Cashback- concept of time

Another blog chase has led me to this unexpected movie. I read the Only Word's to Play With blog, and I was trying to find the Kubrick and Gogol comparison. I still have no idea what the comparison is. Searching on imdb.com, I looked up Kubrick, and the search came up with Cashback. So, what the hell, I Youtubed, and there it was. Extremely interesting movie, and it actually connects to a couple of the books I've read. White Nights by Dostoevsky comes to mind. Apparently, in Japan, it's appropriately called "Frozen Time". The whole world except me apparently already knew that Oliver Wood is this very attractive/talented actor? I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF HIM...but yes he is rather dashing. Some quotes from the movie:



"I wanted to freeze time. I wanted to savor that moment, to live in that moment for a week. But I couldn't stop it, only slow it. And before I knew it, she was gone."

"Within this frozen world I'm able to walk freely and unnoticed. Nobody would even know that time has stopped. And when it started back up again, the invisible join would be seamless except for a slight shudder. Not unlike the feeling of somebody walking over your grave. "

"Once upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that its wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it."
--

This movie was quite a treat, since he reminded me of the nameless character in White Nights. Especially the frozen in time moment. The most memorable quote from that story was the very end, saying that he could live on a moment for a whole lifetime. Freezing time, of course not literally, can make one live in that moment. Until that moment dies to make room a new one. But some people, such as the nameless character, don't ever let go of that moment, and try to cling to it as much as possible- damaging their reality through the process. So, there is a balance between the two. When one deals with time, it is easy to get lost in it, and lose all sense of reality. Bill started hallucinating and staring at objects deep in thought for long periods of time. The nameless character talks about the houses he goes to see everyday, and how he has different connections with perfect strangers off the street. All conversations with Nastenka seem like a dream, nights blurred by mists.
What Bill refers to though in the last quote, I believe, is the fact that we need to slow time down and actually THINK about each second of our lives. If time is just something to be breathed through, and ticking away, then our existence is worthless. We might as well be a plant...We have the privilege of recognizing beauty and therefore we need to step back in awe.
It also reminded me of American Beauty. Especially of the "electricity in the air".

Too Clever by Half or the Diary of a Scoundrel by Alexander Ostrovsky

The play was very amusing. Ostrovsky combines the art of the theatre with his writing..he expresses sarcasm not only thorugh words but actions as well- which greatly adds to the overall effect. The end was quite something: the climax it reached was intense because Glumou's career was in jeopardy- and yet, he started going even deeper into the grave by accusing them all. And it worked! He knew exactly what kind of person each was; and counted on that fact. What superficial people, it's quite amazing. These wishy-washy characters we are all familiar with- and one may even say- he had great patience with them.

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I was searching for blogs/videos related to Ostrovsky and I found this movie on this site:


(A Cruel Romance 1984)

I only got through part I...Honestly I couldn't finish it at all. The movie was too, the girl was insufferably naive and "airheaded". The way she smiled and oohhhd and ahhhd was too much to take. If I wanted to watch a stupid girl fall head over heels in love, I could pick any chick flick of today. But of course, that may always be in fashion. Also, I really had a problem with Sergey (as did my friend), because he was the same actor (only younger) from Burn by the Sun, and we didn't enjoy seeing him that first time either. I don't know, I just don't really like his face. And his voice was too low and was lacking enthusiasm.
I'm sure "A Dowerless Girl" by Ostrovsky would be much better. Add that to my to-read list.
But! I'm really happy I found digital-cake.net! The collection of russian films is astounding!!

Burnt by the Sun

I found this wonderful movie on a blog by accident. I was in the process of searching for blogs with any Russian-related topics, and there it pops out. Since I was just happening to be chatting with a friend (in another state), she immediately sent me the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpHsFsvsKS0. And so, instead of studying for our exams like good students would do, we proceeded (as unplanned as this was) to watch the entire movie. Procrastination works wonders. I really enjoyed this movie, except maybe the end. Of course, I don't want to give it away...

