Well, speaking of cosmic events happening on your own street . . .
I told someone recently that I never thought I'd look back and think of the last apartment I lived in as "The Golden Age," but compared with where I am now, it's starting to look like that. When I moved here, I was ready for a change, and I've mostly been happy with the apartment itself. It has amenities that the other place lacked, and until a few years ago, I would have said that the move coincided with a new and more satisfying phase of life. The process of having my HVAC unit replaced the other day underscored some of the reasons why this is no longer true.
Because of some unsettling incidents in and around the building in recent years, I wasn't happy about having strangers in my apartment, but since I wanted air conditioning, I responded to necessity by resorting to, of all things: research! I decided the least I could do was to check out the contractor's credentials, and one thing led to another, and I was soon looking at information about the actual owners of this building. Business filings with the Secretary of State are standard forms and not terribly exciting, but as I learned as a law librarian, they can reveal interesting facts. In this case, I learned that that there is a second owner I hadn't heard about who actually has a couple of points of intersection with me. One is that his business address is the same suite that used to be the main office of the law firm I worked for. The other is that he is on the board of a local Christian college attended by a couple of people I know, including the son of my former supervisor.
It certainly is a small world, as every day proves anew, and these types of coincidences happen, but the information also fits in with some recent experiences I've had. I recalled someone mentioning that some of the part-time staff employed here for odd jobs belong to a Christian youth group. That probably doesn't sound like particularly bad news, but I can tell you that the atmosphere here has changed in recent years from what you might expect of a place with some students in residence (i.e., occasional rowdiness) to something akin to, oh, I don't know, let's say The Stepford Wives. It's as if everyone has drunk some strange Kool-Aid.
I often encounter people who seem to arrive as if by magic at the same time I do while entering or exiting the building, or who arrive in the parking lot just as I drive in. I am frequently regaled by loud conversations that seem, by some invisible edict, to be required to take place right below my window. Of course, there's going to be chatter, but does it have to be so loud and so close? In the old days, there was an instance when residents gathered on the other side of the parking lot were having a 2 a.m. conversation that was keeping me awake. I got up and closed the window, and not long after that, they dispersed, seeming to take the hint (these days, I wouldn't even think of leaving my window open at night). If not for my sound spa, which provides just enough white noise to drown out words if not voices, I would never be free of intrusive conversations. If you try to ignore these people, they seem to get louder.
I was speaking last week about light pollution in the neighborhood, but this sound pollution is an even worse problem. I now have a word to describe what it reminds me of: proselytizing. It's as if people are somehow so convinced of the importance of being heard that they've lost all sense of proportion and common courtesy. I'm not saying that everyone here is a tele-evangelist, but most of them seem to have been influenced by that communication style. It's as if they've all been coached on how to pitch their voices so that you can't help hearing them. They also tend to use a highly theatrical delivery, as if they're all on stage. And you can't get away from them, because they're your neighbors.
From what I've been able to find out, there's controversy about the methods of the youth group that seems to be influencing some of these kids. I can see why. Some people think it's actually a cult, as its methods reportedly run to manipulation and outright deception. This includes such practices as using college students who appear to be the same age as younger kids as contacts to form relationships with them; attempting to circumvent or replace parental authority; and bullying or ostracism once emotional control has been established. It sounds like mind control to me (though many people who've been involved in the group say they haven't experienced this, others strongly disagree).
Evidently, group meetings are big on skits and theatricals. I have to say that living here in some way resembles living in a compound, and I feel I'm constantly witnessing one drama after another. I remember noticing one night that there were five white cars in a row lined up on one side of the parking lot, and while I've got to say that there's nothing really wrong with that, it looked a little peculiar. I didn't know that many people here even had white cars. Some kind of code for "Bible Study tonight in apartment 5?" (I'm being facetious, but only a little.) It's also true that making it clear you don't want to mix with these people does nothing to put a damper on the antics.
In between all the amateur theatricals, on one hand, and all the vehicles with skulls or skull insignia parked on the local streets (including one right outside my door), it's a rather odd mix of neighbors. It's like being the only hippie at a convention of charismatics mixed in with Nazis. I'm not actually sure there's much of a difference between them. That occasion not long ago when I heard some extremely loud bass music in the middle of the night? My impression was that it came from the direction of the building that some of these young guys live in. What happened to all the normal people? Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
To get back to the HVAC that precipitated this essay, it turned out that once it was installed, I noticed a flickering in my lights. Concerned that it might be a sign of an overloaded circuit (and having lived through one serious fire in the building already), I sent an email to the property manager. I didn't get a response, and since I've had a few instances of people telling me they didn't receive my emails, I also left a voice mail. I still didn't get a response. I'm not unduly concerned when I don't get an immediate reply to a service request about a slow drain, but in the matter of something that could be dangerous, I think it's reasonable to expect a confirmation that someone's looking into it (though, I have to say that when I reported a recent car break-in, I never even got so much as an acknowledgment).
There being a lot of activity in the basement beneath me that day (where the circuit box is), I looked out to see who was there and saw a neighbor who is also a part-time odd jobs person. I wanted not only to find out what was going on in regard to my service request but also to meet the person who is so frequently in and out of the basement underneath my apartment. I had to flag the two young men down, since they were already leaving by the time I got outside. When I did, I encountered not one, but two smirking faces.
I would have been willing to suffer through yet another polite but unsatisfying encounter with a management surrogate, but being a bit too self-respecting so take arrogance from a youngster, I told the young man that I had never seen a bigger smirk. I'm peaceable by nature, but I don't mind calling things as I see them. What followed on his part was a denial that he uses an excessively loud voice in the basement, an attempt to place the blame for it on someone else, and even more smirking. I told him I didn't mind waiting if he wanted to look up some of the words I was using. It was sarcastic, I admit, but what are you going to do when someone's main conversational gambit seems to involve repeating everything you say?
When I mentioned that the point of the conversation was to let them know that I needed to reach someone about a possible overloaded circuit, they said they wouldn't do it because they didn't like my attitude. When I pointed out that it was their job whether they liked someone's attitude or not, they still demurred. I confirmed later that one of these guys does in fact belong to the Christian group in question. I wouldn't have said that cockiness, denial, blaming someone else, and shirking responsibility are particularly traits of people who claim to be "Christian," but they are consistent with other behavior I've seen around here.
The kicker was that when I finally did reach the property manager, his idea of a solution was that I ought to know someone better before making a judgment on him. (No, thank you.) He also didn't seem to blame the young man for not wanting to carry a message but instead blamed me for not giving him a chance to respond. I gather that I'm supposed to be living in the best of all possible worlds here and that while arrogance and dishonesty are acceptable, telling the truth to the best of your ability is not.
