Kai, Nemo here! Finally subscribed after eagerly reading your FB posts for a long while. This is, predictably, the first back-issue that I was drawn to when scrolling through this fantastic work of yours. Thank you for this trove.
I am not surprised that dreams and dreaming prophets are revered in the earliest book, but are put to death by the last. Dreams are populist, they are folk. The Surrealists knew this and became card-carrying Communists. Dreams defy all hierarchy. They are both deeply personal and somehow universal. Not everyone remembers their dreams, but everyone dreams.
The Brothers Grimm collected and wrote down some 200 folk tales and published them as _Kinder-und Hausmärchen_. When they were first translated to English, many parts of the original German text were censored and edited down, bowdlerized and filed under "Fairy Stories." It was not the violence that got cut at first- Americans, and Disney would ignore the ugly sisters chopping off their toes to fit into a glass slipper. It was all the absurdist, dream-logic that didn't make the first English translations. Story #25 tells of a little girl whose brothers are turned into ravens. She goes on a journey to the Glass Mountain to save them; when she reaches the gate she cuts off her finger and places it into the lock, and the gate opens. This scene, while vivid, does not add much to the rest of the narrative and has always struck me as something out of the storyteller's dream life. It does not appear in the first English edition.
I see ancient folk tales as a cross-section of human consciousness. Anyone can cherry pick them for cultural indoctrination or educational purposes. They are constantly repurposed, from the nursery to the opera house. Folk tales tell you what it is to be a good queen, a kind parent, a brave soldier, they are itching to become propaganda. But when you dig back to the oral tradition, they also contain a ton of strange, uncomfortable, Surrealist, David-Lynchian imagery that's hard to harness for political purposes.
In the transition between the spoken word and the written word, dreams get lost for some ideal of clarity.
Kai, Nemo here! Finally subscribed after eagerly reading your FB posts for a long while. This is, predictably, the first back-issue that I was drawn to when scrolling through this fantastic work of yours. Thank you for this trove.
I am not surprised that dreams and dreaming prophets are revered in the earliest book, but are put to death by the last. Dreams are populist, they are folk. The Surrealists knew this and became card-carrying Communists. Dreams defy all hierarchy. They are both deeply personal and somehow universal. Not everyone remembers their dreams, but everyone dreams.
The Brothers Grimm collected and wrote down some 200 folk tales and published them as _Kinder-und Hausmärchen_. When they were first translated to English, many parts of the original German text were censored and edited down, bowdlerized and filed under "Fairy Stories." It was not the violence that got cut at first- Americans, and Disney would ignore the ugly sisters chopping off their toes to fit into a glass slipper. It was all the absurdist, dream-logic that didn't make the first English translations. Story #25 tells of a little girl whose brothers are turned into ravens. She goes on a journey to the Glass Mountain to save them; when she reaches the gate she cuts off her finger and places it into the lock, and the gate opens. This scene, while vivid, does not add much to the rest of the narrative and has always struck me as something out of the storyteller's dream life. It does not appear in the first English edition.
I see ancient folk tales as a cross-section of human consciousness. Anyone can cherry pick them for cultural indoctrination or educational purposes. They are constantly repurposed, from the nursery to the opera house. Folk tales tell you what it is to be a good queen, a kind parent, a brave soldier, they are itching to become propaganda. But when you dig back to the oral tradition, they also contain a ton of strange, uncomfortable, Surrealist, David-Lynchian imagery that's hard to harness for political purposes.
In the transition between the spoken word and the written word, dreams get lost for some ideal of clarity.
After reading this post- I dreamt for the first time in a long time. Dreamt of an open door!!! This study is a portal to the unconscious.
I want to read Kamenetz’s book.
Is this the first time God speaks directly to Aaron and Miriam (or have I not been paying attention)?