Psychoanalysis, a Long Poem and a Short Story - Jung, Browning, and Vonnegut

My father was a psychiatrist. Those who have some acquaintance with the field will immediately think of Freud. A few might also recall Jung. My father was averse to Freud and I have inherited that phobia. Freud appears obsessed with sex. And I admit that I have not read his works and that my bias is based on what I have heard of his theories and how I see their influence. However, as he is not the focus here, I leave you to do the digging. 

Freud, father of psychoanalysis. Google Images - CC BY-SA 4.0

When I was a child I grew up in a house where books reigned supreme and among those was Carl Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections. 

Upload by Adrian Michael - Ortsmuseum Zollikon, Public Domain

Though not without faults, Jung's was one of modern history's most intriguing minds and Memories, Dreams, Reflections presents a rare, infinitely insightful glimpse of its inner workings...

Maria Popova

Read it here. As for me, Jung brought me the concept of persona and of archetypes. Again, it's just in a crude way and so for me, persona is 

a face to meet the faces that you meet

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T S Eliot

And as for archetypes, it is a fascinating concept. 

These archaic and mythic characters that make up the archetypes reside with all people from all over the world, Jung believed, and it is these archetypes that symbolize basic human motivations, values, and personalities. He believed that each archetype played a role in personality, but felt that most people were dominated by one specific archetype. The actual way in which an archetype is expressed or realized depends upon a number of factors including an individual's cultural influences and unique personal experiences.Jung identified four major archetypes, but also believed that there was no limit to the number that may exist.

The 4 Major Jungian Archetypes

Now, that I've dangled a morsel of psychoanalysis over you, I have to confess that Adler is whom I really want to look into at some point!

Having dragged you through your subconscious, I shall now let you down gently with a poem about murder. From the past. Browning's brooding protagonist is driven by the demons of the subconscious:

Arthur Hughes [Public domain]

Porphyria's Lover 

The rain set early in to-night,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form⁠

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me.

Robert Browning

Click on the poet's name above to read what happened next!

And from the dungeons of the past I now fling you into a far future with Kurt Vonnegut's Report on the Barnhouse Effect.

The story reflects archetypes related to war. A good tale for those of us who appear to have forgotten the cost of conflicts between countries. Listen to it here:

Patna Blues - A Breath of Fresh Air in Troubled Times

In dramas from Korea and Japan, older woman-younger man love is a popular theme. On Indian screens or Hollywood, the man has to be a little elder than the woman. Not by too much. Or he becomes villain. Who sets those barriers? Who shall love whom is an issue that plagues us. The issue is mostly social but powerfully legal at times. And most people cannot let go of thinking this is good and that is bad.  

Long Vacation

Much that has evolved faster elsewhere needs changing in Indian mindsets. More liberal laws are a hallmark of progressive civilisations. Laws that evolve to suit reality rather than archaic moralities. Abdullah Khan brings us an Indian story that dares to challenge the status quo in more than just the question of age and love.

 Dream says the first chapter and we enter the world of young Arif:

Arif shivered when a gust of wind hit him. I should have worn a jacket, he thought as he stopped his bicycle in front of a two-storeyed yellow building. He had just returned home from college. Parking his bicycle in the stairwell of the building, he pulled a notebook from its carrier and climbed up a flight of stairs. The banister of the staircase was broken in places and cobwebs hung from the ceiling.

We are transported into an India, both authentic and larger than life.  A small town youth slogs and crams for a popular Indian exam, one which holds symbolical keys to the 'kingdom' - the right to administer to the diverse needs of this unwieldy demography and geography. 

Interspersed with forbidden romance and politico-religious chaos, the novel croons the reader through all kinds of nightmare scenarios with compassion. 

Patna Blues Sings Rights, Riots, and Rites

Riots dot India's history with religious regularity. Most Indians experience one or know someone who has. Once the riots are over, we bury the issue of their being endemic. And, we have, in our vast cultural arsenal, a host of ways to never look a thing directly in the eye. Patna Blues steps delicately and warily over the debris of actual and fictional riots with a rare maturity and subtle humour that does the author much credit. The book has passages where a near riot situation simmers, evoking the ambiance without hurling brick-like judgement.  

Communal riots - Ahmedabad, February / March 2002
The picture reminds me of my only view of a riot - the one in Delhi in 1984.

Around the world, riot rate has been an uneasy marker of democracy. However, we would all rather not be present at a riot. Many countries become desirable to visit or reside in where riots are rare or only seen as news from distant lands. To create a riot free environment is surely the work of good administration. In India, the IAS exam is one way to such responsibility.

Hordes of young Indians embark on this pursuit in a manner not unlike that of students in the ancient Chinese exam system. It's a kind of do or die. Years of life are wasted in unsuccessful attempts. And Patna Blues is the ballad of one such attempt.

