At school, Alan Garner was expected to study T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste land’, which he considered to be
“inept, pretentious and obscure”.
The class were set the task of
“ ….composing something that expressed our appreciation of its genius.
My first thought was to refuse. But that would be too negative and would leave me open to the charge of insensitivity. So I wrote a parody to expose the farce. It was published, without any consultation of my feelings, in the school magazine.”
Apparently, The Powers That Be didn’t ‘get it’!
Today, a student given a similar task could use A.I. to do it for them
…though the end product would be unlikely to be anything like as good as Alan Garner’s – for so many reasons!
And here’s my relevant powsel (or thrum)
I did a ‘Four Romantic Writers‘ course at University, the four being Blake, Shelley, Keats and Hazlitt. I consider Hazlitt to be un-readable, and said so. The Course Tutor set me an essay, thinking that I’d have to read the text. I began my essay
“ In 1789 Hazlitt was born, and the French Revolution began.”
I then wrote a non-sense piece, connecting those two events as though the French were so incensed by the existence of such a dreary writer, they rose up and revolted.
My Tutor was good-humoured about it, but pointed out that I was potentially cutting out a quarter of my chances of passing that course. I said I’d take my chances. I did, and I got my Degree. Not a particularly good Degree, but that didn’t matter to me as I had no plans to become an Academic.
The moral is….if you consider someone to be un-readable – you don’t have to read them. My response to folk who gripe about what I write!
By the way, I agree with Mr. G. about ‘The Wasteland’ – it’s a load of words, thrown together somewhat randomly. To me, it’s the literary equivalent of Jazz – a load of notes wandering about trying to take form as a tune.
Alan presents the reader with ‘Feel Free’, a short story he had published in 1966.
An ancient dish in a Museum – a young man is allowed to hold it – he notices a thumb-print of the person who made it……. and that it’s the same as his own thumb-print, however ‘impossible’ that might be on the face of it, as thumb and finger-prints are completely individual.
I recently posted the following on my Facebook page
“What’s in a name……
I was thinking…I’ve had three surnames…..
Roper for 25 years, from when I was born until my first marriage.
Morgan of 13 years until changing my name on my second marriage. For some reason it feels un-real that I was ever called Morgan – I don’t know why, but it does.
Then Bell for 33 years. Bernie Bell suits me. BB.
But over-all, when it come done to it, I’m just me.
Maybe represented by a symbol like Prince did, and the members of Led Zeppelin? No – not a symbol either – just – me…”
After the text, I was going to put an image of my thumb-print as something that is me and only me. Mike painted my thumb green and I attempted to make my mark. Nothing.
I looked and realized that I have hardly any thumb or fingerprints. I could have been a burglar! What a waste.
The paint wouldn’t wash off, so I had a green thumb for a few days. I suppose it’s fair enough as I do have a ‘green thumb’ in the gardening sense
Powsels and Thrums.
Lives, lived.
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