Lava

      I don't know entirely why, but I like this bit from Carol de Chellis Hill's Henry James' Midnight Song, a book so flawed in so many ways but which captures me however briefly in this exchange:

He [Doctor Freud] would not lose her [Anna Kleibourg-Quim; sic: one of the worst-named characters ever] now. He did not want to fail. He must listen now for the next few days. Or her rage, which was volcanic, would destroy his efforts totally.

I won't say more until I finish the book, but there's something quite effective about the prose, though I must admit that at this point I can't put my finger on it, save for the lurid dimensions. I think it turns on the words "he must listen," words all men must keep in mind, even those of us avoiding relationships as if they were contracted. There's also the irony there: for all of Doctor Freud's listening, he never was a very good listener. He always heard "by options." No wonder the lava stirred.

      BTW: Why the hell-- er, HELL-- am I reading prose again? It's almost guaranteed that I'll give up on these papers before I finish them, their style too eye-roll-inducing to warrant further reading. I (grrr, arrrgh) dunno. There are bits and pieces worth the while, though few & far between. In that quote I cited above, I hate, hate, hate the clause "which was volcanic," even if other parts do get me, often in spite of myself. This may also be why I appreciate Greene's cleavage, as opposed to Dickens' excesses: Greene's the butcher that seldom issues fat; both popularists, both "issue-based; " but GG trimmed where The Dick exacerbated and exaggerated. Both moralists, GG alway left you to riddle matters through. But as much as I regret the clause above, I like the synoptic effect: there's an immediacy, though surely not a delicacy, of which James would have approved, at least in effort if not in performance. Effort, or effect-- who knows at this point. So often effort becomes effect; just ask George Lucas. The titanism of effort can sometimes create an effect larger than artistry could ever engender.

      RK's probably right, that I should better discover Durrell, among others. But, I have to confess, this is also why I love Strand and Housman, and Heaney too, poets otherwise very different, that cleave to directness and a notion of essentiality. None has much patience for they would deem false arabesques. (Not that Durrell, does, either, but that's a matter to which I do not profess the ability to converse properly, at least not yet; my preliminary reading of Durrell suggests an attention to finery of experience that's better compared to James, but surely with a more continental mentality, though with a comparable gift for encapsulation.) Perhaps my perspective is too provincial, too typically Canuck-- and not in the best way (i.e., unvarnished and insular, though assuming oneself not to be the latter). I can't truly imagine an island, or what it means to live on one. I also can't imagine lava-- at least not as it truly is. I also can't imagine the idea of "polish," a fact against which I've always perhaps-Quixotically (and, admittedly, perhaps even intolerantly) railed. In the end I just know what I love. And as much as I may resent that love, or the fact that I do so, there's no escaping it. And perhaps love-- every now and again-- can create an effect larger than artistry could ever engender.

      I know, I know, I know. But allow me to pet my own dissheveled head for a moment. Even a mongrel's allowed the occasional stroke.