Quite the whirlwind, these past few days. Took off on Thursday and headed up to Delaware. We borrowed my father-in-law’s truck and towed a U-Haul trailer, following our daughter. We had to go a little slower because of the trailer, so what looked like a reasonable 12-hour drive turned into something quite a bit longer. Pulled into Newark late, crashed into bed, then got up Friday and moved her into the shared-space apartment. Finished quickly, rested, grabbed dinner, then turned around and headed home the next day. Sunday was two masses and an afternoon of altar-server training. Father took the younger group through the main positions during Mass. I took the older, more experience crew to the chapel to run through Exposition/Benediction. Dash back home, family dinner, tidy the house, and collapse into bed.
And now, welcome to Monday.
The household is one more kid lighter. The spaces and silences left behind will take some getting used to, though between phone calls and texting (including a separate dedicated group chat for a daily picture of the cat), we hope to stay more or less in-the-loop. The next departure will be #2 Son, who is getting married in October. By year-end, we’ll be down to three kids at home, which is a situation we haven’t seen in a long, long time. I keep thinking that things will calm down, but sometimes I sort of doubt it.
The Prisoner certainly has a different sort of vibe than the rest of the story so far. I’m enjoying it. Not really sure what Albertine sees in this guy, except maybe the apartment in Paris, all the gifts, and so forth. The translator’s introduction points out the general impossibility of the whole scenario: an unmarried middle-class girl living with an un-related man, so the whole things takes on the flavor of a thought-experiment. Another mystery: how, exactly, does this guy pay for all this? He’s not a writer beyond small things for Figaro, desperately searching the daily issues for his recent submissions. Inherited wealth from his father? The largess of friends? It’s not explained yet, so I guess it’s not important. Focus on the petri dish, not what else is on the table.
Trying to sort out the Narrator’s motives is occasionally maddening, but I think he gives away most of the game during an extended meditation about what he thinks he’s missing by keeping Albertine around at all. He imagines all the possibilities, all the assignations he could make with (literally) every young woman he passes, every shop-girl or dairy-maid. The endless worlds within them, and with them - it’s all he can stand. It’s the desire for desire which captivates him. He only wants Albertine when she’s not there, when he believes she’s somewhere else, secretly carrying on with someone else. The moment he imagines her in the arms of another, or even just somewhere else where he can’t see her, she regains the mystery of Balbec and he’s on fire or consumed by jealousy once again. In his apartment, or even in his bed, not so much.
Is she playing him, like Odette and Charles? Part of me wants to think so. It would give her some agency in this whole weird thing. I think part of him does to, in all honesty. As this is still a read-in-progress so perhaps all is revealed at some point. In the meanwhile, our hearts are restless O Lord.
En route: Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. I would like to read more John Crowley, having recently learned of his passing. Little, Big is a gorgeously-written book. His Aegypt books come highly recommended but several of the volumes seem to be out of print at the moment; used copies are fetching a pretty penny.
The hot weather continues. I think the “Feels like” temperature got to 130 today. Yikes.
…men are all dried up because the dog star parches their heads and knees and the heat sears their skin. Then, ah then, I wish you a shady ledge and your choice wine. — Hesiod