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Leamington Letters #139: Turning my back on 2017

4/1/2018

9 Comments

 
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​Well, that’s all done, then.
 
Christmas has been cleared from our house. The tree is down, the baubles packed away and the pretty lights carefully boxed up. The Christmas cards sit on the desk – I will go through them to make a note of a new address here, unexpected contact from a friend there and pangs of guilt at those forgotten everywhere. But I am already turning my back on 2017 and setting out on a new trip with my equivalents of Gunslinger, Claude Levi-Strauss and Everything Kool.
 
Ed Dorn’s Cautious Gunslinger has been my travelling companion for many years. Here’s why:
 
Very good. Then you must
never consort with the Perfect,
stick to the Absolute, it’s
pliable, and upon it
you seem to play any tune
you choose.
 
Absolutely. And the tune I have chosen to play in 2018 is writing. Which means, firstly, reading. Reading about writing. And in doing so, I chanced upon David Lodge’s Writer’s Luck.
 
Many years ago – Lodge must have been still at the University of Birmingham – the two of us approached the last remaining empty table on the Marylebone to Leamington train, seated ourselves reluctantly opposite each other and, like synchronized swimmers, reached into our satchels and took out the current issue of the London Review of Books.
 
Had either of us been more sociable, in my case more confident also, this might have provoked an hour of conversation about the state of the novel, the business of writing and any number of other burning issues. It didn’t. We half-smiled to acknowledge the coincidence, nodded and bowed our heads to the printed pages of LRB.
 
I regret this lost opportunity. My silence was the result of not wishing to impinge on the time or solitude of a leading academic and author of one of the funniest books I have ever read, Changing Places. And his? At the time, I may have attributed it to aloofness, a kind of professorial hauteur. From Writer’s Luck, we discover that he is naturally shy, even timid; and he recounts an occasion at which he was snubbed throughout dinner by Germaine Greer, who turned her back on him, literally and figuratively, and conversed exclusively with her other neighbour.
 
The anecdote resonates with me because it brings to mind a similar episode. I have been a snubbee also, although not in such exalted company. I can confirm that being trapped by the cold shoulder in a social situation is not pleasant, even if one’s embarrassment is shared by one’s fellow diners.
 
The fact that both events occurred many years ago, and Lodge and I still remember – ah yes, we remember it well – is testament to that.
 
But I shall try to forget and forgive. And if I cannot forget, laugh about it:
 
Entrapment is this society’s
Sole activity, I whispered
and Only laughter
can blow it to rags.
 
That will be the resolution for the new year. Never consort with the Perfect. Stick to the Absolute. Play any tune you choose. And have a larf.
 
In 2018, “the sheer writing of the poem must be our shelter”.
 
Happy trails.
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: I would by now have ventured an opinion on the latest from Bob, which concerns itself with the Gospel years from 1979 to 1981. I have been listening, promise. And although I was less than enthused by his embracing of Jesus – think I only saw two or three shows during this period – I have to confess that there are some great songs and some brilliant shows. Nevertheless, my Christmas playlists have been heavily weighted in favour of Chris Forsyth, Dream Syndicate and the Dead. No, no regrets.

9 Comments
(Notthat)Bob
4/1/2018 12:30:06

Although I will await your more analytic verdict on Trouble in Mind, I can't argue with your Christmas listening. Nor with your reading matter. It is so good to find someone else for whom Dorn and his Gunslinger is vital. And 'tis better to be snubbed than to snub. We snubbees (love that) shall inherit the earth.

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ChrisR
4/1/2018 13:00:10

I remember reading this crazy, surreal road movie of a poem back in the day and attributing to it a profundity which I no longer see. I’m not sure that the context of the quotes you use give them the force you are looking for, but who cares? I enjoyed this post immensely, not least for the Lodge Germaine story and of course the Quicksilver reference at the end. Great album. PS History to the Defeated still password protected?

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Everything Cool
4/1/2018 14:57:33

Gunslinger! Another blast from the past, Max. All that stuff about I and Ego and the destination that was never reached. Looking forward to 2018 but still with your head in 1968?

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James
4/1/2018 16:35:08

Dorn taught (though not me) at Essex in the revolutionary years of the late 60s. Not sure he was a revolutionary, but he was certainly radical in his politics, something which is implicit in the Gunslinger saga and which made him a popular lecturer.

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Allan
4/1/2018 19:25:44

I've been reading your posts since the start, so I know how you think. I'm guessing that the snubbing is the central point of this post, and that the slight has been festering for many years before being lanced by reading David Lodge.

I'm also guessing that, like GG's turning of the back on Lodge, it was a conscious act, designed to make a point, humiliate and diminish.

In which case, as Lodge should have said and Greer certainly would have said had the situation been reversed, just fuck off.

Life's too short etc etc. Anyway, happy new year.

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Ellie
5/1/2018 11:16:41

I like the sound of Ed Dorn. My reading and listening increasingly based on your recommendations. Looking forward to your histories too.

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StephenH
6/1/2018 11:08:06

A couple of observations about Dorn that may be of interest to you and relevant to your post.
1. He was sometimes quite vicious in his criticisms of other poets and especially academics. I suspect he would have "turned his back" on all of us.
2. He shared your thing about the Cathars, heresy, dualism etc.
Thanks for reminding me of him.

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Glenn
8/1/2018 09:48:54

Dorn!!! He would show you his map.

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Doctor Dark
13/1/2018 05:05:57

If it's general reading as a goal for 2018, take a look at Glenn Kenny's website -somecamerunning.typepad.com - and his list of the books he polished off in 2017. An inspirational standard! He's a pretty good movie critic too!

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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