The title of this bit won't mean anything unless you've read or seen The Lathe of Heaven, a story about dreams. Basically, it has to do with dreams and their impact on the day-to-day (often regarded as “Reality”). It begins with a man named George Orr who, from all appearances, is about to kick his clogs off a final time when he wakes up. Or does he? Only by reading the book or watching the movie (which can be found for free on youtube) can that question be answered. Then again, maybe not … a book or movie that raises questions the reader or viewer must answer for themselves. Imagine that! It’s not exactly Steven Spielberg. Moving along …
When I had my tonsils removed, a nurse held a small strainer (like the one in a kitchen drawer at home) above my nose and mouth. There was a square of white cotton or gauze on the strainer. Someone else - the anesthesiologist, I suppose - brought over a can that actually said ETHER on it. There was a large safety pin - large like the ones that used to be used for laundry sacks - stuck in the top. The pin was removed, and several drops of ether were dripped onto the cotton/gauze. When I went out, there was a spinning red spiral and a humming sound. When they stopped, I woke up, and no longer had my tonsils.
I underwent two more surgeries before my self-imposed European exile, and each time a 3-stage anesthetic was administered by an IV tube. On both occasions there was a fade to black until I came back around. For the surgery I had here last August, a mask was slapped on my face and a gas of some kind was used. Same result, fade to black. For this year’s turn under the knife, I've been advised by the anesthesiologist herself that she will do the deed with an IV tube. Hey, whatever works, I say.
Here's what I'm wondering: If I check out during the procedure - in other words, if I die - will I know? Will flights of cherubim flutter in, singing heavenly airs while holding a banner which says, “Thanks for Playing!”? Or will I appear before Saint Peter who will consult The Book of Life, and remind me of every time I referred to him as a spineless weasel before consigning me to Perdition’s flames? Well, hey: he was a spineless weasel, and Scripture backs me up. Choose your favorite gospel, check out his behavior on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, and you’ll see I know whereof I speak (one benefit of being raised Catholic – before Vatican II went into effect – was that it was enough to be familiar with The Bible. We didn’t have to quote from it because it was our guys who compiled, wrote, edited, and revised it. During what is referred to as The Dark Ages, the only lights left burning were to be found in monasteries, where scribes and illuminators devoted their lives to keeping The Word alive. Yes, you can look it up. But lest I be mistaken for a Catholic apologist, let us move on). I suppose those are two, very Western, possibilities. There are certainly other points of view, as it’s a big old world, and who’s to say one’s right and the others are wrong? Or, as the question was raised in Lost Horizon: If one point of view is right, does it follow that all others must be wrong? Or do we take Obi-wan Kenobi’s stance that many things may appear to be true, when seen “from a certain point of view”?
The thing is, there is no precedent. No one has returned from Death to comment on it. And I don’t want to hear any of that “I died on the operating table, but they brought me back” booshwah. That’s not death. That’s not the cessation of all things. To continue with the notion of Scriptural support – or the lack thereof – Lazarus was definitely dead, he’d even begun to decompose, but he remained mum on the subject of his time away. And Jesus didn’t say much beyond “I told you I’d be back” and anyway, his dual nature (human/Divine) would rule him out. He could have spent three days riding around on the rings of Saturn for all anyone knows.
But what about me? A humble cheeseburger and fries kind of guy who …
Will I meet up with my departed loved ones? Is there a time restriction, as in “only representative of my time on Earth”? That would rule out meeting up with my great-great-great grandfathers on both sides and saying, “Yeah, well, don’t blame me for the end result. You started it.” And if it’s limited to only those I personally knew, then I wouldn’t be hanging out with folks like David Crosby, Brian Jones, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Errol Flynn, all of whom influenced the once-young-and-impressionable yours truly. And there’d be no moonlit walks along the celestial shore with Christine McVie, either (oh, sigh).
Now, maybe there’s a write-in option. In which case, I’ll spend my Eternity in bed, watching my favorite movies and reading my favorite books with a little white dog with brown patches and a dot on his head curled up next to me. We’d eat crunchy Cheetos and every so often we’d play “Battle Beneath the Planet of the Apes” (a sort of wrestling match under the covers) or “Help Me, Boogie!” (a version of Hide ‘n’ Seek). But Eternity is a long time. We’d probably have to make up some more games.
Lou Reed _also_ wondered if he'd know when he did _his_ last shot . . .
Sometimes I miss the literary references, as the column writer is much better read than me..
Thanks Wikipedia/IMDB . . .
so:
The title is from the writings of Chuang Tzu (Zhuang Zhou) — specifically a passage from Book XXIII, paragraph 7, quoted as an epigraph to Chapter 3 of the novel:
To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. (知止乎其所不能知,至矣。若有不即是者,天鈞敗之。)
Other epigraphs from Chuang Tzu appear throughout the novel. Le Guin chose the title because she loved the quotation. However, it seems that quote is a mis-translation of Chuang Tzu's Chinese text.
In Nothingness, Being, and Dao: Ontology and Cosmology in the Zhuangzi, Chai describes the concept of 天鈞 as 'heavenly equilibrium'.[3]
In an interview with Bill Moyers for the 2000 DVD release of the 1980 adaptation, Le Guin clarified the issue:
...it's a terrible mis-translation apparently, I didn't know that at the time. There were no lathes in China at the time that was said. Joseph Needham wrote me and said "It's a lovely translation, but it's wrong".[4]
She published her rendition of the Tao Te Ching, The Book of the Way and Its Virtue by Lao Tzu, the traditional founder of Taoism (Daoism). In the notes at the end of this book, she explains this choice:
The language of some [versions of the Tao Te Ching] was so obscure as to make me feel the book must be beyond Western comprehension. (James Legge's version was one of these, although I found the title for a book of mine, The Lathe of Heaven, in Legge. Years later, Joseph Needham, the great scholar of Chinese science and technology, wrote to tell me in the kindest, most unreproachful fashion Legge was a bit off on that one; when Chuang Tzu was written the lathe hadn't been invented.) [5]
Translated editions titled the novel differently. The German and first Portuguese edition titles, Die Geißel des Himmels and O flagelo dos céus, mean literally "the scourge [or whip] of heaven". The French, Swedish and second Portuguese edition titles, L'autre côté du rêve, På andra sidan drömmen and Do outro lado do sonho, translate as "the other side of the dream".
Good one, wp... I'd like to meet you and Boogie.