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Bad Brujo

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Speaking of Cajamarca …

Although he did as much as possible to hide all information about his origins, Carlos Castaneda, whose books about the sorcery of a Yaqui Indian named Don Juan Matus were best sellers in the 1960s and 1970s, was actually born in Cajamarca, Peru. If I ever went there, I sincerely doubt there will be monuments or museums dedicated to him. Nonetheless, Northern Peru, about which I have been writing posts for the last week, is known for its brujos, or sorcerers.

I am currently re-reading in order of publication the books written by Castaneda. Even though it is generally known that there probably never was a Don Juan Matus, Carlos was in fact a spiritual leader whose work clicked with the American public of that time. And his work is in fact very interesting to me.

Do I care whether Castaneda was telling the literal truth? Not at all. But he was intent on describing a way of power that, in the end, caught him up in its web. I am also reading Amy Wallace’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda.

To be sure, Carlos would not have liked this tell-all biography, in which he is surrounded by a cadre of adoring females whom he dominates. But then, in it Carlos tells the tale of his encounter with Alan Watts, another more or less legitimate spiritual leader, who attempted to seduce him—even as Carlos seduced Amy Wallace and probably others.

One can point the way toward the path to be followed, even as one, being human, cannot follow it perfectly. In one of his works, he writes, “If [the warrior’s] spirit is distorted he should simply fix it-purge it, make it perfect-because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.”

Yes, but there is this problem about being human.

Letters: In Search of a Bolt-Hole

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Bruce Chatwin Writing

This is the first in a series of posts on literary letters. I have just finished reading Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin, edited by Chatwin’s wife Elizabeth and his biographer Nicholas Shakespeare.

When I started reading Bruce’s work, he was a hero to me. One of the mixed blessings of biography is that you are likely to find out some uncomplimentary facts about your heroes. This is definitely the case with Bruce, who lived an oddly compartmentalized kind of life. He was married, yet carried on numerous affairs with men and women, some of which were predatory. Although I still love his writing, I would feel uncomfortable with the man himself. (For more on this subject, I would refer to two postings by his late friend, Patrick Leigh-Fermor entitled Bruce Chatwin: Letters from a Fallen Angel (or, A Woman Scorned and Bruce Chatwin’s Journey to Mount Athos.

Reading his letters, I find almost half of them deal with Chatwin’s search for a comfortable place to live, where he can read and write—separately from his semi-estranged wife Elizabeth—and carry on affairs. There was no love lost between him and the land of his birth, England. In a letter to Patrick Leigh-Fermor, he writes:

At least I thought that going to England in August might lessen the shock, climatically. But no! Nothing but rain. Freezing cold. I went wind-surfing on a scummy little reservoir near Oxford, and my hands were white and numb after ten minutes. But what I miss the most are the mountains! The country round here is tolerably attractive, immaculately kept: but then you keep running up against the cooling towers of the Didcot [nuclear] power-station; the antennae of Greenham Common; the nuclear installations at Harwell—all of which give me the feelings of claustrophobia.

But then there doesn’t seem to be anyplace that suits. It’s either too hot or too noisy or too crowded with tourists or yadda-yadda-yadda. To his in-laws, he complains:

But I’m afraid this gypsyish life cannot go on. I shall have, whether I like it or not, to get a proper bolt-hole to work in. Otherwise I find I can fritter away six months at a time without achieving anything, and that only makes me very bad-tempered. In a way, I like being in Italy, but the climate’s quite tough in winter, and the villages (because I’m sure it must be in a village) are usually quite depressing. Our old stamping ground in the Basses-Alpes is not half bad. Uzès is another possibility. What it’ll mean, I’m afraid, is that the London flat will have to go. I’m after 3 rooms: one to sleep and work in; one to live in, and a spare room. It’ll have to have a terrace, somewhere to sit out at least; and walks in neighborhood.

Alas, Bruce died without finding his perfect bolt-hole in a land with perfect climate. Every place has its disadvantages, even Los Angeles. Last night, I was jolted awake at 12:03 am by a Richter 3.7 earthquake whose epicenter was only a few miles south of me. And so it goes!