I am waiting in the eaves of Houghton Library, Harvard’s rare manuscript collection, to uncover eleven original letters written by Dorothy Sayers to her Russian lover, John Cournos, with whom she had a brief, intense and bitter love affair in the early 20s, just after the first war. I passed through maximum security procedures before I was allowed to enter the hallowed halls where these letters, now about a hundred years old, are housed. There is one lone scholar here, working laboriously away. We are only allowed pencils and paper, and absolutely nothing else. I feel like a scholar, and the brief honor it entails. What it would mean to be cloistered away, working quietly as though in a dream, living between worlds, and between lives, bridging histories.
The papers arrive, carefully folded into sheaves of tissue. Among them are some original photographs. The Library tells us that the records of those who view its collections are kept for a hundred years. I would like to know who else has requested these, taken it out of the quivering tissue, viewed it wonderingly. Written by quill, on plain white lined paper, now faded except for the ink which has lasted, with the dates carefully cut out.
The first letter begins like this.
“Dear John,
I’ve heard you’re married. I hope you are very very happy, with someone you can really love. I went over the rocks. As you know, I was going there rapidly, but I preferred it shouldn’t be with you, but with somebody I didn’t really care twopence for. I couldn’t have stood a catastrophe with you. It was a worse catastrophe than I intended because I went and had a young son (thank god it wasn’t a daughter) and the man’s affection couldn’t stand that strain and he chucked me and went off with someone else!”
And then later
“.. Now why in the world should you want to meet me? Last time we met, you told me with brutal frankness that you had no use for my conversation. Do you think my misfortunes will have added new lustre to my wit? If I saw you, I should probably cry, and I’ve been crying for about three years now and am heartily weary of the exercise.
And then
“I wanted to have children quite normally and ordinarily. I wanted yours, and as you repeatedly refused, I chucked the whole business. I didn’t want the Beast’s, but having got it, I felt perfectly affectionate to the Beast and would have stuck to him faithfully if he hadn’t so to speak, turned around and stamped on me”.
“I’m sorry you found our last conversation dull. It was rather too desperately exciting for me- the last whack that chucked me over the cliff. ….
“ Final problem: Tea or no tea? It’s going to hurt like hell to see you, because Judah, with all thy faults I love thee still.
So you see the lover has to be companionable, only then again, if he was too nice one would fall in love with him and that would be vile. One can’t be ecstatic about something which involves telling lies to one’s charwoman.
“It’s odd that I get on so much better with you when you aren’t there. I suppose what I had for you was one of those sorts of object hero worships and that was why all the backstairs part of the business was so completely unthinkable.”
A Postscript
“I reopen this on returning from the film of “peter Pan’ to submit to you a very serious difficulty. Supposing one is ever able to give Anthony a home or a parent or two- will it become necessary to his peace of mind to see “Peter Pan”? Will he feel a pariah if he is the only child who has never seen “Peter Pan”? Because I absolutely refuse to take him. I am quite unable to sit through a Barrie play without grinding my teeth. There is a kind of leering unwholesomeness about the Barrie mentality which makes me heave. Has any child ever been heard of that does not like Peter Pan? But- is a child who does not like “Peter Pan” a monster? I should not like to be mother to a monster. Please give me your opinion on this agitating question. “
“You broke you own image in my heart you see. You stood to me for beauty and truth, and you demanded ugliness and barrenness and it seemed now that even in doing so, you were just being. You told me over and over again “I cannot marry anyone”, “I will not be responsible for anybody’s life”, and “I will not be responsible for bringing any lives into the world”, “I do not love you”. My dear, you stripped love down to the barest and most brutal physical contact- it is nothing- any man would do for that. I said to myself: “There is nothing I can give him beyond what the finest harlot in the street could provide. Our life would be one dirty shift after the other, with nothing in it but an agony of emptiness for both of us”.
“To be just, I never meant him to be more than what he wanted to be- an episode. If it had not been for the accident of Anthony, I couldn’t have blamed him for leaving me. He is not a good man, but he never deceived me. I understood from you that you, also, only wanted to be an episode and I didn’t want you to be that. I am sorry if I mistook the things you said, they didn’t seem capable of any other interpretation but as I have been so bitterly punished by God already, need you really dance on the body?”
