How do you write a Story? In an exchange with one of our esteemed members, I had reason to bring up Catch-22, Joseph Heller's great work. Heller was not just one of the greatest writers ever, he was a representative of both Jewish Culture and a part of his culture that went back thousands of years. We find it in Ecclesiastes:
Ecclesiastes 9: 3 - 6 (RSV):
[3] This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that one fate comes to all; also the hearts of men are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
[4] But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
[5] For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost.
[6] Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and they have no more for ever any share in all that is done under the sun.
How do you write a Story? Heller wrote, as Vonnegut did, of events he experienced in World War 2, although it is much more hidden in Catch-22 than in Slaughterhouse 5. Heller was in a B-25 that was hit in flight and there was someone in the back who...
Anyway, I quoted a small passage in my exchange and I left out a most important paragraph. It explains so much:
"...A chunk of flak more than three inches big had shot into his other side just underneath the arm and blasted all the way through, drawing whole mottled quarts of Snowden along with it through the gigantic hole in his ribs it made as it blasted out. Yossarian screamed a second time and squeezed both hands over his eyes. His teeth were chattering in horror. He forced himself to look again. Here was God’s plenty, all right, he thought bitterly as he stared — liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of the stewed tomatoes Snowden had eaten that day for lunch. Yossarian hated stewed tomatoes and turned away dizzily and began to vomit, clutching his burning throat. The tail gunner woke up while Yossarian was vomiting, saw him, and fainted again.
"Yossarian was limp with exhaustion, pain and despair when he finished. He turned back weakly to Snowden, whose breath had grown softer and more rapid, and whose face had grown paler. He wondered how in the world to begin to save him.
"I’m cold." Snowden whimpered, "I’m cold."
"There, there. Yossarian mumbled mechanically in a voice too low to be heard. "There, there."
"Yossarian was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollable. He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.
"I’m cold," Snowden said. "I’m cold."
"There, there," said Yossarian. "There, there," He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.
"I’m cold."
"There, there." ..."
I can only begin to tell you what Ecclesiastes has meant to me through the years. Did I leave out a section of the passage in Ecclesiastes? I think I did:
[7] Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do.
[8] Let your garments be always white; let not oil be lacking on your head.
[9] Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
[10] Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
Heller writes the other side of this. "He wondered how in the world to begin to save him." Yossarian could not save Snowden. Not only did he have no idea how he could have saved Snowden, he could not have accomplished the saving of Snowden. Nor could anyone or anything else.
This is what is missing in Analysis of what the Jews were facing at the end of the Second Temple at the hands of Titus. The impossibility of replacement of Temporal Finality with Eternal Worship of a foreign god is not even a possibility for consideration. There is not a Book of Plato at the end of the New Testament and yet that is what won out, with a little help from several Legions and the death of a culture. I catch all kinds of Grief because no one appears to be able to see what I see. "It must be wrong because I won't try to find another meaning, another Set of Symbolic Meanings..." Whether I'm right or wrong, at least this is there in front of you and has been for thousands of years.
You've got to try to see beyond the Transvaluation. Heller did:
"Returning for Belle by way of Coney Island Avenue, he came upon a softball game in a schoolyard, played by boys wearing yarmulkas, and he left the car to watch. Athletes in skullcaps? The school was a religious one, a Yeshiva. Some of the teen-agers had sidelocks, and some of the sidelocks were blond. Gold smiled. God was right - a stiff-necked, contrary people. Moisheh Kapoyer, here it was winter and they were playing baseball, while everyone else played football and basketball.
"And a stubborn dispute was in progress. The boy at first base had his back to the others, in a pose of limp exasperation. The pitcher was sulking and refused to pitch the ball. The batter was waiting in a squat with his elbows on his knees, his head resting with disinterest on one hand. As Gold watched, the catcher, a muscular, red headed youth, with freckles and sidelocks, with a face as Irish or Scottish as any Gold had ever laid eyes on, moved wrathfully toward the pitcher with words Gold for a minute had trouble believing.
"Varf", shouted the catcher. "Varf it already. Varf the fucking ball!"
"Gold continued to Esthers for Belle and drove home. He owed Pomeroy a book. Where could he begin?"
Joseph Heller, Good as Gold
Luke 19: 39 - 40 (RSV):
[39] And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples."
[40] He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."
What could this possibly mean...?