitely complex, to account for the endless variety of situations and humans that exist.  To delineate the what of ethics is an endless and impossible task.  The why, however, turns out to be far more attainable, and it is this that she aims to bring to the surface.  

What one does cannot be said to be ethical or unethical.  Why one does it, however, is much more vulnerable to judgement.  The product is neutral, but the process is not.  The closest de Beauvoir comes to putting this clearly is when she says, ". . . what distinguishes the tyrant from the man of good will is that the first rests in the certainty of his aims, whereas the second keeps asking himself, 'Am I really working for the liberation of men?'" (133)

I'm tempted to propose that this book be given the subtitle "The ambiguity of ethics".  It is not so much about how to be ethical in an ambiguous, paradoxical world.  It is rather about how to address the ambiguity--and subjectivity--of what such an ethics needs to be.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera

The appeal of Marquez has always, for me, been his characters.  Every character in his books not only has a fully realized inner life, but also a magical reality that could serve as the subject of its own novel.  In Cholera, for example, not only are the three central characters vibrant and heightened to the point where their humanity is recognizable, but not taken for granted; even those with barely a sentence of mention, down to the pets, are so real in their magicality that one's skepticism is never triggered.  We know people in our real lives who similarly skirt the margins of what seems possible, and it is no surprise at all to find them in a novel.

What makes this world magically real, as opposed to simply real, is not the nature of its denizens, but rather the quantity of them.  It is no surprise to meet characters who bend credibility; it is a surprise that each and every one of them do.  This trait could be seen as a forebear of modern day heightened realities such as one sees in 30 Rock, Kimmy Schmidt, or Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  We are used to knowing such magical/heightened people; we simply aren't used to being surrounded by them.

I especially enjoy these worlds, the magical and heightened realities of literature, because their distorted reflection of experienced reality is the other side of my personal looking glass.  Reading and being immersed in the world of Cholera gives me an idea what it must be like for an outsider to experience the world of my friends and me.  Each and every one of us is vaguely magical, of the sort that it is not uncommon to meet on occasion, but overwhelming to meet all at once.  

P'u Sung-Ling: Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

 As entertaining and informative as this book was, with especially effective editing and translation by H.A. Giles, I don't know that I have much insight to offer into it.  The natural approach is to hold it alongside folk tales from other cultures, especially those compiled by Italo Calvino, and see what the overlay reveals.

Doing so, it immediately becomes clear just how universal the human approach to the supernatural is.  Among the themes and plots that recur with startling frequency in both volumes:

The young man of poor means but natural talent and good intention, who is treated unjustly but ultimately receives his due with a little help from the other world.

The girl who is treated badly by a mother figure to whom she has no blood ties, but endures out of an abundance of filial piety, and ultimately receives her due with a little help from the other world.

The lover who is not what they seem, but is all the more devoted and loving for it (although one interesting divergence is how often these figures were male in Calvino's stories, and how often female in P'u's).

In fact, dressed in different clothes, any story from the one set would be right at home in the other.  The virtues rewarded are the same: fidelity, industry, honesty, patience; as are the vices: greed, bad faith, impiety. I'm sure a better and more comprehensive comparison than I am equipped to perform exists, and draws conclusions from its findings.  As for me, I am in the mood to take a significantly less temporal approach, and go out into the woods to find a fox spirit or fairy of my own to ask.

American Grafitti

 What I experienced watching this movie can best be described as nostalgia for nostalgia.  As I sang along with the soundtrack, smirked at the cultural references and period-specific design choices, it was as though I was returning to my youth.  Except it wasn't my youth.  It was my father's youth.  It was his youth that formed the basis of my own youth, as though  he were reliving it vicariously through me, attempting a redo at whatever he felt went wrong.

And of course that's not too far off from what George Lucas was trying to do with the film.  Even though the film has the tone of a period piece, a scarce decade separates the setting from the filming.  Lucas does not seem to have been trying to recapture 1962; he was trying to remember it.  Lucas was reliving that period through me as the viewer, much as my father did throughout my youth. 

Which makes it nearly comical that Ron Howard went on from this sincere, if edited, version of the past to an altogether more disingenuous one in Happy Days--which one might also call nostalgia for nostalgia.  The people who watched that show were not entirely those who lived through its setting.  Many of them were, like me, those who had only heard the legends and claimed them as part of our own identity.

Raymond Buckland: Complete Book of Witchcraft

 When I say that this book confirmed me in my belief that Wicca is a bona fide religion, I do not mean that as a compliment.  This book served its purpose of giving me some insight into the gears and knobs that make it work for some people, but throughout I found the very same pedantry and dilution that makes other religions so unpalatable to me personally.  

To be fair, this was exactly Buckland's stated purpose in writing this book.  He is an advocate for mainstream acceptance of Wicca, and goes out of his way to draw attention to the harmlessness and relative banality of the practice.  In doing so, however, he reveals that Wicca is well on its way to falling into the trap that has befallen every religion before it, that which William James so insightfully identifies as the transition away from authentic religious experience into systematized bureaucracy.

