Kipling, it's a while since I read "The Valley of the Worm" or other stories by Howard. But it sounds like it's a story of the abrupt shift in one man's experience from a buffered state to a porous state. If Allison is, at first, an ordinary modern man, regarding himself as a known thing in a world of known things, etc., who is suddenly compelled to acknowledge the "memories" imparted to him from distant ancestors, my description would fit, I think. Again, the terminology is Charles Taylor's and not mine.

Thinking about your posting and Taylor, it occurred to me that this might be a simple way to get at the difference between "porous" and "buffered" -- think of the change in the meaning of "genius."

Originally, a genius is a spirit that might somehow enter into or overcome a man. The Muse is a genius in this sense. If I remember it correctly, Plato's short dialogue "Ion" is about poetic inspiration, and he has this theory of the poet being seized upon by the inspiring "genius."

But of course for us a man's "genius" is nothing but his own faculties, operating at a higher than usual degree of cooperation or unity. And so literary biography becomes a field of extensive endeavor. Likewise with scientific or musical geniuses. But as far as I know, in the ancient world there was little interest in the poets and natural philosophers apart from a recounting of their productions. We have a few traditions about the appearance of, say, Socrates. We are told that Homer was blind -- is anything else said of him?

NOT that ALL conceptions of the porous self embrace this idea of genius, of course.

Dale, you are spot on regarding the Howard story. The self-image of the modern day, buffered narrator is that of a man made painfully aware of his own weakness or dependency on social constructs of Identity; a buffered" state of mind. I like your idea about the shifting concept of "genius" too. Plato's Gorgias is also relevant to the implied integrity of the artist, in that its dialogue condemns sophistry. Thanks!

jkh



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Sep 23 | 06:40PM by Kipling.

"The Valley of the Worm" is in Lin Carter's early Ballantine fantasy series anthology The Young Magicians, so I'll have to take a look at it.

And a revisit of the Gorgias would be in order... read only once back in 2016....

I'm just a dabbler, but the position taken therein by Sophocles against "might makes right" is very poignant because of what finally happened to him. I do have a copy of Charles Anthon's 1841 Classical Dictionary, certainly one of the all-time most monumental feats of scholarship, like Johnson's dictionary. Anthon set himself to improve upon the first such work, which was by Lempriere.

jkh

With all three of these authors the perception of misanthropic intent is exaggerated, my comments about "The Valley of the Worm" notwithstanding. Lovecraft's non-fiction, including his poetry, doesn't often reflect the belittling of humanity as his fiction does. Howard wrote tales set in historical backgrounds ("Sword Woman" ought to be made into a film) that do not have the cynical POV of those in which the settings are wholly imaginary, and Smith's poetry, painting and sculpture is only marginally satirical.

jkh

Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just a dabbler, but the position taken therein
> by Sophocles against "might makes right" is very
> poignant because of what finally happened to him.
> I do have a copy of Charles Anthon's 1841
> Classical Dictionary, certainly one of the
> all-time most monumental feats of scholarship,
> like Johnson's dictionary. Anthon set himself to
> improve upon the first such work, which was by
> Lempriere.


The local university has been discarding many of its good books. My prizes include the 1950s Times Atlas of the World (5 volumes, elephant folios) and the Dictionary of National Biography, possibly the most browsable books in the English language. The DNBs were free. One volume was missing and three or four late volumes had evidently not been bought. I was able to get all of the missing volumes for about $50. The Atlases were 25c a volume as I recall. Also got a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, which I gave away. Other works of interest have been some folklore volumes -- for free. A fun catch was a 1945 volume of Who's Who (the British reference book), about 3000 pages, with entries for E. R. Eddison, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers, Arthur Machen, &c. as I recall without getting up to check.

My point is that libraries are discarding some of their greatest books because "it's all online now" and "those books weren't used." This is a pity for library users of the future, who, I fear, will find fewer and fewer books from pre-woke times. But it can be a great opportunity for scholarly individuals.

I thought possibly your Classical Dictionary was such a book.

It's an attractively rebound copy from a book shop. That's great about the DNBs, Dale.

What I've longed for is the library's multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Of course they ought to keep it. If they don't, I want it.

I've passed many happy hours in used book shops, but haven't been in one in years.

But I knew Powell's in Portland, Oregon, back in the 1970s, before it became an "institution" of Portlandia.

Sub-Saharan Africans (including their diaspora) and Indigenous Australians are nonhuman primates.

If anything Lovecraft was denigrating nonhuman primate fecundity. I wonder what he would think of the degraded modern society where there isn't just a deficit in Anglo-Saxon birthrates but Anglo-Saxon women are actually boosting the birthrate of primitive lower primates by producing albino hybrid variants of Capoid and Congoid extraction?

The entire world is becoming the predatory biracial ghetto he endured for a few years in Brookyln.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 21 Oct 23 | 07:39PM by ethnic purity.