birthdays and romantics
Today is Kimmie's birthday; she's 51 (a cradle-robber, since I'm only 46--and look even younger). We could hear rain falling outside as we came to this morning, over the purr of the electric fan Kimmie likes to keep going on her side of the bed.
"I can't remember the last time it rained on my birthday," she said.
Kimmie took today off (Monday and Tuesday as well). I made coffee while Kimmie tarried in bed, reading more of Dead Until Dark, which she is really enjoying. Robin gave her mother a moonstone bracelet before heading off to work in her blue scrubs. I gave Kimmie a card with an enchanted fairy forest depicted on it, and a couple of cartoons of myself on the inside. I also gave her a bottle of Mumm's Cordon Rouge champagne. She was delighted with it all.
I did some morning notes as usual: A History of Technology and A History of Private Life.
I got a call from no other than Warren, who has arrived in town as a stop in his family vacation from Chicago. I hadn't heard his voice since he left the country last September. They're staying at his sister-in-law's place in north Burnaby. Warren had errands to do in North Vancouver, so I invited him over.
He arrived around noon with a bouquet of freesia and irises for Kimmie, which delighted her. She retreated upstairs to continue with her "princess day" (self-administered manicure and pedicure) while Warren and I sat at the circular pine kitchen table, cluttered with neighborhood newspapers and unopened bank statements and bills, and talked, more or less as though we still did this often, as when he used to show up every day while we were writing together.
He shared more details of his new life in Chicago, where his kids are among the small minority of white children attending a public school. He said his son, Max, age 12, likes it better in Chicago--finds school more interesting and challenging, and loves the relative exoticism of the people around him (especially a certain teacher, a 60-ish, 4-foot-9 black woman from Louisiana who is able to induce him to perform academically where others have not). Warren's description of the school system in Chicago, with its competitiveness, emphasis on testing, and the power of individual school principals to hire staff and set programs, made it sound superior to our relatively flaccid system in B.C.--contrary to the self-flattering belief common here that our primary education system is better than America's. Warren's kids work longer and harder at school in Chicago than they ever did here.
As ever, our conversation ranged over many things: Derrida, Robert Crumb, the U.S. vs. Canadian constitutions, gun culture, my blog, and, of course, books and writing. We talked about chick lit--trying to guess what it's all about.
"I assume it's a species of romance writing," I said. "Bridget Jones's Diary. There's ironic, self-deprecating humor of young women who are overweight, trying to quit smoking, surrounded by 'fuckwits'."
"With the hope of mating somewhere over the next hill," said Warren.
I described romance as explained in Maurice Cranston's excellent book The Romantic Movement: the movement began with Rousseau's novel La Nouvelle Heloise, which provided the template of the passionate, artistic young man who falls in love with a like-minded woman who is married to an upright, wealthy, conservative man. Hero tries to get heroine to leave hubby for him, but in the end she decides to stick with hubby, leaving hero emotionally shattered.
"The story was retold by Goethe in The Sorrows of Young Werther," I said, "where Werther went a step further and killed himself--which evidently led many young German men to do the same. The form supposedly reached its apogee with Wuthering Heights. But it was still the underlying structure of Gone with the Wind, although that was told from the woman's point of view."
So Bridget Jones was an echo of the same structure: two potential mates, one an aloof prig, the other a selfish bastard (and her boss). Eventually, the (unlikely) climax of the two men--a publisher and a lawyer (!)--slugging it out in the street, like two caribou butting heads to get possession of the cow.
"But wasn't that also what was happening with Tristan," said Warren, "when he was taking Iseult back to King Mark?"
"Yes," I said, "and what about Lancelot and Guinevere?"
"Right--shagging the boss's wife," said Warren. "That's a risky policy."
"I think it goes back to Robert Graves and The White Goddess," I said. "The goddess has her priest-king-lover, who must be overthrown by his tanist--his younger successor."
And so on. I'm trying to give some flavor of the flow of ideas when we get talking. Three hours passed, and Warren's car was ready to pick up from its servicing. We'll see him again tomorrow night.
