If we have a daimon, a genius, an indwelling spirit that spurs some of us to great heights, what of those that seem to live normal, everyday lives? Can there be a call to mediocrity? Yes, says Hillman, there is a call – but not in the way that we think. We denigrate the mediocre but that is so when we generalize – for who can tell us the character of each person making up this mass of “average”, those who live without shining so brightly?

“So let’s clear away a typical mistake: identifying vocation only with a specific kind of job, rather than also with the performance in the job,” says Hillman (p.252)

Recall persons you know, who seem so average but for a particular set of values, attitudes, actions which make them really stand out. In my mind, they are those who seem particularly true to themselves. That is living to what the daimon prods – theirs is a calling not to fame, but a call to character.

Does this sound like a cop-out for the unstriving? “To be at all is to be defined by a form, a style,” but “for the soul the idea of mediocrity is meaningless… Let us not confuse a particular gift – like Menuhin’s for the violin, or Teller’s for physics, or Ford’s for mechanics – with the call. The talent is only a piece of the image…” (p.250)

While reading, I realized that the very idea of calling had in my mind formed as an antithesis to the content, measured life. Probably because those who I have known or read spoke of calling as something that for some reason opposed what they were, yet couldn’t help but obey. And often, at the cost of comfort or wellbeing. Hillman turns this on its head, saying

“Calling becomes a calling to life, rather than imagined in conflict with life. Calling to honesty rather than to success, to caring and mating, to service and struggle for the sake of living. This view offers a revision of vocation not only in the lives of women or as viewed by women; it offers another idea of calling altogether, in which life is the work.” (p. 255, emphasis mine).

Those who seem to have been doomed by a “mediocre daimon” (can there be such a thing?), or an “average” genius, he says “we are unable to estimate them at all.”

“As long as we regard people in terms of earning power or specific expertise, we do not see their character. Our lens has been ground to one average prescription that is best suited for spotting freaks.” (p.255)

Finished this in four days, couldn’t put it down and stayed up until 5am for two nights actually.

I like this because it doesn’t go overboard in describing the time (the Middle Ages), the architecture (the story centres on cathedral-building) and the people (spans generations). The storyline is fluid, and mixes politics, hope, religion, war, romance and architecture. I knew I would like it – as I generally like these kinds of books, like Foucault’s Pendulum, Name of the Rose – but I think those who haven’t an interest in period literature would still be interested.

Inside this book are characters which I loved to hate – and those that I realised, by the middle of it, had started to admire. It’s been some time since any novel I’ve read has led me to be less than ambivalent about the characters.

It’s there on my table yes, but I haven’t touched it for awhile!

Finally.

It has the distinction of being the first book I’ve finished in 2008, and it took 34 weeks. But yes, I finished many other books before this one, because months would go by before I’d pick it up again.

This was later released on Feb. 2, 2008 in a local shopping mall. It was a cool read :)

I am actually re-reading this lovely audio-visual masterpiece. I’m missing something, and this is reminding me that yes – it’s not just me – there is something that is actually missing.

When I read it I was wondering almost all the way through… “what is so great about this that some consider it a classic?” I admit I found hard to keep interested in it, as each (short) chapter seemed to hint at something, a globally-shared condition of humanity; appearing only to say more by leaving things unsaid.

I got impatient until the last 2 or 3 chapters when it all seemed to tie up together, and then I realised – so this is why.

It didn’t strike me down with the force of understanding (like Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, or the flashes of insight (like Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull), or even blinding literary succour (e.g. Clarissa Estes’ Women Who Dance With the Wolves), but worthy still because it doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not: a story for children, entertaining and stimulating in and of itself.

But for adults, there’s always a little bit more. Final verdict: Read.

Because we need something like this to turn over in our minds; it’s so relevant as it’s timeless.

It’s poetic, and not cloyingly so;

This is a collection of thoughts and feelings that mean something, something that has been lived, digested, and embroidered in gold for all to see.

Because too much has been happening in real time and space, and there has been, well, little opportunity to continue reading something so timeless. Perhaps this weekend?

Not that I intend to take forever, but it’s a very timeless space, and it’s both moving me to tears and making me leap inside.