Bradbury Prescription Day 4: Frost, Bradbury, Huxley
POEM FROST: LOVE AND A QUESTION
This one was interesting. I had to read it twice to follow what was happening. Most critiques that I have read on this poem consider that Frost is talking about two different types of love. Romantic love for the man's wife and love for fellow man. I agree with that, but I can also find a humorous message about the nature of man as a sexual being. Frost is talking about sex, people. Not just any sex, either. He's talking about wedding night sex. Spoilers follow.
This dude and his new wife are in their honeymoon cabin when a stranger knocks on the door and asks for help, as he is cold and hungry.
A STRANGER came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair...
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.
So, basically the stranger is looking really pitiful and needs a place to crash. On any other night, this guy may have been in luck and counted on the kindness of others. But there was booty to be had.
Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart's desire.
The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.
Cue the Isaac Hayes music. The wife is bent over the fire. She's flushed. She wants to consummate the marriage. What, oh what, is this husband to do? Quite a dilemma.
Not being a total ass, he decides to throw the guy some bread, say a prayer and send him on his way.
The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;
This is why I love picking apart these poems. Such beautiful language can often hide something more devious, or, at the least, more humorous. Good guy husband. I wonder what the conversation was like when he went back inside to his wife.
Short Story: Collier - Three bears Cottage
Wow. What a dysfunctional couple Henry and Ella are. Henry retired at forty to study nature and I believe that Ella really resents that. The story starts by the two of them arguing over an egg. And well, in the immortal words of Ron Burgandy, "That escalated quickly."
The husband "hatches" (see what I did there?) a scheme to murder his beloved and it doesn't really go according to plan. I won't ruin the details for those who have not read it. What I really want to focus on is the mastery displayed here by John Collier. He took a simple story that started off as a squabble over an egg to heightened tension. A story does not have to be fantastical to be fantastic.
ESSAY: Huxley - On Essays
I continue to be impressed by Huxley's nonfiction writing. Here, he basically defends his essays on literature with the best reasoning I have ever encountered. When others ask why pursue something as trivial as literature study, Huxley responds with boredom.
Yep. People get bored, so why not.
Ennui is a haunting terror. At any cost we must escape the anguish of being bored, we must find something to fill our leisure...
Thus, we might devote our leisure to reading higher mathematics or philosophy... But, oh! the agony of trying to think abstractedly, the pain of long-continued mental concentration!
I do sense a hint of sarcasm here. However, this resonated with me because of something that Ray Bradbury said on writing. I'm paraphrasing here. He essentially said that he'd never worked a day in his life, that fiction writing is NOT serious business, and that if you have to work at it, you are not writing the right stuff. If you get blocked up, your brain is telling you "To hell with this!"
I find it interesting that Huxley is alluding to the same thing in the form of literary notes. It is a reminder for myself and any other person who takes up the pen in pursuit of fiction, and maybe some nonfiction as well. It is a lesson I could do well to remember next time I am agonizing over editing when I haven't even finished the draft.