There is, in my mind, a larger significance to this story. If you read this blog regularly, you probably know that I've talked before about instances of pushy and intrusive public behavior that I encounter regularly in the park, the coffeehouse, and other places in and around the neighborhood (even the grocery store and the bank). As a matter of fact, I've recently overheard several intense and loudly pitched conversations about Christianity in the coffeehouse that were notable for being louder than anything else in the room. It is not a condemnation of religion to say that being sure of your beliefs is no license to intrude on the rights of others, nor is it a sign that you are better in any way.
My personal feeling is that it's wise to question your own beliefs and assumptions (I question mine all the time). Questions are healthy. Being too sure of yourself, not a lack of zealousness, is the real sin. There are many, many, many Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, followers of Native American traditions, and others, including many who profess no faith at all, who are much kinder, more considerate, thoughtful, and aware than many of these so-called Christians I keep encountering. I also know many Christians who are fine people, and you can generally spot them by their live-and-let-live attitude.
All of this is important because we're living in a democracy, which requires thoughtful, informed people who can form their own opinions. Being a citizen is no Sunday picnic. If my neighbors are anything to judge by, this Christian youth group encourages people to behave in ways they wouldn't think of on their own. They seem to turn into automatons, which is dangerous, not only for democracy but also for them personally. I read a comment from someone online who responded to a parent concerned about the influence of this group on their child by saying, "What, you're worried about your kid spending time with nice people as opposed to some of the other wackos who are out there?" The perceptive reply to that was that "niceness" in itself is OK but can be the tool of people with a hidden agenda. Beware the hidden agenda and the motivation behind the smile. Be sure it's a genuine smile you're seeing and not a mask.
If I had kids, I wouldn't want them within 500 yards of these people. Why? Because you should never, ever, ever, give up your right to think for yourself--to anyone. If there was ever a time and a place to question authority, it's here and now, in 2016 America. And if this youth group is any sample of the direction our nation is heading in, I'm extremely concerned. There's something troubling about their behavior.
The upshot of the situation here seems to be: I alerted management to what I thought might be a hazard, feeling that it would be irresponsible not to. That opens me to ridicule. I'm not supposed to make independent judgments, based on my own perceptions, about someone else's character, though that is an essential part of taking care of yourself. (When's the last time an apartment manager said that to you?) I'm a middle-aged adult with a PhD, but I don't know how to use logic. Au contraire! Cogito, ergo sum! (It's unseemly to flaunt credentials, but just this once, I'll make an exception.) And management here has always been responsive to my concerns--I just didn't know it because I don't hear from them.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (I didn't make that up.)
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
It Only Looks Ordinary
Earlier this week, I was reading about the opposition of Mars and the rising of the blue moon and decided to go out and take a look at it. I think I've mentioned before that stargazing isn't so great around here due to the increase in city lights in recent years. It was never outstanding, but the number of stars you can pick out on a clear night gets smaller all the time, as parking lots and new construction crowd in around us. Still, it's hard under any circumstances barring thick clouds ever to miss the moon, and I'm usually able to find a planet or two, light pollution or no.
Officially, the full moon had occurred the night before, but the opposition of Mars was supposed to be that night, so it seemed a great time to catch both moon and planet. Up the street I went, binoculars in hand. I had no trouble finding Mars, even without the binoculars, due to its brilliance and rusty color. The information I saw online had mentioned looking toward the southeast sky; my view in that direction being blocked by trees, I was wondering just how long it would take before the moon cleared them. I alternated between gazing at Mars and looking expectantly toward the trees, so I was caught off guard when I noticed the leading edge of the moon peeking above the horizon near the stadium, farther north than I was anticipating.
I had to catch my breath. The moon was quite large on the horizon, and the color was distinctively orange, more of a harvest moon in my mind than a spring moon. It was a dramatic rising. I noticed someone in a car parked at the side of the road, presumably as dazzled as I was; someone going by on a bicycle also stopped to look. I started thinking about other memorable full moons I've known, such as the one that rose over the sea outside my hotel in Naples, Florida, many years ago, waking me in the night and causing me to wonder who was out on the beach with a spotlight. There was also the time I was driving to my brother's house from Yellowstone and noticed a glow in the sky behind the hills. I first thought there was a fire, only realizing it was the moon when it finally crested the ridge, appearing almost to sit on the hills. And there was the moon that rose over the Santa Monica Mountains in the bright blue sky of early evening as I drove to the airport at the end of my Pacifica days, seeming to mark the end of something, or maybe the beginning.
All of this went through my head as I watched Sunday's moon climb slowly above the trees and the power lines, clearing some clouds that partially obscured it. Rather than Flower Moon, I would have called it the Gold Moon; there was nothing delicate or ethereal about it. It was Technicolor orange, and all of its features were sharply delineated. After observing for a little while in the same spot, I started walking home, stopping every so often to look behind me. It seemed wrong to turn your back on something like that, even if it was getting late.
On my street, I stopped again for another view. The moon had barely cleared a rather ordinary and nondescript flat-roofed building, which happened to have a window facing me. There was a light on in the room, giving it that slightly hyperreal air that offices and schoolrooms have when you go into them after hours. The empty room had a contemplative look, which became even more striking when I shifted position and noticed the standard-issue office clock on the back wall. The round clock face made a counterpoint to the moon, and the fluorescent light framed in the rectangle of the window seemed to answer in some way to the luminous orb in the sky beyond. It was such a perfect composition that I would have painted it on the spot if I could. The juxtaposition of mundane and magical, of earthly and celestial, was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. The feeling was a bit like that of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, without the people. It seemed to sum up all the loneliness of existence, but it was also quietly exhilarating and obscurely comforting. I would have called it Time and Eternity, but I see that someone's used that for a video game. Maybe Eternity and the Clock instead.
So that's it, that's my full moon story. I was expecting to see a beautiful moon, but the framing that occurred when I changed position caught me by surprise (how true it is that shifting your perspective can yield unexpected vistas). It's remarkable that I had such a cosmic experience on my very own block, just down the street from where I live--but after all, maybe it isn't. Aren't we always in the midst of burning stars, whirling galaxies, wandering planets, and unseen dimensions? It only looks ordinary.
