The Mind of the Maker

I borrowed ‘The Mind of the Maker’ by Dorothy Sayers on an instinct at the British library recently. This edition was published as a part of a series – The Library of Anglican Spirituality. For some time now I had been meaning to get hold of some of Sayers’ Christian writings just to see what kind of theologian she was, so I was quite happy to have found it but I was a little afraid that I would be disappointed if it turned out to be a bit propagandist in nature.

I needn’t have worried. However devout a Christian Sayers was, her writing is brilliantly detached and superbly incisive. Plus she writes about my most favourite topic, the relation between Art and spirituality. God! That sounds hopelessly inadequate, but I imagine it is because ‘spirituality’ is such an abused term these days that it is impossible to use the word without it dredging up a hundred common connotations. But that is without help.

In ‘The Mind of the Maker’ Sayers uses a compelling analogy of the creative artist, more specifically the writer (of The Word with all its Biblical implications) to elucidate the doctrine of trinity. Or perhaps it would be righter to say that she uses the statements in the doctrine to explain the creative processes that converge in an Ideal work of Art.

The most appealing aspect of Sayers’ thesis is that she doesn’t ‘argue’- she states. After a surfeit of academicians who use the ‘argue and withdraw’ tool to impress their audiences with the solidity of their academic objectivity, it was a rare pleasure to read an extremely well-ordered thesis presented almost as facts. I am personally convinced that that is probably the only valid way when one is talking of matters of theology or Art. Simply because in some matters rational debate will take you only so far till you reach a stalemate. A person who will rationalise life on his dying breath has got to be uncommonly foolish.

And it is an uncommonly good book that can find coordinates for the ‘Trinity’s Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Three Persons) in the Idea, Energy and Power – the three elements within a ‘maker’s’ make-up that together and simultaneously ignite, fuel and sustain a work of Art.

Through this schema Sayers guide us through the meaning of Free Will drawn parallel to originality in Art, Evil corresponding to Bad Art, Real love equaling True Art, and my personal favourite, what she calls very interestingly Scalene trinities – which correspond with the various types of Less-than-ideal Art, and she lets us in on how to identify what exactly is ‘wrong’ with such a piece of flawed Art.

Most, most fascinating stuff.

If you are interested in theology or Art, or the correlation between the two or just plain writing, this book will probably interest you.

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• I am struck repeatedly by how all the major religions of the world essentially say the same thing. Very often the kind of imagery and knowledge-constructs are so similar it really gobsmacks me. The Three Persons of the Trinity are crazily similar to the Bhramha-Vishnu-Maheshwara of the Hindu trinity or even to the Shiva-Shakti-Kundalini concept.

• Also I am tying myself into knots about this one: see the workings of the Trinity are very similar to the Hindu concept of Dharma. Okay, now the word Dharma comes from the root ‘Dhri’ which of course sounds like ‘Tri’ but actually means ‘that which holds or sustains’. We know that the Hindu theology holds the Trinity as the mechanism through which the world as we know it is sustained. Of course Dharma is a much much older word and concept. So I am thinking maybe ‘Dhri’ comes form an older form of ‘Tri’. What say?

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I have never had any deep knowledge of Christian theology, in spite of being educated at a convent for the first fourteen years, or probably because of it. I must have crossed myself thousands of times, and muttered the words “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” not quite knowing what I was committing. I think I had a grasp on the father and the son (often equated with Christ) but I wasn’t ever sure who the Holy Spirit was. Considering the fact that subsequently the subject of theology has become a prime favourite with me I am quite surprised that I had never explored the doctrine of trinity or in fact any other aspect of Christian theology until this recently. I blame this squarely on being subjected to the mundane peripherals of the religion too early in life, which made it familiar but somewhat uninspiring.

