Comments on: Into blurred oblivion

by: Ben

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:37:01 +0000

E speaks the truth. :) We’ll be glad to have you there — meetings are usually Wednesdays at 5 p.m. in 4186 JFSB. (There’s a remote possibility we might change that winter semester, to try to accommodate more people, but we’ll see.) Hopefully in the next week or two we’ll have a website up with more information.

And yes, the quote is The Quote. :) It’s from the last page of An Experiment in Criticism, which is a nice short book with several gems in it.

by: A

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:22:07 +0000

Woah, woah, woah. That is the quote of all quotes on reading. That pretty much sums up what I’ve been trying to describe on how I feel about reading. What if I had never met you, Ben? It could have been years before I stumbled across this quote. Then again, I’m coming to the Y in January, and I plan on being in the CS Lewis society. E says that it’s fantabulous.

by: Ben

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:48:28 +0000

Katherine: Ah, yes, you’ve hit upon the next of those topics I’ve been saving to write on. :) (Well, not the very next — I’ve already written that post and will revise it in a second — but probably tomorrow’s.) But that’s not much of a response, so let me say that I agree completely. And I find that even for people I do have interaction with, but only via e-mails or blogs or what have you, my mind creates a persona that in effect becomes that person in my imagination. And when I again see them in real life, it can almost be jarring at times because my imaginary version of them was, as you say, inauthentic and of my own creation. More about that in the post. :)

A: Thanks. :) (And I love the Cougareat. I need to read there more often…) Amen on the value of reading. Not only does it give me stuff to blog about ;), but it makes me think, makes me feel. It enlarges my soul. As C.S. Lewis said (in one of my all-time favorite passages), “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.” Mmm.

by: A

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:00:15 +0000

I adore your epiphany about love while in the Cougareat. (I love that it was in the Cougareat. That’s funny on its own.) That is definitely worth publishing, and I’m going to write it in my thought journal right now. And see, that’s so why I’m an advocate of reading — because it takes you into your deepest thoughts, and causes reflection on your own life.

Way to be Ben. Way to be.

by: Katherine Morris

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:04:36 +0000

I really liked A Grief Observed when I read it. The passage you cited is one I related to. It was always odd to me that if I tried to draw from memory people I know well, it was difficult. Much harder than with people I’d just met. That passage explained the phenomenon very well.

Another passage I liked from A Grief Observed that relates to it is (I don’t have a copy on hand, so I’ll likely paraphrase this badly) the one where Lewis says that he’s almost afraid to try to remember Joy because he’s concerned that his memory won’t render her accurately–that his own emotions and reflections will alter her into something inauthentic and of his own creation. I have this concern as well when I’m thinking of people I no longer have daily interaction with–that my perception of them is idealized or one-dimensional. It’s hardest with people who have died or who you’ve had past relationships with, I think, because it’s nearly impossible to get the reality back.