Keats

I recently read a lecture on Mathematics (introductory part of the lecture), delivered by David Hilbert at the turn of last century, a sort of looking back at and looking forward to and gathering some of the biggest unsolved questions or wonders then in Maths. But as did so, he did one of those old-fashioned things, which perhaps finds itself a place in many rituals, and perhaps is a really nice thing generally - that, of recalling to mind. Recalling to mind certain things to bring forth or sort of invoke a frame of mind, a background which lets both the speaker and the listener perhaps orient to or share some of the common frame, the hypothetical thought space where the speaker can then unfold some of his thoughts. Seeing that done beautifully, one wonders why don't we do that more often. Anyway, this practice of recalling to mind, seems to be an age-old thing, as things that endure, generally are strong, and strong generally are beautiful and sensible, and perhaps encapsulate wisdom in practice. Even if the reader is the self, even if it is a note to self recalled often - perhaps just to invoke the companionship of some words.

So here, recalling these words from Keats: 

"As tradesmen say everything is worth what it will fetch, so probably every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer—being in itself a Nothing. Ethereal things may at least be thus real, divided under three heads—Things real—things semireal—and nothings. Things real, such as existences of Sun moon and Stars—and passages of Shakspeare.—Things semireal, such as love, the Clouds etc., which require a greeting of the Spirit to make them wholly exist—and Nothings, which are made great and dignified by an ardent pursuit—which, by the by, stamp the Burgundy mark on the bottles of our minds, insomuch as they are able to “consecrate whate’er they look upon.”"

I am relatively new to Keats. Name heard often, a poem or two, but after recently acquiring a poem collection in a second-hand book sale, I seem to come across Keats' words more often. And then as one reads others, and reads Keats again, perhaps something that personally strikes me is a zest, a freshness, a proximity to life - the words that spring highest. Some writers when they write can weave the life around them in their words, so when you open their lines, it is a fragrance fresh from their time, that comes forth and surrounds you. 

I still read Keats. Beginner stages. Just a little read so far. Some poems, a few letters. Poems take a while generally with me. A beginner to poetry in a way. I read a poem and then let the poem pick me up as it would. Sometimes, one finds oneself reading the poem again and again, over days, months. Sometimes, years. Some fragments then become part of you, coming up to converse with you at times as strangers, at times, as yourself. With Keats, it is mostly the life in his words, then, his humility, his perspective, his good sense that his quotes I write here and there on little notes and scraps and some here following too, hoping the words find me again and again.

I scarcely remember counting upon any Happiness—I look not for it if it be not in the present hour,—nothing startles me beyond the moment. The Setting Sun will always set me to rights, or if a Sparrow come before my Window, I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel. 

Words penned some two hundred years ago, can brighten up any reader instantly. Here too, the recalling to mind things simple and basic to turn around any head lost or overwhelmed, a setting to rights.

To a beginner keen to learn more, the joy of hearing a poet's words on poetry is an introductory lesson of sorts, an appreciation of what perhaps the poet appreciates, himself perhaps exploring the shape of his own thoughts on paper as he writes and reads, and writes:

In poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre.

1st. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

2d. Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of Imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be, than to write it—And this leads me to

Another axiom—That if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.

I feel, one can perhaps recall to mind things. Or one can recall to mind atmospheres. Some words can help recall to mind states. In the calculus of things, perhaps states are an integration of atmospheres traversing a being. Perhaps that few artists can do, which is an everyday magic of living (a pre and post workout self for example), but in words, only perhaps poets find their way around it. And hence, perhaps prose by poets is one of the best things one can ever read. It has pleasures beyond reading. And hence, this note from Keats. His appreciation of the transformation that happens on encounter with a waterfall, "I live in the eye".

What astonishes me more than any thing is the tone, the coloring, the slate, the stone, the moss, the rock-weed; or, if I may so say, the intellect, the countenance of such places. The space, the magnitude of mountains and waterfalls are well imagined before one sees them; but this countenance or intellectual tone must surpass every imagination and defy any remembrance. I shall learn poetry here and shall henceforth write more than ever, for the abstract endeavor of being able to add a mite to that mass of beauty which is harvested from these grand materials, by the finest spirits, and put into etherial existence for the relish of one’s fellows. I cannot think with Hazlitt that these scenes make man appear little. I never forgot my stature so completely – I live in the eye; and my imagination, surpassed, is at rest.

