Review of Hesse’s Journey to the East

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Journey to the East by Hesse is one of those books that will stick to you like glue for your whole life. Siddhartha is the same. Hesse has this way of writing about incredibly complex things in a totally accessible and clear style. And I think that’s the whole point. This stuff is not meant to be elitist and confounding, this is meant to be truth, clarity, spirituality. I mean, you can really tell how uncomfortable Hesse is in trying to relate this stuff using words. In Buddhism the idea is that you reach a state of communication that transcends the awkward limitations of words. That’s what koans are all about.
But Hesse was a writer, and therefore was compelled to use language despite the limitations, and I very much relate to that. I don’t think he could have done a better job. This story is allegorical, it’s mysterious and open-ended. If you haven’t read other Hesse stories then it’s possible you’ll get stuck at some point and wonder what this is all really trying to get at.
All different people probably read into it in all different ways, but to me personally the main thrust of this story seems to me to be about the death of the author, as discussed by both Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. It’s depressing when your readers don’t understand your work, but you have to let this go, stay happy and accept that the work you create will overpower you, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Just give into it, let your own ideas die and be replaced by other ideas. This is also similar to ego-death, to let the ego die so that you feed into the one consciousness and become part of a larger, happier thing. You are no longer important, but you are happy, you are part of something larger.

The particular edition I read was beautifully designed, the cover and the feel of the book felt nice in my hands. In Tony Wheeler’s foreword he puts across a totally different reading to my own; a reading that seems to accept the journey as a literal trip to Asia, which I personally disagree with.

There was a song that popped into my head when reading the last couple of chapters, and that song is H. by Tool. Go listen to it; read the lyrics. I’ll be damned if this song is not about the last two chapters of Journey to the East. This song H., this album Aenima; even if you hate this kind of music it is impossible to deny the intelligence of it. This is Hesse in musical form…

Turns into a Philosophical mind-battle

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…Hesse and Tool are both trying hard to communicate these ideas to the masses in simple and beautiful craft; be it with music or words or both. I aspire to be like them, and in doing so I realise that I have a lot of work to do.

It’s something that has been puzzling me for years now, and I’m probably continuously fooling myself into sitting here, in status quo. My writing lacks clarity because I lack clarity, probably because I’ve never reached a state of enlightenment or spiritual wholeness. But in some ways it doesn’t even matter to my writing, only to my own happiness. Bathes and Foucault were right; authors don’t exist, there is only language and readers. I can never capture the buzz inside my head clearly and communicate it to another person, because another person will have a different buzz inside their head and pick up my words in a different way to how I set them out. A story is a collection of different parts of a culture; it is a reflective thing because language is a reflective thing, even more so than music and art. Music can relate something purer I think, something that doesn’t need to be translated into words, something that stirs the soul without needing logic. So I always worry that I am too reflective, my words unable to capture what is in my soul. Truth is, it doesn’t matter how enlightened I am, my words will still be hollow, they will still be translated in so many different ways by so many different people. Words must be translated always, they speak to the head and the head has to translate it so the heart can understand it. The heart can read music, and (to an extent) art, without the brain getting involved. That’s just the way it is. That’s why I love music so much. But I’ve got to stay happy as a person, and there’s certain ways of doing that, and Herman Hesse knows it, and now I know it. I just have to get on and do it.

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I am overthinking things now, and I feel unwell so this post may seem difficult to read. Time for me to go and celebrate my mother’s birthday and stop thinking so much about stuff that doesn’t even matter at all. Happy birthday mum. I hope you enjoy reading the story I wrote for you, even if you reading it kills me a little bit. That’s okay. That’s my job.

The Circle and the Line

Sally lived on a world where the circle was sacred and praised. Everything was done in a circular fashion. Peter lived on a world where the line was sacred and praised. Everything was done in a linear fashion. Peter’s world became ugly, overcrowded and things changed beyond recognition until no one knew what it was they were meant to be doing or why they were alive. His world suffocated and died. Sally’s world prospered and is much the same as it was in the beginning.

The Bird

This is some little thing I wrote and made into a booklet to send to Emily a while ago.

I stand up on a high hill. All is saturated in colour. Blue, green and yellow. My hair whips at my cheeks, playing in the wind, dancing and free. Above, there is a buzzard, screeching and swooping in great arcs. I watch it, thinking about how that bird is in-tune with the air and its body; efficient and lithe. The bird will grow old and die, but it will not get so old that it will no longer be able to swoop. It will die before then. If I am to live out an average life of a human I will grow old, and then older than old, and I will probably not be able to move very well by that time. Swooping will be out of the question. And I consider this fact and I come to a conclusion.

I am already old because I do not swoop. What is the point of having a body if I do not swoop? Unlike that bird up there I am disconnected from my body. It is an alien and strange thing to me. I do not know how to move it with poise and efficiency. So let me tell you this, bird in the sky: I will learn how to swoop and I will not be afraid of injuring myself because right now I am worse than injured; I am barely alive. I am old now, but I can learn to be young.

I will kick the moon. I will salto. I will butterfly twist. I will jump into the void. I will not become a buzzard, but I will become a human.

I look at the crisp, cold world through smudged and tired glasses

I bought the Cream song White Room today. I love the lyrics, they're so beautiful:

In the white room with black curtains near the station.
Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.
Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes.
Dawnlight smiles on you leaving, my contentment.

Ill wait in this place where the sun never shines;
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.

You said no strings could secure you at the station.
Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows.
I walked into such a sad time at the station.
As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning.

Ill wait in the queue when the trains come back;
Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves.

At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd.
Consolation for the old wound now forgotten.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Shes just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.

Ill sleep in this place with the lonely crowd;
Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves.

Memotone

It seems to take me 2 weeks to process things and then remember I sometimes keep a blog and that maybe I could put something up on my blog.

About 2 weeks ago my local free-sheet paper published a review I wrote of a musician I saw at a local town fair. I've been to loads of local town fairs before, and they always play the same second-rate local cover band crap/ wannabe Raging Speedhorn freaks who should stick to playing in their daddy's barn. That sounded really mean, sorry if you have a death-metal band in North Dorset with five groupies who look like this:



The band I wrote a review for was very different. For a start it was a one-man band, and secondly, he makes awesomely good music. Here's the review (click on picture to read):



Check out Memotone at: http://www.myspace.com/williamyatesmusic

P. C Keen

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