388 - Less is Lost

 

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2023 begins 

1/27/23

Surprise! I’m back. And after a pleasant lunch with a martini. Now that “the authorities” are admitting that alcohol is basically poison and even a single drink is bad for your health, I have to wonder if that is not part of the attraction -- playing with death. I think it actually has more to do with just altering your state of mind, but this new alternative is interesting. For unknown reasons -- possibly related to anticipated rioting? -- my Bank Cafe closed at 2pm today so I’ve taken refuge at the Mechanics Institute. Turns out there are more people here mid afternoon on a Friday than I would have guessed. 

I just climbed the stairs to the upper (magazine) level which turns out to be rather good exercise. If I were them I would repaint the lower walls lining the stair with semi gloss or at least a satin finish as I was dragging along it for support. Of course I have a preference for semi gloss anyway so this means nothing.

As of today before lunch I was to the section of “Less is Lost” set in the South. It is surprisingly good. Some really profound passages even though not much is actually happening at the moment. This is why Greer deserves the praise he has received for his recent work.

1/30/23 - This morning I bought my monthly breakfast croissant sand with egg and did not put on my mask for the transaction. And I paid with cash. After that first, I went to the bank and withdrew $40 for the first time since lockdown. Weeee! Some of the staff at Capital One and Peet’s are still wearing masks, so I do as well here at the bank cafe, but not when I’m off by myself. 

I’m dying to go to Pagan, but since we are coming up on a period when I normally go there four times in less than two months, I’m putting that off until my mother’s birthday. 

Still reading “Less is Lost.” As usual, I’m finding there is an advantage to not having read much fiction for so long now. I am newly struck by the wonder of fiction. Greer is an inventive author, but what I’m most struck by is the ordinary creation of characters and situations. I may even need to read Martha Grimes again, the queen of characterization. If, as I can’t help thinking, an author can be responsible for keeping their characters alive, wouldn’t that logic apply even more to gods? Which brings me back to my wondering what the “party line” is for Ultra Orthodox Jews when it comes to the Holocaust. Of course, following this same logic, authors are required to kill off characters at times either to further the plot or for emotional effect. Are there limits to how much you can forgive an author for. “Game of Thrones” comes to mind here.

And, having just read to the very end of the third chapter, how sweet it is for the author/creator to summon a hurricane to avoid the nuisance of a trip to the dump. Now this is something a god would do. So what will he do with the van? I have three ideas: It breaks down, which has already been hinted at, but is that foreshadowing or misdirection?; He gives it away; Or my favorite, it is stolen, suddenly leaving him fancy free

Alas, it was foreshadowing after all.

1/31/23 - Returning to my long ago story set in a retirement home for Boomers, I’m now imagining a Pendelton fad and scooters with banana seats.

221, Oborozukiyo

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Genji in mourning

The period of mourning lasts for months and Genji stays with his wife's family along with his new son. 

p174 ...He had not forgotten to ask himself whether she [Murasaki] would be bored and lonely without him, but he thought of her as an orphan he had taken in and did not worry himself greatly about what she might be thinking or doing, or whether she might be resentful of his outside activities. This was pleasant for him. [This was the same way he had treated his wife, and has been rebuking himself about.]
...

p179 [Back at his own house] It was a tedious time. He no longer had any enthusiasm for the careless night wanderings that had once kept him busy. Murasaki was much on his mind. She seemed peerless, the nearest he could imagine to his ideal. Thinking that she was no longer too young for marriage, he had occasionally made amorous overtures; but she had not seemed to understand... She was clever and she had many delicate ways of pleasing him in the most trivial diversions. He had not seriously thought of her as a wife. Now he could not restrain himself. It would be a shock of course.

p180 What had happened? Her women had no way of knowing when the line had been crossed. One morning Genji was up early and Murasaki stayed on and on in bed. It was not at all like her to sleep so late. Might she be unwell? As he left for his own rooms, Genji pushed an inkstone inside her bed curtains.

At length, when no one else was near, she raised herself from her pillow and saw beside it a tightly folded bit of paper. Listlessly she opened it. There was only this verse, in a casual hand:

"Many have been the nights we have spent together
Purposelessly, these coverlets between us."

She had not dreamed he had anything of the sort on his mind. What a fool she had been, to repose her whole confidence in so gross and unscrupulous a man.

It was almost noon when Genji returned. "They say you're not feeling well. What can be the trouble? I was hoping for a game of Go."

She pulled the covers over her head. Her women discreetly withdrew...
...

p181 He drew back the covers. She was bathed in perspiration and the hair at her forehead was matted from weeping.

"Dear me. This does not augur well at all." He tried in every way he could think of to comfort her, but she seemed genuinely upset and did not offer so much as a word in reply. 

"Very well. You will see no more of me. I do have my pride."

He opened her writing box but found no note inside. Very childish of her -- and he had to smile at the childishness. He stayed with her the whole day, and he thought the stubbornness with which she refused to be comforted most charming.

It interests me that the author has given this character her own name. Thinking also of Fyodor Karamazov, I wonder if anyone has written about the importance or meaning of an author bestowing their name on an important character?

Here we learn why there has been so little aside from personal affairs. The ailing old emperor is talking to the new emperor about Genji,

p195 "Look to him for advice in large things and in small, just as you have until now. He is young but quite capable of ordering the most complicated public affairs. There is no office of which he need feel unworthy and no task in all the land that is beyond his powers. I reduced him to common rank so that you might make full use of his services. Do not, I beg of you, ignore my last wishes."

He made many other moving requests, but it is not a woman's place to report upon them. Indeed I feel rather apologetic for having set down these fragments.

The old emperor dies and Fujitsubo returns to her family home, with her son I assume, who is also Genji's son. No one besides these two seem to be aware of this, despite the resemblance.

Even though Fujitsubo is still empress and their son is still crown prince, their faction is now out of favor with the reign of the new emperor, who is very young and dominated by his mother's family. I kept being reminded of the Eagles song, "New Kid in Town" as I read about Genji's reduced status at court, though, so far, there is no newer "Genji" on the scene. Though you would think that would be almost inevitable. 

Oborozukiyo

I'm more than a little confused by the family rivalries. I think Oborozukiyo is the princess Genji romanced in the dark without knowing exactly who she was. She is a daughter of the Minister of the Right -- the one who is now in power -- and he just found Genji in her bed. This had been going on for some time. Fujitsubo and the Rokujo Lady are both in religious retreat for political or personal reasons. Murasaki is still being groomed. Genji manages to keep busy even when out of favor.

Studying literature

It was brought to my attention that the Mechanics Institute Library was starting it's three year Proust cycle. They also are reading Tristram Shandy. Unfortunately, a little checking revealed that the Proust group was already closed (I suppose they reached their desired group size). But the truth is that, as much as I like each of these works, they are not the books I would most want to read with a group, and an "expert." 

Last week (some time ago now) a woman won a $700 million lotto which had me thinking what I would do if I had that kind of money -- the usual building/charitable stuff, mostly -- but now I'm thinking I could probably hire "tutors" to bounce ideas off of and hopefully teach me something I hadn't noticed myself about books of interest to me. I could pester someone about Quantum Chromodynamics without feeling too guilty. A new definition for "private university." Would it be better to participate in a small class setting, rather than a tutorial?  Maybe. Maybe not.

I'm also considering starting a multi-year project to blog Civilization and Capitalism... don't you judge me!