I've realized that I never explained where the title of my blog comes from. Besides, as I borrowed it from a novel without permission, maybe it could get me in trouble. I really don't know much about copyrights and ownership and all that. I'll add quotation marks to the title.
So, "from one lifetime to the next" comes from the first sentence of A Discovery of Strangers by Albertan writer Rudy Wiebe. The full sentence is "The land is so long, and the people travelling in it so few, the curious animals barely notice them from one lifetime to the next."
Wiebe's style is so fluid that you feel literally swept along. It is like a river of words. And like a river, it has depth, and rapids and falls. In this first sentence, there are at least three concepts borrowed from northern indigenous populations: the idea that the land is long -- and not wide --, as well as the animals' point of view, and the belief in several lifetimes.
To the Inuit, traditionally, elements are defined as being either linear or areal. Motionless objects or small expanses of land are areal because mentally you easily grasp their limits, and moving objects or vast expanses of land are linear because then what matters is the track the moving objects make. A vast territory is conceptualized as a sum of potential tracks and paths that link you to other objects. Therefore it is long.
As for the animal's viewpoint, it is simply the belief that there is no impervious boundary between earth and animals and human beings... so an animal has thoughts and a soul can travel from one species to the next, and it can do so from one lifetime to the next.
I don't know if it is clear or if I'm just carried away by my own enthusiasm!
So, "from one lifetime to the next" comes from the first sentence of A Discovery of Strangers by Albertan writer Rudy Wiebe. The full sentence is "The land is so long, and the people travelling in it so few, the curious animals barely notice them from one lifetime to the next."
Wiebe's style is so fluid that you feel literally swept along. It is like a river of words. And like a river, it has depth, and rapids and falls. In this first sentence, there are at least three concepts borrowed from northern indigenous populations: the idea that the land is long -- and not wide --, as well as the animals' point of view, and the belief in several lifetimes.
To the Inuit, traditionally, elements are defined as being either linear or areal. Motionless objects or small expanses of land are areal because mentally you easily grasp their limits, and moving objects or vast expanses of land are linear because then what matters is the track the moving objects make. A vast territory is conceptualized as a sum of potential tracks and paths that link you to other objects. Therefore it is long.
As for the animal's viewpoint, it is simply the belief that there is no impervious boundary between earth and animals and human beings... so an animal has thoughts and a soul can travel from one species to the next, and it can do so from one lifetime to the next.
I don't know if it is clear or if I'm just carried away by my own enthusiasm!
5 comments:
I wondered about your blog name. I'm irked at myself for not noticing it was a quote from Rudy's novel. A wonderful opening sentence for a book, and a great blog name.
Thank you. Let's hope Rudy Wiebe won't sue me!
I don't think you have to worry about being sued anytime soon. So long as copyright law doesn't spin wildly out of control (like it is in the States at the moment), you're allowed to use around 10% of a work, which should more than cover a fraction of the first sentence of Wiebe's book.
I must say that it's fun to hear the origin stories of people's internet nicknames and blog names. There often seems to be an interesting story attached to it.
Nice English, Thibaud ;)
Thanks for the tip Sadmarvin. So why is you nickname Sadmarvin, if I may ask?
Marvin is the suicidal robot in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I thought SadMarvin would be a cute name back when I was in grade 11 and it just stuck. Feel free to call me Matt.
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