At times, words obscure. At times, words reveal or illuminate. Generally a poet's words reveal. They illuminate the subject touched, they reveal the poet's world, ways, thoughts and approach to life, and perhaps, inadvertently, they reveal the poet. Poets are integrators that way, artists of words, their words seem to be very close to the fount of their own lives, often spanning the breadth and depth of living in a few words.

Perhaps a poet's words are like a concurring hum or a variation on a theme, a music, which, in a various way, repeat the same fount close to the poet, the fount of its own living, just another way to see or say the same thing, a new rejoicing in the approach to the only fount one knows. Perhaps.

April and Poems

April being the ‘cruellest month’, I tried to launch the month with ‘The Wasteland’. I read a few lines, soon something came up, and since then, I’ve been in and out of the poem. As always. Now that I think about it, very few moments have seen me read one of Eliot’s poems in a straight-line fashion. Always from here and there, wherever the eye lands. Always fragments. Fragments at times stuck in different parts of my mind coming up unbeckoned, summing up a moment at times. Living my life through second hand phrases. If one were to live through a poet’s phrases, makes sense to stock up on some. ‘Four Quartets’ seems to be a good place to stock up, Prufrock floats to the surface often but The Wasteland is not something I get yet, but hopefully, over time, I’ll understand it more.

April saw me reading Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. And then ‘Paradise Regained'. And in between a host of poems from here and there. But it takes a while for things to be absorbed such that they show up unbeckoned. It is all an active effort initially. One has to read them a few times. Read them aloud maybe. Or read them for the favourite bits. Or wear them out, get to know them well. Get familiar.  Almost make them your own.

At the moment, this seeks to be settling in from Paradise Lost:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same"

Reading Paradise Lost makes me want to read more of the poetic dramas, and long poems, preferably aloud, in a play-act fashion, entering the character or the narrator – God or Satan or Adam or Eve. Now, hoping to get into one of those Shakespearean characters. A line-up on my to-read list already. May May see some of those play-acts.

But the big treat this month was discovering Haikus.

It was Calvino with his essay on Japanese Gardens, and how he thinks that the gardens mirrored Japanese Haikus, that made me look up Haikus. And since then, I have a few pages open everywhere - on the phone, on the comp, which take me down the Haiku garden.

They need to be admired, like flowers, which are in full bloom in April where I live. Almost every tree laden with scores of blooms, branches drooping, overwhelmed, flowers all over the footpaths and grassy patches. And one can’t walk there without thinking of Yeats’ “I have spread my dreams under your feet;/ Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”.  Every gaze presents an eyeful of flowers. Every few steps one needs to stop to admire one of those open-faced beauties closely. You look at their perfection, their tender curving opening blossoming and even as they blossom, the edges of the petals already turning dark, already dying. You stand there enchanted until the business of living pulls you out, you run to catch-up, just until the next flower that beckons and tugs at something in you, and you stop and stare again.

So it goes with Haikus. They take a moment of your attention. But they grab it like those flowers. And once read, they keep playing around in your thought space for a bit, until again, the practical business of living draws your attention elsewhere.

Haiku is a Japanese poetry style, short verse in three lines, with a fixed number of syllables in each. From Wikipedia -  the chief idea is ‘cutting’ or juxtaposition of two ideas/ images and a cutting word between them. But I can access Haikus only in translation. And I realise some of their colour is lost in translation, still, even though faded, they are a joy to behold.

One of my favourite ones is a haiku about haiku:

“A haiku is like a finger pointing to the moon.
If the finger is bejeweled, we no longer see the moon.”
(Matsuo Basho)

The idea of this haiku, of simplicity, of letting the content shine, of this desire for unadorned kernel of things, this idea and the haiku seem to have found some place inside and they keep rising to the surface now and again. This longing for simple truth and beauty, that perhaps sits inside all of us, when sees its reflection in these flowers or these haikus, rejoices, claps for recognition, and in their small, blossomy way, make the moment and the day memorable.

I now keep these haikus around in stumbly places. When I don’t know what I’m looking for, and I come across those open haiku pages, it is like flowers on my day's path. And who is not glad to see flowers on their path?

