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pegkerrFrom The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon:
Shakespeare understood this to the core, and examined it at length in the sonnets. From the ending of Sonnet 18:
. . . Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this [the sonnet] and this gives life to thee.
I read a story years ago--and damn me for not remembering the title or author--which started, very simply, by describing a man, a simple laborer, who died in his sleep one night. The rest of the story is a straightforward account of how his presence is erased from the world. He had no children. His simple possessions are sold and scattered to the winds. The story tells of a gathering of friends twelve years later, eating dinner at a common inn. In the course of the conversation, one says to the other, "We went there with that fellow we worked with long ago--what was his name, John Josephson--" and the conversation goes on from there. And that the narrator tells us was the last time that John Josephson's name was ever spoken by another human being.
The years speed on, and then another forty years or so later the narrator focuses on something, a written record--I don't remember what it was, a written ledger, or a Bible in a church. There is a storm (or was it a fire?) and the book with John Josephson's name (or was it his signature?) is destroyed. The page is soaked, and the ink runs, or perhaps it is burned. There are five letters left in his name, then three. Then one. Then the last letter is gone, as is John Josephson from all human memory.
[Anyone remember that story??? Title and author???]
I have been thinking about the ice palace book. Well--sort of squinting at it out of the corner of my eyes without trying to look at it directly. I have been wondering, rather gloomily, whether I should just admit facts and remove all reference to it from my user profile page. I haven't worked on it in months. It was going well, and then it wasn't going well, and then it all seemed to dry up. I do not know whether I made a mistake in talking about it in this journal--did that somehow suck all the creative juices out of it, keeping me from actually writing it? Is it just that I am so busy with the kids and my job, and the fact that I am not writing is an inevitable reflection of the busy nature of my life, or am I just making lame excuses for laziness, lack of talent? Am I not working on the book because I am depressed, or am I depressed because I am not working on the book? Screw the cause: I am very very very depressed, and I haven't been working on the book. Not for a long time.
And yet, and yet . . .
I am not entirely divorced from it, it is not entirely dead for me, because I am struggling with the same things Solveig is struggling with. I always knew that there was much going on in the book about permanence, impermanence. Solveig is horrified by Rolf's quest for immortality, but she understands it, too, because, like Jack, she wants to create something that will last. I type insurance paperwork for a living, and she designs shopping malls; like me, she sure as hell isn't getting what she needs from her day job. She gets irritable--just as I do--by those who try to convince her that since she's mothering a child, she should accept that as her gift to the future. No, Solveig says, and I say--I want to do something, make something, that will last. We both want a life's work that will matter, long term, that will stand for years to come. She ponders this as she designs an ice palace which will melt, but which she hopes will live in memory, just as I ponder my writing. I have my paper journals lined up in neat rows in my office. What will happen to them when I die? I have thought about this--Rob will have the right to read them if he survives me. The girls can read them after they have reached the age of twenty-one, and they will inherit them. In my deepest anxious craving to be remembered, to matter, somehow, I wonder if they will ever be read by anyone else, people who never have the chance to meet me. Will the words be interesting--enough to last? Will anyone give a damn?
What do I have to say for the ages? Will my life be remembered years, decades, even centuries later, like Sei Shonagon, like Shakespeare, like Jane Austen, like Tolkien, because of the words that I wrote--words about my own life, or my fictional creation? Or will I be erased inexorably by the remorseless, relentless, hand of Time?
I do not know what to do about the ice palace book. I seem paralyzed about it, and when I permit myself to think beyond the blackness of my depression--which seems just about impossible these days--I am in a rage, absolutely fucking furious at myself for being so blocked.
The fury does not help. It is not a spur to action; it just makes me feel worse, if I possibly could.
But beyond that, even, there is still something there about the book that is connected to me, to my deepest concerns, so I guess it's not dead yet--even if I can't figure out how to grasp it and shape it and make it work--or if I can't somehow force myself to do the hard slogging work to bring it into being. Whatever the cause.
God help me.
(Or maybe I should just switch to sonnets.)
It was a clear, moonlit night a little after the tenth of the Eighth Month. Her majesty, who was residing in the Empress's Office, sat by the edge of the veranda while Ukon no Naishi played the flute for her. The other ladies in attendance sat together, talking and laughing; but I stayed by myself, leaning against one of the pillars between the main hall and the veranda.Such a simple little scene, deftly sketched in just a few paragraphs. One can see it--the moonlit garden, the ladies gathered, talking softly, the flutist, the Empress, and Sei Shonagon, looking up at the moon with a melancholic air. The ladies described--once living, breathing people--have been dead and dust now for a thousand years, and yet the words on the page immediately brings them to life for us again.
