THE EARTHRISE DIARY (September 2011)
© text Don Diespecker (individual contributions are © to individual authors).
(If photos appear they should show one of ‘my’ trees on the riverbank with orchids against b/g of the forested hillside (orchids are small and yellow and there are tiny white spider orchids on the left); the first of the irises in flower at the back of the belvedere garden; white spider orchids living it up inside the house).
Sometimes, when I think about the Diary readership I imagine that there are probably only two readers (although I know there are really a few more than that and that these hidden readers are to be found in North America, Europe, Israel, Africa and Australia). If there were two, I imagine, one would be urbane, mannered, be greatly admired perhaps as an artist of some kind or, a scholar and a linguist, and well travelled. The other reader would be quiet and thoughtful and live far from cities where he or she could see and hear birds, watch trees nodding to the wind and watch a river flowing from a forest. I’m not one to hire a publicist; I like the notion that others may find this blogsite by chance and visit it from time to time. Wouldn’t that be interesting? There may be someone reading this right now, somebody that not I or my friends or regular readers has met. Hello? Hello?
Welcome to the September 2011 Earthrise Diary. This month I am joined by guest-writing friends, as critics and reviewers and they can be read in The Earthrise Diary Review of Books section. Are there readers, I wonder, who might wish to write a Letter to the Editor? Hello out there! You can write to me at don883@bigpond.com
Sept 24 2011. I was up early enough to make breakfast seem so premature that I didn’t have it…and proceeded instead to Stone Heaven (a secret location where, with permission, I’ve been able to roam with my baker’s basket, a blue plastic bucket and a sharp machete (oldies have to have some fun early on Saturday mornings). It was an overcast morning and now is hazy bright but without the vexing smoke that’s prevailed here for most of the past few days. In Stone Heaven there were visible only birds singing merrily: it was my kind of early morning. I walked slowly and found plenty of good building stones as well as a few very small ones that I couldn’t resist also ‘collecting’ for friends whom I know to be admirers of Nature’s smaller artworks. I hope my dear friends will soon visit and receive these remarkable stones (some are as small as netsuke, some as large as dinosaur’s eggs) because the lounge room here is becoming a wee bit crowded… (A baker’s basket allows the carrier to easily carry several medium-sized stones without undue effort; the blue bucket holds smaller ‘needles,’ ‘nails’ or ‘filler’ stones to be collected and carried, or when a colourful bucket is left standing (sometimes with the baker’s basket which is harder to see at a distance) in a ‘field’ of stones that will mark the fossicker’s marked-out search areas. The machete may serve as a weapon in such circumstances as will justify being sensibly armed in wild places). Carrying the loaded receptacles is more than good for the arm muscles but then stone fossickers are easily identifiable as knuckle draggers due to their overlong arms…
The old Honda behaved impeccably, the vehicle tolerating the oddly balanced and concentrated loading and we returned to Earthrise safely. I unloaded the stones and walked out on Big Lawn and checked the new dahlia garden (more about that later) to see whether the dreaded brush turkeys had risked my defences and saw, instead, that some quite small critter had either walked through the chicken wire openings or had legged it over the top of the wire to dig annoying holes into the bare earth—in areas where there were no dahlias (which I’d covered with more flattened chicken wire). Turkeys require a few metres in which to rev up, running, to reach flying speed—unlike certain waterbirds able to take off directly from the river, which never ceases to amaze me—I ensure the turkeys will risk their weighty airframes by my strategically placing obstacles in the runways that will effect spectacular crash and burn scenarios before they can clear the1.5-m height of my paltry fencing. Little critters (other than big turkeys), however, simply roll around laughing (I imagine) at my puny efforts to exclude them from the paradise gardens (i.e., any made garden that humans hope will be inviolable to wild creatures (more about that later, too).
Walking happily across the newly-mown Big Lawn I stopped to pick up a grey piece of broken deadwood from one of the old white cedars and was surprised to see it covered in tiny white spider orchids and loose, hanging moss (which I always think of as Spanish moss, but only because I’ve been too lazy to identify it properly). I brought this floral masterpiece inside, covered it with water-soaked tissues and have set it atop some of the small river stones that certain of my friends so much admire. There was just time for me to conduct most of the overture to The Thieving Magpie while I made breakfast and I enjoyed seeing the floral miracles of the natural world in front of me while I ate my Saturday breakfast, drank my wicked Saturday Only black coffee and soaked up some proper radio music.
After taking a couple of photos of the orchid display I studied what else was probably in the frame when I clicked the shutter (do digital cameras have shutters?). I could see the vertical skid marks on the outside of the window where an off-course bird had collided with the glass (another bird, a cuckoo, I think, had hit the glass door upstairs near my bed and didn’t survive the neck-breaking impact). And I could see how much in need of cleaning were the windows (my excuse is that I no longer have a long-enough ladder to do the job from outside although I know perfectly well that I can either manage most of that chore from inside the room (because the big panes are removable) or I can rig a brush or squeegee on a long piece of wood and do the work outside—but such housekeeping, like dishwashing, is too boring and tedious to get excited about—besides, I have the excellent excuse of living on the very dusty Darkwood Road). Crazed by the upwelling of coffee fumes I rush wildly to the computer and start writing.
