tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post1607726979112477443..comments2023-05-07T07:43:51.224-04:00Comments on Still and Still Moving: In Honor of T. S. Eliot's B-Day...Deborah Leiter Nyabutihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15550153856823115989noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-12366676062050550272008-09-29T01:57:00.000-04:002008-09-29T01:57:00.000-04:00Your worldviews on spirituality and Huxley's own m...Your worldviews on spirituality and Huxley's own might actually dovetail. He was an open student of all faiths and one phrase of his always makes me think of Eliot's "Wasteland:"<BR/><BR/>"From the silence of the womb to the silence of the grave, all life is an attempt to mitigate the silence in between."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-77509896067697372512008-09-28T20:54:00.000-04:002008-09-28T20:54:00.000-04:00Rodger: I haven't read any of those Huxley novels-...Rodger: I haven't read any of those Huxley novels--just *Brave New World*. Maybe I'll get around to checking them out at some point, though I'm pretty sure Mr. Huxley and I have some worldview differences on spirituality. :)<BR/><BR/>Don't worry--wasn't studying anyway. It's Sunday--I don't study on Sundays.Deborah Leiter Nyabutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15550153856823115989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-75944783732646660692008-09-28T17:54:00.000-04:002008-09-28T17:54:00.000-04:00I assume you've read at least a little bit of Aldo...I assume you've read at least a little bit of Aldous Huxley? He's one of the best prose stylists at mixing and exploring the temporal and spiritual. Some of the best novels on that topic from Huxley are "Time Must Have a Stop", "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan", and "Point Counterpoint". <BR/><BR/>(God, I'm starting to feel like a gadfly around here. Never mind me. Go back to your studies.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-10588012262269914032008-09-28T16:47:00.000-04:002008-09-28T16:47:00.000-04:00Yes, I think it's so sad that Eliot has become les...Yes, I think it's so sad that Eliot has become less known. The literary folks who came after him so overreacted, I think, to his (actually fully well-deserved, in my thoughts) literary celebrity that they've cut down study of him, which is too bad.<BR/><BR/>Four Quartets is a masterwork--it was largely written during WWII, and though it's largely a reflection on personal events in the '30s, it was hugely popular during the war. <BR/><BR/>To be fair, I admit that I like it best because it was his big post-conversion to Anglicanism poem, too, so he's also reflecting on some of the big questions about love and sacrifice and intersections between the temporal and the spiritual/eternal, which are totally up my alley.Deborah Leiter Nyabutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15550153856823115989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-12061577467975360622008-09-28T15:13:00.000-04:002008-09-28T15:13:00.000-04:00I think I'll pick up Four Quartets on your recomme...I think I'll pick up Four Quartets on your recommendation. I wrote an homage to Wasteland at my site recently, titled "The Poet and the Pistolero", but only a small handful of readers understood what I was doing so I aborted the project just before the final segment was ready to post.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-91348686628211195542008-09-28T15:01:00.000-04:002008-09-28T15:01:00.000-04:00Ah, Rodger, but there's actually only one line fro...Ah, Rodger, but there's actually only one line from the Waste Land. The most are from Eliot's poem Four Quartets (where the title of this blog also comes from--I did my MA thesis on that one so I have chunks of it memorized).<BR/><BR/>Here's the "cheat sheet" of citations, listed according to their line numbers within my "poem":<BR/>1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock<BR/>2. Waste Land<BR/>3 and 4. Four Quartets<BR/>5 and 6. Prufrock<BR/>7 and 8. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (a poem on which the musical Cats was based)<BR/>9 and 10. Four Quartets<BR/>11. PrufrockDeborah Leiter Nyabutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15550153856823115989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-89403194270123072172008-09-28T13:50:00.000-04:002008-09-28T13:50:00.000-04:00Sorry to say that I am merely a student of "The Wa...Sorry to say that I am merely a student of "The Wasteland", Deborah (though I have read Prufrock a number of times) so I can only spot the references to the former masterwork.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-39539315612202543122008-09-27T15:49:00.000-04:002008-09-27T15:49:00.000-04:00Rodger: Yeah, they're all really hard to beat. And...Rodger: Yeah, they're all really hard to beat. And I do love the coffee spoons thing--Prufrock was such a fabulous thing (a darned good thing since I ended up studying it 7 times in different classes in college).<BR/><BR/>What, no guesses at the sources of the lines I cited?Deborah Leiter Nyabutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15550153856823115989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5143902778606793130.post-31491130818580224592008-09-27T01:16:00.000-04:002008-09-27T01:16:00.000-04:00"I have measured out my life in coffee spoons"How ..."I have measured out my life in coffee spoons"<BR/><BR/>How the hell can I improve on that?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com