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The stars sang in their sockets
Dec. 10th, 2012 01:52 am
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 4; rising through the night again.
Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Spica, Friday morning:
Still too much high cloud around.
Finished The Maytrees tonight. It's a book about love and death (of course. I have yet to come across an Annie Dillard book that is not largely about death. (As far as I can recall, though, there is not a single (overt) bit of God in this book.) She seems like she might be a bit less offended by death in this one, but maybe not. She does seem to still have this problem about how once everything's over there's no point and so what ever was the point, since when it's over there'll be no point?) More specifically, it's a book about ruining your life for no reason, and then it all working out better than could reasonably be hoped in the end anyway, which is the kind of thing I worry might badly influence people who get their ideas about how life might go from books. Well, but I find the whole basic deal aggravating in that way: Toby Maytree leaves an idyllic life with a woman he loves, and who loves him, like hardly anyone can love anyone to go live like an ordinary idiot with a woman he doesn't really understand and who probably isn't even particularly interested in understanding him (though she is perfectly good-natured and has been an interesting weirdo in her day--as opposed to the wife he leaves, who remains an interesting weirdo throughout (and also perfectly good-natured)). Why? Because he has fallen in love with her. He was overcome by a dormative quality, I don't know. (This does make me think again of JD telling me, in a funny little dorm party with Glenfiddich and peanuts in Fredericton last year, "What you said in the romantic love paper yesterday, that was bullshit." What I said was that Sartre is nuts about how everything is up for re-decision at every moment. (Look, anything could be, but everything isn't, and actually hardly anything ever actually is, and you literally can't live any other way. You can't walk if you've got to keep deciding to put one foot in front of the other. If you have to decide to put one foot in front of the other more than, I dunno, a couple of times a month or something, you've probably got serious problems getting anywhere.)) He thinks a lot about love, which I guess you might think he might, since he thinks a lot anyway and falling in love for no apparent good reason has rather ruined his life (though he doesn't see it that way, since he is also perfectly good-natured). But he doesn't get very far with it. (At least he stays with this other woman for a reason that seems like it might motivate someone, such as him, to stay with her: he's resolved not to be unfaithful a second time. But, eh, the narrator explains that he left his wife for this other woman not because he didn't love his wife anymore but because his love for her was "out-shouted" by his new love. I dunno, how much resolve does it take to guarantee your resolve won't get out-shouted?)
There are a few fairly gratuitous mentions of the Red Sox.
So, yeah, I found this book somewhat irritating, but that's far from the weakest compliment I could pay a book. The persistent irritatingness of Annie Dillard seems to be some important part of why I'm reading all these books.
Here is one of the more memorable lines out of The Writing Life: "Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?"
Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Spica, Friday morning:
Still too much high cloud around.
Finished The Maytrees tonight. It's a book about love and death (of course. I have yet to come across an Annie Dillard book that is not largely about death. (As far as I can recall, though, there is not a single (overt) bit of God in this book.) She seems like she might be a bit less offended by death in this one, but maybe not. She does seem to still have this problem about how once everything's over there's no point and so what ever was the point, since when it's over there'll be no point?) More specifically, it's a book about ruining your life for no reason, and then it all working out better than could reasonably be hoped in the end anyway, which is the kind of thing I worry might badly influence people who get their ideas about how life might go from books. Well, but I find the whole basic deal aggravating in that way: Toby Maytree leaves an idyllic life with a woman he loves, and who loves him, like hardly anyone can love anyone to go live like an ordinary idiot with a woman he doesn't really understand and who probably isn't even particularly interested in understanding him (though she is perfectly good-natured and has been an interesting weirdo in her day--as opposed to the wife he leaves, who remains an interesting weirdo throughout (and also perfectly good-natured)). Why? Because he has fallen in love with her. He was overcome by a dormative quality, I don't know. (This does make me think again of JD telling me, in a funny little dorm party with Glenfiddich and peanuts in Fredericton last year, "What you said in the romantic love paper yesterday, that was bullshit." What I said was that Sartre is nuts about how everything is up for re-decision at every moment. (Look, anything could be, but everything isn't, and actually hardly anything ever actually is, and you literally can't live any other way. You can't walk if you've got to keep deciding to put one foot in front of the other. If you have to decide to put one foot in front of the other more than, I dunno, a couple of times a month or something, you've probably got serious problems getting anywhere.)) He thinks a lot about love, which I guess you might think he might, since he thinks a lot anyway and falling in love for no apparent good reason has rather ruined his life (though he doesn't see it that way, since he is also perfectly good-natured). But he doesn't get very far with it. (At least he stays with this other woman for a reason that seems like it might motivate someone, such as him, to stay with her: he's resolved not to be unfaithful a second time. But, eh, the narrator explains that he left his wife for this other woman not because he didn't love his wife anymore but because his love for her was "out-shouted" by his new love. I dunno, how much resolve does it take to guarantee your resolve won't get out-shouted?)
There are a few fairly gratuitous mentions of the Red Sox.
So, yeah, I found this book somewhat irritating, but that's far from the weakest compliment I could pay a book. The persistent irritatingness of Annie Dillard seems to be some important part of why I'm reading all these books.
Here is one of the more memorable lines out of The Writing Life: "Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world?"
