Meanwhile, In A Dull White Void

"Hey Ted," said Fred.

"Hey Fred," said Ted.

"What are you reading these days, Ted?"

"Fred, I've been trying to read John O'Hara."

"John O'Hara? Why, Ted?"

"Because Damon Knight had some good things to say about O'Hara's technique with short stories."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I really admire Damon Knight, and I respect his opinions. But you know, Fred --"

"No, I'm Ted. You're Fred."

"Oh, right," said Ted. "But you know, Fred, I'm having my doubts."

"Doubts?"

"Princeton doubts. Harvard doubts. Yale doubts."

"Those are some of the biggest doubts of all, Fred."

"Yeah, Fred, they are. Big prestigious Theta Delt Princeton doubts. You see, this O'Hara guy writes many stories that are nothing much more than dialogue."

"Dialogue, Ted?"

"Endlessly repetitive dialogue, Ted. No matter where a story might be set, the textures of the prose are always the same, and there's never any sense of place. People might be discussing universities and consumer items in a void."

"That sounds a bit stifling, Doris."

"It is, Bob. There's not much sense of a world in his work, and the people seem kinda thin. But they went to good schools. And they dress pretty good."

"I guess he's just not the sort of writer for me. Wanna play golf, Al?"

"Sure thing, Al. I wanna try out my new Honma Golf’s Five Star Set golf clubs."

"Wow! They start at five thousand and four hundred dollars each."

 "Those are the ones, Kit. They'll come in handy when I go to Yale."

"Oh... Esther... I wish I could have gone to Yale."

Smoked Paper

Before sunset this evening, as I biked through Parc Jacques-Cartier beside the Ottawa River, I turned a corner and noticed -- something -- on the asphalt pathway that was giving off a thin stream of white smoke.

When I braked for a closer look at this, I saw that it was a burning paperback of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Someone had set fire to the inner pages, and they were smouldering beneath an undamaged cover.

An unshaven young man in a blue shirt walked up and without pausing for more than two seconds, poured beer from a can onto the book, then kicked it off the asphalt and onto the grass. He went on his way.

After he was gone, I stomped on the book until it stopped smoking -- not the way I'd prefer to treat a book, but conditions at the time were slightly weird.

Uncertainties, Mysteries, Doubts

While thinking tonight about Negative Capability, I was hit by an extension to this idea that had never occured to me before... or perhaps I should say, by something I had understood and accepted all my life, but without noticing the connection to this idea from John Keats.

"Brown and Dilke walked with me and back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, and at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously -- I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration."

-- John Keats: Letter to George and Tom Keats, 22 December 1818.

Keats applied this quality to people who write, but this Negative Capability could apply as well to people who read -- especially to people who read poems. After all, a poem could mean one thing to you at twenty, and something subtly different at fifty. Which meaning would be correct: the first? the second? neither? both? Sometimes we have no idea, and we have to accept the poem without a firm understanding of what it means -- if it means anything at all, beyond its goosebump effect on some hidden sector of the brain.

Uncertainties, mysteries, doubts -- these are what we have to expect, if we want to enjoy poetry. But how many of us would rather not read it?

Alien...?

For an interesting shock, read to the end of this quoted paragraph.

-- From
"Scientifilm Marquee," by Forrest J. Ackerman,
SPACE TRAVEL, September 1958.

THE CREATURE FROM GALAXY 27, his first screenplay, has been sold by the remarkable young (21) writer Martin Varno to the movies. The "Sci-Fi Studio," American-International, will release this sf thriller in which Varno, himself a fan, and son of actor Roland Varno, will essay an important role! Fanne [sic] Pandora Bronson will also be tested for a part in the picture, artwork for which has been done by another ardent s.f. reader and talented brush-wielder, Ron Cobb. Wait'll you see the monster Cobb has come up with for this one: it out-creatures the Thing!

As it turns out, the script was filmed, but without any contribution from the "talented brush-wielder." What a shame!

These Delicates He Heaped

Although verbs and nouns are primary tools of writing, adjectives have been put in poor stead. I believe this might be only because adjectives are often used without precision or imagination. When chosen for economy and clarity, or at the prompting of some unconcious principle, they can take on a certain magic.

Consider one example, from "The Eve of St Agnes":

"Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon
Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half anguished, threw thereon
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet...."

Keats has presented a place, a moment, an action, and within a few lines, he will have to refer back to the limited light in the room. How? In the most beautifully economical way possible. The character in this patch of moonlight, Porphyro, places food on the table --

"These delicates he heaped with glowing hand."

That's it, right there: the night, the darkness, the small sector of light at the bedside, all conveyed by one adjective and its modified noun.

"Glowing hand."