Mid-afternoon and you are home after a good
Sunday dinner at Olive Garden with Kim, Paul and the boys as well as Paul’s
sister Cathy and her young girl and boy. – Amorella
We had a good time the entire weekend.
1549
hours. Doug sent me a good quote for the day, this time from one of my favorite
philosophers. Here it is.
“All
our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and
ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” -- Immanuel Kant
1554
hours. As far as I can see human beings have nothing higher to learn from than
reason. Understanding comes from reason and wisdom comes from understanding. I
remember this quotation from reading Kant during my first or second year at
Otterbein. I remember creating a ‘flow chart’ connecting the major European
philosophies from the 17th, 18th and 19th
centuries. I probably still have it somewhere in notes stacked below the back
of the basement stairs where one of my desks is.
You were surprised earlier to find your page
put in yesterday’s blog was missing today and you had to go to the blog to
retrieve it. – Amorella
1603
hours. Yes. It was weird. Makes me think of the short story “Lost” by Isaac
Bashevis Singer. I found a partial sense of this short story on enotesDOTcom.
** **
First
published in 1973 in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s collection of short stories, A
Crown of Feathers, “Lost” develops a mysterious tale of demonic possession,
one in which the rational conflicts with the irrational and the immutable laws
of nature seem to crumble before unknown and unknowable supernatural forces.
The story is characteristic of Singer’s body of work, taking the reader into
the religious and cultural heritage of European Jews. His fiction, however,
surpasses ethnic distinctions as it explores profound questions about truth and
the nature of reality itself.
In his New
York Times book review of A Crown of Feathers, critic Alfred Kazin
observed two major influences that informed Singer’s writing and created its
remarkable literary complexity: the author’s Jewish heritage and his secular
education. Kazin described Singer as “a rarity among Jewish novelists,” one who
was “necessarily secularized” but who had been steeped in “the mystical Jewish
theology” of his father, grandfathers, and uncles—rabbis all. According to
Kazin, “The world to Isaac Bashevis Singer still represents the mind of
God,” and his characters merely “pass through” as “part of a mysterious
creation.” Their “notable temporariness,” Kazin asserts, “may express their
flight through the mind of God.”
The ideas of
a mystical world hidden beneath the appearance of reality, and the temporary
nature of human lives as they pass through it, lie at the heart of “Lost.” The
story is a frame tale, and its structure is unusual in that Singer himself
narrates the short story as if its fantastic events had been told to him by an
elderly Jewish immigrant, Sam Opal, who unexpectedly appears in his office in
New York City late one Friday afternoon. Singer as narrator and Sam Opal (born
Shmuel Opalovsky in “the old country”) are the only characters in “Lost,” but
the story Sam relates to Singer includes his wife, Anna, and their daughter,
Natasha. Anna’s former fiancé, Vladimir Machtei, plays an important role in
Sam’s story, although the old man had never met Vladimir, and his very
existence becomes increasingly doubtful.
When Sam
Opal, an elderly Russian Jew wearing a long black coat, appears in Singer’s
office, he presents a striking figure with his stooped back, white goatee, and
tired eyes. Singer mistakes him for a recent immigrant but soon learns that
Sam, at eighty-three, has lived in America for more than sixty years. Sam is
nearing the end of his life but is still haunted by certain events from the
distant past and wants to share his story with Singer; he wants Singer to help
explain the unexplainable. When the old man begins to speak of demons and
hidden, mysterious powers, Singer is drawn into his tale.
As Shmuel
Opalovsky, Opal had emigrated from Russia as a young man to avoid serving in
the Czar’s army. On board the German ship that carried him to America, he met a
beautiful, refined Jewish girl, Anna Davidovna Barzel. She was immigrating to
America to meet her fiancé, Vladimir Machtei. Traveling alone, Anna made Sam’s acquaintance,
and the two became shipboard friends. When Anna appeared late at breakfast one
morning, Sam realized from her appearance and manner that “something terrible
had happened to her.” He later found her leaning far over the ship’s rail and
feared she was about to take her own life. Sam begged her to tell him what had
happened and to let him help her.
In
desperation, Anna told Sam that on her journey she carried all her money and a
small notebook with Vladimir Machtei’s address in a small pouch worn around her
neck. The evening before, she discovered the money and notebook were gone, and
in the pouch she found only her ticket stub and other unimportant papers she
always kept in a valise. Anna was positive her money and notebook had been in
the pouch the previous morning, and she knew she had not replaced them with the
worthless contents she found in their place. Hearing her story, Sam was
reasonably skeptical; he suggested “lightly” that perhaps she had become
involved with some young man on the ship who had stolen her belongings. Hurt
and insulted, Anna refused to speak to Sam again during the voyage, and he
avoided her.
Upon
arriving in New York City, Sam saw Anna again while she was attempting
unsuccessfully to leave the ship and enter the country. She had no money, her
fiancé had not come to meet her, and she could not communicate with the customs
agents because she did not speak English. Sam saw this as an opportunity to
make amends, so he helped Anna clear customs. Once in the city, he provided her
lodging at a hotel, and together they searched for her fiancé; however, no
trace of Vladimir Machtei could be found. Sam believed for a while that Machtei
had never existed, but the letters Anna had received from him and letters she
subsequently received from his aunt in Russia convinced Sam that...
(The entire section
is 2036 words.)
From enotes.com
** **
1618
hours. This is one of Singer’s best stories that I have read. Actually, I think
I used this story in AP English class for a few years. I some ways it reminds
me of an old faery story that has a bit of mystical trickery to it. I like
stories that suggest there is more to reality than we think and that we may
wish to consider for one reason or another.
You were talking about where yesterday’s
material disappeared to not Singer and “Lost”. – Amorella
1623
hours. Sometimes I think ‘spooky’ things happen and not finding the posting on
my master computer copy is spooky, but since I got it offline what difference
does it make? I’m a reasonable fellow. Now, if it had disappeared from online
also, then, yes, that would be spooky more on the order of Singer’s story “Lost”
if I were going to make a short story from the event.
Post, boy. – Amorella
You had a light supper and you are both
leaving your leftovers from today's Olive Garden experience for tomorrow night. The trash is out.
Earlier you watched the third and final episode of ‘Miss Marple”, NBC News and
“Blue Bloods”. Carol is on her iMac and you are considering calling it a night. Post. –
Amorella
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