(no subject)

[lhexa]

Here's a reposted list of responses and impressions from the superb novel The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, by Victor Pelevin. (The book is mainly about foxes, by the way.)

• Seducing someone via a theological argument seems like the hottest thing ever.


• Pelevin has a good excuse for creating a character that us humans can actually relate with, in the explanation of the foxes' memory. I'm glad he thought of that, since excessively human non-humans are a pet peeve of mine.


• Not once did A ever express a desire to become human. Finally. I get really sick of all the quisling foxes in literature and film.


• I'm adopting "heads and tails" as an affectation.


• The best comparison I can think of for A's attitude toward classic literature is with Nietzsche's attitude, which is intensely personal, making all the great insights in those works seem like gestures of friendship toward the reader, and making all the great errors seem like outright betrayals. Of course, A has a better reason than Nietzsche to think that way. :>


• The characters' conversations about great (and not-so-great) authors were not abstract discussions thereof but ones that related them intimately to the characters' lives, which I take to be a sign of an author who has himself been deeply shaped by such predecessors.


• Pelevin's (via A's) approach to Buddhism is markedly an outsider's. The satori-like (and somewhat Socratic) exercises seem composed by rote, and at times almost a recitation of dogma. Since these appear more toward the end, it was a bit of a disappointment, but not much of one.


• I like that foxes receive plenty of explanation, and werewolves almost none.


• Pelevin managed, in a tiny passage, to exactly encapsulate the arrogance, boyishness, confidence, and enthusiasm that I associate with wolves, namely in the letter to Alexander from his mentor ("Transform! WOLF-FLOW!"). I burst out laughing when I read that, and at several other moments too.


• The sense of humor is one that I find myself starved of in American entertainment, and one that I'd like my own to approach: critical and perceptive without being cynical, spiteful or malicious. In particular, A's attitude of simultaneous fondness for and weariness with Russia was expressed in some great ways, and I also dug the way every fox spoke disparagingly of her own native country.


• I felt I learned a few subtle things about Russia, though one can get the same from any good book set in a foreign country and written by a native thereof.


• The book kept me from completing my grading when I should have. :P


• The story uses a displaced structure that was once brought heavily to my attention by an amazing professor, with the story being told by a character in the story. You can see the same thing in Heart of Darkness, Steppenwolf, and scads of Poe stories. I've come to associate the technique with highly personal writing, as though it adds a barrier or layer of protection to the actual author.


• It seems to be unfortunate that I haven't read Lolita yet, because there was a heavy subtext (sometimes not-so-sub text) about A's appearance that I could sense but not follow.


• Those damn Taoist exorcists! Okay, so there was a cultural touching point there that I simply don't know, as I also noticed that a Korean anime about a fox (Yobi, I think it's called) there was a Taoist exorcist. I would like to know the common lore, but things like that aren't well-suited to internet searches.


• It's a shame noone can hold his own against A in an intellectual debate, since when she does let loose the effect is dazzling.


• Damn good book. I've already passed it on to some local friends. I will bite whomever calls it pretentious.

Oh, and some favorite quotes that I bookmarked while reading:

"I always avoid arguing with people, but this time I just exploded and started talking seriously, as if I was with another fox."

"'And what do I smell of?'
"'I can't really say... Mountains, moonlight. Spring. Flowers. Deception. But not a wily kind of deception, more as if you're having a joke.'"

"In the north of England there are several privately owned castles where aristocrats are bred from the finest stock and raised specially for hunting by foxes -- the output isn't all that large, but the quality is excellent."

"Foxes have a fundamental answer to the fundamental question of philosophy, which is to forget this fundamental question."

Comments

[rax.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it so much! One of the ways that reading Lolita helps is that it sets up A as very specifically an inversion of normal power structures. That might come across anyway, though. And seducing someone via theological argument may not be the hottest thing ever, but it's up there. ;)

Do you have any other fox books you recommend? There should totally be a list of Good Books for Fox Metaphysics.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

The Ysengrimus by Nivardus and the Roman de Renart by, um, lots of people. The latter is more a collection of adventures, but the former is actually a highly sophisticated critique of the culture of its time. You'd probably have to duck into a university library to find copies, though. If those interest you, there are decent (though highly plagiarized) versions in just about every European language -- even Goethe made a version (though I've yet to get my hands on it). Other than the Reynard stories, I don't know of any, sadly -- the few others I've come across are mediocre and/or pulp, often with the galling theme of foxes wanting to be human. How about you, have you come across any others?

[rax.livejournal.com]

I will track those down! I actually just got my magic "get into any university library in Boston except Harvard" card so if they're out there, I can get them. :) Thanks!

I don't have a whole lot either. I get some of my fox ideas from Joyce's Ulysses, where Stephen Dedalus often metaphorically (or metaphorically-ish) turns into a fox. Adrienne Rich has a few excellent poems that touch on the subject, though mostly from an outsider's perspective; in particular "Abnegation" (which I've squirreled away online (http://www.akrasiac.org/rachel/documents/abnegation.txt)) though "4:30 AM" and "Fox" also touch it. I feel like I'm forgetting something... if it comes back to me I will come back with it.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Oh God, I'm going to have to finally read Ulysses. I am told that it is an ordeal.

