Subject: Re: Awfully Quiet in Here
From: Pasha Paterson (gpaterso@richmond.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 27 2001 - 20:59:38 GMT
I had always hoped that the koan was placed at the front of Nine Stories so
that Teddy could echo it at the end when "He sat forward abruptly, tilted
his head tot he right, and gate his right ear a light clap with his hand"
(186). Dirty, dirty monks :)
--P
Sean Draine wrote:
>
> It is now widely understood that the clever monks who invented
> this koan had in mind a certain shameful solitary act that
> does indeed involve the hand, typically the right one, "colliding"
> over and over again with "something". Without doubt, the
> deprived halls of the monastery roared with one-handed applause
> on most evenings.
>
> But what makes this riddle so interesting is that its answer
> provides an apt metaphorical characterization of the
> intellectual efforts of those bent on solving it! (It has
> also been used, fittingly in my opinion, to describe some
> of the later Salinger stories, such as Hapworth and Seymour:
> An Introduction.)
>
> All of which suggests that the best thing about Zen Buddhism
> is its sense of humor, and that a true understanding of Bananafish
> would entail a rather extreme Freudian interpretation.
-- Pasha Paterson gpaterso@richmond.edu http://141.166.230.182/ - * Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message * UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
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