Subject: Re: Glass Yogis
From: Benjamin Samuels (madhava@sprynet.com)
Date: Thu Apr 13 2000 - 23:12:11 EDT
I love stories. I grew up reading like carzy. Not like Seymour and Buddy, no
no. I started with the Hardy Boys, with occasional crossing over into Nancy
Drew. One week I finnished all the books I had taken out of the library,
which for a suburb kid like me is accessible only through the grace of Mom.
So I began a plot to get back there early. It failed and instead I found
myelf with my first adult book- Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut. (anyone know
about a listserve on him?) The Hardy Boys, though dull and repeptitive, had
taught me to be a good reader. I knew how to pay attention and look for the
clues to find the story, and to expect a twist or two. But what I came up
against in Slapstick was something completely different. Here was someone
not just repeating a formula story but trying to somehow squeeze the sum
total of their life experience into a magic container from which a genie
appears upon rubbing three times.
What it seems to me stories and writing are all about is exploring life. I
love expanding my mind by experiencing through reading the ideas about life
that writers share. The accumulation of my reading has evolved into
somewhat of a search through these conceptions of life in order to enrich my
own. To me, Yoga is basicly just a great story, it offers a conception of
life which gives meaning to my search. It is the framework into which I can
best fit my sum total experiences of life.
I should mention to Bruce that I am undeniably a _key_ man myself. I love
those moments when a certain tension breaks and an understanding of some
work suddenly bursts into view shining so brightly it eclipses all others
and, for the moment at least, I know that this is the key. That this passes
must be remembered, but the experiece still cherished. Perhaps you can
compromise on that?
I am a key-aholic and I am driven to get my fix. But as with other
addictions, I am only satisfied by more and more powerful experiences. The
Hardy Boys, though fine for a time, just don't cut it anymore. Now I need
something with much more depth, something that can touch me personally. Now
you can see the personal reasons I am so excited to find a writer who has
written quality fiction while immersed in Yoga. And this is not, to my
knowledge (please send rebuttals) common. at all.
So, as Rilke was saying, this bliss is ignorance. Life can't be written
down. But when I'm not sitting, letting life chase me, it helps me to
remember when I chase life with the occasional key. It also helps to have
good company.
Mattis, what's the differnce, do you think, between a poet and yogi?
Scottie, would it be rude to express an interest in an answer to my question
to you? Or am I to take silence as the answer?
Love,
Mostly Madhava
From: citycabn <citycabn@gateway.net>
To: <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: Glass Yogis
> Dear Madhava,
>
> Thank you for your, as usual, thoughtful, earnest, welcomed post.
>
> I see you understand my recycled reply-post was a stark, unadorned
"position
> paper" issued without footnotes (or clear thinking) in opposition to
> Cecilia's reading and summation of the thesis (Ph.D.?) of Alsen's book,
_The
> Glass Stories as a Composite Novel_ (which I still haven't had the
pleasure
> to hold in hand).
>
> What bothered me, and still bothers me, about most literary critics
> (Laughing Man, quick, please quote the section re critics from _Godot_) is
> their smug insistence that they (oh lucky them! and soon unlucky us) have
> found the _key_ to whichever novel, story or poem one just happens to be
> having a love affair with. And that this _one_ key, let's say, is going
to
> fit each and every locked door to each and every room of the Glass
mansion.
>
> I have no doubt that JDS has read and practiced a great deal of Yogic
> Philosophy, and I believe it is fairly certain he was initiated into the
> Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Vedanta Society (and hence my nod to Advaita
> Vedanta), and I know we have the good word of Joyce Maynard re the
> importance of homeopathy in the personal life of that chicken-hawk of
> Cornish, but, what I was whispering to myself was, oh, along the lines of,
> no, I don't believe there is any one key to the Glass Family which you
must
> find (like looking for that kid Waldo, is it?) OR otherwise these stories
> are closed to you, the uninitiated. In my senility I actually believe
that
> dedication at the outset of RHTRBC & SAI. But I also believe that remark
by
> Zooey that there are honorable men in the university (I myself sat at the
> feet of one when I still had a full head of hair and periodically drove my
> father's VW bug up to Hollywood (of all places) to step across the
threshold
> of the Vedanta Society's bookshop and occasionally the temple). I nod to
the
> sad fact that the more one knows about all these references within the
> stories,--things Teddy advises us to get rid of (in this case, from
> vaudeville to Vedanta (sorry, Teddy, even Vedanta is the apple))--, the
> richer, fuller, the stories become; (but I would give one of my
49-year-old
> eyes to read them all again just once more with those 19-year-old eyes
> back in '70). So I'm not arguing against your perceptive post; I even
agree
> Seymour is yogic (_Hapworth_ really reinforces that) in parts of his life,
> but I don't buy that he is limiting himself to _only_ yogic
philosophy--look
> at his reading list. And his insistence on trying to become a poet. Some
> fool just might develop a thesis, a really horrid ill-thought-out thesis,
a
> _key_, and say Poetry is the key to the Glass Saga, and JDS's failure to
> become a poet (the poet he secretly yearned to become) is the Answer to
...,
> oh, next paragraph.
