Reddit mentions of The Razor's Edge

Respectfully, your first question is a bit too personal for me to answer. You didn't mean it that way; I understand. But to answer it I would have to reveal more than I choose.

What I can say is that I have survived grief. I experienced it, explored its depths, and came out the other side. There was a time in my life, literally, when everyone I ever had loved was dead.

Life doesn't offer any promises. All it offers is itself. And it will end soon enough, anyway.

To address the issues you raise in any sort of competent way would require far more space than I have here. I suggest--and I don't mean this as a brush-off--that you read the Bhagavad-gita, the other Upanishads, the writings of the Buddha. You also probably would want to read commentaries, as the texts probably would be indecipherable without them. You also might want to try The Razor's Edge and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which are a couple of accessible novels that at least introduce certain ideas.

This may seem like a puzzle, but the main thing to understand is that your sense of permanence is illusory. This concept is so fundamental to life that it transcends and infuses atheism, philosophy, religion. From it flows the idea that many other things also are illusory--pain, suffering, grief, desire, hope, happiness.

In any event, as you ask such valid and profound questions, it would make sense to arm yourself with the equipment to answer them, right?

> Author blogs relentlessly tear strips from people like Dan Brown and E.L. James, but you know what? There is nothing more delicious than a good bad book.

Yeah there is something more delicious. It's a [good good book.] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400034205)

> The spine remains uncracked, and the cheeky troll face my friends glued into the corner of the front cover continues to leer at me,

This person's friends (not sure if it's you, OP) are people I could be friends with.

> Why shouldn't we give credit where credit is due?

What kind of credit should be be giving? "Yay, you managed to get financially successful as a hack?" That's not exactly a new phenomenon in the world of literature or anything. Writers have been doing it for hundreds of years. Other writers have been getting pissed off about it for just as long.

> The agents are - the ambivalent parent figure, chain-smoking and reading dense academic theses. The agent is the one who ignores you whilst you jump at their feet, pleading for them to look over the story of a fairy princess that you wrote in crayon.

I think it's cute when kids write stories. That doesn't mean I'm going to try to get those stories published on their behalf. (I'm looking at you, Paolinis.)

> The fact of the matter is that agents and publishers know their stuff. If our work isn't at a standard to impress them, it should only fuel the fire to work harder more.

100% agreement.

I do think some jealousy-induced competitiveness between authors is irrational, and some of it is straight-up delusional. But I also think this competitiveness is a good thing.

I have a copy of Twilight nailed to the wall in my bedroom/writing study. Underneath it I have a piece of copy paper taped up with one angry, all-caps scrawl in Sharpie:

YOU CAN DO BETTER

So yes, I do agree with one aspect of this blog post: bad books are good for the canon. They serve as a prod for better writers to put ass in chair and get to it, because if they don't, their "competition" is going to be eating all of the publishing creds and laughing merrily over caviar and champagne while they sit around gnashing their teeth in ineffectual, impotent fury.

I love Somerset Maugham. I have a book of short stories that is fantastic, called Rain, and other stories. Also The Razor's Edge is a favorite of mine.

The Razor's Edge

>I mean the later composers, like Glass, may be more likely influenced by Ravi Shankar, but what about the other composers?

You might be interested to hear some of this going on in George Crumb's Vox Balaenae.

There was quite a bit of interaction between Europe and India in the twentieth century. Were I ye, I'd check out W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. This article talks a bit about the background of the novel. Hermann Hesse is a little earlier, but no less influential (perhaps more influential) in bringing Indian spirituality to the West. Siddhartha comes to mind.

The protagonist of Maugham's semi-autobiographical novel, Of Human Bondage, spends his childhood reading about faraway lands in his uncle's library. I forget whether India is mentioned. Read the book if you don't mind the soul-crushing affirmation of your own cosmic insignificance.

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham.

Razor’s Edge, maybe. Different time but same vibe.

https://www.amazon.com/Razors-Edge-W-Somerset-Maugham/dp/1400034205