“ Explicitness is almost always, in the end, pornography … ”

… writes Theodore Dalrymple, in his wonderfully intelligent review of The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir. As is the case in nearly all interesting reviews, the book at hand provides a springboard for the reviewer’s own thinking. Not that Dalrymple introduces much that is new to this reader, not at her ripe old age, which—sigh—in thinking years, must be at least 180. But there is that semi-(quasi?) erotic delight in finding the world, the ideas of the world, remade anew by the clarity that is genius and the special twist of thinking that lifts idea to art.

Finding life anew, that seems to be the main thing. Only the methodology changes, and with it, at last, much more realistic chances of success. When one leaves behind the considerable allure of Hopeless Love. Not but what it’s wrenching, tell the truth. But the accoutrements with which one then begins to furnish a life, those fine little fires twice warm the self. Rather like cutting your own wood.

Take this line from Dalrymple. Take it and clasp it to the area of your heart, if you would protect against the great loss, the democratic diminishment of experience.

” … there should always be things that cannot be said in polite company. This is not prudery: it is prudence, for only thus can the most valuable of human experiences be preserved.”

My life is not better without him. Got it? There is no way to philosophize this loss. Ten years. There hasn’t been one minute particularly improved by his absence. He was, probably still is, the most brilliant writer I’ve ever read. Brilliant on the surface of his lines and brilliant from way down deep, the way a light might shine up from the bottom of the sea. Luminous. You’ll never read him now. His letter said he’s been putting his poems in a drawer. It’s simply that I miss him, and I would be insane not to. So I am listening to Kiko—in bits and pieces—for the first time since nineteen ninety-five. Except for the time Angel Face came on, in a shop in San Anselmo, and I had to leave, or faint or throw up. Because love is loss, because life doesn’t offer you replacement parts. What it offers are unromantic things, like the songs you loved each other by, are going to make you puke. Hence best avoided. I plan on avoiding them forever—easily done. One by one, I’ve let back into my life the music that meant something to me. Los Lobos, sad to say, I can nicely live without—and there it is, the two-part move: Simply Accept. Read the rest of this entry »