Officially, the full moon had occurred the night before, but the opposition of Mars was supposed to be that night, so it seemed a great time to catch both moon and planet. Up the street I went, binoculars in hand. I had no trouble finding Mars, even without the binoculars, due to its brilliance and rusty color. The information I saw online had mentioned looking toward the southeast sky; my view in that direction being blocked by trees, I was wondering just how long it would take before the moon cleared them. I alternated between gazing at Mars and looking expectantly toward the trees, so I was caught off guard when I noticed the leading edge of the moon peeking above the horizon near the stadium, farther north than I was anticipating.
I had to catch my breath. The moon was quite large on the horizon, and the color was distinctively orange, more of a harvest moon in my mind than a spring moon. It was a dramatic rising. I noticed someone in a car parked at the side of the road, presumably as dazzled as I was; someone going by on a bicycle also stopped to look. I started thinking about other memorable full moons I've known, such as the one that rose over the sea outside my hotel in Naples, Florida, many years ago, waking me in the night and causing me to wonder who was out on the beach with a spotlight. There was also the time I was driving to my brother's house from Yellowstone and noticed a glow in the sky behind the hills. I first thought there was a fire, only realizing it was the moon when it finally crested the ridge, appearing almost to sit on the hills. And there was the moon that rose over the Santa Monica Mountains in the bright blue sky of early evening as I drove to the airport at the end of my Pacifica days, seeming to mark the end of something, or maybe the beginning.
All of this went through my head as I watched Sunday's moon climb slowly above the trees and the power lines, clearing some clouds that partially obscured it. Rather than Flower Moon, I would have called it the Gold Moon; there was nothing delicate or ethereal about it. It was Technicolor orange, and all of its features were sharply delineated. After observing for a little while in the same spot, I started walking home, stopping every so often to look behind me. It seemed wrong to turn your back on something like that, even if it was getting late.
On my street, I stopped again for another view. The moon had barely cleared a rather ordinary and nondescript flat-roofed building, which happened to have a window facing me. There was a light on in the room, giving it that slightly hyperreal air that offices and schoolrooms have when you go into them after hours. The empty room had a contemplative look, which became even more striking when I shifted position and noticed the standard-issue office clock on the back wall. The round clock face made a counterpoint to the moon, and the fluorescent light framed in the rectangle of the window seemed to answer in some way to the luminous orb in the sky beyond. It was such a perfect composition that I would have painted it on the spot if I could. The juxtaposition of mundane and magical, of earthly and celestial, was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. The feeling was a bit like that of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, without the people. It seemed to sum up all the loneliness of existence, but it was also quietly exhilarating and obscurely comforting. I would have called it Time and Eternity, but I see that someone's used that for a video game. Maybe Eternity and the Clock instead.
So that's it, that's my full moon story. I was expecting to see a beautiful moon, but the framing that occurred when I changed position caught me by surprise (how true it is that shifting your perspective can yield unexpected vistas). It's remarkable that I had such a cosmic experience on my very own block, just down the street from where I live--but after all, maybe it isn't. Aren't we always in the midst of burning stars, whirling galaxies, wandering planets, and unseen dimensions? It only looks ordinary.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Where Have You Gone, Tom Bombadil?
I started re-reading The Lord of the Rings the other night--I don't know how many times now I've read the trilogy, but my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring is literally falling to pieces. The back cover and last few pages have come apart from the rest, and I trail tiny bits of paper crumbs every time I move the book. At this point, I should probably stop using my own boxed set as a reading copy and check the books out of the library, though it would also seem strange to read the story under a different cover and typeface. My own copies are almost as familiar to me as the back of my hand.
Why am I reading Tolkien? I've checked a few new books out of the library recently, but more often than not, I've been disappointed. I don't know what's gotten into some of our leading authors of late; they seem to be trying to reach for a meaning that escapes me, so I find myself going back to the classics or re-reading books I've already read. This isn't a real hardship, since I have a lot of books, but I'm sorry that some of the recent fiction hasn't seemed more compelling. Ideally, you keep growing with new authors and fresh stories in addition to revisiting old favorites, but some of the new work seems a little stale to me.
The Lord of the Rings is like comfort food. It's like sitting down with a big plate of macaroni and cheese or a bowl of popcorn: once you start, it's hard to stop. I was struck the last time I picked it up by how much happens in the first book that was left out of the Peter Jackson films. I think many fans were disappointed not to find Tom Bombadil and Goldberry in the films, for example, and while I would have liked to see them included, I understand the reason for leaving them out. So much happens in The Fellowship of the Ring that it probably would have taken a couple of extra hours (at least) to cover what takes place in between the hobbits leaving Hobbiton and the events on Weathertop. Mr. Jackson would probably have needed to make four films instead of three.
There's a part of me that would like to see Mr. Jackson go back into this material and do a prequel, even though I'm not quite sure how that would work. When I re-read the books last year, I remembered why the first one used to be my favorite: it's nonstop action, with so many incidents crowded into the story that it's like a thrill ride. There are the elves encountered in the woods of the Shire, Farmer Maggot, the evening at Crickhollow, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, the Old Downs, and the Barrow Wights--and that's before the hobbits even get to Bree. The escape from the pursuing Black Riders is handled very effectively in the film, but that sequence takes the place of an entire stretch of other characters and incidents that you never get to see. Making a film requires different decisions of timing and sequencing than does writing a book, no doubt about it. Still, it would have been fun to see some of these other incidents come to life on screen.
Tolkien is best encountered, in my opinion, when you're curled up with a blanket and some hot tea. Even though it's May, we've had a cool spell that has actually made for just the right weather for LOTR. A chilly and rainy day outdoors creates prime conditions for letting your imagination roam in Middle Earth. If you're looking for a tea pairing recommendation, I suggest chai--and a little bit of chocolate or a couple of cookies to nibble on never goes amiss either.
Why am I reading Tolkien? I've checked a few new books out of the library recently, but more often than not, I've been disappointed. I don't know what's gotten into some of our leading authors of late; they seem to be trying to reach for a meaning that escapes me, so I find myself going back to the classics or re-reading books I've already read. This isn't a real hardship, since I have a lot of books, but I'm sorry that some of the recent fiction hasn't seemed more compelling. Ideally, you keep growing with new authors and fresh stories in addition to revisiting old favorites, but some of the new work seems a little stale to me.
The Lord of the Rings is like comfort food. It's like sitting down with a big plate of macaroni and cheese or a bowl of popcorn: once you start, it's hard to stop. I was struck the last time I picked it up by how much happens in the first book that was left out of the Peter Jackson films. I think many fans were disappointed not to find Tom Bombadil and Goldberry in the films, for example, and while I would have liked to see them included, I understand the reason for leaving them out. So much happens in The Fellowship of the Ring that it probably would have taken a couple of extra hours (at least) to cover what takes place in between the hobbits leaving Hobbiton and the events on Weathertop. Mr. Jackson would probably have needed to make four films instead of three.