>
> I guess I'll just say a few words about the last years of Seymour's life
and
> go quietly. I keep getting the sense that a great many fish--nearly
> all--believe the suicide somehow cancels out all of the life that went
> before. I don't know why he killed himself. Or I don't know how to put
> into words why I think/feel/sense he did. (What I don't want is a nifty
> "theory".) But I do know there isn't this crippled post-WWII Seymour as
> opposed to the "other" Seymour. Buddy himself (yes, I'll call that liar
to
> the stand) lets the cat out of the bag when he tells us he's been sitting
on
> a loose-leaf notebook which is home to the 184 poems Seymour wrote during
> the _last three years_ of his life. Seymour during that time wasn't
> crippled--he was in flight, he was the curlew sandpiper.
>
> I'll close with calling to the stand Seymour's only great poet of the 20th
> century. (I've counted the later votes and he still wins.) How should we
> read these stories? How should we read period?
>
> "With nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical
> words: they always come down to more or less happy misunderstandings.
> Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly
> have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm
> which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are
> works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes
> away, endures." (Rainer Maria Rilke, 2/17/03, Paris, in a letter to Franz
> Kappus)
>
> We read with the eyes. The answer is within the pupil.
>
> love,
>
> Bruce
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Samuels <madhava@sprynet.com>
> To: bananafish@roughdraft.org <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
> Date: Wednesday, April 12, 2000 7:59 PM
> Subject: Glass Yogis
>
>
> >Interesting post, Bruce. Thanks for pointing me towards some interesting
> >discussion that took place before this banafish egg hatched. Seems some
of
> >the topics really do go around and around like fish in bowl. Cecelia's
> post
> >that your message is in response to is familiiar to me as a perspective I
> >tried, with less success, to elaborate on when I joined. So let me take
a
> >crack at answering some of the points you raise here.
> >
> >
> >> I don't think Yogic Philosophy or Advaita Vedanta or Homeopathy is the
> key
> >> to the Glass Family.
> >>
> >>
> >> I don't think Seymour rejects everything else (and everyone else) to
try
> >to
> >> advance toward enlightenment.
> >>
> >>
> >> I don't think Seymour switches from one form of yoga to another like so
> >many
> >> brands of vitamins. I even don't think _he_ would assert he was
following
> >> any particular form of yoga at any particular time. (The idea that he
> >> married Muriel to advance toward Go! on the Monopoly Board of
> >Enlightenment
> >> really seems a stretch.)
> >
> >This mostly seems reaction against using the ideas in yoga philosophy to
> >understand the Glass Families. More fairly, maybe it was rection
directed
> >towards certain excited voices. Yoga philosophy is a powerful mode of
> >thinking, one that Salinger was obviously quite influenced by. What is
> >meant by the *key* is a bit fuzzy of course, but should there be such an
> >unlikely thing except in our overexcited and joyful imaginations Yoga has
> >some good qualificatios for nomination. You say that you don't think
> >Seymour would consider himself a follower of yoga but I disagree. I
think
> >Seymour would understand the yogic story of life and reflect regularly on
> >what spiritual progress he is making. I think he would be quite
familliar
> >with all the vitamins and perhaps even take some, whether as a regular
part
> >of his diet or not, and with what other dietary supplements you might
have
> >to consult with his homeopothist to find out. I'm sure even his marriage
> to
> >muriel would have at some time or another crossed paths in his mind with
> his
> >conception of himself as a yogi.
> >
> >In my travels through the archives I also noticed this posting made in
the
> >same discussion by Scottie:
> >
> >
> >> I think yogic philosophy must obey the same sort of rule as faith
> >> in socialism. Anyone failing to respond to it at twenty has
> >> no imagination. Anyone still stuck with it at forty has gone mad.
> >
> >As a yogi in my early 20's with definite signs of madness already setting
> in
> >I'm quite curious to hear more from him about this. What is it on the
> other
> >side that may still save me from this insipent madness?
> >
> >Love,
> >Madhava
> >
> >-
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