Blaming Eliot
Dec. 20th, 2019 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootA friend of mine has written today about T.S. Eliot and the Wasteland with its connection to post war London, her theme flowing into that of the Grail quest.
(http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2019/12/london-in-december-waste-land-and-grail.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR1kG94riN6SORzbSvolX8FCzB6-C6iuiwEipuSeFLsNRhwUJvwN8y-)
I thoroughly enjoyed the post, with its forlorness and hope, but I do not believe we can be rescued by one human any more, even assuming that Parsifal or Galahad ever existed in any form. There is undoubtedly strength in unity, but truth is no prerequisite to it... In fact it may well just get in the way, since everyone has a separate 'truth' with no guaranteed basis in fact.
We are only one people when collected against another group of people. Perhaps that is why the English seem so desperate to return to the years of World War II; a time when rich or poor, we were all one against the outsider who was indeed wicked, overbearing and insidious. And of course, we won! Oh to just keep rewinding the tape!
The secret of the Rift is that it has always been, just not always seen. Perhaps striking down the Tower of Babel was Jehovah's blessing rather than a curse; maybe S/he/it knew that the danger of humans misunderstanding each other was nothing compared to the peril of them understanding each other too well.
If Eliot did us harm with the bloody Wasteland, he may well have ruined us with Cats. All right, he couldn't see what would happen, and Old Possum's book was really charming. Then it was a musical that I didn't like and now it is a strange and terrible film that I must see.
The reviews are almost universally panning, but failure isn't the important thing, critics claim failure all the time. What matters is the universal note of shock/horror/disbelief. These are not intellectually sharpened claws enjoying meticulous dissection,no, no. They are stunned, stumbling for the keyboard, mentally dishevelled, fabulously distraught. Tom Hooper appears to have destroyed the very brains sat in their pans,yet still they write. I find it cheering, and look forward to inviting friends to a night of CATS in our new wee cinema room. I won't demand that chums dress up for it, no. I am not a complete sadist.
(http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2019/12/london-in-december-waste-land-and-grail.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR1kG94riN6SORzbSvolX8FCzB6-C6iuiwEipuSeFLsNRhwUJvwN8y-)
I thoroughly enjoyed the post, with its forlorness and hope, but I do not believe we can be rescued by one human any more, even assuming that Parsifal or Galahad ever existed in any form. There is undoubtedly strength in unity, but truth is no prerequisite to it... In fact it may well just get in the way, since everyone has a separate 'truth' with no guaranteed basis in fact.
We are only one people when collected against another group of people. Perhaps that is why the English seem so desperate to return to the years of World War II; a time when rich or poor, we were all one against the outsider who was indeed wicked, overbearing and insidious. And of course, we won! Oh to just keep rewinding the tape!
The secret of the Rift is that it has always been, just not always seen. Perhaps striking down the Tower of Babel was Jehovah's blessing rather than a curse; maybe S/he/it knew that the danger of humans misunderstanding each other was nothing compared to the peril of them understanding each other too well.
If Eliot did us harm with the bloody Wasteland, he may well have ruined us with Cats. All right, he couldn't see what would happen, and Old Possum's book was really charming. Then it was a musical that I didn't like and now it is a strange and terrible film that I must see.
The reviews are almost universally panning, but failure isn't the important thing, critics claim failure all the time. What matters is the universal note of shock/horror/disbelief. These are not intellectually sharpened claws enjoying meticulous dissection,no, no. They are stunned, stumbling for the keyboard, mentally dishevelled, fabulously distraught. Tom Hooper appears to have destroyed the very brains sat in their pans,yet still they write. I find it cheering, and look forward to inviting friends to a night of CATS in our new wee cinema room. I won't demand that chums dress up for it, no. I am not a complete sadist.
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no subject
Date: 2019-12-20 12:05 pm (UTC)Funny. I just watched a documentary on Eliot.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-21 09:07 am (UTC)'a horror story, nearly as obscene as The Human Centipede,’
'a mesmerisingly ugly fiasco that makes you feel like your brain is being eaten by a parasite. A viewing experience so stressful that it honestly brought on a migraine.'
Mine are simple pleasures.
By the way if you are ever flying into Scotland you are always extremely welcome to stay here :-) It would be great, even if you won't let us entertain you with 'A purr-fectly dreadful hairball of woe.'