Comments on: God’s daisy chain

By: Bucky

Bucky — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:51:50 +0000

Henry – Yes I knee-jerked the anti-Arab bias, which Irwin obviously doesn’t have. Alan Bostick’s point about anti-Islamic bias isn’t addressable, because as he points out, Irwin’s praising the pre-Islamic poets. It’s the timing. Antonin Scalia really did say this week that the separation of church and state is a mistake. That didn’t create, but it certainly illuminates, a cultural landscape in which paranoia exists now only as an inaccuracy or misapplication, not as whole-cloth fantasy. The US sees a lot of public examples of inexcusable gloating bigotry directed at Arabs and Muslims. It’s not so much letting that climate of fear and violence intrude into the reading of a book review, as it is, in my case at least, being unable to keep it out. Things are getting mighty parochial ‘round here. I hear you though, and did some looking; and I found some beautiful calligraphy by Al-Shanfara, who Irwin mentions positively.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 02:43:53 +0000

Bucky, I don’t think you get where Irwin is coming from. He’s about as far from being a right wing Arab-basher as you could reasonably imagine being. Check out his (imo wonderful) “Arabian Nights Companion,” or his compilation of classic Arab verse, “Night and Horses and the Desert.” If he’s dissing anyone, it’s a particular Western brand of mysticism which tends to latch onto Arab/Sufi/Indian what-have-you because of their exoticism on the one hand, and a particular mode of Arab poetry (which he dislikes in comparison to other Arab poets) on the other. When he disses mystics, they’re of a very particular kind – the wooly minded theosophy-meets-quantum physics-meets whatever you’re having yourself kind. It’s this crowd who he is describing as anti-scientific (and as misunderstanding both Arab and Western culture). I think that you’re going way overboard here – Irwin is very clearly making particular aesthetic judgments about a particular poet (and movements associated/influenced therewith/thereby), not saying anything about Arab culture in general. As I say, read his other work – you’re misreading him here.

By: Bucky

Bucky — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 02:13:26 +0000

Henry, meet Alan Bostick. – I was going to praise dsquared’s defense of Kilmer overtly too, but I thought an attempt at standing up for the less easily defensible Bach might serve. Like I said it’s not my personal cup of tea, though my own literary heirarchies have less to do with erudition and intellectual complexity than human warmth – in fact if you’re offering Wodehouse, I’ll take Jerome K. Jerome every time. And some H.E. Bates if you have any. Irwin:

“Nevertheless, every element in his thought can alternatively be traced to Western sources, including Blake, Nietzsche, Emerson, Maeterlinck, Whitman and Ouspensky.”

I’m thinking any element in anyone’s thought, especially on metaphysical themes, could be traced to that bunch eventually. That’s an agenda at work. Irwin’s a scholar okay. An expert in his field. Gibran’s a flim-flam artist and treacly. But his popularity isn’t explained by Irwin, just reviled, disdained, dismissed. It needs to be pointed out that the credulous minority who actually read Gibran are symmetrically positioned vis. fundamentalist Christians, at least in the US. That’s pretty important right now. (I have to say it’s amusing me to be in this position – I’ve simulated nausea using The Prophet as an emetic more than once) But it’s a strange, trying time for metaphysics generally, and “eastern” metaphysics specifically. Irwin’s either beyond contemporary things entirely, or he’s ellided them in his piece. Dissing non-Judeo/Christian spirituality at this moment, even lame pseudo-spirituality, is loaded with potential for harm. And a kind of complicity. I think agenda was too strong a word maybe, and maybe Irwin just needed the extra check the review brought him, but it’s a spooky moment as regards mysticism of any kind, again especially the “eastern” kind. Irwin:

“…a version of science that is no science at all, in which modern physicists are allegedly only just catching up with the precepts of Ancient Wisdom. Equally silly claims are made about Oriental spirituality, as contrasted with Western materialism…”

Agenda, sort of. And wrong. I’m arguing more from the intuitive here, but I think the people who have espoused Gibran in Irwin’s and your lives and others are mostly responsible for the disdain. It’s the Gibran-o-philes, and their fuzzy optimism, that’s egregious. Gibran takes heat for inspiring it. Without his espousers Gibran’s just another couple of books in the library. Not much of a threat to anyone.

