Reposted from June 2006. But this reposting comes close to the real purpose of going back over such material - to spur thinking now. This post put me in mind of a Chesterton quote, and then another. Then a third, and eventually four, though I may break one off for separate treatment. Those will come up as quick as I can, which unfortunately is not that quick at the moment. Stay tuned.
I went into blogging in hopes of early predictions of permanent knowledge, as many of these early posts will show. I think I was just hoping to show off and be able to smugly point out later "See, I was on this all the time." But the beauty of the medium, for the True Bloggers (Hahaha! I love that! So much nuance is captured in that ironic title), has been the interaction in the moment of many people who attend to very permanent things. Rather like an Inklings meeting, where the entire weight of the Western Canon sits at one table and makes astoundingly brilliant observations, interspersed with bad puns, prayers for great sadnesses in each other's lives, and petty squabbles they have with their schools, publishers, and their intellectual opponents (and sometimes each other.)
This is a small group. Yet because of that I know even many of the lurkers by name and biography, and occasionlly I remember to treasure you all.
*****
From The Screwtape Letters, Chapter XXII, in which the demon Screwtape becomes overexcited while berating his nephew and pupil, Wormwood:
Meanwhile you, disgusting little-
(Here the MS. breaks off and is resumed in a different hand)
In the heat of composition, I find that I have inadvertently allowed myself to assume the form of a large centipede. I am accordingly dictating the rest through my secretary...
And from The Great Divorce, Lewis's supposition of the edge of Heaven, where there is a bus from Hell every day, but most riders choose not to remain. (Chapter 9)
But, beyond all these, I saw other grotesque phantoms in which hardly a trace of the human form remained; monsters who had faced the journey to the bus stop - perhaps for them it was thousands of miles - and come up to the country of the Shadow of Life and limped far over the torturing grass, only to spit and gibber out in one ecstacy of hatred their envy and (what is harder to understand) their contempt, of joy. The voyage seemed to them a small price to pay if once, only once, within sight of that eternal dawn, they could tell the prigs, the toffs, the sanctimonious humbugs, the snobs, the "haves" what they thought of them.
I am reminded of BDS.
WRT The Great Divorce: There's nothing quite as satisfying as being proved right--even if the proof is only that you got the last word.
ReplyDeleteScrewtape becoming a centipede is interesting fiction: what is not fiction is the curious truth that the bite of the Funnel Web spider paralyses millipedes ( a common prey, prob also therefore centipedes) whereas by quirk of ?random change in development of neurotransmitters, it is fatal to primates. But pretty ineffective on small mammals. It is said the best defense against the FunnelWeb are hungry chickens. This, of course, would have spoiled the drama although cleaved closer to facts in JRR Tolkien’s tale of Shelob and Frodo.
ReplyDeleteThe centipede bite is not to be underestimated. Years ago, before I knew about, was annoyed to be woken by phone by a man upset that he had been bitten on his manhood, putting on his work shorts one far West Queensland morning. Later examples, having seen the size the beast can reach, and the consequences, I realised my error.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reading of The Screwtape Letters by John Cleese of Monty Python fame. When Screwtape loses control and turns into a centipede, Cleese does a wonderful performance of sputtering, incoherent rage.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a stage rendition of the Letters, with a single speaker dressed, in the clips I have seen, as a propserous business-suited gentleman. His secretary Toadpipe is on stage and does some fun mime but has no lines. I wonder how they do the centipede scene.