I’m going to show-off a little now and briefly mention a few of the ‘things’ I’ve attended to since my last Diary entry (readers impatient to reach TEDROB may wish to skip this part).
Here September is always a month of variability and great change. The rains earlier in the year have led to explosive growth and this month is notable for shades of green and areas of growth that take my breath away. The uncertain-looking morning is again overcast after having briefly been sunny. Earlier this month the skeletal-looking white cedars in the Valley stood out against the greens of the forest; only now are they putting out new leaves. The red cedars at Earthrise are showing their new pink livery (leafing is always a little later here than it is further down the Valley or along Darkwood Road—an aspect of this property being more in the forest than out of it). The river has bobbed up and down and although is currently low the water level has varied by more than a metre the past four weeks.
I’ve removed about 80% of the tradescantia and about 50% of the tropical chickweed that infests most of the central area close to the house. With the citrus trees gone the earth is bare but surrounded by voracious ground covers. I’ve recovered an old chicken wire fence from the overgrown Theatre Garden and dragged all the bits and pieces down to the central area and re-erected it: one starts with guesstimating location, size and shape and then whacks in the first two of four star pickets, the whacking done with a heavy hammer. Stakes or sticks between the steel posts act as droppers. This new garden now contains dahlia tubers with cloned red salvia in each corner and the ground surface is well covered with loose chicken wire to bring about the downfall of rampant turkeys.
This central area and the adjoining top of the riverbank is the World Capital of tradescantia: given the right conditions it will stand more than a foot high; will trap valuable loam and a myriad of mixed seeds in high floods; provide shelter for an enormous variety of insects and small light brown frogs, and continue colonising if left to do so because it’s design is such that much of it remains in the ground no matter how carefully the gardener tries to remove it. The spreading of this adventurous plant is little short of miraculous and if tradescantia is entwined in the multiple grasses of the Big Lawn it is unlikely ever to be completely removed. It keeps the earth damp and draws for itself nutrients that I prefer to be used by more manageable plants. If it grows on sparsely covered parts of the ground and provided the soils are relatively dry, tradescantia can be removed forcefully by pressing hard and raking with the back of the rake (this will quickly exhaust the gardener no matter how fit he or she is) or by leaning on the vertical blade of a large shovel, dragging the shovel and thereby tearing the plants out that way. I could go on about these counter measures but lawns being variable creatures variations of removal techniques have to be improvised by the frustrated gardener (usually on hot days when he or she has his or her eyes dimmed by dust and sweat). Tradescantia is the enemy, I’m sorry to say. A strong garden fork is the best means of collecting piles and removing them discreetly from the more beautiful parts of the garden to where the remains may be stacked or concentrated in discrete areas. I have stacks of the stuff big enough to successfully inter pharaohs for as long as is necessary.
Removal of the unwanted groundcovers has liberated an old yesterday-today-and tomorrow bush, now spread to at least three distinct plants each of them budding (the area was covered in debris and logs during the big flood in 2001 and subsequently colonised and more or less protected by tradescantia for a decade). In the belvedere garden the white begonias thrive as do some small carnations that like the river air—and the unruly-looking irises are now flowering (the first flowers opening one afternoon while I was mowing a few days ago: I watched their unfolding progress with bated breath). The masses of tradescantia in the belvedere area are being progressively raked and destroyed. The circular garden between the Dog’s Garden and the belvedere has been cleaned up (although the stonework, disrupted by floods, needs repairing) and there are cannas, irises, red salvia and in the past few days, a clump of white carnations next to blood red carnations and some blue pansies—and a new rose—all are staking their claims among profuse bracken roots. The Dog’s garden is sadly overgrown with weeds but I’ve encouraged the transplanting of some primrose that always reappear each spring near the car’s wheel tracks (Concourse area). There are also carnations and pansies in the Dog’s Garden and they all like being watered when it’s as hot as it has been for the past few days.
The first mowing took place here midweek (the third week of Sept) following some TLC/maintenance for the dusty mower which so often requires the spark plug connection to be crimped or otherwise tightened following its seasonal sleep before the machine roars into petrol-guzzling action. The mower still cuts quite well and I had the pleasure of mowing most of the Big Lawn in two hot sessions. Mowing has also helped tidy the central area: bracken has grown profusely and so well that the remaining logs and other debris left by the winter floods has been magically covered and the paths to and from the belvedere and the river lawn are now open again. Stacks of hard flood debris that I set aside for possible use in the heater have dried out (now that I no longer need them for heating) and have been returned to the river from whence they arrived during floods, by the barrow load.