There were some hilarious scenes in it, especially with the (large) chested woman asking for the time. And of course let's not forget the spinster...she needs as much attention as she can get. So throughout the whole movie, I'm ashamed to admit (as vulgar as it may sound), my friend and I were basically screaming, "Why didn't they just get it over with and sleep together!? Because, we really condemned the age difference- compared to Dmitri's contrasting youth. We were going to be bitterly disappointed... But of course, it is supposed to depict reality, and most of the time, it does not consist of the ideal course of events. I loved hearing them speak Russian, and see their heritage portrayed through their actions.

It reminded me of a story written by Turgenev I believe. When the former lover comes back home after a long time, and sees how everything has changed... It must be horrible to see the world live on without you, as you are ripped away from anything familiar. And that familiarity will be forever buried in memories and never to live again.
I'm sorry for such a thought, but I guess the ending inspired it.

Night and Day by Virginia Woolf

So I got a Kindle, and therefore I can transfer all of the things I have highlighted right on my computer- without writing them down. This means a lot more quotes! ^_^

"A fine mist, the etherealized essence of the fog, hung visibly in the wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room, all silver where the candles were grouped on the tea-table, and ruddy again in the firelight."

Nature does not stop existing once we enter into a different realm that seeks to exclude it- but becomes a different form. Such as the fog, it transferred forms and colors.

"...fell into a pleasant dreamy state in which she seemed to be the companion of those giant men, of their own lineage, at any rate, and the insignificant present moment was put to shame."

When one dwells on the past, the present seems to ordinary and unexciting. And yet- the future brings so much promise. I loved how Katherine was so young and beautiful and still pondered over these great men. As if she forgot her own youth, to dwell on the past.

"...but Katharine only looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have come nearer the standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned with side-whiskers."

Absolutely the first incident I have ever seen an author have a young person in bloom compare a living man to a dead ideal. She already had an ideal, and Ralph was expected to fit it. While Ralph on the other hand- created Katherine in his mind, based on her essence. Katherine created an ideal that is irrelevant to what Ralph could ever be.

"The desire to justify himself, which had been so urgent, ceased to torment him, and, as if released from constraint, so that they worked without friction or bidding, his faculties leapt forward and fixed, as a matter of course, upon the form of Katharine Hilbery. It was marvellous how much they found to feed upon, considering the destructive nature of Denham's criticism in her presence."

It is astounding how much abundance of imagination our mind can come up with when we are set upon embellishing someone with romantic thoughts. We create things that aren't really there.

"...she said, rather distantly, as if feeling her way among the phantoms of an unknown world."

"...occupied with her own thoughts. It was a habit that spoke of loneliness and a mind thinking for itself."

That struck me tremendously. For when one is in his own thoughts- he is not only independent in thought, but also lonely. That was the interesting part about Katherine: she was always in her mind, and yet, she suffered from loneliness, because she could not share her world with anyone.

"It passed through his mind that if he missed this chance of talking to Katharine, he would have to face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding an explanation of his cowardly indecision."

The "demon" waiting at home. Goodness knows, I have had this happen to me so many times- when you know that you have failed in our proposed plan. The "logical" part of you does not care about your insecurities: it wants results.

"To walk with Katharine in the flesh would either feed that phantom with fresh food, which, as all who nourish dreams are aware, is a process that becomes necessary from time to time, or refine it to such a degree of thinness that it was scarcely serviceable any longer; and that, too, is sometimes a welcome change to a dreamer."

At this point- Ralph only views Katherine as a source of inspiration for his fantasies- "fresh food". He uses reality for his unreal version of Katherine, distorting the real to fit his desires.

"Being a frequent visitor to that world, she could find her way there unhesitatingly. If she had tried to analyze her impressions, she would have said that there dwelt the realities of the appearances which figure in our world; so direct, powerful, and unimpeded were her sensations there, compared with those called forth in actual life. There dwelt the things one might have felt, had there been cause; the perfect happiness of which here we taste the fragment; the beauty seen here in flying glimpses only. No doubt much of the furniture of this world was drawn directly from the past, and even from the England of the Elizabethan age. However the embellishment of this imaginary world might change, two qualities were constant in it. It was a place where feelings were liberated from the constraint which the real world puts upon them; and the process of awakenment was always marked by resignation and a kind of stoical acceptance of facts."

"And in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of phantom eyes."