Mercifully, there is one trap into which it has not yet fallen, although based on Buckland's descriptions and warnings, it is not far off.  The most deadly trap of religion, the litmus test by which I gauge whether a given thinker, community, or doctrine is worth considering, is to think that one is right.  The divine is not a puzzle that has been solved, and to think otherwise is delusion and laziness.  At the point of Buckland's writing, at least, Wicca was still able to claim "and it harm none, do what thou wilt."

Kate Grenville: The Secret River

 At a certain level, the question of literature ceases to be one of quality.  Once a book has survived hundreds of years of scrutiny with its reputation intact, made it onto "greatest books" lists, or, as in this case, been shortlisted for the Man Booker, it's a pretty safe bet that it will be good.  It will be well-written, even engaging and enjoyable.  

At that point, I don't ask myself whether the book will be good.  I ask myself, "Do I want to hear what this person has to say?  Do I want to hear this story?"  In this case, the answer should have been "No."  

It was a good book!  Beautiful, engaging, riveting at points, with a nice--if predictable--flow.  If you want to hear a white colonizer talk about how hard it is to be a white colonizer, then this is by all means the book for you.  If you, on the other hand, don't feel inclined to hear about how unfortunate it is that all those indigenous people had to be slaughtered, perhaps this one is best avoided.

This might even serve as a framework for answering the increasingly relevant question of how to separate the artist from their work in other areas.  Is R. Kelly's music good?  Is Louis C.K.'s comedy good?  Are Woody Allen's movie's good?  Of course they are.  Well, some of them.  It's not a question of whether the work in question is good.  It's a question of whether I want to give that person my time, attention, and space in my brain.

Al-Ma'idah

 The further I get into this project, the less interested I am in parsing the Islamic surface of the text, and the more interested I am in untangling the Sufi depths.  The former so far has come across as a generic, though not unenjoyable, religious text.  The latter, however, specifically the mysteries of HU, Rabb, and ب , always seize my fascination when they arise.

1: The parallel between the restrictions of Ihram and those of Lent are irresistible.  It is natural to find the links between all these Abrahamic religions, but one wonders if the link goes back even further to Zoroaster.

2-5: Even more parallels between the three "peoples of the book", with the addition of an injunction against resentment against people of hostile faiths one notable point of departure.

6: So-called "dry ablution" is another interesting feature, and I don't know of anything similar in other religions.

7: It never hurts to recall the overarching theme of Islam: submission.  

8: Already reemphasizing the point in v2 (and in An-Nisa) against resentment and the cloudy thinking of antagonism.

9-10: These verses seem to play against each other, and it takes a bit of theology to reconcile them.  On the one hand, those who practice their own religion faithfully are forgiven, whatever it may be.  In the same breath, those who disbelieve the specific signs of this book are bound for Hell.  As is usual in such cases, only Hulusi's Sufi perspective can make sense of it:  it is not the disbelief in this particular Rasul that destines them for hell; it is a denial of reality, and specifically the reality of indivisibility.

11: A very straightforward verse that Hulusi confounds with his explication.  He posits that the Name Wakil is being referenced in the penultimate phrase, but there neither seems to be justification for this vowel shift, nor explanation of such a Name in his extensive preface on names.

12-13: Several potential inroads into this section: who are the "we" that appointed the tribes of Israel? What is the "share of the realities" that they have forgotten (Sahih version assumes it is the share that related to The Prophet)? What effect does this hardening of hearts have?  Is a member of such a "hardened" group forever locked out by blood?

14: To believe that the intersectional disputes between Christians are preordained by Allah brings a similar series of difficult questions.  The Allah of the Quran seems scarcely less petty than that of the Bible.

15-16: There is an emphasis on نو in Hulusi's rendition that seems unjustified.  Light is light, and does not seem to need explication.  The hint is of some sufi metaphysical meaning, but what could be deeper than the literal in this case?

17: A deft blow to the ridiculous Christian notion of Christ's divinity.  

18: Will the Quran keep to this, though, and refrain from claiming privileged status, or fall prey to ego as the Jews and Christians before did?

19: It is certainly tempting to think that a Divine messenger is thus destined to appear at intervals.  We are certainly due for a new one.

20-26: A surprisingly straightforward section, almost exactly as it is described in the Pentateuch.  Who, I wonder, are the two from among them who are said to have spoken up, though.

27-31: The alternate version of this story is fascinating. The addition of the crow is especially flavorful. Surely Abel threatening Cain with hellfire is anachronistic, however.

32-34: This would be a keystone verse in any text--were it not for the loopholes that modern day Muslims take to be the law itself.

35-37: Evidently the idea of eternal damnation was thoroughly trenchant by this time.  One wonders whether it became so in Islam as a result of Greek (and ultimately Egyptian) influence, or from further East.  In Christianity, at least, the corruption seems to begin with Tertullian in the 3rd century, and be thoroughly entrenched by the time of Augustine in the 5th.

38-39: Allah is all-forgiving--unless his followers get to the offenders first as in 34.