While riots across the world erupt for a variety of reasons, in India, they are frequently due to religion. And, while much of the rest of the world has chosen to try and underplay the power of religion over day to day life, we have emerged increasingly pious and surly as a race, ever ready to riot. Here, too, Khan has used a tender touch, just enough to bring us the beauty of that cultural phenomenon: religion. And, let's not forget that, in India, even academics are undertaken as rites! With much religious 'chanting' of study material!

In urban India, it was, to some extent, quite popular to be 'secular' or even outright agnostic. However, that has rapidly changed over the past few years. In rural India, religious rites rule rigidly. The state of Bihar does not boast high literacy rates. So, one can imagine the average Bihari to be much more pious than, say, a person from Kerala, where literacy has boomed. Again, today, I'm not so sure about that. Today, in India, it pays to be pious. While religious ritualism is fascinating as cultural phenomena, we observe less crime in regions where religion is low key. Consider Japan or some of the Scandinavian lands.

In Patna Blues, there are vivid and memorable encounters with dreaded bandits. The sad truth is that this piece of fiction reflects what is daily life in much of India. Even more so today than ever before.

A historical account of life in small town India, the novel showcases the aspirations and tribulations of an average Indian small town male with gentleness and sweet candour.

Patna Blues is a must read, across the globe, for insights into the Indian psyche. Though written from a Muslim's perspective, it could just as easily be the tale of a Hindu or Christian family in India. Veiled under a tale of unrequited and forbidden love, the story sings the blues that afflict India today and, while no fingers are pointed, the message is clear: rather than complain, , it is time the average Indian studies national policies as assiduously as an IAS officer. Riots and gangsterism will become myths from the past when rights and not riots guide us.

In the meanwhile, read Patna Blues today. Abdullah Khan is a pioneering voice in Indian writing in English. A rare ease and flow make the book a page turner.

The Gabriel Hounds - Mary Stewart's Damascus, now much dog-eared?

Gabriel Hounds, according to some legends in the UK, were human headed dogs. If they fly over a home, it is an omen of death or bad luck. There are many colourful stories around these airborne canines. In Mary Stewart's The Gabriel Hounds, a character says:

I think myself that the idea must have come from the wild geese - have you heard them? They sound like a pack of hounds in full cry overhead, and the old name for them used to be 'gabble ratchet'. I've sometimes wondered if the'Gabriel' doesn't come from 'gabble', because after all Gabriel wasn't the angel of death...

And, from those legends, we leap to a more personal myth in the story. Young Christie Mansel is rich and twenty-two. She has come to Lebanon to look after an aunt. Aunt Harriet is an eccentric lady who lives in a rundown palace called Dar Ibrahim.

Now, in that region, there are some well known hunting dogs such as the Saluki. And Lady Harriet loved going hunting with them. 

Saluki dog, CC BY-SA 4.0 

But it is said that, if Gabriel Hounds run around and howl in Dar Ibrahim, there will be death. The palace is full of secret passages and strange servants - an excellent setting for murder and mystery.

Bayan Almaarawi - Maktab Anbar - Old Damascus

The deep blue oblong of sky above the open court was pricking already with brilliant stars. No ugly diffusion of city light spoiled the deep velvet of that sky; even hanging as it was above the glittering and crowded richness of the Damascus oasis, it spoke of the desert and the vast empty silence beyond the last palm tree...

The story takes place in the nineteen-sixties. Christy Mansel, touring Syria and Lebanon, bumps into Charles, her cousin. Since they are in Damascus, why not meet Great-Aunt Harriet who lives near Beirut. She is over eighty and lives in a decrepit palace by river Adonis. She dresses like the famous Lady Hester Stanhope.

Lady Hester Stanhope on horseback, via Wikimedia Commons

Harriet does not meet anyone other than her servants and a young Englishman. Christy feels unwelcome but spends a night there. She senses something is wrong and, with Charles, decides to investigate.

The novel is rich with twists and turns as well as poetic descriptions of the beauty of the region. With an action-packed ending, The Gabriel Hounds will make nice reading this autumn, taking the reader down the highways of the history of a troubled but once very beautiful region. 

Alas, like the ill-omened flying Gabriel Hounds, planes from some countries have brought death and devastation to the place, once known as the Paris of the Middle East.

Sneak a preview:

The chapters of Mary Stewart's The Gabriel Hounds open with quotes from The Koran and from Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. 

Given the times, we have to excuse a certain degree of racism in the novel where Arabic is said to sound like an angry cat spitting. However, it will be a pity if we turn away from such historical phenomena. We not only deprive ourselves of a sense of history but also become no less prejudiced. 

This post concludes the Mary Stewart journey. The next one tackles a contemporary novel from India where forbidden love flowers in a region rich with gangsters.