The Diviners: My Thoughts

No, no, friends.
I don’t mean this Diviners.
No, no. The old one. Turn back the page. 1974.
CanLit 101. The other Margaret.
← Margaret Laurence’s, The Diviners.
I loved it.
The Diviners was Laurence’s final [adult] novel, the culmination of her Manawaka pentalogy. [← Should be a word, but isn’t.] I have read three of the others, so I am no stranger to her fiction, but I must say, The Diviners is the best one thus far.
Excuse me? Yes, you with the waving hand in the air?
"Why?"
Ahh, good question. Why is this a good novel.
Because it is deep, unsimple, ahead-of-its-time.
Rich in symbolism. Poetic, gutsy. Brave, real, unsentimental.
Of all of these adjectives I will single out “real”, and elaborate for three minutes or so.

Morag Dunn, born in 1920’s Manitoba has not ever had an easy go of it. Her parents die and she is shipped off to be raised by an eccentric duo worthy of being characters in anything by Flannery O’Connor.
Grotesques.
But I am focusing on “real” here. Not grotesgue. [And I’ve only got three minutes…] Well, it is obvious that Laurence models Morag after her own life, being raised in a small Manitoba town, working on a local newspaper, marrying a professional man, separating, becoming a novelist, and then living for stretches in Vancouver and Britain.
In all of this, [Morag has a daughter out of wedlock] is the search for love, for significance and for permanence. Stability. And above all, a sense of home or belonging.
Does Morag find this?
I believe she does. But only by coming full circle. By realizing that our roots go deep, and that the familiar is not to be despised, but sometimes, embraced. By looking up [as she so often does in the novel] and hearing the silence behind the honk of the Canada geese flying south for the winter.
Different geese, perhaps. But same instinctual journey. Life being different participants along a very similar flightpath.

The hand waved in the air is that of my lovely niece Sarah, asking “Why?”
A couple years ago The Diviners was a required text in her university course in English Literature, and I recall her chagrin at being forced to read it.
“It’s so booooooooring!” she lamented, as I leafed through her Library copy.
At the time, I had not yet read the book myself, so I did not know what to say.
I hope she asks me again when I go back home for Christmas, ten days from now.

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She Listened: A Saturday Poem

She Listened

She listened, while I said things.
None of them [my things] made sense.
Even to me, truth be known [but it wasn’t].
It [my words] made sense, not.

But she was listening, so on I went.
Out the window, beside her left eyebrow
some geese migrated south. I saw them
but she didn’t, because she listened.

A jet landed. I saw the wheels come out,
and the leaves in that tree turned orange.
[Still she listened] and on, like bees
I droned, making honey.

Flipping a page from October to November
she fixed her gaze on my babble. I missed
not a beat, but many points were lost
and the rain barrel filled with cold water.

White flecks of ice frosted the pane,
and with one breath the chill was gone.
It was not my breath, but hers. In back of it
was the word, “What?”

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

Old age is something that interests me more and more – the myriad ways people meet it, some pretending it doesn’t exist, some terrified by every physical deterioration because that final appointment is something they cannot face, some trying to balance the demands and routine of this life with an increasing need to gather together the threads of the spirit so that when the thing comes they will be ready – whether it turns out to be death or only another birth. I think birth is the greatest experience of life, right until the end, and then death is the greatest experience. There are times when I think that the revelation of death will be something so vast we are incapable of imagining it.
-- Margaret Laurence (1926 - 1987) --

Have a great Friday!
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Splash du Jour: Thursday

Pat: Mike, I’m calling you from the freeway on my new cell phone.
Mike: Be careful, Pat. They just said on the radio that there’s a nut driving the wrong way on the freeway.
Pat: One nut? Hell, there are hundreds of them!

Have a great Thursday!
[Yayyy! Today is my birthday! I’m 24!]
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Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Have a great Wednesday!
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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

“… we know that it is the search that gives meaning to any find and that one often has to travel a long way in order to arrive at what it near.”
-- Jose Saramago, in All The Names, p.53 –

Have a great Tuesday!
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Pondering...

