RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,271
(at midnight, when I'm not so brave)
I started a long time ago, and
now I suppose it's mostly over.
Might as well face the facts.
No angels attended my birth,
and I don't figure to have any
when I depart - life's just like
that. Almost Shakespearean in
that the power and the noise are
all stage effects. Flagellants
walking between towns in the
midst of the Black Death made
the same sort of sense, and at
least they already knew, and
accepted, what was up - all
without the aid of TV and
news. None of those little
thunderheads always going
on about something.
-
We live now in a goofball age,
and it's all accepted and never
remarked on. My inner workings
were always fairly clear, and I
learned quickly that it was the
working of the world that made
things bad. 'Welcome, O life!
I go to encounter for the millionth
time the reality of experience and
to forge in the smithy of my soul
the uncreated conscience of my
race.'
-
That was James Joyce, something
like 1904. Before the inklings of
the modern world hit upon us. It's
funny how it only takes maybe three
generations at most to forget things.
If you had great-grandparents (I
never did), whatever world they'd
been able to present to you was long
gone beyond even their telling of it.
Pretty much the same can go, almost,
for grandparents of a ripe age. It
becomes very difficult to translate
the inner to the outer worlds, mainly
because the outer world dissolves
away like sugar in the rain. I think
what James Joyce was headed to
with this quote - the 'conscience
of his race' - was his own somewhat
hallowed and Irish world of childhood
and adolescence, churches and manners
and all the rest of the usual patter that
went into a life that would have been
lived in the same and usual lodgings
had not his quest for eluding that
through creativity and vibrancy not
been undertaken. It's too easy to
just remain a drudge. 'Working for
the Yankee dollar' - as those rum
and Coke girls had put it.
-
A person needs to beat standards
of conduct and values, and not
simply 'conform' to any of the
hundreds of unintelligible codes
and confusing strictures that only
end up in a guilty crowd of goons
in a mob of shouting creatures.
As he also put it, 'I will not serve
that in which I no longer believe.'
-
Back in my earlier days, those lost
years of the late 60's and minor 70's,
there were many episodes of enmeshed
doubts and squirrely inconveniences
by which I simply cursed the world
instead of actually doing anything
about it. Believe me, I tried, and I
came close : there were gun-barrels,
violence, force, theft, and murder too.
There are many left-behinds which
only now, 50 and more years later
occasionally come back to haunt
or to bring regret or a tear to my
eyes. It's just that way. Everyone
says they remember the past, but
the past passes away, and there
really is no past. Harbingers of
some shit-sodden futures are
all we really ever get.
-
Pretty much as an acolyte of
nothing, I don't know when the
statute of limitations takes effect.
I'd sure be glad to hear of it, if
it does. The raincoat shoulders
no rain, and the cloak I wear is
the one that suits me best.
Invisibility. Close enough, it is,
to invincibility too, so there's
always hope.
-
People often have asked me what
I'm trying to do; with all this stuff
that goes nowhere; that gets too
mysterious or difficult to follow;
that leads 'away' and not 'to'. I
never know what to say back, and
I mostly know that my answer
would be as unintelligible to them
as their question is to me. I'd have
to start with Lawrence Sterne. He
was a writer, in something like
the 1730's. He died young, at 55,
from a long-winded bought of
tuberculosis; it limited his time
here, and he knew it, but he wrote
headlong and on, in spite of it. Did
pretty well too - in that he came
up with one of the strangest and
earliest books of pure and lively
and scatter-brained 'fiction' that
had ever been before. In fact,
it have NEVER been before
because his was the first. It's said
that he created the modern novel,
somehow in one fell swoop (but
actually it was in at least 4 volumes,
and a follow-up book after that
as well). It relates to nothing
but him, but not to him at all.
It can't be said to be a country
novel. Nor an urban one. For
it is nowhere at all. It's fiction,
by which it creates its own time
and place, with the discursive
and digressive attributes of a
form of literary mercury. Referred
to mostly as 'Tristram Shandy',
the actual title is 'The Life and
Opinions of Tristram Shandy.'
The follow-up book, also a
'success' by the standards of
those days, was entitled 'A
Sentimental Journey.' He died
in 1768, one month after the
publication of 'Sentimental
Journey.'
-
Like James Joyce, he too
was pilloried and criticized
by the usual sorts of fools and
critics who hadn't a clue as to
what they were witness to, nor
of what they were talking of.
But, alas, the same sort also
feed themselves well at any
pigsty offering free slop, so
what matters any of that. 'Get
out while you can' has always
been my motto. I've seen too
many trapped people for my
day. Sterne said, of 'A Sentimental
Journey', that his design was 'to
teach us to love the world and
our fellow-creatures better than
we do.' I don't know about any
of that, but I'll take him at his
word. If that was good for him,
then all-well. I'm shaded much
differently and can't exactly
say I adhere to that. As Sterne
also said - 'Be pleased he
knows not why, and cares
not wherefore.'
