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Chapter 3 - Zen and the Art of Reading Proteus: Bob and Bod and ALL OTHERS I addressed those four sentences in my previous mail with a specific intention at such people who would be reading just U. If this theme is getting boring, please pardon me but stay with me. I feel that what I am saying is not mere repetition but is a genuine problem - perhaps not only for me. (This is going to be a long mail and I am not apologising for it!) I did it because (a) I wanted to know if people are coming out with different interpretations of these sentences, (b) if yes, what kind, and (c) if not, what are they doing with sentences like these. I myself have always felt that a reader should read a text without external help, and form her/his own opinions about a text. You will see a discussion on that topic with Jay (as far as I remember) when we read Dubliners. Should we trust ourselves (our ability) to read and understand Joyce, do we borrow others' ideas and feel that we 'understand' Joyce? I read Dubliners like that, just as any other text, and poked around in it to see what do I make out of this. That is one of the reasons for not getting anywhere with The Ivy Room. Bod, you wrote: "You must not feel, Chandra, that you have to understand the origins of all these statements, or even the meaning of them. Their isn't much enjoyment in stopping for every point that you dont quite get" Bob has said the same, right? Your suggestions made me remember what I had read long ago in Nany Wilson Ross's 'Buddhism'. In the chapter on Zen Buddhism she says the following: "Comparisons of Western and Japanese poetry often prove useful, since they can illustrate certain basic differences which are clearly present even though poetic appreciation of Nature's endless 'lessons' abounds in Western literature. ...The English poet Tennyson provided a singularly apt comparison in that once-familiar school room classic, 'Flower in the Crannied Wall.' Not content merely to observe with pleasure a flower springing from a crack in a stone wall, the poet felt compelled to 'pluck' it out of its cranny, 'root and all, and all in all,' therby effectively ending its existence although enabling him, in the true Western analytical or scientific manner, to study the plant in his hand and muse on the mystery of its being. By contrast, there is an equally famous poem by the seventeenth centry Zen poet Basho, who, also musing on a humble weed, had only this to say: When I look carefully (Nancy Wilson Ross, Buddhism - A Way of Life and Thought, ISBN 0 00 215055 7) I have always loved the above in Ross's book. But since I started with U, I am getting nowhere practically with my reading in the Zen manner! And that is because my background knowledge is totally inadequate to get, to appreciate, what all Joyce has packed in one sentence. It is mindboggling. And I have to look - would so much love to look -behind the 'ineluctable modality' of things/words which are packed in Proteus! And that I have been able to do only, and only, with the help of Gifford's Annotated Ulysses, Füller's comments, Joseph Campbell's Mythic Worlds, Moden Words. (For those who do not know the last book, it is a treasure. Rasik had recommended it once upon a time when he was still with us.) I will refer here to only one sentence: Dominie Deasy kens them a' Dominie is supposed to be the scottish dialect for teacher. Kens = knows them, a'= all. Alpha, aleph, nought, nought, one is creation out of nothing as Bob too explained. And so on, so on. I read yesterday further in Proteus. It is very nice to read, it is very chaotic, it demands a lot, and finally after reading it, I did not know where I was, whether I was lost in Stephen's mind or was sitting in my own living room. And this morning I read - with that nice cup of tea which always helps reading U - what Campbell writes about Proteus: (For Campbell this is a very important chapter as this is what brought him to Joyce.) "...It's the last of the Telemachus chapters, and it presents the key to Stephen's problem, for it is here that he realizes his problem is not to escape from Ireland, but to escape from his own ego... The chapter opens with Stephen, walking in a reflective mood along Sandymount shore, trying to penetrate the fluctuant mirage of phenomenality and intuit the hidden substance (or, possibly, the void) behind, beyond, below, and within the modalities, the visible forms of time and space. he names these modalities (using Schopenhauer's terms) the Nacheinander and Nebeneinander, the field of things' succeeding each other (in time) and 'beside each other' (in space). (My comments: Note here the words are capitalised. Joyce does not do it.) The rolling waves - appearing, transforming themselves, breaking, and disappearing - Stephen identifies with these modalities, which are ineluctable - at least that if no more: ineluctable and ever changing; so that, in trying to hold to any present shape, even to one's own, one is against life, which, passing on, leaves behind a shell that in the end must also disappear. Stephen hears the shells on the beach beneath his feet going Crush, crack, crick, crick..." Some how reading the thoughts that have been thought about before helps me clarify my own thoughts! So what does it mean to me and to all of you? It means to me that I will read U, reading every page by myself a couple of times, going back to it after looking up my treasures, rereading and learning to appreciate, etc. I am aware that this is a very slow process. I can just now afford to invest the time in U as just yesterday I finished correcting the exam papers of four classes, and in the semester starting in two days, I have to teach (as far as I know now) only one course. Naturally I do not want to set the pace for the reading. Everybody here is free to read faster, and to talk of things they have read. I will hink happily after. Everyone of us is busy - some more, some less. But if we would contribute an idea per week, it would be a great way of reading U together. Thanks for the patience Chandra HOME! |