(no subject)
I finished the tail end of Ubik today, after several hours of late night reading. That Phillip K. Dick sure knew how to spin a tale. Ubik is the same as Ubique, as in ubiquitous. Omnipresent. It was a wild romp through space, time, and consciousness, tinged with frustration and full of the weight of age. Mostly a novel about a team of psionic inertials travelling back in time through a strange sort of mind-space.
Tomorrow happens.
What a strange thing. To die should be an awfully great adventure. And then, what to make of everything? All the silly things that make up a world. Names. In the big explosion of everything names burn. Manuscripts too. I am reminded of the ailing Voland. Far from a manifestation of evil, Bulgakov's devil is instead a judge, and, much like Pilate himself, an occupant of a position, willingly or not, that he must hold to. He is a cosmic appointee, acting out of a sense of dark necessity. Voland and his crew cannot be regarded as evil in anything that they "accomplish" throughout the novel. They generally do not create sin or even amplify it. Instead, they expose it. And punish it. Whether or not Voland is, in actuality, moral is a different question. He certainly is not conventionally pure. He is, however, relatively just. In fact, had it been Voland that had heard Yeshua's (Christ's) story that one fateful morning, we'd be a major religion short. He would have let Yeshua go. (But then, this is a moot point. He would never preside over that particular question.) Conversely, had appartment number 50 been occupied by someone pure, I suspect that he would have no entrance.
The dark powers, so horrible that a stay with the Soviet Government seems preferable by comparison, are in fact simply a reflection. That same government, with its own much colder brand of black magic, has created that dark power. They feed it. They are the reason it exists, just as the criminal necessitate the police. This is the force, shown in its full ugliness, that Bezdomy, and Rimski, and the Master are confronted with and changed by. Voland's crew is able to run wild because the conditions of corruption exist. Evil, therefore, is inherent in man. It can not, in Bulgakov's world, be attributed any outside agency; despite the mythological power of his figures, they act as judge, occasionally the executioner, always as the observer, but never as the perpetrator.
Bulgakov's Voland does not rejoice in evil. He sees it as a stark and important part of existence. He fully and utterly accepts it, but he does not revel in it. He is, in fact, truly impressed and moved by love, beauty, and righteous sacrifice. To him, it is a welcome relief. He looks upon his "subjects" with a sadness, as well as with disgust. He does not bring about their depravity or even seduces them towards it. He merely witnesses it, and judges it, and thus does his part in creating and shaping the universe.
What a strange conception.
Is there any reason to feel sad? Not really. People will think and do what they will. It is our lot. We will judge despite our place. We will be flawed.
I think it is a spiral. I am obsessed with the spiral, and not just because it shows up in URU so much. I want to know what is at its centre, and how many frantic turns and convolutions that long road takes before the true centre is reached. I want to know, but I also afraid to know, and sad that I will never truly know, and that to me it will be but pictures, always. And maybe I will be a sack of meat, and slowly forget about lofty things, even art, that is so useless, and surely concern myself with what is truly important, namely the feeding of this sack, the sleep, and the occasional sexual release. Till it wears down and I forget my own name, which, essentially, I don't remember half the time anyway.
Not my intention, of course. My intention, under it all, has been to transcend. To be Major Tom in his death capsule, striding through the stars. Outer space and inner space, however, and this I merely suspect, might not be the end of it. It might not even be the beginning.
There is a space that is ungraspable and incomprehensible. It is not a space. You will not name it. You may attempt to describe it but you will at best grapple with some appendage or some heart; never, adequately, with the whole. It demands a certain submission. When you touch it, you burn. If you perceive it, you will not live to tell the tale. Too dangerous.
Tomorrow happens.
What a strange thing. To die should be an awfully great adventure. And then, what to make of everything? All the silly things that make up a world. Names. In the big explosion of everything names burn. Manuscripts too. I am reminded of the ailing Voland. Far from a manifestation of evil, Bulgakov's devil is instead a judge, and, much like Pilate himself, an occupant of a position, willingly or not, that he must hold to. He is a cosmic appointee, acting out of a sense of dark necessity. Voland and his crew cannot be regarded as evil in anything that they "accomplish" throughout the novel. They generally do not create sin or even amplify it. Instead, they expose it. And punish it. Whether or not Voland is, in actuality, moral is a different question. He certainly is not conventionally pure. He is, however, relatively just. In fact, had it been Voland that had heard Yeshua's (Christ's) story that one fateful morning, we'd be a major religion short. He would have let Yeshua go. (But then, this is a moot point. He would never preside over that particular question.) Conversely, had appartment number 50 been occupied by someone pure, I suspect that he would have no entrance.
The dark powers, so horrible that a stay with the Soviet Government seems preferable by comparison, are in fact simply a reflection. That same government, with its own much colder brand of black magic, has created that dark power. They feed it. They are the reason it exists, just as the criminal necessitate the police. This is the force, shown in its full ugliness, that Bezdomy, and Rimski, and the Master are confronted with and changed by. Voland's crew is able to run wild because the conditions of corruption exist. Evil, therefore, is inherent in man. It can not, in Bulgakov's world, be attributed any outside agency; despite the mythological power of his figures, they act as judge, occasionally the executioner, always as the observer, but never as the perpetrator.
Bulgakov's Voland does not rejoice in evil. He sees it as a stark and important part of existence. He fully and utterly accepts it, but he does not revel in it. He is, in fact, truly impressed and moved by love, beauty, and righteous sacrifice. To him, it is a welcome relief. He looks upon his "subjects" with a sadness, as well as with disgust. He does not bring about their depravity or even seduces them towards it. He merely witnesses it, and judges it, and thus does his part in creating and shaping the universe.
What a strange conception.
Is there any reason to feel sad? Not really. People will think and do what they will. It is our lot. We will judge despite our place. We will be flawed.
I think it is a spiral. I am obsessed with the spiral, and not just because it shows up in URU so much. I want to know what is at its centre, and how many frantic turns and convolutions that long road takes before the true centre is reached. I want to know, but I also afraid to know, and sad that I will never truly know, and that to me it will be but pictures, always. And maybe I will be a sack of meat, and slowly forget about lofty things, even art, that is so useless, and surely concern myself with what is truly important, namely the feeding of this sack, the sleep, and the occasional sexual release. Till it wears down and I forget my own name, which, essentially, I don't remember half the time anyway.
Not my intention, of course. My intention, under it all, has been to transcend. To be Major Tom in his death capsule, striding through the stars. Outer space and inner space, however, and this I merely suspect, might not be the end of it. It might not even be the beginning.
There is a space that is ungraspable and incomprehensible. It is not a space. You will not name it. You may attempt to describe it but you will at best grapple with some appendage or some heart; never, adequately, with the whole. It demands a certain submission. When you touch it, you burn. If you perceive it, you will not live to tell the tale. Too dangerous.