tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post5007417215927446476..comments2024-01-08T00:08:53.008+00:00Comments on ombhurbhuva: John Banville's review of Canales' book on the Bergson- Einstein debate on the nature of timeombhurbhuvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-81661574984737585072016-09-26T16:56:41.715+01:002016-09-26T16:56:41.715+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.skholiasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-12442345501638614572016-09-26T16:55:56.958+01:002016-09-26T16:55:56.958+01:00Personally, I've found Joyce to be the best be...Personally, I've found Joyce to be the best bedtime reading. A page and a half of Finnegan's Wake per night did great things for my dreams. <br /><br />Now that I think of it, Bergson has an essay on dreams too. But it's been a while since I read it.skholiasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-8525583013595154492016-09-23T14:51:24.341+01:002016-09-23T14:51:24.341+01:00Proust is an effective sleep aid: ten minutes at b...Proust is an effective sleep aid: ten minutes at bedtime and you're out like a light. "Boring Banville," one of Bolaño's savage detectives calls him, but he doesn't hold a candle to Proust. Wrote Maugham: "A great deal of course was exquisitely boring, but I would sooner be bored by Proust than amused by anybody else." My reading and brief review of Banville's The Infinities figure prominently in a high-melodrama interpersonal encounter just before Christmas 2012, the recounting of which I'll spare you for now. Later I read Benjamin Black's Black-Eyed Blonde, which was plenty trashy enough even without the copy-editing failures.<br /><br />I'll queue up Adrian Messenger for tonight's viewing if I can find it online, making sure to give Kirk your regards.john doylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05484728969355294193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-10972641009383848742016-09-23T08:17:41.408+01:002016-09-23T08:17:41.408+01:00Hi John,
As one who is oft constrained to get up i...Hi John,<br />As one who is oft constrained to get up in what Springsteen calls ‘the wee wee hours’, 5 am. this morning, I have the deep unconsciousness or the dark samadhi of dreamless sleep and when I go back to bed later catch up on my dreaming which is technicolour, vivid, and closely plotted. I met Kirk Douglas the other morning and told him - I have enjoyed your work all my life. I particularly liked ‘The List of Adrian Messenger’.<br /><br />I don’t find my memory impaired by this split shift but that is not the same naturally as bromide induced slumber though I am tempted to resort to valerian potions to be able to say to my gude wife that happy news of the young parents - ‘baby slept through the night’. <br /><br />Up to the present though ‘Recherche’ has been in my path I have managed to avoid it, finding a multitude of ways to perdu my temps, chiefly noodling. <br /><br />Banville, the writer’s writer, a judgment that no publicist allows to appear on a cover with its implication of preciosity but is really an indictment of his weakness as a fabulist. Instead he turns to texture and elegance and no wonder he has taken up the writing of detective stories under the name Benjamin Black. We admire but do not buy the clever and the elegant.ombhurbhuvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789523088428270027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781646534201708629.post-65715373079245349502016-09-22T23:43:34.688+01:002016-09-22T23:43:34.688+01:00Synchronicity! In my intermittent reading that has...Synchronicity! In my intermittent reading that has spanned more than a decade by now, I arrived this evening at Chapter 3 of Proust's <i>Cities of the Plain</i>. Marcel begins by contrasting the clock-time that gauges the waking world with the radical variability of dreamtime. And now here comes Bergson stepping onto the stage, vicariously through the remembrance of the Norwegian philosopher, who had it from M. Boutroux:<br /><br />"soporifics, taken from time to time in moderate doses, have no effect on that solid memory of our everyday life which is so firmly established within us. But there are other forms of memory, loftier, but also more unstable. One of my colleagues lectures upon ancient history. He tells me that if, overnight, he has taken a tablet to make him sleep, he has great difficulty, during his lecture, in recalling the Greek quotations that he requires. The doctor who recommended these tablets assured him that they had no effect upon the memory. 'That is perhaps because you do not have to quote Greek,' the historian answered, not without a note of derisive pride."<br /><br />Sadly, Marcel cannot say whether this conversation between M. Bergson and M. Boutroux is accurately reported. He wonders whether the Norwegian philosopher might have misunderstood. For his part, Marcel has found the opposite result:<br /><br />"The moments of oblivion that come to us in the morning after we have taken certain narcotics have a resemblance that is only partial, though disturbing, to the oblivion that reigns during a night of natural and profound sleep."<br /><br />Now it's time for supper. I may return with further elaborations from Marcel, as well as my own memories associated with Banville, even though I may have written about them on my blog at some earlier time.john doylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05484728969355294193noreply@blogger.com