"How far she saw Denham, and how far she confused him with some hero of fiction, it would be hard to say. Literature had taken possession even of her memories."

But at the same time- he is doing the exact same thing, only Katherine is more dejected from Ralph. I love the fact that she cannot distinguish between what she read and reality- this shows how much she depends on her thought, and how much they take up her life- even her memories.

"If the best of one's feelings means nothing to the person most concerned in those feelings, what reality is left us?"

Part of our reality is for our feelings to be reciprocated back to us.

"The old romance which had warmed his days for him, the thoughts of Katharine which had painted every hour, were now made to appear foolish and enfeebled."

Were those hours wasted?

"All things had turned to ghosts; the whole mass of the world was insubstantial vapor, surrounding the solitary spark in his mind, whose burning point he could remember, for it burnt no more."

"...he had somehow divested the proceedings of all reality."

"...she found her mind uncomfortably full of different trains of thought. She started one and then another. They seemed even to take their color from the street she happened to be in."

Feelings and environment motif. Which I so enjoyed.

"I've lived almost entirely among delusions, and now I'm at the awkward stage of finding it out. I want another delusion to go on with."

"He lost his sense of all that surrounded him; all substantial things—the hour of the day, what we have done and are about to do, the presence of other people."

Romanticism to realism.

"The people in the street seemed to him only a dissolving and combining pattern of black particles; which, for the moment, represented very well the involuntary procession of feelings and thoughts which formed and dissolved in rapid succession in his own mind."

Nature is independent from everything else.

"Ah, but her romance wasn't THAT romance. It was a desire, an echo, a sound; she could drape it in color, see it in form, hear it in music, but not in words; no, never in words."

"...but how terrible sometimes the pause between the voice of one's dreams and the voice that comes from the object of one's dreams!"

Motif nature affecting feelings.

"The best of life is built on what we say when we're in love."

"The far-away look entirely lacked self-consciousness"

For some reason I thought this was incredibly beautiful- showing how far removed she was from reality.

"He could recall himself, of course, by a word or a movement—but why? She was happier thus. She needed nothing that he could give her. And for him, too, perhaps, it was best to keep aloof, only to know that she existed, to preserve what he already had—perfect, remote, and unbroken."

He encouraged her other world.

"An occasional man with a beard is interesting; he's detached; he lets me go my way, and we know we shall never meet again. Therefore, we are perfectly sincere—a thing not possible with one's friends."

Control what goes on in reality to sustain the unreal.

"He seemed to see that beneath the quiet surface of her manner, which was almost pathetically at hand and within reach for all the trivial demands of daily life, there was a spirit which she reserved or repressed for some reason either of loneliness or—could it be possible—of love."

It was in her loneliness that Katharine was unreserved.

"When you're gone I shall look out of that window and think of you. I shall waste the whole evening thinking of you. I shall waste my whole life, I believe."

"Was he not looking at something she had never shown to anybody? Was it not something so profound that the notion of his seeing it almost shocked her?"

"It was true that he had been happier out in the street, thinking of her, than now that he was in the same room with her."

"Because if you're in love with a vision, I believe that that's what I'm in love with."

He suffered from the same exact thing.

"we see each other only now and then—"

"Like lights in a storm—"

"In the midst of a hurricane,"

They indifferently examine their current situation, as if they weren't living it.

"...his strongest wish in the world was to be with her immediately, since every second he was away from her he imagined her slipping farther and farther from him into one of those states of mind in which he was unrepresented. He wished to dominate her, to possess her."

It was essential for him to dominate her mind, because that is the only way he could make himself known to her mind.

"The sounds were inarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning save themselves. As if the forces of the world were all at work to tear them asunder they sat, clasping hands, near enough to be taken even by the malicious eye of Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit."

"The moment of exposure had been exquisitely painful—the light shed startlingly vivid. She had now to get used to the fact that some one shared her loneliness. The bewilderment was half shame and half the prelude to profound rejoicing."

"I was thinking of you—yes, I swear it. Always of you, but you take such strange shapes in my mind. You've destroyed my loneliness.