There's a part of me that would like to see Mr. Jackson go back into this material and do a prequel, even though I'm not quite sure how that would work. When I re-read the books last year, I remembered why the first one used to be my favorite: it's nonstop action, with so many incidents crowded into the story that it's like a thrill ride. There are the elves encountered in the woods of the Shire, Farmer Maggot, the evening at Crickhollow, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, the Old Downs, and the Barrow Wights--and that's before the hobbits even get to Bree. The escape from the pursuing Black Riders is handled very effectively in the film, but that sequence takes the place of an entire stretch of other characters and incidents that you never get to see. Making a film requires different decisions of timing and sequencing than does writing a book, no doubt about it. Still, it would have been fun to see some of these other incidents come to life on screen.
Tolkien is best encountered, in my opinion, when you're curled up with a blanket and some hot tea. Even though it's May, we've had a cool spell that has actually made for just the right weather for LOTR. A chilly and rainy day outdoors creates prime conditions for letting your imagination roam in Middle Earth. If you're looking for a tea pairing recommendation, I suggest chai--and a little bit of chocolate or a couple of cookies to nibble on never goes amiss either.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
The Moonlight Hour
It's not unusual at any time for city streets to be crowded, noisy, and full of people in too much of a hurry for civility, but in the Iron Age this is especially true. A person could resort to such judicious responses as blogging, making rude faces, and other instances of patriotic civil disobedience--but getting away from it all is also, occasionally, the best option. An instance of the latter occurred once upon a late winter day when Emma, the protagonist of this tale, had had enough of being harassed, bumped into, and shouted at for the time being, and ducked in from the sidewalk to the Moon and Stars Cafe just in time to avoid being run over by a mother with a stroller and a cell phone.
Respite, of course, is a relative term, especially when you're talking coffeehouses. You are probably imagining Emma ordering a latte and collapsing into the nearest open chair to catch her breath as an antidote to the zeitgeist, but that won't do. No. In fact, she did walk up to the counter, and she did order a mocha. And given no other choice, she might have taken the nearest seat, which is what she did most of the time, despite the fact that the cafe itself was a breeding ground for wanna-be-world rulers and the poorer class of law students. (In a totalitarian age, the government left nothing to chance, not even espresso.)
Today, however, she glanced at the back corner, in which, always without warning but often enough to make it worthwhile, the outline of a slim doorway, invisible to the casual observer, would on rare occasions appear. Emma was aware that she was in full view of the cafe's patrons as she walked up to the door and said the secret word (it was "chocolate," but she never said this aloud), but she also knew that no one else, for reasons that remained a bit cloudy, ever followed her. As soon as she passed through, the door closed behind her, and the noise of the cafe was instantly shut out. She was now in a dark tower with a faintly luminous staircase that rose before her, first in a smooth spiral, and later in exuberant zig-zags as it neared the top. This she began to climb, with a tight grip on her mocha.
The tower had windows that opened onto a velvety black sky pierced with stars. There was also moonlight, so that finding her feet was not a problem. Despite the steepness of the climb, and the distance, she was never out of breath when she reached the top. At the very end, the stairs broke free of the tower entirely, with a doorway on the left leading to a small platform and another short hop of steps, broad but crystal-clear, so that one saw through them entirely. At the top of these steps, like a cardboard cutout at a fun fair, hung the moon. There was actually a bit of a jump at the end, but one always landed smoothly, gliding onto a window seat perched on the very edge of la luna, behind which was a small room with a table and two chairs (in case of inclement space weather, though it had never yet been necessary to use it).
Michael was already there, as usual. He occasionally brought his own cup of coffee, but more often it was a beer. They had sat that way, feet dangling into space (and an occasional passing cloud) numerous times over the years. There had never been a time when she had arrived and not found him there. They never talked much about their respective ways of getting there or how it was even possible. It very obviously was possible, so that was that. (When she had told him that her access was via a hidden staircase from a coffeehouse, he had grimaced a little and said his route involved "Kind of a wormhole." He hadn't seemed to want to say more.) In fact, their conversation was usually interspersed with large gaps of silence, for who, faced with such a prospect before them, would want to waste time in talk. And what, in fact, was there to say?
Below them is the earth, resplendent in blue and green. It has the appearance of a cartoon earth, or earth as seen in a child's picture book, with landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, and the Golden Gate Bridge clearly visible, as are the occasional toy airplane or ocean liner passing into view. Despite dominating the foreground, the globe as a whole is somehow comically foreshortened, so that everything appears much closer together than it actually is, entire countries taking up no more room than a large park. Aside from that, stars twinkle all around them, and they are occasionally treated to the sight of a passing comet or a planet hoving into view.
It was not as if a visit to the moon made one forget anything. With the earth so insistently present, it would have been impossible to forget anything no matter how hard one tried. But the distance gave one perspective, the quiet was a relief, and it was a heady experience to find oneself sitting companionably on the edge of the moon with such an entertaining panorama on offer. Even the mocha tasted better there, Emma's opinion being that the altitude cleared her sinuses. And it was not quite true to say that space was completely silent. At times, there was a low-pitched humming and sometimes a faint sound of a high, distant voice, which reminded Emma of Dawn Upshaw singing Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Aside from the rareness of the occasion, the brevity of each visit also ensured that every moment counted. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes at most? Each visit was a jewel of such clarity and beauty that its memory was sustaining for months at a time. Breaking free of gravity for short periods was enough to help you get through tax season, the end of Daylight Saving Time, pap smears, and Vitamin D deficiencies in winter. You carried the view from that window seat around with you like a locket with an unfathomable secret folded deep inside.
Tonight, Michael looked at her, and she could tell by his brief but searching glance that he knew she had had a tiring day. But why ruin a nice evening by talking about it? She kicked her legs back and forth and watched a developing supernova overhead; Michael sipped his beer and followed a wandering planet with his eyes. In the background, that angelic voice was singing, "Ah, ah, ah . . ." It was celestial relaxation at its best. It was also over with all too soon.
The upper end of Michael's wormhole suddenly yawned, like a cave opening, to their right. Michael and Emma both got up, standing at ease on a wispy but otherwise quite substantial cloud. "It's been real," Emma said. Michael smiled. "Till next time," he said, with a tip of his hand. And then he was walking away, disappearing into the mouth of his tunnel, which instantly dissolved. And here goes Emma, jumping lightly from the cloud and landing on the crystal stair, descending slowly, and climbing into the tower once again for the long walk down.
