Again, I haven't read the book and request more detail from the impromptu
reviewer. Does Surette "equate Modernism with the Occult"? Is that a fair
summary of his position? That the modernists were occultists with artistic
talent? Or does he say that certain authors affixed with the "modernist"
label were to varying degrees devotees of the occult? Does he offer a
working definition of "the occult"? FWIW, I don't see how Wyndham Lewis,
for example, could ever be considered an occultist.   Does L.S. exclude any
authors?
Tim Romano


At 06:38 AM 1/29/03 -0500, charles moyer responded to Tim Bray:
>   Again, I did not write that. It is from Leon Surette's book on Modernism
>and the Occult. p.285. I agree with you Tim [Bray]. Furthermore I think it
>smacks
>of witch-hunting taken to absurd lengths which was my point about equating
>Modernism with the Occult and the negative connotations of the resulting
>violence to existing "order" implied.
>     Since we are on the subject of Modernism here is what I read in
>yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer concerning our poet laureate's appearance
>at John Carroll University tonight.
>     "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by
>Modernist poetry in school. You feel alienated from your own language, which
>is unpleasant," Collins says in phone call from his home in Somers, N.Y.
>"There's a syllogism at work here. The syllogism goes like this: I can read
>and understand English; this poem was written in English; I can't understand
>this poem."
>     Any comments?
>
>Charles
>
>----------
> >From: Tim Bray <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: Pound and the Occult (was not
> >Date: Tue, Jan 28, 2003, 11:54 PM
> >
>
> > Carrol Cox wrote:
> >> charles moyer wrote:
> >>
> >> "apparent immateriality of quantum physics and the apparent
> >> irrationality of relativity theory"
> >
> > I missed that, but I object.  Nothing is more material than quantum
> > physics, a hodgepodge of mathematics which seems to do a good job of
> > predicting the observed material results of experiments; the violently
> > counterintuitive nature of what the math seems to be telling us is a
> > symptom of materiality - the world is what it is, not what we think it
> > is, and if what it is seems weird, well that's just the way it is.
> > Similarly for relativity theory, it's weird all right but there's
> > nothing irrational about it.  And we lack alternatives.  And it is a
> > good thing to try to understand the world. -Tim