{Not The Name of the Rose}[5th July 1990]

[Redbook7:165][19900705:0045]{Not The Name of the Rose}[5th July 1990]

(4)

19900705.0045

It’s only fair (to me) to say, ref. [Umberto] Eco’s comments on paranoid interpretation,* that I did wonder (when I analysed** his plan of the ‘Name of the Rose’ library in C[ircles] A[nalysis] & S[ynthesis] terms) whether I was walking right into it – setting myself up with his first article, to make an example of myself for his second. Perhaps Eco is so clear about this because – fiction-creator that he is, as well as a scholar – he sees traces of ‘paranoid’(?) schizophrenia in himself? – at least, a highly associative unconscious.

What a splendid obsession!

*{ref T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19900629:694}

**[[Redbook7:158-159][19900623:1455c]{The Name of the Rose?}[23rd June 1990]ff,] p158-9

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{ – And* possible contributions}[2nd July 1990]

[Redbook7:164-165][19900705:2310b]{ – And* possible contributions}[2nd July 1990]

19900702.2310

[continued]

It is worth pointing out that I am well aware that this** is an old idea – far older than suggested in the E[ncyclopedia] B[ritannica] article quoted, at least so far as general history is concerned – and that it is now discredited by serious scholars. In the unlikely event that I can contribute something useful, it is likely to be in one or more of these areas:

(1) that the cyclical theory may have some useful validity after all (revealed by increasingly apparent manifestations in relatively recent times, to some of which earlier workers may not have had access);

(2) that there may be a reasonably precise *** mathematical structure involved, possibly related to recently discovered mathematical patterns in other fields of study; and

(3) that the ‘Crisis Point’ at the end (and beginning) of each cycle may offer the opportunity for non-deterministic (‘free’) switching into a qualitatively different form of development.

This last is, of course, the most original and the most interesting of the three possibilities.

*[See last previous entry]

**[Artistic cycles, or historical cycles generally]

***I would add: “qualitative and” <900705>

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{Artistic Cycles (2) (Extract)}[2nd July 1990]

[Redbook7:164][19900705:2310]{Artistic Cycles (2) (Extract)}[2nd July 1990]

19900702.2310

[The ms page here starts with a photocopy of an article headed “Style in the Arts” which cannot be reproduced here for copyright reasons, but which under the heading “Cyclical theories” includes the following passage, which is highlighted in the ms:]

‘In an effort to get closer to the observed course of events, some historians have favoured, in whole or in part, a cyclical theory that pictures each major single-culture style as going through the same irreversible series of cross-cultural styles, which is usually given as archaic, classic, baroque, impressionist, and archaistic. Thus the first, or archaic, phase of the Graeco-Roman cycle is supposed to correspond with the first phase of the Gothic and of the Renaissance cycles: and one can speak of third-phase baroque Greek, third-phase baroque Gothic, and even third-phase baroque Baroque. The theory has some fascination, and occasionally it works well enough to shed light on the actual historical behaviour of styles. But often it works only because one has been careful to start the cycle in the right place, and far too often it does not work at all.’

– E[ncyclopedia] B[ritannica] 14:151

[See next entry]

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{Interlocking Cycles [continued (5)]}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:163][19900630:1400g]{Interlocking Cycles [continued (5)]}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

[continued]

Whereas ‘Gearing’ could describe this sort of effect,* it would be better to restrict it** to the relationship of super- and sub- and serial cycles*** within the same Life (Individual or Institutional), and perhaps to describe the relationship of cycles from completely different Lives (Individual and/or Institutional) as ‘Interlocking’.****

*[See last previous entry]

**[ie the term ‘gearing’]

***[See [[Redbook4:61][19870820:1800f]{Circle Relationships [continued(4)] – } (2) Gearing (i) [20^th August 1987]ff]]

****{cf [[Redbook7:12-13][19900105:1655c]{Hierarchy of Resonances}[5th January 1990]ff,] 13}

{<19900630>}

- - - - - -

{<19901011>}

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{Interlocking Cycles [continued (4)]}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:163][19900630:1400f]{Interlocking Cycles [continued (4)]}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

[continued]

This* has possible implications for us, as the year 2,000 is the end of the first quarter of the current 64-year cycle (1984 – 2048). Whatever the cycle is – and Mrs. Thatcher seems to be trying her hardest to emphasise Britain’s Outer Circle against Europe’s Inner Circle emphasis – it is a time when youth can readily be harnessed (or so C[ircles] A[nalysis] & S[ynthesis] suggests) to the intentions or expectations of the cycle (whereas at the third quarter point youth will tend to work disruptively with the effect of the Outer Circle). But I and my generation, it seems, will have a tendency towards being generally out of sync.** Oh, jolly good!

