down with zen
Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Sat, 27 Feb 1999 21:04:31 +0000
Rick suggests that the 'solution' to our dissatisfactions
should be sought more in psychology or human relations
than in religion. At heart, I suppose I agree with him -
though my scepticism about most schools of psychology
is as acid as my disillusion with all systems of religious belief.
But should an artist concern himself primarily with either?
Since they are both ways in which people have thought
about their lives they're bound to appear, at least tangentially,
in any honest work of art that addresses our existence here
on earth. I suggest, though, that a real artist, a real writer,
finds himself concerned mainly with the authenticity of
the world he creates, how real it feels, how alive it is.
Once he begins to 'illustrate' topics - like the 'point of existence',
or the 'best way to live' he becomes, no matter how well hidden,
a kind of preacher. And begins to take his eye off the ball -
which for a writer I suggest should, above all, be the realisation
of the individual & what he makes of his world.
Which is the reason, I suppose, the Catcher seems to me
an incomparably finer & more moving piece than all
the tortuous, dinky, philosophisings of the Glass family.
Scottie B.