"But he persuaded her into a broken statement, beautiful to him, charged with extreme excitement as she spoke of the dark red fire, and the smoke twined round it, making him feel that he had stepped over the threshold into the faintly lit vastness of another mind, stirring with shapes, so large, so dim, unveiling themselves only in flashes, and moving away again into the darkness, engulfed by it."

This was their ultimate connection, they could enter each others minds.

They lapsed gently into silence, traveling the dark paths of thought side by side towards something discerned in the distance which gradually possessed them both.

How they came to find themselves walking down a street with many lamps, corners radiant with light, and a steady succession of motor-omnibuses plying both ways along it, they could neither of them tell;

They lost themselves together.

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I really enjoyed reading this story- something I haven't been able to do for awhile. Again, I am usually very judgmental when I attempt to read a female author, which of course is very sexist of me. But just like George Sand, Virginia Woolf pleasantly surprised me. She presents very delicate concepts- with a feminine touch. I guess sometimes, a woman's view can be very different from a man's- creating a very interesting perspective. What I enjoyed most from this story was the progression between Katherine and Ralph's so-called love. At first, they started out as very uncertain of their "attraction". As Ralph developed an idealistic version of Katherine (which had little to do with her in reality), Katherine tried to pull away from him mentally. The more dejected she became, and the more he obsessed over this sacred Katherine, their relations seemed to go downhill. And yet- somehow their minds "reconciled". She unconsciously wanted his presence, as he brought his idealistic image to a more down-to-earth version of Katherine. What struck me the most was that Ralph realized her "hidden self" and brought it out of her, even if she did not want it. Hereby, he crushed her loneliness, and so she was indebted to him emotionally. They each slightly needed the others presence, until they realized that, perhaps, they were in "love".

I also enjoyed the marvelous descriptions between the environment and the character. The most striking scene, as I even see it now, was Ralph's most disappointing moment, by the lake with the fog... Creates such a depressing scene, and yet mysterious at the same time. One can feel his loneliness and despair.

What made Katherine transition from her imagined "hero" to have Ralph incorporated in her daydreams? I think it was because he guessed her inner self, a self that she had refused to share with anyone else. Yes, that may sound extremely cliche but she "had the appearance of some one disarmed of all defenses and Ralph likened her to a wild bird just settling with wings trembling to fold themselves within reach of his hand". He had "caught" her, by her own will. In a sense, she had to be dominated, for she was so dominating in her own world. And so, he broke through her loneliness. That is something that automatically leads to trust and friendship. Then, she pretty much gave herself up to him (mentally), and that was the final step for her to fully trust and love him.

The scene where they walked out onto the street by Mary's house was absolutely stupendous. Woolf portrays such a dejection from reality, such delirium, that they do not even notice anything save their own worlds. I think this is essential for the meaning of the book, because the reader can see how much of each other they needed, to share a realm that in reality does not exist. This realm makes everything pale in comparison.

They both lived on delusions, and so, fused both of their worlds together. They had an extreme understanding between each other, without even using much of their words.

Such mental connections rarely exist.

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The picture reminds me of my favorite scene in this book. I imagined him looking up at the glaring street lamp, and then seeing the rushing, cold water.

Pub by Kindle Version of Night and Day?

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe

Before I quote from this book:
Having read Thomas Mann's The Beloved Returns, I think about those immortal scenes, and what Loette had said about them. How she didn't ask to be immortalized, and how she was just a pure and innocent girl enjoying her life while Goethe used her character to impact humanity. I love the energy and passion that Werther gives off, it's rare to see such energy on paper. he loves losing himself to nature, worshiping the "sublime and beautiful".

****
"That the life is but a dream is a thought which has occurred to many people, and I myself am constantly haunted by it. When i see the limitations which imprison the active and speculative faculties of man; when I see how all human activity is directed toward procuring satisfaction for needs that have n other purpose than prolonging our miserable existence; when I see, moreover, how any comfort we may derive from certain points of inquiry is merely a dreamlike kind of resignation, in which we paint our prison walls with gaily colored figures and luminous prospects- all this, Wilhelm, leaves me speechless. I withdraw into my inner self and there discover a world- a world, it is true, rather of vague perceptions and dim desires than of creative power and vital force. And then everything swims before my senses, and I go on smiling at the outer world like someone in a dream."

