My Novel -- selected chapters for review

[dwai]

 

Ah! This makes sense.

 

Ok. My angle was not really so much like VMarco's. I don't have any kind of meditative insights to offer - certainly zero Prajna so I'm unable to say whether VMarco has a point or whether his criticizers do. Hopefully someday that will change but until then I am not qualified to judge accurately what anyone says yay or nay on the matter.

 

I was only coming at it from the angle of 'does this or that scene/dialogue/situation' etc either 1. move the plot forward or 2. 'round out' the character so he/she doesn't come across as flat or just a cypher for someone's idea(s) of 'spiritual or political truth(s)'.

 

Take a look at C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia for the latter. It's a testament to Lewis' skill as a writer that the stories are liked by many despite his shoving his religious truths down his readers throats in those stories.

 

For yet another example of a writer shoving 'truths' down readers throats take a look at Ayn Rand. Ditto with Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. I got mega sick of Goodkind constantly making his characters preach Rand-ian political beliefs and stopped reading the series for that very reason (would it surprise you to know that Goodkind cites Ayn Rand as his main political/philosopher hero who's influenced his thinking about life?).

 

I'm hopeful you aren't bent on becoming the next Ayn Rand or C.S. Lewis.

 

Writing stories about a 'holy' person can be tough because there's a real danger of falling into the cypher trap despite one's intent to not do so.

 

My interest is in a compelling spiritual pot-boiler (whatever that means )

 

The message is subtle...or so it seems to me. Definitely not randian --- maybe a hint of pirsig (but I don't buy his metaphysics of quality so much. There was a time when he did inspire serious thinking storms)

 

Interestingly enough I think ayn rand is great at the teenage level. I voraciously consumed ayn Rand's fountainhead and atlas shrugged when I was 17-18. Ended with a very bad attitude and an occasional upset stomach )

 

Richard Bach was the perfect antidote for randism....

 

So I'm aware of the pitfalls of shoving thoughts down the proverbial throats

[Vmarco]

I'm hopeful you aren't bent on becoming the next Ayn Rand or C.S. Lewis.

 

Writing stories about a 'holy' person can be tough because there's a real danger of falling into the cypher trap despite one's intent to not do so.

 

I agree that dwai has a nice skill with words, and like you I'd rather see something in the direction of Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time, than Ayn Rand or C.S. Lewis. The Sweeper character (Lu-Tze) in Thief of Time was a very convincing Enlightened Being,...yet simultaneously a lowly sweeper (janiter/grounds keeper). I couldn't put the book down.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Vmarco

[C T]

I agree that dwai has a nice skill with words, and like you I'd rather see something in the direction of Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time, than Ayn Rand or C.S. Lewis. The Sweeper character (Lu-Tze) in Thief of Time was a very convincing Enlightened Being,...yet simultaneously a lowly sweeper (janiter/grounds keeper). I couldn't put the book down.

Finally, a response hinting of normality, instead of the usual condescending nonsense.

 

Bravo! If you can take the hint, and build on this, your 'message' will have a wider audience, Vmarco. I guarantee you.

[Vmarco]

Finally, a response hinting of normality, instead of the usual condescending nonsense.

 

Bravo! If you can take the hint, and build on this, your 'message' will have a wider audience, Vmarco. I guarantee you.

 

Normal?

A Buddhist said, "Psychologies based on pathologies are good; they help ill people. But that can never be the goal. It is good, but just to become healthy, normal, is nothing much. Just to be normal is nothing much because everybody else is normal. It is bad to be ill because you suffer, but it is not much good to be normal because normal people are suffering in millions of ways. In fact, to be normal means only to adjust to the society. The society itself may be abnormal, the whole society may be itself ill. To adjust to it only means you are normally abnormal, that's all. That's not much of a gain. You have to go beyond social normality. You have to go beyond the social madness. Then only, for the first time do you become healthy."

 

Who wants to be normal?

 

Osho said,

"Man can be considered in three ways: in terms of the normal, the abnormal and the supernormal. Western psychology is basically concerned with the abnormal, the pathological, with the man who has fallen down from the normal, who has fallen down from the norm. Eastern psychology, tantra and yoga, consider man from the standpoint of the supernormal -- of the one who has gone beyond the norm. Both are abnormal. One who is pathological is abnormal because he is not healthy, and one who is supernormal is abnormal because he is MORE healthy than any normal human being. The difference is of negative and positive.

 

Western psychology developed as part of psychotherapy. Freud, Jung, Adler and other psychologists were treating the abnormal man, the man who is mentally ill. Because of this the whole Western attitude towards man has become erroneous. Freud was studying pathological cases. Of course, no healthy man would go to him -- only those who were mentally ill. They were studied by him, and because of that study he thought that now he understood man. Pathological men are not really men, they are ill, and anything based on a study of them is bound to be deeply erroneous and harmful. This has proved harmful because man is looked at from a pathological standpoint. If a particular state of mind is chosen and that state is ill, pathological, then the whole image of man becomes disease-based. Because of this attitude, the whole Western society has fallen down -- because the ill man is the base, the perverted has become the foundation.

 

And if you study only the abnormal, you cannot conceive of any possibility of supernormal beings. A buddha is impossible for Freud, not conceivable. He must be fictitious, mythological. A buddha cannot be a reality. Freud has only come in contact with ill men who are not even normal, and whatsoever he says about normal man is based on the study of abnormal man. It is just like a physician who is doing a study. No healthy man will go to him, there is no need. Only unhealthy people will go. By studying so many unhealthy people, he creates a picture in his mind of man, but that picture cannot be of man. It cannot be because man is not only illnesses. And if you base your concept of man on illnesses, the whole society will suffer."

 

Thus,...if CT is a seeker of normality, and only appreciates the pathology of normal, it becomes quite easy to see the conflict he has with my posts.

 

There are no, nor can there be Bodhisattvas in the current "normal" world view. To uncover Shambhala, normal must be let go of.

 

May all children of the world be exposed to the Prajnaparamitas.

[GrandmasterP]

Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

( Morticia Addams)

[Mal]

This is what I read :-)

 

Somewhat other worldly old drifter,

drifts/drawn into small rural town.

Offered hospitality by humble/honest peon who mentions Spooky goings on at town cemetery.

Well meaning, but not particularly accomplished priest willing to accept help

Drifter practices (3 circle standing chi gong?) simple movements that are attractive to humble peon and priest, drifter can also convey his wisdom to them as they are open to "truth"

After encountering powerful unknown, drifter gathers resources (ie his teacher awakens so will probably be needing help)

 

At least that's what I got, reframed as a western cowboy story as that's the only real drifter mythos I have, no wandering monks in my culture :-(

Has good options for basic teaching (drifter and peon) mid level (drifter and priest) and high level (drifter and the master)

 

Could perhaps be told by the peon, might anchor reader to village and give more meaning the dead girls life and importance of the strange goings on and the"evil"force

 

Unsure of the usage "police" involvement but perhaps as the "bad sheriff" helping the evil side ? Same with the townfolk, not to sure how the will be used. Was able to guess India from cultural clues (names and chai) could not tell if modern times, could be a story set in the past.

 

I would like to know how it ends