A River Sutra
Michelle Vernon
The Creative Process
Ms. Vance
September 16, 2013
A River Sutra
In what ways is our narrator’s life and experiment now the Creative Process?
The narrator exemplifies the creative process in many ways throughout the book, including his management of the Narmada guesthouse. In his venture out of the urbanized life of a bureaucrat to a vanaprasthi manager a rest house near the Narmada River, our narrator encounters people that deepen his understanding of the world around him (p. 1). My definition of the creative process is the enhancement of knowledge in a way that makes you more than you were before and how you deal with the hardships that are thrown before you. In listening to the natives tell their stories our narrator was able to absorb the experiences of the teller’s as well as the significances of their stories, and in effect his mind was enhanced with their wisdom allowing him to live the creative process. Our narrator was “[destined to be] brought [to the] banks of the Narmada to understand the world” (p. 268), instead of flee from it like he had expected to do when he left the city. He was enriched with a knowledge that can’t be duplicated in books but only in the verbal representation of the stories.
Who or what situations in A River Sutra are the most interesting or complex examples to me of loss? While taking in the vast beauty of the Narmada River our narrator encounters a Jain Monk named Ashok. The story that the monk tells our narrator involves a man who was so sickened by his lifestyle that he renounced the world to be made anew so that he could truly live. The monk tells our narrator “to prevent suffering a man must be capable of suffering, that a man who cannot suffer is not alive”(p. 35). Ashok gave up money and a wife to be a monk, because to be a monk is to be “free from doubt”, “free from delusion”, and “free from extremes” (p. 41). This decision captivates me because Ashok made a selfish decision to leave his
The Creative Process
Ms. Vance
September 16, 2013
A River Sutra
In what ways is our narrator’s life and experiment now the Creative Process?
The narrator exemplifies the creative process in many ways throughout the book, including his management of the Narmada guesthouse. In his venture out of the urbanized life of a bureaucrat to a vanaprasthi manager a rest house near the Narmada River, our narrator encounters people that deepen his understanding of the world around him (p. 1). My definition of the creative process is the enhancement of knowledge in a way that makes you more than you were before and how you deal with the hardships that are thrown before you. In listening to the natives tell their stories our narrator was able to absorb the experiences of the teller’s as well as the significances of their stories, and in effect his mind was enhanced with their wisdom allowing him to live the creative process. Our narrator was “[destined to be] brought [to the] banks of the Narmada to understand the world” (p. 268), instead of flee from it like he had expected to do when he left the city. He was enriched with a knowledge that can’t be duplicated in books but only in the verbal representation of the stories.
Who or what situations in A River Sutra are the most interesting or complex examples to me of loss? While taking in the vast beauty of the Narmada River our narrator encounters a Jain Monk named Ashok. The story that the monk tells our narrator involves a man who was so sickened by his lifestyle that he renounced the world to be made anew so that he could truly live. The monk tells our narrator “to prevent suffering a man must be capable of suffering, that a man who cannot suffer is not alive”(p. 35). Ashok gave up money and a wife to be a monk, because to be a monk is to be “free from doubt”, “free from delusion”, and “free from extremes” (p. 41). This decision captivates me because Ashok made a selfish decision to leave his