Skinny Dipping

A few days ago, I began reading (again) The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. On page 7 he writes: “…it often happens that those who commit suicide were assured of the meaning of life.” (Perhaps it is ridiculous to insert this here, but when I encounter the phrase the meaning of life in the context of suicide, I think of an episode of Doctor Who, one of the episodes of “The Monk Trilogy” where a document is discovered in the Vatican Library called “The Veritas” and it confirms what Philip K. Dick expected all his life : that the world we live in is nothing but a simulation and it is therefore not real. Okay, fine. But in this episode of Doctor Who everyone who reads “The Veritas” decides to kill themself. But why should you spontaneously decide to kill yourself if you were shown proof that the world in which you live was some kind of simulation? So what? Does the artificiality of the world (life) drain it of all meaning? I mean, even if the beach and the Sun and the pina colada you’re sipping are all simulated, isn’t it still nice? The pina colada tastes good and the book you’re reading to pass the time, wouldn’t you rather go on reading it rather than killing yourself over some trivial matter such as the world not being as it seems? I could go on …) And there is an amusing footnote about Peregrinos. (Maybe it’s in bad taste to laugh, but Camus’ subject is “the absurd”.) The footnote reads: “I have heard of an emulator of Peregrinos, a post-war writer, after having finished his first book, committed suicide to attract attention to his work. Attention was in fact attracted, but the book was judged no good.” Ouch. I guess the lesson is that you should find out if you have, in fact, written a timeless masterpiece before you pull off a terminally irreversible publicity stunt. I couldn’t recall who “Peregrinos” was. Fortunately, we live in the time of instantaneous web search and turned up his biography on Wikipedia. The Peregrinos, of which Camus writes, is Peregrinus Proteus whose biography was satirized by Lucian in The Death of Peregrinus. I won’t summarize it here since you can read the encyclopedia entry yourself, but the fact that Peregrinus immolated himself east of the Greek town of Olympia gives me a sense of personal connection since more than thirty years ago I spent a few days in Olympia and so may have even passed the place where Peregrinus carried out his final act. I don’t recall seeing a plaque.

During this break in VW’s 1923 diary, I’m continuing with the 1917 diary which, on the 8th of October, VW resumed in a new physical volume. She writes, “This attempt at a diary begun on the impulse given by the discovery of a wooden box in my cupboard of an old volume, kept in 1915, & still able to laugh at Walter Lamb. This [diary] therefore will follow that plan—written after tea, written indiscreetly …” She goes on to record how that day (the 8th) she went with LW to Regent Square to buy paper & pens.

In the past week, a hundred and six years ago, V.W. & L. are gardening, constructing walls and paths, planting Japanese anemones, daisies, foxgloves, and wall flowers. It’s mushroom season (on account of the seasonal rains) and the walnuts are falling. Aeroplanes over the house : “16 German aeroplanes have just passed over Richmond” V.W. writes in a letter to Vanessa Bell (on the 6th) ,, portents of a coming raid. (It’s 1917 after all and the bombs are falling on London.) Oh, and V.W. will be starting a new physical volume of her diary on the 8th (in just two days).

A. and I spent some time in the garden this week, laying down topsoil and mulch, but no new planting. Moles have invaded the yard and are pushing up dirt in circuitous subterranean tunnels ,, in search of grubs. The leaves have begun to fall in earnest.

This shiny new toy (paper.wf) has reawakened my dreams of writing a serial novel. Doubts immediately crowd in : “how will it be different this time?” The conditions for serial writing are different now, I’m in possession of a vast archive of material from which to draw, upon which to build. Many times, over the past years, I’ve attempted the serial novel under several titles. My greatest success was two years ago : a great flurry of work, a prodigious flow of words, and then … I don’t recall precisely what derailed me, but derailed I was.

Back in March (of this year) I was stuck at the airport (a delayed flight) and I sat for several hours at a bar drinking overpriced beer and writing sketches for a new serial novel about the strange goings on in a small rural community. Of course, the story involved time travel.

If I were to start writing my serial novel now, it would be called Leadworth. I’ve kept the idea of the small community, but I’ve folded in a university, but an unusual university that offers courses and degree programs that are considered impractical , useless in our world. For example, one could get a doctorate in poetry. Imagine that!