40: An interesting parallel with the LunHeng of Wang Chong, which I am reading concurrently.  Don't bother questioning your fate.  Heaven is capricious and petty, and does what it will.

41: At least the fifth time this troubling phenomenon has been highlighted.  Who are those whose hearts Allah does not wish to purify?  What are the criteria?  When is it determined?  The same problems exist with similar verses in the Bible, but the latter text does not emphasize it nearly so often.  

42-43: One wonders why indeed Jews or Christians would come seeking Islamic justice.  

44: The logic does not follow here, and I feel like I am missing a subtlety of the Arabic equivalent for "so".  The second clause simply does not follow from the first.

45-47: It makes a bit more sense now.  The effect seems to be, "Look: Jews and Christians have these same directions, and then twisted them.  If you just go by what Allah has revealed, no matter which version, you'll be fine.  But if you are worried about man's version of the same . . . well good luck with that."

48-49: And therefore, "If you stick to what Allah has revealed, it will become clear that which is common in all three."

50: ". . . you got a better idea, wiseguy?"

51-56: No doubt it would be tempting to side with the temporarily upper-handed, especially if the beliefs are fundamentally the same.  Very clever of The Prophet to nip that in the bud here.

57-60: And it is tempting to mock rituals which we find unfamiliar or extreme.  I sure received my share of it growing up.  If one is committed to the course, though, this is the only response.

61-63: Which is to say, "The proof is in the pudding," or, "By their works you will know them."

64: I can't be certain from context, but the Jews in this verse seem to be saying that their wealth is proof of their blessing.  Oh, what a pernicious doctrine, and how widespread among Christians today.

65: The reward here is an interesting one: the Gardens of Bliss are by no means a literal paradise, but easily seen as a state of enlightenment.  Hulusi, naturally, takes advantage of this interpretation.

66: But there is danger here of readers falling into the same trap as in 64.  If one follows the given Word, whether Torah, Gospel, or Quran, blessings will come.  If, therefore, one is not so blessed, surely they are sinners.

67: This one is an enigma.  Why should the Prophet need protection from the people?  Of what should he be afraid?   

68-69: I sure do like this ecumenical sentiment,and I sure do see little of it in modern Islam.

70-71: This tracks very well with the stories in the Torah.

72-73: And a valid critique of Christianity.  It is astonishing the nonsense that modern Christians allw themselves to believe, and evidently it was no different in the 6th century.

74: A well-placed reminder that this is not malice, but ridicule.

75: A new critique of the doctrine of Christ's divinity: "Then why did he eat, dummies?"

76: Nothing to see here on the surface, but a hint from Hulusi at a deeper meaning of هُوَ

77: This book is beginning to sound like it's intended for other "people of the book" as much as it is for the people of Islam.

78: David is an interesting choice here.  Of all the Hebrew prophets, he would not have not been in my top ten choices for an example of condemnation.  I wonder what the Prophet is referring to here.

79-80: Lets of disagreement between the three translations here.  I prefer Hulusi's version, especially in that it makes the eternal punishment one of ego, rather than of hellfire.

81-84: This is manifestly no longer true.  Perhaps in the 7th century there were men among the Christians who matched this description: sincere, humble, and ascetic.  I cannot think of an example in the last century, however.

85-86: This afterlife, while vague, certainly is appealing.

87-88: Almost exactly the sentiment of Peter in Acts 10.

89: I like that the breaking of an oath is not a sin against the recipient of the oath, but against reality itself, and the penalty corresponds.

90-92: Well I'm guilty of all of these on a weekly if not daily basis.  I do not sense that it causes the animosity that is predicted here.  I can see the point, though.  Maybe if I did them with others instead of alone in my hovel the result would be as described.

93: In two of the translations, this is a perfectly natural  extension of the preceding exhortations.  For Hulusi, naturally, there is a deeper progression: from devotion to understanding to enlightenment to protection.

94-96: An interesting and seemingly disjunct prohibition.  Why is hunting specifically prohibited during Ihram and not other activities?

97: The connection between these sacred practices and a reminder of Allah's omniscience is not intuitive.

98-99: Unless it is to be revealed through the punishment for violations.

100-102: A reasonable enough edict.  Don't keep asking why; you may not like the answer, not because Allah doesn't care to be questioned, but because you may not like the answers and they aren't useful to you anyway.

103-104: No doubt a necessary injunction at the time, but mostly a historical footnote today.

105: This verse resonates on several levels.  You are not your results. Worry about your dang self, and it will turn out alright, and you will be given understanding to boot.

106-108: A very practical regulation, with parallels in the Torah and the Gospel.  The emphasis on material goods and wealth is what sets the Quran apart from the others.

109: Another lovely connection to 105.  We are not called to task for the results of our actions, but for the actions themselves--even the prophets.

110-120: The longest coherent narrative I have yet encountered in the Quran, and wonderful in proportion to its fluidity.  Not only is the idea of Christ being called to account on the Judgement Day a marvelous concept, but his answer as well.  The inclusion of the account of Christ bringing a bird to life from clay here also gives weight to so-called apocryphal accounts like the Gospel of Thomas.  