The marvelous "vague" and "dim" mind of a poet! Goethe distinguishes two worlds, a world of "vague perceptions and dim desires" and the "outer world". And how each world affects the other. As if the world of dreams spilled into reality...

"[...] But that grown-ups too stumble like children on this earth, not knowing whence they come or wither they go, acting as little according to true purposes, being ruled like them by cakes and birch rods, no one likes to believe; yet to me it seems quite obvious."

We are all children in essence- the difference is only that it comes in different forms.

"O my friends! Why does the stream of genius so seldom break out as a torrent, with roaring high waves, and shake your awed soul?"

"Since then, sun, moon, and stars may continue on their course; for me there is neither day nor night, and the entire universe about me has ceased to exist."

As if these forced has wiped out the universe, and only what one chooses (maybe involuntarily) to see remains.

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I was thinking about Werther, and George Sand's Lélia, and how this passion was most inflamed by this noble creature- this obstacle of achieving their desire. Only this made them feel passion and set their whole being aflame. What contrast! I mean, true, the poets could have lived a life of debauchery, and gotten their "passions" out of this life. But then, they wouldn't have truly felt them and suffered from them. And suffering made them treasure these noble creatures all the more. They wouldn't have had to pine away in this alternative life, they would have easily achieved it. I think for the poet, it is a deliberate decision to love something that cannot return the same love without reserve. Only then do they realize that they have monster inside of them. What excites the poet in them, also starts to destroy them...Such is the fate of the poet, what a misfortune! What a curse! They are bound to suffer, and it is all voluntarily!
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"[...] and He makes us happiest when He lets us stagger under a benign delusion."

The question then, is, is there really happiness in this delusion? maybe happiness in reality has a different essence, less made up of the mind, and more of the spontaneity and mystery of the uncontrollable. Because delusion is the mind tricking us.

"-Oh, the times when i longed to fly on the crane's wings, as it passed overhead, to the shores of the illimitable ocean, in order to drink from the foaming cup of the Infinite and elating sensation of life, and to feel, if only for a moment, in the cramped forces of my being one drop of the bliss of that being who creates everything and through Himself."

In this passage, Goethe includes God so delicately- and gives him the authorship of the "bliss", which is very peculiar. Because usually bliss is derived from the mind, but Goethe gives glory to this "infinite" Creator. Maybe he is trying to say that true "bliss" is more than what the mind creates, but what the Mysterious is able to produce. And such bliss cannot be compared to what our pathetic little mind tries to synthetically manufacture.

"Can you say, 'This is!' when everything passes, everything rolls past with the speed of lightning and so rarely exhaust the whole power of its existence, alas, before it is swept away by the current, drowned and smashed on the rocks?"

"[...]-The blossoms of life are only phantoms. How many fade, leaving no trace behind; how few bear fruit, and how few of these fruit ripen!"

"Therefore, our fortune and misfortune depends on the objects and persons to which we compare ourselves; and for that reason nothing is more dangerous than solitude. Our imagination, by its nature inclined to exalt itself, and nourished by the fantastic imagery of poetry, crates a series of beings of which we are the lowest, so that everything else appears more wonderful, everyone else more perfect. And that is completely natural. We so frequently feel that we are lacking in many qualities which another person apparently possesses, and we then furnish such a person with everything we ourselves posses and with a certain idealistic complacency in addition. And in this fashion a Happy Being is finished to perfection- the creature of our imagination."

What power our imagination has- to create! that is interesting, we are the lowest of the "hierarchy" in our imagination- instead of being superior to everyone else. This gives us more flexibility-for if we had everything we could only deduct- and eventually remain with nothing, but by being able to add to our qualities we truly can reach perfection- in our mind! That is delusion! How clever.

"-You see, dear friend, how limited and how happy were the glorious Aneients! How naive their emotions and poetry! When Ulysses speaks of the immeasurable sea and the infinite earth, everything is true, human, deeply felt, intimate, and mysterious. What is the use of my present knowledge, which I share with any school boy, that the earth is round? Man needs only a few clods of earth wherein to enjoy himself, and even fewer for his last rest."

The more we let go of our knowledge, the more we'll be able to purely and fully embrace Nature as it really is.

