Carlos Castaneda - Novelist

I’ve been fortunate in my life to have some wonderful teachers, and some of the best were those who taught me how to read novels.

My favorite novels? Of the thousands of novels I've enjoyed over the years, at the top of the heap are the novels of Carlos Castaneda. My preference may strike you as a little surprising. I mean, what about Dickens, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Bellow, Updike and hundreds of other major novelists? Anyhow, didn't Castaneda claim that his books were nonfiction? Didn't he write about anthropology and spirituality? Good questions.

Long ago I chose to take a contrary view of Castaneda's work, that his books were not nonfiction as commonly believed, but novels. In my opinion, they are fictions that derive from two novelistic traditions. The first is called "magical realism," in which fantastic and dreamlike events are portrayed matter-of-factly, as if they were real. Examples are Luis Borges (Argentina), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia), Gunter Grass (Germany), John Fowles (Britain) and Toni Morrison (USA).

The second tradition is the philosophical novel. Because much of Castaneda's fiction has a surreal quality to it, for me the main message is communicated on a thematic level. As I mined this layer of meaning, I encountered philosophical and spiritual insights that have had a major impact on my life. This is why Castaneda's novels mean so much to me, even though I also enjoy the works of mainstream literary novelists a great deal.

In the Castaneda novels, the Carlos persona is a tentative, confused apprentice. Don Juan is the shaman teacher, both patient and demanding. The fourth novel in the series is Tales of Power (1974). I’ve read it half a dozen times, and I look forward to reading it again. It’s the account of the conclusion of Carlos’ 12-year apprenticeship.

My favorite passage is the final chapter. The lessons of Carlos’ strange experiences have all been summarized and clarified, leading up to the final test of “leaping into the unknown.” Don Juan and don Genaro, his teachers, bear final witness to Carlos and Pablito, the two apprentices. “The life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without feelings,” says don Genaro, “because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his dedication to his beloved. And who, you may ask, is his beloved? I will show you now.” He then performs an astounding demonstration, in which he “embraces the earth” by hovering above the ground in a swimming motion.

Then don Juan interprets this amazing performance: “Genaro’s love is the world. He was just now embracing this enormous earth but since he’s so little all he can do is swim in it. But the earth knows that Genaro loves it and it bestows on him its care. That’s why Genaro’s life is filled to the brim and his state, wherever he’ll be, will be plentiful. Genaro roams on the paths of his love and, wherever he is, he is complete.”

“This earth, this world. For a warrior there can be no greater love.”

“Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one release one’s sadness. A warrior is always joyful because his love is unalterable and his beloved, the earth, embraces him and bestows upon him inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their beings.”

“This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom.”

I first read these words 30 years ago. In the context of what has happened in the world since, they resonate stronger than ever. In the end, the apprenticeship isn’t about psychotropic plants. “Seeing” is about experiencing the world purely, without the intervention of received explanations. "Going to knowledge” is about accepting and appreciating these experiences. The ability to apprehend unadorned reality is the source of the warrior’s “power.” A warrior is simply someone who has the courage to be a self-reliant individual. Spirituality derives from his or her connectedness to the earth.

This worldview is at odds with most of the philosophies and religions of the world. As I look around at the constructs of humankind, I see the living earth raped and poisoned without remorse. I see incredible cruelty and pain. I see lies and nonsense embraced as truth. I see unhappy people who aren’t true to themselves, wasting their lives.

It’s enough to make me want live an authentic life, a journey one does not take lightly.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Mark Twain's Wit and Wisdom for Personal Strength

Novelists have a way with words, of course, but perhaps the most quotable novelist of all time was Mark Twain (1835-1910). 

His given name was Samuel Longhorne Clemens, and he grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. Famous for the American classics Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), he also wrote dozens of other works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867), Life on the Mississippi (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1882), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). He achieved fame as a novelist, a humorist, and a satirist. He was a literary legend in his own time. William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature."

Here's a dozen of my favorites, all of which contain his special blend of wit and wisdom...

On INTEGRITY - “Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”

On COMPASSION - “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up."

On HONESTY - “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

On EFFORT - “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive. But it is the lightning that does the work.”

On INITIATIVE - “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

On OPEN-MINDEDNESS - “Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”

On SELF-DEVELOPMENT - “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.”

On FRIENDSHIP - “To get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with."

On RATIONALITY - "For every complex problem, there is a simple answer...and it is wrong." 

On CHARACTER - “Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” 

On SELF-ESTEEM - “When you cannot get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.” 

On HUMOR - “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Personal Strength for Adult Life - Heavy Thoughts on Prom Night

It was Saturday night, and Kathleen and I were sipping wine with Amie on the lawn of the Huisache Grill in New Braunfels, Texas. Amie was visiting from Jacksonville, Florida, and we were catching up on the four years since we’d last seen each other.

