Rather than follow in the train of this insatiable monster of modern reading, I would rather forswear my spectacles, play at put, mend pens, kill fleas, stand on one leg, shell peas, or do whatsoever ignoble diversion you shall put me to. Alas!...I die of new books, or the everlasting talk about them...I will go and relieve myself with a page of honest John Bunyan, or Tom Brown. Tom anybody will do, so long as they are not of this whiffling century.
But of course sometimes I do find an author well worth reading who happens to be of this century, or perhaps late century last. Friday I discovered At Large and At Small, a book of essays by Anne Fadiman. She writes about ice cream and coffee and staying up all night to read books, or to write them. She draws on outside articles and essays and stories in each essay, and my vocabulary is expanding at a rate of about 5 words per page ("Panegyric", for instance, as in "[all your reasons for getting up early] are not going to make me jump out of bed at five any more than a panegyric by a white water lily on the splendors of the morning is going to make the evening primrose transplant itself in Linnaeus's 6:A.M. flower bed.") In fact, Fadiman employs a great number of words to argue the case for night owls in an essay on the subject:
"When I write after dark," observes Cyril Connally, "the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose. Then why not write in the morning? Unfortunately in my case there is never very much of the morning, and it is curious that although I do not despise people who go to bed earlier than I, almost everyone is impatient with me for not getting up."
A very excellent point, in my opinion, and a very enjoyable book. I recommend it.
(1) Why in the world has nobody commented yet?
ReplyDelete(2) Who is Charles Lamb?
(3) I think the problem with modern books is the deluge of published matter, and the lack of any guidance how to find a way past the garish flotsam and jetsam that jostles for attention in the bookstores to what's worth reading. Good authors are there, but because discovering them is so hard I tend to mine a lode dead before striking out for a new one.
Charles Lamb- b. 1775, d. sometime after that, English Essayist and good friends with Samuel Coleridge. I don't really know much about him, except he had a very difficult family life. But I liked his comment.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. Bookstores are full of all kinds of nonesense and it's difficult to separate the sheep from the goats. Ms. Fadiman can thank her book jacket design team for this sale. I'd never heard of her, might not have been taken in by the title, and only noticed the book because it has a very charming cover. (who says it's no way to pick em?)
So by quoting Lamb you're saying complaining about the allegedly sorry and irredeemable state of current affairs has neither novelty nor creativity to commend it, and on top of that lacks the broader perspective that the passage of time affords, is that right?
ReplyDeletewell, no--I just thought he said exactly what I think in a particularly interesting way. But the irony of quoting from that century--one he found whiffling and I find fabulous--does make it that much better. Reactionary nostalgia looks roughly the same in any century apparently.
ReplyDeletewould it be possible for you guys to use a language that others understand too? I'm really tempted to write this comment in swiss german, but then Stephan could understand it and that would not really prove my point... responding in an adequate manner leaves me the options of coming up with an imaginary language, but since I'm tired (and hungry), I won't... which leaves me the next option; stringing together random words with no obvious meaning (you might think...). So here's my official response to whatever you guys have been talking about: Be it lamb or goat, it's the night owls that are to be made solely responsible for the procrastination in the development of tomorrows history.
ReplyDeleteGood night!
You're too funny. :) sorry for confusing you. sleep well! count sheep! or goats, or owls, if you prefer.
ReplyDeleteI suppose he was nice, actually: he could have called his century "piffling."
ReplyDeleteyeah, or coffling.
ReplyDeleteOr purfling, depending on his theory of aesthetics. (Gotta love rhyming dictionaries.)
ReplyDeleteWhat, by the way, is playing at put?
"playing at put" refers to a traditional English game called "put-pins" or "push pins." There are a number of literary references to it, including one in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. Here's a link to a note in a book that talks about it a bit:
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.com/books?id=3z0ECxW7s8sC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=%22play+at+put%22&source=web&ots=NbkKRVw6IF&sig=29J0-C-GfKWyjefnyKALplbSB9w
I really doubt he would have called it "purfling", as he was apparently not a luthier, and they are pretty much the only people concerned with purfling.
ReplyDeleteHa! I thought "purfling" might elicit a comment from you, Dad!! :)
ReplyDelete(for those who don't know, my Pa makes violins and other stringed, non-guitar, non-ukalele instruments).
That does bring us back to the handbag discussion: http://www.ioffer.com/selling/lvboutiquehk?search_query=spy
ReplyDeleteSearch the page for "purfle." To purfle (and its gerund, purfling) means to ornament the border or edges of, especially with embroidery. Apparently that spawned a threadless subgenre in instrument building - man, the trivia I'm learning over silly rhymes!
He would likely still not have called it purfling, unless it also spawned a literary subgenre in his time - purfled prose, perhaps?
It was great to meet you, Stephanie, and have an idea, albeit minor, of the person associated with your blog.
ReplyDeleteCharles and Mary Lamb (brother and sister, not husband and wife) wrote Tales from Shakespeare, a great introduction to his plays -- for young people and also for the rest of us who have trouble understanding the plots at first go. It was meant for children, but that only shows people had more respect for children's intellects back then.
I believe both Charles and Mary suffered from mental illness -- a rough translation of my memory that they "went mad" -- but managed to be quite successful nonetheless.
I am a lark whose dear friend and college roommate is a committed owl. She had the best of life in college, since one usually could avoid early morning classes, but rowdy neighbors at 2 a.m. were less manageable. I, on the other hand, fit better in a life where children awaken you at 6 a.m. or earlier. I tease her that she chose her profession (college professor) because academia is one place where you can define "night" as 4 a.m. to noon. :)
The world apparently needs both kinds. Too bad we can't do a better job of matching jobs with people -- I suspect that shift work, for example, with its ever-changing schedule, fits almost no one.
"Luthier" -- now there's a good vocabulary word. I happen to be familiar with it, but only because being a Suzuki mom necessitated some acquaintance with a local practitioner of that art.
Somehow I missed this thread. I need to get a feed for your comments. I supposed my excuse is having had company for the past two weeks. I just wanted to reassure Dom that he is not the only one a little lost in the banter. I had to look up several words in the post even though I'm related to one and was the reason why she knew about Suzuki and the word luthier in the first place! I also discovered one reason for my poor vocabulary. I sometimes don't even see the words I don't know and wouldn't know they had been used until someone commented on it. It's so interesting how selective my observation skills are.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I just learned that I've been mis-pronouncing "luthier" all this time. My vocabulary comes largely from reading, and as you know that leads to some funny (and often embarrassing) moments.
ReplyDeleteyeah, that can be embarrassing...did you find out by saying it wrong to someone, or by someone else saying it correctly? I always feign a senior moment when I'm not sure about pronunciation ("blah blah...oh...I can't think of the word. Um, hmmm. What do you call a person who-Luthier, exactly, thank you....blah blah blah") Works marvelously! =)
ReplyDeleteI became suspicious, having recently been sensitized to "th" issues, via Thun, so I looked it up.
ReplyDeleteGood strategy; I'll have to use it sometime.
Janet dear, I had to look up some of the words I used... though I did know/guess a luthier was an instrument builder and not a reformer.
ReplyDeleteAs for pronounciation, I try to go with White/Strunk. Better to mispronounce loudly than have your correct pronounciation go unheard.