Jim Willis

I just rushed through this book. All the time I was reading it I thought to myself that I would be doing both myself and Chucky B a tremendous disservice if I didn’t go back and re-read it a second time and take some notes. I heard this line the other day,I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

That’s sort of the way I feel about taking notes on books nowadays. I read and I forget. I underline and I remember, I comment and note and I understand. So with the goal in mind of understanding perhaps a little bit better, I’m walking, not running, through the Intimate Journals a second time. The first thing that hit me about the journals was the introduction by WH Auden. He talks about Baudelaire’s attempt to reconcile the two types of individuality present in each of us; the individuality that is inherent in our human nature and the individuality aspired to by our human spirit. Meaning this: that each of us, by basis of our human nature, is an individual. We need do nothing to obtain this individuality, we are born with it and need only to live to hold onto it. But w/r/t the individuality that is the aspiration of our human spirit, Auden says that individual means to become what one wills, to have a self-determined history.

Perhaps we are born with this inclination, but we struggle our entire lives to manifest this type of individuality. Auden goes onto say that because each of us possess (or perhaps is possessed by both human nature and spirit), our lives are spent determining the relative importance of each and how to reconcile them. Baudelaire separates the hero ( the dandy, to use B’s anachronism) and the anti-hero as such

There appears at first to be a slew of contradictions. I thought there was until I read the journals and found that what attracts me to Baudelaire is that he is chock full of contradictions. For example, he was religious as all hell, but was also a fountain of such blasphemies as calling God the ultimate prostitute. But in a way his logic always works out at a level where you can see where he’s coming from. Auden concludes that Baudelaire’s idea of the hero is such that the hero must first have certain gifts of fortune (money, free-time, leisure) and must have the will to become what he aspires toward. The hero is neither a man of action nor a seeker of wisdom, wishes neither to be admired by man or to know God, but simple wishes to become subjectively conscious of being uniquely himself, and unlike anyone else. There is a lot of Baudelaire that I don’t agree with, a lot that must be swallowed with a grain of salt about the size of a Volkswagon– a lot that requires quite a bit of forgiveness and understanding on the part of the modern reader (though one gets the feeling that B would want nothing of the modern reader’s forgiveness or understanding). But what he’s ultimately saying is that the crowds, the masses, the general publics are all full of shit and amidst those crowds and masses the artist, the poet or the hero must constantly ask themselves:

What do I wish to become and how do I set about doing it?

What I think makes me feel particularly close to Baudelaire are his comments on acedia and the regret and despair he feels at his lack of motivation. One one day’s entry he makes promises to himself that he surely (as I do) plans on keeping, but then (like I do) writes the following day how he was incapable of keeping up with even the most basic discipline. This, coupled with the syphilis and the opium, is probably what leads him to madness. He writes on January 23, 1862:

I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror and today I have received a singular warning. I have felt the wind of the wind of madness pass over me.

He was a great admirer of E. A. Poe. I think he translated a bunch of Poe’s stuff into French. Regardless, the wind of the wing of madness must feel like Poe breathing down the back of his neck. Nonetheless, despite B’s inability to follow through on his observations and aspirations he remarks a lot about discipline that is worth noting:  

The more one desires, the stronger one’s will. The more one works, the better one works and the more one wants to work. The more one produces, the more fecund one becomes. How many have been the presentiments and signs sent me already by God that it is high time to act, to consider the present moment as the most important of all moments and take for my everlasting delight my accustomed torment, that is to say, my work! We are weight down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: Pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. The more we employ one of these means, the more the other will inspire us with repugnance. No task seems long but that which one dares not begin. It becomes a nightmare. He’s also making these lists throughout the journal. I think that one’s to-do lists tell a lot more about someone than photographs or biographies and the such. The following comes from one day’s list:  

Do, every day, what duty and prudence dictate.

If you worked every day your life would be more supportable.

Work six days without relaxing.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

First make a start, then apply logic and analysis.

Every hypothesis demands a conclusion. To achieve a daily madness.

Here are some more remarks from his journals:  

The habit of doing one’s duty drives out fear.

One must desire to dream and know how to dream,.

Immediate work, even when it is bad, is better than day-dreaming.

A succession of small acts of will achieves a large result.

The Walking Tour

Kathryn Davis

Monday, January 15, 2001 

The cover blurb for The Walking Tour leads you to believe that it is a story about two couples that go to Wales on a walking tour of the countryside. During that tour, so says the blurb, a fatal accident occurs. ItÕs not like the blurb lies about whatÕs between the two covers, but rather, it oversimplifies it to the point of absurdity.

