Literary DNA

[vaneramos]

This afternoon I returned home from Dad's place. He is doing well.

While visiting I did little writing, a lot of knitting and a lot of reading. I am revisiting Robertson Davies' Cornish Trilogy. I heard him read from the manuscript of The Lyre of Orpheus in 1987 before it was published, and the three books have become favourites. They are dark and light, profound and silly, intriguing, occasionally hilarious. I probably appreciate the humour better now that I've dispensed with conservative religion.

What's Bred In The Bone feels more about me than any published novel I have read. It is the fictional biography of an aesthete raised in an Ontario backwater, who escapes and rises to fame—but as a critic rather than for his uncommon artistic talent. Throughout the novels runs a theme of unfulfilled creative potential; and under my deep affinity for these writings winds a current of terror.

But this quote is only tangentially related. It's an interesting metaphor from "Modern Darwins" in the February 2009 issue of National Geographic:

The notion of genetic switches explains the humiliating surprise that human beings appear to have no special human genes. Over the past decade, as scientists compared the human genome with that of other creatures, it has emerged that we inherit not just the same number of genes as a mouse—fewer than 21,000—but in most cases the very same genes. Just as you don't need different words to write different books, so you don't need new genes to make new species: You just change the order and pattern of their use.

Incidentally, the Vatican has just re-announced its endorsement of Darwinism, stating that the Theory of Evolution is compatible with Biblical Creation.

As one who has embraced both cosmologies at different times, I cannot imagine any way of reconciling them. I suppose it's safer for the Catholic Church to craft elaborate, ambiguous doctrine than to take the clearly irrational stance of conservative Creationists. Of course it is far, far safer than truth.

I forgot my camera at Dad's. Strangely, I'm not upset.

Comments

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I read the Cornish Trilogy a few years ago; I thought it was great. I'm a fan of Davies in general; he's a remarkably intelligent writer. I just found, in the library, his Murther and Walking Spirits, which I had never read. I'm about a third of the way through, and haven't actually decided yet whether I like it.

I added this quote from What's Bred in the Bone to my collection of rotating Usenet sigquotes when I read the book; it's acquired a bit more of an edge in recent months:

Banking is like religion: you have to accept certain rather dicey things simply on faith, and then everything else follows in marvellous logic.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The books are full of pithy quotes like that. I finally got around to reading Murther And Walking Spirits last year and didn't care for it. That's part of the reason I decided to reread The Cornish Trilogy and see if I still love it. I do.

[ink-ling.livejournal.com]

Science scares me, but the concept of maverick nature warms me. As does the idea of you having such a nice span of time and space to read, knit, and write. :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It passed all too quickly, my friend. The Lyre of Orpheus refers repeatedly to "creative languor", and how I crave the luxury!