TPPM Barthelme: "Heaven Forfend"

[Dave Monroe]

   "Not to try to make any case for Barthelme as any
heavy-duty metaphysician. Heaven forfend. He was too
connected to calendar dates and named streets, too
engaged with the quotidian, like Garcia Marquez's
magician Melquiades in One Hundred Years of Solitude,
'in spite of his immense wisdom and mysterious
breadth, he had a human burden, an earthly condition
that kept him involved in the small problems of daily
life.' Because his verifiable miracles are all
literary in nature, Barthelme is probably not about to
make saint anytime soon, either. But along with his
published work, his other great gift to us is
precisely his melancholy, presented, if we will but
look, as praxis and example, a way to get us through,
trading off time for spectacle, now and then even
providing, as they used to sing at the end of Hee Haw,
'a smile and a laugh or two.' If this is not exactly a
guide for the perplexed, it is still a good honest
push back against the forces that favor tragedy, and
who of us wouldn't like to have left something like
that behind us?"

http://www.vheissu.org/bio/eng_barthelme.htm

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/barthelme.html

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_barthelme.htm


"Heaven forfend"

Main Entry: for·fend 
Pronunciation: for-'fend, fOr-
Function: transitive verb
1 a archaic : FORBID b : to ward off : PREVENT
2 : PROTECT, PRESERVE

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=forfend


"Garcia Marquez's magician, Melquiades"

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel.  One Hundred Years of
   Solitude.  Trans. Grgeory Rabassa.  New York:
   Harper & Row, 1970 [1967].

http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_works_fiction.html#Anchor-One-14210

http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/index.html

And see as well ...

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/marquez.htm

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1982/marquez-bio.html

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_cholera.html


"... his melancholy, presented, if we will but look,
as praxis and example ..."

Comments?  Let me know ...


"'a smile and a laugh or two'"

Hee Haw (1969-86)

http://www.heehaw.com/

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/variety/heehaw.htm

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-1784/HeeHaw/

And see as well ...

http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/articles/X0041_Nixon_on_Hee_Haw.html

http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2004/11/via_rakes_progr.html


"a guide for the perplexed"

Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed (1190)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp.htm

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.jewishgates.com/file.asp?File_ID=344

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~drstall/maimonides/maiminfo.html


"a good honest push back against the forces that favor
tragedy"

Again, cf. ... anyway, comments?  Anyone?  At any
rate, thanks again, and Happy Thanksgiving ...


		
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