The two couples consist of Bobby Rose, a hardcore business-type; his wife, Carole Ridingham, an artist of certain fame; BobbyÕs business partner, Coleman Snow; and his wife, a would-be-writer, Ruth Farr. The tension between these four characters is enough to drive the suspense along. The story is narrated by CaroleÕs daughter, Susan. My best guess is that the events in the story happened maybe 50 years prior to the narration. And since the events in the story being narrated assume a fairly technologically evolved America (about present-day), my guess is that the story is being narrated about 50 years in the future.

There are two things that cause a certain amount of confusion in my reading of the book. The first is the quality of the language. Sentences are constructed so musically that the melody distracts from their intended meaning. This is not a shortcoming of the author, but rather my own fault for getting so wrapped up in the language. The other element that really confuses is the aggressively playful foreshadowing that goes on throughout the book. You know from the onset that some sort of tragedy is going to occur, but you donÕt know when and you donÕt know who suffers the Òfatal accident.Ó Throughout the book though the author uses countless techniques to provide the reader with hints and ominous clues, clear enough to make putting down the book next to impossible, but with enough opacity so that you are never really certain when itÕs going to happen or to whom.

There are two reoccurring ideas in the book that they lead me to believe that they offer some clue as to what the book is about:

The first idea manifests itself in painting. ItÕs something called repentance. As defined by the author: repentance occurs when the last application of paintÑwhich usually happens to be thick and opaque and is, consequently, the one used for the face of things such as people or watchesÑbeings to turn transparent, and ghosts begin leaking through.

The other is the business that Bobby and Coleman are involved in. Namely; a method that allows readers to interact with immediacy to whatever they are reading, to edit it, change it and reconstruct it as their interpretation seems fit.

What both of these things have in common is the illusion that there is any permanent surface to reality. With Bobby and ColemanÕs invention, any authorÕs original intent breaks down, with repentance, the painterÕs intended final picture changes over time to reveal the underlying action that led to that final intent, blurring the process and the outcome into some simultaneously arising series of events seen all at once–cause and effect are the same gesture. What adds to the confusion of digesting the plot of this novel is that the reader is expected to be able to view the simultaneous arising of cause and effect (though interesting that the author makes several opaque references to Buddhism in the book). Not something all that easily achieved, though the author does an incredible job at trying to make it feasible for the reader.

When cause and effect are witnessed in a single gesture, what does this say about morality? Can Susan, who is effected by some action of her motherÕs, ever accurately judge her without being able to see the entirety of her actions? I think the book is dealing with the question of morality and how it is largely impossible for us to judge anyoneÕs actions without seeing the entirety of the cause and effect. 

Throughout the book details of a court hearing are mentioned. The court case regards the notion of whether or not the fatal outcome of the walking tour was a ÒforeseeableÓ outcome. The book argues that nothing is really foreseeable unless we are able to completely grasp all the causes that led to the tragic effect, which may or may not be possible. As every life is somehow intertwined with all causes and effects, there is no way to point an accusing finger at someone else without pointing at everyone, yourself included.

Another thing that comes to mind here is the state of world in which the narrator lives. She lives in New England (Maine?) and makes several references to the environment and everyday life that seem to indicate that the future is not the most wonderful place to live. There seem to be odd storms that blow in and dogs all have legs that are too short and it causes health problems and the authorÕs description of shopping for groceries at the IGA is reminiscent of soviet breadlines. There is also the reference to a strange class or group of people called Strags, that seem to be something of a homeless population gone berserk. But the narrator doesnÕt complain about these things as much as she simply describes them, as if this is simply how things are and nothing can be done about it. ItÕs not her fault that the quality of the world has somehow declined. Rather it is the fault of everyone who has ever lived before her and failed to act without trying to simultaneously witness the cause and effects of their actions.

I think the point of all this musical language though, is to point us to the problems of seeing the world as if it is a place where anything occurs with certainty. It raises the question: What can we be sure of? And answers: nothing. ItÕs not really as dark as I make it sound though. ItÕs sort of playful in its approach to the question of impermanence and illusion.

early 2000s? Not sure when i read/wrote this but definitely before 2002

I could be cynical as hell and say Hey, Annie! Ain’t this book already been written once by Hank Thoreau? But there’s little point in cynicism since it’s only really appropriate when the speaker has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about but is just dying to appear as an expert. But anyway.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is not fiction. It’s a sort of journal. A really, really good journal kept by someone who can write like a banshee. Dillard lives in the woods for a few seasons and documents the changes and minutia of a creek that passes through her woods. She is there to be astounded and shares her various astonishments in this sorta-journal.

So right now, you’re probably thinking, So what the hell would I want to read some granola freak’s journal fer anyway? 

Well, for one thing, she’s got some very cool things to say, I quote:I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.