In short: it’s spring and the scent of jasmine hangs heavy in the air. Those roses that have survived the floods are leafing and with luck some dahlias will soon send their sprouts above ground (each tuber has a tiny mound of ‘floodpost’, the fine compost-like debris of flood deposits, over its top and the tubers have a general fertilizer mixed in there and sit atop blood and bone at the base of each hole). The liquidambars and the pride of India myrtle are all leafing; the red azaleas in Cedar Grove and the big pink azalea opposite the gate are in full flower and the weeping coral tree on the belvedere is leafing and budding (the world’s oldest and toughest red salvia, still about 1-75-m high on the belvedere and a survivor of all the high floods here for about 25 years looks as beautifully scarlet and powerful as ever). In the shadier places the new long leaves of the big birds’ nest ferns are unrolling in all their glory. The old pink camellia between the west end of Big Lawn and the Concourse has been flowering, too.
In the Valley and here the jacarandas are still bronzing and will soon flower and there are near-white Virgilia trees flowering on properties along Darkwood Road. Unknown and unseen creatures of the night are leaving scat calling cards and have been cropping the best of the grass (e.g., kikuyu). I suspect feral deer and wallaby. The critters most likely to have successfully penetrated the defences of the new dahlia garden are small bandicoots: there are now small holes inside this garden. I suppose certain animals watch us carefully and note what we plant and bury; they return when we’re asleep in bed and systematically investigate…and vandalise. When recently I did a night time prowl through the gardens and along the road, suspecting intruders, it was clear to me that the overgrown West end beyond the entrance gate is home to enough wild animals to stock a zoo. At night they wander the gardens here seeking interesting titbits.
Sunday, Sept 25 2011. After days of queer weather the air became thundery during Saturday afternoon and the first of the thunderstorms started after dark, then faded away until I was more or less asleep until around 03:00 there began a series of enormous detonations that rattled all the windows that could be rattled and shook the house. Then it rained quite hard. I remembered poor Old Henry Dog who couldn’t abide thunderstorms and trembled violently when the noise started: my attempts to do dog therapy and to reassure him were always difficult times. There has been clear air, smoky air and river mist; the air has been warm to hot and also quite cool.
Much of the month has been hot. The worst job has been at the end of the afternoon: lugging 20 litres of water down to the gardens; all the new plants love the water. One of the best parts of the month consisted in sitting quietly, when there was any sitting quietly time available, and watching the river go by from the belvedere. Now that everything is wet I can vaguely smell carnations, carnation scent being a lifelong favourite. I’ve recovered some small new lomandra plants from an old parent plant and replaced some of the failed seedlings along the (road) fence line. So far the dragons haven’t turned up to take advantage of the mown grass on the belvedere. I hope the goannas haven’t been hunting them: there were three goannas creating alarms (mine) in the garden last week and another this week and only two sightings of small r-b black snakes. Lots of birds, though: the drongos flew in on, I think, the 18th, about a week later than usual; I like to hear their familiar and unattractive squawking (which is bizarre for such a beautiful migrating bird). I’ve seen fishing eagles a couple of times and small birds have followed me around the garden when I’ve been clearing: they gorge on the insects revealed when tradescantia is raked away. The black sections of polypipe that I’ve yet to remove to high ground are being utilised by various smart ants, particularly small ones, because they can move unhindered and at speed along the pipeline highways. How do they know about that, I wonder? And because the native violets are flowering in and on the lawn again, I was interested to see that some have decided to avoid decapitation whenever I mow and have encouraged their viny little strands to creep up via stones into raised gardens: I never try to mow there.
TEDROB, or The Earthrise Diary Review of Books
Cormac McCarthy’s stark novel, Blood Meridian, was first published in1985. McCarthy (1933-) is the American author of ten acclaimed novels and is a Pulitzer Prize winner. The narrative is set in the Mexico-Texas borderlands in 1849-50 (in the Mexican War, 1846-1848, the US acquired New Mexico, Texas and California) (publisher’s blurb; Harold Bloom’s Novelists and Novels, and the Random House Timetables of History).
Bruce Furner reviews this impressive book for TEDROB and prefaces his review with
I was astonished when Don, who as all you dear blog readers know, is a man of refined sensibilities, suggested I read an American Western novel, Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. I was further surprised when he kindly pressed his insistence by sending me a copy of the book and even more surprised when he suggested that I write a review of Blood Meridian. Maybe sending me a copy was a setup? But I am very grateful for the process because it enabled me to discover this astonishing novel.
Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian. The Evening Redness in the West. (First published in 1985 by Random House, NY; this edition: Picador (2010). ISBN 978-0-330-51094-3
It is not the depiction of the violent and horrific events described in the book that most impacted me, but the sublime language the writer uses to convey to the reader the basest of human behaviours. Indeed, almost against my will I continued to read about the violence with an enjoyment of the descriptions and as a result I felt exposed to myself.
The story of the runaway, 'the Kid', the 'Judge' and the amoral marauding Glanton Gang, who pursue, for bounty and glory, Indian scalps and the lives of Mexicans on the border of the US and Mexico in the middle of the 19th century, explores American history and violence without any whitewashing.
