The Final Countdown

Countdown

 I was filled with a sense of despair that lasted a month. I hadn’t done all the things I’d hoped while in France and I was running out of time. As I submit this just after returning to the US, I  will be honest enough to admit that none of these goals was met.

1. My dark secret, one I’ve shared with too many strangers to be much of a secret, was that I had planned to read Finnegans Wake this year. I’d got up to page 250 or so, following the text while listening to Patrick Healy’s reading on Ubusound. It’s free. I’m not bored with it but I  am not excited by the puns and many languages and the magic of dreamland and the references to Adam and Eve and tangential excursions to whoknowswhere, the kind of word Joyce would have coined if only he’d thought of it. The questions I have for myself are: Why am I doing this to myself? Am I a masochist? No, I usually nibble on chocolate while I listen and I’m not suffering. It’s not like listening to the orchestral component of Hindi film music. I think it’s because of Joyce’s experimentation of sound and sense that goes beyond language, like machine code of computers, primal, pre-verbal. In Ulysses, he’d used nearly every word in the English language, and then he felt the need to go beyond. Is this virtuosity for its own sake? I suspect it is. If it had been written by a lunatic, would I be reading it? Probably not. Is the reader as pretentious as the book? Probably. I am unlikely to boast about this dubious achievement or wear a T-shirt that says “I’m as awake as the Buddha and Finnegan” or some such, I’m more likely to admit to reading this only if under threat. Will I finish it? Yes, only because I can put it behind me and not do it again.

2. Improve my French. Yes, I do speak better than I did 10 months ago, but I need to listen to Learn French by Podcast, Coffeebreak French and News in Slow French as much as I can. I recommend these programs whole-heartedly as opposed to my half-assed recommendation of the Wake. Listening to all this stuff involves the continuous use of headphones since my family does not share in this quest for self-improvement. I have this Brahminical need or greed for more knowledge for its own sake. It’s going to be harder to keep up when not in France.  I should watch French films with subtitles to allow for better comprehension at a literal level; I recognize that my inability to enjoy French cinema is limited, not by language but by imagination and culture.

3. Write a novel. I thought I’d put that in for good measure. I had planned to write a lot but I didn’t distracted as I’ve been with travels, family and work. Work comes in the way of a writer’s progress, alas. In this economy, one should be grateful to have a job, even one without benefits, and I shouldn’t be complaining or blaming lack of progress on work such as it is. Other reasons for not writing include fear of failure, fear of success, fear of criticism, fear of not having anything to be afraid of.

4. Read Le Petit Prince in French. I got about halfway through and dropped it. I don’t have an excuse except I know how it ends and I’ve heard it dramatized in English where it sounded pompous if not pedantic with lines that sank like, “That which is important is not visible to the eye.”

5. Knit that sweater for my mother. I did finish it, but like all the other knitting projects I’ve undertaken this last year, I expect to unravel and start over. I did knit a swatch, no, not really, but I did check measurements, but it does not fit well, much too large. I can’t expect my mother to grow.

6. Grow two inches taller. Given the poor record of fulfilling any of the other items on this list, I may as well add another failure. As long as it doesn’t involve wearing heels. It’s hard enough to walk on level ground on flats.