Rather than a bibliography, these are a few of the works that underlie the ideas that have appear in the book.

Truffaut’s Jules and Jim. The film is based on a delightful book of the same name.  Truffaut wrote that this book, Henri Pierre Roche’s first novel written when he was 70 years old, inspired Truffaut to become a filmmaker.  Truffault’s Fahrenheit 451, based on Ray Bradbury’s science fiction novel, was also very much in my mind as I wrote this book.

James Joyce’s Ulysses and Homer’s Odyssey.

Recordings of Lenny Bruce’s performances.

Paolo Friere, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The songs on Bob Dylan’s early albums reaching their peak, for me, with Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing It All Back Home, and Blonde on Blonde.

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Psychology

 

Conditions of Human Growth, by Jane Pearce and Saul Newton.  A book so tied up with being a member of the Fourth Wall community that I cannot consider it outside of that context, but undeniably a large part of what brought me to many of the ideas in this book.

Viktor Frankl’s observation that those who survived concentration camps with their souls intact were those who found meaning in life.

The gestalt concept in early experimental psychology for its insight that humans understand things in terms of their whole, not as the sum of their parts.  Meaning matters.

Freud, for all his foibles, for making us understand, against our will, that thoughts and memories and wishes cannot be unthought, but keep ther force no matter how deeply they are buried.

Jung opened entirely different vistas that pertain to the connections of all members of the human race throughout our history, yet who is so mystical and arcane, in some respects, that I wonder

Harry Stack Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry and The Psychiatric Interview.  Sullivan’s conviction that human experience, even in its most extreme forms, makes sense and only makes sense in terms of human interrelationships underlies most of what I’ve written here.  Other interpersonal theorists, particularly Karen Horney, help make sense of the “attraction” of neurosis.

Erich Fromm, particularly The Sane Society.  Fromm is among the clearest in his attempt to think through existential needs in interaction with societal repressive forces.

Erik Erikson, particularly Identity, Youth and Crisis.

 

And…

 

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:  Chief Broom understood that there was, indeed, a “they,” a group of real live human beings who control a great deal to their advantage that is not to the advantage of those they control, loosely known as us.

Martin Buber,  I and Thou

Noam Chomsky’s article:  “The Danger of a Good Example” and a lot of other books he’s written or talked about..

The music of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker.

Beethoven’s symphonies, piano sonatas and piano concertos, string ensemble pieces, etc.
Brahms.  Glenn Gould playing Bach.  Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Pacifica Radio (WBAI in New York, KPFK in Berkeley and the Bay Area and others), particularly Amy Goodman and her program,Democracy Now!, one of the few clear voices of opposition in our increasingly monolithic society.

Laurence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet”

Marx and Lenin, yes, Marx and Lenin.

The Alec Guinness movie of the Joyce Carol Oates’ book, The Horse’s Mouth.

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland and other poems.

Dostoyevski, Notes from the underground, Crime and Punishment

Camus and Sartre, particularly The Stranger

Rock and Roll, Rhythm and Blues and all that Jazz.

Fellini’s 8 ½

Frances Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, especially the night scene at the bridge on the DMZ where no one knows who’s in command.

Science fiction:  Vonnegut, H.G. Wells, William Gibson.

Walt Kelly’s Pogo

Dr. Seuss, whose words I, as a writer, aspire to: “I meant what I said and I said what I meant an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.” – Horton Hatches the Who

 

favorite novels

 

Herman Melville: Moby Dick

 

John Steinbeck: East of Eden

 

Dostoyevsky: Brothers Karamazov / Crime and Punishment

 

William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying / Sound and the Fury / Sartoris /  The Mansion

 

Orhan Pamuk: Snow

 

Larry McMurtry:  Lonesome Dove

 

William Gibson’s novels, steampunk, far future or near.

 

James Joyce: Ulysses

quote notes

 

John Steinbeck – East of Eden

“’Timshell’ — Thou mayest”

Though experts says the Hebrew word should be transliterated as “Timshol,” and some experts say that there is no way this word can be interpreted as “thou mayest,” implying a choice, but should be “Thou will,” this word, taken from the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible, is stressed by Steinbeck as embodying the fundamental point that we choose our lives, despite whatever befalls us.  If Cain, even murdering his brother and raging at God, can still choose his path for good or ill, who are we to deny that we have that fundamental, existential right and responsibility.

Goethe

“Do not hurry, do not rest”

Walt Kelly
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” – The Pogo Papers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Dylan quotes

“To live outside the law you must be honest.  I know you always say that you agree.”  Absolutely Sweet Marie, Blonde on Blonde.

“…and here I sit so patiently, waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.” Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, Blonde on Blonde

“He not busy being born is busy dying.”
and
“If my thought dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.”   It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding); Bringing It All Back Home

 

Latin

“Dum vita est, spes est” –“Where there’s life, there’s hope”  — often attributed to Cicero but apparently used by Terence before him.  I heard it first from Helen Caldicott, the anti-nuclear activist and for many years thought she had made it up.

Other Songs

Bob Seger, Against the Wind
“…what to leave in and what to leave out.”

 

“Every form of refuge has its price.”   —  Eagles, Lyin’ Eyes

 

Beatles (Harrison)

“Life goes on within you and without you.”

 

The quotation marked phrases sprinkled throughout the book are, I guess pretty obviously, quotations from songs.  When I write, them I hear the context of the song they come from and imagine that some readers will react similarly.  If not, I don’t want anybody to think that I’m acting as if I came up with these turns-of-phrases myself.
So, here’s where they come from:

“Il n’est pas besoin d’esperer pour entreprendre ni reussir pour perseverer.”

From Marcel Pagnol, (The boy does not know the origin of the quote.  It comes from Holland’s William of Orange, who, when it appeared all but certain that the Netherlands’ revolt against was doomed to fail in the face of dramatically superior force, said, “Je Maintiendrai.” – I will maintain.  Although William himself did not live to see it –  he was assasinated in 1584 –the Netherlands succeeded in winning their independence from Spain soon thereafter.)

“It is not necessary to have hope in order to try, nor to succeed in order to keep on trying. ” (my translation)