At Times

I know the internet (and life as a whole) is not so full of positive stuff right now, and here at Blogtastic, we don't mind adding to it. Oh man, what a strange time. Personally, I've been feeling pretty depressed again for a couple of weeks (unrelated to Covid-19), and my head has been feeling like it's full of scrambled eggs. Then my physical health has taken a bit of a dive (I've got a fever, and aches, so I'm currently self-isolating), and my head feels like it's full of cotton wool. Thankfully, it's not even comparable to a normal flu yet, so I feel confident I'll be back to normal after a not too serious period of layoff. But there's so much worse happening elsewhere, that I'm ding-donging between trying not to focus on it (or at least keep it in perspective compared to other causes of death), and being really sad about it. Yesterday, for example, I heard an update on the death toll in Italy, and that shocked me. I know and love a few ace people in the north, and have been thinking about them a lot, wishing them well, and to hear of such a lot of death got to me. I know their lives are radically different at the moment, and they are putting a brave face on things, so I hope that continues, and that mental and physical health bears up under it all (and that goes for the whole world).

Everywhere here has been ghost-towny for a while. The badminton group I go to had about fifty per cent fewer participants last week. That was weird, because normally we can't quite fit everyone on a court (even when four are set up), but this time, there were a load of singles games on only three courts (I mean, yeah, it was nice to be able to play singles, but you're aware that you can only do it because other people aren't there, and that's probably illness related). At work, it's pretty typically odd. I mean, there's never a normal week where I am, in terms of if it's busy or not, or when it gets busy, if indeed it does. Lately, the weeks have been alternating between getting much better, and feeling like it wasn't worth opening up (and so much of this is filtered through my warped perspective by the way, so isn't reliable, but it is how I feel). And the main thing is that it's not foot traffic that makes work weird, but the conversational focus, you know? Just constant rabbiting... It's not getting on my nerves, as such, but it's wearing me down somehow. And then there's the shopping obviously. This, along with the cancellation of sporting events, has been one of the things that's changed my viewpoint from 'this is similar to avian/swine flu, it is being over-hyped and will not be as bad as people are saying' to 'oh shit, this is definitely worse. Even if the virus itself isn't worse, the effects on society certainly are'. So much shelf space is completely empty in shops around me. I was focussing on fresh fruit and veg on Tuesday, and there's plenty of that, but absolutely no pasta or rice, tinned soup, beans, etc gone... I even looked at normal handwash, as we are down to our last tub at home, and there was nothing. Not even bars of soap, or anything antibacterial. It is striking to look at, perhaps a fifth or a quarter of the whole place cleared out. And I can remind myself that, at the moment, I do not need these products, and if I feel 'squeezed' at all, it's only because I have been spoiled all my life, and, even when I've had no money in my account, I've had enough to see me through to payday etc. Now there's a thought in my head, though; what if people carry on in this over-buying behaviour? Like I say, it's stupid thinking. We'll cross those bridges when we get to them, and I'm sure things will stabilise soon, but I'm just in that frame of depression where paranoia pipes up a little louder than usual... And again, what about the people who aren't as lucky?

Anyway, that's all coronavirus stuff... I also wanted to talk about what I've been doing that's nice. Some of it is vegging at the minute, watching episodes of one of my favourite ever programmes, The Larry Sanders Show. Also watching a good few videos from some of my favourite YouTubers, Funhaus, Internet Comment Etiquette (thanks Alex!), and Red Letter Media mainly. They really do absorb me, and make me feel happier. There's been a lot of YouTube focus on the latest DOOM game, which both makes me yearn for an up-to-date console to play it on, and also made me re-visit the original game, which still puts the willies up me, I can tell you.

Also, connection is as important as ever, so I've been keeping in touch with as many of my friends as possible. This is another area in my life in which I am so fortunate. Many of them got in touch with me, and made me realise what a lucky fella I am, offering to get supplies for me if I can't get out and stuff. I sometimes find it hard to socialise. I don't get why, but my mind just recoils from it, or spins on and on until I distract myself with something else. In this moment, however, I feel like my time is more my own (I'm not working for a bit, nor am I doing much for my dad, as I don't want to pass anything onto him), so I feel much more comfortable dropping people lines. Silver linings, and all that jazz.

