Moleskine #004 -- Fighting Insecurity and Plot Crafting for Fun

 But nothing is really moving in any direction, and the extreme possibility of recognizing that ultimate emotion that was to bring it all very much together became some sort of ridiculous pursuit.  But no, you hold on, you continue to hunt because to you it all makes sense.  You will find the strength to pull yourself together, and know for the first time that things were never all of that flowery stuff you highly spoke about so many times.  Hood is asking you to push the limits of what you know as emotions, but you know deep inside that it is only desperation that you know best.  Your emotions all stem from that—from a severe case of knowing or rather not knowing what exactly is hitting you until it is right in front of your face.  Too many things happen in an inordinate amount of time and there’s little or no way for you to access where everything is coming from.  And this is precisely what you should transfer into J.’s character.  All that confusion that leads to the irrational action—that is what you should convey to J. and, in the process, make him as real as any other character ever conceived.  He is real and with your desperation in trying to make sense of your emotions he will become real to the reader.  The trick that you must learn is to not make things autobiographical.  Hood explains this well and you should pay careful attention to all of this.  ×

            You must keep trying to remind yourself to stay low and not stick out.  This is the best way to see yourself from a perspective that will no doubt help your writing.  Surrender yourself once more to the blessing; this time, however, become even more deep into what you are trying to achieve with J.  He is, after all, betrayed by others, taken advantage of, and used as a scapegoat to carry the blame for everything.  So, give him all of those same attributes that coincide with all the things you have gone through.  Think about how D. wants to make J. believe it is all his fault and that regardless of whether or not he was making a move on his woman, he should have never broken that line.  What line precisely J. didn’t know, but the entire thing began to stink to high heaven and J. knew that when the casualty list began to elongate, his name would find a way to the stacked bodies.  He was sure of this as he was sure of S.’s infidelity before she’d come out clean and told him.  Truly a shame, he thought, and went to his office to see if he could concentrate on some work.  Fifteen minutes later, he realized he couldn’t do any work.

Moleskine #001 - Being Home or Lost in Place and Listening to People at a Cafe

 These are the first words you have written here, lost in this mess, this cultural wilderness.  You’ve not come here to find yourself or to put pieces together.  You’ve come here only to observe and to listen closely to all that is around you.  This is the place where people want to continue putting you in the position of being home, and that’s not even faintly true.  Imagine how little of what you consider home really is (in some way, shape or form) any form of spiritual or physical connection for you.  This is not home, not at all.  This place is not home any more than that other place (the place you now call home) is home.  This is not an artificially flavored polemic, or synthetic soul searching—it is just the way it is.  No excuses and no fake justifications.  This is the reality that you embody at this moment.  Now that you are reading Eco on the semantics of “being” you have a better understanding of this situation and the feeling that overcome you today and in the next few days.  You suspect that things will be better when you leave here, but it is not to be.  When you return, you will do some work, but also you will think about all of this and then try to theorize or formulate a language real enough to convey all of this.  

Yesterday, you overheard a couple in crisis.  It was about breaking up, or something of that sort, but you weren’t completely sure.  There was another man involved, a so-called friend, against whom the young man last night had had an issue with.  Things you overheard—that, according to young man #1, the other man only wanted to befriend her to take advantage of her.  Now, it does sound terribly jealous and extremely machista; however, one simple look at the girl and one would have to give some validity to what the young man #1 was saying.  She was a beautiful and tall, very slender and a body that most men in this place will kill their own flesh and blood over.  She was voluptuous and curious, with lips that simply begged to be kissed.  Her face was exquisite, although she wasn’t made up.  This was more an outing; they were determining the fate of their affair.

Pip Comes Home Like Truth... Dickens and Hypergraphia

A lot has been written about Pip as a likable character. As a matter of fact, all the research I've done in my reading of "Great Expectations" yields very little (actually close to nothing) regarding Pip as an unlikeable character, or a self-centered, selfish, etc. persona. It is so perhaps because he speaks to us, and about us. Who hasn't at one time or another felt that the whole world is looking down on us from a high place, and that the worst of our actions are continuously put to trial by unyielding judges. I think early on Pip is aware of this fact--that his actions are, for better or worst, being judged continuously. Who could possibly live like that? And yet we all seem to have managed to survive that terrible age of indecision and loss. Here's a passage of Pip's torture:

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe--I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his--united to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever did?

And it really doesn't end there. Pip moves on to his episode with Ms. Havisham at her estate gives entry to Pip's most challenging interlude (a crast understatement, since this is the entire plot line... delayed a bit, perhaps, but masterfully introduced by Dickens). Meeting Estella is another example of the excruciating part of our own personal growing pains. The things we do for that early crush of love, how seemingly unaccountable we think we are... how it is readily dismissed as "puppy love." I felt that pain written all over Pip's face... reading this story has been an experience, really. Ms. Havisham cross-examines Pip about Estella: "Is she pretty... do you find her proud, nice, etc.? Do you wish to come back, if not then, do you think you can deal without seeing Estella again? I mean, didn't you just say she was pretty? Then why not see her again?" Ms. Havisham strikes me dead, really, because I knew (or may even know presently) people like her. It is Pip's young pride that is hurt in the end, and his reaction to Estella's behavior makes me think of those early days of tormenting emotions:

She [Estella] came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,--I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart--God knows what its name was,--that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of them. This gave me power to keep them back and to look at her: so, she gave a contemptuous toss--but with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure that I was so wounded-- and left me. But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that needed counteraction.

Pip comes home like truth, like a chain of memories wrapped around one's neck. They just won't go away... run away and hide all you want, Pip... it just won't stop. Which brings me to the other issue: Charles Dickens is a master because of his ability to sustain a story like this one. Critics who presently challenge his inclusion into the Canon say he is "too easy to read," or "not challenging enough." I think that's like something I heard while in Graduate School about how John Steinbeck is not taught at the college level because "he is over-done in high school." I found this to be an insulting reason for keeping an author out of the Cannon or the classroom altogether. At any rate, the other sort of critic claims that Dickens' ability to sustain a story for this long has nothing to do with mastery or genius, but more to the fact that he--Dickens--got paid by the word. I'd admit there might be a certain truth to that, but you still have to write the story and make it real, make it relevant and not repetitive or lacking in focus. Was it hypergraphia (a mental condition that makes people write profusely, a claim leveled at Dostoevsky, among other Classic authors)? I am still trying to determine that. At any rate, off to do some more reading (and writing, and grading, and class prep, and....)