Skip to main content

beau ideal

Will you come and visit me next year? I shall undoubtedly have a large circle of witty and interesting friends by then and life will be on a very high plane – elegant, literary, and in perfect order… On the roofs of the brick houses and on the island in the pond there will be all sorts of romantic musicians, and supper will be served on the island too – strung with lanterns. It will be very pleasant, reminiscent of Venice, and the Last Days of Rome and the Chinese Emperors, with a bit of Coney Island thrown in. - Elizabeth Bishop to Frani Blough, 1934

Comments

Erin said…
This is absolutely perfect.

I feel like a stranger, barging into your digital world. I haven't been here in so long...hoping to remedy this in future.

Popular posts from this blog

I’ve a short story in the latest edition of The Stinging Fly , which is a brilliant Irish literary journal. If you’d like a copy (or if you like Claire-Louise Bennett or Kevin Barry or Danielle McLaughlin or Colin Barrett, who’ve all been published by SF ) you can get it here Or, you know, go to Dublin.

Monologuing

My previous experience of Rachel Cusk is restricted to her travel book on Italy, The Last Supper , which was withdrawn in Britain because of objections from individuals who found themselves featured, unflatteringly, within its pages. It's very difficult not to write a book about Italy without being smug. Then I read reviews (especially hatchet jobs) about her controversial divorce memoir, Aftermath . I confess I’m suspicious when a writer writes memoir after memoir, as if his own life is the only field of interest. I read memoirs – I am moved by the familiar voice – but I’m wary of their cultural predominance. Self-knowledge is a good springboard for knowledge of others. Orbiting one’s own life without ever calling into question the limitation of it seems myopic. (This, however, is not to say that personal writing can be divorced from art, or that it should be.) But Outline is an expose of how fascinating and selfish and dreary and inescapable monologues on the self can be. The
There’s a sudden late surge of warmth in the rough winds today and it’s the perfect day to read one of John Clare’s best sonnets: November Sybil of months & worshipper of winds I love thee rude & boisterous as thou art & scraps of joy my wandering ever finds Mid thy uproarious madness – when the start Of sudden tempests stir the forrest leaves Into hoarse fury till the shower set free Still the hugh swells & ebb the mighty heaves That swing the forrest like a troubled sea I love the wizard noise & rave in turn Half vacant thoughts & self imagined rhymes Then hide me from the shower a short sojourn Neath ivied oak & mutter to the winds Wishing their melody belonged to me That I might breath a living song to thee