I pray that "Olson" not become a label for a complex of attitudes by and
about the man. The Mayan stuff was intensely written in a relatively
brief expedition to the sun, and bears comparison it seems to me more
with Hart Crane and D.H.Lawrence than with the Morleys &c that CO might
have chosen to do battle with. It was his experience of the sea _there_
that mattered. I found him always amenable to argument; our own
friendship began with his generous and welcoming response to an attack
(sort of)I had published on his nostalgic image of a pre-industrial New
England, and on a romanticism of place. (I remember talking wildly
about white steepled churches, and Ausonius on the Moselle...)
It is a curious thing about the man that his deepest personal, interior,
emotional experiences often got worded in the most scholarly, historical
modes, even if of a goofy sort. As if he were telling us: I need to say
history to say istorin, and need to say istorin to say: this happened to
me and I feel. But his scholarship vexed the scholars, and his
anthropology baffled the anthro's, as if to remind us of the real scene
of the action.
God knows, by the third volume of Maximus (the one most people neglect
to reckon with) he had come explicitly, honestly and far from
programmatically to that scene; angelology was a funny word for it,
but it helped him to talk about the soul.
Which I dont suppose we are yet prepared to do...
best to you & bright solstices,
Robert
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