Today I finished The Beginning of Spring -- I felt curiously moved by the interaction between Frank and Selwyn in the next-to-last chapter, "curiously" because I could not understand quite how I was reacting. I got a sort of adrenaline rush -- though the book is not by any stretch a thriller -- and I felt totally alienated from Selwyn, much more so than I had throughout the book. Not in a particularly condemnatory way, I just thought, This guy is not from my planet. The last chapter is total disintegration -- almost like the final third of Gravity's Rainbow in microcosm. And the ending did feel a bit like a tease. ... A little later I picked up The Birth of Tragedy and started reading Nietzsche's forward to Wagner and wow! realized that it was written in Selwyn's voice. I'm not sure what to make of this realization but there it is. The first few pages of the first chapter are inspiring me to get back up on my Jaynesian hobby horse -- but I will read a bit further before I decide to subject you to that. My favorite quote from these first few pages is, ...but nature itself, long alienated or subjugated, rises again to celebrate the reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. -- which I like in large part because every time I read it, it seems to me like Janis Joplin is speaking, and giving a different intonation to the final two words than that intended by the translator. (Who is, by the way, Francis Golffing of Bennington College; date of the translation is 1956.) ... I have the evening to myself, as Ellen and Sylvia are visiting Uncle Kenny on the east end of Long Island; I think I will walk to town and have a drink. I will be joining them tomorrow so no blogging this weekend. (Not that that is unusual or anything, but still.)
posted evening of Thursday, July 17th, 2003
➳ More posts about The Beginning of Spring
➳ More posts about Penelope Fitzgerald
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➳ More posts about The Birth of Tragedy
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