Milorad Pavic: The Dictionary of the Khazars. Male edition. (in Norwegian)

I took this book with me on the holidays, in the Southeast of Sweden (Aamaal and Stensvik), on the hunch that I could leisurely withdraw to a few pages now and then, and by that draw some concussed wisdom from it. I have read that book before and got the impression that it was full of beautiful stories which were just a few years of life-experience away from me when I read it (at 19 years of age). Presently I can report that 12 years werent that much of a help. I am not going to slaughter Pavic’s obviously masterful and inventive work, rather I feel like apologizing for my inability to concentrate. In the introduction the author proposes a deal where he would finish his writing before his dinner, so as to suppress the obvious tendency for authors to drown his reader in exaggerated detail, circumscribing style and other literary obsessions – while his reader would read each portion after digesting his dinner, so as to be prepared to be patient and prepared for whatever remains of the selfsame in the text. The Dictionary of the Khazars is a honest fabrication, which distinguishes it, along with Umberto Eco’s parodical novel Foucault’s Pendulum – from tiring and dishonest tripe such as Dan Brown’ s DaVinci Code (which I am sure to lambast one of these days, when I feel prepared to do so).
Among the circumstances which recommends the Khazars as a chosen topic of investigation are the fact that although they have been given much attention, especially in regards to Semittic and Slavic studies, and the interrelationship between indigenous East European and Russian tribes and the important Jewish demographic in the same areas – they are indisputeably still an enigma or a mystery to the selfsame scholars and researchers. For those with little or no grasp of the aforesaid areas of the humanities, even more so. In some sense the inhabitants of Khazaria for us is as exotic as the improbable but ponderable citizens of ancient Tløn (Borges) or for that matter, the fascinating but more accessible characters of MiddleEarth(Tolkien). Having read fantastical literature from the age of 10, even such intended for an adult and educated audience, I am by now well acquianted with the methods and techniques used so as to transform a net of exasperating diversity and plurality into a spearpoint; what the dictionary lacks is some kind of concrete climax, but as its form suggests, such a climax where never promised in the first place. I decided after failing Pavic to undergo a literary penance for my boredom and neglect by reading Jorge Luis Borges short prose, I suppose I shall have to report on the progress afterwards.
A high-point in my readership where my appreciation for the discussion of the dream hunters, the sect inspired by the poetess Princess Ateh: the mediatory and partly salvific, partly fatal realm of dreams gave me a glimpse of a literary and contemporary, mythological application of Hurqualya as we find it described by among others the founder of the illuminist or theosophical school of Shi’i Islam Yahya Suhrawardi, or the Terra Lucida described by the Manichaeans, you find them compared in Henry Corbin’s masterful books The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism and Spiritual Earth, Celestial Body. The triangulation of the meeting of dreamers and dream-watchers also suggested to me the constellation of the guide and the guided, and the angelic presence which manifests between the two, whose name in our own Judeo-Christian culture, in the interpretation of among others Corbin himself, would be the Holy Spirit: the completion of Adam Ruhania, who by Yehudah HaLevi (an actual literate of the 12th century, who apperently actually devoted an entire work to the Khazars or Kuzari) is compared to Adam Kadmon, which to me suggested the character of esoteric Mazdeism as well as Ismailiya Islam, Salman Pak/ Gabriel of the burnt wing, a Hermetic (if we regard Zosimos of Panopolis epochal work The Book of/on Omega as contributing to the later Hermetic corpus and tradition) as well as a Cabbalistical theme: an internalizing of the Tikkun Olam, which necessarely becomes the quest and greater jehad of the Soul for a restoration, reintegration, or as the renaissance and reformation humanism has given us, regeneration – of greater Man. A similar theme was already making curious formations in my unconsciousness as I have been studying Corbin’s Imago Templi in confrontation with the Profane, a paper he delivered at the Eranos Conference in 1972, the year I was born.
Therein he discusses the four phases of the Imago Templi, whose middle distance everyone who is born into the world but fail to apprehend and understand the context and meaning of such births find themselves: namely, my friend Jan Valentin Saether’s orientational theme – Exile.
The Temple, the sanctuary and dwelling of the Divine, the extraordinary, supramental, Sacred – that which participates in the degree of perfection, the good, the light, the progressive, revelatory, beautiful in contradistinction to whatever else manifests, arbitrarily or voluntarily, in any given universe: necessarely only is represented in history, in events which is projected from and to human minds, the distance between being filled by Grace, even in calamity, catastrophe and perdition – is represented in like manner in the mythopoetic
dream
in Pavic’s work.
I will return to Khazaria, or rather the conjectured Khazaria contained between the binder of Pavic’s encyclopedic novel, later. Perhaps I will try to read it in one of the suggested alternative ways rather than from first to last page.
Some impressions remain with me, but I cannot claim to have comprehended or made sense of the work. Perhaps it is intended to be more of an exercise for the reader than what usually passes for fiction. We shall see.

