Lust For Life - Vincent van Gogh
Irving Stone's Lust For Life. It is a
novel based on the life of Vincent van Gogh. Stone has done such a
tremendous work that I don't remember anybody else doing the same.
Nobody has written so intimately about somebody else, as if he is
writing from his very own being.
Lust For Life is not just a novel, it is a spiritual book. It is
spiritual in my sense, because to me all dimensions of life have to
be incorporated into a single synthesis; only then one is spiritual.
The book is written so beautifully that the possibility that even
Irving Stone will be able to transcend it is remote.
After that book he wrote many others, and my second book today is
also by Irving Stone. I count it second because it is secondary, not
of the quality of Lust For Life. It is The Agony and the
Ecstasy,
again based on another life in the same way. Perhaps Stone was
thinking that he would be able to create another Lust For Life, but
he failed. Although he failed, the book stands second - not to any
other but to his own. There are hundreds of novels written on the
lives of artists, poets, painters, but none of them reaches even to
the height of the second book, what to say of the first. Both are
beautiful, but the first is of transcendental beauty.
The second book is a little lower, but it is not the fault of Irving
Stone. When you know that you have written a book like Lust For Life, the ordinary human instinct is to imitate oneself, to create
something of the same order, but the moment you imitate it cannot be
the same. When he wrote Lust he was not imitating, he was a virgin
island. When he wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy he was imitating
himself, and that is the worst imitation. Everybody does it in their
own bathroom, looking in the mirror.... That's what one feels about
his second book. But I say even though it is only a reflection in
the mirror, it reflects something of the real; hence I count it.
Irving Stone has written in
The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelangelo. A great life. Stone has missed much. If it had
been Gauguin then it would have been okay, but if it is Michelangelo
then I am sorry; even I cannot forgive him. But he writes
beautifully. His prose is like poetry, although the second book is
not of the same quality as Lust For Life. It cannot be for the
simple reason that there has never been a man like Vincent van Gogh.
That Dutch fellow was just inimitable! He stands alone. In the whole
sky full of stars he shines alone, separately, uniquely in his own
way. To write a great book on him is easy, and it would have been so
on Michelangelo, but Stone was trying to imitate himself; hence he
missed. Never be an imitator. Do not follow... not even yourself.
moment to moment
not knowing
who you are...
and where you are.
That's what it means
to be my people.
Michelangelo must have liked white marble; he has carved a statue of Jesus out of it. No other man has carved such beautiful images, so it should not have been difficult for Stone to write a beautiful story about Michelangelo. But he missed the point only because he was imitating himself. Alas, if he could have forgotten his first book, he would have produced another Lust For Life.
(Osho - Books I Have Loved #13)The seers of the ancient East have been very emphatic about the point that all the great arts - music, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture - all are born out of meditation. These arts are an effort to in some way bring the unknowable into the world of the known for those who are not ready for the pilgrimage - they are gifts for those who are not ready to go on the pilgrimage. Perhaps a song may trigger a desire to go in search of the source, perhaps a statue.
(Osho - Beyond Enlightenment #28)