Several days ago, I took down from the shelf the volumes of The Diaries of Emilio Renzi by Ricardo Piglia. Often I’m possessed by an irrational passion to begin (in this case resume) reading a particular book ,, probably because I feel that by reading it, I will (vampirelike) feast on its blood and become rejuvenated. (I’ve just opened the third volume of Renzi’s diaries randomly and found this line: “Just now, twenty years after I started writing in these notebooks, I have the feeling that I’m recording my everyday life with caution and efficiency.” [p. 69]) Like Renzi/Piglia, I’ve had a lifelong curiosity about diaries, especially the diaries of writers. Piglia’s fixed idea was Cesare Pavese and his diary, The Business of Living (the principle subject of which, from reading Piglia one concludes, is suicide).

Now that I’m entering the second year of this reading+writing project and I’m putting these words out in public (even if, effectively hidden) I do feel the need for certain limits. When V.W. writes about her work-in-progess, she’s telling us about Mrs. Dalloway and that’s of interest to everyone. When I was writing privately (and maybe some of these chapters will be held back), I let myself talk about my own works-in-progress, but that was because the only reader I imagined was a future version of myself. Now that my idea of a reader includes you, I have to guess what it is that you want to read, or worse, I’m obliged to entice you to keep reading. So … the less I say about my works-in-progress, the better, right?

A safe guess is that you are reader. Maybe you are even a writer or a secret writer. Even though I post these words here, I do so in the spirit of Bernardo Soares, in the way someone might toss a bottled message into the abyss. Not really expecting an answer.

My fault is that of the person who wishes to do everything that I dream up for myself to do. Reading the diaries of Virginia Woolf in real time is only one of a dozen or more really big reading projects. If only I could spend my days reading rather than toiling in the back office at a desk where my talents (if any) as a writer are spent in drafting correspondence and editing “business” communications. It would have been better if I was an honest laborer ,, and I could spend my days digging ditches and carrying rocks and when I return home in the evening I would be exhausted, sweaty, covered with earth, and could then devote myself to relaxation, but as it is, when I clock out and am freed from my paid labor, I’m nervous, empty, hungry, needy. What have I done with my day? Sold my time to a low bidder? I want to immerse myself in a river of words, I want to drink the ocean, but once I’m wet I begin to feel cold, tired, and I choke on the few gulps I manage to ingest before it’s time to fall asleep dissatisfied.

In V.W.’s 1923 diary, there’s a break from 18 September to 15 October, so maybe I will put that break to good use, and go back to 1917 when V.W. diary was a more regular diarist and the entries shorter. For 28 September she writes, “Another very quiet day, which grew dark, though warm & still … Old man brought our flowers out.” Yeah, my day will be quiet. I still have another hour to add words to my work-in-progress and I’ll do my best to add the best words. Old man, Old man, will you bring me flowers too?

Ah! a blog. Or don’t we call them that anymore? I’ve lost track / touch. Helloworld ... oh, look a butterfly ,, a shiny new .net (and who is that guy in shorts ... a Russian accent? being tailed by the FBI no doubt)

This is Skinny Dipping ,,, just sit for a moment and imagine that ,,, 2.0 / I’ll catch you up (are you with me?) :: precisely one year ago today (that is to say the 22nd of September) I started writing (for my own amusement and a few personal+reallife friends) a ... I guess it’s best described as a reading project, but it’s more than just reading, I’m living along with Virginia Woolf in real time ,, but a hundred years later. That is to say, I’m reading Virginia Woolf’s diaries at the pace she wrote them and (in addition to the actual reading) I select a quotation from her diary entry and use it as the title (or prompt) for my own spontaneous prose composition aka SPeC. The title for this instance is “but I’m all sandy with writing criticism, & must be off to my book again” and it will be (become chapter 56 in the book that I’m writing).

Since this chapter will have to serve as an introduction to Skinny Dipping for those of you who are just joining ,, in progress ,, I’ll note briefly that while the slow reading of V.W.’s diaries / and letters !! / an activity that has a fixed deadline of the 24th of March 2041 ,, assuming I’m still around on that day, I will write the final chapter of Skinny Dipping / is the framework for this project, my intent is to move about (in a literary way) in the space of experimental literature. V.W.’s Jacob’s Room being an example of the experimental English novel. Ah, but what do I mean by “experimental”? ,, that’s enough prolog :

... when I discovered this platform/tool? [method of publication] :: paper.wf :: I thought (!) I could write criticism, I could write about the experimental novel, what it is, it’s history | how to write the Experimental Novel ,, but what do I know? I’m no authority. I’m just this ... this , someone who writes with scissors and who has a generous supply of band-aids. I can share a few stories, some experiences, tell you about the books I’ve read and want to read. but what most interests me is writing my own books ,, books not for everyone as Anaïs Nin said of her experimental works. ... but the could be , if we really wanted

Criticism? maybe, but I’m already feeling sandy and I really must be off to writing my own book.