I meant to write often. I had planned to review/essay another book, but one book led to another, time got away from me, my sadness consumes much of the day. So it has happened that the blog I began became the very albatross I sought to expunge. I left Einstein and picked up a book at the salvation army called Shaherazade Goes West, with a racy wonderful cover looking like something out of 1001 nights. It was a very good book, odd in it's tongue in cheek, but very good, with wonderful insight. The woman writer was both chastising her countrymen and defending them, as she traveled in Europe. She was in search of Woman. Of Shaherazade, of the ideal wife and friend of Man. It was insightful but also hopeful perhaps beyond where truth lies. Ha, a dubious sentence in itself. But from reading most of 1001 Nights over the past five years, the Heritage version with Richard Burton's translation if I remember correctly (I have not got the books with me....) I did see clearly that the Arabic/Persian IDEAL woman is highly intelligent whereas the western ideal woman is young and stupid. Western thought is to liberate the veiled woman of the east, turn her in to the silent naked woman recognizable here in every magazine. Remove her veil and shut her up. One wonders which woman has it worse. The problem lies of course, with Eve. She, being to blame for everything, was not only cast out but also made to long for Adam to subjegate her. This longing causes woman to happily accept the role of nothingness, as long as man desires her. Yet once that desire is gone, she is left invisible and without voice. Alone in a sea of life that is not meant for her. Once woman has lost her place as mysterious beautiful female and childbearer, she is expected to get off the planet.
I read Haji Baba, a funny parody of Shaherazade written by an englishman I think, who lived in Persia in the last century. There were some brilliant passages, some hilarious moments, and often a lack of understanding of Persian culture. But overall, having been written by a western man, I was impressed by how much he had observed. In the introduction there was a letter from a Persian who had befriended him during his time there, and who was disraught over the negative aspects of the book. It was a moving letter, yet the introduction made fun of it, leaving a decided distaste for the whole book in my mouth. Never the less, too little has been written about the magical mysterious poetic world of Iran and anything which is not military oriented gets my attention.
I am less interested in the plight of women than I am of the plight of us all. Sometimes I go to a house where the family is Jewish and observant. I watch them using different utensils for milk and meat. Or wearing certain head coverings. And sometimes I am visiting strict Mormons who cannot drink tea and must wear certain underclothing. Or I am visiting somewhere else, where I am required to remove my shoes, or put on a scarf, or cross myself, or bow my head... all these rituals and customs but little humblings in and of themselves, yet holding enormous meaning to those who practice them. And way up above the buildings and the cities and the countries, God sits watching. It must be quite a sight, seeing the rabble arguing over what you would want. Killing eachother, thinking it will make them the winner in your eyes. Hoping you will come down and smite the enemy. Hat or no hat. Dancing like the shakers, or no dancing as required with the 7th day adventists. Wine for the catholics, no wine for the Arabs. Tea for the civilized, or no tea according to the mormans. 77 virgins or polygamy. The jumble that God left behind, and sometimes watches from the seat of Eaven.
It is a wild wind and rain storm. It has been going on since yesterday. I lay awake last night hearing the wind banging hard against the windows and wondering if the brick building I was in would hold... not minding the thought that everything might at any second collapse and
be destroyed and I with it. Or considering the idea of a second flood. Or hoping that someday, we who are abandoned to this hell will be released. It is the wind that causes this sort of thinking. One does not wonder these things in a snowstorm, or even in quiet rain, but in the power and the unpredictable behavior of wind. The free-will part of God. The part of God that does what it pleases because it simply decides to.
oh but self, i beg you, enough of god. Ail or alef allah or elohim and all the els of angels oriel and raffael and gabrielle and triangle. The L's are in hell, and in the mathmatics of the universe, that one long poem in which all roads converge no matter what the angle.