And as if so many flowers were not enough, yesterday, I walked into Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat (a string of Quatrains, which is a verse in four lines; translated from Persian).  A long and winding road that led me there, but the last link was AA Milne’s note on Autumn and something about a book of verses and bread and thou. And I looked up and found this dreamy paradise:

XII
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now!

What delights me is that Omar Khayyam wrote these lines some 900 years ago, but the paradise held in that thought appeals even in this day and age, almost a millennium away. The unadorned kernel, the true and the beautiful shines through and tugs at you wherever found. Here, reflected in flowers, in haikus, and in quatrains.

Although I did rip through the verses like they were bread (another fragment – “I had a love I ripped through like it was bread.”, from a poem by Amy Woolard ), like Haikus, these verses cannot be consumed all in one go. Need to be strewn around. Then one day, on a grey, dreary road, it appears, like one perfect red autumn leaf, lifting up the road and the moment to something heavenly.

Amongst other things, I have been reading Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Waves’ for the last few days. The book seems to belongs here in this post with all the poems. Prose, but each paragraph a new scene. As if each of those reminiscing moments were a poem. Poems in prose. Like those flowers, each paragraph needs to be stared at, to hold each image for a while longer. And I should perhaps write about the book once I finish reading it, but just see how Rhoda thinks of wandering down a poem:

“Here is a poem about a hedge. I will wander down it and pick flowers, green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured May, wild roses and ivy serpentine. I will clasp them in my hands and lay them on the desk's shiny surface. I will sit by the river's trembling edge and look at the water-lilies, broad and bright, which lit the oak that overhung the hedge with moonlight beams of their own watery light.”

Pretty much what I would like to do too.


April seems to inspire quite a few poems. Although my hemisphere bathes in autumn light, most April poems spell spring. (One of my favourite ones is EE Cummings: and april's where we are). As the sun sets and April bows, draws its curtains and wraps itself up to hide away somewhere in memories next to some of those poetic phrases, here's another one from Cummings,

Paris;this April sunset completely utters
utters serenely silently a cathedral 

before whose upward lean magnificent face
the streets turn young with rain,

spiral acres of bloated rose
coiled within cobalt miles of sky
yield to and heed
the mauve
               of twilight(who slenderly descends,
daintily carrying in her eyes the dangerous first stars)
people move love hurry in a gently

arriving gloom and
see!(the new moon
fills abruptly with sudden silver
these torn pockets of lame and begging colour)while
there and here the lithe indolent *******
Night,argues

with certain houses

A poem by Borges

Here's a poem I read recently. One of Jorge Luis Borges' poem, translated by W.S. Merwin.

I don't get around to reading many poems. And when I do read them, at times I don't get them. They require patience and keenness to enter the poet's frame of mind.

However, this one speaks to me. I now have it on my phone and I go back to it often. Sharing it here.

The South

To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars,
from the bench of shadow to have watched
those scattered lights
that my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations,
to have heard the note of water
in the cistern,
known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,
the silence of the sleeping bird,
the arch of the entrance, the damp
- these things perhaps are the poem.

The collection is called 'Selected Poems' by Borges edited by Alexander Coleman. There are a few more which I'll like to add here. Soon.

Exploring: "An Exaltation of Larks"

I currently have a few open, exploratory reads around poetry, language and words. One of them is "An Exaltation of Larks - The Ultimate Edition (More than 1000 terms)" by James Lipton.

The author bio page mentions that “James Lipton is an author, playwright, lyricist, director, choreographer and producer.” First published in 1968, my edition (1993), this book is a result of his efforts and obsession of over two decades. The book lists and showcases terms of venery (hunting). Or nouns of multitude. Or words that describe a group. Most of the terms originated as hunting terms and eventually, over time, coinage of new terms to represent a collection of items in other fields too. What we call collective nouns, or group nouns. Perhaps quite familiar with some of them, but many are quite outlandish to the modern ear. The book tries to list these terms exhaustively (hence the ultimate edition) or to the extent possible they can be collected in one place, with some very beautiful illustrations. 

This is not a book to be read cover to cover, but to be dipped in for the pleasures of language. For browsing and exploring.  If reading itself is a long, wide road, this book is a very interesting detour or sidebar with delightful, shiny presents of beautiful words packed rich with context and history strewn around everywhere. 

