Three Letters
From one letter to the editor amongst three:
“The predicament of any tropological analysis of narrative always lies in its own effaced and circuitous recourse to a metaphoric mode of apprehending its object… . ”
I don’t see anything jargon-laden, ridiculous, or unclear in the quoted text. Actually there is some jargon, though nothing anyone studying the humanities or social sciences ought to be struggling with: trope, narrative, metaphor. Three fundamental ideas, tropological being the only one which might still be considered a specialist term.
Tropological analysis of narrative is problematic due to narrative’s own figurative mode of referring back to itself, and that this process of self reference is subtle to the point of passing unnoticed.
The only thing which comes across as perhaps odd is “its own effaced and circuitous recourse”; however, this is a question of style rather than jargon. It takes but a moment of reflection to clarify.
One of the things the writer is highlighting is the native tension of trope and metaphor in narrative. This tension warrants attention.
11-04-12
An improvement today. Despite sleeping well into the late afternoon, I woke up feeling a little better than I have in the recent past. It is late now, as I write this, and feeling quite a bit lighter than I have for quite some time. I am still far from feeling good; however, any improvement is welcome.
10-04-12
Another day in bed hiding from the world. I did find it difficult to sleep after yesterday’s effort, and perhaps I will find it a challenge yet again tonight. I’m really not too fussed: depression is dictating my movements for the time being, until such time that I can work up the energy to try to fix things more in my own favour. The other possibility, of course, is that the depression disperses of its own accord.
As a result of all this depression, I have felt unable to write apart from drivelling on about the state of my moods; not even I find it interesting. I guess at least it is a way of keeping my hand in, and my mind at least doing a little work. That is about it: my life is one of waiting right now. Things will change; I will come back.
09-04-12
It has been a day of hiding. Three thirty in the afternoon, the curtains shut against the hostile light, I hide here beneath these covers, here where it is safe. Today I am tired of battling the daylight; the light that threatens to expose every vulnerability. And that wind too: it assaults all latent serenity through its violent impulsiveness. Today I will try to get into the shower and I will try to wash my hair. That will be enough for today.
It is the summer of 1972 on humid evening on daylight savings time. I am around five years old and become insatiably curious about the world. Around four or five dumpsters had been deposited in our street so that the residents might fill them with unwanted stuff. The concept of recycling had not found its way into the new suburbs of the outer north east. People threw things into these dumpsters with impunity.
And yet, to my five year olds mind, this strange ritual of putting one’s unwanted stuff out onto the side of the street was the stuff of magic. This sudden abundance of goods hitherto locked away behind the facades of suburban homes represented the secret lives of others, though more importantly, potential.
And potential indeed. The particular summer under discussion presented the various parts required for the first billycart my brother and I ever constructed, with no small help from our father. It was the first thing I remember making from scratch. The thing I remember most about the billycart was that it had ball-bearing wheels. They made a thunderous noise as we hurtled down the newly tarmacked streets of this newly constructed suburb.
People had a very different attitude about riffling through one anothers unwanted things. Today people feel conspicuous about
Let’s Go for a Ride
People think I am joking when I tell them that I enjoy the smell of stale smoke and tobacco. I think it involves complex psychoanalytic associations which stretch right back into my early childhood.
The memory begins with the smell of stale cigarettes emitting from the ashtray of a triumph with bright red vinyl seats. It was my father’s car. I don’t remember where it was we were going on that afternoon in that car that my father was so proud of, but it was definitely the first time I consciously made the connection between the smell and my father. Henceforth, this was my father’s smell.
On this day I also learned that when you travel in the front seat, you have to wear a seatbelt. The big red vinyl bench seat in the back was not fitted with seatbelts, but it was common wisdom that one was safe travelling in the back seat of a car. So it was exciting having to sort out and adjust this seatbelt. It added to the importance of travelling in the front seat. The necessity of the seatbelt announced the element of danger travelling up front introduced. It took a long time to adjust the belt in to my own slight frame.
I wound down the window a bit with the hope of gaining some fresh air. The smell of stale cigarettes stayed with us. The triumph, with its red vinyl seats, oozed this smell from every pour.
As we drove around that day, doing whatever it was that my father had to do, my father smoked his cigarettes, taking in deep inhalations, and then filling the car with the grey plume as he exhaled, flicking the ashen tip out of the window at intervals. This was my father at his most relaxed. Perhaps it was a particularly happy time for him. Driving around in the car he loved, smoking with the quiet companionship of myself.
Middle Class Morality #2
The middle class are content provided they possess the freedom to continuously assault one another with petty humiliation. It ensures that everyone maintains a kind of minimum level of conformity and at the same time guards against those who might dare to go beyond.
