ladders (was Phaedrus)

[Mark Powers]

JL says...

> david m re _Z&TAoMM_ :
> >It was never great literature.  It was a new-age physics/zen primer with a 
> >Sad Son grafted on.  

> fair comment.  also sounds like a review of _Mason & Dixon_.
> only joking,
> JL

(a lurker speaks) 

I think of Zen and the Art as a "ladder" book. Wittgenstein described
one of his works (the tractatus? I forget) as a ladder that can be used
to get into a second story window and kicked away when the 'higher
level' is obtained... that metaphor stuck for me as a way of looking at
all those books that said something significant to me way back when but
haven't aged well. I read Zen and the Art today and notice all kinds
of weaknesses - the spurious categorizing, oversimplifying of tricky
philosophical issues, the too impressed with itself new age metaphysics
- but I'm coming from the POV of one who read and digested the thing at
seventeen, found food for thought in it and moved on. who knows, maybe
some small debt is owed.

it reminds me of when my work had us making top ten lists of the books
that had most changed our lives and it occured to me that what I was
listing weren't necessarily what I'd consider the top ten /best/ books
I've read. is this a common experience? & where would Pynchon fit into
the equation?

ever quest(ion)ing,

___ mark powers _______________________________________
   `` when I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already
       belongs to the past. when I pronounce the word Silence,
         I destroy it. ''       - Wislawa Szymborska