A terrible day for me. And the worst of it is I don't feel capable of any reasonable, measured appreciation of events whose deepest significance no doubt still eludes me.I feel that this statement sums up much of the struggle that the novel deals with. The kind of fear that can be greater than a fear of death, the idea that one is missing the significance of their days. But of course everyone must feel this way, at least some of the time, if they feel the events in their days are significant.
It seems to me that there is a distinction in this quote between a general appreciation of events for their significance and a real understanding of their 'deepest significance.' This distinction is a good example of how this novel is both hopeless and encouraging all at the same time.
I'll write more about it sometime soon.
Hmm. Hopeless because the 'deepest significance' eludes him and yet encouraging because it is that way for everyone (and at least we have a sense of that transcendent significance)?
ReplyDeletethat was me, Jon. can't seem to figure out how to leave comments on blogspot with my wordpress self.
ReplyDeleteYeah, some kind of collective empathy and a shared inkling about the transcendent.
ReplyDeleteFor me significance works as something that is constantly withdrawing from me; I can reach for it and sometimes even find it, and yet it persists in eluding my full grasp. That's its glory, that it is SOOO unbounded; and maybe my glory is the eternal hunger for More.
ReplyDeleteMy bottomless hunger for unending significance puts me, when I'm brave enough, face to face with eternity and all that is nameless and utterly transcendent. It is, of course, a terrifying place to be. For me the fear "that one is missing the significance of their days," is a recognition of my own cowardice -my unwillingness to walk any further towards that abyss which is the gate to the unknown: the constantly withdrawing significance. I walk through life half-conscious because I'm too lazy and/or afraid to open my eyes any wider. I think it is that laziness and fear which is the root of "existential angst," and...
and now I'm rambling.
I guess I need to read that book.
I like how you said significance is something that is constantly withdrawing from you. That seems to ring true on some level.
ReplyDeleteYou certainly should read the book.
Matthew, you are such the mystic. I appreciate your interpretation of this very well-chosen quotation.
ReplyDeleteBut personally, at least at this present moment, I resonate more with the original thrust of the statement, and Dave's summary of it. I can't appreciate the always elusory significance of events because my capacity to understand, to even REACH toward understanding, is always inferior, deficient. This is how I have felt when standing in the nave of a medieval church, for example, of even when approaching the numerous responsibilities of my discipline. Sometimes this inferiority is humbling in a productive way (and I'm heartened to hear you express that, Matthew), and makes me want to grasp the removed present even more, but sometimes it completely defeats me. As today.
Well said Boyda.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate all of your responses.