The book got better.
I was immediately disappointed when I started reading, but it improved. Begun as a series of lectures, it still has too much tendentious point-making – like a doctoral these or, well… a lecture – but it turned into something interesting in spite of itself.
Some wonderful deep research into a series of literary figures (Wyndham Lewis, T.S. Eliot, George Orwell and others) to capture a sort of deep seated disgust with the masses (or the proles or whatever you want to call ’em; Carey makes a good point that it’s a fiction they’re appalled by and what they thought of as the masses never existed).
But his larger thesis, which is basically that works like The Wasteland (and Modernism, in general) were written complicated as a gate to keep out the unwashed was not well proven (and really, he didn’t even seem to be trying to prove it; he just said and moved on to show that some of these intellectuals were kind of morally ‘icky’).
First of all, let me say that I’m perfectly happy to continue calling it Remembrance of Things Past, even if In Seach of Lost Time or what not is more admirable, desirable, and reflective of the French. I like the elevated, Shakespearean, Miltonian, Blakean language. For a similar reason, I’m also happy to restrict myself to Moncrieff’s more ornate prose over supposedly more accurate, informal translations, just like I, a Catholic, choose to read the heathen King James Bible (because it reads better; also, I did speak to a priest and his general response was something along the lines of ‘I’m just glad you’re reading the Bible’).
After noting that superficial resemblances between Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time and Remembrance of Things Past, it was inevitable that I should lug the oversized paperback containing the first two books along with me on a trip to Thailand and take a stab at re-reading them. For me, visiting new and different places is a great opportunity to read books in new and different places. Can’t properly say, though, that being in Thailand significantly altered my reading of Proust, though.
I did, however, see clearly that really, it is only scope of time that unites Powell and Proust. Powell is more propulsive. One feels history pass. Meanwhile, Proust arguably wrote and seven volume epic about a man having trouble falling asleep. Which isn’t to say that it’s not riveting, because it is. It’s more like Joyce or Nabokov. You have to let yourself enter into an immersive state to enter the heightened, prosified world.
While re-reading the great section, Swann in Love, I was struck by how Swann’s affection for Odette was tied to relating her appearance to some classical sculptures and thought of a story from Gautier’s Fantoms who really only loves through art (and who is seduced by a Roman antiquity come to life). Certainly, I got a much better sense of the strange flow of Swann’s love affair. If you’ve ever been in love, particularly when that love is only partially reciprocated (much worse than being flatly refused), it will cause your memories to ache.
Doesn’t look very authentic though.
I finished the chapbook that I bought at the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore. I used to read Corey’s blog (I didn’t stop because of an issue with it; just don’t read some many poetry blogs anymore), but this was my first, serious intro to his poetry.
They collection contains formal prose poems. By formal, I mean that he breaks it up into structured stanzas to lend a touch of formalism.
The poems are very sad and mournful. Almost a bit of a low key jeremiad. Anyway, highly recommended.
When Pound the Hill first opened up, it was pretty exciting. They made a great cup of coffee – for a while, they were even better than the folks at Peregrine Espresso, which is high praise.
But then they lost their way and got confused about what they wanted to be – or rather, they weren’t confused, they just didn’t want to be a coffee place anymore, which is what I wanted them to be. They tried to become a wine bar and restaurant with unusual, awkward, coffeehouse style seating options. On Sunday, I couldn’t get a coffee, pastry, paper, and a seat, because most seating was reserved for people who wanted brunch.
So, I stopped going.
Now, Bourbon Coffee is taking over and I’m really hoping that they focus on the core business of… coffee.
the coffee philosopher 