As the author mentions, these terms can be divided in broadly six categories (although he refrains from doing so through the book), those six categories being (1) Onomatopoeia (e.g., a murmuration of starlings), (2) Characteristic (e.g., a leap of leopards), (3) Appearance (e.g., a knot of toads), (4) Habitats (e.g., a shoal of bass), (5) Comment (e.g., a richness of martens) and interestingly, (6) Error (e.g., school of fish, which was originally meant as shoal of fish). 

The introductory essay at the beginning of the book was one of the most interesting reads for me so far in this new year.  It deals with the story of how the book came about. And how English language itself has been so open and pliable, absorbing words from other languages and cultures. In the opening paragraph, the author fittingly quotes Arthur Conan Doyle's Sir John Buttesthorn (Sir Nigel) talking about the importance of the "terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table" referring to hunting which was the key pursuit of the landed and the rich, and in which craft these terms originated. They got supplemented over time with more terms, as English language itself expanded and mushroomed with other influences. Here's the author summarizing the expansion of the English language: 

"And with each new wave of traders or invaders came new semantic blood, new ideas and new ways of expressing them. The narrow, languid brook of the Celtic tongue suddenly acquires a powerful tributary as the splendid geometry of the Latin language burst into it, bringing such lofty sounds and concepts as intellect, fortune, philosophy, education, victory, gratitude. From 449 on, the blunt, intensely expressive monosyllables of the Anglo-Saxons joined the swelling stream, giving us the names of the strong, central elements of our lives: God, earth, sun, sea, win, lose, live, love and die. Then, in the eleventh century, with the Norman Conquest, a great warm gush of French sonorities - emotion, pity, peace, devotion, romance - swelled the torrent to a flood-tide that burst its banks, spreading out in broad, loamy deltas black with the rich silt of WORDS."

The essay eventually becomes a call to action. For precision. For the right word for the right thing. A sort of defence of using the right word, rather than trying to replace it with a simpler word or something that can be understood by the common denominator. There is an argument to be made in favor of effective communication and common denominator, but there is beauty and an inherent pleasure in finding the right and precise word, and poetry too, when a lot can be packed in a few perfect words and phrases. 

On a related note, precision in language is what Joseph Brodsky advised as well for in his commencement address at University of Michigan in 1988. He said:

" Now and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose here is not to boost your bedroom eloquence or your professional success — although those, too, can be consequences — nor is it to turn you into parlor sophisticates. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible; in a word, the purpose is your balance. For the accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis. On a daily basis, a lot is happening to one’s psyche; the mode of one’s expression, however, often remains the same. Articulation lags behind experience."

The rest of the address is worth a re-read anytime I believe. And more so in current times. It can be found in his essay collection, On Grief and Reason (Speech at the Stadium). Or on the internet, here.

I find this study of words, and roots fascinating. I haven’t done much of it in the past. But looking at the history of words, seeing how they have traveled, and where they have eventually reached is interesting. History of words can be proxy for history of cultures and civilizations as well. 

I am fluent in just two languages (Hindi and English), and both these languages in their own way carry a lot of influence and history. The way schools teach Latin in the Western world, people in India grow up learning Sanskrit, and its grammar. With Sanskrit, I am familiar, not fluent. Familiar enough that I can guess or figure out which words in Hindi are derived from Sanskrit and which ones from Urdu, and which from other European languages. Isn't it fascinating? This history of a people reflected through assimilation in its language. Each such loaded word can be a glimpse into history - a moment of pause and wonder. 

Poetry, and poetic phrases is another such source of pleasing phrases and combination of words. Poets have a much sharper sense of words and there imagery than prose writers. They use packed, high RoI, high impact words. Few words loaded with rich meaning.  (I have Leonard Cohen playing in the background as I am writing this, encountered after a while. And a lot of rediscovered poetry is dissolving in the air around me).

I am enjoying these reads - the joy of discovery, and where it is taking me. And I am also collecting a lot of new words. It is an engaging pursuit, this collecting of words. Writing them down, speaking them aloud. Trying to make them my own. This hunting of words to tame them. A pursuit worthy of a term of venery itself.

'This Craft of Verse' by Jorge Luis Borges

Another lucky find.