Some sites I have found on the topics of Milorad Pavic`s Dictionary of the Kazhars.
Milorad Pavic: A brief Autobiography, at Khazars.com.
As a Writer, I was born two hundred years ago, Interview w. Milorad Pavic, by
Thanassis Lallas (Dalkey Archive Press)
Official site for Milorad Pavic, maintained by his wife, Jasmina Mihajlovic. www.khazars.com

…obviously she is to me, or else there wouldn’t be much of a point in it, would it? I think I have broken through another barrier in my life, but now I have got company. Which is strange to me. Intimidating, tiltilating, weird. It was an ordinary Tuesday and I was lost for other words to tell her, so I stumbled in my own thoughts, reached for her, drew her near, and asked her – and she said Yes. The rest is some kind of future, which I can neither predict nor guarantee, except that I’ll be there – every step of the way.

May, which is her name – and me, have stuck together for three years now, of which two have been a state of cohabitation and partnership in every day life as well as special moments, of which there are more than I can count.

It’s typical of me to attempt to explain some simple thing with too many words, for anyone left to hear them, sort through them, shift them for meaning, a lot of patience is neccessary – May has had patience, for which I am really grateful. But I know she knows how I feel about her.

We haven’t any concrete plans about when, how and where – but we have at least come around to sharing the intention and desire to get married.

So presently that is what I have got to say about it. I hope you all have had a wonderful summer, I am sure I have, even though there has been just a few bright hot sunny days in July.

Its been two years since I idly began writing in this blog… its not much

advertised and has a really humble readerships. Sometimes I wonder

if its just me and the web spam spiders … or something.

I had hoped I would have handled it differently, shared important things and

events, thoughts, discussions, facts and tidbits. Im not sure what this blog

owns up to. But it has engaged me throughout two full years.

In a brief email the other day, my friend Jacob Holm-Lupo told me that he and his wife, Teresa, is expecting a child. I am happy for them, and wonder at what kind of beauty and wisdom can manifest from the fruit of such union as theirs. I am also anticipating the release of Jacob`s band White Willow`s new album sometime in the near future.. just malapropos.

Congratulations – If you are reading these pages you have survived another year into the 21st century, and are part of a historical movement disproving the dire prophecies of certain misantrophes.

It`s January the 7th 2004 – or could be, after the beginning of the Christian Era, or thereabouts, considering it took a 4th century Roman Emperor to make it that..and a lot of bishops, nevermind.. whatever`s on your calendar for the present day, here is now.. or was..

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all…

I`ll be taking a break from blogging during this holiday season,

hopefully I`ll be back online in the new year..

Last night an elect company of souls, some weighed down in glory, some in an unponderable weight of responsibility – gathered to be entertained, on the occasion of Doctor Shirin Ebadi`s receiving the Nobel Peace Price. On that occasion some words were said that make me feel Mrs.Ebadi has step forward into a role which currently were vacant. There has been a lot of talk about Mrs. Ebadi`s efforts and character the last few months, while the “west” admits

that they had been unconscious of it. That Iran is such an obscure, isolated, backward country that rarely lets news, or persons appear in the “limelight” of the press. I think quite a lot in the audience, as well as in front of the TV screens, shook their heads sadly at the insistence of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas that to “us” she had

been a complete unknown until suddenly out of the blue, someone had “discovered her”. Her work has been known and noticed by both political

and voluntary organizations, and reported on, especially as it regards a censure of the deficient legal system in several countries which violate the basic human rights of women, without foundation in the “law” the judges claim to be subject to. Such censure is impossible to direct from outside the tradition and system.. with impossible, I mean this – If I do so myself, it will be completely ineffective.. I could, like the Americans, elect to attack and imprison those who represent such views and approve such verdicts, even kill them – but I would not be able to make them see the error, or make them in any way disposed to correcting it.

We are trying to survive here on Terra firma (not in some unknown comic book galaxy which evidently Bush and a few of his closest confidants appear to have their heads), when this generation, and the generation before it – woke up one day, the world had many religions, many cultures, around the world, on each continent – you would find differences in colour, in language, in customs and in value systems. This was yesterday, and this is today.. nations and people like me, you or our nextdoor neighbour, have some say, it is not much, each to our own, in what tommorrow will be like… While I might not agree with you, I think perhaps that we both should think about whether we really want the Middle Ages to come back, and if it is adviceable to drift into a conflict between whatever civilization we belong to, with any other…

With the advent of industrialization there has been a double agenda going in the international community; at one side, there is an aspiration towards progress, a universal progress which will benefit.. “everyman” – on the other side, we have the stubborn insistance that these things should “pay”, that with the universality of security,health,wealth and wellbeing.. and of course, Human Rights, good manners and general amiability.. the last 40 years has been a touchstone to prove some speculations which were totally unfair, and which really belong to the 19th century, not the 20th – utterly wrong – with regard to the “non-christian”/”heathen” nations of this world, with regard to the “impossibility of moral behaviour to generate in people who are not converted to the Gospel”(sic! some insist today that a person who is not religious (Christian, or even Jew), cannot do anything “good” or decide anything which in effect is moral or ethical) – and especially concerning the subjects of Islam.

