On perfection and simplicity

I found the following quote in an interview with the landscape photographer Andris Apse:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, chapter 3)

I like that. It seems to have all sorts of applications. Apse quotes it in relation to his search for perfection in photography, but it could equally well apply to writing. I can certainly think of any number of books that would have been improved by judicious use of the red pen.

Beyond the realm of the creative arts, it reminds me of the process of abstraction that is necessary in solving most physics problems. Back in the dim and distant past when I taught physics, it struck me that students most often got into difficulties because they didn’t simplify enough.

And, come to think of it, it could also be an expression of simplicity as a Christian discipline – that radical process of self-emptying which cuts away all the clutter, internal as well as external, until all that is left is the image of God.

Give thanks in all things

Here G.K. Chesterton outlines a spiritual discipline that should be part of the life of every Christian:

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, watching, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

G.K. Chesterton, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 43

He neatly expands Paul’s advice to ‘give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you’ (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NRSV).

Roland Barthes on reading

Roland Barthes reflects on his attitude to books and reading:

I’m not a great reader, I’m a casual reader, casual in the sense that I very quickly take the measure of my own pleasure. If a book bores me, I have the courage, or cowardice, to drop it. I’m freeing myself more and more from any superego in regards to books. So, if I read a book, it’s because I want to.

My reading schedule is not at all a regular and placid ingestion of books. Either a book bores me and I put it aside, or it excites me and I constantly want to stop reading it so that I can think about what I’ve just read – which is also reflected in the way I read for my work: I’m unable, unwilling, to sum up a book, to efface myself behind a capsule description of it on an index card, but on the contrary, I’m quite ready to pick out certain sentences, certain characteristics of the book, to ingest them as discontinuous fragments. This is obviously not good philological attitude, since it comes down to deforming the book for my own purposes. (Roland Barthes, The Grain of the Voice, pp. 220–1)

As the years go by and the pile of books ‘you really ought to read’ grows inexorably taller, I find myself sympathizing more and more with these sentiments. And I find his assessment of his use of books in his academic work refreshingly honest.

Do something that does not compute!

Some lines from Wendell Berry that are too good not to share:

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it. . . .

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

From ‘The Mad Farmer Liberation Front’ (1973)

I particularly like the line about planting sequoias. It reminds me of the line often attributed to Martin Luther: ‘If I believed the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.’

Tom Wright reads Humpty Dumpty

Another piece of biblical studies humour. This time, Tom Wright is in the frame:

Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Clearly the writer is telling an Israel story, and here alludes to the Temple. This echoes other lines in early 2nd Nursery Literature, such as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard (the “storehouse” of the Temple) and the bone (resurrection life) which she sought for her dog (“Gentiles”). “But when she got there, the cupboard was bare and the poor little doggie had none.” The temple had nothing to offer the Gentiles, and they thus remained in their state of Adamic sin and decay.

So here, too, one should not be surprised to discover that the Temple and its “wall” are bankrupt. The next line, then, is not a shock, but an expectation:

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

Again, this is patently a forecast of the Temple’s destruction (and contra Crossan and Borg, an entirely possible historical forecasting). Doubtless this claim is intended to lead the reader to ponder the eschatological recreation of the Temple. Since Humpty stands for the Temple, he seems to be sharing in the divine identity, functioning as the locus of God’s presence, not outside of, but within creation.

Of course, this fall is an exile of sorts, the loss of God’s presence. The tension is palpable: how will Humpty’s story not turn out dumpty? In other words, this line presupposes what I have called elsewhere the great metanarrative of Humpty, not least the promise of resurrection.

But all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

So the Temple will be built again, but not by human hands. Many have undertaken to suggest that this passage runs counter to a belief in resurrection. But this atomistic reading of the text lacks imagination. Of course, it is the king himself who will put Humpty together again, and this great act will complete the metanarrative.

