I Confuse Myself

I was so happy just now to find that Martin has finally shown up in the new novel version of Hitherby.

I really don't understand my reactions to Martin.  Consciously, I'm not at all aware of liking him.  In fact, I find him really frightening.  But I'm fascinated by him.  But not for reasons as obvious as to why I have similar feelings about Ben Linus.

Reading _Alice_'s Footnotes

Maybe it's just me, but I find this a hilarious footnote in the heavily annotated edition of Alice's Adventures  in Wonderland that I'm now reading: "The Liddell children had a particularly distinguished drawing-master at this time, John Ruskin. . . ."  What an incredibly bizarre way to describe Ruskin, "a particularly distinguished drawing-master?"  Seriously?  Later on, the footnote says, "He taught Alice drawing in the deanery, lending her paintings of Turner to copy. . .," and I found that hilarious too, but that really is probably just me.  The thing is, most of my exposure to Ruskin was in my summer course back in high school on Victorian literature, where our big joke was that Ruskin suffered from profound lust for Turner because he just would not shut up in any of his work about how great Turner was. . . I suppose by this principle I myself suffer with profound lust for Byron, Shelley, Henry James, DWJ, Jenna Moran, Bowie and Kevin Barnes?

I also seriously had no idea that the Liddell in Alice Liddell was the same as the Liddell in Liddell-Scott.

Obviously, these are the kinds of things I am going to blog about.

Mists and Mellow Fruitlessness

I grew up in a temperate climate and spent the vast majority of my life in regions whose annual cycles were shaped by the passage of the seasons.  Living as I do now in the tropics, I obviously don't experience that so much anymore.  Of course, there are still annual cycles in my life.  Especially because I work as a teacher, the passage of time remains cyclical even without the drastic changes in weather and lighting that accompany such cycles further to the north and south.  And yet, of course, there's some visceral element that has been lacking over the past two and a half years, something that is not quite the same when the change you experience is only in your mind and not in your bones.

Except maybe not?  For a few weeks, unusual in the rain forest climate of the city where I live now, there was no rain.  The weather was unbearably hot and stifling.  And then yesterday, as August got over its hump and amiably ambled towards its close, the skies finally released their pent-up tension.  Once I saw the clouds and the inevitability of rain, I was already overjoyed that it would finally cool down.  And it was so pleasant to be outside yesterday evening and this morning after the rain, comfortable at last - at last!

Even in this tropical climate, November, December, and January form more of a rainy season when the frequent downpours and cloud cover keep the temperatures down a little.  Even before that, in October, rain is somewhat reliable, and the pollution from the burning of rain forests drifts over the city - something I suppose I should complain about, given that it definitely makes it harder to breathe, but that I can't help but partially appreciate for the cooling effect.  I guess now that I will soon achieve my third autumn in this country, I'm beginning to get used to the seasonal cycles, because I suddenly find myself, with this outburst of rain, looking forward more than I ever expected possible in a very visceral way to the advent of autumn.  I can almost feel it coming, just as much as I ever would in the more temperate countries I've inhabited in the past.  Although I suppose summer was my favorite season as a child just because of the absence of school, as an adult in temperate countries autumn has been my favorite season, especially the earlier autumn, September and October.  I'm exited to find myself transferring some of that affection to the tropical autumn in November, glad that I'm able to find some physical relation to life even in a place where the seasons as I know them are void.

But on the Other Hand

I mean, when I write sonnets about writing sonnets, they do not actually make use of water imagery!

I Only Ever Feel Tempted to Write Sonnets about Writing Sonnets. . .

The pleasure of the chains lies in the sense
Of pride one feels when doing something well.
For even when surrounded by a fence,
One can slip through the links and go to hell.
But transgression does offer its own thrill –
A nice escape’s a pleasurable thing.
It feels like an exertion of the will –
Like one’s caprice is now the reigning king.
One therefore must always balance the scales,
Leave room for pride and yet room for caprice.
A lack of caution may well end one’s tales
Or too much structure cause the soul to cease.
I feel a tightrope tension in this quest;
That’s why avoidance usually seems best.

_The Sacred Fount_

From the Wikipedia article on The Sacred Fount - "This strange, often baffling book concerns an unnamed narrator who attempts to discover the truth about the love lives of his fellow-guests at a weekend party in the English countryside. . . . many have expressed simple bewilderment over what, if anything, James was trying to accomplish in the novel. James himself said that the book was "calculated to minister to curiosity," but many have maintained that the novel does little or nothing to reward that curiosity. . . .  . Indeed in a letter dated March 15th 1901 to Mrs Humphry Ward James declared 'I say it in all sincerity – the book isn't worth discussing [...] I hatingly finished it; trying to make it – the one thing it could be – a consistent joke.'"


Honestly, it's a pretty amazing book - not that I would recommend it to you if you are not already a James fan.  But coming from my perspective it sort of corroborates everything I've ever believed about James.


Here's a quotation: "If I was free, that was what I had been only so short a time before, what I had been as I drove, in London, to the station. Was this now a foreknowledge that, on the morrow, in driving away, I should feel myself restored to that blankness? The state lost was the state of exemption from intense obsessions, and the state recovered would therefore logically match it. If the foreknowledge had thus, as by the stir of the air from my friend's whisk of her train, descended upon me, my liberation was in a manner what I was already tasting. Yet how I also felt, with it, something of the threat of a chill to my curiosity! The taste of its being all over, that really sublime success of the strained vision in which I had been living for crowded hours—was this a taste that I was sure I should particularly enjoy? Marked enough it was, doubtless, that even in the stress of perceiving myself broken with I ruefully reflected on all the more, on the ever so much, I still wanted to know!"  It's alarming the degree to which I can really empathize with the narrator as James describes him, even if one freely admits that my interests are rather different from his.  But frankly this book is the most accurate, persuasive description of what obsession/inspiration feels like for me that I have ever read.

"Kalifriki of the Thread"

Roger Zelazny's short story in the Hidden Turnings collection, edited by Diana Wynne Jones. I took this out from the library once or twice as a preteen. Then for years it was still listed on the library catalogue as being owned by the library, but the anthology itself had entirely disappeared from the shelves.

I think it says something about the story that I must have last read it well over fifteen years ago, and I have no memory whatsoever of the plot, but I totally still remember the name. I even correctly remembered how to spell "Kalifriki." I should really try to read that story again someday. . . .