Perhaps most wonderful, though, is the eponymous "table", the مائِدَةً that is revealed to the believers.  With no mention of a literal feast, it can only be taken as the glorious feast of revelation that is available to those who sincerely search for it.  I hope to be among them.

이상화기념사업회: 상화, 대구를 넘어 세계로

 2년전 빠지던 이상화의 시를 요새 방치되어있지만 다시 보게 되었다.  이상화의 시를 물론 역사 맥락 업시 볼 수 없는 시다.  과동대지진, ㄱ당 사건,  등과 같은 것을 더 깊이 알게 되서 그 시절의 시도 더 잘 이해하는 것 같다.  더군아 이 책은 지리학 맥락도 제공해서 옆으로 놓았던 번역 활동에 영감이 생겼다.  특히 지리학 개념 없이 이해할 수 없는 "대구행진곡"을 20째 번역으로 손을 댔다:

The Daegu March

 

Biseul Mountain to the front, Palgong Mountain to the rear

The waters of Geumhho River flowing through the center

So many spent tears and long sighs piling up,

Night after night and day after day, thus do you cry?

 

At the site of Dalgu Hill, more than half collapsed,

Or Dosu Park, overgrown with forest shadows,

Even though throngs of people come and go

Like an old tree on the Bangcheon levee, how many are there?

 

Wide Daegu Province, no matter how good you are,

As we whose laughter and dreams have been stolen,

Our bodies without even threads,

Wandering to the front or the back, our hearts are heavy.

 

As beautiful as a star, it is surely here

Swollen with kind and cute liquor

On this one breathless night, sleep not

Drink till the moon sets and the sun rises.

 

David Sedaris: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Before this book, I found it a little difficult to put a finger on the exact source of Sedaris' charm.  Unforgiving sarcasm is always appealing, as long as one is not the target, and there is a certain twist in his figurative language that always surprises and unnerves.  These alone could not explain his unrivaled success, however, or his appeal to me in particular.  Plenty of writers have a similar talent with words, after all, without catching the mind quite like Sedaris does.

What must be relegated to a je ne sais quois in his other collections, however, finds another voice in this one.  In addition to the usual poignant and vibrant retellings of simple episodes in his life, where he teases out meaning and humor from the tiniest of details, as usual, there are two additional items.  Firstly, included here are a few dramatic monologues, ostensibly for forensic performance, that take great pains to be as far from Sedaris' own character as possible.  The wide variety in ages, genders, and beliefs scarcely bothers to conceal the common thread: these are the worst possible people you could imagine existing.  Each of the monologues begins innocently enough, but ramps up quickly to such heights of misanthropy that caricature is not a strong enough word. Giving free rein to his imagination, and freed from the bounds of the personal essay, Sedaris reveals what he has been after all along--not just in the book, but in all the previous ones.

The characters in the monologues are comically horrid, but we are only allowed to realize the depths of their sociopathy because these are monologues, and we have access to their deepest, most sinister thoughts.  Furthermore, each of them is oblivious to their portrayal, and convinced that they are the hero of whatever episode they are recounting.  If we were encountering them on the street, or, say, in a story where they were only bit players, they might seem almost human.  In fact, with such third-person armor, each of them could easily have found a home in one of Sedaris' other stories.  

This is the world that Sedaris has created, one where everyone is horrible--but managing for the most part to conceal it from each other and from the reader.  The author's father, notably, receives the closest attention in the essay sections, and very nearly reaches the depravity of the monologue characters.  If he were given his own monologue, all doubt of his detestability would be removed.  

It is also noteworthy that the author himself comes across as less varnished in this volume.  Perhaps at this age, Sedaris has simply grown comfortable with his depravity, and is less interested in assuming a persona.  In a way, the book is itself a monologue of sociopathy, nestled within with are smaller monologues that highlight his point: we are all terrible, you and me included. 

Shakespeare: Poems

In linguistics, there is a useful tool called "minimal pairs".  To really understand what a letter, a sound, a word means, one must find two elements that differ by only that one variable.  To extricate the fundamental difference between T and D, for example, one needs a set of words like "cat" and "cad".  To understand the difference between "watch" and "see", one needs a sentence such as "I ___ the television" and observe how the different words change the meaning in that slot, or even better "____ your back in case someone is following you", where one word is possible, and the other not.

In the thriving industry of Shakespearean analysis, I feel that this tool is underused.  No few number of people devote their lives to parsing the sonnets, and trying to discern what his intention was in writing them.  Such inquiry can never bear any fruit;  it can result at most in speculation, in the absence of a minimal pair with which to compare those works.  The question, "What was Shakepeare's relation to the Earl of Southampton?", which is never far from the sonnets, cannot be answered by them definitively.  As in a court of law, intent is notoriously difficult to establish.