By: Alan Bostick

Alan Bostick — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 18:54:58 +0000

The libraries are chock-full of inane, trite crap written from antiquity to the present day. Why pick on Kahlil Gibran? Why now? I can’t help but notice Robert Irwin’s insistence that the East has nothing to teach the West about spirituality or his coda about pre-Islamic Arabian poets. It’s getting more and more fashionable to reconfigure the ‘war on terror’ as a war on Islam. It’s fun to bash on Gibran for his sentimental twaddle; enough so that one doesn’t notice the snip of the scissors as one’s conscience is trimmed to meet this year’s fashion.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:10:19 +0000

Bucky, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about here. What’s your evidence that Irwin (or I) are dissing Gibran because of our own insecurities, rather then purely and simply because we think he spews inane, trite crap? Are we not allowed to have tastes on the matter? Irwin clearly prefers another popular writer who doesn’t get much critical kudos (Wodehouse) to Gibran, and I agree with him – Wodehouse, unlike Gibran, writes gloriously well. (and for what it’s worth, I’m with dsquared on “Trees” – a fine little poem).

By: Bucky

Bucky — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 08:41:06 +0000

Richard Bach, who wrote J.Liv. Seagull was working territory in that and subsequent books that was more about getting a particular thing done than outcompeting his competitors for artistic repute. My tastes run more to Pynchon and De Lillo, and Milton, but I’m not comfortable with that dissing-the-accessible business. Treacle may not be your favorite topping, but it exists because people like it, or did once, sometimes because it was all they had. It’s like the mob picks out certain highly popular artists and rips them to shreds to prove they have discernment. Phil Collins got eaten by that a little. It has nothing much to do with their respective talents, and everything to do with the insecurities of their detractors. Which is not to say that sentimental mediocre verse should be revered, only that the sins of bad art are sometimes confused with work that illuminates the young and inexperienced. Care must be taken. Irwin though, he’s got an agenda, he’s a man with a mission, and not a good one.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 08:13:20 +0000

Next on Crooked Timber: Joyce Kilmer – Not All That Good When You Really Think About It! I will certainly offer a much less lukewarm defence of “Trees” – Ezra Pound said it was “Blakean” and much better than most of the other crap that Poetry published and he was right.

By: Shieva

Shieva — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 05:38:16 +0000

“If I attend another wedding in which that sappy Gibran piece is one of the readings . . . I’ll walk out. That’s all. Five is enough, thank you.” I wish I’d only heard it five times. My dad was really into Gibran, and had a recording of The Prophet, which he’d play over and over as I was growing up. That, and a recording of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You know they made a movie of that? The seagulls are actually kinda cute, for the first two minutes.

By: ProfWombat

ProfWombat — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 02:57:46 +0000

The Justice of the Peace who married us back in 1978 insisted on Kahlil. Not my choice, but we survived. We loved each other enough that we probably would have survived Rod McKuen, followed by a solo dance to ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ Fortunately, there were things up with which we didn’t have to put. At least Gibran didn’t claim a consistency with quantum mechanics, or use words like ‘dehydroepiandrostenedione’ to leaven his wit.

By: Bucky

Bucky — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:39:10 +0000

Picking on Gibran has got to be the most valiant move yet from the God-franchise holders. Forget hedonism, forget the toxic lust for steel the automobile industry spews all over the kids daily, forget raw greed as a central thesis in the core curriculum – no, no, we’ll brook no trite simile in our fierce pursuit of truth and metaphysical beauty! We know what’s important. To the ramparts, men! I see another Persian atheist armed with subversive verses! There! In the distance! Behind that Rubiyaat!

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:30:55 +0000

Next on Crooked Timber: Joyce Kilmer – Not All That Good When You Really Think About It!

By: HP

HP — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 18:32:35 +0000

Well, that settles it. If I ever get married again, I’ll have a reading of the classic Deteriorata. No drooper I.

By: Arthur D. Hlavaty

Arthur D. Hlavaty — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 18:02:46 +0000

Back in the 60s Paul Krassner said that guys quote Gibran to get laid. I would guess that has not changed.

By: Cryptic Ned

Cryptic Ned — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 16:35:56 +0000

I think a lot of the popularity nowadays might come from faux-rebellious English teachers. I know my 11th grade teacher constantly recommended “Cay-hill Gibran”.

By: trox

trox — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 16:05:15 +0000

A professor of mine back in the day referred to Gibran as “cheap deep”. I still think that pretty much applies.