Related Unrelated http://www.alansondheim.org/sevenbooks.jpg I've been reading s parts of seven books, not to mention my own Broken Theory (Punctum 2022) that have been speaking of course to me piecemeal - and the only threads I can find to conjure their relationships is I think a list, hoping that something will appear to connect these investigations into that space that only reading allows. Apologies in advance for any typos: I'm sure the following has a number - So far I come up empty. Consider The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, Volume III, the only one that was for sale in Lowell, Mass. God of course lives within them. There is advice, poems, exhortations, all within a universe of God. In 376, A Vision of a Soul Suffering Various Torments in Purgatory, "Then I saw venomous scorpions coming from the South, and from the East rushed horrible wild boars gnashing their teeth and bellowing with a mighty roar." Translated by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman, Oxford, 2004. Now rereading This Sex Which Is Not One, Luce Irigaray, translated by Catherine Porter, 1985, Cornell. On page 109, "What is left uninterpreted in the economy of fluids - the resistances brought to ear upon solids, for example - is in the end given over to God." The Book of Lamentations resonates: "3.1. I am the man that hath seen affliction / By the rod of His wrath. 3.2 He hath led me and caused me to walk / In darkness and not in light. 3.3 Surely against me He turneth his hand / Again and again all the day. 3.4 My flesh and my skin hath He worn out; / He hath broken my bones." London, The Soncino Press, 1949, The Five Megilloth, Hebrew Text, English Translation and Commentary, Edited by The Rev. Dar. A. Cohen, Lamentations Introduction and Commentary by Rev. Dr. S. Goldman. Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, translated by David Swenson (originally), New introduction and commentary by Niels Thulstrup, Translation revised and commentary translated by Howard V. Hong, Princeton, 1962, around pp. 54-55, for example "for the fool says in his heart that there is no God, but whoever says in his heart or to men: Wait just a little and I will prove it - What a rare man of wisdom is he! If in the moment of beginning his proof it is not absolutely undetermined whether the God exists or not, he does not prove it; and if it is thus undetermined in the beginning he will never come to begin, partly from fear of failure, since the God perhaps does not exist, and partly because he has nothing with which to begin." Ezekiel Goodale, History of the Bible and Jews: with remarks upon the rise and progress of mahometanism and popery : adapted to the use of schools, Benjamin Edes, printer, 1806, a dialog between a Pilgrim and various, for example John: "Then Jesus, who is the true and the only Messiah, and who they rejected, has expressly declared 'That their houses shall be left desolate; 'for such Kingdoms God will not restore. His kingdom is a heavenly kingdom which endureth for ever, and where all believers shall be gathered together. This is our credence, hope, and consolation; this is all we look after in this world; whilst the Jews, in their ambitious expectation of another monarchy on earth, will be utterly disappointed. Remain they shall to the end of the world, but never recover their ancient kingdom. No promise of temporal grandeur is made to the people of God; their portion here seems to be contempt, distress, and persecution." On another subject entirely, The Dramatic Authors of America, by James Rees, Philadelphia: G. B. Zieber & Co. 1845, : "_American Tars._ Played in Boston, January 1st, 1812. A periodical of the day thus speaks of its merits :-- 'This contemptible production of nobody-knows-who, has been several times repeated as a trap t catch sailors. Such stage loyalty may sound very well in England, coming from the mouth of 'his majesty's servants,' but here, it is really too much. The dialogue is more nauseous than a dose of ipecacuanha; and if repeated again, we hope the audience will be furnished by the managers with acids and astringents, gratis.'" Rigveda Brahmanas: The Aitareya and Kausitaki Brahmanas of the Rigveda, translated by Arthur Berriedale Keith, Volume 25 in the Harvard Oriental Series, then I leap to The Soma Sacrifice, The Prsthya Sadaha, - First Day, Adhyaya V, 1v. 29 (xx. 1) p. 218, "Agni, as deity bears the first day, the Trivrt Stoma, the Rathantara the Gayatri metre. With it according to the deity, the Stoma, the Saman, the metre, he prospers who knows thus, That which has (the words) 'hither' and 'forward' is a symbol of the first day. That which contains (the word) 'yoke', (the word) 'car', (the word) 'swift', (the word) 'drink', (the fact) that the deity is mentioned in the first Pada, that this world is referred to, that which is connected with the Rathantara, which is connected with the Gayatri, the future tense, these are the symbols of the first day." (Please note the diacritical marks can't be reproduced here.) Well, at least three of these are obscure, 5-6 of them touch on religion and possibly the narratives of deity overlooking issues of ontology, or rather perhaps a "galloping ontology" that turns towards ritual; on the other hand, I'm not searching for any sort of religious "answer" or personal exegesis, but moving through narratives that are dark; Irigaray and Kierkegaard are texts to return to for their depth and resonance; Lamentations and the other Megilloth are disturbingly modern (particularly Lamentations and Ecclesiastes), "current" - With the text of the Rigveda Brahmana, language itself - meter, tense, time, voice - in other words utterance - is itself deeply performative and regulated - I lose myself in this. To be fair, the Megilloth and Irigaray, as well as Rees, I have read in full, the rest, not so much. __ _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