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
← Jonathan Swift, Irish novelist & satirist (1667 - 1745) --

I think that the above quotation is extremely profound.
I would love to know more about the context in which it was first spoken or written, by Swift.
At first glance it appears to be one of those maxims that is undoubtedly true. You know? You read it or hear it, and think “Hmmmm” or “Wow” and nod your head.
I myself do believe it to be true, for the most part. More true than not true.
But a trifle overstated.
I speak from personal experience.

It is the word “useless” that I would argue is a possible exaggeration, on Swift’s part.
There are very few things that are useless, really.
But in this scenario of “reasoning” someone from a former state of – for lack of a better word, unreasonableness -- not only is it not useless to attempt to do so, but it is entirely possible to be successful.
I know because it happened to me.

I am assuming that Swift is perhaps referring to someone who may be designating certain areas of their belief system [their “weltanshung” or worldview] to be answerable to “faith” rather than reason. Or even “belief” over “evidence.”
I once did this.
By that I mean I lived out a worldview not only based in faith, but also capped off with it. At the top and bottom of the pyramid of my worldview, faith sealed whatever was reasonable, in a state of insulation.
Yes, seemingly impenetrable.

In many ways, the entire premise of faith-based belief relies upon this impenetrable idea, right up front. In other words, there is no such a thing as adherence to “faith” without a commensurate rejection of reason. It’s an integral part of the deal.
And yet, for me, reason found a way in, or rather, it’s way out.
So, at an essential level, I must disagree with Swift.
It is not "useless" to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
It is only difficult to do so.

Therefore, two questions I ponder tonight.
1) What is it that caused me to initially re-assess my faith-based convictions?
2) What would it take, for me to revert back to them?

When I come up with any transferable and hopefully coherent answers to these questions, I am going to write a book on the subject, entitled Gullible’s Travels.

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Splash du Jour: Monday

Painter: How am I selling?
Gallery Owner: Well, there’s good news and bad news. A man came in and asked me if you were a painter whose work would become more valuable after your death. When I told him I thought you were, he bought everything you had in the gallery.
Painter: Wow! That’s terrific! What’s the bad news?
Gallery Owner: He was your doctor.

Have a great Monday!
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Nomenclature: A Saturday Poem

Nomenclature

We label a thing and think that’s what it is.
Meteor, nitrogen, corpuscles, larynx, God,
follicle. The goal seems to be simplifying,
acknowledging, and quite often, I fear,
dismissing.

An agreement of sorts is what we desire,
or common currency. Therein lies progress.
Admittedly, this is so. But what we name
did quite fine before us, and will do well
when we are no more.

The Earth is not the earth.
Blood is not blood.
Fire is not fire.

We each had a pulse long before
we knew of aorta, artery, or atrium.
May no words choke us, even as the letters
your mother, your father, decided upon --
continue to not be you.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

A man goes into the confession booth and tells the priest, “Father, I’m seventy-five years old and last night I made love to two twenty-year-old girls -- at the same time.”
The priest says, “When did you last go to confession?”
The man says, “I’ve never been to confession, Father. I’m Jewish.”
The priest says, “Then why are you telling me?”
The man says, “I’m telling everybody!”

Have a great Friday!
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The Nuisance Grounds

← I just finished reading a wonderful text-book size book, dealing with the issue of the intellectual sustainability of Christianity.
I’m referring to John W. Loftus’s [2008 release]:
Why I Became An Atheist.
If you have not read my former blog about this book, I encourage you, dear reader, to → check it out.
And read the stimulating discussion that follows in the comments section. Even the author of the book joins in!
It’s really a superb book. I shall write a review of it, soon.
Did I become an atheist?
No.
I think I am what can be called a TEA©.
Thoroughly Entrenched Agnostic.

