On Wings of Song (Book Review)
I just finished reading another fantastic book. It is entitled “On Wings of Song” by
Thomas M. Disch.
Now, without spoiling the book for those who actually want to read it, the best part of the book for me was the idea that in this reality, if a person is able to completely lose themselves in the moment (typically through song), they are able to leave their body as a type of spirit and fly. This spirit is not able to fly though walls or anything, but it is invisible and it is a higher type of living. Most people that “fly” choose not to return to their bodies but live forever in this new type of existance. The main character in ths story fails to fly the first time he tries and then becomes more and more discouraged about it so it becomes harder and harder to even get close. I just found it really beautiful to think that there is a higher state of consciousness that can be reached through music…I think many of us have felt this at different times of our lives and we have felt like we are flying.
And I suppose some would be disappointed if I simply wrote this blog without anything controversial in it right? How about this excerpt from the book written by a very cynical person…
“What our Puritan forebearers failed to recognize,” Van Dyke wrote, “is the evangelical application of these insights. For if we become the kind of people we are by pretending, then the way to become good, devout, and faithful Christians (which, admit it, is a well-nigh impossible undertaking) is to pretend to be good, devout, and faithful. Study the role and rehearse it energetically. You must seem to love your neighbor no matter how much you hate his guts. You must seem to accept sufferings, even if you’re drafting your suicide note. You must say that you know that your Redeemer liveth, even though you know no such thing. Eventually, saying makes it so.”
And there was another section (which I can’t find the page for right now) that has someone stating that they “don’t believe in boredom” as it just means you are being really lazy. I find there is some truth in that statement for me, I am often bored, but I am also often lazy…I’ll try to get up and do something whenever I am bored.
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