tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post114372041458460563..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `I Saw Eternity the Other Night'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-11019366947345272042009-03-28T08:13:00.000-05:002009-03-28T08:13:00.000-05:00Does it matter whether or not he was a partially s...Does it matter whether or not he was a partially secularised Jew?<BR/>While he lived he had his own particular genius.Roy Fosternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-1143860249672351602006-03-31T20:57:00.000-06:002006-03-31T20:57:00.000-06:00I recently had the good fortune to come across you...I recently had the good fortune to come across your “paean to public libraries” in the Houston Chronicle and was motivated by the excellent writing to access this site. I have already begun to seek out lines “….on the strength of [your] witness….,” beginning with re-reading Waiting for Godot, which I would have done years ago, but I was waiting for Godot and that sucker never showed up. <BR/><BR/>If I were to make an anthology of criticism, I would unhesitatingly include your name, though I confess I’d toss Harold Bloom in there, too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were a bit too gloomy for your taste.<BR/><BR/>I thought I would share one with you, which you are no doubt familiar with, but perhaps not in this context. Reading Blake’s “When the stars threw down their spears….” (and wondering what threw the stars) put me in mind of Loren Eiseley’s The Star Thrower, a tale of throwing beached starfish back into the sea, an “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking” rhapsody of life, death, and rebirth: <BR/><BR/>“I picked and flung another star. Perhaps far outward on the rim of space a genuine star was similarly seized and flung. I could feel the movement in my body. It was like a sowing—the sowing of life on an infinitely gigantic scale. I looked back across my shoulder. Small and dark against the receding rainbow, the star thrower stooped and flung once more. I never looked again. The task we had assumed was too immense for gazing. I flung and flung again while all about us roared the insatiable waters of death.”<BR/><BR/>On a lighter note, if you are in possession of this information there is something I’d like to know. You refer to Alfred Kazin as a “partially secularized Jew.”<BR/><BR/>Dare we guess which part?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com