Russell Hoban
Oct. 22nd, 2003 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Of late, I've been thinking a great deal about Russell Hoban. Dreadfully ignored in his home country of the 'good ole US of A', this man has a breathtaking knack for words, and I'm downplaying his talent.
'Twas Barry who introduced me to him and, to be honest, anyone who likes Shriekback should run off and try to find some of Russell Hoban's work, particularly 'Riddley Walker'. It is also of note that 'Riddly Walker' is the unofficial inspiration for a fair portion of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
I love Russell Hoban, even though I've only read 3 of his books (they're kind of hard to come by in America). The first book I read was 'The Medusa Frequency', then I devoured 'Riddly Walker', and finished up with 'Pilgermann'. Each novel has its unique merits, but I guess 'Pilgermann' would be my favourite, simply because Mr. Hoban's ability to paint masterpieces with language is combined with an almost Gnostic spiritual outlook to create a masterpiece that has no choice but to stir the reader's heart.
Some passages from the book:
There is a mystery that even God cannot fathom, nor can he give the law of it on two stone tablets. He cannot speak what there are no words for; he needs divers to dive into it; he needs wrestlers to wrestle with it, singers to sing it, lovers to love it. He cannot deal with it alone, he must find helpers, and for this does he blind some and maim others.
I don't know what I am now. A whispering out of the dust. Dried blood on a sword and the sword has crumbled into rust and the wind has blown the rust away but still I am, still I am of the world, still I have something to say, how could it be otherwise, the action never stops, it only changes, the ringing of steel is sung in the stillness of the stone.
What is called time passes and yet all time is present; one has only to turn one's head to see the happening of all things...
When one is a child, when one is young, when one has not yet reached the age of recognition, one thinks that the world is strong, that the strength of God is endless and unchanging. But after the thing has happened--whatever that thing might be--that brings recognition, then one knows irrevocably how very fragile is the world, how very, very fragile; it is like one of those ideas that one has in dreams: so clear and so self-explaining are they that we make no special effort to remember. Then of course they vanish as we wake and there is nothing there but the awareness that something very clear has altogether vanished.
And some incredible passages from other books:
My despair has long since been ground up fine and is no more than the daily salt and pepper of my life. ~from 'The Turtle Diary'
Early on in my childhood I sensed the thinness of reality and I became terrified of what might be on the other side of the membrane: I imagined a ceaseless becoming that swallowed up everything. I used to lie awake in the night and grind my teeth. But after a while anything becomes home, even terror. ~from 'Fremder'
The old feeling of sitting up in bed and looking into the dark came over me and I could feel my reality envelope beginning to come apart like a wet paper bag. Let it, I said to myself: perhaps this world that's in us, this world that we're in, was never meant to be fixed and permanent; perhaps it's only one of a continuous succession of world-ideas passing through the world-mind. And we are, all of us, the passing and impermanent perceivers of it. ~ from 'Fremder'
If the human mind is still evolving, as I believe it is, if our mind/soul capacity is still developing, then the pattern of our mental intake and sorting and storing is not static but changing. It may well be that we shall learn to let go rather than hold on, that we shall become capable of being with the world rather than attempting to consume it...we must find in ourselves the shapes of letting go because we're not free to become what we're going to be next until we let go of what we are now. ~'The Moment under the Moment
...the brain itself is an altar, and on it are offered the thoughts and wishes that call up what cannot be put down, gods and demons and unnamable presences hungry for their moment, and every single one of them real.
At this point people sometimes stop me and say, 'Hang on, are you saying that these gods and demons actually have an independent reality outside of your mind?'
And I say, 'You can't speak of a reality independent of the mind, the mind is the only perceiver of reality there is. We all belong to one mind and everything that's ever happened or been thought of since the beginning of the universe is in that mind and it's all real. I can't always get to it and if I do I can't always put a name to it but it's all there and it's all real: the chair is in my mind and it's real; the table is in my mind and it's real, the birth and death of this universe and other universes are in my mind and they're real. And the great blubbering blue fnergl is in my mind and that's real too.'
'Aha!' says my questioner. 'The great blubbering blue fnergl may be real to you but it isn't real to me.'
And I say, 'Not only is it real but you're standing neck deep in fnergl shit at this very moment and you refuse to take any notice of it.' ~from 'The Moment under the Moment'
I'm simply amazed at Russell Hoban's prowess with the written word. What I can't wrap my mind around is the fact that he's not internationally lauded and treasured.