After all, Humpty is the place where the Creator God is resident with his creation. But the human inability to recreate Humpty does not negate all human effort for creation, which should be done in light of the proleptic nature of the king’s restoration of Humpty and all creation.

(Written in Durham Cathedral, dedicated to Rowan Williams’s left eyebrow.)

Bultmann reads Mother Goose

Here is a little piece of biblical studies humour that I first came across some years ago. Jack Lundquist speculates on how the New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann would have treated a nursery rhyme:

Bultmann Reads Mother Goose
by Jack Lundquist

I–A: Hey diddle-diddle,
I-B: The cat and the fiddle,
II–A: The cow jumped over the moon,
II–B: The little dog laughed to see such sport,
III–: And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Authorship and Date

Internal evidence rejects the view that we have here an original composition by Mary (Mother) Goose of Boston (1686–1743).[1] The phrasing of I–A is definitely late eighteenth century, since the Goose Period would have rendered it ‘diddley-diddley’ (and thus ‘fiddley’ in I–B). Furthermore, the sequence ‘cat-cow-dog-dish’ represents an obvious redaction and is a compilation of at least four different accounts.[2] Thus, the author of the piece is unknown,[3] and its date set between 1780 and 1820.[4] The Sitz im Leben of the Depression of 1815 may be reflected in III.

Text

The received text is very corrupt. The mythological element in II–A is typical of many other interpolations, as is the anthropomorphism in II–B.[5] However, I–A may be original, excluding, of course, the ‘hey’.[6]

Interpretation

Stripped of its thought forms, the piece tells us of something revolutionary as existentially encountered by three animals, two cooking implements, and one musical instrument.[7]

Notes

1. Discussed in F. Sauerkraut, Gooses Werke, vol. XXVII, pp. 825–906; G.F.W. Steinbauger, Gooserbrief, pp. 704–8636; Festschrift fur Baron von Munchausen, pp. XIII–XX; R. Pretzelbender, Die Goosensinger vom Bostom, p. 10.

2. See P. Katzenjammer in Goosengeschichtliche Schule Jahrbuch, vol. X.

3. Some attribute it to Mary’s grandson, Wild Goose (1793–1849), and others to Wild Goose’s nephew, Cooked (1803–1865). Both views are challenged by A. Kegdrainer in the thirty volume prolegomenon, Gooseleiden, vol. XV.

4. F. Pfeffernusse contends it is an English translation of a German original by the infant Wagner. See his Goose und Volkgeist, pp. 38–52; see also his Geist und Volkgoose, pp. 27–46.

5. The authenticity of both II–A and II–B is poorly argued by the reactionary American Goosologist, Carl Sanbag in his Old Glory and Mother Goose (see vol. IV, The Winters in the South, p. 357).

6. The meaning of the word ‘hey’ is now hopelessly obscure. See my articles on ‘Hey, That Ain’t’ and ‘Hey, What The’ in Goosengrease, Fall, 1942.

7. Perhaps an eclipse of the moon?

The Nativity Fast

For Orthodox Christians (at least, those of us following the Revised Julian Calendar), today is the first day of the Nativity Fast. In the Orthodox calendar, this fast is second only to Great Lent. Over the next forty days, we prepare ourselves to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity.

Since this is regarded as a joyous fast, it is less strict than Great Lent, e.g. fish, wine, and oil are permitted on Saturdays, Sundays, and most feast days during the period of the Fast. However, fasting is only one aspect of this time of preparation. Equally important aspects of the Fast are prayer and alms-giving, both of which help us to shift our attention away from ourselves and onto the One whose coming we are preparing to celebrate.

Holy Cross Orthodox Church (near Baltimore) has a useful page about the Fast with links to further resources on its website (here).

Winter is coming

 The clocks have gone back. The nights have drawn in and the sun is setting by about 4.00 p.m. And the first frosts have arrived. Autumn is giving way to winter.

