A few of my favorite Austen quotes:
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
Woe to the crappy clergymen:
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
The writer's delight:
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
The arrogance of men:
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Wit
I'm reading a play called "Wit" by Margaret Edson. I'm not finished with it, but I already recommend it. I find the tediousness of reading plays an aversion to picking them up in the first place, but I'd heard about the HBO film "Wit" starring Emma Thompson, from a friend for years who said I would absolutely love it.
But being the foot-dragger that I am when it comes to other people's recommendations I have yet to see it, however it is resting comfortably at the bottom of my Netflix queue, so eventually I will see the film.
However, the play ended up in my hands after we had dinner with my fiancee's professor, a lovely man, who loves literature and of the hundreds of books in his collection, pulled this slim paperback from the shelf and recommended it to me.
So, I'm reading "Wit". The play is accessible for the most part, directorial asides included sparingly to imagine with some precision the illustration of the characters' movements, but not overly pushy to the degree I lose focus of the orater. I appreciate the style of text, writing things side by side so as to show an internal dialogue while someone else is speaking, rather than overtly saying in a directorial aside, "This is internal dialogue. The character is distracted and is only half-listening to the other." The text respects me. Mostly though the play is deliciously clever, robustly intelligent, and emotionally prudent. Hence, I like it.
As a professor of English Poetry, particularly specialized in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Edson is clever, her writing intelligent (and as was said many times in grad school writing classes: "tight"), there are carefully plotted reflections on life, death, youth, health, words... Not the sentimental meanderings of a dying woman using poetics to magnify her suffering or inflate her own importance while contorting alongside her expiring mortality. Why is it when people are "literary" are they often schmaltzy when it comes to the things of life and death? Edson isn't.
An aquaintance of mine is often referred to as a "thoughtful" person, a "literary type" who is always operating on a "deeper level" than the rest of "us". Funny what a little reclusiveness can do, emerging from a hole of solitiude only to drop a few fancy words here and there in order to impress the impressionable.
What a terrific rouse. I do not think one can be thoughtful or "operating on a deeper level" simply by reading about things. One must live. Moving as a shadow cast over a playground, admittedly there is presence, even semblence of life. But it is not a person. Shadows are not in any danger of bleeding, getting run over, or being subjected to scorn. Shadows are safe. They only appear and fade, bending shape from time to time, but always, always unalive and unharmed.
Not that I wish anyone harm, but the challenges of life require participation of the flesh, accountability of the mouth, cooperation of the heart. I do not qualify thoughtfulness among the highest qualities a person can possess. I count it honesty and trust. Thougtfulness can be attained in solitide. Trust and honesty is cooperative. I see that in this play. An academic, a poet, a thinker... not hiding behind those grand avenues, but functioning fully in the midst of them. Certainly Edson does not seek out this experience. It comes upon her. But once upon her, she does not imagine it is not there. She experiences what is brought upon her. I find she is the one who, to put it shallowly, "operates on a deeper level."
As a lover of books, poetry, and now a play, I realize I walk a fine line when assessing the value of solitude, of composing oneself into the imagination, living only between the pages of someone elses recorded restlessness, romances or respites.
Edson, from what I have read thus far is setting herself up in the same fashion. Will she or won't she have to move among the dead, struggle with the un-exquisite physical pain of cancer, or just beat back the temptation of proposed melodrama of death and dying.
Virginia Woolf wrote, "If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." I take this quote in many different directions. One as a rebuke against gossip. The truth about others is very rarely accessible, or even our business to know, and yet the human condition of prattling off supposedly informed opinions about other people based on the tattered truths of gossip, is a common practice. It is even mildly entertaining the way "reality television" is entertaining.
No one ever stops to consider that they themselves are hiding, afraid of accusation, only willing to weild their own assessments of others into the world, rather than consider the truth of their own lives. How much more pleasant churches, workplaces, families, and communities would be if they learned to shut their mouths about things that aren't true about other people, and tried to face the truth of themselves. How much richer relationships would be if people told the truth about themselves rather than pointing out the estimated truths or lies about someone else.
But of course it is more likely this quote is a direction to writers to be honest about their own condition, thoughts, beliefs before they begin writing on behalf of a character. The gravity of which is incomprehensible to me as a writer. How do I tell the truth about myself? Thoughtfulness, here, a most important component of telling the truth.
Edson does this, not just because she is the character in question, but because she must be honest about herself or the play fails. She must not hide and pretend she is not an academic, clever, or creative. She also cannot assume for herself or for her character in the play that she can honestly expect to romanticize or dramatize her experience becuase she has the tools to do so. She lives through it, reflects on it, writes it down, again and again until the truth is told. It's not true that she's afraid all the time. It's not true that dying means you lose your ability to appreciate humor. It's not true that writers are best at their most bleak.