It's a thing she has often noticed, the different quality of the return trip. The closer one gets to the bottom the more one notices chips at the edge of the stairs and cracks in the walls of the tower that never seemed to be there on the way up. At the bottom of the tower, the stairs are worn; one notices a coffee stain and a bit of dust on a windowsill. Then the outline of a door appears, and you are somehow through it and back in the noisy environs of a crowded coffeehouse. No time seems to have passed while you were gone. Despite a sense of residual sadness, though, there is something else. The sunlight seems brighter than it was, and the aromas of freshly brewed coffee and baked croissants, which now come through with a sharp intensity since your sinuses are clear, are heavenly.
Emma takes her cup to the counter for a refill, sits down, and finds a newspaper someone has left behind. She unfolds the front page and scans the news of the day. "So the world is still here," she murmurs to herself. "And honestly, how glad I am. Even if it is the Iron Age."
This is the latest version of a story I've been writing for a number of years. Originally, it involved two children; then, a single child. This is the first time the story has featured two adults.
Respite, of course, is a relative term, especially when you're talking coffeehouses. You are probably imagining Emma ordering a latte and collapsing into the nearest open chair to catch her breath as an antidote to the zeitgeist, but that won't do. No. In fact, she did walk up to the counter, and she did order a mocha. And given no other choice, she might have taken the nearest seat, which is what she did most of the time, despite the fact that the cafe itself was a breeding ground for wanna-be-world rulers and the poorer class of law students. (In a totalitarian age, the government left nothing to chance, not even espresso.)
Today, however, she glanced at the back corner, in which, always without warning but often enough to make it worthwhile, the outline of a slim doorway, invisible to the casual observer, would on rare occasions appear. Emma was aware that she was in full view of the cafe's patrons as she walked up to the door and said the secret word (it was "chocolate," but she never said this aloud), but she also knew that no one else, for reasons that remained a bit cloudy, ever followed her. As soon as she passed through, the door closed behind her, and the noise of the cafe was instantly shut out. She was now in a dark tower with a faintly luminous staircase that rose before her, first in a smooth spiral, and later in exuberant zig-zags as it neared the top. This she began to climb, with a tight grip on her mocha.
The tower had windows that opened onto a velvety black sky pierced with stars. There was also moonlight, so that finding her feet was not a problem. Despite the steepness of the climb, and the distance, she was never out of breath when she reached the top. At the very end, the stairs broke free of the tower entirely, with a doorway on the left leading to a small platform and another short hop of steps, broad but crystal-clear, so that one saw through them entirely. At the top of these steps, like a cardboard cutout at a fun fair, hung the moon. There was actually a bit of a jump at the end, but one always landed smoothly, gliding onto a window seat perched on the very edge of la luna, behind which was a small room with a table and two chairs (in case of inclement space weather, though it had never yet been necessary to use it).
Michael was already there, as usual. He occasionally brought his own cup of coffee, but more often it was a beer. They had sat that way, feet dangling into space (and an occasional passing cloud) numerous times over the years. There had never been a time when she had arrived and not found him there. They never talked much about their respective ways of getting there or how it was even possible. It very obviously was possible, so that was that. (When she had told him that her access was via a hidden staircase from a coffeehouse, he had grimaced a little and said his route involved "Kind of a wormhole." He hadn't seemed to want to say more.) In fact, their conversation was usually interspersed with large gaps of silence, for who, faced with such a prospect before them, would want to waste time in talk. And what, in fact, was there to say?
Below them is the earth, resplendent in blue and green. It has the appearance of a cartoon earth, or earth as seen in a child's picture book, with landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, and the Golden Gate Bridge clearly visible, as are the occasional toy airplane or ocean liner passing into view. Despite dominating the foreground, the globe as a whole is somehow comically foreshortened, so that everything appears much closer together than it actually is, entire countries taking up no more room than a large park. Aside from that, stars twinkle all around them, and they are occasionally treated to the sight of a passing comet or a planet hoving into view.
It was not as if a visit to the moon made one forget anything. With the earth so insistently present, it would have been impossible to forget anything no matter how hard one tried. But the distance gave one perspective, the quiet was a relief, and it was a heady experience to find oneself sitting companionably on the edge of the moon with such an entertaining panorama on offer. Even the mocha tasted better there, Emma's opinion being that the altitude cleared her sinuses. And it was not quite true to say that space was completely silent. At times, there was a low-pitched humming and sometimes a faint sound of a high, distant voice, which reminded Emma of Dawn Upshaw singing Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Aside from the rareness of the occasion, the brevity of each visit also ensured that every moment counted. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes at most? Each visit was a jewel of such clarity and beauty that its memory was sustaining for months at a time. Breaking free of gravity for short periods was enough to help you get through tax season, the end of Daylight Saving Time, pap smears, and Vitamin D deficiencies in winter. You carried the view from that window seat around with you like a locket with an unfathomable secret folded deep inside.
Tonight, Michael looked at her, and she could tell by his brief but searching glance that he knew she had had a tiring day. But why ruin a nice evening by talking about it? She kicked her legs back and forth and watched a developing supernova overhead; Michael sipped his beer and followed a wandering planet with his eyes. In the background, that angelic voice was singing, "Ah, ah, ah . . ." It was celestial relaxation at its best. It was also over with all too soon.
The upper end of Michael's wormhole suddenly yawned, like a cave opening, to their right. Michael and Emma both got up, standing at ease on a wispy but otherwise quite substantial cloud. "It's been real," Emma said. Michael smiled. "Till next time," he said, with a tip of his hand. And then he was walking away, disappearing into the mouth of his tunnel, which instantly dissolved. And here goes Emma, jumping lightly from the cloud and landing on the crystal stair, descending slowly, and climbing into the tower once again for the long walk down.
It's a thing she has often noticed, the different quality of the return trip. The closer one gets to the bottom the more one notices chips at the edge of the stairs and cracks in the walls of the tower that never seemed to be there on the way up. At the bottom of the tower, the stairs are worn; one notices a coffee stain and a bit of dust on a windowsill. Then the outline of a door appears, and you are somehow through it and back in the noisy environs of a crowded coffeehouse. No time seems to have passed while you were gone. Despite a sense of residual sadness, though, there is something else. The sunlight seems brighter than it was, and the aromas of freshly brewed coffee and baked croissants, which now come through with a sharp intensity since your sinuses are clear, are heavenly.
