“And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”
(--Job, by way of MOBY DICK)
I’m wondering about the way inspiration and the imagination work. Sitting on my front porch this morning, listening to the Sons of the Pioneers and drinking my morning coffee, eating my morning muffin (w/ peanut butter), I watch the squirrels and the doves and w/out reason my mind wanders and begins to wonder. Without any reason, I suddenly find myself thinking about Thomas DeQuincey and Macbeth, and Agatha Christie and Jane Marple, and the act of reading—and the importance of paying attention. These topics have been on my min for a while of late—so the fact that they are what come to mind isn’t surprising, but I do wonder: why? And why is this my morning?
I sit here with my coffee and muffin and Bob Nolan and Tim and Roy singing “The River of No Return,” or “Home in Old San Antone,” and part of my mind wanders into a little Diner w/ checkered table cloths and booths and a waitress w/ bright red cheeks and an order pad in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. She asks if I want more. I’m a regular. She knows to bring me a muffin without even asking. On the jukebox the Sons are singing “Tumbleweed Trails,” and the clatter of dishes and the aroma of sizzling bacon is bright in the air.
Then a squirrel pauses before me in search of a peanut and without a thought I am back here on my porch watching a doodle-bug travelling across the concrete—careful of the pine needles I have neglected to sweep and avoiding the fluttering threadlike legs of a tiny dead thing that flips and turns in the breeze of the porch fans. The legs are long thin spindly things—spidery or maybe the desiccated remains of a mosquito hawk withered in the heat and now waiting only to be swept away with the dust and dirt. The movement, the flipping and turning is only partial—as if something anchors the remains and keeps drawing them back to the pavement. Watching it, I begin to wonder what that anchor is. Why doesn’t this nearly weightless shriveled shell become caught in the fan’s breeze and simply blow away--off into the dirt?
And then I am wondering if it is because something is holding onto it. Perhaps an ant, trying to bring home its treasure to share with the other ants. Watching it, I wonder at this bold creature who has got hold of something beyond its control. Unwilling to let go, it—the ant—is being turned and tossed with its treasure –back and forth—buffeted by the unfathomable waves of the wind, the whipping of the air, the fan’s turning.
And suddenly I am reminded of Ahab unable to let go of the whale and how that unwillingness is his undoing. Seeming like courage, like boldness—seeming even enviable and admirable—yet to what end? Ahab is destroyed and his ship and crew lost (all but one). And what of this ant? Will it refuse to let go of its capture? Like Ahab caught by his own harpoon’s rope and dragged to a watery grave, will this ant’s courage and boldness and refusal to let go become its own end? Will it keep stirring with its treasure, stirring against the endless breeze, amidst the pine-needles and the seeming endless expanse and whiteness of the concrete? Or will it finally let go, release the giant wingless knot of legs, release the hope of some great memory—a tale of epic struggle and unwavering dedication? Release the dream of victorious hero hailed for bringing home—against all odds—the mighty mosquito hawk? And yet the fraying knot of legs continues to twist and turn and ever to drag with it whatever clings, whether for glory or out of fear of letting go, pulling it always away and then back; a victorless struggle, a futile battle, until… I rise from my chair to get a closer look glimpse this miniature Ahab at his Herculean labor and find—no ant, no bug, no legs even, just a small cluster of threadlike roots turning and twisting, rolling aside and then back again, anchored by nothing at all, merely an act of happenstance, the result of the crashing waves of the breeze from the fan’s turning.
But there I was, for a moment, mis-reading the actual finding myself carried away by my own mis-reading, whisked off to another world; bursting waves and breathless foam filling the air as my battered boat rolls and turns and twists on the roiling sea, rising, sinking, in the seething waves, every eye scanning the ever shifting horizon for the whiteness of the whale, dragged away by my own refusal to let go of the dream I had found, the commitment to that fearsome imagining, and the treasure it became.
And what does any of this have to do with DeQuincey or Macbeth or Agatha Christie and Miss Marple? Well, it may be tenuous, but allow me an attempt. For years I have heard mention of some brief essay by Thomas DeQuincey about Shakespeare’s Macbeth. On the surface, the essay deals with the strange comic interlude that falls right after the murder of Duncan: a drunken porter is awakened from his stupor by someone knocking at the gate, and he complains in a comic drunken manner about the hour, and the knocking and the bother of it all. DeQuincey found this odd little scene quite memorable and curious and ponders not so much what Shakespeare meant, or the structural importance of it, but mainly—why did it mean so much to him? And why had others seemingly not found it as memorable or troubling? And in this short essay (2-3 pages) he digresses to the topic of the imagination and understanding. It seems that part of what he is proposing is that people come to understand (and label) what Shakespeare is doing. He is providing comic relief from the horrors of the previous action, he is transitioning the action back from the nightmare of murder to the common place and every day—creating a kind of mood-tension. But, DeQuincey feels that labelling, and understanding in a kind of intellectual way, is rash and too simplistic. it misses out on the more profound reading that comes with confusion and curiosity. His conclusion is that we should not trust so quickly our understanding. Asking the question: why? and the pondering that comes with it—even the discomfort of dwelling in the not knowing-- seems to him a richer kind of reading than simply looking for the “right answer” and moving on. In other words: Don’t jump to conclusions! Let yourself be curious and uncomfortable and let yourself wonder. Let your imagination and experience be stirred by the question. Instead of jumping to conclusions or turning to the answers in the back of the book, let yourself contemplate the question and see where it takes you.
