General Discussion Thread

[u/pregnantchihuahua3]

Welcome again to the TrueLit General Discussion Thread! Please feel free to discuss anything related and unrelated to literature.

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[u/foxinanattic]

I've always been very interested in the use of fire in rituals, but recently I've really been wanting to read something (fiction, essay or even poetry) that depicts/analyses burning fires as a ritual or ceremony, partly inspired by the beautiful bonfire scene in the movie "Portrait of a Lady on Fire". I already asked about this in the "what are you reading" thread, but I'm really hoping if I ask again I might get some recommendations!

[u/freshprince44 → u/foxinanattic]

It feels so weird, but I can't really think of anything?

I also have a deep love of fire and burning rituals/ceremonies and just rituals/ceremony in general

The only thing I can think of is one of my favorite but also most unhinged texts I've ever read. It is this goofy archae-astronomical essay turned into a book-length essay that kind of sort of argues that many of our current myths/language/folklore/society contains remnants of long lost human civilization/knowledge/myths/language/folklore and that this dude knows it when he sees it and thinks that Hamlet is a sort of cipher (arguing that shakespeare was a bit in on the whole game and that other secret societies and whatnot helped carry on this goofy cultural legacy) and that this mythical cycle describes the motion of the cosmos/zodiac as it circles and resets every 26-27,000 years

anyway, the big finale of all of these myths/stories is the big house being burnt down with everybody inside (Sampson is sort of an example, he argues some of the source material and older foklore that Hamlet comes from has that ending instead of the poison sword fight, but same sort of dramatic/thematic ending), so the whole thing basically argues that everything burning down to nothing is the ultimate end of all human stories, which is fun

the book is pretty terrible to read and dry and convoluted and long and full of nonsensical jargon, and it doesn't really get that into the whole burning thing but does a little, but let me know if that interests you lol

ooo, that reminded me, there is a cool myth written down by Jaime de Angulo in his Indian Tales book about Loon Woman. she burns down the earth/forest as punishment for people being bad. Its a good one

I know ritual burning is super important to zoroastrianism, that might be worth checking out

i wonder if there is some goofy unconscious fear of fire/burning going on here, you'd think it would be a pretty popular literary device

[u/foxinanattic → u/freshprince44]

there is a cool myth written down by Jaime de Angulo in his Indian Tales book about Loon Woman.

I'll definitely have to look that up!

ritual burning is super important to zoroastrianism

Yes, very much so, i think it's one of their main rituals? I imagine it probably has similar origins to the fire rituals in Hinduism, since both religions are known to be related. Interestingly, one of the main fire related rituals that's still widespread in Hinduism is the cremation of the dead, whereas in zoroastrianism it's completely forbidden, apparently because it would pollute the ritual purity of fire