Adjectiveless prose of everyday life

Sometimes I detest the way I’ve crafted this journal into a thing of one dimension. I want to broaden its perspectives. I abandoned the unlined format idea because I couldn’t throw over 3½ years of continuity. I’ve been flirting with the idea of two or more books on the go at once, one for this level-headed sober write of old, the other for a far freer and less inhibited style of expression. What is this endless narrative? Too often it’s clouded by the miseries of fatigue, boredom, lack of inspiration, etc. The very idea of what this journal is is strangling me.

The irony! Defeated by a tradition I’ve created for myself.

I’m striving to achieve some kind of purpose, but even now, as the words form coldly at the tip of my pen, I don’t grasp their depth fully; I can only do this at those times when I’m inspired, and those times come so rarely nowadays. Perhaps I’m thinking too hard. This ritual of writing, writing, writing should be aiding me in my search, but there’s too much mundane particularity. What I’m trying to say in so many words is that the structure of the thing is stagnating the content; it’s too inflexible and chained to the prose logic of chronological description. I can feel the certainty of what I know I’m saying slipping away from me even now.

Example: what happened at Colin Pasmore’s tutorial is immaterial—an idea attracted me for a while, I found something momentarily fascinating, something provoked by Pasmore’s comments and I flirted with the fantasy of constructing prose theories on this foundation of an idea—stories and poems, looping reoccurrences and echoing torrents of adjectiveless prose of everyday life . . . The opening paragraphs of A Farewell To Arms illustrate this perfectly. It took the glib environment of tutorial ‘discussion’ to bring me to the above.

This narrative seems to either be a limited chronologue of life’s moments (lists of names and places and events), or an inward exploratory delve divorced from external context. Can I resolve the two in one form?

How?

Hasty

Today’s American Lit. tutorial was slightly less of a bind than I’d feared. Our discussion of Hemingway was interesting, and it was actually more of a real discussion than the usual monologue by Colin Pasmore. . . .

My judgment of Hemingway was a little hasty. I don’t think I fully appreciated what he was trying to do with the repetitious prose looping back on itself, reemphasizing the same images and words over and over again.

Colourations of the mind

Barry, Lee and I went back to Pouncey’s in the early hours of this morning and loaded the rest of the subsistence foods into our bags. We made two visits, and when Pete came back from Castle Mount Court with Mo, they both made a trip as well. I’ve got enough food to last me several weeks, perhaps even until the end of term if I’m very careful, and certainly enough soaps & talcum powder, etc., to take me through to the summer. For some reason we were very nervy this second time, as if something was about to go wrong. We’ve now virtually emptied the shelves in that shop and got around £150-worth of goods. I got to bed at 4.30 a.m.

Today I’ve struggled with the beginnings of an essay on A Farewell To Arms. Sometimes I doubt whether I deserve the support Mum and Dad give me; if I put in commitment to my ‘studies’ here then I should have a first no problem. As it is, I think I’ll be lucky to get a third.

My attitude is the problem: for example, before Watermouth, I’d frequently search the libraries and bookshops for a copy of Thoreau’s Walden, but when it was assigned for my major a few terms ago here and I knew I had to read it and look at it critically, I struggled to find the motivation to even pick it up, let alone finish it. Is it some chronic mental malaise? This attitude is like a cancer, clouding my perceptions. Sometimes I feel so frustrated and imprisoned by circumstances that I can’t bring myself to sit and settle on one thing. I find it hard to rationalise these moods, feelings and colourations of the mind, & force myself to write about them.

Barry’s Mum and Dad and sister came down to Watermouth this afternoon. He met them in town and they came round here to see the flat. Just Lee and I were in, and we were quite amused by Barry’s obvious unease and embarrassment as his Mum, fur-clad and showy, discussed tea-towels and mug-trees. . . . I wouldn’t like my parents to see this place; they’d be shocked at the shabbiness and air of decay, which living here immunizes you against.

When his Mum saw the kitchen shelves overflowing with obviously newly acquired jars of jam, honey, lemon curd, tins of celery soup, and Vesta curries, etc., she seemed pleased that Barry was “eating well.”

John Turney turned up as we watched the F.A. Cup tie between Brighton and Liverpool live on TV. He seemed to want to be ‘muckers’ again (as Del would say) and held himself in check, but by the evening the John of old was pushing through again. Brighton beat Liverpool 2-0 (two goals in one minute) and could be at Wembley again. I like to see the big clubs go out of the Cup.

