For some reason, I have been reading obsessively for about the past 24 hours. It started with a very difficult day yesterday--another trip to the University of Chicago, this one by car. It should have been easy because, combining trips, we took Colin's books to UIC first, and then went on down to UofC, and he did all the driving, the generous soul. But somehow, there were any number of complications, from parking to logistics to just random minutiae. I did come back with the article I had gone there for, but I will not be taking the car down there again! I will follow the new advice of my old high-school friend Robin and take the Metra. I have not taken it before because it is a separate system from the L and the buses (which both take the same payment card), and incompatible systems really bug me. But apparently it is the best way to get down there. So if and when I have to go a third time, I'll be trying that. Small improvements.
One thing I did during blank spots in the long and frustrating day was read a book Colin had gotten out of the library, a book of essays by W.H. Auden called The Dyer's Hand. It was actually due to my suggestion that he had gotten the book out, and this only because I had had to read a small excerpt of it in college (and subsequently forgot everything about it except one small passage and the fact that it was by Auden). I had mentioned it to Colin because it (the bit I remembered) seemed an intriguing pedagogical strategy. Colin somehow managed to track down the passage I meant, and find the book. I quote the passage below:
In my daydream College for Bards, the curriculum would be as follows:
1) In addition to English, at least one ancient language, probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages would be required.
2) Thousands of lines of poetry in these languages would be learned by heart.
3) The library would contain no books of literary criticism, and the only critical exercise required of students would be the writing of parodies.
4) Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology would be required of all students, and every student would have to select three courses out of courses in mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology, archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.
5) Every student would be required to look after a domestic animal and cultivate a garden plot.
— W. H. Auden
I have always liked the idea of this, and wish I could have gone to that school! Parts of it sound like a traditional Chinese education. In any case, the above passage comes from a long and miscellaneous essay entitled "The Poet and the City," which has a lot of neat stuff in it, more than I can get into here. In addition, I read another even more miscellaneous essay called "Hic et Ille." Auden had a cranky and idiosyncratic but generally very interesting perspective on things.
Anyway, after the universities ordeal, I just sat at my computer looking at the newspaper online. For some reason I got started reading archived Dear Abby columns and kept on for about two hours. Colin went out exploring the bar scene because he was restless instead of weary. He came back reporting that most places were unspectacular. Also, he brought me some great mini-cupcakes. We shared a late-night batch of ramen and then turned in. Don't ask me why I because so fascinated with Dear Abby all of a sudden. I guess it just seemed a window into the weirder aspects of ordinary lives. And there are some strange ones out there. What strikes me as especially interesting, though, is the standards according to which Abby offers her advince. All kinds of taken-for-granted standards, of health and illness, of manners and propriety, of loyalties, appropriate behavior within various relationships (parents and children, husbands and wives, siblings, friends, inlaws, pets and pet-owners). Sometimes readers quibble about the advice, and it shows the give in the standards. But Abby is the institution that she is because much of the advice seems to ring true!
Today, I spent the greater part of my reading time finishing Single and Single, the last LeCarre novel we own that I hadn't read. It's a really good one! And to add to my pleasure upon finishing it, Colin pointed out a book that one of his professors had recommended to him, called Unprincipled Virtue, which uses Single and Single as its opening example. So I went straight on to read the first section of that book. I can't say much about Single and Single that won't spoil the story, so suffice it to say it's one of my favorite LeCarres yet. However, regarding Unprincipled Virtue, I will mention that it promises to be a fascinating exploration of the phenomenon in which we suddenly do a virtuous thing without ever intending to or even thinking about it--as if acting independently of our deliberative "selves." Rather an important topic, I would say, and many of the things he said (not to mention the great scene in Single and Single to which the book refers) really ring true.
In addition to these, I read large portions of the Book of Genesis owing to a bit of breakfast-table conversation about the giants who walked the earth. What interested me particularly in reading it, though, was the odd bits of evidence that in various ways God was feeling a bit threatened. If I could go back to being a sophomoric undergrad writing a paper for some class like "The Bible as Literature," I would choose for a title and subject, "God's Insecurities."
Finally, near the end of the day, we went to the corner Caribou and I got around to reading the article I'd copied at the UofC yesterday. Fortunately, it was useful as promised. I made some very efficient notes, which included a to-do list of research progress I can make based on the article.
I would say more about all this, and about our brief exploratory trip to Chicago's Chinatown, but it's after midnight and I half-asleep at my keyboard. In brief, Chinatown was a little depressing, being so full of tourist junk and so empty of bookstores. I coveted tiny turtles very intensely, but didn't buy one as no doubt they are illegally captured, and anyone who cares about turtles shouldn't even consider it! But I really wanted one. Also, we bought a big packet of incense, about a year's supply even for people who really like incense. And we had a nice Vietnamese noodle lunch that was delicious but gave us both headaches due to the amount of MSG!
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