E Reason B

"...most of us reason [...] not by what might be possible; but by what has fallen within the range of our experience."

Out of Time's Abyss 

by 

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Not that this is particularly mind-blowing in terms of the idea it expresses, but there are several things I find interesting about this line...not least of which is that it appears in an action / adventure novel first published in 1918. But beyond that: (1) how this is essentially an indictment of Reason as it exists in the realm of the real word; if Reason does not explore that which is possible, then it is not really Reason, is it? It's kind of the inverse of the famous Arthur Conan Doyle / Sherlock Holmes line, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." This is one of the problems I encounter repeatedly in terms of my explorations of politics and religion: most of the people I speak to are not willing to explore the realm of the possible, because they've already decided (presumptuously) that their immediate experience dictates where that line of demarcation lies. (2) When ERB uses the phrase "what has fallen within the range of our experience," I find the word "fallen" to be particularly interesting. Fallen implies "by chance," which just really highlights the absolute silliness of allowing your own immediate experience to be the cage for your beliefs. Your immediate experience is mere accident...even if you try to enforce a design. Sure, there are things you can do to expand your realm, but even there, chance is going to be involved. Think about the music you love, for instance. Well, since I don't know you that well, I'll think about the music that I love. I love a lot of music. In all kinds of genres. But of late I've been particularly taken by "Beatus Vir" by Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643). I have listened to it a dozen times per week or more for the past several months...and hear I often hear it in my head when it's not playing. (This is in large part due to the fact that Jacqueline has taken a shine to the song, so every time we get in the car together she dials it up on the thumb drive.) It is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard...and I never grow tired of it. But I'd never heard of it...and never listened to Monteverdi...before I attended a lecture on the opera Enemies: A Love Story, wherein the orchestra conductor, David Stern, happened to throw in a random comment (completely unrelated to the opera) that he wished people still listened to Monteverdi. If he hadn't happened to have said that...and if I hadn't happened to have really liked him...and if I hadn't written myself a note so that I would remember to look up Monteverdi...and if the library hadn't happened to have four discs of Monteverdi's sacred music...and if I hadn't happened to have listened to the first disc in its entirety...and possibly even if Jacqueline hadn't immediately decided that she liked that song, because it was her focus on it that brought it to my attention...well, then I probably wouldn't think that "Beatus Vir" is one of the greatest songs in the history of music. Which leads me to wonder...what else is out there? Come to think of it, maybe that's what drives my seemingly insatiable thirst for words and sounds and images...the fear (for lack of a better word, though that's not really the best word) that I'm missing something really really REALLY great. And I guess that's why, at least in part, I feel compelled to write about stuff...to try to get what I consider the great stuff to some other folks. (Hi.)

Also, though it has nothing to do with the words I've quoted here, (3) the cover artwork for this novel...at least in this edition...looks a whole lot like the work of the great Neal Adams to me...not just the linework, but the attitude of the characters and the way they are placed in the drawing as well. But it's not Neal, it's the most awesome and excellent Roy Gerald Krenkel. Roy did more than a few covers for ERB books...Tanar of Pellucidar, Land of Terror, The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, Back to the Stone Age, The Land of Hidden Men, some Tarzan books.... Lots of really good work. My favorite thing about the drawing for Out of Time's Abyss is that if you look closely, you can see that on the hip of the loincloth wearing "savage" man is a pistol in a holster. That's good times, ennit?

On a sad note...this is the final book of the Caspak trilogy, and it's pretty short, so I'll be finished with it very soon, probably by the end of the day. And then...well, Joe and I are about halfway through Carson of Venus, and then we have Escape on Venus and

The Wizard of Venus, and that's it, no more new Edgar Rice Burroughs books for me. Unless somebody gets around to releasing some of the unpublished and under published / never collected in book form non-fiction he wrote. (Nudge nudge. Aren't there any millionaires out there who love ERB? Step up, people!) Speaking of which, based upon my reading of three Burroughs biographies, it's obvious that there is one hell of a lot of that non-fiction. Enough to fill several big fat volumes. I guess it's a real measure of the lack of respect the literary world feels for ERB that it hasn't been collected, isn't it? A guy who has sold millions and millions of books, and who has created at least one character who is amongst the most recognized fictional creations of all time.

Sigh.