The Judge, a giant albino-like, hairless renaissance figure of a man, towers throughout the story. A violent murderous pedophile, able to converse fluently in many languages and nimbly dance at the drop of a hat, is deeply intriguing as his all-encompassing knowledge and mastery of Western/European culture is revealed. Amid the violence he makes scholarly notes and collects geological samples in bald contrast to his primitive alter ego. The Kid hangs on the border of the violence, compelled to tag along and at the same time to contemplate escape: only the judge remains at the end, after the most terrible hardships and cruelty have been dealt out and endured.
As mentioned above, it is ultimately the language that captures me and to my own surprise softens my reactions to the horrors of the story. Against my own resistance I began to feel compelled to read on voraciously and to recognise this book as a great novel. I began to consider the fine line between history, truth and mythology. The novel forced me to regard the violence which exists in myself and which runs too close to the surface for me to dismiss as OK. This extraordinary novel has touched me deeply and three weeks later I find myself returning to it in my mind and being drawn to read it again as there are many levels of the narrative to contemplate. BF.
Bruce’s Afterword:
I know nothing about writing reviews. I like reading Westerns. Max Brand is my favourite. This is a great read at so many levels. Why have I not run across it before? Bruce later added, Max Brand wrote over 500 novels and also over 500 short stories under many pseudonyms and has had a novel published every four months for the last 75 years. He died quite a while ago. Prolific huh?
(Bruce Furner is a pensioner, reader and sometime traveller…).
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Pierre Teilhard de Chardon (1881-1955) was a French Jesuit mystic. He trained as a palaeontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Publication on his Phénomène Humain/The Phenomenon of Man (1955) was delayed until after his death by the embargo of his superiors. T de C envisaged humanity as eventually in charge of its own evolution, and developed the concept of the noosphere, the unconscious union of thought among human beings (The Wordsworth Dictionary of Biography; Wikipedia). The book has been published in a number of editions. (Publication details for the edition read and reviewed by Russell Atkinson are no longer available as the reviewer no longer has the relevant copy).
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Phenomenon of Man (numerous editions).
Teilhard wrote: to think I must eat. This simple statement, whose truth is so obvious, hides confounding issues. So much is known about food and its biochemistry but next to nothing is known about thought. Psychologists might plot some mechanisms, psychiatrists speculate about the nature of its malfunctions and structure; biologists might make wide assumptions based upon fragments of research data, neurologists might probe the brain. Though they all have maps as a result, none can answer the simple question: What is thought? Where does it come from?
To affirm that the brain excretes thought as the pancreas secretes insulin might sound clever but it is a meaningless statement. To seek to understand thought by reductionist methods is equally meaningless in the long run. Such attempts, though they add to our fragmented knowledge, do not clarify but confound. It is like an attempt to understand speech and music by analysing a radio receiver. If a psychologist applied for a grant to research the chemistry of tears in order to understand sorrow, they would be considered insane, yet similar inanities are being funded right around the world.
Teilhard writes: animals know but they do not know that they know: that is quite certain.
God bless scientists; they are in great need of it. My simple question to this arrogant affirmation is: If you do not know that you know, how can you know anything? Rather, to know is to know that you know. A corollary to Teilhard’s statement is the supposition that all other mammals are merely programmed automatons living by blind drives and instincts, without a psychic centre or personality. This is not so, as anyone who has developed a deep relationship with an animal knows.
In all such debates the common error is to regard thought and consciousness as identical, exchangeable terms. It is not so: the Hindu philosopher, Patanjali in his book Yoga Sutras declares that the mind is not conscious because it can be observed. Thought, even of abstractions, is the lowest expression of a spectrum. Thinking, an activity we are most proud of, has taken over our life to such an extent that the fact that it is a minor function of consciousness is lost. If thought is observed throughout the day, it becomes clear that the faculty we are so proud of is little more than idle chatter, trivial and exclusively bound to personal or egocentric concerns. It is thought at its lowest level. And the reverse of Teilhard’s statement is also true; animals take note: in order to eat, we must think.
The idea – doctrine more accurately – that animals lack a personal awareness and ‘do not know that they know’ as Teilhard affirms, added to Descartes’ insistence that animals have no souls, has been the foundation of our lack of conscience about our vicious exploitation of animals. It has allowed us to breed unfortunate dogs into many strange shapes that make an otherwise unnecessary suffering inevitable, subject animals to torments in the name of research, incarcerate them in zoos, cut and maul them to our whim or advantage, to herd, drive and subject them to various violence’s so we may then slaughter and eat them, is to treat them like animals that do not mind because they have no mind.
Teilhard’s book makes tedious reading, as with a verbose and heavy hand, he seeks to convince the scientific community, biologists especially, of his convictions regarding evolution and the ascent of man.
At base what he is seeking to establish is the role of consciousness or some form of psychic energy in the process of specie differentiation in the evolution of man and the biosphere. Efforts by such men as Teilhard are essential if the scientific community is to be influenced towards a more holistic attitude, one that does not ignore the role of a universal mind in the generation of phenomena.
Teilhard argues for the creative role of noumena in phenomena, which is a radical idea for most scientists no matter of what discipline. But what he is seeking to establish by dense theoretical arguments I have known intuitively all my life. Any student of Hindu philosophical systems is bound to be most suspicious of scientific speculations that never take into account that evolution has an overriding purpose, or at least, a direction, that is lost to reductionist investigation.
