So let's talk, instead, about language.
On Wednesday, the first stop of our little outing with Réka was the Szabó Ervin Library. We were looking through the English language literature, and I complained about the lack of Stephen Fry. Then she said, "Here it is, Stephen Fry." The book was in the wrong place (after Fairley or something, not on the next shelf after Freud etc) but it was there, oh, The Hippopotamus.
It's a bit of a slow read so far, but so delightful. Someone underlined lesser-known words on the first few pages, but that quickly stops. One parangraph, however, (on pp 46-47) is highlighted, with the side note: "at the end of XXth -> the poet's place/job by S.F."
So here is what it is, according to Ted, an old, sour, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet:
I listed, as is my custom, such few words as my mood and the scene suggested.
Held
Surface
Gaumy
Suspension
Ataractic
Gross
Weight
Mollity
Burst
This
Spread
Suzerainty
Piss-gold
Widened
Hotter
I examined this list for some quarter of an hour. The rare words often annoy the punter, but they never think, they never stop to think about a poet's life. A painter has oils, acrylics and pastels, turpentine, linseed, canvas, sable and hog's hair. When did you last employ such things routinely? To oil a cricket bat or mascara an eyelid, perhaps. Come to think of it, you've probably never oiled a cricket bat in your life, but you know what I mean. And musicians: a musician has entire machines of wood, brass, gut and carbon fibre; he has augmented sevenths, accidentals, Dorian modes and twelve-note rows. When did you ever use an augmented seventh as a way of getting back at your boyfriend or a bassoon obbligato to order pizza? Never. Never, never, never. The poet, though. Oh, yes, the poor poet: pity the poor bloody poet. The poet has no reserved materials, no unique modes. He nas nothing but words, the same tools that the whole cursed world uses to ask the way to the nearest lavatory, or with which they patter out excuses for the clumsy betrayals and shiftless evasions of their ordinary lives; the poet has nothing but the same, self-same, words that daily in a million shapes and phrases curse, pray, abuse, flatter and mislead. The poor bloody poet can no longer say 'ope' for 'open', or 'swain' for 'youth', he is expected to construct new poems out of the plastic and Styrofoam garbage that litters the twentieth-century linguistic floor, to make fresh art from the used verbal condoms of social intercourse. Is it any wonder that, from time to time, we take refuge in 'gellies' and 'ataractic' and 'watchet'? Innocent words, virgin words, words uncontaminated and unviolated, the very mastery of which announces us to possess a relationship with language akin to that of the sculptor with his marble or the composer with his staves. Not that anyone is ever impressed, of course. They only moan about the 'impenetrability' or congratulate themselves for being hep to the ellipsis, opacity and allusion that they believe deepens and enriches the work. It's a bastard profession, believe me.
♥ and nowadays you don't even have to buy (or, in my case, borrow) a book of his (though I'd be glad to steal it altogether), because Stephen has taken to dispensing fixes of joy like this online. The latest one is also about language.
Brian May calls the Reupblican party "a destructive force in the world" in his fresh, crispy rant. Love a man with a sense of drama.
Don't know how I feeel about Kant and Zum ewigen Frieden, but I'm going to find out right now.
It's a bit of a slow read so far, but so delightful. Someone underlined lesser-known words on the first few pages, but that quickly stops. One parangraph, however, (on pp 46-47) is highlighted, with the side note: "at the end of XXth -> the poet's place/job by S.F."
So here is what it is, according to Ted, an old, sour, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet:
I listed, as is my custom, such few words as my mood and the scene suggested.
Held
Surface
Gaumy
Suspension
Ataractic
Gross
Weight
Mollity
Burst
This
Spread
Suzerainty
Piss-gold
Widened
Hotter
I examined this list for some quarter of an hour. The rare words often annoy the punter, but they never think, they never stop to think about a poet's life. A painter has oils, acrylics and pastels, turpentine, linseed, canvas, sable and hog's hair. When did you last employ such things routinely? To oil a cricket bat or mascara an eyelid, perhaps. Come to think of it, you've probably never oiled a cricket bat in your life, but you know what I mean. And musicians: a musician has entire machines of wood, brass, gut and carbon fibre; he has augmented sevenths, accidentals, Dorian modes and twelve-note rows. When did you ever use an augmented seventh as a way of getting back at your boyfriend or a bassoon obbligato to order pizza? Never. Never, never, never. The poet, though. Oh, yes, the poor poet: pity the poor bloody poet. The poet has no reserved materials, no unique modes. He nas nothing but words, the same tools that the whole cursed world uses to ask the way to the nearest lavatory, or with which they patter out excuses for the clumsy betrayals and shiftless evasions of their ordinary lives; the poet has nothing but the same, self-same, words that daily in a million shapes and phrases curse, pray, abuse, flatter and mislead. The poor bloody poet can no longer say 'ope' for 'open', or 'swain' for 'youth', he is expected to construct new poems out of the plastic and Styrofoam garbage that litters the twentieth-century linguistic floor, to make fresh art from the used verbal condoms of social intercourse. Is it any wonder that, from time to time, we take refuge in 'gellies' and 'ataractic' and 'watchet'? Innocent words, virgin words, words uncontaminated and unviolated, the very mastery of which announces us to possess a relationship with language akin to that of the sculptor with his marble or the composer with his staves. Not that anyone is ever impressed, of course. They only moan about the 'impenetrability' or congratulate themselves for being hep to the ellipsis, opacity and allusion that they believe deepens and enriches the work. It's a bastard profession, believe me.
♥ and nowadays you don't even have to buy (or, in my case, borrow) a book of his (though I'd be glad to steal it altogether), because Stephen has taken to dispensing fixes of joy like this online. The latest one is also about language.
Brian May calls the Reupblican party "a destructive force in the world" in his fresh, crispy rant. Love a man with a sense of drama.
Don't know how I feeel about Kant and Zum ewigen Frieden, but I'm going to find out right now.