AndNo, I’ve gone through this a million times, beauty is not a hoax—how many days have I leaned not to stare at the back of my hand when I could look out at the creek? Come on, I say to the creek, surprise me; and it does, with each new drop. Beauty is real. I would never deny it; the appalling thing is that I forget it.

In about a zillion different ways and using a zillion different scenarios Dillard tells the reader: pay attention! I’d tend to agree with her but the problem for me is in deciding what to pay attention to. Dillard (I think) addresses this issue with a quote from Thomas Merton: There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues. She describes how easy it is to “diddle around in life making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end.” I think the trap she warns against is not so much paying attention to the wrong things, but rather paying attention in the wrong way. I think there are perhaps two ways of paying attention: In one way you watch each moment unfold, commenting, critiquing and cataloging so that you can later remember it. In the other mode of attention, you simply watch the moment unfold—no narration. The first method leads to itsy-bitsy statues; the later to a life that is bright and extravagant and dangerous.

Dillard says:The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. And then you walk fearlessly, eating what you must, growing wherever you can, like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is, who takes no comfort among death-forgetting men, and who carries his vision of vastness and might around in his tunic like a live coal which neither burns nor warms him, but with which he will not part.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? The world is real and beautiful. We see this all the time when we pay attention. The problem is that we forget more often than not to pay attention.

Notes on Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Wednesday, June 14, 2000

The story of Mrs. Dalloway unfolds against the metronome of Big Ben striking out time. Individual moments are made static against a fluid background of ever advancing time. And how does one reconcile the dissonance between memories of static moments against a reality that is always flowing in one direction. The man made world, Big Ben, the shops and sights of London seem to indicate that time only moves in one direction but our inner world is always moving in multiple directions simultaneously. There is dissonance between the outer world and the inner world especially with regard to the perception of how time proceeds. The characters live in a world in which time appears to move only in one direction but a deeper seeing, memories and awareness of individual moments don’t seem to validate or support that time is only moving in one direction.

The difficulty of deciding what is important is increased because of this dissonance. If outwardly we perceive time to be always rushing forward, we too must rush with it, anticipating the next moment, always waiting for something. But if our inner world tells us time is much more fluid than this, where then do we focus out attention. The rush of the outer world tells us we are mistaken, irresponsible even, to focus on the present moment. As such, the characters, each in their own way are asking: “What is enough?”

What is meant by proportion? Odd that while it seems to stem from propriety, the root is different. Is the meaning still implied though?

Septimus: most interesting character for me next to Mrs. D. Does he parallel Sally, Peter’s and Clarissa’s failed attempts at life lived outside of proportion?

Saturday, May 6, 2000

Padget Powell, Edisto

This is my third read of Powell’s Edisto and my first time really even coming close to understanding what is going on in the book. The difficulty, I see now in hindsight, is that the book covers so many different subject areas that it took me several readings to pick up on each level to see what was going on. The pages of Edisto address (and these are ranked in my order of perceived importance): the nature of learning and the development of self, race relations, class relations, marriage and parenting. 

On the novel as a whole, I am reminded of both Hardy’s ability to paint a vivid locale as well as his ability to really define characters, even the minor/secondary ones.

With regard to the books addressing the nature of learning and the development of self:

(from page 84 where Simons reflects on his time with Taurus)That’s the thing I learned from him during those days: you can wait to know something like waiting for a dream to surface in the morning, which if you jump up and wonder hard you will never remember, but if you just lie there and listen to the suck-pump chop of the surf ad the peppering and the palm thrashing and feel the rising glare of the Atlantic heat, you can remember all the things of the night. But if you go around beating the world with questions like a reporter or federal oral history junior sociologist number two pencil electronic keyout asshole, all the answers will go back into mystery like fiddlers into pluff mud.

Taurus’ sit back and watch without judgement way of the world becomes something that Simons seeks to emulate and it serves as a good form of protection for when, at the close of the novel, surrounded by the pompous clods who populate the 19^th hole. Instead of judging them, he turns their arrogance into a path of learning

(page 182-183)you never see these guys fold their arms and smoke and look for hours at a wall, knowing they don’t know the whole alphabet of success, have all the piece. They know the whole alphabet of worldly maneuver.And how, I have to find out, did they ever come to think they know that?

Another example of the book’s take on the development of self comes when Simons realizes the difference between himself, Taurus and the men who hang out at the Baby Grand: (Page 176)I had one of those white hearts that lub-dub this way: then—next ; and Taurus had one of these that go now—next; and the guys at the Grand when now—now. And you can’t change that with decisions to be cool. You can’t get to that now—now without a congenital blessing or disease, whichever applies.

Which takes us into a deeper look at the role that race relations play in the book. I don’t think that Powell is making any assertions about blacks in general here. I do think that the now—now lubdub that he refers to is more contingent upon where, when and how someone is raised than the color of their skin. But still, it raises some interesting issues. Especially when taken together with the sit back and watch without judgement perspective manifest in Taurus. 

