Even if it is Friday the 13th... There is the apparently true news story of a 2000 year old seed, which was found at the famous citadel of Masada, and was germinated into a perfectly normal date palm ... or ... is it normal?
Maybe not, if you are into the genre of "magical realism". Most 'true believers' are, whether they admit it or not ;-) but that is another issue. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/06/13/2008-06-13_jesus_tree_2000_yearold_date_palm_uproot.html If you have ever read the magical fiction of Janet Frame, and that is most unlikely ... i.e. that any vortician has ... since she is not well known ... anyway, if so - then you might be inclined to make the connection of this news story to her theme in "The Carpathians". That would make a strange transposition - the date palm to the Puamahara, with implications that have been explored in other guises. That novel, along with "A Confederacy of Dunces" has been called the best novel of all times that nobody has ever heard of. In both cases, there is a certain catchiness and cadence of writing style ... and if it happens to be your cadence (like an earwig) then you will forgive any absurdity and look deeper. In the case of these two, little needs to be forgiven. Frame was a brilliant Cuckoo-candidate, so to speak in the "big nurse" tradition, who was perhaps best-known for having narrowly escaped a frontal lobotomy - due to her first book having been awarded a national literary prize (New Zealand). Talk about good timing. It is likely that Kesey, Toole and Frame were triplets separated at birth... metaphorically ;-) since all explored (and lived) on that knife-edged thin line between creative genius and what your nosy neighbors may consider to be madness. Anyway, The Carpathians is the story of a "memory flower," called Puamahara. The flower has a special power in that it releases with its fragrance "memories of the land," linking with the past with the future. Many holy relics, in many religious traditions, are said to do this very thing. Thus the importance of the 'grail' in myth etc. Speaking of which: about the time Dan Brown stole the plot for DVC, there was a trio of books (not cleverly written) but equally shocking in the speculation that modern science could revive the truth about the religious past. This is actually silly in a way, because that kind of truth transcends factuality. Here is a mini review of those novels (none recommended): http://www.baptiststandard.com/2003/2_24/pages/cloned.html The curious thing about "reality" and obsessive desire, is that it is generally a let-down, much of the time. Was it Freud who opined that what we seek from sex and romance (assuming you are older) is not really present fulfillment or sensory gratification, but mostly to relive that vivid memory etched into our essence- of when that kind of thing really did matter. It's all in the mind, dates notwithstanding... Jones BTW - A Swift old scat-man once observed, "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