Shakespeare's other poems, however, are another matter.  We are not left to the texts themselves to understand them. We have minimal pairs.  We can look at the other accounts from which Shakespeare borrowed these stories, and see what he changed.  It is those points, the elements that are added to or deleted from the source material, that can unlock something that the texts in and of themselves can never answer.  In "The Rape of Lucrece", for example, the vast sections devoted to the thoughts of the rapist Tarquin stand out in contrast to any other account of the story--and especially to Ovid's account, likely Shakespeare's point of reference.  Nearly half of the poem seems dedicated to the inner conflict within this otherwise universally reviled figure.  Shakespeare gives Tarquin and Lucrece equal weight, turning a story of one noble woman into a dichotomy between a helpless beauty, and the savage whose irresistible passion destroyed them both. 

This overlay is especially fruitful in the case of "Venus and Adonis", insofar as Shakespeare's changes are even more drastic.  In the original account, Adonis and Aphrodite (Shakespeare's substitution of the Roman Venus is also revealing) were actual lovers for a long time before his death, and he even chose to stay with her for a third of the year.  Shakespeare flips this entirely on its head.  Not only does Adonis resist the lusty goddess at first, but he dies almost immediately after relenting.  The original myth of love and grief is transformed into a cautionary tale against the dangers of passion.  The roles are reversed, the man in this case a helpless beauty and the woman possessed by lust.  Even the names reveal the focus: savage Rome and beautiful Greece, lust and beauty--the parallel with Lucrece and Tarquin is clear.  

Which brings us to "The Phoenix and the Turtle".  Here we have not only minimal pairs, but a wealth of data.  Shakespeare is explicitly reacting to Robert Chester's "Love's Martyr", and the comparisons between the two would be sufficient for any linguist.  In addition, however, we have six other texts, among them the greatest writers of the time, each reacting to the same poem.  Not only can we infer from what aspects of the text Shakespeare focused on--or especially those he altered--but also from how his reaction differed from those of his peers.  Wouldn't it be lovely if someone would give me a patronage to read and parse them all.  Perhaps someday. 

One liberty taken by Shakespeare, however, is vivid even without the time to overlay the seven texts and scrutinize them in detail.  In Chester's poem, the eponymous birds voluntarily sacrifice themselves to create something even better from the ashes.  Shakespeare is having none of that.  "Leaving no posterity," the birds' death is unequivocal tragedy (59).  Nothing good comes from the meeting of power and beauty.  Not for Lucrece, not for Adonis, and not for the Turtle.  All are destroyed in the process, and  what remains is only to lament.

Alain de Botton: On Love

 I am skeptical by nature, and have grown especially skeptical, through experience, of anyone who seems to think quite a bit of themself.  If one thinks enough of themself to establish a global organization dedicated to spreading their own "wisdom" . . . well, I formed an opinion of this author well before reading any of his books.

And I was not altogether wrong in my assessment, it seems.  The omphaloskeptic pondering on the subject of love that filled this book was so laughable that one wonders if it was intended as a parody of philosophy.  The author, speaking ostensibly as the main character, agonizes over the topic, and especially over the specific question, "How could she suddenly just not love me?"  His obliviousness is tragicomic.  "How could she have ever loved you in the first place," I instead wondered.  "I have never met you and I can't stand you."  

I did find myself in the pages of this book, however--just not in the way that was likely intended.  I saw myself in the character of Chloe, who found herself in a relationship that was fine, but eventually grew tired of it, having never really reached the point of "love".  I saw myself in the main character as well, devoted supplicant whose worship goes cruelly unreturned. But mostly, I saw myself in the author: the overwrought analytic who can't see what is painfully obvious. 

Nathanael: The Art of Seeing and The Essentials of Magick

 Reading these two books is a manifestation of my growing interest in Something More.  My spiritual journey has been long and convoluted, beginning with my formative years in a bronze age Hebrew war god cult.  After walking through the one-way door out of my parents' religion, the first natural question was "Is there anything out there?  Gods, ghosts, aliens, whatever?  Or is this all there is?"  My answer to myself was "I'm not sure, but if there isn't, then whats the point of living?  So let's assume there is and try to find it."

So it began, a series of questions, years spent finding answers that were at best provisional, a flowchart of yesses and noes that eventually led to the current question: "How can I meaningfully interact with the something that is bigger than me?"  

I wouldn't say these books answered the question.  The sort of things that the author is trying to describe are pretty clearly unteachable through a book.  Nonetheless, I have taken a few things from him and added them to the spiritual casserole that is my belief system.  None of the things in this book are likely to be key ingredients, but seasoning is just as important as meat and veg.

John LeCarre: A Delicate Truth

There is an entire section of my bookshelf filled with orphaned books, volumes that somebody just dropped in my lap when they were moving or clearing out.  Loath to let anything remain unread, I accept them and pick at them when I have time.  Usually they are of the breezy beach read variety, and I was fully expecting this to match that description, well written and entertaining, but not particularly significant.  For 90% of the book, I was confirmed in my assessment.

As I drew near the end, however, I began to get nervous.  How on earth would the author extract his hero and the obligatory love interest from the mess into which he had written them?  There were only 30 pages left in which to do it.  Then 20.  Then the book was finished, the characters were explicitly not saved, and I found myself staring into the void, when I had not intended to.  If I had wanted to be reminded that we are fundamentally alone in a brutal world, there are plenty of other books on my shelf to serve that purpose.  Schopenhauer is always happy to oblige on that point.  

