Imported Poems

God is having a royal laugh at my expense, but since he placed a great appreciation for this literary device in me, not only do I not mind, but I am also amused.

Let me explain. "Anthony" (yes, I'll maintain ambiguity and delete selected blogs to avoid a paper-trail) inspired "The Life and Times of Jules Vercini", and like a devoted writer, I spent a great deal of time studying "Anthony" in order to create a character out of him within a fictional setting.

Part of the great irony of the book is the fact that Anthony and Jules are so similiar in their dispositions, that Anthony's personal decisions reflect Jules personal decisions (or is it the other way around?) in the second half of the book.

But apparently God was not pleased to stop here. Who would have known he'd throw it right back at me?

"Anthony is Steven, one of three sons ...Superficially it’s an unrewarding part, because he spends most of the time looking wan and saying little but that he’s “fine”, but an important one. He’s a teacher who hasn’t only abandoned the novel he was writing but has lost his old fire and ire. In his aloof, broken way he’s the most troubling proof of Storey's thesis: that education and social mobility can damage the heart as well as open the mind."

"But through Steven, Storey nails the traumatised rootlessness that comes from feeling one's life has no significance....Anthony lends Steven exactly the right sense of haunted taciturnity and withdrawn moodiness."

So, he's playing an introverted teacher, writer, moody and quiet, hopeless and full of despair. Hmm. Wonder where he got his "inspiration" from...

...on another note, I read and love this poem by Lord Byron. He's my soulmate and I am Azriel Abyss (for those who watch Sat Night Live). I should've been born in the 18th century!

SOLITUDE

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!