Dies Irae

[Paul Mackin]

On 7/6/2011 1:41 PM, edmoorester at gmail.com wrote:
> Another book where a reference to "Dies Irae" pops up is "VALIS" by 
> Philip K. Dick.
>
> Kai wrote:
> "At the beginning of chapter three it is reported how Horselover
> Fat took a large dosage of Acid in 1964, got catapulted out of time,
> started to speak Latin and thought the Dies irae to have come.
> For eight hours Fat tried to pacify God's rage by wailing and praying 
> in Latin.
> No other possibility, Fat later said."
>
>
> I have tried to read Valis multiple times but just get stuck.
>
> Dick has another book "Deus Irae" "God's Wrath" which I might never read
> although I enjoy a lot of his work
>
>
> Mark noted:
> They got rid of texts that smacked of a negative spirituality 
> inherited from the
> Middle Ages. Thus they removed such familiar and even beloved texts as 
> the
> Libera me, Domine, the Dies Iræ, and others that overemphasized 
> judgment, fear,
> and despair. These they replaced with texts urging Christian hope and 
> arguably
> giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.
>
>
> I guess I can see the image problem the song might give the church.
>
> In that same vein if I were the canon editor I would have stricken
> Revelations from the New Testament. . . nasty apocalyptic imagery
> that a lot of goofballs have misappropriated imho. . .heck maybe even
> John Gospel which has some apocalyptic stuff too more so than other 
> gospels
>
> Revelations has supplied an infinite amount of grist for hollywood
> and I am sure there are many screenplays waiting to get greenlighted
>
> I wonder if Daniel Goleman's "Social Intelligence" and Malcolm
> Gladwell's stuff is in some ways a successor to Dale Carnegie's stuff?
>
> It is touching to read the amazon.com ratings on "How to Win Friends etc"
> and see how many people it has helped
>
> ed 
Isn't all this type of book pretty much the same thing Dr. Phil is pushing.

Americans have always been very tuned in to the project of self help. 
Easy ways to become better
"more effective" people.  To make more money in the case of Dale 
Carnegie. But The Five Foot Shelf  (Harvard Classics)  alluded to 
yesterday is kind of the same thing.  Get culture in fifteen minutes a 
day.  I imagine that was pretty much what a Harvard education amounted 
to a hundred years ago. The culture of the people in The Recognitions 
isn't used to make money of course but it's main use seems to be in 
being clever and  funny.

Maybe if Pynchon is about Work, Gaddis is about Self-Help. (I suspect 
he's against it)

P