A
Look
I have begun a book.
It is entitled Look Homeward, Angel written
by someone named Thomas Wolfe who died quite young, leaving some
books behind for us. It has taken me a
week to read the first 60
pages of the novel. I am no expert, just a human being alive enjoying
this moment I write. I am a poor writer, I know that. The only
thing I can say is that the subject I write about is great. In that
sense and that sense only am I a great writer like
someone who writes about horses might be called a horse writer.
I
found Mr. Wolfe's amazing contribution to us in the library of a tiny
school in a mountain village in the cloud forest of Costa Rica where
I am a visitor. Having read so little of it you may wonder why I
am already writing its
praises. I just had to. I
have a feeling I have little chance of finishing it but am eager to
attempt that.
This
unusual, to say the least, book is opening me to a more genuine
understanding of what it means to be human, as we call it. It moved
me already to speak out what I have felt. Should
it be there is no time to
waste is there no time to
use? Moments are not subject
to the drama of waste, having no consequences. Time, it
is said, can be used or
wasted. But, as yet, I have not found anyone who is living or has
lived who can answer what it can be used for. Has
it any legitimate purpose? Anyone
who could, would certainly have an advantage over me.
The
Wolfe book is telling me indirectly, as novels are written to do,
that at the same
time a family of people are experiencing all manner of trials and
tribulations just as
the consequences of birth, something else is happening to
them that is of another
nature entirely. It is apparent to all that life is worth living
whenever the second thing I alluded
to is apparent, and only
then. The other experience, the one with consequences, seems to
dominate us, even the ones of
us
believed
to be more holy than the bulk of the population. This
fact makes everyone wonder why they are even alive.
It
is about time we are so concerned. A false clock is attempting to
control us. It knows not of the moment. Now is a synonym for
contentment, absolute, with no worry- for there are no consequences
to it. Rivers flow, flowers bloom, trees give shade to all regardless
of age or gender or name or credentials or
criminal record. There is nothing to do but savor. This now
thing happens
to the family in the novel who are just riddled with flaws and unable
to understand life at
all. It seems to happen once
in awhile but when it is happening there is no concept of time so it
can raise the question,”Was that reality or
is this reality? They
all
experience admiration for each other although they clearly should not
whenever
consequences are considered to be relevant. The very moment the world
of consequences occurs to any of them they harm one of the others,
every time, as if they have
no choice. In short, these
monsters are capable of greatness.
As
I read the novel I find myself going along with the author's unstated
(so far) belief these people
are to be admired for their courage if nothing else. Much
as one might have to admire, if
only a little bit,
someone who actually plays
Russian Roulette with a pistol and a single bullet. It is heavy for
me to write this down but somehow feels
necessary. Am
I admirable in such a way?
My
own father are these people and I became him. (This I feel is a
paragraph.)