“It frightens me to be so unhappy. I thought it would get better, but I think every day is worse than the last, and I’m always afraid that they’ll chuck me out of the office because I’m working so badly. And I haven’t even the last resort of doing away with myself because what would poor Anthony do then, poor thing?”
“But then, I still had some hope and some faith and desire for better things. But I swear that if you had offered me love, or even asked for love, you should have had everything. Not easily, because I did not want to commit so bitter a sin, but you never asked me to love you, never said a word to me of anything but bodily desire. ..If you remember, I offered to marry you by English law only, so that you could be free in your own country. “
“I am so terrified of emotion now, and it makes me feel so ill and work so badly that a quite business like beginning would be easiest for me.”
“Well, well, the prizes all go to the women who “play their cards well” but if they can only be won in that way, I would rather lose the game. “
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
reading
It was widely noted, upon the passing of Arthur C. Clarke that he was a renowned science fiction writer. The Times wrote adulatory articles amongst others, but not a single mention of the pedophilia was to be found in any respectable journal. I have many problems with Clarke as a man, but I also believe, unfortunately, that a distinction should be made between one's private life and one's public life.
Have been submerged in reading, watching, writing, and breathing in the silence. It has expanded my heart right now, like nothing else could. I live in many worlds now, in Old pre-war Britain, amongst the cobblestones of Merton and Magdalen, watching two lovers embrace,
Placetne magistra?
Placet.
And then into Trinidadian Port of Spain, watching a young boy married on the proof of a letter, at 13 to a young girl who lives with a large family, and his quest for his own identity, making signs, that say Trespassers Forbidden and watching his clumsy grabs at significance, watching what Naipaul has said, that in postcolonial societies, empire has denied humans the chance to make a real life, a significant life.
And then most favourite of all, into the early seventies, into northern California, into ranch country and seeing three people who grew up together split up after a single act of violence, watching one boy going into the gambling dens of the time, another fleeing into France to piece together another's life, and always the silence between the words.
All done listening to Tamil music from the 80s, sung by the irrepressible S.P. Balasubramaniam.
If I could preserve this moment, and more, this feeling, I really do believe that this is all I need. And that this may be all that I come to have, at least, that which is in my control.
We'll have the life we knew we would.
Have been submerged in reading, watching, writing, and breathing in the silence. It has expanded my heart right now, like nothing else could. I live in many worlds now, in Old pre-war Britain, amongst the cobblestones of Merton and Magdalen, watching two lovers embrace,
Placetne magistra?
Placet.
And then into Trinidadian Port of Spain, watching a young boy married on the proof of a letter, at 13 to a young girl who lives with a large family, and his quest for his own identity, making signs, that say Trespassers Forbidden and watching his clumsy grabs at significance, watching what Naipaul has said, that in postcolonial societies, empire has denied humans the chance to make a real life, a significant life.
And then most favourite of all, into the early seventies, into northern California, into ranch country and seeing three people who grew up together split up after a single act of violence, watching one boy going into the gambling dens of the time, another fleeing into France to piece together another's life, and always the silence between the words.
All done listening to Tamil music from the 80s, sung by the irrepressible S.P. Balasubramaniam.
If I could preserve this moment, and more, this feeling, I really do believe that this is all I need. And that this may be all that I come to have, at least, that which is in my control.
We'll have the life we knew we would.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Spring!
The housemates are gone, the friend who came to stay is gone, and I spent the last three hours on hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor the old fashioned way after decades of band-aid swiffer use. Then the bathroom, every surface bleached and sanitized, the bathtub scrubbed with heavy-duty cleaner. Every dish in the overflowing sink washed, chucked into the dishwasher and put away; kitchen tops and stoves cleaned after two months of neglect. Then the living room, hoovering every last stray crumb, sweeping stubborn dust swirls from corners and arranging cushions. Corridors, swept, mopped and Pledge-ed. Then my room, the worst for the last. Two loads of laundry. Every book taken off the floor, recovered from under the bed, recovered from cracks between bed and wall, and bed and window, (27 in total), arranged in piles of what-to-return (read-horrendously overdue), what to (ambitiously) read, what I MUST read RIGHT NOW. After I could see the floor again, it was swept, mopped and sanitized. In a burst of overdrive, I even sanitized my chair (leave antibacterial disinfectant on leather for 3 minutes and then wipe off) and my computer screen with special cleaner. Threw away three months worth of paper and met my desk surface again. Took out the trash. Superglue-ed (which I had the foresight to buy at CVS today) a piece of my shoe that was falling off). Put the flowers in new water. Watered the long-suffering Edith (my cactus). And put my aroma therapy burner to work.