This book is a collection or transcript of lectures by Jorge Luis Borges, given in English at Harvard in late 60s (Norton Lectures). These lectures were in tape form, apparently lost and recently rediscovered, and then printed in the year 2000 in a book form. 

I have had a copy each of the collected fictions and non-fictions of Jorge Luis Borges for years now. But I have not been able to complete either of them. I have finished off parts of these books, books by themselves; however, not the complete collections yet. There are areas where I still find myself stuck. This one, hence, counts as my first Borges, sort of.

After reading a lot of Borges in translation, it is nice to hear his thoughts directly in English. And, it is a short book. What I like is where it takes me. One can read it quickly. Then one re-reads. And then one looks up all the references and poets. And all that takes a bit of time. Time well spent, nothing I complain of. For instance, Borges mentions 'Chestertonian mood', and calls it the very best mood to be in. And I haven't read anything by Chesterton. So after reading all the one-liners and quotes I could easily find online, I am now pretty deep in "The Man Who was Thursday". (As I write this, I am in the final third of the novel). Or all those poem fragments and poets you come across. They all demand a google looking up and then the thread can extend and extend, until you trace back your steps. Like, for some reason, through the web, I found myself reading Ithaca by Cavafy, and then found myself re-reading Brodsky's essay on Cavafy (Pendulum's Song from his collection, Less than One), and then wishing to read more from both Cavafy and Brodsky.

I haven't read a lot of poetry. Just a little bit. And mostly poems that I have revisited often. Some poems reveal what they hold soon. Some take a lot of patience and time, or certain moods when their meaning or what you take away from them becomes apparent. And at times, once the meaning becomes apparent, some poems can form the background music of life itself for months on end; call it a particular poem phase. (I recall my recent Four Quartets phase. That poem has so much in it. One can spend a lifetime dipping in and out and still take something from it). I am still a beginner in terms of understanding poetry.  At the moment, I have a couple of other books next to me which have poetry for beginners kind of titles. But who better to hold your hand as you stare into this new world, than Borges himself.

There is a humility in the book which makes it and him endearing. And then there is this philosophy or ways of looking at life that are interspersed throughout the book. As much about the mechanics of verse - from metaphor to word music, as it soon becomes a larger, deeper, way of looking at life itself. I'll best convey this by directly quoting from the book.

Consider the following from his discussion on Metaphor where he discusses the last stanza from Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening". The initial part is an analysis, a discussion on what is happening in these lines. Like any other lecture. But where he takes the discussion, and what you come away with, perhaps very few people are able to convey in such unassuming, simple manner. One feels lucky and privileged to be able to have access to or to come across such thoughts.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

These lines are so perfect that we hardly think of a trick. Yet, unhappily, all literature is made of tricks, and those tricks get - in the long run - found out. And then the reader tires of them. But in this case the trick is so unobtrusive that I feel rather ashamed of myself for calling it a trick (I call it this merely for want of a better word). Because Frost has attempted something very daring here. We gave the same line repeated word for word, twice over, yet the sense is different. "And miles to go before I sleep": this is merely physical; - the miles and miles in space, in New England, and "sleep" means "go to sleep". The second time - "And miles to go before I sleep" - we are made to feel that the miles are not only in space but in time, and that "sleep" means "die" or "rest". Had the poet said so in so many words, he would have been far less effective. Because, as I understand it, anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps the human mind has a tendency to deny a statement. Remember what Emerson said: Arguments convince nobody. They convince nobody because they are presented as arguments. Then we look at them, we weigh them, we turn them over, and we decide against them.

But when something is merely said or - better still - hinted at, there is a kind of hospitality in our imagination. We are ready to accept it.

 

And later in the book, another reference to the same stanza:

Perhaps I am doing no good for us by pointing this out. Perhaps the pleasure lies not in our translating "miles" into "years" and "sleep" into "death", but rather in feeling the implication.

Through the book, you also get to hear his view on not just the craft of verse, but that of prose too, and how to consider them or appreciate them. And it is a great new perspective (for me). Take the following example. In his lecture on "the telling of the tale" and singing of verse, he reconsiders epic, and that if it can be done, it should be done. Here is him talking about modern epic. 

