I am listening to D. Eric Maikranz's "The Reincarnationist Papers" on Audible (Audible is my driving companion) and this bit of dialogue made me think of you and what you like to read and write about. I searched for it in my Kindle to cut and paste here. It is an interesting novel. I thought you would find the passage interesting.
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“Do you still feel that way?”
“What way?”
“That you must spurn them,” I said, pointing across the sea as though the rest of the world lay in wait beyond it.
He nodded slowly for several seconds. “Evan, ours is an inherently lonely existence, because of what we are.”
“And what’s that?” I asked quickly.
He turned toward me as though surprised at my question. “Why do you ask that question of me when you already possess the answer? We are the singers of goat songs. We are Zeus’s Dioscuri sons,” (34) he said, his voice rising with emotion.
I narrowed my eyes at him, confused.
He shook his head impatiently. “We are their victims, their hostages,” he said, pointing beyond the sea as I had done. He faced straight ahead and took a deep breath to collect himself. “It is all so different now, Evan. At times it is difficult to know where we stand in a remade world. Yes, quite difficult.
“The Greeks and Egyptians of my youth believed in the transmigration of the soul, they believed in us, or at least the possibility of us. But those days are gone, and now the true tragedy is that their beliefs, which served us so well, have failed them so miserably. That failure is because the standards of those beliefs were too low, too tangible. You see, if their godly goals are not high enough, then the common man can stand on tipped toes and touch the top of the portico, dwarfing all gods within. At that point, the system becomes valueless and without hope. In the end, those men who, through courage, had stood as tall as their gods, eventually showed cowardice and slunk away from the mirror, not in fear, but in loathing, for their once lofty gods now showed the same tangible flaws as their aspiring worshippers.
“Their problem with our limited divinity, if there is any divinity within us, is that they will see what we have as too modest a goal. Lately, I find myself wondering if they are not right.”
….
Footnote 34: When Clovis uses the term “the singers of goat songs” he is likely referring to the origins of tragedy, specifically the ancient Greek meaning which is tragōidiā contracted from trag(o)-aoidiā = “goat song” from tragos = “goat” and aeidein = “to sing.” “We are Zeus’s Dioscuri sons.” Here Clovis is likely referring to a little-known fact about the Greek gods and twin brothers Castor and Pollux (the Dioscuri), in that they spent alternate days as gods on Olympus and as deceased mortals in Hades.
D. Eric Maikranz. The Reincarnationist Papers (p. 305). Kindle Edition.
I am listening to D. Eric Maikranz's "The Reincarnationist Papers" on Audible (Audible is my driving companion) and this bit of dialogue made me think of you and what you like to read and write about. I searched for it in my Kindle to cut and paste here. It is an interesting novel. I thought you would find the passage interesting.
========
“Do you still feel that way?”
“What way?”
“That you must spurn them,” I said, pointing across the sea as though the rest of the world lay in wait beyond it.
He nodded slowly for several seconds. “Evan, ours is an inherently lonely existence, because of what we are.”
“And what’s that?” I asked quickly.
He turned toward me as though surprised at my question. “Why do you ask that question of me when you already possess the answer? We are the singers of goat songs. We are Zeus’s Dioscuri sons,” (34) he said, his voice rising with emotion.
I narrowed my eyes at him, confused.
He shook his head impatiently. “We are their victims, their hostages,” he said, pointing beyond the sea as I had done. He faced straight ahead and took a deep breath to collect himself. “It is all so different now, Evan. At times it is difficult to know where we stand in a remade world. Yes, quite difficult.
“The Greeks and Egyptians of my youth believed in the transmigration of the soul, they believed in us, or at least the possibility of us. But those days are gone, and now the true tragedy is that their beliefs, which served us so well, have failed them so miserably. That failure is because the standards of those beliefs were too low, too tangible. You see, if their godly goals are not high enough, then the common man can stand on tipped toes and touch the top of the portico, dwarfing all gods within. At that point, the system becomes valueless and without hope. In the end, those men who, through courage, had stood as tall as their gods, eventually showed cowardice and slunk away from the mirror, not in fear, but in loathing, for their once lofty gods now showed the same tangible flaws as their aspiring worshippers.
“Their problem with our limited divinity, if there is any divinity within us, is that they will see what we have as too modest a goal. Lately, I find myself wondering if they are not right.”
….
Footnote 34: When Clovis uses the term “the singers of goat songs” he is likely referring to the origins of tragedy, specifically the ancient Greek meaning which is tragōidiā contracted from trag(o)-aoidiā = “goat song” from tragos = “goat” and aeidein = “to sing.” “We are Zeus’s Dioscuri sons.” Here Clovis is likely referring to a little-known fact about the Greek gods and twin brothers Castor and Pollux (the Dioscuri), in that they spent alternate days as gods on Olympus and as deceased mortals in Hades.
D. Eric Maikranz. The Reincarnationist Papers (p. 305). Kindle Edition.
https://ericmaikranz.com/
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I still can't match the movie adaptation (Infinite, 2021) with the novel. Not sure what they did there...
Alonso, these are very good!