'Twas Barry who introduced me to him and, to be honest, anyone who likes Shriekback should run off and try to find some of Russell Hoban's work, particularly 'Riddley Walker'. It is also of note that 'Riddly Walker' is the unofficial inspiration for a fair portion of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
I love Russell Hoban, even though I've only read 3 of his books (they're kind of hard to come by in America). The first book I read was 'The Medusa Frequency', then I devoured 'Riddly Walker', and finished up with 'Pilgermann'. Each novel has its unique merits, but I guess 'Pilgermann' would be my favourite, simply because Mr. Hoban's ability to paint masterpieces with language is combined with an almost Gnostic spiritual outlook to create a masterpiece that has no choice but to stir the reader's heart.
Some passages from the book:
There is a mystery that even God cannot fathom, nor can he give the law of it on two stone tablets. He cannot speak what there are no words for; he needs divers to dive into it; he needs wrestlers to wrestle with it, singers to sing it, lovers to love it. He cannot deal with it alone, he must find helpers, and for this does he blind some and maim others.
I don't know what I am now. A whispering out of the dust. Dried blood on a sword and the sword has crumbled into rust and the wind has blown the rust away but still I am, still I am of the world, still I have something to say, how could it be otherwise, the action never stops, it only changes, the ringing of steel is sung in the stillness of the stone.
What is called time passes and yet all time is present; one has only to turn one's head to see the happening of all things...
When one is a child, when one is young, when one has not yet reached the age of recognition, one thinks that the world is strong, that the strength of God is endless and unchanging. But after the thing has happened--whatever that thing might be--that brings recognition, then one knows irrevocably how very fragile is the world, how very, very fragile; it is like one of those ideas that one has in dreams: so clear and so self-explaining are they that we make no special effort to remember. Then of course they vanish as we wake and there is nothing there but the awareness that something very clear has altogether vanished.
And some incredible passages from other books:
My despair has long since been ground up fine and is no more than the daily salt and pepper of my life. ~from 'The Turtle Diary'
Early on in my childhood I sensed the thinness of reality and I became terrified of what might be on the other side of the membrane: I imagined a ceaseless becoming that swallowed up everything. I used to lie awake in the night and grind my teeth. But after a while anything becomes home, even terror. ~from 'Fremder'
The old feeling of sitting up in bed and looking into the dark came over me and I could feel my reality envelope beginning to come apart like a wet paper bag. Let it, I said to myself: perhaps this world that's in us, this world that we're in, was never meant to be fixed and permanent; perhaps it's only one of a continuous succession of world-ideas passing through the world-mind. And we are, all of us, the passing and impermanent perceivers of it. ~ from 'Fremder'
If the human mind is still evolving, as I believe it is, if our mind/soul capacity is still developing, then the pattern of our mental intake and sorting and storing is not static but changing. It may well be that we shall learn to let go rather than hold on, that we shall become capable of being with the world rather than attempting to consume it...we must find in ourselves the shapes of letting go because we're not free to become what we're going to be next until we let go of what we are now. ~'The Moment under the Moment
...the brain itself is an altar, and on it are offered the thoughts and wishes that call up what cannot be put down, gods and demons and unnamable presences hungry for their moment, and every single one of them real.
At this point people sometimes stop me and say, 'Hang on, are you saying that these gods and demons actually have an independent reality outside of your mind?'
And I say, 'You can't speak of a reality independent of the mind, the mind is the only perceiver of reality there is. We all belong to one mind and everything that's ever happened or been thought of since the beginning of the universe is in that mind and it's all real. I can't always get to it and if I do I can't always put a name to it but it's all there and it's all real: the chair is in my mind and it's real; the table is in my mind and it's real, the birth and death of this universe and other universes are in my mind and they're real. And the great blubbering blue fnergl is in my mind and that's real too.'
'Aha!' says my questioner. 'The great blubbering blue fnergl may be real to you but it isn't real to me.'
And I say, 'Not only is it real but you're standing neck deep in fnergl shit at this very moment and you refuse to take any notice of it.' ~from 'The Moment under the Moment'
I'm simply amazed at Russell Hoban's prowess with the written word. What I can't wrap my mind around is the fact that he's not internationally lauded and treasured.