lawrence on hawthorne

[recalescence]

In the first place, Adam knew Eve as a wild animal knows its mate, momentaneously, but vitally, in blood-knowledge. Blood-knowledge, not mind-knowledge. Blood-knowledge, that seems utterly to forget, but doesn't. Blood-knowledge, instinct, intuition, all the vast vital flux of knowing that goes on in the dark, antecedent to the mind.

Then came that

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lawrence on poe: KNOWLEDGE

[recalescence]

Poe had experienced the ecstasies of extreme spiritual love. And he wanted those ecstasies and nothing but those ecstasies. He wanted that great gratification, the sense of flowing, the sense of unison, the sense of heightening of life. He had experienced this gratification. He was told on every hand that this ecstasy of spiritual, nervous love was the greatest thing in life, was life itself. And he had tried it for himself, he knew that for him it was life itself. So he wanted it. And he would have it. He set up his will against the whole of the limitations of nature

[recalescence]

...It is easy to see why each man kills the thing he loves. To know a living thing is to kill it. You have to kill a thing to know it satisfactorily. For this reason, the desirous consciousness, the SPIRIT, is a vampire.

One should be sufficiently intelligent and interested to know a good deal about any person one comes into close contact with. About her. Or about him.

But to try to know any living being is to try to suck the life out of that being.

Above all things, with the woman one loves. Every sacred instinct teaches one that one must leave her unknown. You know your woman darkly, in the blood. To try to know her mentally is to try to kill her. Beware, oh woman, of the man who wants to find out what you are. And, oh men, beware a thousand times more of the woman who wants to know you or get you, what you are

Re: lawrence on poe: KNOWLEDGE

[tastyanagram]

Holy shit. This is intense and amazing.

[recalescence]

its one of the best books i've ever read. no joke. i wanted to re-post the bits about melville from goodreads cause i love them so much but didn't want to repeat. in all the other shit on melville & moby-dick i’ve read, none of it, save olson’s call me ishmael, comes close. in fact, if you read lawrence & olson, you don’t need to ANYTHING else about melville.

i’m working on posting more excerpts from dana’s two years before the mast (“YOU CAN’T IDEALIZE BRUTE LABOR”) & the whitman chapter. the whitman chapter is almost too hilarious, from start to finish, to bother with an excerpt. (see: “Walter, leave off. You are not HE. You are just a limited Walter. And your ache doesn't include all Amorous Love, by any means. If you ache you only ache with a small bit of amorous love, and there's so much more stays outside the cover of your ache, that you might be a bit milder about it. “)

p.s. i'm glad you enjoyed it & thanks for taking the time to comment. i was afraid no one would read through it all.

[provoca7eur]

This was wonderful.

[agraphia]

eve was weak, eve was weak, eve was weak, eve was weak

[marjoram]

but adam was the idiot who fucked her

[agraphia]

[rabbitlight]

<3

[whirlingdervish]

it is funny how what is deemed sin is having a notion to question, seek, think, provoke change. things that don't seem to sit well with churches that may instruct against tampering with 'the way' of things that are. i think sometimes of how idyllic it may be to be mindless at peace lounging in pleasurous gardens. and in conjunction with that of the saying 'ignorance is bliss'. without thinking and prodding away at things we see, we cannot experience them further or more fully. the worst aspect to me, would be the lack of what could stem from the creative conscious- imagine only vapid art and music.