And now I am at my desk, a little bewildered at this springcleaning fit, which came and shook me like a rag, and has left me now spent, with of course, the task du jour, my dissertation to hand in a draft before the final, before the morning. Procrastination, your name is woman. To think that just last week, at precisely this time, I was at the picture above, at the Cape of Good Hope.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
confusion
Epistemology and Ontology are the most basic levels at which theories can be compared, and I still, at this ripe old age, have no idea what it means. (I get teleology, ontology, and semantics all confused in my head). So I decided to write it down.
a) Epistemology: the branch of philosophy that investigates the possibility, origins, nature and extent of human knowledge.
b) Ontology: a branch of metaphysics that deals with what is being?
c) Teleology: The study of final causes, particularly in relation to design or purpose in nature
a) Epistemology: the branch of philosophy that investigates the possibility, origins, nature and extent of human knowledge.
b) Ontology: a branch of metaphysics that deals with what is being?
c) Teleology: The study of final causes, particularly in relation to design or purpose in nature
kim
When I am here, at the heart of this great college, listening to this lecture from a Parsi intellectual, about Kipling’s Kim, and he highlights a passage, that begins, “And the great fields of the Punjab rolled by”; it should smack of colonialism, written by a defender of Empire, a postulate of the white man’s burden, but here, shadowed as we are by snow, and denuded trees, with only the barest hint of Asia, carried by reminiscent travelers that wash up on our shores, it is a remnant of a future that might not yet come to pass. “I am Kim, I am Kim, I am Kim, and what is Kim?”
Thursday, March 06, 2008
A Tale Of God's Will (Requiem for Katrina)
Dear Terence,
I wanted to say thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule, coming to Harvard and playing for a bunch of people who don’t know much about jazz, but who know a lot about work in homelessness, education, health, policy and government. We have been receiving emails all day from the proud few who stayed on to listen to your talk, about how that part of the Conference, was enough to make the whole day worthwhile. Did you know we had a team from Japan that flew in to hear you? That was the Japanese guy in the front row who asked you the first question: “How do you make jazz?”.
What you said when you talked to us was true. All you gotta do is to get one person. That’s all you have to do. Well you got more than one person buddy. You got some of the ‘right’ people, if I may say such a thing. There are requests already to know more about the Thelonius Monk Institute, from people who WORK at Harvard Business School and questions about collaboration with the institute, and even questions about Herbie Hancock!! I will pass them on in a more formal fashion, but I just wanted you to know first. (My favourite comment was from someone who said she cried during your performance, and another who said you brought a raw dose of humanity to the conference).
I can only apologize for what must have seemed like something rather unplanned, given that you’re used to high-profile events and, you came to a student run event which was just being held together at the seams. Well, even though it was student-run, it was 40% attended by professionals, and the rest were Harvard students, so at the risk of sounding arrogant, they’re people who’re going to find life a little easier, and will have a strong sense of service especially when they see people like you, playing their heart out, spreading the word about New Orleans, and talking and talking and never giving up, despite how tired or discouraged you may be. So you have made one more small step, in changing the world.
When I first saw you talk with Mitch in New Orleans way back in November, I thought to myself, this is a guy who’s got the Bill Clinton touch! He makes it seem like he’s only speaking to you, but in fact he’s speaking to a whole room. It made you suspect!! It was the first time that I formally heard of you, but then I went back and watched Spike Lee’s stuff, and there you were, at every moment, when the heart needed words that the mind could not express. And then I heard your music and I thought, whatever anyone can fake, there’s no way you can fake that.
I am from Sri Lanka. You may not have heard of it, but in Dec 2006, a tsunami came and washed away 60,000 people. And I was there right afterwards, and I stayed for 2 years, and I saw the things that I saw again this past November in New Orleans, and I was so surprised because I thought, this is the United States! There’s no way that this could happen in the United States? I thought it only happened in countries like mine, where the rich were so rich and everyone else was so poor, and when all their uninsured homes got flooded away, the government let five star hotels buy beachfront properties, instead of giving it to fishermen who’d lived there, right next to the sea, for generations. And no amount of money from abroad was enough to compensate for the failures of the government and the sense of abandonment.
