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gveranon

gveranon

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Thanks for making this available. I'm looking forward to rereading it when it's published as a book.

Toward the end of the penultimate paragraph of the main text, there is a sentence that goes "Human life: it does mean something, but not so that it might as well mean nothing." I can't figure out what this means. Maybe I'm being dense. Is there a way to reword it so that the meaning is clearer?

Also, I can't find it now, but somewhere there is mention of a "dance macabre." I've always seen this with the French spelling: "danse macabre." I realize it may have been intended to Anglicize the spelling.
 
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Thanks for the correction of "danse macabre." I got lazy and didn't refer to the dictionary. As for the confusing sentence, I wrote a long reply explaining why I worded it that way but my log in timed out and I lost the whole thing. I'll just say that if you had a problem with the sentence, then certainly others will too. So thanks for drawing my attention to it. I'll either change it or delete it. Maybe my explanation would have changed you mind; maybe not. We'll never know.

TL
 
Wow. A long, lost explanation. Now the sentence seems even more enigmatic. I'll take it as a poser to think about. Someone should rap me with a stick, then I'll get it.

Seriously, though, don't let me ruin your sentence. If you think it's right, then go with it. I'm quite capable of missing the obvious.
 
gveranon said:
Toward the end of the penultimate paragraph of the main text, there is a sentence that goes "Human life: it does mean something, but not so that it might as well mean nothing." I can't figure out what this means.
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The sentence speaks to me clearly, but understand that I am not human. As a canine, I have the advantage of being able to view CATHR from the distance of cold objectivity. The sentence means that humans are "too much with the world," that they are caught up in the frenzy of existence and what it seems to offer. Most humans seem to want to attach meaning and significance to each event in their lives without realizing their place in the Universe, their ultimate cosmic meaningless insignificance. "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust" is not a sustaining credo for the overwhelming majority of this species.
 
I've always suspected that dogs are smarter than I am. You're right, the sentence must mean something like that. However, my problem is not so much that I can't divine the general import of the sentence. My problem is that I can't follow the movement of thought -- the unfolding of meaning -- in the sentence as it is expressed. And I can't even come up with a loose paraphrase that would make sense without sacrificing the logical structure and thus probably changing the intended meaning. I'm left scratching my head and feeling like I missed something -- which happens to me frequently in everyday life but not usually while reading Ligotti's prose.
 
gveranon, I can't resist another who enjoys playing "fetch" with me. I need the exercise. The following toss of the stick will be of no help at all, but features a taste of the mind-bending nature of Mr. Ligotti's prose which is similar to your beguiling sentence from CATHR:

"There can be no belief where there is no doubt. There cannot be something where there is no nothing. This is far from secret knowledge, as if such knowledge could change anything. This is only how it seems, and seeming is everything."
Thomas Ligotti - "The Mystics of Muelenburg"​
 
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Spotbowserfido2: I don't have a problem with deliberate paradox, but I didn't think that was what T.L. was trying to do in the sentence I questioned. (If so, then oops, my bad.) He didn't write "Human life: it does mean something, but it might as well mean nothing." That would have been a straightforward paradox, to be oxymoronic (see, I can do it too!). To me it seemed that the wording of his sentence introduced another little logical swerve, and that's what I can't figure out. It occurs to me that I'm being anal.
 
I think the dog has fairly described the broad intent of the sentence in question. But in reflecting on it, I found that I'd prefer to say something else altogether, which is this: "Human life: It does mean something, but not such that we care to dwell on its meaning." This harkens back to Zapffe's view of our lives, and therefore seems more appropriate at this concluding stage of CATHR.

TL
 
"Human life: It does mean something, but not such that we care to dwell on its meaning."

That's good, and it follows nicely from the rest of the paragraph. ("Good," "nicely" -- I'm talking about your formulation, not about the existential reality. Yikes!)
 
gveranon said:
"Human life: It does mean something, but not such that we care to dwell on its meaning."

That's good, and it follows nicely from the rest of the paragraph. ("Good," "nicely" -- I'm talking about your formulation, not about the existential reality. Yikes!)
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Actually, gveranon, you are in fact talking about the existential reality with which the sentence in question is concerned. You're just not immediately affected by the reality you're talking about; you're interest of the moment is focused, as you put it, on its formulation. In the same way, I wasn't significantly affected by the existential realities I wrote about in CATHR at the time I was writing about them. Neither was I significantly affected by them at the the time I was rewriting the sentence that you found obscure. Nor am I significantly affected by them at this moment. By concerning ourselves with the expression of an existential reality--one that constitutes a major theme of CATHR--rather than with the reality itself, we're both engaging in sublimation as explained by Zapffe. Here is a quote from the relevant section of "The Last Messiah":

"To write a tragedy, one must to some extent free onself from--betray--the very feeling of tragedy and regard it from an outer, e.g. aesthetic point of view. Here is, by the way, an opportunity for the wildest round-dancing through ever higher ironic levels, into a most embarrassing circulus vitiosus. Here one can chase one's ego across numerous habitats, enjoying the capacity of the various layers of consciousness to dispel one another.

"The present essay ['The Last Messiah'] is a typical attempt at sublimation. The author does not suffer; he is filling up pages and is going to be published in a journal."

By treating an existential reality in an aesthetic manner, we have betrayed it and betrayed ourselves. But what else can we do?

TL

​
 
Yes, you're right, you're right.

This actually goes right to the heart of my reaction to CATHR and your endorsement of Zapffe's "end" prescription. My immediate, gut-level response was something like, "But then nobody would be around to read Proust! Which would be a damned shame."

I'm tempted to commit another solecism and say that I'm more attached to sublimation than to life. But of course being attached to sublimation IS being attached to life.

And this is why I can't second your endorsement of Zapffe's prescription. I'm not a breeder myself (too introverted and solitary), so I don't have a problem with it on that score. But artistic and intellectual pursuits, which I am attached to, seem to rely on the expectation of a future even beyond one's own death, of "posterity," of an ongoing cultural activity extending indefinitely. A pathetic delusion, of course, but I can't imagine letting it go and would probably be at the Jean Amery stage if I did. Give me sublimation (and the projected notional future of ongoing sublimation which is needed to sustain present activities) or give me death! Yes, I know which one I'll get.
 
Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' (Remembrance Of Things Past) deals with separate selves (a bit like Pessoa does, too) and this concept sublimates its own posterity. (Just an aside).
des
 
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