All around us were teenagers dressed in tuxes and gowns, beaming with the self-conscious excitement of senior prom.

I tried to remember when I was that young. My prom was at the Stuttgart Officer's Club. We were all "brats," children of service families living in Germany. It was a great prom for me, for three reasons. First, my date that night was Belle, the brilliant, beautiful young woman who had captured my attention back then. Second, I had an appointment to West Point, which fulfilled a boyhood dream. I had a good idea of what was in store for me during the next four years. And -- this is the cool part -- Jerry Lee Lewis performed at our prom that night. I guess he was on tour in Germany at the time and it was convenient for him to do a set at the club. If you know anything about Jerry Lee Lewis, you know that his performance was amazing, something I'll never forget. I'll also never forget that Belle thought he was disgusting. Maybe it was the song about "great balls of fire." I don't know.

My graduating class was small -- it had fewer than 100 seniors. And Stuttgart wasn't a home town to any of us. Germany was a temporary home we would all leave and to which we’d never return. So we had our commencement, said our goodbyes, and each of us began very different life journeys back in the U.S. I eventually lost contact with Belle, and I never saw her again.

The teenagers at the Huisache behaved with reserve and decorum. What were they thinking about? My guess is that they were focused on looking good and having a good time while not making fools of themselves on their big night.

Certainly they weren’t thinking about the hard work, adversity and striving that are a part of making a life and achieving dreams. The two women seated next to me had plenty of stories to tell about that.

That evening, Kathleen was explaining to Amie what it was like to learn how to write a novel. She had a successful career as a banker, but after recovering from cancer she decided that she didn't want to continue doing that anymore. She wanted to write mystery novels, even though she had never written so much as a short story in her life. One essential qualification she did have, though. She loved mystery novels. She had read over a thousand of them, and she understood the genre. If there were such a thing as a Ph.D. in Mystery Novels, she had already earned it. But shifting gears like that late in life to master a difficult craft isn't easy.

Amie's life had been challenging, too. When we left Florida, she had her hands full with a bright eleven-year-old who had an undiagnosed attention disorder and a seven-year-old who had an undiagnosed learning disorder. Her husband traveled six days out of seven for business and there were marital conflicts. On top of that, her mother developed serious health problems and Amie made regular road trips to be with her.

Since we’d seen each other, Amie’s mother passed away, her marriage ended, and the boys are being treated and are in the right schools. Her life is much less stressful.

As the pre-prom group filed into the restaurant, an emergency vehicle pulled out of the garage across the railroad tracks, warning lights flashing and siren wailing. Life is perilous. Everything we hope for demands the best personal strength we have. Standing at the doorway to these dreams and challenges, these young people were near the end of a priceless opportunity to build a lot of the personal strength they'd need for the challenges ahead.

None of them seemed to be thinking about this sort of thing. Good for them. This was a time to celebrate. There would be plenty of time later to find out about the heavy lifting of adult life.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (2004 photo by Andre Karwath, used with permission from Wikimedia)

On Personal Strength - Wisdom from Classic Novelists

I've been collecting quotes for a long time. I started back in the early 1970s when I was pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Duke University. As a West Point cadet, I didn't major in English, so I had to read about five novels a week to catch up. From time to time an author would say something profound in an elegant way. It was like a little treasure, a gift, and I wanted to keep it. So I began capturing these gems. 

Years later, I discovered that by far most of the quotes were about personal strength. I had been attracted to life wisdom all along. Since then, I've been pretty selective about which quotes I add to the collection. It has to be about some aspect of personal strength, from a credible authority, and stated in a memorable way. Even so, after all these years I've accumulated about 3,000 favorite quotes in my database.

But as I said, I began by saving quotes from novelists. Since I've never featured their wisdom on my blog before, it is, as they say, about time. Here are ten of my favorites, in alphabetical order.... 

On PROACTIVITY - “Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead.” - Louisa May Alcott, American author of Little Women

On OPEN-MINDEDNESS - "I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes they can bring to bear on the same topic." - Lisa Alther, American author of Original Sins

On TOLERANCE - "Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings." - Margaret Atwood, Canadian author of The Blind Assasin

On ACCEPTANCE - "People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction." - James Baldwin, American author of The Fire Next Time

On SELF-ESTEEM - "Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself." - Honoré de Balzac, French author of The Human Comedy

On INITIATIVE - "I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has to get down to work." - Pearl Buck, American author of The Good Earth

On ACCOUNTABILITY - “Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.” - Albert Camus, French author of The Stranger

On DECISIVENESS - "Worry and think before you make any decision, but once you make it, be on your way free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting you." - Carlos Castaneda, American author of Tales of Power

On COURAGE - "He who loves wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he who loses his courage loses all." - Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author of Don Quixote

On FOCUS - "The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them." - G. K. Chesterton, British author of The Man Who Was Thursday

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (License to use photo obtained from istockphoto.com)