At ten o’clock Gareth, Stu, Lindsey and Susie called round and we all went out for a drink to the Westdorgan. They have moved in to a house five minutes from us on Westdorgan Road. We went for a look at the place after the pub, a claustrophobic building of narrow stairwells and landings. The décor didn’t help, all garish reds and blues and clashing patterns, giving everything a two-dimensional feel, but the rooms are large and clean and comfortable and it’s only costing them £17.50 a week each.

Lindsey came back from the IFM demo early: the snow and Leon Brittan’s ban on marches in South Yorkshire complicated things, although she sounded to have enjoyed it. She seems to be growing sure of herself, politically speaking. I remember our mutual doubts at the last IFM conference a year ago. In this—as in all other things—she and I seems aeons apart.

It’s scarcely credible that things happened the way they did and the era of Wollstonecraft Hall is another age away. I can’t allow myself the luxury of thinking about her in that way anymore—if I did, I’d be just as susceptible to her quiet charms as ever, so he less I see of her, the easier it is for me, or at least, that’s the way it appears. I fantasize about her often enough, and tonight’s contact, brief as it was, triggered plenty of echoes inside.

I’m playing Stanley Clarke’s Journey To Love as I write this. It reminds me of those long ago days at home with Andrew, before he went to college, those hot evenings baking in my bedroom, watching the sun set beyond Knowlesbeck and listening to records.

Back then the future seemed a little like those sunsets, bright and hopeful: there are more clouds now.

Strong determination and access to liquids

I didn't get to bed until six a.m.

We carried out another daring raid, this time on Pouncey's mini-supermarket across the road. It’s been empty for weeks and the sight of the shelves stocked up with tinned foods lying idle started us planning last week. We made one abortive attempt to jemmy the back door with Lee's crow bar a few days ago, making a lot of noise and mess in the process, so this time we went prepared.

Lee’d bought a glass cutter and plunger and did the job professionally, scoring a diagonal line across one corner of the kitchen window and forcing it until the grass cracked along the score-mark. From then on it was an easy job to reach inside, open the window and climb through. Del and Barry brought across a suitcase, rucksacks and various holdalls, and Pete, Lee and I hurriedly loaded these up from the well-stocked shelves. We even had time to browse.

Lee and I went back inside a second-time, accompanied by Del and Barry and got a second lot. We had a scare when a newspaper delivery van pulled up across the road and parked there for long, nerve-racking minutes with engine idling. Tension reached fever-pitch before finally the van drove away.

Oddly enough, there was no fear, just excitement and nervous energy. I imagine we’d be almost blasé about it if we were caught. I don't think there are many places which would defeat Lee. He has become an expert. This haul eases my bankrupt position at the moment. Ironically, although I've been consumed with hunger the last few days, as soon as I had all this food available, my hunger vanished and I just went through the motions of eating. This confirms my suspicion that many of our gut reactions are purely physiological and can be conquered with the correct mental attitude. Strong determination and access to liquids could take you a long way in a prolonged fast, and I want to test this when the time is right.

When I got up at three o'clock this afternoon, Del had gone back to Milton Keynes. He couldn’t stand the chaos of his situation without any money, and so his parents came down to pick him up. John Turney hasn't shown his face since the conflagration of the other night, and he has been round at Ade's place testing out the attitude toward him here.

I've fallen behind with my work again. I should hand in two essays on Monday. Why do I allow myself to fall into these traps? I finished A Farewell To Arms today and I thought it was quite good, although not as impressive as I'd expected it to be. I don't know what I thought I’d find.

I've also written to Grant inviting him down here whenever he cares to come, and Dad finally replied to my long overdue letter of last week.

Farewell to arms

The entire country as far south as London is covered in deep snow, yet we've escaped with rain to date. I like that novel feeling of newness and the world being different after it’s snowed, the white landscape beyond the windows somehow dwarfing the usual day to day concerns of the scurriers in the snow . . .

I read Hemingway throughout the afternoon while the others played cards and watched snooker on TV in the front room. Weather wet, with intermittent sun, cars splashing through the rain, the noise of kids on their way home from school.

At 4 p.m., Lee and I walked down to the Wickbourne Road to Old John's fleamarket to buy a brass camping stove for £4 but it was closed. I fantasise about moving into a place on my own, so I'll be protected from my own weaknesses—not have a TV, just a radio and my books and records . . .