Upon leaving the United States Navy, I landed a provisional
job in Little Rock, Arkansas. Problem was, provisional jobs pay very little.
Almost nothing. Someone was kind enough to inform me that I was receiving a bit
less than secretarial pay.
No problem. I found a cheap, but spacious apartment within
walking distance of both the job and the city library. It was much larger than
the library on the ship on which I had served, so it allowed me to expand a
favorite pastime, reading.
What to read? The writings of T.S. Eliot interested me, so
why not? I checked out a copy of his poems and started with The Wasteland. Ouch! It is a troublesome
piece, used by generations of professors and mentors to discombobulate arrogant
young minds, one belonging to me.
Now Eliot was kind enough to include substantial footnotes as
part of the poem, so I checked out some works cited and tackled them.
What on earth, you might say, does that all have to do with the
present time?
Well, you see, it’s Easter weekend. That has a lot to do with
the topic of so-called “vegetation rituals” so densely treated in wasteland
imagery.
It turns out that our ancient ancestors had a few strong beliefs.
One was that the Earth exhibited some strange behaviors at times. Another was
that it was somehow up to humankind to control such behaviors through various
types of magic. And, as alchemy gave birth to scientific investigation, magical
attempts at understanding and controlling Earth’s behavior helped give birth to
religion.
A prevailing belief was that the Earth died each winter, and
it was up to puny humans to revive it. This required great efforts aimed at the
rebirth of vegetation. Unfortunately, some of these efforts were quite cruel by
today’s standards. The sacrificing of humans as a trade for the rebirth was not
uncommon. The giving of a single life for the safety of all became a ubiquitous
motif in modern literature.
Hence the beginning of Eliot’s afore-cited work, “April is
the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land …”
Interesting as well is the claim that Eliot’s working title
for the poem was a line, borrowed from Dickens, attributed to a reader of
newspapers who was extolling a certain writer, “He do the police in different
voices.” There’s hardly a better example of that talent than T.S. Eliot.
Now ain’t that something? Education is such a dear and
entertaining friend. One must wonder why such powerful forces seek to destroy it
in America. I learned to appreciate it many years ago in a cheap apartment,
filled with shabby furniture, in Little Rock, Arkansas. It made me happy then.
It has led me down many a path since. It doesn’t take much
to satisfy the yearnings of a young man of limited means with the promise of a
full life ahead. Way back then, I learned that joy can be found wherever you
are, if you’ll only look for it.