I'm enjoying the experience of reading a play. A play I know is based on real life. I appreciate her boldness and look forward, not to the curtain, but to all the acts that come before it, as they are truly active and eager, urgent and alive.
But being the foot-dragger that I am when it comes to other people's recommendations I have yet to see it, however it is resting comfortably at the bottom of my Netflix queue, so eventually I will see the film.
However, the play ended up in my hands after we had dinner with my fiancee's professor, a lovely man, who loves literature and of the hundreds of books in his collection, pulled this slim paperback from the shelf and recommended it to me.
So, I'm reading "Wit". The play is accessible for the most part, directorial asides included sparingly to imagine with some precision the illustration of the characters' movements, but not overly pushy to the degree I lose focus of the orater. I appreciate the style of text, writing things side by side so as to show an internal dialogue while someone else is speaking, rather than overtly saying in a directorial aside, "This is internal dialogue. The character is distracted and is only half-listening to the other." The text respects me. Mostly though the play is deliciously clever, robustly intelligent, and emotionally prudent. Hence, I like it.
As a professor of English Poetry, particularly specialized in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Edson is clever, her writing intelligent (and as was said many times in grad school writing classes: "tight"), there are carefully plotted reflections on life, death, youth, health, words... Not the sentimental meanderings of a dying woman using poetics to magnify her suffering or inflate her own importance while contorting alongside her expiring mortality. Why is it when people are "literary" are they often schmaltzy when it comes to the things of life and death? Edson isn't.
An aquaintance of mine is often referred to as a "thoughtful" person, a "literary type" who is always operating on a "deeper level" than the rest of "us". Funny what a little reclusiveness can do, emerging from a hole of solitiude only to drop a few fancy words here and there in order to impress the impressionable.
What a terrific rouse. I do not think one can be thoughtful or "operating on a deeper level" simply by reading about things. One must live. Moving as a shadow cast over a playground, admittedly there is presence, even semblence of life. But it is not a person. Shadows are not in any danger of bleeding, getting run over, or being subjected to scorn. Shadows are safe. They only appear and fade, bending shape from time to time, but always, always unalive and unharmed.
Not that I wish anyone harm, but the challenges of life require participation of the flesh, accountability of the mouth, cooperation of the heart. I do not qualify thoughtfulness among the highest qualities a person can possess. I count it honesty and trust. Thougtfulness can be attained in solitide. Trust and honesty is cooperative. I see that in this play. An academic, a poet, a thinker... not hiding behind those grand avenues, but functioning fully in the midst of them. Certainly Edson does not seek out this experience. It comes upon her. But once upon her, she does not imagine it is not there. She experiences what is brought upon her. I find she is the one who, to put it shallowly, "operates on a deeper level."
As a lover of books, poetry, and now a play, I realize I walk a fine line when assessing the value of solitude, of composing oneself into the imagination, living only between the pages of someone elses recorded restlessness, romances or respites.
Edson, from what I have read thus far is setting herself up in the same fashion. Will she or won't she have to move among the dead, struggle with the un-exquisite physical pain of cancer, or just beat back the temptation of proposed melodrama of death and dying.
Virginia Woolf wrote, "If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." I take this quote in many different directions. One as a rebuke against gossip. The truth about others is very rarely accessible, or even our business to know, and yet the human condition of prattling off supposedly informed opinions about other people based on the tattered truths of gossip, is a common practice. It is even mildly entertaining the way "reality television" is entertaining.
No one ever stops to consider that they themselves are hiding, afraid of accusation, only willing to weild their own assessments of others into the world, rather than consider the truth of their own lives. How much more pleasant churches, workplaces, families, and communities would be if they learned to shut their mouths about things that aren't true about other people, and tried to face the truth of themselves. How much richer relationships would be if people told the truth about themselves rather than pointing out the estimated truths or lies about someone else.
But of course it is more likely this quote is a direction to writers to be honest about their own condition, thoughts, beliefs before they begin writing on behalf of a character. The gravity of which is incomprehensible to me as a writer. How do I tell the truth about myself? Thoughtfulness, here, a most important component of telling the truth.
Edson does this, not just because she is the character in question, but because she must be honest about herself or the play fails. She must not hide and pretend she is not an academic, clever, or creative. She also cannot assume for herself or for her character in the play that she can honestly expect to romanticize or dramatize her experience becuase she has the tools to do so. She lives through it, reflects on it, writes it down, again and again until the truth is told. It's not true that she's afraid all the time. It's not true that dying means you lose your ability to appreciate humor. It's not true that writers are best at their most bleak.
I'm enjoying the experience of reading a play. A play I know is based on real life. I appreciate her boldness and look forward, not to the curtain, but to all the acts that come before it, as they are truly active and eager, urgent and alive.
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