Book Reviews, Comments & Stories, Quotes, & Poetry & More
"Connections and Why They Matter"
Most of what happens in our life will spark a connection. Life connects with what has been found in books. Books connect with what happens in life. Use the connections to help you see more clearly. A love of reading and writing is what motivated the creation of this blog. Thank you for coming to the blog.
The Noble Prize for literature in 2016 was awarded to Bob Dylan for "having created new poetic expression within the great American song tradition.”
Is "Blowin’ in the Wind" literature? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkd_l7VKwo
Harpers Magazine says that “literary means not only what is written but what is voiced, what is expressed, what is invented, in whatever form.” More restrictively, writing is considered an art form or any report deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage.
What do the words, Blowin’ in the Wind, mean? Bob Dylan said the answer is blowing in the wind because nobody knows the answer. Everybody tries to get it, but it slips away from our hold.
"Blowin in the Wind" by Bob Dylan
How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind
Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist Before it is washed to the sea? And how many years can some people exist Before they're allowed to be free? Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind
Yes, and how many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? And how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind The answer is blowin' in the wind
Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem “If” in 1895 when he was 31 years old. He had one son, John Kipling, who was born in 1897. It is believed that when he wrote this poem he was intending to help his son understand life and human nature.
John Kipling went to war in France and died on Sept 27, 1915 in the Battle of Loos. His father, who had used his contacts to obtain an officer's commission for him, and then when he was killed, spent much of his later life searching for the boy he called Jack, who had died without his father knowing where he had been buried.
The advice to his son suggests a motivational focus on getting on with life and finding out about the world. The poem suggests meeting life with a stoic attitude which suggests that unhappiness was caused by trying to control events that we have little say over with and doing so with a calm indifference to external circumstances.
To answer the question as to whether this poem is motivational or just stoic leads to the additional question as to whether it is realistic? It doesn’t seem like having this poem from his father to refer to was much of a help for John Kipling. Maybe it motivated him to go to war. Maybe it deceived him concerning the real world that he would face, but something was obviously missing.
Perhaps one answer to the question is that common sense was missing in this formula for life. Virtue is assumed to be sufficient for happiness, but that does not guarantee the resilience to recover from failure.
The poem does offer an idealistic outlook that many have found deep connection with in this poem. Poetry can serve more than one purpose and perhaps for some, we the reader can enjoy the poem and find our purposes in it.
