NOTEWORTHY                                                                 Number 2 — September 16, 2017

For sustained inventiveness and sheer genius, it is hard to beat China Miéville’s 2010 novel, Kraken: An Anatomy[1]. Based on old Norse legends, Tennyson’s famous poem (“The Kraken”), John Wyndam’s[2]  novel, The Kraken Wakes, and other such sources, it is a useful work in relation to my dream (see “Lamentation in Three Parts” at http://ralockhart.com/WP/?p=133) that speaks to a final Ragnarök Here is a sample: And after? Nothing. Not a phoenix age, not a kingdom of ash, not a new Eden. This time, for the first time, in a way that no threatened end had ushered in before, there was no post-after. (p.272).

A good follow-up study to Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, is Joshua Green’s Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency.[3]

I’ve been immersed in the book based on the exhibit of Miró’s paintings during the period from 1917-1934.[4] I was prompted in this direction by an article decrying the loss of unsupervised play in children. It is the unsupervised play that is crucial to the development of the imagination. Many of the spearheads of the development of modern art may be thought of as adolescents rebelling against the parents (representational art): manifestos, intentional destruction, and all manner of such and it worked! A new form of art was born. But Miró went at it differently. He went backward into childhood and recaptured an extraordinary sense of play. This I think may become more and more necessary in the times ahead as paradoxical as that may seem. The exhibit was called, La Naissance du Monde. The Birth of the World.

Next month will see the publication of the first of three volumes in a new series entitled, Jung’s Red Book for Our Time: Searching for Soul Under Postmodern Conditions. The series is edited by Murray Stein and Thomas Arzt and published by Chiron Publications. My essay, entitled “Appassionato for the Imagination,” will be in this first volume. The title came to me in a dream. For a description of the volume and the list of essay titles and contributors, go to http://chironpublications.com/shop/jungs-red-book-time-searching-soul-postmodern-conditions-vol-1/

Numerous studies reveal that reading and particularly, reading fiction, has a powerful effect on the brain producing remarkable increases in cognitive function, emotional intelligence, and empathy. One of the scary things about technological “progress,” is that as more and more children become addicted to “smart” phones, it is not making the children smarter. Recent studies are showing that one-quarter of American children do not learn to read by the time they are teens and the smartphone addiction becomes more intense. Watch for headlines about the increasing mental health problems of teens stemming from being tethered to technology. What can possibly be done about this?

[1] MiéVille, China. Kraken: An Anatomy. New York: Ballantine Books, 010.

[2] John Wyndham was Jung’s favorite fiction author.

[3] Green, Joshua. Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. New York: Penguin Press, 2017.

[4] Miró, Joan 1917-1934. London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2004.