Hi Squad,
It's strange that no one has yet posted anything on chapter two... Is
everyone too busy or just with nothing to say?
At some point I considered it one of the most important chapters of the
book. I once gave it to a group of my students as an example of a
methodological creative process... the poor kids, they didn't know to make
heads or tails of it...
***************
1. WATER
In the first chapter the author establishes the characters, the scene, the
rhytem.
Just a couple more prefaces are necassary in order to get the setting right:
"It felt good not to be related to this harbor in any way.
HE DIDN'T KNOW what was above the banks of the river or
behind the harbor buildings, or where the roads led to or who
the houses belonged to or what people would appear here today
or what people they would meet. It was like a picture book and
he was a child, watching it, waiting for a page to be turned"
The river is a very important metaphore. The journey takes place on it, and
it is a journey of the mind. In ZMM he climbed a mountain - that is, the
source of the river (every river has it's source at some mountain). Water
flows, dynamic, changing appearances like thoughts/values. The river is the
metaphore of our combined thoughts, flowing together, converging to form a
"mainstream" social pattern of values. So he is navigating on the river of
our cultures values. The river takes him, he needent make any effort to flow
downstream - but he is able to navigate, this is important.
He doesn't know what is above the banks of the river - that is to say, it's
unimportant to know all the details that define the social pattern, perhaps
it is impossible to know. Further still, it is even important NOT TO KNOW,
if you want to look at things with a fresh eye (the cup of tea metaphore in
the following page). So he is adopting a childs POV. See the connection to
LILA waking up and opening her cherubic eyes...
It seems natural that after birth one would be a child...
2. FIRE
Now that the stage is set, wer'e ready to begin with the alchemy:
"This place needed some heat.
Next to the ladder, by the chart table, he found matches and alcohol.
He carefully brought a little cupful of the alcohol to a small coal
stove
mounted on a bulkhead at the other end of the cabin and poured the
alchohol over some charcoal briquets inside. On the picture book shore
out there everything was done magic. They got their heat and
electricity
without even thinking about it. But in this little floating world,
whatever
you needed you had to get for yourself"
Isn't it funny that the alchemist himself views the ordinary as magic?
Remeber the "picture book quality" of the Jungle Queen - these people are
the same. Unreal. they inahbit a different world then his own. Their values
need not be established, they are simply there, appearing out of a socket in
the wall like magic. Those people are not involved in their making. But in
his floating world he has to do everything for himself (and we know what
that is: he makes his own metaphysics).
Lets take a look at what he does:
He observes that heat is needed.
He lights a fire.
He uses a small coal stove.
He lights it with a cupfull of alcohol.
Is alcohol usual for starting coal briquettes? I don't know. I'ts kind of
dangerous because someone might want to drink it... Any how, alcohol is not
the only type of fuel for starting briquettes, so it's a deliberate choice.
Why is he using alcohol? He has a kerosene in the boat (the kerosene lamp),
why have so many kinds of fuel?
Maybe there is an allusion to his drunkenness last night... I may be
streching this lead too far...
3. ALCHEMY
It is essential for a scientific paper to describe the methodology, the
experiments, the way of handling the results. Since Phaedrus is both the
experimenter and the object of the experiment, it is crucial that nothing be
thrown away.
I revell in his description of the methodology he developed. The accuracy
with which he constructs a structure to handle ideas as raw material...
Like an alchemist in his workshop, trying to amalgamate his materials
(ideas) into pure gold.
A master at work. The description of the methodolgy leaves no place for
doubt as to the quality of the book. The type of attention invested is that
of the highest possible quality.
There is so much to learn from him.
Miv
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:33 GMT