*slaps forehead* Okay, I'm appalled that I forgot this one, given that it's my favorite damn book. Foxes only appear fleetingly (though frequently) in it, sadly, but it still offers insight: Thoreau's Walden.

In Walden (just as in Pelevin's book, come to think of it), foxes represent a state of yearning to transcend one's society, which of course ties into Thoreau's themes. And as a result, they are hunted beasts. In fact, that result also makes them demonic, since being demonic (as seen somewhat bluntly in some old Indian tales about asuras) is one way of seeking to overcome or transcend one's society. The most relevant quotes:

"Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated."

Think about Pelevin's story of the encounter between A and the Yellow Master. The concurrence is amazing, though of course A went further than other foxes.

Damn character limit. Continued below.

[rax.livejournal.com]

In Walden (just as in Pelevin's book, come to think of it), foxes represent a state of yearning to transcend one's society, which of course ties into Thoreau's themes. And as a result, they are hunted beasts. In fact, that result also makes them demonic, since being demonic (as seen somewhat bluntly in some old Indian tales about asuras) is one way of seeking to overcome or transcend one's society.

Thank you for explaining to me what I've been up to for the last year or two. Mirroring you, "Oh God, I'm going to have to finally read Walden." :)

The state of yearning to transcend one's society is totally what Stephen Dedalus is up to, too, with some additional complexity in relationships to family and time (which I think Rich gets almost-right). Demonic. Hm. I'm going to have to sit with that one for a while. Thank you again. Wow.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Glad I can be of such use! After mulling over my own statement for awhile, though, it seems I wrote it to express the difficulty for me in inheriting Walden. Walden is a scriptural work, but one that describes foxes as demonic. (This description's a biblical tradition, as it turns out.) So, how can one be a vulpine student of that book?

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Another pertinent quote:

"In dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the hunting horn at intervals, proving that man was in the rear. The woods ring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on to the open level of the pond, nor following pack pursuing their Actaeon. And perhaps at evening I see the hunters returning with a single brush trailing from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth he would be safe, or if he would run in a straight line away no fox-hound could overtake him; but, having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen till they come up, and when he runs he circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that water will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a fox pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, run part way across, and then return to the same shore. Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent. Sometimes a pack hunting by themselves would pass my door, and circle round my house, and yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a species of madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox, for a wise hound will forsake every thing else for this. One day a man came to my hut from Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a large track, and had been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he was not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his questions he interrupted me by asking, "What do you do here?" He had lost a dog, but found a man.

"One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to come to bathe in Walden once every year when the water was warmest, and at such times looked in upon me, told me, that many years ago he took his gun one afternoon and went out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he walked the Wayland road he heard the cry of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the wall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall out of the road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came an old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own account, and disappeared again the woods. Late in the afternoon, as he was resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and on they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding nearer and nearer, now from Well-Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For a long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to a hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock amid the woods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For a moment compassion restrained the latter's arm; but that was a short-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow his piece was levelled, and whang! -- the fox rolling over the rock lay dead on the ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the hounds. Still on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their aisles with their demoniac cry. At length the old hound burst into view with muzzle to the ground, and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran directly to the rock; but spying the dead fox she suddenly ceased her hounding, as if struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round him in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother, were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in silence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush a while, and at length turned off into the woods again."

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Character limit again. For what it's worth, Dreamwidth has another slight advantage over LJ in that its character limit for comments is four times LJ's.

If you can stand the narcissism, I would be highly flattered if you would take a look at this entry (http://lhexa.livejournal.com/2555.html?nc=2) and leave a comment there. (I like having comments about an entry at the entry, since I read them like annotations.) Yeah, this is a really vain thing to ask, but I've finally realized that I should not hide how extremely important some of the entries here are to me, never mind that revealing that importance also reveals my self-absorption. :P

For what it's worth, thank you very much for the stimulating comments and entries! I tend to go for far too long between bouts of extended intellectual interaction.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to go take a look and leave a comment; I've read and I'm letting it percolate a bit. I very much appreciate the conversation as well! This is awesome, thank you.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

This is awesome, thank you.

Eee! But I should warn you, I'm currently in a fortuitous mood (one that makes me considerably more articulate and creative than usual), but it's not a mood that will last indefinitely. Once it's gone, words will not come to me so easily. If our conversations last for more than a week or so you will find the quality of my responses dropping somewhat, though I hope that fact doesn't dissuade you from continuing. :)

Abnegation

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Good poem! Though in the context of identity-building, useful only as flattery. ;)

In particular this line, a staple of most anthropomorphization, stands out as an outsider's perspective:

"She has no archives, no heirlooms, no future
except death."

Screw that! Foxes have caches, dens and children.

Re: Abnegation

[rax.livejournal.com]

Agreed that that line is particularly outsidery. Though I do find an outsider's perspective useful for identity-building sometimes; I have to know what I'm supposed to look like, after all. :)

Re: Abnegation

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

*grins* I prefer a more disdainful approach to my appearance. Modifying a Nietzsche quote, the most deceptive (and thus most effective) masks are the ones your friends create in your absence.

Re: Abnegation

[celyddon.livejournal.com]

Foxiefluffs are everything. :)

Re: Abnegation

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Grr. The next time I'm in Dallas I'm going to bite you.