Beyond Theology - Alan Watts

[DesertRose]

I like listening to Alan Watts, but I haven't read his books.. yet..

[Dogensoto]

At the moment I am experiencing one of my "full up mind" periods, and enjoying a holiday. Leaving aside books which - however well - seek to teach, I'm reading a biography of Samuel Beckett, "Damned to Fame".

I've always loved biographies, which put flesh and blood onto what are so often just ephemeral words, quoted, standing alone.

Beckett, it turns out, was when young a fine sportsman. A boxng champion at school. I know some things about his life, such as his time in the French Resistance during WW2.

"Nothing to be done" says Estragon in "Waiting for Godot".

Anyway, I ramble.

[Redchic12]

I love books about the French Resistance. I especially enjoyed reading about the women who helped them and spied for the allies. Omg what brave courageous souls they were.

I particularly enjoyed the book about an American woman called Virginia Hall who had a prosthetic leg who was responsible for more jail breaks, sabotage missions and leaks of Nazi troop movements than any other spy and the one spy that the Nazis never found.

How brilliant is that hey!

I wish someone would make a movie about her.

[Dogensoto]

Originally Posted by Redchic12

I love books about the French Resistance. I especially enjoyed reading about the women who helped them and spied for the allies.

Hi, sounds interesting. Certainly a lot of unsung bravery is just waiting for a good movie!
Still to reach the time of Samuel Beckett's involvement.

[Dogensoto]

Still with the Samuel Beckett biography. Just cannot get back to books on the "meaning" of life! My mind gets tired. Yesterday I walked to a local pub to meet up with some old work mates and passed through a nearby Recreation Park. About thirty or forty trees had been planted about 4 years ago and I have enjoyed watching them grow and become established. Well looked after, with padding around the roots, and we often see the Water Wagon going around in the dry weather. Sadly, almost 20 have now been vandalised, snapped in two or pulled out altogether. It put a dampener on my day. Well, there is Gaza and the Ukraine and so much more, but the destruction of those trees just got to me. So senseless.

Anyway, Beckett. So interesting, his early years. Time spent in Paris where he had much to do with another of my "heroes" James Joyce. Beckett was around Joyce at the time of the death of Joyce's father back in Ireland. This coincided with the birth of Joyce's first grandchild, and Joyce wrote a poem which brings both events together. Beckett was moved by the words:-

Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.

Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!

Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.

A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!

Well, I am rambling again. Now at the point where Beckett, penniless, is back with his family in Ireland, but about to head for a couple of years in London.

Not to want to say, not to know what you want to say, not to be able to say what you think you want to say, and never to stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind, even in the heat of composition.(Samuel Beckett)

[Miss Hepburn]

Redchic, Check -
A Call To Spy
A Woman of No Importance
Then- Cate Blanchett in Charlotte Gray ---not about V. Hall,
I bet you've seen.

[Redchic12]

No do t think I’ve seen them Miss H. I do remember seeing the story of the Aussie girl Nancy Wake who also worked for the resistance. It was good.

I’ll check out the others, thanks.

But what I admire about Virginia Hall was because she did it all with a prosthetic leg, lasted for a few years and never got caught, whilst most of them did. That’s one helluva achievement.

Another unsung WOMAN is Katherine Johnson who was a black woman who worked out the exact calculations to bring the first Apollo spacecraft back to earth safely. All the men got the recognition at the time and she never even got a mention.

It was not so long that there was a book written about her but I saw the movie and was so moved by how smart and dedicated that she was but treated appallingly by most of the men.

[Dogensoto]

Now reached the point in the Samuel Beckett biography where he is in the French Resistance. Obviously as an Irish citizen he could have remained totally neutral and safe in Paris. His part was as a translator of information gleaned from other resistance groups. Such info was delivered to his flat in Paris, he would collate and translate it, then deliver it himself to another member of the cell who would photograph it and then pass it onto the UK.