"Colin Wilson - The Philospher's Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Colin)

argued his case well. Ideas were abstract and finally unsatisfying, unless related to our human needs.
They might give an impression of satisfying, as hot tea temporarily removes hunger, but it is an illusion.
Man is тАШhumanтАЩ, that is to say, he is social by nature. His social and sexual urges are his deepest; they are
as important to his humanity as breathing is to his body.
His words might once have struck me as true. I now saw clearly that his preference for emotions, his
conviction of the unimportance of ideas, was merely a symptom of his inability to think logically or
seriously. But he was intelligent, self critical and sympathetic. When he sensed my basic lack of inclination
for his way of life, he remained an excellent and courteous host, who had invited me to his house, and
who intended to treat me well until I felt like leaving. I remembered some of my own feelings of
impatience during the days he spent with me, and felt ashamed. I also found his honesty impressive. On
one occasion, when I had spent half an hour trying to express my sense of our basic difference as politely
as possible, he said: тАШYou mean IтАЩm not clever enough to think any idea through to the end?тАЩ I had to
laugh when I realised that my polite circumlocutions had been wasted.


I saw little of Alexandria; I found his library far too interesting. Canon Lyell had died before he had
finished the second volume of mysticism - it was to deal with the German school from Eckhart to
Boehme. But his manuscript pages had been sewed together and bound. Most of it had been dictated to
a secretary, whose handwriting was neat and readable. Perhaps it was this personal touch that made the
book so real to me. Most of the works referred to in the MS were also in AubreyтАЩs library - the beautiful
four volume edition of Boehme, translated in part by Law (about whom the canon had written in the
published volume), rare editions of Eckhart and Suso, Ruysbroek and Saint John of the Cross, and
several of BlakeтАЩs own hand printed books. The canon had written down most of his ideas in the margins
and flyleaves, so it was possible to study the development of his thought, as if in an intimate journal. He
had even studied alchemy in an attempt to grasp the meaning of BoehmeтАЩs symbolism. I also began to
study the alchemists, and was astonished at how much light they shed on pages of BoehmeтАЩs text that at
first reading I had dismissed as muddle headed and chaotic.
For the first few days, I must admit to finding the mystics baffling and involved. The lack of scientific
precision irritated me. Then, at exactly the right moment, I came across the key to them - in AubreyтАЩs
record library. He had a great admiration for Furtwangler, and had almost everything Furtwangler had
ever recorded, including the Bruckner symphonies. Lyell had often played me Bruckner in my early days
at Sneinton, but I had not been impressed. I found him melodious but hopelessly long winded and
repetitive. It seemed clear to me that most of his symphonies need to be cut by a half, sometimes more.
His church music satisfied me more, but I preferred Handel. Finally, I had stopped listening to Bruckner,
and Lyell also lost interest.
Now I came across FurtwanglerтАЩs remark that Bruckner was a descendant of the great German mystics,
and that the aim of his symphonies had been to тАШmake the supernatural realтАЩ. I knew he had begun by
composing church music; surely then, it followed that he came to the symphony because he wanted to go
further in expressing тАШthe supernaturalтАЩ? I put on FurtwanglerтАЩs recording of the Seventh Symphony, and
immediately understood that this was true. This music was slow, deliberate, because it was an attempt to
escape the nature of music - which, after all, is dramatic; that is to say, it has the nature of a story. You
listen to its development as you would listen to the development of a story. Bruckner, according to
Furtwangler, wanted to suspend the mindтАЩs normal expectation of development, to say something that
could only be expressed if the mind fell into a slower rhythm. So interpretations that treat them as
symphonies - like KlempererтАЩs - or as romantic poems - like WalterтАЩs - miss the whole point. This music
is not descriptive of nature; it attempts to approximate to nature.
When I understood this, FurtwanglerтАЩs interpretations were revelatory. I put them on when the house
was quiet, and I calmed my mind, as if I were lying on the seashore, listening to the sound of the sea and
absorbing the sun. Then the music induced utter calm, and even the orchestral climaxes seemed as
impersonal as the crash of waves. I now made the interesting discovery that instead of seeming too long,