(no subject)
Today I finished Against Nature by Huysmans. There is a postscript written after he became catholic. What a hypocrite. Lately it has occurred to me that although the book is obscene from the point of view of its decadence, the fact that it is a work of fiction and written in different times and concerns a member of a social class which no longer exists in the way it did then makes it thrice removed from the world I know from experience. So that makes any criticism of its decadence thrice irrelevant, so there. Trying to distil it down to an essence, to an impression, I have alighted on its essential sensuousness. The protagonist really enjoys the sensation of plunging both hands in to whatever it is that he is wilfully indulging in. It's the self-conscious enjoyment of the qualities of whatever he chooses to contemplate. I can't explain other than to say that it has been an impossibly lush, enjoyably uneasy experience to read this book.
Meanwhile at work two smelly, precocious pubescent boys keep asking me questions because they are under the impression that I am as interested in making a display of random facts and figures about music as they are. Go away and have a bath, preferably not together. . ugh. And shave off that random collection of hairs on your many chins.
Tomorrow I face canvassing in Wythenshawe, which should be nerve wracking. I will spend the rest of the day reading up on Botticelli. The iconography of religion was so much more colourful before the counter-reformation. You could have unicorns and pelicans and peacocks and owls. They all had allegorical meanings. I can understand slightly why an owl would be associated with evil, for its silent, brooding manner. But I cannot understand why a pelican would symbolise Jesus, and nor would I want to. If it made sense it would be just as boring as those fish shapes you see stuck on the back of cars. If it wasn't for the contrast with modern life, I wouldn't be interested.