Tales of the Idler

Mama is in the kitchen preparing what promises to be a most delectable lentil casserole, compounded of bacon, onions, carrots, leek, parsnip, celery root, parsley, green and pale orange lentils, etc. T. is back from university; Gi. and Ge. and J. are back from school; and Papa should return from work shortly. It is already dark outside, and from the whishing of the cars along the road I surmise that it is lightly raining.

I woke up at around 1 p.m., as Papa left for university, having been up after 3:30 a.m., and then lay there trying to shake off the last sleepiness. At last I got up, wrapped one of our green plaid flannel blankets around my shoulders, breakfasted on a slice of raisin bread with butter (simple but delicious), and then peregrinated over to the corner room. There I perched gingerly on the edge of hot stove; let the chocolate that remains from Papa's purchases of yesterday melt in my mouth, square by square; and read more of Jane Eyre. I've reached the point where the heroine has returned to Gateshead Manor to visit her dying aunt, stays there a month, studies the curiously contrasting pair of her cousins Eliza and Georgiana, and then travels back to Thornfield. Besides, I showered, sat at my laptop and glanced at the news. When Ge. was at home again, we watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and, later with J., The Colbert Report. The guest on the Daily Show was Sir David Frost, who makes a good impression as an intelligent and witty and well-informed representative of the traditional England that I like, and one who is very good at what he does (though surprisingly indistinct in his speech for a broadcaster) and very interested in it.

Last night I read The Cromptons, by Mary Jane Holmes. It is set at first in rural Florida, and then in some other American state whose identity escapes me, and it is the tale of a colonel who secretly marries beneath him and then abandons his uneducated wife, only to adopt the daughter when the wife dies. The daughter, rendered careless in part by the uncertainty about the identity of her father, runs off to marry her music-teacher. Then the tale skips ahead to the fortunes of a young schoolteacher who is sought by two gentlemen, and it falls into its expected course. Anyway, not great literature, certainly, and the more melodramatic plot points don't so much interest me, but despite the unrealism it is still an interesting window on the America of the author's time, i.e. around the Civil War (though the author rarely touches on it directly), reasonably well and vividly written, and not devoid of humour. What interests me too is that Miss or Mrs. Holmes writes about mentally ill people in a humane and not in a stigmatizing way, and depicts them living in their homes, with family, instead of being shut away in institutions.

Besides, I've been proofreading pages of scanned-in books for Distributed Proofreaders, which supplies gutenberg.org with its texts. I did so at university, too, but it took a long time because I was much more afraid of making errors and my attention span was shorter than it is now. (One of the great benefits of the past two years is that I am regaining the ability to focus on things properly, which I lost during teenagerhood and which was not much improved even at UBC.) I mostly look at books that have been in the queue for a very long time: French and Spanish histories and novels, musicological works, etc. It's excellent for freshening up and expanding my knowledge of both languages, and there are very absorbing books among them to which I would not otherwise be exposed, due to my predilection for fiction. For instance, the French historian Hippolyte Taine, in his great opus on the story of English literature, launches a tirade on the inane questions that St. Thomas Aquinas asked à propos of the Bible (e.g. Was the dove of the Holy Spirit an actual animal?), before opining with apparent regret that he was still the greatest theologian of his age — given the exile of Abélard and somebody else. The French writers are also generally remarkable for the fluency and purity of their style.

Otherwise I have been mulling a new story, set during World War I, which will unfortunately remain a tale that I should not like to show anyone else, unless a miracle occurs and I manage to make it more sober, well-rounded, realistic, and intellectual. I don't like writing stories merely for the exercise of developing plot, character, etc., even if they are entertaining, if I can't feel proud of them in the end. Above all, the substance is lacking. Of course I am pleased that I have started or completed more stories this year than I have in all my life before that, but quality is more important than quantity. In principle I would prefer to wait until I am capable of writing a truly worthwhile story, and in the meantime devote myself to blogging, reading, meditating, and furnishing my cranial dome as well as I can. As for attempting to write an unintelligent bestseller, I'd only like to do that if it could be unpretentious, goodhearted, and perfectly written in its modest way, and still possess sincerity and substance at its core. Perhaps that is a paradox.

Winter is setting in, and it is quite evident I won't be in New York in January, but I am bearing it with equanimity, or rather equanimity has descended upon me quite irrespective of my own exertions, and it's best to enjoy it while it lasts. Of course there will be the inevitable depression, but, as serious as they become, I've become used to battling blue devils, and as long as it's only my own moods that I have to fight, not any unfamiliar external problems, I know that they are surmountable. As for my particular blue devils, I think of them as my "maladie imaginaire." It is imaginary because it is emotional stress and desperation caused by worrying about my life, even though I am otherwise quite happy. It's reached the point, however, where I am convinced that worrying about the future, unless this worry produces some positive action, is counterproductive. In retrospect, I've figured out that, for the first year when we lived here in Berlin, I used to intentionally worry in order to punish myself for not earning money for my upkeep, but this is neither healthy nor helpful, which is why I no longer do it. Nor is there much use in worrying about what other people think; first of all, a valid criticism would require a greater understanding of my character and circumstances than anyone except my parents possesses, and, secondly, I am the one who has to live with myself and with the decisions I make. I take the effect of actions on my parents and siblings into account, for as I live with them these actions affect them directly, but otherwise there is no obligation to anyone except Ego.