Dies Irae

[Erik T. Burns]

>Gaddis is about Self-Help. (I suspect he's against it)

Gaddis is in favor of self improvement through work. What he's against
is getting third-party help, esp. what he sees as the ridiculous, i.e.
psychoanalysts, Dale Carnegie, art critics, the radio, unserious
religions...

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> 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 Irę, 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
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