*[See last two previous entries]

**(ie personal working-life G~ or m~*** to the World’s 64-year M~*** or g~)

***[The ms has a~ & A~ here which must surely be a mistake (from A for Action?) for m~ & M~ respectively]

[continued]

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{Interlocking Cycles [continued (3)]}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:162-3][19900630:1400e]{Interlocking Cycles [continued (3)]}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

[continued]

Around 1936, by contrast* – the M~-time to 1968’s G~-time* in the same 64-year cycle – artists such as the Expressionists were being arrested and dispersed;** it was they who were marginalised, and those born around 1920 of a right-wing or M~-type, approaching M~ on their outer circle working-life-cycles,*** were in their element, in a movement starting in Germany and soon to spread directly over most of Europe (and indirectly, by forcing a military reaction, in the rest of the World).

*[See last previous entry]

** E[nyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 4:636

(But those known to us were not likely to be 16-year-olds, of course – by that time.

Any c16-year-olds with such leanings would be so marginalised that we would never hear of them(!)[)]

***(At this point [during the writing of this entry] the children [d & s] returned and started winding [W] up! – concentration disturbed.)

[continued]

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{Interlocking Cycles [continued]}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:162][19900630:1400d]{Interlocking Cycles [continued]}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

[continued]

But* to select an extraordinary event within my own lifetime, and one whose importance in interpreting this scheme of things may gradually become crucial: In 1968, the 64-year G~ time, the dominant culture was that of the middle and late ’teens – ie the g~ age of those born around 1952, on the inner circle. Artistry, of one sort and another, triumphed; those of an opposite bent, ie those born around 1952 of a more sober (or rigid) and analytical cast of mind **(approaching their M~ points on their O[uter] C[ircle] rotations),** were completely sidelined.

*[See last previous entry]

**[Words between ** inserted]

[continued]

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{Interlocking Cycles}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:162-3][19900630:1400c]{Interlocking Cycles}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

[continued]

Leaving the moans* – how might individual lives mesh with the 64-year cycle, which is the most comparable in length to the Western life?

For example, would Men born in in 1920 be more likely to ‘mesh’ with the patterns of their time than Men born in 1952 (– when [W] was born, and I in 1951?)

– There is probably only a limited extent to which this relationship can be divorced from the overall pattern of 64-year cycles.

*[See last previous entry]

[continued]

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{Artistic Cycles (1) [continued][:Frustration]}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:161][19900630:1400b]{Artistic Cycles (1) [continued][:Frustration]}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

[continued]

*but which was soon distorted into acute frustration by the constant noise and disruption of family life, rendering study and thought impossible.

I am looking after the children as [W] struggles to finish the internal decoration of the house – I having completed the internal rebuilding and my part of external decoration – this has been a preoccupation now ever since my Church studies came to an end in April, and I am heartily sick of it.

So why do I do it? Because of TINA (there is no alternative).

And we have ’flu.

*[Continued from last previous ts & blog entry]

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{Artistic Cycles (1)}[30th June 1990]

[Redbook7:161][19900630:1400]{Artistic Cycles (1)}[30th June 1990]

19900630.(1400c)

Note: A.S. Byatt ‘After the myth, the real’, reviewing 4 books on Van Gogh, T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement], 19900629-0705, 683ff, particularly discussion of Zola’s novel, ‘La Faute de L’Abbé Mouret’, and its (and Van Gogh’s) living ‘symbolism’ or patterns of Christian death and pagan resurrection. & cf Independent Weekend today,* p27, reported comment of Innu (Canadian native) hunter on their personal reconciliation of Shamanism and Christianity: ‘Christianity is the religion of death; our religion is to do with keeping alive. Everyone dies. Everyone tries to live.’**