And with the arrival of winter, many of us just want to hibernate until spring. We feel down. Some of show signs of full-blown depression. With winter come the first signs of seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Time to get out the daylight lamps. But what else can we do to combat the winter blues?

A team of researchers from Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities has created a set of resources to help people affected by SAD to manage their winters more proactively and creatively. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a presentation which introduced them and found the afternoon very helpful. I am particularly looking forward to working through the online course they have prepared in conjunction with the Living Life to the Full team. Details of it and of the other resources are available on their website (here).

Emily Dickinson on pain

Pain—has an Element of Blank—
It cannot recollect
When it begun—or if there were
A time when it was not—

It has no Future—but itself—
Its Infinite Contain
Its Past—enlightened to perceive
New Periods—of Pain.

In this little poem, Emily Dickinson has captured one of the insidious features of chronic pain – the way it makes you forget what it was like to live without pain.

Calligraphy is handwriting

The author of one of the pen blogs that I follow posted a piece the other day on calligraphy and ordinary handwriting. In the course of explaining why she prefers the latter, she said:

Calligraphy is a peculiar thing. It doesn’t carry anything of the writer’s personality. Maybe it carries something of the person who created the style. I’m not sure what I could compare it to. It’s certainly artistic but it bears no originality. It has to be an exact copy of a style created long ago.

I disagree. Certainly when you begin to learn calligraphy you try to copy the forms your teacher shows you as closely as possible – just like learning ordinary handwriting at school. But once you begin to master those forms, you make them your own – just like ordinary handwriting. In fact, the basic roundhand script that most calligraphy tutors begin with is simply a formal version of the ordinary handwriting you learn at school.

So, a good piece of calligraphy conveys the writer’s personality just as much as a piece of ‘ordinary handwriting’. And master calligraphers are quite capable of bringing originality to their art.

On splitting infinitives

From a letter from Raymond Chandler to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly:

By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have. I think your proofreader is kindly attempting to steady me on my feet, but much as I appreciate the solicitude, I am really able to steer a fairly clear course, provided I get both sidewalks and the street between.

Copy-editors (which is what Chandler meant when he said ‘proofreader’) really do need to develop a sensitivity to their author’s prose style. Their job (or, at least, an important part of it) is to polish the manuscript so that the author is shown at their best not reduce the text to some imagined standard English.

NaNoWriMo?

Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) began on Wednesday. It would be the perfect way to restart my fiction writing. Unfortunately, I have a paper to write for a conference at the beginning of next month. The thought of trying to write 1500–1600 words a day on top of that is just too daunting. Besides, if past attempts at novel writing are anything to go by, the 50,000 words that NaNoWriMo reckon constitute a novel would amount to less than half of what I’d be likely to write.

Enter the Glasgow SF Writers Circle. They have set up an informal NaNoWriMo Discord channel so that folk can share their progress. So I have announced my intention to attempt a MinNoWriMo (a minimal novel writing month). I can’t hope to manage 1500 words, but I do plan to write something (even it is only a paragraph or two) every day. The point is to regain my daily writing rhythm. In time, I hope to get back to at least 500 words a day (that’s a good-sized fantasy novel in a year).

Writing is not a spare-time activity

The theologian Scot McKnight offers some wise words about writing on his blog (here). In brief, he explains why it is impossible to treat writing as something that can be done ‘on the side’. Of course, he is writing as an academic theologian for other theologians and academics, but I think his comments hold true for other kinds of writing. As he says,

writing is a lifestyle, a way of life, a way of being, a modus operandi, a way of breathing and eating and drinking. Better yet, writing is a way of learning, a way of coming to know what someone wants to know, a way of discovering.

Writing is not something to do when everything else is cleared off the desk; no, it is something that makes order of the desk. I don’t get up wondering what I will write about, but I write about what I’m wondering. … In other words, as Augustine spoke of ‘faith seeking understanding,’ so writing is a pen seeking understanding.

This reminds me of Rowan Williams’s comments on writing as self-discovery, which I blogged about here.