"The Dead"

It is part of my ongoing attempt to try and educate myself on literature by trying to assimilate how the great masters (or thus canonised by the reading audience at large) went about their craft. It often feels like cheating, for I canot imagine any of them trying this nut-and-bolts approach, yet at the same time it cannot be all that bad, for artists study great artists, and dancers learn from great dancers, so why not also with writing.

One of the people I am trying to learn from is James Joyce, proably the most clichéd writer to try and emulate. But my preoccupation is with people who break the mould and go at right angles to the stream of creativity thus far. Each writer of note has some great breakaway that makes him or her memorable, while others remain mere bestsellers (guffaw).

I am trying to read his collection of short stories ‘Dubliners’ and just read what is said to be the best piece of them all – ‘The Dead’.

It was not all that I hoped it would be. It didn’t leave me breathless, rather it left me wanting less. I thought it was tedious, and following the way of Henrik Ibsen and his mode of employing brutal clashes between close ones, but not as well-paced or enwrapping. But that’s just me, and I am sure I am in a minority.

But I was moved bythe last sequence between Gabrielle and Gretta, husband and wife, and the story of Gretta’s past. That was worthy of Ibsen. But what I want to share with you is not a synopsis or reading of the story, but just one passage that is worthy of fame. It is a passage that shows the principal character’s slipping into recollection and then into conjuration, which I feel is a masterly representation of the way our thoughts oten link into each other, without the slightest direction. And it also brings out how truly ‘the dead’ or ‘death’ impinges on our thoughts and how morbidly fascinating such notions become.

“Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good- night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.”

If there is one passage that embodies the highest achievement of the modernist and of the bare, unleashed power of the written word, it is this.

Steppin' Out

What do you do if you realise you’re 24 and haven’t taken more than baby steps yet?

I mean, we all know that one must crawl before we walk, and walk before we run, but is it ever too late to go through the stages, and instead want to just start running? Or maybe some people are just different and feel what they need is to push themselves off a branch and learn to fly that-a-way?

For the longest time I have known that like to write. But I have never been one to keep myself at something. Eventually what you felt was a God-given gift turns out to be a good start that we wasted by not keeping pace. I think this lesson has to come to everyone someday, and usually those with less of the inherent talent outdo those who are comfortably privileged. They just start working harder from much earlier.

The worst thing about me is that I have a clear, undoubted vision of my failings and my abilities, and my failing at my abilities, and yet I am sitting put in my nest of scattered tidbits and contented by the shiny thing here and the colourful piece there and feel that life is beautiful from where I sit, so why make the long walk and the hard jump and the strenuous flight?

Why indeed?

I have acquired a book (oh, when will I stop?) that has an interesting title – ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’. The consolation isn’t as important as the philosophy. We need the philosophy as then we start interpreting our lives. I don’t mean being Socratic or a Nietzscheian , as it is obvious that neither was Socrates a Socratic, nor was Nietzsche a Nietzscheian. But instead we need to know what it is we want to be and what we want our lives to demonstrate. You want to be a musician, but an Indian or a Western, or something that lies between, and that too a modern musician or a classical, and will you be a traditional musician or a fusion of past-present, east-west? And when you have the answer then try and expand your sphere of experiences to make yourself a specialist. Not the best in the world, but one who understands their subject inside out. If you want to be a literature student, then be the best in one period, or one movement. The idea is not to limit your view, but to be assured of at least one view. I have often been convinced of something only to have another say something that puts it on its head. Be evolved enough in your life to account for everything and to keep modifying your thoughts to encompass you experiences.

See I’m rambling, and that is probably because when I sat down I didn’t know what my end result should be. That’s my problem, but one that I don’t know how to surmount. Often when I write I feel result is inferior if I have the end in sight, it becomes manipulative and obvious, but if I don’t know what I will end with, it is a more balanced progress. But then I end up rambling over and over.

Damn.