← OK, so I am in the beginning stages of a return to some fiction.
Reading Margaret Laurence’s [1974] The Diviners.
Classic Canadiana fiction!
The Diviners is the culmination and completion of Margaret Laurence’s celebrated Manawaka cycle.
This is the fifth of the pentalogy.
I am cheating a bit… I read three of the others, and skipped one.
Anyhoo, into the first 100 pages of it I am loving the thing.
Reminds me so much of my own small-town Saskatchewan prairie childhood. The main character, Morag Gunn, at least in her younger years, reminds me of the female equivalent of Salinger's Holden Caulfield.
Here in The Diviners, Morag Dunn is growing up just one province east of me, in Manitoba, [for those of you that would do poorly on Jeopardy!]
Part Two of the book is titled The Nuisance Grounds and well, as I read certain portions of it [where Morag actually climbs around a bit in the “nuisance grounds” more commonly known as “garbage dump” where her foster-father is the proprietor] I was reminded of a vague and distant memory.
We too, once had to TAKE our garbage to the “nuisance grounds”. And for some reason, I recall this one time when my sister and I were at this “dump” with some relatives, who were shoveling junk off the back of their half-ton truck.
We discovered a strange thing.
A veritable treasure trove of ICE-CREAM.
Yes, thrown out there…. in the big buckets it is sold in.
And even though it was blazing hot out, this ice-cream was all frozen.
So we started eating it.

Thing is, I am doubting my memory faculties here.
It does not seem reasonable that there could be frozen and perfectly good ice-cream thrown out at a garbage dump.
So I am going to have to phone my sister, out on Vancouver Island, and ask her -- I need verification.
I’ll be back in a bit, in the comments section, to corroborate or nullify all of the above.
-- Cip

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Splash du Jour: Thursday

Have a great Thursday!
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Splash du Jour: Wednesday

A man asks a fortuneteller what Heaven is like. The fortuneteller gazes into her crystal ball, and says, “Hmm, I see some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there are several golf courses in heaven and they are all incredibly beautiful.”
“Wow! Terrific! What’s the bad news?”
“You have an 8:30 tee time tomorrow morning.”


Have a great Wednesday!
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"I Trust You"

A really neat thing happened today.
It restored my faith in -- shawarma guys!
I was at work, and it was 4 o’clock, my afternoon breaktime.
And I was hungry. [That part is not really unusual.]
I was craving meat!
I thought I might just jaunt on down to this new place that opened up just a few blocks away.
It’s called “Shawarma Al Baba”. A Lebanese fast-food place, complete with Drive-Thru window and the works!
If you don’t know what “shawarma” is, oh dear friend, you are missing out. It is just incredible, I seriously love Lebanese food.
After a good shawarma sandwich your breath smells like the south end of a northbound rhinoceros but hey, it’s worth it! The food is awesome.
So, I set the alarm in my building, jumped in my car and booted it over to Al Baba!
Ordered a sandwich at the window and drove forward.
The guy opens the chute and hands me the paper bag of food, and SEVEN BEARDS OF ZEUS…. I realize I have no money. Left my wallet at work!
But I’ve got the sandwich, it’s right there in the passenger seat.
I was so embarrassed. I blurt out to the guy, “Mr Baba, I’m sorry. I have no money. I have to go back to work and get money. In the meantime…. here, you keep this and I’ll come back and pay,“ and I was handing the beloved package back to him.
But he wouldn’t take it!
“No, no. You go. Take it, take it. You will come back one day and pay me. I trust you.”
I said, “You can’t be serious,” the paper bag suspended in the air between us.
“Very serious my friend. Take it, take it. I trust you.”

So I took it. And oh, my God it was good!
And here’s the kicker → I have absolutely no intention of ever going back there and paying the guy!

No, I’m just kidding.
I swear by all the hot peppers in my shawarma that I went back right after work, a few hours later, and paid Mr. Baba.
Do you believe me?
To believe me, you must trust me!

P.S.
In the future, maybe I’ll → make my own.

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Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Customer in a restaurant: How do you prepare your chickens?
Cook: Oh, nothing special really. We just tell them they’re gonna die.

Check out this → terrific poultry-themed poem!

