Thursday, November 1, 2007
God the fictional character
To read a novel or a short story—one by Bob Dylan, say, possibly titled "The Saints Are Comin' Through"—we assume while we're reading that the world created by Dylan is real. It's the same when we read scriptures. But outside the mostly mythical scriptural world, the fictional trappings of its characters fall away, with only a few verifiable historical or scientific facts remaining.
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Hey, Moristotle...
ReplyDeleteWith your new laconic blogging style it will probably be June before you read this, but....
I've discovered a way to send readership off the charts. Just write something about Bob Dylan.
That is my latest post, and I've received 800 hits in 24 hours.
Thanks for the tip. I've worked "Bob Dylan" into the post. Let's see what happens.
ReplyDeleteHope for the best. As for me, Bob Dylan will now be in my every post. If, in the past, I have had occasion to mention Richard Dawkins, it will now be Richard Dawkins and Bob Dylan. Where I once mentioned Pope Benedict, it will now be Pope Benedict and Bob Dylan. You get the idea.
ReplyDeleteThe only possible glitch with this plan is that it might not work. My Bob Dylan post was apparently relayed by someone else onto a Bob Dylan page. Virtually all hits have come from that page, not directly through search engines.
www.expectingrain.com
Thanks a lot, Tom <grimace>, for not disclosing your kicker earlier. I've not only inserted a reference to Dylan into the present post, but also into the new one I just put up.
ReplyDeleteNow the trick will be to write something cogent and pertinent enough about Dylan to get some Bob Dylan page to pick it up!
Hmm, I have one possibility in mind, but it'll have to wait a day probably.
I should think that references to the Beatles might tickle even more people. I read a recent review ("Nothing You Can Know That Isn't Known") of yet another book about them (Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America, by Jonathan Gould, Illustrated. 661 pp. Harmony Books. $27.50), and it said that you get 55 million Google hits for the Beatles, which is twice as many as for Beethoven and seven times as many as for Jesus Christ. (The reviewer commented that the latter ratio might tend to substantiate John Lennon's unguarded comment about the Beatles' being more popular than Jesus.)
ReplyDeleteThe reviewer didn't mention Bob Dylan.