The Blue Phase
Click here for a larger image: http://twitpic.com/10wj8a or here: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/post/365494641/goethes-mannequin-legs-reveals-2-haller-in
“It was late one afternoon when the blue phase began”
Goethe reveals to Haller a tiny likeness of a woman's leg
A meandering, in search of a plot, by Kevin Dayhoff Jan. 23, 2010…
It’s a long story, however the other day I found myself in a meeting in which all I could think of was “Steppenwolf,” by Herman Hesse. To protect the guilty, I’ll spare you the details of the circumstances of the meeting. Especially since, n the long-run; it is all so boring and meaningless.
In Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf,” originally published in 1927, the main character, Harry Haller has fallen into deep despair and therefore, has determined that he will end his life.
According to commentary by Bob Corbett, written in December 2001, “In this strange tale of Harry Haller three different times he is confronted by weird events which are beyond coincidence and into the occult. The first occurs very early in the novel when Harry is walking down the street and a strange man thrusts a pamphlet into is hand. He gets home and discovers it is Treatise On The Steppenwolf.
“This is so amazing since Steppenwolf is his own self-chosen name, referring to his tendency to live outside the world of human bourgeois society, living more life a lone wolf of the steppes of Asia…”
Mr. Corbett explains, “Harry Haller is a 48 year old loner. Divorced but in a vague relationship with a distant girl friend, Harry is some sort of author and scholar, but we never really learn of what. He lives in a pair of rooms in a middle class home in a German city in the late 1920s.
“What we do know about Harry is his view of himself as the Steppenwolf. Harry sees the world as divided into two basic classes of person: the ordinary citizen and himself and a handful like him, the steppenwolves of the world.
“These are people who embrace the meaninglessness of life, who then create a world of meaning in the pursuit of knowledge, art and a certain view of perfection -- the disciplined pursuit of the limited worthy things.
“On the other hand, Harry is quite honest to his own contradictions. He always takes rooms in a pleasant bourgeois home and has a great nostalgia for the comforts and ease of bourgeois living with which he grew up.
“However, he is convinced he can really take it or leave it, and in some sense leaves it since he does provide such a life for himself, but lives quietly amidst it, while at the same time being aloof and scornful of the very life he enjoys so much.
“These early days of the story are hard days for Harry. He no longer has his keen sense of the value of what he is doing, and combined with his own developed sense that he and those like him are people who know that death is to be chosen when the time is ripe, Harry is flirting seriously with suicide.
“As mentioned above, his first experience with his occult messages come when he is given the Treatise On The Steppenwolf by the stranger on the street. It is clearly personally about himself.
“However, he learns in this treatise that he isn't really the steppenwolf he paints himself to be. Not only are his bourgeois tendencies unmasked to him, but much more powerfully, it is revealed to him that he isn't even the contradiction of two forces, the steppenwolf and bourgeois culture, but he is thousands of personages, flitting back and forth in a jumble that boggles the mind.
[…]
“Harry arrives at a frustration with life and living and decides it is time to commit suicide and end his pain and suffering. He goes out wandering on his last day.
“In the process he comes across a funeral and follows it, just to test the experience…”
“After the funeral he wanders the streets for hours, planning his suicide and death, dreading it and looking forward to it by turns. He prepares to return to his room and do the deed with a razor, but decides to allow a last meal and drink. He's deep into an unfamiliar part of town and turns to the first place he encounters, which, of course is The Black Eagle, the second of Harry's strange encounters.”
At “The Black Eagle,” Harry Haller - Steppenwolf - falls off into a deep sleep and dreams that he is a newspaper reporter who is about to interview the German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
As he awaits the arrival of Goethe, a black scorpion attempts to climb up his leg and then disappears…
Upon Goethe’s arrival, he states, “that he and the other Immortals have not been appreciated.”
Although somewhat in agreement, Steppenwolf insists that Goethe failed because he was not “straightforward.”
Mr. Haller insists that Goethe had lived to be eighty-two years old and “therefore,” according to another un-cited analysis in my old file notes, “he knew the futility, the despair, the worthlessness of human existence, but he denied it. In fact, he presented faith and optimism as truths, even though he knew otherwise.”
Goethe responds that it is indeed Steppenwolf who is wrong in his convictions. “You take the old Goethe much too seriously, my young friend,” he says. “You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We Immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time.”
As Harry Haller awakened from his dream, “Goethe opens a small box to reveal a tiny likeness of a woman's leg. Steppenwolf realizes it's the scorpion in disguise...”
…
It is the scorpions in disguise – in life - prove most problematic in the negotiation of existentialism…
[20100123 Mannequin legs 3f] Art Library authors Hesse Herman, Dayhoff Art, Dayhoff Daily Photoblog, Dayhoff photos, Dayhoff writing essays, Erratum Existentialism, Journalists
Related:
http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2010/01/blue-phase.html
Goethe’s mannequin legs - reveals 2 Haller in Steppenwolf tiny likeness of woman's leg http://tinyurl.com/y8bvarp http://twitpic.com/10wj8a http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/post/365494641/goethes-mannequin-legs-reveals-2-haller-in
http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2010/02/goethes-mannequin-legs.html
“It was late one afternoon when the blue phase began”
Goethe reveals to Haller a tiny likeness of a woman's leg
A meandering, in search of a plot, by Kevin Dayhoff Jan. 23, 2010…
It’s a long story, however the other day I found myself in a meeting in which all I could think of was “Steppenwolf,” by Herman Hesse. To protect the guilty, I’ll spare you the details of the circumstances of the meeting. Especially since, n the long-run; it is all so boring and meaningless.
In Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf,” originally published in 1927, the main character, Harry Haller has fallen into deep despair and therefore, has determined that he will end his life.
According to commentary by Bob Corbett, written in December 2001, “In this strange tale of Harry Haller three different times he is confronted by weird events which are beyond coincidence and into the occult. The first occurs very early in the novel when Harry is walking down the street and a strange man thrusts a pamphlet into is hand. He gets home and discovers it is Treatise On The Steppenwolf.
“This is so amazing since Steppenwolf is his own self-chosen name, referring to his tendency to live outside the world of human bourgeois society, living more life a lone wolf of the steppes of Asia…”
Mr. Corbett explains, “Harry Haller is a 48 year old loner. Divorced but in a vague relationship with a distant girl friend, Harry is some sort of author and scholar, but we never really learn of what. He lives in a pair of rooms in a middle class home in a German city in the late 1920s.
“What we do know about Harry is his view of himself as the Steppenwolf. Harry sees the world as divided into two basic classes of person: the ordinary citizen and himself and a handful like him, the steppenwolves of the world.
“These are people who embrace the meaninglessness of life, who then create a world of meaning in the pursuit of knowledge, art and a certain view of perfection -- the disciplined pursuit of the limited worthy things.
“On the other hand, Harry is quite honest to his own contradictions. He always takes rooms in a pleasant bourgeois home and has a great nostalgia for the comforts and ease of bourgeois living with which he grew up.
“However, he is convinced he can really take it or leave it, and in some sense leaves it since he does provide such a life for himself, but lives quietly amidst it, while at the same time being aloof and scornful of the very life he enjoys so much.
“These early days of the story are hard days for Harry. He no longer has his keen sense of the value of what he is doing, and combined with his own developed sense that he and those like him are people who know that death is to be chosen when the time is ripe, Harry is flirting seriously with suicide.
“As mentioned above, his first experience with his occult messages come when he is given the Treatise On The Steppenwolf by the stranger on the street. It is clearly personally about himself.
“However, he learns in this treatise that he isn't really the steppenwolf he paints himself to be. Not only are his bourgeois tendencies unmasked to him, but much more powerfully, it is revealed to him that he isn't even the contradiction of two forces, the steppenwolf and bourgeois culture, but he is thousands of personages, flitting back and forth in a jumble that boggles the mind.
[…]
“Harry arrives at a frustration with life and living and decides it is time to commit suicide and end his pain and suffering. He goes out wandering on his last day.
“In the process he comes across a funeral and follows it, just to test the experience…”
“After the funeral he wanders the streets for hours, planning his suicide and death, dreading it and looking forward to it by turns. He prepares to return to his room and do the deed with a razor, but decides to allow a last meal and drink. He's deep into an unfamiliar part of town and turns to the first place he encounters, which, of course is The Black Eagle, the second of Harry's strange encounters.”
At “The Black Eagle,” Harry Haller - Steppenwolf - falls off into a deep sleep and dreams that he is a newspaper reporter who is about to interview the German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
As he awaits the arrival of Goethe, a black scorpion attempts to climb up his leg and then disappears…
Upon Goethe’s arrival, he states, “that he and the other Immortals have not been appreciated.”
Although somewhat in agreement, Steppenwolf insists that Goethe failed because he was not “straightforward.”
Mr. Haller insists that Goethe had lived to be eighty-two years old and “therefore,” according to another un-cited analysis in my old file notes, “he knew the futility, the despair, the worthlessness of human existence, but he denied it. In fact, he presented faith and optimism as truths, even though he knew otherwise.”
Goethe responds that it is indeed Steppenwolf who is wrong in his convictions. “You take the old Goethe much too seriously, my young friend,” he says. “You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We Immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time.”
As Harry Haller awakened from his dream, “Goethe opens a small box to reveal a tiny likeness of a woman's leg. Steppenwolf realizes it's the scorpion in disguise...”
…
It is the scorpions in disguise – in life - prove most problematic in the negotiation of existentialism…
[20100123 Mannequin legs 3f] Art Library authors Hesse Herman, Dayhoff Art, Dayhoff Daily Photoblog, Dayhoff photos, Dayhoff writing essays, Erratum Existentialism, Journalists
Related:
http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2010/01/blue-phase.html
Goethe’s mannequin legs - reveals 2 Haller in Steppenwolf tiny likeness of woman's leg http://tinyurl.com/y8bvarp http://twitpic.com/10wj8a http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/post/365494641/goethes-mannequin-legs-reveals-2-haller-in
http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2010/02/goethes-mannequin-legs.html
Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ (http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/) http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/
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