But it happens everywhere. I’m still trying to record it down, to remember it as honestly as it happened. Which brings me to my last point. I have always wanted to be a writer. Whether I will have the courage to pursue the truth of that journey is another story. But listening to your music, which so exactly charted the journey of my heart and soul those two years, I was silent. Because you are a true artist, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to compose something that you can only see with your eyes closed. I don’t have the words to really say what I want to express, but I found a truth in your music that I rarely find in art. And I can only imagine how exhausting and difficult it must be to relive that every time you perform. So finally, for the dedication and perseverance that you give to your art and your music, I commend you, as someone who dares to hope to follow in your footsteps. What you are able to do with your music, and the commitment to New Orleans that you have which is evident in what you speak, is true example to me, when I get discouraged about my own country, and about my lack of courage to follow my heart.
I wanted to say thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule, coming to Harvard and playing for a bunch of people who don’t know much about jazz, but who know a lot about work in homelessness, education, health, policy and government. We have been receiving emails all day from the proud few who stayed on to listen to your talk, about how that part of the Conference, was enough to make the whole day worthwhile. Did you know we had a team from Japan that flew in to hear you? That was the Japanese guy in the front row who asked you the first question: “How do you make jazz?”.
What you said when you talked to us was true. All you gotta do is to get one person. That’s all you have to do. Well you got more than one person buddy. You got some of the ‘right’ people, if I may say such a thing. There are requests already to know more about the Thelonius Monk Institute, from people who WORK at Harvard Business School and questions about collaboration with the institute, and even questions about Herbie Hancock!! I will pass them on in a more formal fashion, but I just wanted you to know first. (My favourite comment was from someone who said she cried during your performance, and another who said you brought a raw dose of humanity to the conference).
I can only apologize for what must have seemed like something rather unplanned, given that you’re used to high-profile events and, you came to a student run event which was just being held together at the seams. Well, even though it was student-run, it was 40% attended by professionals, and the rest were Harvard students, so at the risk of sounding arrogant, they’re people who’re going to find life a little easier, and will have a strong sense of service especially when they see people like you, playing their heart out, spreading the word about New Orleans, and talking and talking and never giving up, despite how tired or discouraged you may be. So you have made one more small step, in changing the world.
When I first saw you talk with Mitch in New Orleans way back in November, I thought to myself, this is a guy who’s got the Bill Clinton touch! He makes it seem like he’s only speaking to you, but in fact he’s speaking to a whole room. It made you suspect!! It was the first time that I formally heard of you, but then I went back and watched Spike Lee’s stuff, and there you were, at every moment, when the heart needed words that the mind could not express. And then I heard your music and I thought, whatever anyone can fake, there’s no way you can fake that.
I am from Sri Lanka. You may not have heard of it, but in Dec 2006, a tsunami came and washed away 60,000 people. And I was there right afterwards, and I stayed for 2 years, and I saw the things that I saw again this past November in New Orleans, and I was so surprised because I thought, this is the United States! There’s no way that this could happen in the United States? I thought it only happened in countries like mine, where the rich were so rich and everyone else was so poor, and when all their uninsured homes got flooded away, the government let five star hotels buy beachfront properties, instead of giving it to fishermen who’d lived there, right next to the sea, for generations. And no amount of money from abroad was enough to compensate for the failures of the government and the sense of abandonment.
But it happens everywhere. I’m still trying to record it down, to remember it as honestly as it happened. Which brings me to my last point. I have always wanted to be a writer. Whether I will have the courage to pursue the truth of that journey is another story. But listening to your music, which so exactly charted the journey of my heart and soul those two years, I was silent. Because you are a true artist, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to compose something that you can only see with your eyes closed. I don’t have the words to really say what I want to express, but I found a truth in your music that I rarely find in art. And I can only imagine how exhausting and difficult it must be to relive that every time you perform. So finally, for the dedication and perseverance that you give to your art and your music, I commend you, as someone who dares to hope to follow in your footsteps. What you are able to do with your music, and the commitment to New Orleans that you have which is evident in what you speak, is true example to me, when I get discouraged about my own country, and about my lack of courage to follow my heart.
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