The Hindu philosopher, Patanjali, who probably lived about the second century AD, summed it up in seven words:
Evolution is by the infilling of nature. RA.
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This short piece, also written by Russell, is an extract from one of his travel diaries:
On the Gwyder river, it is not the kookaburras that awaken you, but the sulphur-crested cockatoos with raucous screeches. In the evening they return to shatter the silence again. Apostle birds held squabble meetings a dozen at a time, and friarbirds squawked in the bottlebrushes along with the lesser wattlebirds. Apart from the cockatoos and apostle birds, the only others not found in Bellingen are the brilliant red-tailed parrots. There were, of course, the usual magpies, dollar birds and peewees.
The life of these western towns has been drained of their lifeblood. In one of them, I talked with an old bloke I found off the main street, sitting on a sort of trestle table by the wall of a timber building that was once some sort of shop.
Getting the last of the sun? I said. Yes. Been a bit on the cold side today. How far is it to Bingara? I asked. About 85-km. Now that's a really nice town. You'll like it there. Very pretty place, Bingara. Been here long? Been here seventy-three years. Used to be a good town once. Gone to the dogs. We used to have three stores. Five banks way back. There's only about four hundred people here now. We used to have a fourteen-bed hospital one time!
A lonely old man, warming up in the late sun, sitting alone between two derelict shops, he was sad for the lost life of his town. His blotched skin bore the signs of many hot summers and his tough old hands had held the plow, axe, shears, reins, tools, harness, truck steering wheels, and had wrapped parcels and given change in one of the general stores for a time.
Weeds grew in the stony space between the old buildings. The trestle table tilted downward at one end. The paint on the timber wall was flaking off and sections were open, far gone in dry rot.
It was a good town to live in one time. We used to have picnics down by the river and fishing parties and Friday and Saturday night dances when we all got dressed up fit to kill and people would come from properties far out. The cricket club and foota club was a beaut. We won lots of cups we did. Seen the tennis court? A man could jump over the chicken wire and it's got Patterson's curse and that bloody Canola in it. That old court was the social centre one time. There's a few people coming back, but they're not the right sort. Rents and houses are cheap see? So the bloody dole bludgers move in and other no-gooders. The characters! We had some hard cases especially at shearing time. We used to sit around the fire and sing songs. Those blokes would spin yarns and tell lies like there was no tomorra. Town's as dead as one of those bloody old dodos.
Extinct, along with an entire lifestyle, culture and a fun loving tough, admirable type of Aussie; such as put the effete, fearful modern to shame. I walked most of the main street and back. He was the only person I saw.
(Russell Atkinson is a much-published author (books and articles on Hindu philosophy, memoirs, and aspects of naturopathy).
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John Morris has sent in a telling account of Online Dating that we may all learn from. I like to think that this might almost be a feuilleton because it has a single important theme; however, it could also be regarded as a personal essay because he writes an entertaining narrative having the appearance of authenticity and because the piece reads surprisingly like a short story. Nowadays Online Dating may be seen as an e-extension of the personal advertisements that have always been popular in newspapers and magazines.
The Meeting
John Morris
It began innocently enough. He was as desperate as a man could be—lonely and deprived and his last encounter with a female was when he had kissed the cold brow of his deceased aunt some six months before. He decided that he would go on the Net—to hell with singles bars; they were no foreign territory for him. There, he had frequently reached a state of inebriation while summoning up enough courage to approach a buxom, well made up, and inviting target. His vocabulary had not been increased as a result of those encounters but the phrases like "get lost creep" and "f…k off," were affecting his confidence.
So he thought to himself, Why not an Internet Dating service? He signed up for a year's subscription to a dating site that guaranteed a quick relationship with a like-minded soul and, temptingly, instant success with an unlimited number of nubile females and all this for a pittance. Wow, he thought, why did I leave it this long?
He was convinced that his debonair, man-of -the-world charm and skill at writing a profile would be so convincing and intriguing that women would look no further. He thought long and hard at what he should say about the qualities of a woman that would most please him. He thought about but baulked at sensuous, voluptuous, and insatiable but settled for "anything female between 16 and 80". For the body piercing question he decided that in the early stages he would not need to remove his shirt and display the close to pornographic icons on both nipples. So he entered, " ears only".
The next week brought anything but joy—a stack of likely partners were recommended by the agency: they hailed from such places as Outer Mongolia, Swaziland, the New Hebrides, and Christmas Island. In the main they were girls under 20 and women over 75. The young ones wanted heaps of money for all kind of dramas including major health problems, unpaid hotel bills, threatened law suits and money to pay-off their "protectors". The old ones offered him money but when he could find photos on their profile he felt that no amount would compensate. He was intrigued that so few had listed a desire for a response from anyone living beyond a radius of 10-km from their home. He quickly ruled out the lass from Terra del Fuego. Then one day—oh joy—a reply to die for: "I read your profile and found you an extraordinary person. I feel compelled to check out anyone who thought of them selves so highly that some of it might just be true." In your reply tell me what turns you on, what turns you off, what you aim for in life, what men and or women have you had in your life and presently. Also, tell me what do you think of the world situation." He was so pleased because this information would give him the flexibility to compose more than a superficial reply. He laughed at the implied audacity of this inquisitive lady.
