I will be the first to admit that when I read something that is complicated, or about which I know very little, I chunk through it. I just read it anyway, and worry about understanding it later. I had to do a bit of this with Literature and the Gods, because I am not very familiar with the 19th century French poetry scene. I’ve heard of Baudelaire, of course, but hadn’t thought of him in ages, except that EM rented Groundhog Day about a week ago, and the movie mentions Baudelaire। ;)
I’m sure some of this book went right over my head। I’m fine with that. At least now it’s stored in my subconscious somewhere, and if I come across a related theme/trope/discussion later, I hopefully will think, Oh, that sounds like something from Literature and the Gods! And go look it up again. Or, I’ll read some of the works discussed in the book, and then whole sections of the book will be lit up with a sudden understanding of what Calasso was saying.
I’ve never understood why people think they have to understand everything the first time, or get it perfectly right before they move on. Oh, sure, I’m horribly guilty of that when it comes to
writing lol, but not when I’m reading or doing math or something else. It’s fine to have a sketchy comprehension that becomes more detailed and thorough over time, and then when you have a better understanding of it all, you can revisit your first thoughts and see how your thinking has progressed. Some of the first thoughts when you’re learning something are very helpful as they tend to be more original and less pigeonholed than those later on।
Anyway. Even though I haven’t read some of the French poets discussed in Literature and the Gods yet ;), I have read/am familiar with the Greek and German thinkers mentioned। Nietzsche, god bless him, comes up fairly frequently. This is not at all surprising, as the subject of the book is literature and myth, gods, and the divine, and how that relationship has changed over time. Which is intimately related to how the relationship between myth and people have changed over time as well.
I am very interested in such themes. In fact, at one point रीडिंग this I thought: whereas EM is musically inclined, I am mythically inclined. It’s part of why I enjoy C.J. Cherryh’s Rusalka trilogy and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods so much। The theme of myth and belief:
“People believe, thought Shadow. It’s what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe; and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.”
[page 536, American Gods]
I’m afraid I have not fully digested the contents of his book enough to give you a play-by-play account of it। I am sure I have missed some points, and on others I gave the author the benefit of the doubt/my own ignorance. And yet I am surely inspired to learn more, to read more, and to say: Calasso is a delight to read, even if it takes a while to get used to his generous style. His easy wit and ready, familiar knowledge of his sources enables him to weave together a brilliant narrative of how humanity’s innate ability and overwhelming tendency to embellish and even invent the world around us has changed since the time of the ancients (and their gods), and yet not changed as much as we might have thought, and, indeed, how unaware we are of the power that myth and belief have over us.
The very idea that mythology is something one invents suggests an unpardonable arrogance, as if myth were at our beck and call. Rather, it is we, the will of each and every one of us, that are at the beck and call of myth.
[46, Literature and the Gods]
“In a remote corner of the sparkling universe that stretches away across infinite solar systems, there was once a star where some clever animals invented knowledge. It was the most arrogant and deceitful minute in ‘the history of the world’: but it lasted only a minute. Nature breathed in and out just a few times, then the star hardened and the clever animals had to die.”
[Nietzsche quoted on page 184 of Literature and the Gods]
I say, it is common knowledge that little girls in the West are often brought up on fairy tales that ultimately fail them when they mature into womanhood. And yet, boys are told fairy tales, too, of a fundamentally different kind. They are still tales that change what you expect from the world, and therefore what you see, only it never occurs to people that they might not be true. “And this is its supreme triumph, as the supreme aspiration of the Devil is to convince everyone he doesn’t exist। [72, Literature and the Gods]
This book is quite academic in nature, again, fine with me, as I am an academia nut, and is not what most people would think of as a light, breezy read. It requires attention and some sense of adventure and open-mindedness to follow. As early as page 5, Calasso introduces ancient ideas of “god” as a predicative (one shade away from proclaiming “god” to be a verb), and goes on to explore “god” as “divinity” where divinity is enmeshed and hidden within everyday reality, and touches on a popular modern interpretation of “god” as a mental event or disease. He presents how literature and verse were seen in some traditions as devotion and an escape from death, how they continued on as servants to and upholders of society, and then how, severed from those strong bonds of society and the myths society created, they became “closer to the underlying ground of our experience” and the myths that create societies. I hope this sentence, this review, still makes sense when I read it again in a month. Towards the end, Calasso discusses how changes in the world changed not only literature and verse and language, but revealed their true natures and their relation to each other (and to the truth). Throughout it all is a marvelous discussion of some of the writers involved in this process and their journeys to find the divine. I am especially off to seek out Stephane Mallarme। And, of course, absolute literature itself:
irresponsible, metamorphic, carrying no identity card that a desk sergeant might examine, deceptive in its tone..., and, finally, subject to no authority.
[181, Literature and the Gods]
In which case it might be a good idea to end with a reminder:
“God,” Pyetr said. “I’m going to go talk to my horse. Books make you crazy, you know.” A motion at his head. “Thinking all those crooked little marks mean real things, that’s not sane, you know.” He waved the same hand toward the front door. “Out there is real. Don’t lose track of that.”
[42, Chernevog]