It seems to me, that the real problem with rushing to understand something, is that we can rush ourselves into a rudimentary understanding, a too simplistic understanding, and that we might stop there. Understanding something (like a book) is highly over-rated. It is a kind of achievement, a conquest of sorts. We understand it… and we might even be able to ace a multiple choice test on it. But, something is missing: an encounter…
It's like reading the SparkNotes of Moby Dick, instead of Melville’s novel. We will have a very basic knowledge, an understanding of a sort; we might know what it is “about” on a particular level (plot/theme). But we will have missed the opportunity to have of a personal relationship with Ahab and Ishmael and Queequeg and the unfathomable whiteness of Melville’s wondrous whale.
When we “understand” something, we tend to stick a pin in it and say: Done. And after that we don’t have to think about it or wonder about it anymore. We can stuff that piece of knowledge in a pigeonhole and never question it. And in time, whether it is true or not, it solidifies into something we believe is fact. That kind of thinking, understanding, is very dangerous. Especially when it becomes the way we understand “real life” and other people. That kind of understanding doesn’t allow for complexity and paradox and contradictions. It tends toward generalities, and cliches. All librarians act a certain way: hair in a bun, glasses on a chain, finger raised to their lips to hush any sound. Athletes are immature, rash and aggressive. Mechanics drink beer and never listen to opera. People from Texas like big trucks and bigger guns. New Yorkers are angry all the time. Everybody from California likes white wine and granola. All Democrats are... All Republicans... All politicians… All Catholics… Understanding the world, in this way, can blind us to the complexities of people, places, events—blind us to the facts and the wonder and the contradictions of life. This kind of understanding is like skimming a book instead of reading it. Reading deeply and slowly and intentionally teaches us to slow down and not rush to judgment. It teaches us to dwell in the discomfort of not knowing… of wondering: what’s going to happen next? it teaches us to wait and see and then to ask questions about motivation and meaning. Slow and deep reading teaches us to contemplate and to question the text, and ourselves. When you skim, when you rush to “understand,” you miss something… You miss the encounter and the wonder.
DeQuincey’s willingness to ponder and rest (for years even) in his wonder and curiosity about that one troubling scene in Macbeth, and his curiosity about it, and about why it seemed to matter so much to him, reminds me of Miss Marple (Agatha Christie’s most inspired and inspiring creation). Jane Marple is a perfect model of DeQuincey’s artful reader. She is a model of attentiveness, curiosity, and a willingness to dwell in the unknowing. She never rushes to conclusions, but always ponders what she has seen, heard, learned and allows her imagination to steep or stew in it until she arrives at the truth that is being revealed by those facts and clues.
I just finished reading The Body in the Library, one of Christie’s Miss Marple novels. I picked it up because I thought it would be a fun little vacation. Last summer I read a Poirot mystery set at a seaside resort and felt like I was there in the heat and sand and sea. This summer I would travel to rural England and a quaint little village where I could enjoy some hot tea and some cold-blooded murder. And yet, as I read, I found myself strangely stirred by Christie’s detective and her unwillingness to jump to conclusions. On the surface, the book is just a clever mystery peopled with charming characters, skillfully crafted with enough clues and plot twists to keep the reader guessing and eager to read on. In that sense, as a popular novelist, Christie is near the top. She writes what is called a “real page-turner.” But, beneath that skill and art, there is something else happening in her books. Jane Marple—the spinster detective, who sits with her tea and her knitting, unnoticed by the world—is a woman of profound psychological depth and imagining. She ponders the actualities of life, contemplates the world and the souls that dwell in it, and –in time, and with patience—fearlessly discerns and faces the truth of it all. She is the reader par excellence. Never settling for half-truths, never satisfied with appearances. She wonders about what she has seen, what she has heard, what she knows and what she doesn’t. In a sense, she is the perfect example of how we all should read, whether reading books, blogs, or life itself. She asks more questions than she tries to answer, she avoids assumptions, and prejudices, allowing herself to learn, to witness, and to be surprised by the truths that are revealed through her contemplation. That patience and curiosity isn’t just an intellectual strength, more importantly it becomes a spiritual strength. It is a courageous and saintly commitment to the truth, to see the truth, to bear witness to it—regardless of where it takes her. And this commitment to the truth, instead of hardening her to the world, gives her a depth of compassion for the people and the situations around her (even the murderers that she uncovers). Because Jane Marple knows that she doesn’t know the whole story of any single soul on earth (possibly not even her own) that gives her humility and compassion for the trials and struggles of the characters around her; like Jesus, she comes not to judge, but to illuminate.
Miss Marple is the reader I hope to become, the reader DeQuincey encourages us to become, and the reader I want my students to become. A reader for and of life. She reads actively and curiously and always seeking to discern truth. If we want to know the truth, if we want to understand the mysteries of life, the world and the people around us, then—like Ms. Christie’s detective—we need to be willing to rest in the unknowing and uncertainties and dwell in the wondering; we need to become like Miss Marple.
But we must not miss the wonder of imagining either; that is part of the pondering. We see something and we let ourselves be drawn into the wonder of it; into a kind of sympathy with it, and as we do, we will find that we are contemplating not just the sky, or the ant, the breeze, or the cluster of dried weeds, but the mystery and wonder of it all. When we allow ourselves the seeming luxury to daydream and ponder even if it is just a bit of dried grass. In time, we will discover these hours are not wasted time, but the imagination’s way of renewing itself, and discovering what it knows and what it doesn’t. Reading, daydreaming, gazing at the clouds or at a doodle-bug or an ant—it is necessary for the survival of the soul, and for the life of love—it is where the seed of inspiration takes root. Inspiration arises out of that stillness, that wonder, that confusion, even that openness to whatever might come. So yes… I am pondering inspiration, and imagination and the quiet contemplation called reading… Somehow I think it is all connected.
What are you reading these days? Miss Marple, Macbeth, Moby Dick? Or maybe a history of Hollywood’s singing cowboys… Next up for me… probably a childhood favorite: Doc Savage.
