Book 5: The Bhagavad Gita

Dear Yann,

Many thanks for your letter. It has been a real pleasure to join you in your "literary guerilla campaign", as you call it. Up to this point I have enjoyed all the books you have chosen - the project has sparked numerous interesting conversations, and it has also provided me with some sense of purpose when I otherwise was lacking (in the intellectual department, I mean. Clearly, as a parent of young children, one always has a sense of purpose). Since you suggested it, I will send my responses to the PM. (No, I hadn't considered it - I mean, if he can't even respond to a Man Booker prize-winning author who sends him books on a bi-weekly basis then what kind of a hope in hell have I got of him looking at anything I write? My sister suggested he could use my letters as cliff notes, but so far I don't think they'd be very useful.)
It is not the Burgess or the Woolf that I have been dreading - I remain rather sheltered when it comes to Burgess, so I don't know enough to dread him, and while I'm sure that To the Lighthouse will be a challenge (I've tried and given up on it before), I do like Woolf (I have made it through Mrs. Dalloway and The Years, so I know I can do it). I think it was the Rand and the Ignatieff that I was referring to in that first letter. I've read The Fountainhead, and, to put it bluntly, didn't really feel the need to read any more of her in this lifetime, and as for the Ignatieff, it is really only because I know I lack stamina when it comes to political non-fiction. They seem a long way off right now, especially given the pace I'm now keeping.
It seems that I have slowed to one title per month. What happened with the Gita is, quite honestly, that I got stuck. I've carried it around for weeks, pulling it out to read a few passages, and then leaving it. Here's a short list of what I read while I was avoiding it: Chicken with Plums, by Marjane Satrapi, Gentleman Jim, by Raymond Briggs (I thought that graphic novels would not distract me for long enough to get off schedule), An Edible Journey, by Elizabeth Levinson, the first two stories in the new Alice Munro book (I have read every new Munro as it has been released ever since I read the Lives of Girls and Women in my late teens, so it is hard for me resist) and the first 150 pages of Dave Eggers' Zeitoun. Finally, tonight, I forced myself to sit down and not move until I had worked my way to the end of the slim volume. I am wondering if it has changed me, as you suggested it would to Harper. I'm trying to figure out why I found it so hard to focus on.

(continued September 13th)

I skipped the introduction, as you recommended to Harper (I usually skip the introductions anyway, and then go back to them after I've finished the book.) And I'm glad you explained that we are to read it as metaphor, because I did find it hard to reconcile the message of peace and non-violence that Krishna conveys, with his justification for going into battle ("Through the fate of their Karma I have doomed them to die: be thou merely the means of my work" (p.55-56) Yikes! That could be misinterpreted!) I suppose that is the crux of so many sacred texts - misinterpretation. If we could collectively place all sacred texts under the great metaphor umbrella, this world could probably avoid much of its conflict. I enjoyed their conversation - so many passages inspire calm and reassurance. I was thinking a lot about work as I was reading the first half, and so I enjoyed the parts that related to that theme ("He who works not for an earthly reward, but does the work to be done, he is a Sanyasi..") It is amazing how many lines ring familiar. I would like to find a cross-reference book that compares sacred texts from different traditions and identifies or discusses the common veins running throughout all of them. There must be some - I just need to spend more time in the theology stacks at the library. I liked the explanation of the three 'gunas' as well, although there was an element of that which was unsettling - why must that final moment of life count for so much? What if your life was spent mainly in Saatva, but had sunk into Tamas at the very end? It seems a shame that all should be lost. (Which guna do you think Ivan Ilych was in when he died?) I think I will have to reread this one. Like poetry, it struck me as the kind of text that you have to read once just to let the words wash over you, and once you've experienced it you can go back and make some sense of it. I thank you for prompting me to read this (though your prompt was not intended for me specifically), because I doubt it is something I would have picked up on my own. Now I am going to go and finish the Dave Eggers before I move on to Bonjour Tristesse (they had a French copy at Munro's so I'm going to tackle it in the original!) I can't say that it is very likely that I will pick up the pace either - I have finally had some luck (maybe luck is the wrong word. I persevered.) and found employment. So while I no longer need the distraction that I mentioned back in June, I still appreciate the diversion.

Namaste,

Rebecca


P.S. I must now add another one to my list of books I am dreading. I just checked the What is Stephen Harper Reading? website, and see that only a few minutes ago you posted your latest offering to Harper. A Harlequin romance. Really? What are you thinking? I'll have to go read the letter to find out.