Meaning, Taurus sees the world without prejudice. It’s not that he is incapable of discerning the differences between individuals, but rather he waits for those differences to be raised by the situation instead of applying them without evidence. And in this sense, I think the book paints an incredible positive picture of what the world could be like if it were populated with Taurus’ instead of people who went into situations with their own preconceived notions of how other people will act.

11/19/1999 9:00AM

It was around 10 o’clock by the time I got in last night. I was just getting back from a Moroccan cooking class, feeling full from several consecutive hours of North African feasting.

The feverish flu that hounded me all day long was chased away by the distraction of food. Perhaps the cinnamon and cayenne kicked the flu out of me? I thought to myself as I got out of my car. A brief, ephemeral cloud of a thought that was quickly blown off shore by a more serious thought-front moving through; one that called into question my future as a writer. I played my key-choice-as-omen-of-writing-future game whereby I stand on my front porch and arbitrarily pick a key from my key chain and if said key unlocks my front door, I interpret it as an indication that I should continue to apply pen to paper with due diligence. Had it not fit, I’d still be writing this morning, albeit with an even thicker, more ominous cloud of self-doubt than the one that never fails to deny the muses to shine down on me unfiltered. Needless to say, the key fit and I once again basked in the hope that inspiration stood waiting around just the next corner.

After filling my wife in on the evening’s exotic dishes, we went to bed. I remember turning off the light and standing over my side of the bed, my hands fumbling around the nightstand, hunting among the precarious stonehenge of picture frames for my earplugs (sharing a bedroom with our boxer Emily, who clearly suffers from a bizarre manifestation of canine sleep apnea is like trying to sleep in a factory).

At this exact moment my wife informed me that Paul Bowles was dead. Huh, I said. Not the huh with an implied question mark that indicates disbelief, but the huh of finality that denotes the audible period of a sentence begun at some unremembered point in the past and is only now winding its way around to some sort of terminus.

As a wave of neurochems washed through my brain, cultivating a response to this news, my wife pointed out the irony of my attendance at the aforementioned Moroccan gastronomy exploration on the same day of Bowles’ death. I was several steps behind her on this one, as I usually am several leapthoughts behind her anyway. I further confess that I was at the moment still trying to uncover whether or not I had any idea that Bowles was still living when I learned of his death.

All of which points to the strange relationship between authors and the readers of their books. I stood over my bed, earplugs warming, compressing in my hands. I had the unmistakable feeling that a friend of mine had just died, a friend who’s existence I was never that sure of to begin with.

I am at my very core a pathetically lazy reader. I can’t honestly recall more than a couple of books that I’ve read by Bowles. Only two books, specifically Sheltering Sky and some longish essay on modern Morocco, are distilled from my recollection. Still, my life is fundamentally different because he lived and wrote and I read what he wrote.

At least once a week, Bowles’ telling of the three sisters and their pursuit of tea in the Sahara finds a way to imbue some event in my life with meaning that would be lost had I not read Sheltering Sky. I can’t count the number of times my grasping for some experience removed from the pedestrian has been either instigated or squelched by recounting the fictional lives of Port and Kit.

Knowing that Bowles spent some part of his life traveling through Africa in search of indigenous music that transcended the commonplace, and consequently inspired the listener to transcend, etc., it is impossible to avoid reading Port’s life as a parallel to Bowles’ own life. When Port says, ” Everyone makes the life he wants,” it is near impossible to imagine Bowles disagreeing with his character’s take on fortune and fate. As such, finding myself in a convergence of events that simultaneously seems out of my control and calls the meaning of my life in to question, I am urged optimistically forward by Bowles’ creepy but knowing voice to decide how I would wish my life to be instead of leaving it to chance and blaming outside forces later.

I have, at least in my own private thoughts and recollections, so thoroughly confused Port and Bowles that the former seems more real than fictional creation I know him to be and the latter seems too knowing to be anything but the creation of a masterful novelist. 

No doubt, Bowles’ appearance at the end of Bertolucci’s beautiful (but full of shortcomings) cinematic interpretation of Sheltering Sky contributes to my uncontrollable intermingling of the character and his creator.

In the last minutes of Sheltering Sky, Bowles makes an appearance to recite a passage that is spoken by Port about 2/3rds of the way through the novel. In the book, the passage reads:

As I slipped into bed my wife said, ” He won’t get to see the moon rise again.” I put my earplugs in and lay in a dark room made intermittently light by the moon, hoping, pleading that my friend got to see the full moon float across the black, North African sky one last time. And that as he watched it, he knew with certainty that it would be the last time, cheating life’s uncertainty and not taking a moment of it for granted.