Re: ‘When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there’

[His Highness the Wise TibetanMonkey, Most Humble Philosopher]

On Jun 15, 11:12 am, "His Highness the Wise TibetanMonkey, Most Humble
Philosopher" <thetibetanmon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 15, 6:27 am, Steve Hayes <hayes...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>
> > Why write anything in the message body when you can put everything you want to
> > utter in the subject line?
>
> That's the subject AND the whole story...
>
> ‘When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there’
>
> http://blogs.rediff.com/pgr/tag/augusto-monterroso-shortest-short-sto...
>
> That's a story by a Latin-American award-winning writer know for his
> "animal stories." Why do you need to say more? The dinosaur was still
> there! What a genius!
>
> I think we know what he means, right? That stupid dinosaur won't go
> away! This is certainly a subject for philosophers.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://webspawner.com/users/BANANAREVOLUTION

This is a great topic to start a debate or at least a monologue.
Monologues have a place in classic literature and they have the
advantage of saying whatever you want. If no smart people ask the
question, "Are there dinosaurs among us?" "How many?" then you get the
chance to reply anyway. Remember, smart people ask "why," which is
what separates the philosophers from the sheep.

Anyway, I think there are 3 or perhaps 4 dinosaurs, the criteria being
"wasteful" and "big," and they all follow the path of the leader, the
Tyrannosaurus Rex.

About the story of the Dinosaur itself we may as well follow this
interesting analysis:

'What is the point of view in terms of level of reality in this story?
The narrative is situated in the plane of the fantastic, since in the
real world you and I inhabit, it is improbable that prehistoric
animals that appeared in our dreams–or in our nightmares–would turn up
as an objective reality, and that we should encounter them in the
flesh at the foot of our beds when we opened our eyes. It’s clear,
then, that the level of reality of the narrative is an imaginary or
fantastic reality. Is the narrator (omniscient and impersonal)
situated on the same plane? We could venture to say that he is not,
that he establishes himself instead on a real or realist plane–in
other words, one that is essentially opposite and contrary to that of
the narrative. How do we know this? By the tiniest but most
unmistakable of indications, a signal or hint that the careful
narrator gives the reader as he tells his pared-down tale: the adverb,
‘still’. The word doesn’t just define an objective temporal
circumstance, indicating a miraculous occurrence (the passage of the
dinosaur from a dreamworld to objective reality). It is also a call to
attention, a display of surprise or astonishment at the remarkable
event. Monterroso’s still is flanked by invisible exclamation points
and implicitly urges us to be surprised by the amazing thing that has
happened. (”Notice, all of you, what is going on: the dinosaur is
still there, when it’s obvious that it shouldn’t be, since in true
reality things like this don’t happen; they are only possible in a
fantastic reality.”) This is how we know the narrator is narrating
from an objective reality; if he weren’t, he wouldn’t induce us
through the knowing use of an amphibious adverb (still ) to take note
of the transition of the dinosaur from dream to life, from the
imaginary to the tangible.'

***

What would happen if you and I woke up from this terrible nightmare
and found the dinosaur to be gone? How about the other dinosaurs?
Would they occupy the place of the Tyrannosaurus Rex? What's going in
that little brain --primitive I may say-- of the dinosaur? Is he aware
of himself? Is he aware of others?

Deep, deep questions!