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lanterns said:
ezra killed the imp though, and that's his achilles tendon. he does not want to meddle with the police because of that.
plus, isaac is hitting him first. he couldve just hit him back in defense and then see what happens next. there were no witnesses around.
when isaac pulls out his belt, brave ezra becomes a little boy again, afraid of the father's authority, even though he is full with rage, pain and disbelief. it's the belt that turns the man into a mouse.

let me excavate this scene again (p.81)
"isaac quickly looked cautiously to the left, and then to the right, and sensing a clear coast he whacked the back of his right fist across ezra's face so violently that ezra, as solid as he was, dropped to the ground.
looking up at isaac he could see the polluted agent of trust sliding into barbaric mode, loosening his belt - for what reason, ezra could only guess - and ezra hastily stumbled to his feet and collected himself whilst wisely moving back towards the gate.
'there is nothing you can do, and there is no chance of rest for you now, for i am not alone in knowing what i told you today ... and although i stand alone in this garden, you are, in fact, surrounded.'
ezra fled the scene..."

i still think that ezra's behaviour (he fled) after giving that warning to isaac is difficult to understand. there is an old man loosening his belt (so what? is he pulling a gun, or what?), isaac knows he has no chance, that for him offense is the best defense. he is trapped. and all ezra can do, is run away.

why is it important for the story that ezra runs away? because dean isaac, who was doomed, is now, surprisingly the winner. he wins by default. thus his "voice" can now influence the rest of the story, tragedy, multiple deaths, evil, and all that.
the emotional backdrop of the novella, its whole worldview, is based on ezra's fall of man, his lapse: namely not stopping isaac when it was time to do so. he runs away and leaves everything else behind as a mess
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I know, Lanterns. But Ezra didn't have the intention of killing that man in the first place. That was an accident. At most, excess in self-defense.
 
countthree said:
Agree. Lanterns is great making analysis.
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Yes.
Amazing.
Sometimes she seems concerned to come across too intellectual but she shouldn't.
The connection between the ntellectual insight and emotional insight in what is in a human mind, is touching.
The analytical and the empathy are in balance.
That is less common with a lot of professional literary critics.
I like how she combines historic knowledge, psychological insights and dares to name the possible artistic goals of the writer without getting into stating them as facts.
She has a talent for it. I learned a lot from her!
And I see List of the List in a different light.
 
lanterns said:
nevertheless he is a killer, whatever his intention was. a man who has s.e.x. with a woman and accidentially fathers a child is the father no matter what, whether he wanted it in the first place or not, he has to acknowledge this fact. he can run away though, and that's also what ezra is doing.

i wonder whether it is fair to say that the novella is a meditation on the origins of evil?

in my eyes ezra's double sin of killing the imp and then being unable to stop isaac is the Fall of Man in this book.
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He didn't have neither the intention nor the will of killing that man. I don't know exactly the English word, I think it's pre-intentional homicide. He only punched the man to reject his advance, not to kill him. He may have legal responsibilities derived from that, but there's a clear legal difference between those two kind of acts. He is guilty of conciously abandoning the body of the man, although that doesn't make him a willfull murderer, just an irresponsible coward who blocks justice and must be punished because of that. But there is a big difference between that felony and the intendly concious act of making a movement knowing that with that act you are taking a life, and wanting to do so.

On the other hand, he and his friends made all they could do to stop Isaac, but the "system" covered up him. In my opinion it's crazy to support the idea he should have killed Isaac to stop his killing career, taking justice in his own hands and making a murderer of himself. He warned the man he was being watched, he couldn't do more than that.

The big sin is located on the social estructure, the hipocrisy of everything and everybody, which in the end takes the lives of the better persons and allows bad people triumph using their influences and social status. And then you have the deep lack of satisfaction of the imp, who could not have the free and productive love life everybody deserves just because his sexual orientation was not socially admitted during the times this story takes place and was obiged to marry a woman, making two people deeply unhappy.

