Of other people’s darkntwistiness

I’ve been reading Eggers. You shall know our velocity. The guy is sickeningly brilliant. I wish I could quote entire passages but that would probably get me sued or something. Get the book hon. I know it takes you ages to finish anything but this…this is incredible. Heartbreaking work of staggering genius was exactly that.

I think men have this inherent ability to write rage/pain well*. A few years ago a friend of mine sent me writing that did not so much kneecap me as remove my entire skeleton. The writing was done by a guy who had only been a paraplegic for a few months**. His words dripped acid, anguish and tarry bitter, fubar humour. I cried every time. Not the odd tear. Sobbing that racked me. My ribs would hurt for days afterwards. Seeing that I was not exactly frolicking with the shimmering ones***, his words would reverberate in, and then shame, me.

Why is it so much easier to write when it hurts, when pain is leaden? When I’m happy I cannot still my quicksilver mind for long enough to think coherently, much less set the slipperiness into the words.

Not too long after the paraplegic guy, I came across Nacho’s pre-op writing. If ever you have time, and a strong constitution, trawl GS’s archives. His writing is technically much better now and quite a bit different but the pre-op stuff was powerful as all hell. Literally.

I may not love you anymore but I sure miss connecting with you. I have severely clever friends but currently none that are moved by words as I am. I seem to shed my logophile friends. Matthew no longer speaks to me. Ben is practically married**. You. Yes well, we know how that ended. C, maybe but he is entrenched in his own world. E possibly but she’s more into the film thing. M will get there at some point but she needs to just write her words first.

I watched Waking Life again on Monday. Linklater is lovely but that aside, that one scene where the blonde woman speaks about connecting with someone has brought it all back. Yes the work thing is a lovely distraction but I miss really seeing understanding/hearing someone. C and I had such a kickass talk about this on the way back from Melville. Man, I miss talking to him. And I miss reading you.

Oh well. I guess the connecting thing is just out for me for the foreseeable future. Maybe our Creator deems it good for me to at some point have it again. In the meantime I have books and maybe, just maybe a BMW for my 30th birthday /grin.

1. Word of the day: (Afr.) biggel
2. Insight of the day: we can only really rely upon God. Nothing else is certain.
3. State of the pool: trailing fingers in reflection.
4. Random thought/Music of the day: God is an Astronaut. Oh my soul. The entire All is Violent, All is bright album is gobsmacking.
5. Awesomest lines: I have no idea where to start so I will just open the book (Dave Eggers – You shall know our velocity) on a random page (146):

“ – But slowly these empty rooms are filled. Filled with things so wretched and brutal that you could not have conceived of them at thirteen. And soon you find there are too many rooms, too many occupied rooms, too few empty ones. I walk through my corridors and I open doors and now it’s so hard to find a room unoccupied or not full of screaming clouds.

- They live in these rooms. They breathe there, I hear their laughter. I try to keep them in the rooms I don’t enter, but they move, and I forget where they are, and when we’re in a room together I vibrate, I have too much within me, I cannot contain my desire – death for them and even me, I will tie my blood to theirs, a line to anchor, whatever it takes, they make me want to end my brain”

*By that I don’t mean that women don’t. It just seems in the writing that I’ve come across that women’s darkness tends to be soppy. Clever, cutting – bread knife – (lookit Sylvia Plath) but still tending towards the bathetic whereas masculine writing is concise, crisp – scalpel – (lookit Hemingway, DF Wallace)

**I wish I could remember his name. (tip of my tongue…I have to find his stuff again…something like Wolverine) My friend has been a quadriplegic for 30 years. I lost touch of him since he found love. Shared darkness does not translate well into coupledom.

***Yes it is a shameless. Darkness->crepuscular->Twilight

Tagged with: Dave Eggers

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