He went into high gear with a deceptively deprecating response. If I go low key, he thought, this will draw out her repressed motherly instinct. Thus, he used phrases such as "I live very, very much alone and sleep at night with only my Rotweiller at the end of the bed" and " I rarely go out anywhere, but if had you I would go out as much as once a month. We would go to the Trivia night at the Leagues Club and since they brought in 3 am closing it has been quite safe".
It did not surprise him that this planned approach drew a promising reply. It began with "LOL" which he interpreted as "Love Often Lingers" or something equally inviting. She had gone on, "I would be interested in having my opinions reinforced. Do you want to meet? If you do, where is a suitable place for me to bring my two-year old? I can make alternate arrangements for the other two." He thought how lucky he was that she had this capacity to amuse him. He settled for the California Greek Restaurant on the cornet of Main and Station Street. The menu might not be that varied, he thought, but they should be able to provide a great ‘mixed grill’. On enquiry he found that there was provision for liquor: a charge for corkage and a proviso that “screw top bottles are preferred."
The night of the meeting arrived. He sat as planned, nonchalantly leaning back to the point of imbalance, attempting to appear thoughtful and intelligent whilst looking out of the window onto the peak hour traffic. Try to impress, he thought. Don't appear too eager. Then he looked appraisingly at the label of the bottle of imported "Thunderbird Chardonnay" (“bottled early 2011”) it boasted. How impressive is that? he wondered.
The lady entered: immaculately dressed, beautifully made up, and with looks to kill. She looked enquiringly around the room. She approached several of the single customers sitting at their white laminex tables illuminated by bright overhead Chinese style lanterns. Although she drew leering admiration she did not immediately succeed in locating her "perfect man". She then realized that her man was the one sitting alone with a wilted bunch of "Bird of Paradise" flowers lying on the table beside a bottle of wine still containing about a third of its original contents. These signs of culture partially reassured her and she made the approach. While he had thought that his appearance would be no detriment she noticed immediately the crooked smile devised to hide some unpleasant dental work. Then came a close encounter with a continental cheek-to-cheek kiss. This brought the realization that if he had ever shaved it would have been at least a week prior to this meeting.
He seated her with a flourish and offered the flowers together with a glass of the now lukewarm Chardonnay. She was not up to this. She went into Plan B mode for a withdrawal. "How lovely", she said, the insincerity of the words going unrecognized by her besotted admirer. "You should not have gone to all this trouble.” Apparent insincerity went up another notch. Thinking quickly she added, "I should have told you that I have doubled up with a medical appointment for something I picked up in Zanzibar. So will you excuse me if I seem unwell (this is true enough, she thought) and have to unfortunately postpone this delightful encounter". She looked uncertain, as if logic and a predictable universe were no longer within grasp. She fumbled for her car keys, stood, and hesitatingly backed toward to door. Some diners at a nearby table noted her distress and offered to help. She unwisely declined and as she turned toward the exit she stumbled and fell.
Not to miss this heaven-sent opportunity her prospective beau hastened to her and drew her to him with one arm under her slender and well-proportioned body. The chemistry was immediate—he felt his blood surge and then felt the beating of her heart against his. Their lips touched then he locked her to him. He saw himself as a master of conquest and was sure that she could only offer total submission. Then he said exultantly, " I have tried everything and everywhere else to meet my girl but here you are and you are so, so different—I never thought this day would come." Her reply was weak and muffled but those close by recalled that she had said, "Neither did I." JM.
(John Morris is retired after long service with the Army, and Universities in the USA and Australia in Departments of Psychology).
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Some Young Men as Characters in Novels
Don Diespecker
I want to discuss some limited aspects of three novels. Each of the three books is supposedly about young men, but a young man is sometimes difficult to define as well as to understand.
It’s about 60 years since my first attempt to read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. I’ve at last completed my reading of that novel and have a slightly better understanding of why it irked me to read it when I was a youngster and regrettably the book is still an annoying read in my old age. The answer to my unreasonable difficulty is firstly, that the character, Holden Caulfied, as well as most of the other young males in the story are no smarter than I and my friends were at that age, and secondly, that Holden and some of his school companions are children posing as and practising to be adults. With or without good role models most of Salinger’s youngsters are no more heroic or amazing than any of my real life characters (and I) were when we were teens. I’m suggesting that one of the attractions for readers (other than I) to read novels is that we seek and hope to discover wonderful characters that have wonderful qualities and Salinger’s characters are disappointingly anything but wonderful. Sorry!