I think you chose the worst comparison. There is no man who can say the birth of a children after having sex with a woman is an accident, because sex is the only natural way you can have a baby. Seriously... accidental father?
 
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lanterns said:
nevertheless he is a killer, whatever his intention was. a man who has s.e.x. with a woman and accidentially fathers a child is the father no matter what, whether he wanted it in the first place or not, he has to acknowledge this fact. he can run away though, and that's also what ezra is doing.

i wonder whether it is fair to say that the novella is a meditation on the origins of evil?

in my eyes ezra's double sin of killing the imp and then being unable to stop isaac is the Fall of Man in this book.
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The second Fall of Man, now without it being caused by a Woman?
As Eve was being mislead by Satan but in the indoctrinated mind of many men in the Christian World still being hold responsible?
In that case the first Fall of Man wasn't as definitive as it seems.
Why would the Second Fall be definitive than?
Good and Evil have always been the in the mind of human existence, like God and Satan.
It was than, it is now and it will be there forever.

But you made very clear to me the possible motives of the author.
In a way, I am less pessimistic cause " they ", Good an Evil seem to be more in balance.
Many times Evil conquered over Good but it was the same the other way around.
I read List of the Lost a second time with your insights in my mind now.
Because of that, I now see the richness of the underlying motives and misleading directions.
And the fatalism of the author.

It has the same resigned and stoical feeling as in Goethe's: Der Mensch ist die (der?) Betrogene des Universums.
It still is a masterpiece in the way it is compressed to just a novella.
And I really like the monologues of the imp and dean Isaac and the dialogues of Ezra and Eliza.
Cheers lanterns!
 
lanterns said:
there are a few women in the book who influence the men, and it's their motherhood that leads to destruction. elizabeth barbelo is the most obvious example. she approaches ezra as a loving mother, and initiates him to find noah which then triggers off an avalanche of deaths. harri's mother's death leads to harri's death. and wasn't the imp complaining about his wife and his inability to make her a mother which added to his feelings of bitterness? and eliza scares ezra telling him that she is going to have a baby sooner or later even though she isnt pregnant at this point contributing to a sense of subjection.

maybe you can agree that good and evil are constructions of the individual human mind. then there is a fight amongst authorities for the monopoly of interpretation of what is good and what is evil often including norms of behaviour. While reading i thought there were different currents of moral interpretation on the good/evil question in the book, not that i would be able to quote any of them now. these currents were also trying to analyze the reasons for human behaviour. so what makes people behave or not behave in a certain way. the brutal killing of noah barbelo is exceptional here, as it causes so much emotional pain, esp. in ezra, but cannot be explained rationally or it cannot find confirmation in its hypocritical society which adds to a feeling of alienation and loneliness.

well, but as you can see, it is already past 9, and i am unable to think things through as usual at this time of day, plus i am glued to my sofa unwilling to get up and open the book we are talking about at the moment. the novella is complex in its sound, and the many individual voices add to that impression. amen.
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I admire your persistence and determination. Can you bottle it? I would buy a case or two.
 
lanterns said:
that's a dramatic video but i'm not quite sure what you want to illustrate with it
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Don't know for sure. It impressed me in a certain way. Maybe it made me think for animals parenthood is never an accident. It comes with the package.
 
mephistophelian is such a great word. i love saying it. mephistophelian!

thats all i got to contribute:o
 
Guess I've read another book. Or Lanterns did it. Anyway, everything can be read from different points of view, from a book to the reality.
A lot of times I found when someone begins to read things like me, I already am reading anything else. Nobody is wrong, just different approaches to rationalise the caos we live in. We humans are so overwhelmed by our lives in this dimension we call reality that we need to believe it can be explained by our limited minds. Oh no, we can't.
 