Emma takes her cup to the counter for a refill, sits down, and finds a newspaper someone has left behind. She unfolds the front page and scans the news of the day. "So the world is still here," she murmurs to herself. "And honestly, how glad I am. Even if it is the Iron Age."
This is the latest version of a story I've been writing for a number of years. Originally, it involved two children; then, a single child. This is the first time the story has featured two adults.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Road to Damascus
What a difference a single detail can make in how you perceive things. The other evening, I was coming into my building when I happened to notice that a house across the street had its porch light on. I don't know whether the owners had changed to a different, brighter bulb or whether they usually have the light turned off at that hour, but the change noticeably altered the appearance of the house. Suddenly, it flashed into my mind that the whole setting--the still bright sky above, the house and trees silhouetted against the light, and the darkening street--looked remarkably like René Magritte's painting, The Dominion of Light, which I have written about before.
In the many years I've lived here, that thought had never occurred to me previously, and I don't know that it would have except for that porch light being left on. The view across the street is a pleasant one, but there is nothing in it that has ever made me think of Magritte. If it's a cosmic joke, it's a good one, because one of the dominant characteristics of Magritte's work is its surrealism, the way it takes the ordinary and gives it a fantastic twist, blurring the boundaries between ordinary consciousness and a dream state. I take Magritte's surrealism as an invitation to look at things more imaginatively, to realize that the seemingly solid appearance of things often masks another reality.
When you have experience in looking at things from the perspective of myth, the idea of seeing beneath the surface becomes second nature, but even I was startled by the sudden change in perspective. I have always found the views of the rooftops and trees in my neighborhood to be charming and reverie-inducing, particularly at sunset, when they show to best advantage against the changing light. There is something pleasing about the solidity of the houses and the varied angles of the roofs set amid so many tall and shapely trees. The scene is comfortable and established but somehow leaves the door open to the imagination, possibly because your eye is drawn up toward the liminal space between earth and sky, away from the traffic and the street so noisily present below. You can imagine Mary Poppins sailing in over those rooftops with her umbrella or perhaps sailing over them yourself one night in a moonlit magic carpet ride.
More than anything else, this episode makes me realize how important the detail of the light is, not only in the scene across the street but also in the painting. It's the central image in the The Dominion of Light, literally and metaphorically, standing in for, as I interpret it, the spark of consciousness that's alive and observing in each of us, the point of connection between spirit and matter, the awareness that's awake even when dreaming and that sheds light in the face of ambiguity. It's not a blinding light that forecloses any possibility of nuance or complexity but rather a soft, steady light that neither overwhelms the dark or retreats from it.
The other thing that impresses me about this incident is how quickly one's view of something can shift with the addition of a single element, like a piece of a puzzle falling into place. That light coming on so suddenly seems to say, be ready, because even something as familiar as the intimate scenes you look on every day holds something in reserve. There's always something unknown even within the known, always more to know than we realize at the present. If you think you know as much as you'll ever want to about a given subject, person, place, or thing, get ready: an increase in consciousness can be life-altering. In the face of uncertainty, plant your feet, turn your light on, and wait.
In the many years I've lived here, that thought had never occurred to me previously, and I don't know that it would have except for that porch light being left on. The view across the street is a pleasant one, but there is nothing in it that has ever made me think of Magritte. If it's a cosmic joke, it's a good one, because one of the dominant characteristics of Magritte's work is its surrealism, the way it takes the ordinary and gives it a fantastic twist, blurring the boundaries between ordinary consciousness and a dream state. I take Magritte's surrealism as an invitation to look at things more imaginatively, to realize that the seemingly solid appearance of things often masks another reality.
When you have experience in looking at things from the perspective of myth, the idea of seeing beneath the surface becomes second nature, but even I was startled by the sudden change in perspective. I have always found the views of the rooftops and trees in my neighborhood to be charming and reverie-inducing, particularly at sunset, when they show to best advantage against the changing light. There is something pleasing about the solidity of the houses and the varied angles of the roofs set amid so many tall and shapely trees. The scene is comfortable and established but somehow leaves the door open to the imagination, possibly because your eye is drawn up toward the liminal space between earth and sky, away from the traffic and the street so noisily present below. You can imagine Mary Poppins sailing in over those rooftops with her umbrella or perhaps sailing over them yourself one night in a moonlit magic carpet ride.
More than anything else, this episode makes me realize how important the detail of the light is, not only in the scene across the street but also in the painting. It's the central image in the The Dominion of Light, literally and metaphorically, standing in for, as I interpret it, the spark of consciousness that's alive and observing in each of us, the point of connection between spirit and matter, the awareness that's awake even when dreaming and that sheds light in the face of ambiguity. It's not a blinding light that forecloses any possibility of nuance or complexity but rather a soft, steady light that neither overwhelms the dark or retreats from it.
The other thing that impresses me about this incident is how quickly one's view of something can shift with the addition of a single element, like a piece of a puzzle falling into place. That light coming on so suddenly seems to say, be ready, because even something as familiar as the intimate scenes you look on every day holds something in reserve. There's always something unknown even within the known, always more to know than we realize at the present. If you think you know as much as you'll ever want to about a given subject, person, place, or thing, get ready: an increase in consciousness can be life-altering. In the face of uncertainty, plant your feet, turn your light on, and wait.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Hemingway and the Bulls
It's been a while since I've read anything by Ernest Hemingway, though I have three of his novels on my bookshelf. When I read him in the past, I sometimes had an almost visceral sense of being pummeled, which may have derived in part from his prose style and in part from his themes. This week, however, I finally read The Sun Also Rises, and it all came about because I was reading a novel about his first marriage and his years in Paris. That novel, The Paris Wife, written from the point of view of Mr. Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, tells the story of the complicated personal relationships of the Hemingways and their friends and purportedly hews close to actual events.
The Sun Also Rises is, apparently, a barely disguised version of actual events described in The Paris Wife. As I finished the latter book, Mr. Hemingway's novel was literally sitting across the room from me, directly in my line of vision. It seemed like a good time to find out what he had made of events I'd just read about from someone else's perspective, but I was hesitant. Was I in the mood for literary punches and jabs? No, I wasn't, not really, but my curiosity had been piqued, so I decided to give Mr. Hemingway another try.
