Mon, 30 Oct 2006
My Worst Critic
My worst critic is myself. When I look at what I've written, it all rings false. I wonder how I could presume that my opinion on Buddhism would be worth anything. Which is why I haven't posted anything for the past several days. Which is a bit of a dilemma, as a weblog is like a cat that demands to be fed every today. So I'll just fob off some more of Gene Wolfe's work as my own, from the end of his short story, Forlesen.
"Didn't you read your orientation? Everyone's entitled to an Explainer--in whatever form he chooses--at the end of his life. He--"
"It seems to me," Forlesen interrupted, "that it would have been more useful at the beginning."
"--may be a novelist, aged loremaster, National Hero, warlock, or actor."
"None of those sound quite right to me," Forlesen said.
"Or a theologian, philosopher, priest, or doctor."
"I don't think I like those either."
"Well that's the end of menu as far as I know," his son said. "I'll tell you what--I'll send him in and you can talk to him yourself; he's right outside."
After a moment the small man came in carrying his bag, and Forlesen's son placed a chair close to the coffin for him and went into the bedroom. "Well, what's it going to be," the small man asked, "or is it going to be nothing?"
"I don't know. I want to feel, you know, that this box is a bed--and yet a ship, a ship that will set me free. And yet...it's been a strange life."
"You may have been oppressed by demons." the small man said. "Or revived by unseen aliens who, landing on Earth eons after the death of the last man, have sought to re-create the life of the twentieth century. Or it may be that there is a small pressure exerted by a tumor in your brain."
"Those are the explanations?" Forlesen asked.
"Those are some of them."
"I want to know if it's meant anything," Forlesen said. "If what I've suffered--if it's been worth it."
"No," the little man said. "Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Maybe."
