♦Lisa Cohen’s book. Apparently Esther Murphy’s father scorned the children because they would not be able to repeat his trajectory, having been born at a different time. The family climate was a “miasma of depression and fear of withdrawn favor.” (29)
♦ That entire issue of RQ where Hart’s article on Vallejo as optical illusion (a text I now have open) appeared, contains other articles which will add fuel to the fire of demystification to which I am at present subjecting his person.
In Hart’s piece we are reminded it was Xavier Abril who proposed the syphilis theory of Vallejo’s death, to which Georgette responded with the malarial one (and that I find the most logical). Others have suggested tuberculosis, too, but I do not see how. Hart also suggests that the reason for so much confusion about the birth date is that Vallejo was hiding from Peruvian authorities; this explains why his passport says f.n. 6 VI 1893 and Georgette believes it (he told her it was true). Another major optical illusion are his texts themselves, upon whose edition Georgette had such an influence that we are seeing them through “una neblina Georgettiana.” Hart also suggests that if Vallejo projected himself as mysterious it was because he actually saw himself as a mystery or a ghost. I want to read the other articles.
♦What is the Romantic (and I guess the realist) novel about? Writing that I was able to remember how I was going to answer that question years ago: ORIGINS. I was going to use Marthe Robert’s book, now old, Roman d’origines / Origines du roman. And notice how in her other work, she also tolerates fractured subjectivity and even thinks it is good. Maybe this will help me contest the Doris Sommer thesis or add to it. The thing is that we all behave as though the first interesting thing said on this matter that we know of — Sommer’s — were the last. Is it?
♦Weekend activities of the other members of the art studio: going offshore to finish drilling; deer hunting with modern rifles; deer hunting with “primitive” (19th century) rifles; skeet shooting; church. Yes, I am in a foreign culture.
♦Teaching materials on slavery from the Zinn Project. People here say they had nothing to do with slavery and therefore do not have to think about it.
♦I understand them since do not want to think about academic work, or focus on it directly, because I am afraid I will not be able to control, direct, or sort the faucet of thoughts if I just let it go on. Reeducated ideas must stay out, but they come with writing, and are disabling, so I cannot teach easily, which is a bad thing — and to forestall that, I compromise by writing in secret notebooks. I am about to try to coordinate all the notes and write like a grownup so I am terrified. What if Reeducation comes back? On the other hand, what if I do? Life will be much easier then. Clearly one of the Cameron lessons I need involves “the recovery of a sense of safety.”
♦Scheduling life in Maringouin: more of this is required here than anywhere else I have lived. Where the atmosphere is happier and there is more to do, it is easy to just get up and work. I expect to be able to take breaks to do interesting things whenever I want to but here everything must be heavily planned or what there is, you miss. On the other hand work has to be cancelled on the few days of good weather because there are so few and if you do not take them, you must wait until the following year. I am still not used to this but it is true and it must be taken into account. I will now schedule heavily, especially during vacation, and never deviate, even though I am so naturally organized that that kind of rigidity seems excessive.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 