ITALICS MINE (2)

...there is one operation -- perhaps field -- of judgment which a writer must exercise in regard to his work: He must after a time decide whether it is contemptible or not. Where I derive my assurance that my work is not contemptible I do not know, but I think that from that same source comes my conviction that it is not great...I am deep in dilettantism. Gradually I must resume my own meditation on the only things that can reawaken any writing I have to do. I must gaze directly at the boundless misery of the human situation, collective and individual.

Thornton Wilder in a journal entry from 1950.

TWO QUOTES ABOUT SPRING

...and the spring, my gracious what a spring, all March we have been sitting out on the terrace without our coats and such masses of violets, primroses, jonquils and even birds...and the fields and the oxen and the sheep, only the cows are still confined, I begged the peasants to let them out to see the spring time, but they say they kick up their heels too much when they are first let out so they don't let them out until the spring fever is past, such is the life of cows...

--Gertrude Stein in a letter to Thornton Wilder, 24 March, 1940

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring--

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

UNREAD

Something I read the other day made me think about those books I have on my shelves that I know I will never read and yet have no inclination to get rid of.

Several varieties of unread books crowd my shelves. The majority are those that I can still imagine myself reading someday. These range from The Tale of the Genji to Norman Sherry's three volume biography of Graham Greene. Those examples imply that length plays a role in this category, so I will add Tin Tin and the Secret Life of Literature by Tom McCarthy. Then there are books that I never intend to read cover to cover, but that I have or will "read at," as in "No, I have not read all seven volumes of the Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, but I have read at them."

I have, in fact, read quite a few of the books I own, and I no longer own many books that I have read. What put me in mind of that other category -- the books I have no intention of reading but still keep in the house -- was Thornton Wilder's lifelong commitment to Finnegan's Wake. Wilder had two academic avocations. One involved establishing the chronology of the plays Lope de Vega wrote between 1590 and 1610. I may be a little off on those dates, but since Lope de Vega wrote over two hundred plays, Wilder had his work cut out for him. He knew that it was a project of interest to at most a handful of academics, but he enjoyed doing the research. He also spent years with Joyce's final work, maintaining notebooks and a heavily annotated copy of the novel where he delighted in puzzling out the word play, the arcane references, and the multi-lingual puns.

Better he than I.

I've read just about everything else by Joyce, I think I even read his play once, but one thumb through of Finnegan's Wake assured me that the pleasure/frustration ratio there was not such that I would ever seriously consider reading it. But I would keep it around because I own all the others. I even have a copy of Sribbledehobble, the transcription of the notebooks he kept while planning Finnegan's Wake.

What it turns out I don't have is a copy of Finnegan's Wake. Reading about Wilder's fascination made me want to glance at it again, but there is not a copy on the shelf. My immediate reaction to this discovery was to think, I should pick up the next good secondhand copy I see. Then I thought, What am I thinking?

I take comfort, and some degree of snobbish pride, in this thought from the Mexican poet and critic Gabriel Zaid. In So Many Books he defines the truly cultured as those who "are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more." By that standard, I am Andre Malraux.

I found the Zaid quote in one of Nick Hornby's Stuff I'v Been Reading essays for The Believer. I did get Zaid's book from the library, and it is a very quotable book and very short. Did you know that a book is published every thirty seconds?

And nearby where I thought I would find Finnegan's Wake I found another book that illustrates my original category equally well: Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic. Complete. 496 pages.

POTATO WEATHER FOR SURE

Towards the end of Act One of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Mrs. Webb. Mrs. Gibbs, and town gossip Mrs. Soames are returning home from choir practice. Simon Stimson, the choir director, had been drunk that night, and rehearsal ran longer than usual. Early in the scene, Mrs Gibbs has the line

MRS. GIBBS -- Look at that moon, will you! Tsk-tsk-tsk. Potato weather for sure.

I have no idea what the line means, but I have always thought it the finest line from what is, if not the perfect, certainly the most American of American plays. The first act takes place on May 7, 1901. I know nothing about growing potatoes, but I assume that Mrs. Gibbs is thinking it is a good time to plant potatoes, because it would seem to early to be harvesting anything. But what any of that would have to do with the moon remains a mystery to me. Perhaps The Farmer's Almanac of 1901 recommended a full moon in May for potato planting. My grandmother had moon-related notions, but they had mostly to do with medical procedures.

I love the line but I am not comfortable with that "Tsk-tsk-tsk." I assume that a performer will either ignore it, or swallow it, or turn it into a slight shake of the head. No actor is going to carefully enunciate Tsk-tsk-tsk. No one except possibly the sixteen-year-old girl who is playing this fifty-year-old woman in her high school production. This is her first major role and she is nervous as hell. She has determined that her performance will be word perfect, and from the first rehearsal, with book in hand, she has faithfully rendered the line in its entirety. "Look at the moon, will you! Tsk-tsk-tsk. Potato weather for sure." Like myself she has no idea what the line means, but she is too uncomfortable to ask.

Sitting in the empty school auditorium during rehearsals, her director, the school's speech and drama teacher, has heard the Tsk tsk tsk and assumed from early rehearsals that the girl will get past her awkward reading. But even when the cast goes off book, she still hears it and writes in her notes, "MG no tsk." But it's a note she always skips since there are larger issues to be addressed.

At final dress rehearsal she realizes it is still there, and she makes the note again, "MG NO TSKTSKTSK." But dress rehearsal runs long and several of the kids have curfews. She rushes through notes, skipping it again, then telling everyone they are going to do a great job and that she will see them tomorrow. Break a leg.

On opening night the director sits on the back row of the packed auditorium. Things are going well. George doesn't have trouble with his ladder, the audience is laughing in the right spots, and she knows they will be in tears for Act 3. Then, while appreciating the surprisingly evocative night-time lighting effect and thinking how really good the guys are that do the tech work, she hears it.

"Look at that moon, will you! Tsk-tsk-tsk. Potato weather for sure."

But there is only the one more performance the following night, and she is through giving notes.