ARTICLE
The
Printed Book and the Virtual Book
The
Virtual Book -
BE, by Alfredo Karras
[Translated from Portuguese]
I read my first ebook recently. It was the opuscule Be,
by Alfredo Karras, a writer and cartoonist who lives in Cubatão.
He is the first native author to contract this new form of
publication to a foreign publisher. In truth, I didn't receive
the work to read on a computer, but printed on paper. To read
the work, I needed to put it in a plastic cover and spiral
for better conservation. Text and illustrations together total
53 pages. The work is a direct descendent from the famous Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, by Richard Bach. Cubatão's
disciple goes beyond the master by subsituting people for
that lot of seagulls lost in metaphors and aeronautic's acrobatics
expressions, deserving more of being shot than admiration.
Karras's book unites idealism with appreciation of current
philosophies — e.g., rationalism, determinism —
and discloses a strong spiritist influence. A Kardecist's
son, I always search not just the doctrinal books, but the
fictional too; people charged to divulge the doctrine. Therefore,
it wasn't hard for me to recognize certain signals —
spiritual brotherhood, evolution of the spirits, Law of Return,
forgetfulness of previous life, choice of evolution through
pain or love, reincarnation with marks of the previous life
— and identify the source.
The printed book and the virtual, this better than that, recalls
the old Platonic myth of the cave. The person who lived in
the darkness and discovered more about the projected shadows
is mocked when he returns to explain his discoveries and enlighten
those who continue in the darkness. The seagull who flies
higher is expelled from the flock but returns to direct the
seagulls of the same inclination. The knight obtains some
spiritual evolution through the company and reunion with people
of superior spirits and continues his pilgrimage seeking to
enlighten the people he comes across, suffering painful consequences.
The difference consists in the fact that Bach's work is just
a mere volume of sub-literature, while with Karras's book,
such are the united links and expression of ideas, that this
can be a good introduction to meditation for teenagers, if
they are so inclined. It is obvious that is not suffice to
just read the work; it will be necessary to dissect its content
— from there the progress of the reader.
- Ricardo de Mattos
This
article was published by Digestivo Cultural on 26
August 2004 and appears courtesy of Digestivo
Cultural |
