The angle of the story
So I made a bit of an inroad on Vollman's Europe Central last night, and, unfortunately, some time in the wee hours when I was awake. It's moon madness, the burgeoning moon that keeps me wakeful, wandering around the house. My first rough impression is that Vollman is paying some homage to Tolstoy. There's an expansive quality to the novel which conjures up Anna K.
A day full of chores, including a trip to our bank for administrative things. I had to explain three or four times, as we walked from the car to the bank just why were going there, and then a couple more as we waited for a bank officer, and then some more as we left. Finally, she said she just couldn't keep it in her head, and thanked me for taking good care of her affairs. When we got her tax return ready to send off, she got a bewildered look on her face and said she didn't think she could do that kind of stuff anymore. I reminded her that she did it all after dad started declining, and she seemed to take comfort in that. It's clear that paperwork unsettles her almost as much as impending dental work.
While reading more from a collection of non fiction pieces by Elizabeth Bowen, I encountered what struck me as timeless observations about general malaise in people. She was writing in 1950, not long after WWII, but this could apply, unfortunately, to us right now:
"Are we to take it that our own time has been, from the point of view of its inhabitants, irreparably injured - that it shows some loss of vital deficiency? What fails in the air of our present- day that we cannot breathe it; or, at any rate, breathe it with any joy? Why cannot the confidence in living, the engagement with living, the prepossession with living be re-won?"
She says this, later in the essay:
"IS this an age of frustration - or simply one in which many more people ask more of life? Education, literacy, discussion, aesthetic experiences of all kinds, have widened the boundaries of our selfconsciousness. At its best, democracy breeds the sentient person - it is in the nature of such a person to seek fulfilment. His mind, his heart, his senses stand tuned in, wating for intimations. We are more aware than our forefathers of dissatisfactions - may this not, however, mean that awareness, rather than dissatisfactions, has increased? We give more expression to longings because we grow more articulate. More and more of us are being cast in the mould of those to whom no present time ever has been ideal. "
It's clear that we do not have the best form of democracy, since I think there are decreasing numbers of "sentient" people breeding out there...
A day full of chores, including a trip to our bank for administrative things. I had to explain three or four times, as we walked from the car to the bank just why were going there, and then a couple more as we waited for a bank officer, and then some more as we left. Finally, she said she just couldn't keep it in her head, and thanked me for taking good care of her affairs. When we got her tax return ready to send off, she got a bewildered look on her face and said she didn't think she could do that kind of stuff anymore. I reminded her that she did it all after dad started declining, and she seemed to take comfort in that. It's clear that paperwork unsettles her almost as much as impending dental work.
While reading more from a collection of non fiction pieces by Elizabeth Bowen, I encountered what struck me as timeless observations about general malaise in people. She was writing in 1950, not long after WWII, but this could apply, unfortunately, to us right now:
"Are we to take it that our own time has been, from the point of view of its inhabitants, irreparably injured - that it shows some loss of vital deficiency? What fails in the air of our present- day that we cannot breathe it; or, at any rate, breathe it with any joy? Why cannot the confidence in living, the engagement with living, the prepossession with living be re-won?"
She says this, later in the essay:
"IS this an age of frustration - or simply one in which many more people ask more of life? Education, literacy, discussion, aesthetic experiences of all kinds, have widened the boundaries of our selfconsciousness. At its best, democracy breeds the sentient person - it is in the nature of such a person to seek fulfilment. His mind, his heart, his senses stand tuned in, wating for intimations. We are more aware than our forefathers of dissatisfactions - may this not, however, mean that awareness, rather than dissatisfactions, has increased? We give more expression to longings because we grow more articulate. More and more of us are being cast in the mould of those to whom no present time ever has been ideal. "
It's clear that we do not have the best form of democracy, since I think there are decreasing numbers of "sentient" people breeding out there...
posted by isabelita at 10:38 AM
6 Comments:
Gee Isa, when I think sentient, I also think penintent. Perhaps we need more of both kinds of people and the world would/could be a better place, no?
it feels that way ... or maybe the voices of the sentient are just quieter now, relatively speaking, with all the 'noise' ... but you're probably right ... anyway ... nice passages
Great post. Wonderful thoughts, both from Ms. Bowen and from you. Been thinking about re-engaging with life myself. Must be the spring. Around the blogs everyone is just plain worn out by having to deal with these bastards. But we oh so ferociously do, don't we? I love these blogs...
Neil, I just hope that all the enrgy fueling our outrage and fury can translate into getting rid of this bunch of barbarians. When I look back at times in the past with similar patterns, it's chilling, since it seems as if a depression or world war is always involved...
Kathyr, Eurpoe Central is for ye olde bookgroup. The one of yore.
Say, would you like me to send you a copy of Hazzard's The Transit of Venus? I think maybe you might prefer that one to The Great Fire.
Thanks for stopping by. Jealous of your ability to read so much. At first when I scrolled through your posts, I thought you were the wife a new friend of mine, but then I read about you in the Pacific Northwest, so I don't think you're her.
Besides being mom's, adoring wives, and artists, we seem to share a love of books.
Here's just some of my stash:
http://kathleencallon.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-main-vice-im-book-junkie.html
Internal growth and eternal happiness,
Kat in the Mojave
*moms
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