On writing - quote

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.
- Franz Kafka

'Tis no man, 'tis a remoreseless reading machine

I’m reading Moby Dick right now, and I'm about 190 pages in. It was clearly a mistake to start such a heavy book so soon before my wedding, as all the planning and discussions have left my little time for reading. Also, it’s a hard book to get into with periodic short fits of reading 5-10 pages at a time - the language is too rich and the ideas too integral to the narrative to be able to dip in and out frequently without missing a lot.

I do have complaints about the book – like how Melville periodically diverts from the story to give essays of moderate interest and (to this point, at least) minimal relevance to the action – but overall I’m enjoying it, and it offers plenty to think about, from its almost poetic language and descriptions to the religious references and themes. In short, there are plenty of interesting aspects worth writing about but, as usual, time limits me to just a short comment, which is what this post will be.

So for now, I'll just point out this quote I liked, from the end of chapter 44 (they’re short chapters), obviously. It’s about Captain Ahab’s madness while lying in his cabin, and his internal torment in pursuit of Moby Dick. The Prometheus reference makes it clear what Melville's going for here, but since this passage describes Ahab’s torments as internal and self-created, to me it felt similar to an obsessive author creating a character that drives him insane.

Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to color, and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

A waste of language

My boss is starting up a new monthly or (I hope) quarterly newsletter, to inform the office of the goings on in the library. She's not quite sure what the contents of this newsletter will be, but she does want me to contribute a 300-500 word article on something interesting about the library, some reference tips, or maybe a 'Did you know?' column. I've spent the past hour looking through old reference questions and answers, thinking about what I've done here that's worth sharing, and I've come to the unsurprising conclusion that what I do isn't interesting enough to write about. Of course, I can come up with something to write about, but there is nothing I care about enough to share it in written form - at least, unlike this particular post, nothing positive.

I do write fairly regularly on this blog so I obviously am not opposed to writing and I do have things on my mind that I think are worth putting into words. But to receive an assignment to write something, and to have to come up with a topic yourself, within the confines of a job that you don't particularly care for, is a frustrating exercise to say the least. Whichever words I do end up throwing together to take up space on the page aren't going to be interesting to read because they won't be interesting to write. I do my job and that's fine, but I can't force myself to care enough to articulate, much less encourage amongst others, an interest in what it is I do here. I take words and language seriously, because they can be used in unique and interesting ways to express thoughts or create images with a precision that can be surprising. There's a beauty to language, whether it's using your native tongue to express a thought in a new way, or just learning how to say something simple in a foreign language. It can also be simply practical, and improve our lives by allowing us to communicate important information to another person. The way I see it, like the title says, writing for such a newsletter, which I'll ultimately have to do and is neither practical nor beautiful, is just a waste of language.

But at least I got a blog post out of it.

Questions

In response to an idea for a writing exercise on the Rose-coloured blog, I've written a little scene made up entirely of questions. I've never seen Rosencrantz & Guilderstern are Dead, so I'm not sure if I took the instructions too literally, but it was still a fun exercise. Even though I wrote this at work and could probably go through and fix it up a bit if I had the time or the inclination. Of course, I'm too self-conscious to actually share it with people who aren't my friends, so it'll just have to sit here for the enjoyment of the (as far as I know) 2 people who read this blog.

[Two people waiting in a long line. Neither the beginning nor the end of the line is visible. In some sort of public building. They could be men or women, but they appear to be in their 40s. Every few seconds they take a small step forward as they move up the line.]

A So how did you die?
B Why do you think I’m dead?
A We’re in heaven, aren’t we?
B You think this is heaven?
A You don’t?
B Isn’t it more like purgatory?
A Why do you say that?
B It’s not perfect here, is it? And aren’t we just waiting in line?
A Look – can you just answer my first question?
B About being dead?
A How did it happen?
B Why do you want to know?
A You’re not curious why we’re here?
B Does the manner of my death affect where I go in the afterlife?
A You don’t believe in that sort of thing?
B Is it some metaphysical worldview you just invented?
A Would it be less true if it is?
B Don’t you think how I lived my life would affect the eternal destination about my soul?
A Who said anything about a soul?
B Didn’t you?
A Is your soul separate from who you are?
B ‘Who I am’?
A Isn’t your soul just a symbol of your whole being?
B If it’s just a symbol and not real, then how does it explain our being here?
A Have we determined where we actually are yet?
B If we’re both dead, can we assume it’s some kind of afterlife?
A So you are dead then?
B But wouldn’t my death be the end of consciousness?
A Maybe you’ll learn that in the afterlife?
B Shouldn’t the afterlife be more about answers than questions?
A Isn’t that what I just said?
B Did you?
A Anyway, why do you assume that the afterlife would give you any answers?
B How else would you learn about the mysteries of existence?
A Who says we have to learn about them at all?
B Aren’t you curious about the universe?
A Does my curiosity make the unknowable any less unknowable?
B If death doesn’t provide us with answers doesn’t it make life feel kind of pointless?
A If you were waiting to die to find answers, then what did you do with your life?
B Hey – what’s with all the questions anyway?