And yet there I was, ambushed by what I thought would just be a light diversion.  It is never far from my mind that "Si che non basta l'esser uomo dabbene e virtuoso," as per Cellini.  "It is not enough in this world to be a man of talent and virtue."  Before facing this truth, I usually raise my shields, but I ran into it completely defenseless here.  As LeCarre's characters found out, being good at your job and doing the right thing, more often than not, bring ruin and little else.

An-Nisa II

 95: A brief dip into the Arabic gives a little insight into the familiar words Jihad and Mujahideen here.  The root of each seems to be "strive" rather than "fight", 

96: And those who so strive, risking life and property, are rewarded with "ranks", which is a fascinating overlap with Dante's struggle over the hierarchy of virtue.

97-99: Another seemingly ignored verse.  "But we were oppressed!" is not among the accepted excuses.  Why live where you are oppressed?  Is the world not vast enough for you?

100-103: No doubt a necessary allowance at the time.  What about today, now that the believers have themselves become the oppressors, as it ever is with religion?

104: The cycle returns, like the line inscribed by a point on a rotating wheel, to a position of power.

105-106: This seemingly disconnected point may well simply be the signal of a shift in rhetoric.  Very often at this point, there is the sense that an answer is being offered to an unasked question, one that is so obvious as to not need included.

107-111: And this is the point into which we are being led, by only the most tenuous of connections to the previous topic.

112: An excellent point, one that I can't think of a parallel for in other religious texts.

113: Hulusi's (and by extension the Sufi) obsession with orthomancy, arises again here, though هُ remains ignored by the now 3 other versions I am referencing.  It seems to have some linguistic veracity, however.  The diving Name is indeed given as اللَّهُ in places, and elsewhere (as here) as اللَّهِ.  It remains to be seen whether this is a simple morphemic variation, or, as Hulusi seems convinced, the source of a deep metaphysical truth.

114: A little unclarity here.  "They" seems to mean the enemy of v. 104, who are then said to be deceitful (105), self-destructive (107), conspiratorial (108), slanderous (112), and heretical (113).  There is nothing in this string of verses to suggest a shift in pronoun referent that I can see.  And here we are in 114 promising them a reward for their acts of charity.  

115: And more confusion.  "We will abandon him" seems to directly contradict the "and lead him to hell" that follows it.

116: Hulusi takes a liberty that the other three translators do not.  The text is clearly a proscription against assigning partners to Allah, but Hulusi extrapolates that into duality in general.  It's a nice point, but not in the text.

117:This is a fascinating prospect.  Allah is the alpha male.  Satan is the correspondingly naughty female.  the first mention of the supposed topic of this book in some pages.

118-120: Even more fascinating! Who is this Iblis, and what is his connection with the Satan of the previous verse?  Most importantly, why does Hulusi insert him here when there is no mention in the original text, and these verses are clearly referring to the same being as 117.

121-122: Of course we can't go a full page without a few of these verses.  

123: The subject of this sentence evidently leaves a lot of room for wiggling.  "Sunnatullah" in Hulusi, "Divine grace" in Khattab, "Paradise" in Saheeh.  Perhaps the unattributed translation I'm referencing has the right idea to simply leave it as "it".

124: A little more of the eponymous topic, and pretty unequivocal at that.

125: More linguistic wiggling here.  حَنِيفٗاۗ is rendered "upright" and "inclining toward truth", but in the other two is left untranslatable as "Hanif".  No dictionary I tried seems to be up to the task either.

126: Our obligatory interlaud  (a word I just coined and of which I am incredibly proud) for this page.

127: I sense that we are about to get to the point . . . and I also know that I am always wrong when I sense that.

128: Oh.  I was wrong about being wrong.  And this is a delightfully concise summary of the matter.

129: A nice bit of advice to the polyamorous among us.

130: We have stayed on topic for a record of 4 verses!

131: Aaaaaaaand it's gone.  

132: I don't recall this Name before, and it stands out from the others: وَكيلًا rendered as agent, trustee, or dispoer of affairs.  This is somehow more comforting to imagine than the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-righteous names.

133: Wouldn't it be a kick if mankind was not, in fact, the first try.

134: more familiar Divine Names here, no doubt gearing up for a warning or admonishment.

135: I love this verse, and there's no ambiguity among the translations either.

136: Unlike this verse, in which Hulusi finds room to reinsert his emphasis on the mystical nature of the letter ب.  There does indeed seem to be some room for interpretation here, and the Book mentioned in other places, ٱلۡكِتَٰبَ, is clearly different than the book mentioned here, كُتُبِهِۦ.  I may be predisposed to think that ب bears some mystical power, though.

137-139: Fairly straightforward, and mirrors can be found in other religious texts.

140: Hulusi may go too far here, extracting a reference to "mirror neurons" from this verse.  It damages his credibility, in fact, and gives him the air of an uninformed youtube video.