I dare say that purists will be horrified to learn that I don’t hold The Catcher in high esteem not because it’s poorly written—which it isn’t: the book is very well written—but because it’s annoying for me to read about a smart but lazy teenager who is modest and unassuming one moment and then silly or careless in the next. Holden Caulfield like many youngsters of his age is tedious, boring and poorly motivated which is perhaps why the writing had to be good and I was well reminded of how those characteristics (and a number of others equally awful) were casually owned by my friends and I when we were tedious teenagers. It takes minimal energy for teens to be inconsiderate and irresponsible. I was opinionated without good reason to be opinionated; I was brash, over confident, held exaggerated views of my importance and prowess, and was an undistinguished scholar and although I did well in other departments of boyishness and revelled in those, I was, like Holden not destined to be any more famous than he was. And we teenagers enjoyed our fair share of going to the races, drinking beer or cocktails in hotel lounges and bars and not avoiding dangerous trouble as effectively as we might have done; without our knowing of the Salinger book we were doing what Salinger’s characters were doing and it was an aspect of growing up; it was no big deal. Being a teenager in the 1940s was all too easy; being sensible and well motivated to do the right thing, whatever the right thing might have been, was excruciatingly difficult. My schooldays began in British Columbia in the mid 1930s and were completed in Natal in 1947. To be contradictory, I wouldn’t have missed those important teenage years for anything. Unfortunately, the teen years can only properly be evaluated with hindsight when we have become older and marginally more sensible.
Like Holden Caulfield I was a tolerably good student in English classes and was very fortunate to have been taught by a fine teacher, Joyce Kidger, who also was kind enough to have encouraged me to read modern novels—a number of which she lent to me. Part of my teen time was spent in second hand bookshops particularly on wet Saturdays. In this way I discovered one of my lifelong favourite books: The Essential Hemingway: subtitled “One complete Novel, extracts from three others, twenty-three Short Stories and a chapter from ‘Death in the Afternoon.’” One of the stories (from Men Without Women) is Hills Like White Elephants, in my humble opinion a near-perfect example of a short story: the underlying theme is implied and never mentioned directly by the two protagonists and the dialogue between the man and woman is wonderfully understated. The novel in that Hemingway collection is ‘Fiesta’ (The Sun Also Rises), and is the first piece in that book. The narrative is set in Paris and in Spain and it is for me the defining novel of my life and one I often dip into in admiration. My first reading was totally absorbing. This sudden introduction to Hemingway’s work helped to decide me on a European adventure I was planning to undertake as soon as I turned 21. In later years I was pleased to read everything EH wrote, including his dispatches and news stories (which are remarkable as short works of art). I mention this here because I was amazed that the author had written and published ‘Fiesta,’ his first novel, in 1926 (EH lived from 1898 to 1961) because he seemed so young to have written so brilliantly what quickly became an important and definitive novel of the 20th century. Whereas the young males in The Catcher in the Rye are undoubtedly children on the cusp of manhood, the young men in Fiesta are well past their school days: not only are Hemingway’s characters adults: they have been damaged or have gone astray or in some way been severely affected either by war or by the aftermath of war; they are, together with one extraordinary young female character, the ‘Lost Generation.’
The third book and one recently read is Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. The cover blurb reads, ‘One of the greatest American novels of this or any time.’ (Guardian). I heartily agree. Like the aforementioned two books, this story features young people in comparatively modern times (it was published seven years after Blood Meridian (reviewed above) and has been set about 100 years later in history, i.e., in mid-20th century.
Were I to write that the major protagonists in the McCarthy book are teenagers I would be accurate but misleading, for John Cole and his friend were approximately the same age as Holden Caulfied and the associated schoolboys; and if I wrote that John Cole and his friend had been raised in rural Texas and were cowboys, ‘teenager’ might make more sense. The character John Grady Cole is only 16 but the character is so well drawn by the author that readers will invariably tend to regard him very much as a young man; similarly for John Cole’s friend, Rawlins (aged 17). A third character, Jimmy Blevins, is also a youngster, and although he is a lesser character whose appearances in the story do not last as long as those of Cole and Rawlins, Blevins has courage and skills to match those of the two friends: Blevins is also a marksman and a dangerous person.
I’m labouring this notion of ‘teens as young men’ because it’s an important element in All the Pretty Horses, the story being about adult values and mores. None of the three mentioned can in any way be considered as kids: they behave, of necessity, as adults. The book is also set in Texas and Mexico, is about courage, honour and intentionality and includes a love story. Two frequently seen and slowly understood ‘other’ major protagonists are horses and landscape (and there are of course a number of adults, some of them vile and treacherous, others like the powerful ranch owner or hacendado and his family. John Cole knows how to break horses and how to work with them—learned skills that are far beyond mere talent. The landscapes of Mexico, particularly well and lyrically described and all of the writing is superb.
In terms of love and endearment Holden Caulfield struggles to love himself sufficiently so that he can make the leap from his unsatisfying teens into bold manhood. As a character he remains somewhere between self awareness and self deception and is a soul all but lost; the one person in the story who loves him for himself is his young sister, Phoebe (her name from the Greek means the shining one).