"[...] -oh, when this glorious Nature lives before me as immobile as on a little lacquered painting, and all this beauty cannot pump one single drop of happiness from my heart to my brain, and the whole man stands before the face of God like a dried-up well, like a broken pitcher-"

One little detail makes a world of difference! sure, one can attempt to enjoy nature in all its forms, and yet, something in us has to respond to the beauty, or else it might as well be nothing. It depends on us! Goodness, that a burned is placed not only on our moods and ever-changing feelings,but on the little tiny details that make up our events, and therefore our lives. Happiness depends on so many factors! And yet, when one strives to enjoy God, then, and only then, can one also enjoy Nature. For he is the Creator of it all. For when one looks outside of oneself, then he is able to see the whole picture. And that "whole" is God: infinite and immortal.

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The story is of course immortal. It describes the "classic poet", that chooses his density, his forbidden destiny, and suffers from it in the end. Such youth, energy, and innocence! Werther must have been extremely close to Nature, as long as his love lasted. As long as his love bloomed and grew into the surroundings. And the "classic poet" is also shown to be extremely confused as he tries to deal with Genius- which makes him even more lost. For some reason, it was too much for him to bear- and this led to the "classic" death of the poet- suicide, which is the most difficult of all. It reminds me of a quote from Balzac, I believe, asking how anyone can know what has gone through a poets mind, from the moment he entered the city with such hope and needed his life in such despair. It is as if the poet's fate is to soar where no one has soared before, to crash back down in the uttermost sorrow, and despair and even insanity. What these marvelous delights of the mind and soul can do to the poet! I'm sorry to mention, but he was a bit selfish to ruin the life of his beloved- showing that the "classic poet" is not so noble as he thinks. But his sort of immaturity and innocence is what makes the poet a poet.

Also, reading this story, a concept came to me. What if the "sublime and beautiful" goes beyond what we can see- what this does to our Beings- but into every detail of our lives, every concept, and idea, everything that is impacted by the Mystery and Majesty of the unknown, the uncontrollable? For it cannot end at our vision- it has to go beyond, into the spiritual- for only then it is infinite. If that makes any sense...

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This image is so stupendous. Not only does it give this extremely vague and undefined energy to it- but the branches of the trees seem to float in the air- as if they have given up. This seems to me to be the world of the poet- alone and vague. Goethe echoed the theme that no matter how much the poet tries to be optimistic- and tries to outgrow his calling, destiny does not let him go. Loneliness and solitude both make up the poet- but that is where genius gets to thrive.



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Published by Everyman's Library

Lost Illusions by Balzac

"Pride, untapered intercourse with the great world, becomes stiff and starched by contact with petty things; in a loftier moral atmosphere it would have grown to noble magnanimity."

What a horrible shame, that potential genius could be crushed down by shallow pride! It seems to be a crime against humanity!


"There are pleasures which can only be felt to the full when two souls meet, poet and poet, heart and heart."


"[...]there is a kind of being who is both prince and actor, and invested besides with a magnificent order of priesthood- that the Poet who seems to do nothing, yet reigns over all humanity when he can paint humanity"

Although I don't think this was his greatest masterpiece, as the Barnes & Noble edition claims, Balzac describes this character from "heaven". How fickle Lucien is! He is such a child- he could be an angel one moment, and a total demon the next, all the time believing he is doing the right thing, when he really is servicing his ego. Balzac seems to have sympathy for him, as most of the characters seem to do- even his enemies- they understand him. Those who loved him the most were the most blinded- and payed for it I did like the contest between the sister and David, and Lucien. To live a fair and honest life, and to be driven by the wold unknowingly worshiping the I Even the most naive can commit horrible follies. The book consisted of too many technicalities and details that which I ended up skipping.


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Pub by Everyman's Library

I picked the picture below- Naive by ~vivalascorpion because it describes the character of Lucien. He imagine him to be a pretty boy- and yet extremely naive. His beauty and his talent makes him be loved by the rest of the characters- even though he is an egoist. The look in his eyes show such naivety and yet determination.

Atala/René by Chateaubriand

Atala
"Great passions are solitary, and when you take them out into the wilderness you are setting them into their very own sphere."