Now: time to get ready for a birthday dinner at Chez Michel in West Van.
"I can't remember the last time it rained on my birthday," she said.
Kimmie took today off (Monday and Tuesday as well). I made coffee while Kimmie tarried in bed, reading more of Dead Until Dark, which she is really enjoying. Robin gave her mother a moonstone bracelet before heading off to work in her blue scrubs. I gave Kimmie a card with an enchanted fairy forest depicted on it, and a couple of cartoons of myself on the inside. I also gave her a bottle of Mumm's Cordon Rouge champagne. She was delighted with it all.
I did some morning notes as usual: A History of Technology and A History of Private Life.
I got a call from no other than Warren, who has arrived in town as a stop in his family vacation from Chicago. I hadn't heard his voice since he left the country last September. They're staying at his sister-in-law's place in north Burnaby. Warren had errands to do in North Vancouver, so I invited him over.
He arrived around noon with a bouquet of freesia and irises for Kimmie, which delighted her. She retreated upstairs to continue with her "princess day" (self-administered manicure and pedicure) while Warren and I sat at the circular pine kitchen table, cluttered with neighborhood newspapers and unopened bank statements and bills, and talked, more or less as though we still did this often, as when he used to show up every day while we were writing together.
He shared more details of his new life in Chicago, where his kids are among the small minority of white children attending a public school. He said his son, Max, age 12, likes it better in Chicago--finds school more interesting and challenging, and loves the relative exoticism of the people around him (especially a certain teacher, a 60-ish, 4-foot-9 black woman from Louisiana who is able to induce him to perform academically where others have not). Warren's description of the school system in Chicago, with its competitiveness, emphasis on testing, and the power of individual school principals to hire staff and set programs, made it sound superior to our relatively flaccid system in B.C.--contrary to the self-flattering belief common here that our primary education system is better than America's. Warren's kids work longer and harder at school in Chicago than they ever did here.
As ever, our conversation ranged over many things: Derrida, Robert Crumb, the U.S. vs. Canadian constitutions, gun culture, my blog, and, of course, books and writing. We talked about chick lit--trying to guess what it's all about.
"I assume it's a species of romance writing," I said. "Bridget Jones's Diary. There's ironic, self-deprecating humor of young women who are overweight, trying to quit smoking, surrounded by 'fuckwits'."
"With the hope of mating somewhere over the next hill," said Warren.
I described romance as explained in Maurice Cranston's excellent book The Romantic Movement: the movement began with Rousseau's novel La Nouvelle Heloise, which provided the template of the passionate, artistic young man who falls in love with a like-minded woman who is married to an upright, wealthy, conservative man. Hero tries to get heroine to leave hubby for him, but in the end she decides to stick with hubby, leaving hero emotionally shattered.
"The story was retold by Goethe in The Sorrows of Young Werther," I said, "where Werther went a step further and killed himself--which evidently led many young German men to do the same. The form supposedly reached its apogee with Wuthering Heights. But it was still the underlying structure of Gone with the Wind, although that was told from the woman's point of view."
So Bridget Jones was an echo of the same structure: two potential mates, one an aloof prig, the other a selfish bastard (and her boss). Eventually, the (unlikely) climax of the two men--a publisher and a lawyer (!)--slugging it out in the street, like two caribou butting heads to get possession of the cow.
"But wasn't that also what was happening with Tristan," said Warren, "when he was taking Iseult back to King Mark?"
"Yes," I said, "and what about Lancelot and Guinevere?"
"Right--shagging the boss's wife," said Warren. "That's a risky policy."
"I think it goes back to Robert Graves and The White Goddess," I said. "The goddess has her priest-king-lover, who must be overthrown by his tanist--his younger successor."
And so on. I'm trying to give some flavor of the flow of ideas when we get talking. Three hours passed, and Warren's car was ready to pick up from its servicing. We'll see him again tomorrow night.
Now: time to get ready for a birthday dinner at Chez Michel in West Van.
posted by paulv at
4:08 PM
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