Dissent: to know the price of compromise.
M.D.F's book is so beautifully produced that you almost don't want to read it, or at least you're inclined to savour it like one would a fine wine (or so I'm told). But nothing prepares you for the effortless prose; whilst glancing (yes, why is your reading always so superficial?!) through some of the essays Hazlitt's words fly off at the page and at you so that you get the distinct impression that you're swimming through a sea of words; Foot's prose on the other hand comes across as more grounded, rooted...iron in the soul.
Both have brief sketches of their fathers, something that is quite endearing. For some odd reason there isn't much of that in bloggerworld-or at least you don't come across it. Maybe that's all for the best given your distaste for cheap sentimentality (what, is there any other kind?).
"...my father threw back his spectacles over his forehead, his white hairs mixing with its sanguine hue."
The red and the black.
And what is the finest essay in the whole of the English language according to Mr. Foot?
There was this line by will Self? about how Hazlitt's essays are too pre-determined, perhaps even slightly didactic-especially in comparison to Montaigne's.
The Indian Juggler is simply dazzling and one of my favourites. And the way it swerves one way then the other..also, the idea that through plain speech and common phrases something profound can emerge immediately strikes you as what counts in favour of modernity. This line of thought, that within an ordinary life there can be majesty if not grandeur, continues in art, music, and film...
The Fight:
'You talk just as well as he [Cobbett] writes.'
Hazlitt expresses a desire for a form of communication removed from the regulation and the normative power of institutions...before all theory or "educational regimes"...when expression is suddenly freed from psychological, social, or political constraint.'
That is a fantasy, of course, but a charming one nevertheless and in those rare moments when the clothes fall away, so to speak, we do speak, & we find ourselves (even) with nothing to say. None of that stuffy affected European "intellectuality" but a plain English, as a "bit of human nature" (or, if you like: "...in the last scene, between death and ourselves, there is no more pretending; we must talk plain French"). No talk of death or existential anxiety; no mention of death or time or "the soul"; no exaggerated reminiscing about what has been irretrievably lost; no idle speculations about eternal life or ridiculously grandiose claims for art; not to speak of...of. Not the afterlife, then, not the false note of seriousness that men in hats carry around with them to hide their shallowness. Not speak, memory, but to speak now, since the small fires of November are lit, and it is a time for forgiveness.
M.D.F's book is so beautifully produced that you almost don't want to read it, or at least you're inclined to savour it like one would a fine wine (or so I'm told). But nothing prepares you for the effortless prose; whilst glancing (yes, why is your reading always so superficial?!) through some of the essays Hazlitt's words fly off at the page and at you so that you get the distinct impression that you're swimming through a sea of words; Foot's prose on the other hand comes across as more grounded, rooted...iron in the soul.
Both have brief sketches of their fathers, something that is quite endearing. For some odd reason there isn't much of that in bloggerworld-or at least you don't come across it. Maybe that's all for the best given your distaste for cheap sentimentality (what, is there any other kind?).
"...my father threw back his spectacles over his forehead, his white hairs mixing with its sanguine hue."
The red and the black.
And what is the finest essay in the whole of the English language according to Mr. Foot?
There was this line by will Self? about how Hazlitt's essays are too pre-determined, perhaps even slightly didactic-especially in comparison to Montaigne's.
The Indian Juggler is simply dazzling and one of my favourites. And the way it swerves one way then the other..also, the idea that through plain speech and common phrases something profound can emerge immediately strikes you as what counts in favour of modernity. This line of thought, that within an ordinary life there can be majesty if not grandeur, continues in art, music, and film...
The Fight:
'You talk just as well as he [Cobbett] writes.'
Hazlitt expresses a desire for a form of communication removed from the regulation and the normative power of institutions...before all theory or "educational regimes"...when expression is suddenly freed from psychological, social, or political constraint.'
That is a fantasy, of course, but a charming one nevertheless and in those rare moments when the clothes fall away, so to speak, we do speak, & we find ourselves (even) with nothing to say. None of that stuffy affected European "intellectuality" but a plain English, as a "bit of human nature" (or, if you like: "...in the last scene, between death and ourselves, there is no more pretending; we must talk plain French"). No talk of death or existential anxiety; no mention of death or time or "the soul"; no exaggerated reminiscing about what has been irretrievably lost; no idle speculations about eternal life or ridiculously grandiose claims for art; not to speak of...of. Not the afterlife, then, not the false note of seriousness that men in hats carry around with them to hide their shallowness. Not speak, memory, but to speak now, since the small fires of November are lit, and it is a time for forgiveness.
2 comments:
Metaphysics? What metaphysics do those trees have?
Of being green and bushy and having branches
And of giving fruit in their own time, which doesn’t make us think,
To us, who don’t know how to pay attention to them.
But what better metaphysics than theirs,
Which is not knowing what they live for
Not even knowing they don’t know?
“Inner constitution of things...”
“Inner meaning of the Universe...”
All that stuff is false, all that stuff means nothing.
It’s incredible that someone could think about things that way.
It’s like thinking reasons and purposes
When morning starts shining, and by the trees over there
A vague lustrous gold is driving the darkness away.
I love the last line but, Roxana, I think there is something between nature and (abstract) reason. No? And, of course, there is always a degree of artificiality in our conversation..it would be intolerable if there wasn't! The rare moments are all the more precious for being rare.
anyways...thanks for dropping by. As always, a pleasure to have you here.
Take care,
b.
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