One of the pleasures of the bookish life is the 'find,' the occasion on which, whilst browsing through a well-stocked used book store, one lights upon a volume which one would never discover in a commercial emporium devoted to the purveyance of contemporary schlock. One day, after a leisurely lunch, I walked into a book store on Mesa, Arizona's Main Street and stumbled upon Holbrook Jackson, The Anatomy of Bibliomania, a 1978 Octagon Books reprint of the 1950 original. There is something of Jungian synchronicity in this, as I had recently made the acquaintance of Mr. Jackson at Michael Gilleland's erudite salon. The author describes his purpose thusly:
Category: Literary Matters
Jack London, John Barleycorn, and the Noseless One
Like many American boys, I read plenty of Jack London: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea Wolf, Martin Eden, not to mention numerous short stories, some of them unforgettable to this day: "Love of Life," "Moonface," and "To Build a Fire." But I never got around to John Barleycorn until years later after I had read a lit-crit study of the American booze-novel, and decided to read every booze-novel I could get my hands on. You could say I went on a booze-novel binge. So I read Charles Jackson's Lost Weekend, things like that, until I was ready for the grandpappy of them all, John Barleycorn.
Here are some notes from a journal entry of 7 March 1998.
Finished John Barleycorn in bed last night. One of London's best books. What's the gist of it?
One cannot live and be happy unless one suppresses the final truth which is that life is a senseless play of forces, a brutal and bloody war of all against all with no redeeming point or purpose. Man is a brother to the dust, "a cosmic joke, a sport of chemistry." (319).
Only by telling himself "vital lies" can a man live "muttering and mumbling them like charms and incantations against the the powers of Night." (329) All metaphysics, religion, and spirtuality are half-believed-in attempts to "outwit the Noseless One [the skull behind the face] and the Night." (329) "Life is oppositional and passes. You are an apparition." (317) "All an appearance can know is mirage." (316) Ah, but here is a weak point in the position. An appearance can't know anything, can't even dream or doubt anything. If I am dreaming, then I am, and cannot be a mere dream-object. Here the "White Logic" shows itself to be illogic. Let your experience be as deceptive, delusive, mirage-like as you want, the experiencer stands above it, apart from it — at least in his inner essence. Thus there is the hope that he may unfold his inner essence, disentangling himself from the play of specters. But this is exactly what London, worldling and sensualist, did not do.
There is the 'truth' we need to live and flourish — which is a bunch of "vital lies" — and the real truth, which is that our life is a tale told by an idiot . . . signifying nothing. Religion and metaphysics are further life-enhancing illusions. Alcohol revealed all this "White Logic" to London. What is his solution? Stay sober and dream on, apparently. Close the books of despair (Spencer, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche) and lose yourself in the daily round, the social whirl, the delights of the foreground.
What is noteworthy here is that booze for London is not anodyne and escape but truth-serum.
Three paths are suggested:
A. The Superficial Man. Lives in immediacy and illusion, oblivious to sickness, old age, and death. Doesn't see that there is a problem of life to be solved.
B. The 'London Man.' Sees through the average schlep's illusions. He experiences the nullity, the vanity of success, recognition, love of woman, money and the rest. (See p. 254) But beyond this there is only the horror of the senseless and brutal struggle for existence. So he turns against the "ancient mistake of pursuing Truth too relentlessly." (254) He returns to the Cave, believing that ultimately there is No Exit.
C. The Quester. For whatever reason, he has been so placed in life that he has a glimpse of the possibility of salvation. He sees deeper than the 'London Man.' He has been granted a fleeting vision of the Light behind and beyond the Noseless One and Night. He works to attain that vision in fullness.
Are You a Natural-Born Scribbler? Take the Gide Test
Here is an interesting passage from André Gide's last work, written shortly before his death in 1951, So Be It or The Chips Are Down, tr. Justin O'Brien, Alfred Knopf, 1959, pp. 145-146, bolding added, italics in original. Brief commentary follows.
It is certain that the man who wonders as he takes up his pen: what service can be performed by what I am about to write? is not a born writer, and would do better to give up producing at once. Verse or prose, one's work is born of a sort of imperative one cannot elude. It results (I am now speaking only of the authentic writer) from an artesian gushing-forth, almost unintentional, on which reason, critical spirit, and art operate only as regulators. But once the page is written, he may wonder: what's the use? . . . And when I turn to myself, I think that what above all urged me to write is an urgent need of understanding. This is the need that now prompts the ratiocinations with which I am filling this notebook and makes me banish all bombast from them. I hope the young man who may read me will feel on an equal footing with me. I don't bring any doctrine; I resist giving advice; and in a discussion I beat a hasty retreat. But I know that today many seek their way gropingly and don't know in whom to trust. To them I say: believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it; doubt everything, but don't doubt of yourself. There is more light in Christ's words than in any other human word. This is not enough, it seems, to be a Christian: in addition, one must believe. Well, I do not believe. Having said this, I am your brother.
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