On rereading and not reading

There are few things as pleasant as rereading. It is especially nice for someone like me with conveniently dismal powers of memory. I only ever retain the sense of a book; mostly remembering just the mood it left me with or the ways in which it excited my imagination. I invariably forget whodunit in a whodunit. I can pick up an old book absolutely secure in the knowledge that I will love it but really know little else. Also being somewhat pernickety about satisfying my mood cravings, with an old book I have a hole-in-one instead of having to suspiciously poke through the first chapters of several.
Which is why I was dismayed a while back to find that somehow a sense of guilt had begun to creep in at the idea of rereading. I examined the matter and I put forth to you my findings.
On an almost daily level I am faced with fresh evidence of some extraordinary new talent or the other. Publishing is now more aggressive a business than ever before. Books get talked about, styles get dissected, new genres get heralded, and so much so that even a reasonably insouciant reader gets primed like a 400 ft bore well motor. There is now a weekly must-read and the ever more common you-cannot-show-your face-in-society-without-having-read-this. Lists of ‘the most important writer of the century’ and ‘quite the most exciting talent we have had this decade’ are soon threatening to make it into a good sized book themselves.
Instead of igniting in me the thirst for evermore inspired literature all this is leaving me oddly defiant. Mostly because of that niggling guilt I mentioned before. Now every time I skim for an old favourite, visions of all the books I ought to be reading swim before my eyes. With so much new territory unexplored what careless stupidity to eddying around in old waters! It feels depressingly like a duty to constantly present myself with newer delights, like the over anxious parent who enrols her ward in all the latest summer camps.
I find myself completely idle for a few minutes and any number of books from the current-books shelf insinuate themselves onto my attention. It has begun to make me feel unaccustomedly resentful. I have only known having to steal time away for books, never from them! Instead of the comfortable old friend they are supposed to be books now are glitzy new acquaintances you meet at cocktail parties to be talked to suavely and have to be painstakingly kept in touch with. To me somehow this is more effort than I like. It seems to dilute the intimacy and the one-on-oneness of a reading experience. It’s no longer just a book and me. With previews, book-launches, celebrity-quoting blurbs, reviews and a zillion bytes of opinion and information it feels like I have a whole community peeping over my shoulder. It’s extraordinarily hard nowadays to approach any book with a mind innocent of some manner of prejudice.
As a consequence, natural perversity is keeping me from fully enjoying anything new, and stupidly misplaced guilt wont let me reread in peace. Even staring into space, my all-time favourite pass-time has lost its charm under the stress of awareness.
When all this began I thought it was a passing phase, now I am a little worried. I am thoroughly irritated with myself for letting external factors interfere with my personal pleasure. And of course I know that loss of innocence and resulting guilt are never anybody else’s fault. The first may not be easily remedied, but I am damned if I don’t work on the second.

Tagged and bound

I wouldn’t be doing this if I’d been asked by anybody but Sheetal. But she being the Baba she is, has gone ahead and asked, and so I essay….


How many books…..
I did not cotton on till very very late in the day, that, books could actually be bought. God knows if it is the younger child syndrome or lack of initiative or plain kanjoosi, but for the longest time I only read what was available, borrowable or shamelessly flicked.
I still feel uncomfortable buying a book that retains the perfume of printer’s ink. Books in the news-current books- tempt me least. I love most pavement bargains of moth eaten books, previously owned by Prof. S Chakravarthy or his ilk, 1961 etc. which I can pick up for a steal by what I fancy is a expertly practiced air of nonchalant indifference. God I fear it must be undiluted kunjoosi. As for as the actual count, since nobody is really clear about the rules- approx the same as Sheetal’s.

Last books I bought…
This was one desperate afternoon in Bhopal. I was way way through the measly collection I had with me. I had asked re-asked and bored a dozen people on the lack of circulating libraries in Bhopal. Been keenly disappointed by the one big bookstore that only housed best-sellers. Had followed torturous instructions by a I- now-believe-to-be a devious colleague to a public library which was so seedy looking that it looked like a public somethingelse. Library holiday and I beat a hasty retreat. Which is why I found myself on the aforementioned afternoon in old city, determined to scavenge through second-hand shops.
Amid about a zillion engineering entrance tutorial books I found them. The shopkeeper was thrilled to get them off his hands. Françoise Sagan’s Incidental music, a book actually called “god realisation” (as if!), a book of recorded conversations between David Bohm and J krishnamurthy called the Future of humanity, a MB about a Italian millionaire I think or possibly Greek, a book on kundalini yoga. The MB cost me Rs. 80 (twas new and I desperate) the rest I got for a collective Rs 150/-

Last book…
Lately I have been reading poetry, I mean sitting and reading poem after poem. So I guess an anthology of sorts and a revisiting of V.Seth’s All you who sleep tonight were last books handled. Prose text etc boletho I think it was that misguided attempt to ‘argue’ (how these types love that word) some obscure point about Nietzsche’s political ideology and a book on British classism called Mind the Gap.


Now book…
I am reading that god realisation wala book now, at least I started it on the train and figured that god cannot be realised in hell (was travelling sleeper and was hot as Hades) and switched to an MB can’t remember which one, yes got it, the editor/writer deal. Been too hyper to read anything but the newspaper and Outlook for past couple of days.


Books that mean a lot to me

Many titles are the same as the one named by the people I grew up with so I’ll just list

The Swiss Family Robinson (pocket edition)- This was so perfect and spawned my pre-sleep fantasies for so many years that did not read the original when I had a chance to.

The Blytons – special bond with The secret of the Spiggy holes. For Zehera Jaffery and I no hole was ever the same again. It simply ‘thrilled’ our lifes.

The Grand Sophy – I knew it would be my first Heyer, it was. It was like being allowed my first glass of champagne- a rite of passage.

There was a book of letters and correspondences by Aldous Huxley, which I sat down to read on a corner stool at the CIEFL library. I was not allowed to borrow it, I can’t remember the title exactly, I did not read much of it, I never found it again- there is no other book I can think of that I would like to own more.

My copy of the Message of the Upanishads- very simply I love it. Paradoxically it anchors me, anytime every time.