Buddha's Dead. Now What?
Tumultuous times find us searching for higher ground, or deeper meaning, or stories through which we might find escape. The sky isn’t falling or anything, and the Red Sox did earn (win?) the Wild Card, but still. It’s times like these that make us appreciate our bookish proclivities. What better way to turn away from oneself than within the pages (digital or print) of an engrossing read? Killing the Buddha — what a provocative name! — discusses the meaning of God with people who don’t believe in God. Ever read Arthur Machen? You have, well good for you. We hadn’t either. The Guardian expounds on his deliciously odd fiction. Literary genius is poked with a stick, and James Joyce pokes back. At least that’s how Paper Cuts sees it. A big, new book, staggering with over 2,000 synonyms for drunkenness, is published. Salon chats up the linguistic attitudes of technology, the Boston Review comes clean and admits that poets are thieves, and an importantly obscure Italian philosopher has his moment in the sun. Enjoy the good times while they last. — Kevin Murphy
– In June of 1983, a peculiar article appeared in Musical Times, one of England’s most prestigious music journals. In it, an obscure Chinese neurologist named Dr. Dajue Wang reported having once worked with a renowned Soviet surgeon who’d allegedly treated a man for a shrapnel wound sustained years earlier during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. The patient, Dr. Wang recalled, had been none other than the great Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich. — Religion in Killing the Buddha
– For those who think a century is entitled to more than one “game-changer,” there’s a fine new book of literary criticism called “ ‘Ulysses’ and Us: The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce’s Masterpiece.” The author is Declan Kiberd, a professor of Anglo-Irish literature at University College Dublin and the author of “Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation.” — Literary Genius in Paper Cuts
Machen, Pipe Smoking Extraordinaire
– Perhaps the most significant but least well remembered of the Tartarus writers is the Welsh author of supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction Arthur Machen (1863-1947). Many contemporary authors of weird fiction will see their own struggles reflected in Machen’s life and career. — Arthur Machen in the Guardian
– Wise-guy lexicographer Paul Dickson, a consulting editor at Merriam-Webster, has long held the record for collecting the “Most Synonyms” for any term in the English language. He made the Guinness Book of World Records with 2,231 terms meaning “drunk”—beating out no less than Benjamin Franklin, who published his own list (The Drinker’s Dictionary) in 1736. But records are made to be broken. — Drunk Terminology in Melville Publishing
– By now the arguments are familiar: Facebook is ruining our social relationships; Google is making us dumber; texting is destroying the English language as we know it. We’re facing a crisis, one that could very well corrode the way humans have communicated since we first evolved from apes. What we need, so say these proud Luddites, is to turn our backs on technology and embrace not the keyboard, but the pencil. — Technology in Salon
Vico Was A Funny Man
– The Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is one of those thinkers of whom much is heard and little is read. Perhaps because he has been depicted mainly as the forerunner of other, more famous thinkers (especially Hegel and Herder), and as following established currents of thought, many acknowledge his contribution to the history of Western philosophy, but few actually read his writings. — Vico in the Philosophy Magazine
– Poets steal. T.S. Eliot concealed this offhand assertion in plain sight 90 years ago in his essay on English playwright Philip Massinger: “Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.” It had the effect of recalibrating readers’ expectations for originality. All readers. Granted, this was the same effect Emerson achieved in his essay, “Quotation and Originality,” but the recursion supports Eliot’s point. — Poetry in the Boston Review
Video: T.S. Eliot Reads His Stolen Poetry
