Reading Entry

I am in the middle of reading Kierkegaard's Either/Or. I am studying currently a section called Shadowgraphs which is about, to be very general, grief. The narrarator is describing three different literary examples of reflective grief: two characters from two stories of Goethe, and Dona Elvira from Moliere's Don Juan. Throughout most of the sections of this book, the narrarator (who is not supposed to be Kierkegaard's own voice) references to Don Juan, the tragic character of the play, but also the beauty that is made in all sorts of representations of the Don Juan story, especially by Mozart (Don Giovanni). I don't know if this work was just a major influence in his life, or if it has other profound aspects that apply more generally to me (or anybody else).

To completely turn away from Kierkegaard's morose philosophy all about grief, pain, sorrow, and tragedy, I read Giles Goat-Boy (by John Barth) whose only connection to Either/Or is that neither authors claim to have honestly written the text. So far, on page 124, our lively main character has grown fron goat to man, although, he was always physically a man, raised as a goat, and now in a quest for knowledge. It is interesting how, in his world, there is only studentdom, and goatdom, and the great world of New Tammany College. The whole world is reduced in scale to be a university. A computer is the menace; the savior, maybe, this goat-boy.