I have been thinking about the subject only rather late in life; and besides, I do not think I could attempt the epic (though I might have worked in two or three lines of epic). This is for younger men to do. And I hope they will do it, because of course we all feel that the novel is somehow breaking down. Think of the chief novels of our time - say, Joyce's Ulysses. We are told thousands of things about the two characters, yet we do not know them. We have a better knowledge of characters in Dante or Shakespeare, who come to us - who live and die - in a few sentences. We do not know thousands of circumstances about them, but we do know them intimately. That, of course, is far more important.

He talks about himself in the final chapter, called "A Poet's Creed". Here, he is talking about listening to his father reading Keats, from his "Ode to a Nightingale".

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

I thought I knew all about words, all about language (when one is child one feels that one knows many things), but those words came as a revelation to me. Of course, I did not understand them. How could I understand those lines about birds' - about animals' - being somehow eternal, timeless, because they live in the present? We are mortal because we live in the past and in the future - because we remember a time when we did not exist, and foresee a time when we shall be dead. Those verses came to me because of their music. I had thought of language as being a way of saying things, of uttering complaints, of saying that one was glad, or sad, and so on. Yet when I heard those lines (and I have been hearing them, in a sense, ever since), I knew that language could also be a music and a passion. And thus was poetry revealed to me.

(My underline). It is what he takes away from those lines. And what makes poetry so interesting. What one takes away depends so much on how deeply one thinks, and how one sees things. This is as much about the art of seeing. Such beautiful stuff!

What I take away - that I should live in the moment more often.

An awesome read. A book for keeps and for sharing.

**

This was one of those few books, where by reading aloud often from, I have hooked K on to it as well. And he is reading it now.

**

See what I found on google: a recording of Borges giving these lectures. Find them here. 

Book-spine poem

I came across this challenge on instagram about making a poem out of book titles - book spine poetry. Made me consider the bookshelf from a new perspective. The raw material. So this Sunday evening, I pulled out all the books with potential to form poetic lines (keeping them back where they belong is another story), and K and I arranged them, rearranged them, picked and discarded a few, and eventually formed this poem. 

As I lay dying

this side of paradise

thinking, fast and slow  

the web of life,

the sound and the fury,

white noise.

All the light we cannot see,

the fabric of reality.

The road not taken.

Fooled by randomness.  

Fun challenge. Other people's words. The physical book pile is the constraint. And the fun is in the eventual discovery of the poem.

Remember seek (forgetting find)

Stasis. I first came across this word in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. As some words do, this has found place in some corner of my mind. And like some stranded flotsam, comes bobbing up to the top of my mind often. The ‘often’ has become ‘more often’ these days.

What does Stasis actually mean? I’ll look it up and add it here in a moment, but then there’s something that it means which is how I perceive it, and perhaps it only means so for me. Isn’t that so with everything? Aren’t things or people something in our head, and something in the real world. How much of our lives do we live inside the head, exploring the depths and shallows, going through the flotsam and recreating reality in our head? One would think that the more we encounter reality, the more we correct the internal landscape, bringing it closer to reality. But what if we do not encounter enough reality? How disparate can the actual world be from the world inside your head?

Anyhow, Stasis is defined as “a period or state of inactivity or equilibrium”

Equilibrium. Isn’t it something desirable? Yes, perhaps.

The equilibrium where life is perfect outside, and the dreams or vision is perfect in your head. Is that an equilibrium? By doing anything, you introduce imbalance, and things might get off balance. Then what?  The equilibrium is so fine that you get caught in a really long stasis. Things are perfect in your head, why encounter reality?

We grow up with so much baggage. The way we perceive reality as human beings. The way we look at life. The different weights we assign to stuff. The way we seek from life; from ourselves. We seek, or we find? (K would say we find. But then he would also say, don’t stop seeking). I feel like I am caught in an EE Cummings poem.

You can spend your life unlearning, getting rid of the mental baggage, and not be able to get back to a clean slate. A mirage, this clean slate.

What is interesting is in Joyce’s book, the word is juxtaposed against “kinesis”. That is where I would like to be – Action. Kinesis. Movement. Motion. Working hard at something. Working so deeply and absorbed with something that the sense of self is forgotten. Such that the internal landscape and the external reality are perfectly aligned and one. When there is all foreground, the moment, and no background internal chatter, commentary or colours.