My own time... This puts me on to the most important part of all: writing. I have submitted to a new competition (quite an interesting little poem, one that ended up seeming very topical indeed), have heard word about a submission of mine from last year (not a competition at all, but a fantastic opportunity to have my work broadcast on local radio :) ), and, y'know, have been working on other stuff. Obviously I've not got my blogging down to any regularity, but I'm doing this RIGHT NOW, and blah blah blah. Reading, too, has slowed a little since those halcyon days of early January, but I'm still doing a bit! I finished Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (which will feed into a project I want to do later in the year), am carrying on with Ian McEwan's The Child in Time, have read a couple of pamphlets by Francis 'Drumming Up Poetry' Boua, have really enjoyed Sea Goat Who Screams Poetry's Twittering, Sheppard's latest sonnets, Writers' Cafe #18, Ailsa Cox's 'I Never Had a Mother', and quite a few things I can't remember because I read them in bursts from various different websites. So it all adds up, and I don't mean that in a bean-counting way, but, you know, you do feel more whole, and therefore more able to give more of yourself to your own work when you've been reading well. As a whole...

Anyway, there's actually some good news in this post. Here at Blogtastic, we can only apologise profusely for that, and assure you, dear reader, that normal, harrowing service will shortly be resumed.

Peace, love, and light,

Martin x

The Gathering - Anne Enright

Just a few thoughts on this novel that really impressed me, the author of which was recommended to me by Ailsa Cox.

A few years ago, the most disturbing book I'd read was Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. This was striking in a plottish way and, though you might want to argue that contentually  it was gratuitous, I see it as a structural archetype. The alternation between droning, asymptotic capitalism and rampant, relentless 'masculsim' [and it could be argued that it's not much of an alternation] is, well, powerful... provoking. Then I read Conrad Williams' Head Injuries, based on Nicholas Royle's advice. This is a different kettle of fish, bit more supernatural, but I found it even more disturbing. The magical potency of William's descriptions really brought the unreal to life, made me sick with anticipation and imagination [and you might say that it being set in my home town of Morecambe might make it an easier goal, but I believe I can separate my emotional vulnerability from my appraisal of authorial mastery]. Then I read The Gathering.

Enright's use of language is possibly the most disturbing, and potent, I think I've ever read, on many linguistic levels. Whether it's intentionally ambiguous sentences, odd commas, a clunky 'straight pun', jarring descriptions or insertion of song/quote/foreign language or whatever else: the effect at times, on purely language-based grounds, was really disconcerting. I felt it was the duty of all literature, especially of this calibre, to be so unsettling. It also displayed elements of the supernatural, plus a focus on the darkness of life, not just death but certain 'comedies of life' ["...five quid for a brandy in your mourning coffee..."] and the battle between truth, life and memory.

One thing I kept thinking was how great it would be as an example of literature to study. Well, maybe that's not the right thing to say necessarily, but what I mean is that it's such an example of literariness. And I'll be the first to admit that there were certain elements that left me behind in terms of their intellectualism, you know, some of the sentences had me re-read them a few times and still not quite get what was meant. But that's not a bad thing for me. It's the mix of general poeticness, of dialect, of the overall defamiliarization/terror of the words in short or long combinations that makes this novel so powerful, and a couple of 'eh?' moments didn't derail my overall understanding or enjoyment.

There's so many ways I want to praise it, and some of them are so contradictory; its lightness of touch versus its macabre close-up dissection of certain scenes; its narrator - unreliable to the point of admitting how hopeless she is at remembering whilst being so honest as to give us no choice but to like/sympathise/trust; perhaps the best observations of humanity I've ever seen [have NEVER read men written as they are in this book, and again, there's a grimly humorous total truth in her words] mixed with some speculative musings, thereby contrasting assuredness with doubt; some of the realest, most natural feelings, thoughts, reactions mixing with the surreal, the artful and the supernatural [i.e. physically manifested ghosts].

I really was so ravenous when I read it. I chowed down nearly half of it in one go which, for me, is a lot in one sitting. I'm not an entirely 'natural' reader, in the sense I just sit down and easily get through it all. The descriptions of place were enchanting - not quite in the way the Montalbano series is painted in vivid pastel, but more in the slight dourness of an inexperienced tourism office - and I have to give special mention to the way she deals with airports. Ah, just read it to find out what I mean. And the difficulty of ending such a 'journey' is inevitable, yet Enright handles this so well too.

If you've read it, I'd love to know what you think. I know it's won awards, but what do you think? Even as I'm writing about it months after I experienced it first, there's a vibrant lingering. If I wasn't reading other things, I'd be tempted to read it again. Anyway, check it out if you want. It's great.