As happens to me with fair frequency, I found that I had a different reaction to the author than I'd had in the past. I can't speak to the rights or wrongs of the actual events, but only to the novel, which tells of painful circumstances and tragic characters with a surprising amount of humor. I enjoyed the careful descriptions of landscape, the sharp dialogue, and the vivid sense of place and time. In the time it took to read the novel, I was transported. I can fully appreciate how painful it might have been to be a participant in these events, but the work itself is graceful.
Mr. Hemingway's descriptions of the running of the bulls, the fiesta, and the bull-fighting in Pamplona made me realize something else. I've written before about an alternate outcome for the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, one in which the Minotaur is released from the labyrinth instead of being killed there. My thinking was that if the Minotaur is a disguised version of a sun god, his killing might be the key to the tragic events that follow his death. In the running of the bulls, one sees what this release of the Minotaur looks like in actuality. Though events are still, to some degree, choreographed (as they are in the bull-ring), the strength of the bull is at least celebrated and appreciated by the onlookers. The bull-fighters are judged, in part, against the size and ferocity of the bulls.
Mr. Hemingway made the bull-fights a central image in The Sun Also Rises, and to me, it seems he was very aware of the mythic import of the spectacle, which is also a ritual. Having seen so much death in the war, he must have been acutely alive to the ritualistic conquering of death in the bull-ring, where the bull-fighter "takes on" some of the animal's strength and vitality in the act of defeating it.
It seems to me that though the danger to the bull-fighter is real, the odds are still stacked against the animals. (In the bull-fights, at least as described in the novel, the animal invariably dies.) I don't think this was lost on Mr. Hemingway. Each triumph by a skillful bull-fighter is a temporary triumph, even when repeated many times. But to a character like Jake, shattered by a near-miss with death, the ritual of renewal, even if only temporary and somewhat conditioned, must have been very powerful.
Jake and the others of his generation who survived the war are mirror images of the bull-fighter, though less fortunate. They returned from the labyrinth alive but forever changed, aware of the futility of what they had been through and searching for a way to live with that awareness. As Jake tells it, his central project in life has become an accommodation to facts that cannot be changed. "I did not care what it was all about," he says at one point. "All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about."
It may be off the topic, but the metaphor of bull-fighting in The Sun Also Rises has given me an idea. What if, in the future, we settled all conflicts between nations in the bull-ring? Just send down the person or persons responsible for making the call to the ring and let them match wits with the bulls. It would have to be an even fight, though, so no sending in proxies or hiding behind the fences. If they came out of it still thinking that war is a good idea, then let them fight each other, if so inclined. It may sound crude and simplistic, but wouldn't it save everybody else a lot of trouble? If the bull wins, the whole thing is called off, and we have a two-week fiesta instead.
If I finished The Paris Wife feeling a great deal of sympathy for the first Mrs. Hemingway, I finished The Sun Also Rises with a new empathy for Mr. Hemingway. Glamorous and hip they may have been, but they had a lot stacked against them. Even with all the artistic fervor taking place in the Paris of their day, I don't think I would have wanted to be there, because too much of it seems to have resulted from pain and early loss that they could not surmount. Even though the war was over, they still seemed to be fighting it.
The Sun Also Rises is, apparently, a barely disguised version of actual events described in The Paris Wife. As I finished the latter book, Mr. Hemingway's novel was literally sitting across the room from me, directly in my line of vision. It seemed like a good time to find out what he had made of events I'd just read about from someone else's perspective, but I was hesitant. Was I in the mood for literary punches and jabs? No, I wasn't, not really, but my curiosity had been piqued, so I decided to give Mr. Hemingway another try.
As happens to me with fair frequency, I found that I had a different reaction to the author than I'd had in the past. I can't speak to the rights or wrongs of the actual events, but only to the novel, which tells of painful circumstances and tragic characters with a surprising amount of humor. I enjoyed the careful descriptions of landscape, the sharp dialogue, and the vivid sense of place and time. In the time it took to read the novel, I was transported. I can fully appreciate how painful it might have been to be a participant in these events, but the work itself is graceful.
Mr. Hemingway's descriptions of the running of the bulls, the fiesta, and the bull-fighting in Pamplona made me realize something else. I've written before about an alternate outcome for the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, one in which the Minotaur is released from the labyrinth instead of being killed there. My thinking was that if the Minotaur is a disguised version of a sun god, his killing might be the key to the tragic events that follow his death. In the running of the bulls, one sees what this release of the Minotaur looks like in actuality. Though events are still, to some degree, choreographed (as they are in the bull-ring), the strength of the bull is at least celebrated and appreciated by the onlookers. The bull-fighters are judged, in part, against the size and ferocity of the bulls.
Mr. Hemingway made the bull-fights a central image in The Sun Also Rises, and to me, it seems he was very aware of the mythic import of the spectacle, which is also a ritual. Having seen so much death in the war, he must have been acutely alive to the ritualistic conquering of death in the bull-ring, where the bull-fighter "takes on" some of the animal's strength and vitality in the act of defeating it.
It seems to me that though the danger to the bull-fighter is real, the odds are still stacked against the animals. (In the bull-fights, at least as described in the novel, the animal invariably dies.) I don't think this was lost on Mr. Hemingway. Each triumph by a skillful bull-fighter is a temporary triumph, even when repeated many times. But to a character like Jake, shattered by a near-miss with death, the ritual of renewal, even if only temporary and somewhat conditioned, must have been very powerful.
Jake and the others of his generation who survived the war are mirror images of the bull-fighter, though less fortunate. They returned from the labyrinth alive but forever changed, aware of the futility of what they had been through and searching for a way to live with that awareness. As Jake tells it, his central project in life has become an accommodation to facts that cannot be changed. "I did not care what it was all about," he says at one point. "All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about."
It may be off the topic, but the metaphor of bull-fighting in The Sun Also Rises has given me an idea. What if, in the future, we settled all conflicts between nations in the bull-ring? Just send down the person or persons responsible for making the call to the ring and let them match wits with the bulls. It would have to be an even fight, though, so no sending in proxies or hiding behind the fences. If they came out of it still thinking that war is a good idea, then let them fight each other, if so inclined. It may sound crude and simplistic, but wouldn't it save everybody else a lot of trouble? If the bull wins, the whole thing is called off, and we have a two-week fiesta instead.
If I finished The Paris Wife feeling a great deal of sympathy for the first Mrs. Hemingway, I finished The Sun Also Rises with a new empathy for Mr. Hemingway. Glamorous and hip they may have been, but they had a lot stacked against them. Even with all the artistic fervor taking place in the Paris of their day, I don't think I would have wanted to be there, because too much of it seems to have resulted from pain and early loss that they could not surmount. Even though the war was over, they still seemed to be fighting it.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Medieval for a Cause
Last year I wrote about Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales in April; this year, in keeping with that same spirit of spring, I read a prose retelling of the work. My online hours may have been spent keeping up with current events, and my walks may have entailed enjoying the flowers while tuning out modern noise, but my mind was in the Middle Ages. I wasn't sorry to absent myself, at least sporadically, from some of this week's sound and fury. Going medieval isn't always bad.