141-146: Continuing the admonition starting in 137, this may be this longest passage that remains on one topic so far.  One wonders exactly what situation arose to cause such emphasis.

147: I am growing unimpressed with the structure of this book.  Isolated verses such as this seem utterly meaningless.

148-149: Even verses such as these, with a clear and relevant message, lose some of their power due to the "Oh, BTW" algorithm.  It is irresistible to take verses out of context when there is no context.

150-152: These verses present a bit of a dilemma for they who would take them literally.  All Rasul must be believed, including Moses, Abraham, and Jesus, without distinction or exception.  This certainly undermines the idea of the Prohpet's hegemony.  Hulusi's approach finds the happy middle ground here.  There is no such thing as duality, after all.  One must see all aspects of the Divine to truly approach it and, one might suppose, even those Rasul who come after.

153-155: A hilarious and valid reading of the Hebrews' actions at Sinai, muddies only slightly by more pronoun fuzziness.  All four versions render this "We", but it seems that it could easily be "I", and the translators are likely erring on the side of reverence.

156-158: I was prepared for this respect of Jesus, but did not expect to find Mary similarly exalted in this book.  She is given rather more weight here and in Al-Imran than one would think.

159-161: It is interesting to think that the Mosaic Law was rather a punitive Law than a prescriptive one.

162: One is tempted to judge Hulusi harshly for inserting another paean to the letter بِ here, but he may just be on to something.  It does seem to pop up here and there, especially attached to the Divine Name, without being acknowledged in the other translations.

163-165: Rather a lengthy list of Rasuls.  One would scarcely think to give Aaron or Ishmael the same weight as Jesus or Abraham.  As for my part, I rather like the idea of adding Baháʼu'lláh and others to the list after the fact.  It is even more tempting to think who in more modern times we might add to the list.  

166: The divine name gets an extra بِ here again, but Hulusi forgoes mention of it in favor of his other obession, the equally compelling concept of HU.

167-169: A breather after all that metaphysical mystery, and a brief return to generic religious flavor text.

170: After which we get the third fascinating Sufi obsession: the Rabb.  If by the end of this project I have some working concept of بِ, HU, and Rabb, I will count this as time well spent. 

171: I would wager money that this verse alone has given rise to volumes of analysis and commentary. There's so much to unpack here.  The doctrinal points are clear enough, but the role of Mary in all of this, along with Hulusi's decision to insert HU again, slowed me down considerably.  This latter, unlike the other two Sufi mysteries, seems to have little linguistic root.

172-174: Winding down a bit.  Will there be a twist ending?

176: The only surprise is a sudden return to the topic.  There are those who say the the Quran is remarkably progressive in its treatment of women, and there are points to be made in that regard.  this summary makes it clear though:  women are important! Just not as important as men.

Peter Handke: Kaspar and Other Plays

 Is it a tribute or a reproach that I couldn't help but imagine how I would produce these plays as I read them?  Was I imagining the possibilities that the author opened up before me, or trying to imagine how the flaws could be repaired?  A little of both, as it turns out.  Handke makes no secret of his intention to challenge the audience, rather than to entertain.  The obviously titled "Offending the Audience" is not the only example of his gleeful contempt.  I wouldn't be surprised if, had I cared to consider critical approaches to this work, they were filled with comparisons and connections to Samuel Beckett, a similarly sneering playwright for whom I have never developed a taste.  

And yet the ideas in these plays were undeniably interesting.  Fun, even.  I thought about different ways to stage the works as I read them, and came up with some rather creative, if I do say so, ways to remove the the voice of a mediocre white male whose pride has been bruised from them and make them enjoyable without diluting them.  Neither is it only in the tone of the works that the author is the chief obstacle.  It is no surprise that the man who created these diatribes is also something of a controversial figure, and by some measures a genocide apologist.  No one else could have possibly been so brazen.  

I like brazenness, of course, and I like diatribes. I even like offense and scorn and contempt.  They all have their part to play in literature, and perhaps especially on the stage.  In this case, however, I wish that they just didn't smell so much like fragile male ego.  These were not works of genius, but they were works of incredible gall, and that is at least something.

박하령: 기필코 서바이벌!

 유챃과 읽기 실력을 노피기를 위해 읽은 캑 뿐이다.   깊은 의미를 찾을 기대가 안 됐음에도 불구하고 인문학 전공의 본능을 못 말려 생각이 든다.  한국 아동 소설 중에 부모 둘 다 제대로 대해주는 이야기가 없는가?  물론 서양 아동 소설 중에도 고아 주인공이 있기는 있지만 전부 다 그런 게 아니다.  제가 자라면서 읽던 책들에 위로해 주고 충고해 주는 부모 절반이상였다.  이왕에 말 나오는데 한국 아동 책 뿐만 아니라 모든 한국 소설에 부모가 없거나 원수가 돼서 없는 샘인 이야기 . . . 95%이상? 제가 아는 한국 친구 중에도 부모 둘 다 옆에 있어주는 사람이 없다.  