I manage to get there sometimes when I am trying to master a new skill. Say, new song on the keyboard. All that is then perceived is what I am trying to learn, and everything else is pushed out. It is like meditation. Or as a newbie tennis player, when I consciously remind myself to reset after every ball. There is nothing else then, the reminding and the ball. Or taken in by a curious pursuit until I find all the answers. Or a good book which creates such a reality that your personal internal realities are muted.

I then forget myself, or my internal landscape. Then all that is, is the real. There is no conflicting reality.

So, that is my objective. To get to kinesis. And to that self-forgetting, absorbed state of alignment of realities.

To do so, may be let go of the equilibrium for a little while, and seek kinesis. Once there is kinesis, a new equilibrium, a new stasis will follow?

***

Since we are talking about Portraits. And since this is about books, not an analysis of my internal landscape, I wish to write about my recent read, “The Portrait of a Lady”.

I tried reading this masterpiece by Henry James a few years ago. But I guess I had little time to read then. And I felt this book needed not some little time everyday but more time in a chunk. It is a portrait, and the more you can get in, soak in, the more you feel like and with Isabel Archer.

I bought this during my recent holiday. A small, sea-side book shop full of popular novels, and very few classics on display. And the only book I had taken for the holiday was Homo Deus (with high hopes. Sapiens was interesting, but Homo Deus gets too broad brush and over-simplified way of looking at things. Not fun enough for a reading by the pool). I was seeking something more fun. So, I picked up a gilt-edged copy of ‘The Portrait of a Lady’.

I feel like I am a latecomer to classics. Most people have read these books when they are young, and so the contexts, the actors, the situations presented in the book are already part of the inner landscape and popular culture, meanings of which perhaps I have missed. (but you never know what you miss, do you?). I have come to them late. And the encounter is a little different.

Similar to other Henry James stories I have read over the last couple of years, this is another international story. (I am referring to the collection “Daisy Miller and Other Stories”). Here too, in Isabel Archer, we have an American young woman in England and Europe in the late 1800s. There are a few enriching layers to the portrait.  First, the heroine herself, who is of independent thought (given the times she lives in), open, curious, full of life.  What she seeks from life, and the way she plans to live it, is her own, not like most other women at that time. And then there is this layer of circumstance, of interesting encounters that she has. Eventually, she takes a long-term call in a short-term mood, and finds her life limited, bounded, checked, reduced.

It is an interesting premise. Create an interesting character, bring them up interesting encounters, and how would they react? And it is done masterfully without judgement of her choices and her behavior to a large extent. With every choice, she grows. Even if her life becomes restricted, and fiercely quashed by the unspoken tyranny of Gilbert Osmond.

Great for the writer to envisage and bring about. But not so for the cousin (Ralph) who provides the means to Isabel to experiment. Watching from the sidelines, as if the only purpose Isabel existed or moved forward was to satisfy the entertainment desires of the rich, infirm cousin.

She seeks to soar. But then she settles. Or she doesn’t think she settles but believes that she is doing something which is bigger than her. Or as she puts it –she can’t escape her fate. (Of being unhappy? Of always yearning?)

I remember when I read it a few years ago, I left reading when I came to the part when she decides to marry the moody, dark, conniving, oppressive Osmond. So unlike Jane Austen. If it were Jane Austen, there would have been perhaps a few plot complications, but eventually the happily ever after would have happened with Lord Warburton. But then we wouldn’t be talking about the book. The reason it is interesting is because of these flawed characters, and their flawed choices and whims.

The book moved me. I quite enjoyed reading it. You get to think like Isabel Archer, with her follies and foibles. Stayed in my head for a while. I even looked up the movie. Watched it for a bit. But since the period drama movies I need to watch on my own (K wouldn’t be bothered with such), didn’t get enough time to move it forward. It is difficult to see Isabel Archer make those choices. And also, the undertones which are not so apparent in the book are brought out quite explicitly in the movie (1996 movie).

A fine read. Worth a re-read.

***

I looked up the E E Cummings poem that I am supposedly caught in.  Here goes:

in time of daffodils (who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze

our now and here with paradise)

forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free) 

forgetting me, remember me

I would think it is a beautiful poem to be caught in.