ok, ok, I wept!
So it is post class discussion on both Elizabeth Smart By Grand Central Station I Sat down and Wept, and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Neither of these books
could provoke a benign reaction in anyone and myself I flung wildly between the pleasure of my own sorrows and romanticism to a peak of such utter disgust and offence that I several times flung each of these books across the room. What led me to such outrage and lingering ill sentiments of these literary lovelies was the sickly self delight in such enterprise as unrequited love, suicidal sorrows, elite self victimization and the narration of the narcissistic nuances that plague every twenty something artist/writer/lover or otherwise. That being said these authors gift us the pleasure of wallowing in our own recollections of our martyred self engrandisment (and I accuse you – all of you!!!). I am guilty. I have always been guilty. And these class discussions that tiptoe around and sneer about the wild gesticulations of the self or ego – we know why and how and what - but we cannot overcome that it is alive and well within. Even as a admitted self “victim” of cruel romance (as I feign a sigh and throw back my arm across my forehead – Alas!) I can rationalize and devalue the passion of oneself for oneself – the disgruntled underground man, the forever pained Werther, the self destructing Smart, the pomp of Humbert -
but I cannot and will not cast aside this voracious character. I need her for her own special merits and contributions and I hope she will one day binge write a novel that makes others shudder with revulsion in light of the petty and distasteful honesties that lie within. So with that I am certain that Goethe and Smart have purged the Hyde we all disguise with diplomacy and a natural variance of character. I am good, I am bad and I am a suicidal maniac lost for love. Diagnosis pending, it will work itself out.
Hi Kate,
Yes, yes ! I have myself spent my time “wallowing in [my] own recollections of [my] martyred self engrandisment”, especially in my early 20’s––although I still find myself wading in the molasses of self pity from time to time. Indeed, there is a little bit of Smart, Werther and the UG in all of us, it’s just not something we always want to admit. We all know how intensely we feel ourselves in these states of resentment, spite, self pity, etc. As we get on we can only hope that life graces us with good humour and a healthy sense of irony. With that in mind I offer you the following:
The lusty squirrel of martyrdom plays waterpolo in the blood of my destiny, calling “Marco?!… Marco!…chp, chp…”; Oh, how the heroic vomit of subordination rains on the parade of my banality! –– Boil! Boil! Knocked up bunny of possession; Calchas’ parrot watches Artemis soil the blanket of my revenge while Ophelia’s cold hand snatches the badminton racket of my denial; Alas, I arrive just in time to see Menalaeus’ golf cart disappear in to the funhouse of my spite; the ego waffle of my subjectivity incinerates in the broken toaster of my youthful pride; and, all the while, I feel the terrible fox of cheese gnawing at my vitals under my tunic of good taste.
I suggest you moderate this response with extreme prejudice.
All the best,
Dylan
Oh yes, I forgot to mention: I look forward with nauseous anticipation to reading this “binge written” novel you threaten us all with.
D
Dylan! this reminds me of the spoken word of Jack Kerouac – do you know it? did you write this? perfect record for a night of drunken candlelight self pity indulgence.
Yeah, I’ll have to take the blame; although Patricia added the “Marco!… Marco?” bit. I was actually trying to document the themes of the seminar in cheap cryptic prose but this is as far as got because I didn’t want to start laughing and disrupt things.
D