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the busy dance of things that pass away
Nov. 7th, 2006 11:49 amPSA: My fellow Americans, remember to get out and VOTE today! As for the rest of you, please try not to ridicule us too much. Okay, go ahead and ridicule us; I know you want to.
Reading: Lately I've been reading Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. Kind of ironic given that (1) I don't travel that much, and (2) do Botton's book about Proust has the distinct feature of being one of those books that I derived not a goddamn thing from except vague pleasure--a literary macaroon. Only time will tell if this book leaves a similar impression, but so far it's leaving a good taste in my mouth. It's like a caramel fudge brownie. Mmmm, brownies. What was I saying?
Anyway, one of the chapters in The Art of Travel is about Flaubert's famous trip to Egypt (contrasted with the author's more pedestrian trip to Amsterdam), and it's chock full of wonderfully melodramatic quotes from the great francophobe: "At the end of the day, shit. With that mighty word, you can console yourself for all human miseries, so I enjoy repeating it: shit, shit." Flaubert might have got on swimmingly with Al Swearengen. And: "My life, which in my dreams is so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love, will turn out to be like everyone else's: monotonous, sensible, stupid." Sucks to be Flaubert, you know?
But he articulates a dilemma, a state of being, that is somewhat typical for writers: These ideas, images, thoughts that share the provenance of the mind always seems so much more alluring and attractive than real life, and despite our best efforts it's hard to import those wonderful things in our brains to either life or the written page.
Which leads me to...
NanNoBlowsMo: So far this seems to be a disaster. All I have is a draft that needed serious gutting, an underfed notebook of scribbled scenes and phrases and titles, and the insane idea of inserting a mini-operetta in the middle of it all. [Flaubert to his lover: "What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I'm essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous..."]
I'm not giving up, but I'm not feeling very encouraged either. Admittedly, it's my own fault and I haven't been managing time very well. I've been caught up in "the busy dance of things that pass away."--in a chapter on Wordsworth and the Lake District, de Botton also scares up some more good quotes from that poet. It made me go back and quickly reread Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey":
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.
Maybe I just need to get my Wordsworth on.
Reading: Lately I've been reading Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. Kind of ironic given that (1) I don't travel that much, and (2) do Botton's book about Proust has the distinct feature of being one of those books that I derived not a goddamn thing from except vague pleasure--a literary macaroon. Only time will tell if this book leaves a similar impression, but so far it's leaving a good taste in my mouth. It's like a caramel fudge brownie. Mmmm, brownies. What was I saying?
Anyway, one of the chapters in The Art of Travel is about Flaubert's famous trip to Egypt (contrasted with the author's more pedestrian trip to Amsterdam), and it's chock full of wonderfully melodramatic quotes from the great francophobe: "At the end of the day, shit. With that mighty word, you can console yourself for all human miseries, so I enjoy repeating it: shit, shit." Flaubert might have got on swimmingly with Al Swearengen. And: "My life, which in my dreams is so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love, will turn out to be like everyone else's: monotonous, sensible, stupid." Sucks to be Flaubert, you know?
But he articulates a dilemma, a state of being, that is somewhat typical for writers: These ideas, images, thoughts that share the provenance of the mind always seems so much more alluring and attractive than real life, and despite our best efforts it's hard to import those wonderful things in our brains to either life or the written page.
Which leads me to...
NanNoBlowsMo: So far this seems to be a disaster. All I have is a draft that needed serious gutting, an underfed notebook of scribbled scenes and phrases and titles, and the insane idea of inserting a mini-operetta in the middle of it all. [Flaubert to his lover: "What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I'm essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous..."]
I'm not giving up, but I'm not feeling very encouraged either. Admittedly, it's my own fault and I haven't been managing time very well. I've been caught up in "the busy dance of things that pass away."--in a chapter on Wordsworth and the Lake District, de Botton also scares up some more good quotes from that poet. It made me go back and quickly reread Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey":
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.
Maybe I just need to get my Wordsworth on.