'Why so silent,' said Her Majesty. 'Say something. It is sad when you do not speak.'
'I am gazing into the autumn moon,' I replied.
'Ah yes,' she remarked. 'That is just what you should have said.'
Shakespeare understood this to the core, and examined it at length in the sonnets. From the ending of Sonnet 18:
. . . Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this [the sonnet] and this gives life to thee.
I read a story years ago--and damn me for not remembering the title or author--which started, very simply, by describing a man, a simple laborer, who died in his sleep one night. The rest of the story is a straightforward account of how his presence is erased from the world. He had no children. His simple possessions are sold and scattered to the winds. The story tells of a gathering of friends twelve years later, eating dinner at a common inn. In the course of the conversation, one says to the other, "We went there with that fellow we worked with long ago--what was his name, John Josephson--" and the conversation goes on from there. And that the narrator tells us was the last time that John Josephson's name was ever spoken by another human being.
The years speed on, and then another forty years or so later the narrator focuses on something, a written record--I don't remember what it was, a written ledger, or a Bible in a church. There is a storm (or was it a fire?) and the book with John Josephson's name (or was it his signature?) is destroyed. The page is soaked, and the ink runs, or perhaps it is burned. There are five letters left in his name, then three. Then one. Then the last letter is gone, as is John Josephson from all human memory.
[Anyone remember that story??? Title and author???]
I have been thinking about the ice palace book. Well--sort of squinting at it out of the corner of my eyes without trying to look at it directly. I have been wondering, rather gloomily, whether I should just admit facts and remove all reference to it from my user profile page. I haven't worked on it in months. It was going well, and then it wasn't going well, and then it all seemed to dry up. I do not know whether I made a mistake in talking about it in this journal--did that somehow suck all the creative juices out of it, keeping me from actually writing it? Is it just that I am so busy with the kids and my job, and the fact that I am not writing is an inevitable reflection of the busy nature of my life, or am I just making lame excuses for laziness, lack of talent? Am I not working on the book because I am depressed, or am I depressed because I am not working on the book? Screw the cause: I am very very very depressed, and I haven't been working on the book. Not for a long time.
And yet, and yet . . .
I am not entirely divorced from it, it is not entirely dead for me, because I am struggling with the same things Solveig is struggling with. I always knew that there was much going on in the book about permanence, impermanence. Solveig is horrified by Rolf's quest for immortality, but she understands it, too, because, like Jack, she wants to create something that will last. I type insurance paperwork for a living, and she designs shopping malls; like me, she sure as hell isn't getting what she needs from her day job. She gets irritable--just as I do--by those who try to convince her that since she's mothering a child, she should accept that as her gift to the future. No, Solveig says, and I say--I want to do something, make something, that will last. We both want a life's work that will matter, long term, that will stand for years to come. She ponders this as she designs an ice palace which will melt, but which she hopes will live in memory, just as I ponder my writing. I have my paper journals lined up in neat rows in my office. What will happen to them when I die? I have thought about this--Rob will have the right to read them if he survives me. The girls can read them after they have reached the age of twenty-one, and they will inherit them. In my deepest anxious craving to be remembered, to matter, somehow, I wonder if they will ever be read by anyone else, people who never have the chance to meet me. Will the words be interesting--enough to last? Will anyone give a damn?
What do I have to say for the ages? Will my life be remembered years, decades, even centuries later, like Sei Shonagon, like Shakespeare, like Jane Austen, like Tolkien, because of the words that I wrote--words about my own life, or my fictional creation? Or will I be erased inexorably by the remorseless, relentless, hand of Time?
I do not know what to do about the ice palace book. I seem paralyzed about it, and when I permit myself to think beyond the blackness of my depression--which seems just about impossible these days--I am in a rage, absolutely fucking furious at myself for being so blocked.
The fury does not help. It is not a spur to action; it just makes me feel worse, if I possibly could.
But beyond that, even, there is still something there about the book that is connected to me, to my deepest concerns, so I guess it's not dead yet--even if I can't figure out how to grasp it and shape it and make it work--or if I can't somehow force myself to do the hard slogging work to bring it into being. Whatever the cause.
God help me.
(Or maybe I should just switch to sonnets.)