They remind me of demons, who supposedly roam the depths of the ocean.
"(...) O dreadful, sublime Nature, were you no more than a device contrived to deceive us, and could you not for an instant conceal a man's joy in your mysterious horrors?" "Man, thou art but a fleeting vision, a sorrowful dream. Misery is thy essence, and thou art nothing save in the sadness of thy soul and the eternal melancholy of thy thought."

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This story adresses a very unsual concept- religion in the savage. It was extremely heroic of Atala and how he could withstand the temptations when there were so many encouragements- culture, and the surroundings. Cachtas represented the reaction of the 'white man's' religion, and in the end, even he admired the powerful "force" he witnessed.

René *****
"These singers come of a divine race and possess the only sure power which heaven has granted earth. Their life is at once innocent and sublime. They speak like like immortals or little children. They explain the laws of the universe and cannot themselves understand the most elementary concerns of life. They have marvelous intuition of death and die with no consciousness of it, like new-born infants."

It is as if they involuntarily and naturally reject life's nonsense "elementary concerns of life" -they are above it, they don't need to meddle with such low and inferior things- contrary to this "divine race". Marvelously said. it is a race, of the select few who have graced us with their presences temporarily on this earth.

"I went down into the valley and up on the mountain, calling, with all the strength of my desire, for the ideal creature of some future passion. I embraced her in teh winds and thought I heard her in the river's moaning. Everything became this vision of my imagination- the stars in the skies and the very principle of life in the universe." "They consider me the victim of an imagination which plunges toward the end of all pleasures as though it suffered form their duration."

To suffer from pleasure! What hell that must be! On the contrary, René got pleasue from sufferin, because that is the only thing that lasted for him.
"The echoes of passion in the emptiness of a lonely heart are like the murmurings of wind and water in the silence of the wilderness- they offer their joy, but cannot be portrayed."


As if it was distant and unachievable. As if it was forever blocked and can only be seen, through glass.

"Our heart is a defective instrument, a lyre with several chords missing, which forces us to express our joyful moods in notes meant for lamentation." "(...) it seemed to me that life grew so strong in the depths of my heart that I had the power to create worlds." "Rise swiftly, coveted storms, coming to bear me off to the spaces of another life! This was my plea, as I plunged ahead with great strides, my face all aflame and the wind whistling through my hair, feeling neither rain nor frost, bewitched, tormented, and virtually possessed by the demon of my heart."

"[...] it seemed to me that life grew so strong in the depths of my heart that I had the power to create worlds."

Reminds me of the Hydrogen clouds in space, and how because of so much energy new stars are created...

"[...] my heart loved God, and my mind knew him not ... but does man always know what he wishes, and is he always sure of what he thinks?"

"Know that solitude is bad for the man who does not live with God. It increases the soul's power while robbing it at the same time of every opportunity to find expression. Whoever has been endowed with talent must devote it to serving his fellow men, for if he does not make use of it, he is first punished by an inner misery, and sooner or later Heaven visits on him a fearful retribution. "

It is as if it commands to be spread out and shared, to be used as a sacrifice for humanity, or it becomes a curse to the bearer. Genius can be a terrible thing if it is kept to one's self.

One can see why he was the father of French Romanticism. I think he has such a pure and non-vulgar style. The rest of the french are all about drama, but he describes the most beautiful thing: to be disillusioned and yet to be pure... I really enjoyed reading René- I wish I could write down the whole story... That it is all hopeless for a poet. He is doomed to die of love, whether it happened in the mind or not.

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Reaction to both:
The difference between Atala and Rene is that Rene managed to not find happiness and hope in anything, while Atala held on till the end. Rene let the mind eat at him through loneliness, and he indulged in it until it at all the happiness away. Shows how the mind, the imagination, can corrupt and prey on its host. That the mind needs to be put to good use "to serve fellow men" or it kills us internally. Very interesting concept- a very dangerous thing, especially for the romantic. It is extremely interesting that Chateaubriand makes this point- the Father of French Romanticism. What a great warning! Also, Rene seems extremely selfish in his indulgence. A certain arrogance develops- he constantly brought beauty in but never out. He was content enough to worhsip and idolize, because his ideal, his creation, was better than reality.