I am writing this full well knowing that anyone likely to read it has most probably not lived under a rock the last 2 years – and are wise to events leading up to and following September 11th 2001.. in a larger picture, these

things are not representative.. in the smaller picture, the Moslem I am likely to meet if I walk out on the street today, is neither representative.. its exactly the case as with Abortion Clinic Bombers, most Christians are not supportive of or practicing acts of Terrorism .. for precisely the same reason most Moslems are not Suicide Bombers..

There might be a reason why the Douglas`es (sic!) and their compadres

feel that there has arrived a “new star” on the firmament.. but the novelty of this star is a greater “mass media” audience. Nothing wrong with that, Robert Plant, while apparently a bit moved by the event and distracted, paused to report that he was overwhelmed by the “positivity” he had spotted in the mass media, “let`s have more positivity in the media, let us hear of the efforts done by people like Shirin Ebadi in helping right all the wrongs” – paraphrasing him quite crudely here.. at first I thought the sentiment were a bit 70ish, but really we have had a lot of negativity since 9/11/01 have we not? At least in our “media” diet. It`s time to digest things, not repress them, anasthetizing ourselves, forgetting things.. going on as if nothing has ever happened. Quite a lot has happened. I am not a prophet and care exactly zero about divination, but I will say that we have entered something new – if not anything else, a new century and a new millenium. I titulated Shrin Ebadi as “Doctor” – not only on account the weight of a formal title, but because I am quite under the impression that the sum of her effort and her approach is much like that of other “soul repairers”, they are not surgeons – there are many more surgeons around than soul repairers, more psychologists whose subject matter is theory and theory verification/research rather than the healing of their patients; Shirin Ebadi is also doctor of divine law, she is not only a practicioner of Islam, she belongs to the unfortunately small number of_conscious_ practicioners of Islam; conscious not only of the existence of boundaries within her own religion and the dynamic in the mediation of prayer,meditation and communion (community) – but conscious of how every nation (such as the ancient Persian, she invoked the name of Cyrus the great, a particular feat that I am sure turned a few heads.. both from her own country and from westeners), every commonwealth is affected by the interior life, also the spiritual and religious life, of each individual. In her conversation with the “hosts” of the Nobel Prize “show” she chose to insist on a comparison between the “greater” and “smaller” picture – the individual and the universal, the single person on its own – and the great commonwealth of nations, countries, states .. and beyond. The work would never really be finished, it appears, but there is such joy in pursuing that. I am sure the translation of her Farsi were of a somehow diminished nature due to the “rush job” they did of it – but quintessentially, what in a general and plain way Shirin Ebadi offered, is essentially a vision/dream and a high ideal of participatory redemption; we struggle even within ourselves, she said – until we can achieve equilibrium and a peace with ourselves, we cannot truelly contribute to the healing of conflict outside.

Wise words.. from a very brave woman, she isn`t an exile-Iranian, you know – and she has now chosen to speak stern words not only to her own countrys goverment and the priesthood there, but to the “western” and international community…

Iranian, Female, Muslim – working for the rights of Women, Children and the unprivileged – in Iran, offering legal defense for dissenting parties in a political minefield, on the ever-painful verge of reform… it sounds perhaps like a short life to some, let`s hope.. no let`s hope and pray, it wont come to that.

Long Life to Shirin Ebadi!

Salaam!

Having finished Umberto Eco`s excellent Baudolino, I began reading Paul Auster`s most recent novel, The Book of Illusions….It was a most pleasant surprise, Paul Auster has become established as a storyteller of brilliance..the tabloids have been full of praise..I was becoming suspicious, was this “hype”. I have to admit I waited to pick up this book until it had hit the paperback format….

David Zimmer, Professor of Litterature at Vermont College, age 39, enters into the most deciding crisis of his life. His anchor of identity and confidence, belief is unrooted as his family plummets down from the sky in a planecrash. Only memories, too confounding and painful, remains… by a coincidence, he discovers the work of Hector Mann, a struggling late 1920`s silent movie director/actor – and the comic and dramatic universe of his films. As a work of consolation and obsession, Zimmer begins to track down the director`s lost movies and writes a book about them….a decision not without consequences.

The book has style, a well defined personae dramatis and the eloquence and timing that Paul Auster is famous for.. It gave back a lot for the little time and effort I invested in reading it.