Conjunctions and disjunctions Book

"Art is the opposite of dissipation, in the physical and spiritual sense of the word: it is concentration, desire that seeks incarnation." Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate, is a master of dazzling and dizzying prose. His observations seem to come from a man, imbued with the culture of this world, commenting on the world from the mythical point of view. The effect is supremely insightful and artistic.

Paz grounds himself often in the animal aspects of life. "If we wish to find traces of the fusion of the face and the sex organs in the history of Spanish poetry, it is best to leave Gongora and Quevedo and seek another poet: Juan Ruiz, the 'Archpriest of Hita.' It will be said that I am forgetting, among others, Lope de Vega, Fernando de Rojas, and the great Francisco Delicado. I am not forgetting them. It is just that after the sumptuous and terrible ceremonies of gold, excrement, and death, I must go out and breathe the brisk and euphoric air of the fourteenth century." Those are strange juxtapositions to make in an essay when addressing towering literary figures. Similarly, "Capitalism and Protestantism, the Counter Reformation and Spanish poetry, Moslem mausoleums and Indian temples: why is it that no one has ever written a general history of the relations between the body and the soul, life and death, the sex organs and the face? Doubtless for the same reason that no one has written a history of man. We have, instead, histories of men, that is to say, of civilizations and cultures. This is not surprising: to date no one knows what 'human nature' really is. And we do not know because our 'nature' is inseparable from culture, and culture is cultures." I'm not sure what to make of such statements, I confess.

When he grounds himself a bit more, he can be profound. "The associations of signs, whether it be strong or weak, is what distinguishes us humans from the other animals. Rather, it is what makes us complex, problematical, and unpredictable beings." Symbolism is what helps to define us. What are the impacts of language as symbol? "The scientific solipsism is a variant of the linguistic solipsism. Wittgenstein said of this latter that it was legitimate and coherent: 'The world is my world: this is shown by the fact that the limits of language stand for the limits of my world…I am my world.'" In contrast to those that paint Paz as a bastion of socialist support, "Socialism, which had ceased being synonymous with historical reason, has also ceased being synonymous with justice. It has lost its philosophical dignity and its moral halo. The so-called 'historical laws' have disappeared completely. The rationality inherent in the historical process has proven to be merely one more myth. Or, better: a variation of the myth of linear time."

These essays are not easy to read. Paz's mind wanders widely across cultures and time, and delves deeply into the esoteric. That said, what is represented is the thought of a master of prose and poetry. This volume is worth the read.

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