재목에 나오는듯이 이와 같은 잔인한 끔찍한 세상에서 서바이벌 밖에 생각이 된다.  기필코 행복이란 책이 한국에서 연출할 수 없겠다.  오히려 의지를 펴서 군략을 쓰고 적을 격퇴해야한 다는 이와 같은 책 필요하다.

In The Heat of the Night

 Objectively speaking, this is the perfect film.  Every single element of it was executed to the very highest standards, not just mine but those who are in charge of doling out awards and laurels of various sorts.  Furthermore, it transcends the realm of good filmmaking and reaches the apex of "great" by virtue of having a reason to exist, a painful truth to uncover, and a message that people needed to hear whether they wanted to or not.  

Which makes my reaction to it a bit incongruous.  When the movie ended, I was seriously frustrated.  Such a good movie, and yet so many plot holes, unanswered questions, and tenuous connections.  I stewed in that frustration for a good while.  As a film, it was genius.  As a story, it was almost insultingly amateurish.  So I thought.  

Whether intended or not, my reaction revealed another element of the genius of this film.  somehow over the course of the film, I had become so invested in Tibbs' story, his outlook, that I had fallen into the same trap that almost undid him.  Those plot holes and incongruities that so frustrated me--they didn't really exist.  I only felt them because I expected something else, for the vast conspiracy at the heart of the mystery to be exposed, and for the bigots and bullies to get their comeuppance.  When that didn't happen, I was so frustrated that I instinctively blamed the film for what I perceived as a flaw, but was instead the very fabric of the story.

If I had watched the movie purely as a murder mystery, it would have been tied up in my mind as neatly as Jessica Fletcher or Matlock could have hoped.  But I didn't watch it that way.  I scarcely noticed the ostensibly central mystery, just as Tibbs did and, like him, was blinded.  Blinded to the extent that for some time after the movie was over, I didn't even believe that the mystery had been solved.  And that, in my book, is art.

Dante Alighieri: Divina Commedia

 I wonder if Dante was satisfied when he finished this.  With neither progenitor nor offspring, this work certainly has earned its place in the pantheon of world literature.  No work before or since can compare to it in ambition as far as I am concerned.  it is not simply that Dante set out to explain the mysteries of the afterlife; evidently that would have been to easy for his taste.  Rather he set out to do that backward and in heels, so to speak, in a hobbling meter of his own device, and with a radial symmetry that would impress even with today's ability to go back and adjust things after the fact.  This would have been a herculean task for any, but he did the thing, and then topped it off with riveting narration, indelible characters, and a cosmic imagination so profound that many today take it to be gospel fact.  The orders and ranks of angels, for example, are taken as metaphysical fact in some circles, when in fact this is something of Dante's pure invention.

Dante's trip through hell is the most widely known, of course, and I had even committed passages from it to memory decades ago.  Naturally, the gruesome and inventive punishments there tend to capture the memory, and who among us has not found ourselves "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura ché la diritta via era smarrita"? Even those who have not yet reached the "mezzo" can relate.  

Familiar though I was with the Inferno, I had never touched the other two books in the Commedia before finally setting myself to it this year.  Fully aware of the book's import and influence, it seemed insulting to read it in English, and I set out to do it backward and in heels--in Middle Italian.  Refusal to do things the easy way is a point Dante and I have in common.  Like Dante, I set my nose to the belt sander, and did it.  I wonder if, like me, Dante also felt dissatisfied with the result.

The Commedia is a masterpiece; of that there is no doubt.  It's a fractal mosaic of words and ideas, as awe-inspiring in its geometry as in its language.  But that was the easy part.  Dante eats words and shits terza rima.  What he set out to do, however, was not merrely to write a glorious labyrinth of epic poetry.  He set his sights no lower than to solve the mysteries of existence, and resolve the fundamental contradictions at the heart of the religion that shaped his entire life.  His decision to make himself the sojourner in the story makes it obvious that it's an allegory of the doubts he wrestled with in life, but it would be a mistake to stop there.  The journey of the character Dante parallels that of the believer Dante, to be sure, but there is a third journey here:  that of the author.  The Commedia is not an explication of the conclusions that bolstered  his faith; it bears the marks of a thought in progress, the conclusion of which was unsure at the outset.  

And the conclusion of those three journeys, the believer, the writer, and the character, might possibly have been less definitive that they would have wanted.  After all of that, after a literary, if not literal, trip to hell and back, the answer to the question, "How can all of this that I believe and have been taught possibly be true?" turns out to have been, "None of your business.  It is for God to know and understand.  It is for you to believe and follow."  The character was satisfied.  He even pretended that it was an actual answer.  Maybe the believer in Dante was also content to leave it there.  But how could the writer have been?  How could a mind that would bother to ask the question have been satisfied with that answer?  One who set out to prove by logic and theology that God is indeed just and good . . . surely he saw how thoroughly he failed at that task.  And the reader--this reader, who wore Dante like a robe while reading, and eagerly awaited the ultimate answer in the ultimate sphere, some truth buried in the cornices of this towering masterpiece--how could he feel otherwise?