To start, I just wanted to mention how cold it was today. Walking home from class made me feel like one of the 101 Dalmatians trying to soldier through that wintry storm. So moving onward, my confession- I didn't actually read Nooteboom's book at the beginning of the semester. Don't get me wrong, I did try. I got to the first page, and then I always found something better to do. Now, I finally finished it for the first time, and it was such a challenge. I don't know what the deal is with this book, but it really took it out of me. In reality, it didn't take me that long to get through it. . .maybe a couple of days, but it feels like an eternity. I made myself read it today. . . at the gym, in the SUB, at home and at the library and I just feel so drained. I had to migrate from place to place just to keep my mind going. Even doing that, I actually, legitimately, fell asleep while reading it in the SUB. It was super annoying. I just hated it, but when I turned the last page and looked back, I think I must have liked most of it, because I had dog eared what looked like every other page from section 2. Usually, when I find a passage interesting, I will bend the page and maybe write down or underline the stuff I like. My book was kind of like a lame origami project with flaps.
Something I found really interesting about the book was the continued references to time. It was really Four Quartetesqe. "Can you keep track of my tenses? They are all past tenses, my thoughts were wandering; do excuse me. Here I am, back again, the imperfect reflecting on the past, simple past versus pluperfect. My present tense was a slip; it applied only to now, to you, although you are nameless. After all, we are both present here, still." I think the question of time that Eliot brings up is most fascinating, and I think it's a kind of bridge linking our themes together, dreams, life as fiction, and the eternal recurrence. I think I'll ponder that more. The idea of immortality. I like the way that word tastes on the tip of my tongue. Not immortality in the sense that this body and mind will live on forever, but that my soul or my essence lives on. "The only greatness for man is immortality." That's James Dean. It's a dangerous word, but I think it's a natural belief. Whether you attain it through grace or glory, I think it's something that's just out there.
"And we all go with them, into the silent funeral, Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury. I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you. . .As, in a theatre, The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness." Priests in a Catholic funeral will wear white. When I was little I asked my priest why. He said priests wear white on days of celebration- funerals are meant to celebrate a person's passage into his next life. A mean part of myself thought that it could also be to celebrate a person's absence from this one. I like the passage from Eliot, because it makes me think of a play. When the scene ends, the lights go down and the curtains rustle past your face. You can hear a roaring in the crowd that starts out low and slowly rises. At its peak, the lights come back on, fiercely awakening you to see the shadows turn into people you recognize, standing up and applauding one life's end and your emergence into another. You've shed that character, and you reappear as yourself. Anyone remember Gladiator? "And just as your mother was there at your beginning, I shall be there at your end. And when you die - and die you shall - your transition will be to the sound of...[claps his hands]"
At my beginning, is my end. . . just some thoughts to ponder.
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