lawrence on hawthorne

[recalescence]

In the first place, Adam knew Eve as a wild animal knows its mate, momentaneously, but vitally, in blood-knowledge. Blood-knowledge, not mind-knowledge. Blood-knowledge, that seems utterly to forget, but doesn't. Blood-knowledge, instinct, intuition, all the vast vital flux of knowing that goes on in the dark, antecedent to the mind.

Then came that

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lawrence on poe: KNOWLEDGE

[recalescence]

Poe had experienced the ecstasies of extreme spiritual love. And he wanted those ecstasies and nothing but those ecstasies. He wanted that great gratification, the sense of flowing, the sense of unison, the sense of heightening of life. He had experienced this gratification. He was told on every hand that this ecstasy of spiritual, nervous love was the greatest thing in life, was life itself. And he had tried it for himself, he knew that for him it was life itself. So he wanted it. And he would have it. He set up his will against the whole of the limitations of nature

[recalescence]

...It is easy to see why each man kills the thing he loves. To know a living thing is to kill it. You have to kill a thing to know it satisfactorily. For this reason, the desirous consciousness, the SPIRIT, is a vampire.

One should be sufficiently intelligent and interested to know a good deal about any person one comes into close contact with. About her. Or about him.

But to try to know any living being is to try to suck the life out of that being.

Above all things, with the woman one loves. Every sacred instinct teaches one that one must leave her unknown. You know your woman darkly, in the blood. To try to know her mentally is to try to kill her. Beware, oh woman, of the man who wants to find out what you are. And, oh men, beware a thousand times more of the woman who wants to know you or get you, what you are

Re: lawrence on poe: KNOWLEDGE

[tastyanagram]

Holy shit. This is intense and amazing.

[recalescence]

its one of the best books i've ever read. no joke. i wanted to re-post the bits about melville from goodreads cause i love them so much but didn't want to repeat. in all the other shit on melville & moby-dick i’ve read, none of it, save olson’s call me ishmael, comes close. in fact, if you read lawrence & olson, you don’t need to ANYTHING else about melville.

i’m working on posting more excerpts from dana’s two years before the mast (“YOU CAN’T IDEALIZE BRUTE LABOR”) & the whitman chapter. the whitman chapter is almost too hilarious, from start to finish, to bother with an excerpt. (see: “Walter, leave off. You are not HE. You are just a limited Walter. And your ache doesn't include all Amorous Love, by any means. If you ache you only ache with a small bit of amorous love, and there's so much more stays outside the cover of your ache, that you might be a bit milder about it. “)

p.s. i'm glad you enjoyed it & thanks for taking the time to comment. i was afraid no one would read through it all.

lawrence on whitman:

[recalescence]

even tho lawrence goes on to praise (really praise!) whitman, he first gives you these precious bits:

----------

As soon as Walt knew a thing, he assumed a One Identity with it. If he knew that an Eskimo sat in a kyak, immediately there was Walt being little and yellow and greasy, sitting in a kyak.

Now will you tell me exactly what a kyak is?

Who is he that demands petty definition? Let him behold me sitting in a kyak.

I behold no such thing. I behold a rather fat old man full of a rather senile, self-conscious sensuosity.

DEMOCRACY. EN MASSE. ONE IDENTITY.

The universe is short, adds up to ONE.

ONE.

I.

Which is Walt.

His poems Democracy, En Masse, One Identity, they are long sums in additions and multiplication, of which the answer is invariably M Y S E L F.

He reaches the state of ALLNESS.

And what then? It's all empty. Just an empty Allness. An addled egg.
Walt wasn't an Eskimo. A little, yellow, sly, cunning, greasy little Eskimo. And when Walt blandly assumed Allness, including Eskimoness, unto himself, he was

Re: lawrence on whitman:

[agraphia]

technically he's saying he only sees what's immediately around him for the moment, which is at best mixed praise.

Re: lawrence on whitman:

[marjoram]

yeah, i know.

he spends the first several pages teasing whitman then praises him. that’s the best part: lawrence teases everyong a little, but with whitman, he really goes there. chapter twelve is full of “aww shit” moments such as this:

"A woman waits for me-

He might as well have said: 'The femaleness waits for my maleness.' Oh, beautiful generalization and abstraction! Oh, biological function."

however lawrence also goes beyond the "oh walts!" to say

"Whitman, the great poet, has meant so much to me. Whitman, the one man breaking a way ahead. Whitman, the one pioneer. And only Whitman. No English pioneers, no French. No European pioneer-poets. In Europe the would-be pioneers are mere innovators. The same in America. Ahead of Whitman, nothing. Ahead of all poets, pioneering into the wilderness of unopened life, Whitman. Beyond him, none. His wide, strange camp at the end of the great high-road."

Re: lawrence on whitman:

[marjoram]

then, a little later

[tastyanagram]

I loved it. Just came across this, have you heard about it? http://www.thesamueljohnsonprize.co.uk/pages/news/index.asp?NewsID=22

[marjoram]

yeah, my library just got a copy of that so i saw it on the "new nonfiction" self. i can't wait to read it! i'm taking it with me on the flight. i never thought i'd be interested in whaling, but its actually v. fascinating. i've heard this book is "exhaustive" in its detail. i hope so.

[tastyanagram]

It looks fantastic! I'll have to see if I can get to it. I'm starting to get overwhelmed by library books again. Is this the flight to LA to find an apartment?