Limitations

I've been reading Gerard Genette's Palimpsests for quite some time now, around a couple of months I think, and I'm finally in sight of the end with just some 40 pages left. I suppose it could be classified as essentially a work of that dreaded branch of human activity Literary Theory (dreaded by me, that is) so it's not exactly my cup of tea. I felt obliged to read it in a work-related context as we're sort of preparing for a new syllabus in my subject which will feature (we think, the details have not yet been published) some sort of focus on Intertextuality. One of my colleagues provided us some books on the subject and this is the one that came my way.

I don't think we really need to be reading all the theory on this since a fair amount of it is, as theory tends to be, impenetrable, but it's proven not quite as painful as I expected. Monsieur Genette has a sense of humour and though his obsessive classifying of various forms of literary influence (to put it in gentle terms) is more than a little over the top, I've generally enjoyed his enthusiastic and occasionally illuminating trawl through a wide range of texts. It's been particularly interesting to read a work which draws generally, though by no means exclusively, on the French literary tradition. In fact, I've been usefully reminded of just how narrow my scope is in terms of the literature I know reasonably well. Other than Flaubert & Proust I can't honestly say I've read in any sense widely in what is obviously an extraordinarily accomplished and rewarding field.

Must remember my own limitations when I complain to students about the narrowness of their exposure to good books.

No Answer

Retreated into the SAC at work earlier today to seek out my fellow Brit (and co-Cheekie Chappy (or should that be Cheeky Chappie?)) Peter to ask him how it could be that I'd just listened to a highly intelligent, insightful, well-informed and temperate, though entirely spontaneous, discussion of the nightmare known as Brexit with a group of 17- and 18-year-olds from this Far Place, yet was unable to recall any discussion of like quality involving any group of the politicos from our own Far Shores over the past few months. Alas, we had no answer.

A Matter Of Necessity

A long day. Feeling tired. Very. The great thing about a break is that it gives you a chance to forget just how tiring work can be. The great thing about work is the way it reminds you of fundamental, necessary truths.

The Calamity That Wasn't

The speed with which the new technology - which, of course, isn't anything like new to most people these days - comes to dominate the routines of one's existence is extraordinary. I haven't possessed a smart phone for very long, and I don't particularly like possessing one. It's sort of useful for accessing on-line news and the like quickly, but I could do without it for that purpose. The Google map has helped me a couple of times when I was lost, but I could always find my way around in the past eventually, and I don't terribly mind being lost anyway. I enjoy listening to music through it but, again, I don't see that as crucial to my life. Yet when I came close to losing my phone on the way back from New Zealand I suddenly realised I desperately need it now in terms of the various work-related message groups I belong to and all the contacts that have somehow found their way into it. There are a lot of these, despite me being essentially an anti-social being.

I'm not sure how all this happened, but it did and I, like everyone else, have to live with it.

Actually the story of the almost catastrophic loss of the phone serves as a useful reminder to me of how dependent on others we really are. I'd put the blighter in one of those trays that airport security demand we put our belongings in to scan them, or whatever they do to them when the stuff goes through that tunnel. The phone was in the same tray as my laptop going through the security to get into Auckland Airport on the way from Queenstown and I had other stuff in another tray. I contrived to pick everything up, except the phone and was happily walking away, congratulating myself on my efficiency in getting through fairly effortlessly when a guy, another passenger, not an official, rushed over to me and asked whether I'd left the phone behind, which he had somehow spotted. The fact that he charitably went to all that trouble to help me out still warms my heart.

Top Gunn

Finished Thom Gunn's Collected Poems yesterday. It concludes with his extraordinarily moving elegies on various of his friends and acquaintances who were victims of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, from his 1992 collection The Man with the Night Sweats, and if those brilliant poems don't put him in the top rank of poets from the second half of the twentieth century I don't know what would. Actually I'd already been classifying him as such from rereading Jack Straw's Castle onwards, a book I got hold of when it was first published as a review copy for a magazine (which I didn't pay for, but ironically never reviewed) and which sort of haunted me through its dizzying mixture of dinner jacket formal discipline and take-your-shirt-off looseness.

The Collected doesn't include his final book, Boss Cupid, which I don't know at all, but which I'm looking forward to getting hold of as soon as I allow myself a book-based buying spree. I now find myself a bit of a fanboy Gunn-wise, and very happy to be so.

Now it remains to decide whose chunky Collected residing on my shelves I intend to tackle next. I reckon it's likely to be Sylvia Plath's, partly based on the fact that I haven't read a woman's Collected cover to cover, which is a bit embarrassing, but mainly because she's brilliant and I'm in the mood to have the top of my head taken off yet again, following TG's ministrations in that direction.

In Praise Of The Fridge Magnet - 8

 

When spaces close in on you, it's good to be reminded of a bigger, wider, wilder, world.

Mind you, I'm sure the poor kiwi feels the need for a safer space. Every paradise is fallen.

Temporary States

Poor old Kipling doesn't get a good press these days. Odd for an obvious genius. Anyone who knows that Triumph and Disaster are two imposters is worth listening to. I very much enjoyed seeing some rightfully triumphant young people today and am hopeful that they continue to enjoy that feeling for some time to come; and was inevitably saddened by a few who felt they suffered a bit of a disaster and am hopeful they'll come to see that as an opportunity to grow. And I hope I have the wisdom to know that both states are illusory in the perspective of a rich and full life.

I'm not quite grown-up enough to treat both states in my own life as just the same, but I think I'm getting there.

Far Out

Not sure why, but seeing the images of Ultima Thule earlier today released by Nasa made me feel unaccountably cheerful. Talk about distance lending enchantment, eh?

Lesson Learnt

With my New Year's resolution in mind I got myself to the gym this evening with much enthusiasm - too much enthusiasm, in fact. Actually I went to the gym yesterday, but couldn't gain entry due to some odd behaviour on the part of the biometric system that should have let me in but decided not to. I think this was related to the fact it was a public holiday. Anyway, this simply added to my desire to hit the pedals hard, and that's what I did this evening, also spurred on by the fact that young Marcus was doing his thing on a treadmill to loud music when I arrived and I vaguely thought I could match his sheer oomph.

For twenty-five minutes my own oomph was considerable - and then abruptly vanished - oddly enough when Marcus left taking his music with him. I suddenly realised that I still had twenty minutes left to negotiate and almost nothing left in the tank to get through what now seemed like an awful long time.

Get through, I did, but in dismal style, with dismal numbers at the end. So I've learned a painful lesson about over-estimation of my abilities and how quickly I lose any kind of fitness when I'm not exercising regularly (even though we did a fair amount of walking, often uphill, in New Zealand.) The problem is, of course, that I will probably forget this lesson as quickly as I learned it.

Aiming High

We enjoyed the easiest possible journey south yesterday, with nary a jam in sight. I also rediscovered along the way what an absolutely phenomenal album 'Love and Theft' is. Surely this ranks in Dylan's top five - though attempting any sort of ranking of the greatest body of music recorded by a single individual in the twentieth century is entirely fatuous.

Noi spent most of the journey righteously asleep. I spent most of it refining my resolution for 2019. And here it is: I am resolved to end the year in better condition physically than I begin it. Daring, eh? I'm up against entropy and the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune. But it's good sometimes for an old man to aim high.