October 11, 2007

  • Deep Beauty: A Prize for Lowry--

    The Nobel Prize
    in Literature

    this year goes to the author
    of The Golden Notebook
    and The Cleft.

    Related material:
    The Golden Obituary
    and Cleavage --
    Log24, Oct. 9, 2007 --

    Art History, 1955: Scenes from Bad Day at Black Rock

    Background from 1947:

    The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix07A/071011-Cleavage.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

    Further details:

    WheelThe image “http://www.log24.com/log/images/asterisk8.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

    Quoted by physics writer
    Heinz Pagels at the end of
    The Cosmic Code    :

    "For the essence and the end
    Of his labor is beauty... one beauty,
    the rhythm of that Wheel...."

    -- Robinson Jeffers

    From Holy Saturday, 2004:

    "The
    Ferris wheel     came into view again, just the top, silently burning high
    on the hill, almost directly in front of him, then the trees rose up
    over it.  The road, which was terrible and full of potholes, went
    steeply downhill here; he was approaching the little bridge over the
    barranca, the deep ravine.  Halfway across the bridge he stopped;
    he lit a new cigarette from the one he'd been smoking, and leaned over
    the parapet, looking down.  It was too dark to see the bottom,
    but: here was finality indeed, and cleavage!  Quauhnahuac
    was like the times in this respect, wherever you turned the abyss was
    waiting for you round the corner. Dormitory for vultures and city of
    Moloch! When Christ was being crucified, so ran the sea-borne, hieratic
    legend, the earth had opened all through this country..."

    -- Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947. (Harper & Row reissue, 1984, p. 15)

    Comment by Stephen Spender:

    "There
    is a suggestion of Christ descending into the abyss for the harrowing
    of Hell.  But it is the Consul whom we think of here, rather than
    of Christ.  The Consul is hurled into this abyss at the end of the
    novel."

    -- Introduction to Under the Volcano

     Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter XXI --

    Gibbon, discussing the theology of the Trinity, defines perichoresis as

    "... the internal connection and spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons59 ....

    59 ... The perichoresis  or 'circumincessio,' is perhaps the deepest and darkest corner of the whole theological abyss."

     "Whoever
    fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become
    a monster.  And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also
    looks into you."

    -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 146, translated by Walter Kaufmann

    William Golding:

     "Simon's
    head was tilted slightly up.  His eyes could not break away and
    the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him. 

    'What are you doing out here all alone?  Aren't you afraid of me?'

    Simon shook.

    'There isn't anyone to help you.  Only me.  And I'm the Beast.'

    Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words.

    'Pig's head on a stick.'

    'Fancy
    thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!' said the
    head.  For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly
    appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter.  'You knew,
    didn't you?  I'm part of you?  Close, close, close!' "

    "Thought of the day:
    You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar... if you're into catchin' flies."

    -- Alice Woodrome, Good Friday, 2004

    Anne Francis,
    also known as
    Honey West:

    "Here was finality indeed,
    and cleavage!"

    -- Under the Volcano

    The image “http://www.log24.com/log/images/asterisk8.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. For further details of
    the wheel metaphor, see

    Rock of Ages

    (St. Cecilia's Day, 2006).