I think you need to read at least some of the tales as Chaucer wrote them to get the flavor of the language, even if it slows down your comprehension. One of the most memorable experiences I had in an English class was hearing Middle English verse read out loud while we mastered pronunciation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and other works. For the first time, I could hear the underlying rhythms of the English language--hear it clearly as music--with the sense of the words taking second place to the sound. However, if I were teaching The Canterbury Tales, I would also have the students read a modern retelling so that they could enjoy the stories as stories.
To fully appreciate them, it's true: you have to read the entire work, or the bulk of it, and that would probably only take place in a course devoted to Middle English poetry. It's an ambitious project to read them all but worth it. It's not just the stories in themselves, but what they say about the people who tell them, and their listeners, that makes the Tales so much fun. You have, among others, the opening story told by a long-winded knight, a series of unflattering and/or bawdy tales told with the purpose of annoying someone else, the unforgettable forthrightness of the Wife of Bath, the stark morality of the Pardoner's tale of the three wastrels, and the folksy humor of the Nun's Priest's tale of the sprightly Chanticleer who outfoxes the fox.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about "Chaucer's Retractions," which comes at the very end. This is Chaucer, still in character as one of the pilgrims, turning aside, just as the company is approaching its goal, to offer a private speech in defense and/or apology for all his works, including the Tales he has just concluded. In spirit, it's a little like the series finale of some long-running TV show in which of one of the characters wakes up, and you find it was all a dream. After so much irreverence, crudity, and satire, Chaucer in effect takes it all back, just in case there was something in there that might have offended God or man. Of course, his failing to do this until the last dirty joke has been told leads you to question his sincerity, but the seriousness of his prayer also seems to hedge his bets. After all, death could come suddenly, and there was no sense taking any chances. If there's humor in this retraction, it's a dark humor, as I read it, laced with a sense of mortality.
A medieval pilgrim stopping in the woods unavoidably makes me think of Dante's pilgrim, who lost his way in a similar place before seeking his salvation. I'm also jumping ahead a couple of centuries to Shakespeare's Prospero, who, having used the magic arts to regain control of his fate, gives them up in the end, saying, "This rough magic I here abjure." Although Chaucer's purpose, to instruct, seems very different from Prospero's, they are both in effect using their creative power to shape things to their will. All of Chaucer's characters are subject to his whim, just as the inhabitants of Prospero's island are subject to his, until they're released. There's an inevitability to this release, but it's also a little sad, a letting go.
April is a great time to read The Canterbury Tales. You can rest your eyes by looking out the window at the trees leafing out and the flowers budding and put yourself in company with the pilgrims setting out on their journey, which, by the way, begins with crossing a stream. (Is The Canterbury Tales, in some sense, an underworld journey? This is a question I would put to my class of imaginary students, who may someday be actual ones.) I let time elide like that the other day at the coffeehouse while finishing the Tales, and it was as if the fourteenth century and the twenty-first blended together and became one, a Frappuccino of centuries. It was as if no time had passed at all since the pilgrims first gathered at Starbu--, I mean, the Tabard Inn.
I think you need to read at least some of the tales as Chaucer wrote them to get the flavor of the language, even if it slows down your comprehension. One of the most memorable experiences I had in an English class was hearing Middle English verse read out loud while we mastered pronunciation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and other works. For the first time, I could hear the underlying rhythms of the English language--hear it clearly as music--with the sense of the words taking second place to the sound. However, if I were teaching The Canterbury Tales, I would also have the students read a modern retelling so that they could enjoy the stories as stories.
To fully appreciate them, it's true: you have to read the entire work, or the bulk of it, and that would probably only take place in a course devoted to Middle English poetry. It's an ambitious project to read them all but worth it. It's not just the stories in themselves, but what they say about the people who tell them, and their listeners, that makes the Tales so much fun. You have, among others, the opening story told by a long-winded knight, a series of unflattering and/or bawdy tales told with the purpose of annoying someone else, the unforgettable forthrightness of the Wife of Bath, the stark morality of the Pardoner's tale of the three wastrels, and the folksy humor of the Nun's Priest's tale of the sprightly Chanticleer who outfoxes the fox.
I haven't been able to stop thinking about "Chaucer's Retractions," which comes at the very end. This is Chaucer, still in character as one of the pilgrims, turning aside, just as the company is approaching its goal, to offer a private speech in defense and/or apology for all his works, including the Tales he has just concluded. In spirit, it's a little like the series finale of some long-running TV show in which of one of the characters wakes up, and you find it was all a dream. After so much irreverence, crudity, and satire, Chaucer in effect takes it all back, just in case there was something in there that might have offended God or man. Of course, his failing to do this until the last dirty joke has been told leads you to question his sincerity, but the seriousness of his prayer also seems to hedge his bets. After all, death could come suddenly, and there was no sense taking any chances. If there's humor in this retraction, it's a dark humor, as I read it, laced with a sense of mortality.
A medieval pilgrim stopping in the woods unavoidably makes me think of Dante's pilgrim, who lost his way in a similar place before seeking his salvation. I'm also jumping ahead a couple of centuries to Shakespeare's Prospero, who, having used the magic arts to regain control of his fate, gives them up in the end, saying, "This rough magic I here abjure." Although Chaucer's purpose, to instruct, seems very different from Prospero's, they are both in effect using their creative power to shape things to their will. All of Chaucer's characters are subject to his whim, just as the inhabitants of Prospero's island are subject to his, until they're released. There's an inevitability to this release, but it's also a little sad, a letting go.
April is a great time to read The Canterbury Tales. You can rest your eyes by looking out the window at the trees leafing out and the flowers budding and put yourself in company with the pilgrims setting out on their journey, which, by the way, begins with crossing a stream. (Is The Canterbury Tales, in some sense, an underworld journey? This is a question I would put to my class of imaginary students, who may someday be actual ones.) I let time elide like that the other day at the coffeehouse while finishing the Tales, and it was as if the fourteenth century and the twenty-first blended together and became one, a Frappuccino of centuries. It was as if no time had passed at all since the pilgrims first gathered at Starbu--, I mean, the Tabard Inn.
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