Have a great Tuesday!
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Splash du Jour: Monday

A Jewish grandmother is watching her grandchild playing on the beach when a huge wave comes and takes him out to sea. She pleads, “Please God, save my only grandson. I beg of you, bring him back.”
And a big wave comes and washes the boy back onto the beach, good as new.
She looks up to heaven and says: “He had a hat.”

Have a great Monday!

To Meow or Not to Meow...

I love Shakespeare.
I also love cats.
And my favorite Shakespeare play is Hamlet.
So, eschewing much ado about nothing, allow me to show you a brief clip so adorable I could hack up a hairball!



Who knew kitties could be so erudite?
Mine just relentlessly meows!
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Toilet Paper: A Saturday Poem

Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.
We know it is there, it has to be.
Because we know that the need is.
Our own rumblings
The evidence of things unseen.

Look at where it is perforated.
Who ever takes just one square?
Has even one human, done so?
Yet mathematically, design-wise
Let none tamper with perfection,
Nor alter the exquisite roll.
It should be on someone’s flag.

Today I looked upon civilization’s
One big unanimous agreement.
When it comes to this stuff, we
Are all fundamentalists.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Splash du Jour: Friday

Two women are sitting on a bench.
After a while the first woman says, “Oy!”
The second woman replies, “Oy!”
The first woman says, “All right, enough about the children.”

Have a great Friday!
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I Love Your Blog

Wow! I was so surprised when I saw my blog listed on Stefanie’s page, as one of her favorites. What an honor. She is a reader/writer/thinker and all around cat-person that I greatly admire.
So here is the way this works.
I am now going to list my seven favorite blogs that I most frequently… frequent, and if you see yourself listed here, blog-etiquette requires that you do the same as I am doing. Post the “I Love Your Blog” image and place a link to Bookpuddle in your introduction, and then list your own favorite seven blogs.
Failure to comply will mean immediate expulsion from Blogdom and a fine of $700, payable to Bookpuddle Inc.©
I am going to start with my #1 favorite blog, Stefanie’s own So Many Books.
She is a librarian, and a voracious, insightful reader who consistently writes stuff majorly worth reading, especially if you are into Emerson. Occasionally she posts images of the second and third cutest cats in the world, [Waldo and Dickens]… my own [Jack] glaring at me right now in a wee bit of an impassioned reminder of who is #1 in the Handsome Feline Department.

#2. Booklust. Patricia is a hoot. You’ve got to go to her blog and see what she’s drawing lately. When she is not hopelessly cheering for the Maple Leafs, she manages to conjure some of Toronto’s best cartoonitry. Is that the politically correct word, Patricia? Illustrator? Artiste? Nutbar?
We once had coffee at the Eaton Center, she and I.

#3. Magnificent Octopus. One thing I really like about Montrealer Isabella is she is forever reading books that no one else really reads. This shows moxy! And she always makes me feel I should also be reading them. Occasional forays into the delights of shopping, and just life in general. Always good. Her blog title originated from her desire to buy four pairs of shoes with the left half of her body while handing over four credit cards with the right side!

#4. Moleskin Notebook. Oh, San Fransisco! There is no country of the world Matt has not been to, and blogged about. The guy is an intrepid traveler, observer, and precise reader. His book reviews are fabulous. A blogpage with serious substance!

#5. Arukiyomi. Good, well-thought-out, brutally honest book reviews. Aesthetically gorgeous. When my own blog grows up, I want it to look like this!

#6. Book Chase. If you know Sam, you just have to like Sam. Viciously unassuming. Yet the guy reads like Harold Bloom! And he’s a Texan! You know? Texas? Where they FRY people at the drop of a Stetson? Sam Houston, you are a conundrum!

#7. Vienna For Beginners. I love to visit Merisi’s site, but a warning, what we call a “proviso” – you will gain weight! Merisi posts absolutely decadent photos of Vienna-life. She will convince you quickly that she is living in the most beautiful city on the planet.

Honorable mentions go to Dorothy's blog, Of Books and Bicycles, and [I must say it] I wish that Beth [yet another dreaded Maple-Leafer...] would revive her blog, entitled Books, Etc. But all things, in their time --
So says my therapist....

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