lanterns said:
cand wide mush dozay, wath a' ze denzitht
no honestly, even my eye feels numb. how did this happen? prefer any witch's brew to a dentist's anaesthetic injection. his assistant was new, and brutal too. i spit into her face, serves her right, cow
what i wanted to say with my last post, i think, was, that lotl inspired me in a certain way which i cannot describe more closely at the moment. my brain has to de-narcotise first
and, yes, i love the word mephistophelian too. my next cat will get this name
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How would you call him or her?
Her could be Ophelia, no too long?
Him could be Phisto? Memphis? Elian?
Mephistopheles is too long, isn't?
How do you call your little black panther?
Cheers lanterns!
 
lanterns said:
cand wide mush dozay, wath a' ze denzitht
no honestly, even my eye feels numb. how did this happen? prefer any witch's brew to a dentist's anaesthetic injection. his assistant was new, and brutal too. i spit into her face, serves her right, cow
what i wanted to say with my last post, i think, was, that lotl inspired me in a certain way which i cannot describe more closely at the moment. my brain has to de-narcotise first
and, yes, i love the word mephistophelian too. my next cat will get this name
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its a perfect name for a cat <3 oh i do hope it will be an orange tabby!
 
rifke said:
its a perfect name for a cat <3 oh i do hope it will be an orange tabby!
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Oh, by the way Rifke, almost forgot to tell you the name of the dog my sister has now.
He is called Teddy.
I think it suits him.
He is a Teddy.
 
lanterns said:
cand wide mush dozay, wath a' ze denzitht
no honestly, even my eye feels numb. how did this happen? prefer any witch's brew to a dentist's anaesthetic injection. his assistant was new, and brutal too. i spit into her face, serves her right, cow
what i wanted to say with my last post, i think, was, that lotl inspired me in a certain way which i cannot describe more closely at the moment. my brain has to de-narcotise first
and, yes, i love the word mephistophelian too. my next cat will get this name
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I'm sorry for you lanterns. Dentists always were my nightmare until I found a wonderful young dentist three years ago. She not only saved two pieces, which others wanted to remove and replace with implants: she did it in a painless and caring way. That meanss a lot, since I value having all my original dental pieces, they are not perfect but they are mine. She uses very little or none anesthesia and when she does, the injection doesn't hurt at all. I think the secret is she specialized in children.
 
lanterns said:
actually i like the adjective "mephistophelian" as there is a shadow of the "feline" in it, like mephisto-feline. could also be the title of a new disney xmas movie: "mephisto felines" - a bunch of great cats from berlin team up with environmentalists and animal activists from all over the world to liberate animals and humans alike to start a revolution that is without equal. one of their greatest weapons: when all mephisto felines are purring at the same time buildings collapse, like the trump tower in the first shot, snow falling, jingle bells, etc. in order to be able to start purring, the mephisto felines need some human help.
oh my, once again carried away by embarrassing dreams, i need some holidays that's for sure...
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OMG, that is so funny!
A great story!
I really like to make up stories about cats myself.
My ex always wanted to hear them and it many times started with the cat we had once.
I assumed he had a great spy-network and all tabby's were family related cause they had the stripes.
The same barcode so to speak.
Whenever we were outside having a walk and saw a cat he was a spy instructed to follow us and keep our landlord informed. The tabby's had the most important positions in the network cause our cat was like a ganglord and his family came first.
I will stop now cause I can carried away as much as you.
I am aware some people think it is a bit child-like but I just really like that.
Children like it too, especially about cats! :)
 
lanterns said:
i think i understand list of the lost better now. as i am here for the understanding and not the evaluation, as you might (probably anxiously) have noticed, i feel i can now let go of it and move on. i leave the evaluation to the critics, who, that's my impression, were unable to come to grips with the novella first of all, and only wanted to protect their own reputation amongst their colleagues thus stood in line bleating with the other sheep. so what were their evaluation criteria? they couldnt even offer that
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You are right lanterns!
Critics, what do they know?
If it is about music or literature, there never seems to be real interest, or seldom.
And they are afraid to name evaluation criteria cause if they were truly interested it would mean to have a personal opinion, otherwise, what would be the point to name general ones that could be applied to any text?
I really liked your views and insights and it changed my view on LotL.
It made it even more daunting, haunted and funny.
Cheers :thumb:
 
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