Jake Barnes, wounded in the war, in love with Lady Ashley, could never physically express or fulfil that love, his wounds having caused his impotence. Brett, who loved Jake with compassion and understanding, was more lost than he: the man she was destined to marry (Mike) could never be the husband she wanted and the young bullfighter, Romero, seduced by her would never become an acceptable husband for the aristocrat. (‘Pedro Romero had the greatness. He loved bull-fighting, and I think he loved the bulls, and I think he loved Brett’). From memory, I think Romero was about 19, but I may be incorrect. Jake’s destiny, if anything, might possibly wed him to journalism, but was more likely to lead him unavoidably and further into alcoholism and despair. Jake’s chances to ennoble himself, if at all, were to be found in the company of old friends, fishing the Irati River and reclaiming parts of the spirited life he had lived in boyhood. He had let down those Spaniards he most admired; and they blamed him for Brett’s excesses and he was surrounded at every turn by dissipation and distrust: shallow friends with less talent as a writer than he had. Jake was self-aware and a good journalist/correspondent and although he knew that his choices concerning love and happiness were limited he was unable to always make wise choices. Of the other young men, only Robert Cohen, the promising novelist and intending womaniser, and Bill Gorton who was sensible enough to briefly visit the group in Spain without becoming trapped by incessant carousing, seemed relatively stable characters.
John Grady’s love for Alejandra (she being something of the aristocrat that Lady Brett was) was pure and simple, but by his action of loving Alejandra (who was a year older than he) John Cole disgraced himself and was beyond redemption: he had betrayed the Mexican family he worked for and irreparably damaged the family’s honour. The only relationship John Cole had ever wanted to be permanent would forever be denied him (and he was otherwise the most honourable of young men). His valuable and equally loving work of breaking and training horses was also lost forever. Young Cole was compelled to fight for his life against an assassin before returning to Texas, his return journey almost costing him his life.
Of all the characters in these three novels, John Cole (probably the youngest) had tremendous courage, was both irresponsible (Alejandra) and astonishingly responsible, and proved to be the most honourable and loyal of friends. He was certainly the most mature of the character.
Points of view and style:
The Catcher in the Rye is written in the first person (‘in which the “I” of the story is a participant or observer’1), past tense, as if by the teenager, Holden Caulfield (who is also the main protagonist). The style is informal, made by the author to seem naïve and at times clumsy—teen language, oft-repeated (and maddening) patois, and stereotypical phrases. The reader experiences the daily life of an intelligent youngster able to posture as a young man in the city, but compelled by circumstances in a boys boarding school, to be a poorly performing student who is unable to be anywhere near the top of the pecking order.
‘Fiesta’ (The Sun Also Rises) is also a first person narrative and so skilfully written that the reader experiences the progression of the story as one might experience seeing a movie. City scenes in Paris and town/hotel scenes in Pamplona (and of course bullfight scenes) are well described in straightforward easy-to-follow language and there are more carefully described rural scenes (Way off we saw the steep bluffs, dark with trees and jutting with grey stone, that marked the course of the Irati River). An important technical point and one not in common use when the book was published: there are several conversations, mostly dialogues, in which the author has rejected the use of all tiresome ‘he said,’ and ‘she decided’ tags to make those conversations faster and surprisingly more easy to read—so long as the reader is well engaged with the text (the technique of parataxis). The pace of the novel is quick; there are no slow or vague patches.
All the Pretty Horses is also a fast-paced read, most of the narrative being set in the wildness of rural Mexico and with frequently changing landscapes. The narrative is written in the third person, past tense (the most traditional form of third-person narrative is that of the omniscient narrator—the narrative voice is presumed to know everything about the characters and the action1). McCarthy demands the reader’s close attention by writing dialogue that has no quotation marks—the absence of diacritical marks makes conversations indistinguishable from descriptive prose. He also presents the reader with exchanges and conversations written in Spanish. Oddly, and if the reader is familiar with one or more of the Romance languages he or she will quickly discover the gist of these passages; even with little or no understanding of Spanish, it is possible to understand the writer’s intention. There are, too, many landscape descriptions that require some understanding of Spanish but McCarthy writes in such ways that many of those unusual or unfamiliar words may be partly comprehended. He also writes abbreviated slang and vernacular that no reader will be puzzled by: Cole and Rawlins speak like cowboys (Cole apparently speaks Spanish more fluently than he speaks English). Pretty Horses, for lovers of Westerns, may be thought of as a sophisticated Western. For those who love literature, regardless, read it and admire the language: the book is a masterpiece. DD.
1. Collins Dictionary of Literary Terms (Ed Edward Quinn)
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September 27 2011. The spider orchids seem content inside the house and still cling to their old bit of branch. There’s more sun today. At breakfast time the sun was shining brightly through pink emerging red cedar leaves and the near-pink leaves of bleeding heart trees on the belvedere and the early light gleamed on the river pouring through the rapids.
Thanks to Bruce Furner, Russell Atkinson and John Morris for their contributions to this issue of the Diary. (By the way, I have an infallible way of knowing when I have a god book on my lap: when a midge alights on an open page and checks out the text I know the book is good. All the Pretty Horses and Fiesta received the Midgeworld Seal of Approval. DDD. September 27 2011.