The notion that Expressionism,*** flourishing as it did from c1900 to 1935, might represent the 64-year C point at 1920 magnified on the approach to the 2048 a.d.**** C point (but what about 1984?), and thus be the beginning of that map of the artistic C[ircles] A[nalysis] & S[ynthesis] patterns which I have to find before I can continue with the booklet# – increased an excitement generated by Byatt’s article:#*

*(Ind[ependent] [19]900630, 27)

**cf [The Guardian, 19900920 Malcolm Bradbury, ‘The World after the Wake’ (annotated with Circles Analysis & Synthesis 64-year & 512-year cycle degrees)], 313A <901011>

***cf E[nyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 4:635

****And cf: “Within the history of Modernism the notion of a ‘recall to order’ is usually associated with the widespread neo-classical revival in European painting immediately following the First World War.” (T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19900622-28, 669, R. Snell, ‘A dialogue with tradition’.)

Now see [[Redbook7:164][19900702:2310]{Artistic Cycles (2)}[2^nd July 1990]] (p164)

<19200702>

#[S&C]

#*[continues in next ts & blog journal entry]

[continued]

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{Dream: Religion and Politics}[26th June 1990]

[Redbook7:160][19900626:2350]{Dream: Religion and Politics}[26th June 1990]

19900626.2350

I forgot, immediately, some of the crucial statements of a dream this morning which involved ‘me’ making some crushing comment to Mrs Thatcher;* ‘me’ urging (applauding?) onlookers (in desks?) to rise up; ‘me’, when asked what alternative they should embrace, praying (with clasped hands) at my desk for the answer; and ‘me’ receiving/giving the answer, which consisted of a succinct verbal formula for spiritual Light-ness (as I now interpret it – but not as I believe it was meant in the recent Czech?/Hungarian? film,** ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’).

I mention these fragments because of the inner sense of spiritual wholeness or integrity attached to them, particularly at the end.

*[UK Prime Minister 4^th May 1979 to 28^th November 1990]

**[American film of Czech novel]

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{Life Begins at 40}[25th June 1990]

[Redbook7:160][19900625:2315]{Life Begins at 40}[25th June 1990]

19900625.2315

I wish I could remember where it was, within the last few days, that I have read that the Kabbalists* recommended that no one should study their system until he had reached the age of 40!**

*[ref [Redbook7:157-158][19900623:1455]{The Polarisation Shift [continued(4)][: The Kabbalists’ Tree}[23rd June 1990]&f]

**[The writer had recently turned 39]

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{The Name of the Rose? [continued (3)]}[23rd June 1990]

[Redbook7:159][19900623:1455e]{The Name of the Rose? [continued (3)]}[23rd June 1990]

.1455

[continued]

(But* I get my come-uppance in Eco’s 2^nd article** – eg ‘The paranoic sees beneath my example*** a secret, to which I allude’**

Eco is a terrible tease.

*[See last two previous entries, [Redbook7:158-159][19900623:1455c]{The Name of the Rose?}[23rd June 1990]&f]

** (T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19900629:694)

***(not the diagram [in the last previous entry] above)

See [[Redbook7:165][19900705:0045]{Not The Name of the Rose}[7th July 1990],]165

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{The Name of the Rose? [continued]}[23rd June 1990]

[Redbook7:159][19900623:1455d]{The Name of the Rose? [continued]}[23rd June 1990]

.1455

[continued]

If I have understood the text* correctly, the plan of Eco’s tower/library* is:

(The C[ircles] A[nalysis] & S[ynthesis] letters, eg C, are added)

(Each cardinal point is an Apocalypsis)

The close correspondence with C[ircles] A[nalysis] & S[ynthesis] attributes (as supported by birthdate statistics) is obvious. The directional circle also has points of correspondence with the 4,000 year cycle ending about 2048 (perhaps concealing the first 256 years and showing the 256 years after 2048 ad),** in terms of cultural influence of territories, or the commencement of centres of cultural ‘gravity’.***

*[in ‘The Name of the Rose’ – see last previous entry]

**[sic; ad=ce]

***[But see next entry]

See [[Redbook7:165][19900705:0045]{Not The Name of the Rose}[7th July 1990],]165

[continued]

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