In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

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after his Death, and feels a burning desire for immortality and eternity.
[see Present = Past (Eternity)] The German critic Ernst Robert Curtius
considers Unamuno one of the most important philosophers of his
time-precisely because Unamuno keeps aloof from the ever-accelerating
pace of historical time and change [see Past vs. Present]:
The authentic, strong, impressive element in Unamuno's religiosity is
his longing for eternity. If this eternal need of the soul has found new
expression in an age fallen into "temporal relativity," we owe it to
Unamuno. Many of us may not feel this need. But others will associate
a feeling of liberation with Unamuno's voice, which, in our enlightened,
skeptical, sophisticated Europe, remains unimpressed by the criticisms
of common sense and the cautious gestures of erudition. Among European
intellectuals, it is not considered tactful to talk about death and
eternity. But isn't this repression the cause of many of our sufferings?
In essence, Unamuno's ... hunger for immortality is nothing but the
instinct for survival. He does not want to die. (Curtius, 239-240)
The other reaction to the absence of Transcendence and the presence
of Death in human existence is the decision to confront Death deliberately.
This is the attitude that T. E. Lawrence learns to embrace during
the war in Arabia: "Blood was always on our hands; we were licensed
to it. Wounding and killing seemed ephemeral pains, so very brief and
sore was life with us. With the sorrow of living so great, the sorrow of
punishment has to be pitiless. We lived for the day and died for it ...
Bedouin ways were hard even for those brought up to them, and for
strangers terrible: a death in life" (T. E. Lawrence, 31). There are less
dramatic, middle-class ways of making Death a part of life. One might,
for example, compose meticulous instructions for the disposal of one's
corpse (Crane, 11-12). [see Cremation] Or one might found a discussion
group devoted to Death, as do Jack Dempsey's friends Grantland Rice,
Ring Lardner, and Gene Fowler: "The exclusive Morticians Club ... met
several times a week to discuss the intriguing aspects of death and its
after-effects. Rice was the supreme fatalist; with Lardner and Fowler he
would sit around poking fun at death. The high incidence of those dying
slow and painful deaths from bad rotgut gave them overabundant food
for thought while they sat and drank" (Dempsey and Dempsey, 185).
The eagerness to confront Death-an obsession for wealthy Ameri-