[Bananafish] Spirit on a Mast

[Yocum, Daniel R Civ 21 CES/CEOE]

Mike, I'm a big fan of Lewis.  It happened by accident.  My mother in
law had one of his books laying around and I would sneer at it, then I
decided to crack into Tolkien after a couple of decades and discovered
the whole Inklings thing so I picked up that book and read almost
everything the man published.  That trilogy ranks up there among my
favorites.  I like Perelandra best, I love how Ransom's expectations
concerning his confrontation with Weston are more complicated then they
had to be.

In fact I drove up to Denver last night to see Stephen R. Donaldson
speak.  It was enjoyable.  The man likes to talk.  He spoke about the
importance of literature and the importance of fantasy or romanticism as
Lewis, Tolkien, and Helprin would call it.  He spoke about the
relationship between the world inside your head and the world outside
and where they come into contact with each other and their
disjointedness, the "absurd", as it is called now days - a term he
dislikes, but an area of his interest.  He spoke of the importance of
fantasy and how this disjointedness has been key to world literature for
all of history until just recently (say last 80 years).  All the
enduring literature is anchored there.  Seeing the numinous in the
mundane or like CS Lewis says "catching a glimpse of the dryad in the
tree, that is when you really have seen a tree." (Paraphrased).  It
reminds me of Seymour's and Buddy's superlative marble playing in the
streets of Manhattan.  It is funny but I mentioned to him (Donaldson)
that Chasidut (Hassidic world view) is anchored in this very concept as
well.  I've been reading Nachman of Bratslavs' stuff and it whirls
around the transcendent in the mundane, the shimmering luminosity of the
daily immediate world around you.  And to end a good night I listened to
the Rockies win the pennant on my long ride home last night.  I love
radio, I grew up without electricity for part of my childhood and
developed a keen appreciation of listening to radio drama/comedies and
sports on the radio.  The night began and ended with a magical quality.

I'm reading The Narrow Bridge (Bratslav stuff), Heschel stuff,
Donaldson's Gap series (I'm on book 3 of 5), Steele's Coyote, Helprin's
Winter Tale, thinking of starting Brother's Karamazov, an old collection
of literary essays about Kafka's castle, I finished a Noah Gordon book
called The Last Jew (loved it), and I picked up Seymour an Introduction
again.  No graphic novel stuff right now, I might check out Watchman
though, they started filming the movie in Albuquerque recently.

Tell me more about you and Ransom.

Daniel

-----Original Message-----
From: bananafish - Michael Anello
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 11:47 PM

C. S. Lewis' space trilogy actually.  I'd never read anything by him
before, until I'd picked up The Dark Tower and Other Stories.  Blew me
away.  As this trilogy is now doing.  I'm on the last book, That Hideous
Strength. 
 
I also read a couple graphic novels.  Hadn't read any for years and
years, then I picked up V for Vendetta and The Watchmen from my brother.
Great stuff.
 
But I still like Hellboy comics best.  That Mike Mignola can tell a
great ghost story.
 
Read The Fabulist by Stephen Glass after seeing the movie Breaking
Glass.  Both good.
 
Read Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel, because the dvd of
Casino Royale I got had a scratch and it wouldn't play the end of the
movie.  The book wasn't bad.
 
Read A Fan's Notes by Fred Exley a long while back, don't know if you'd
read that one?