I am cocky

I thought it was windy on Tuesday when I took my exercise; I didn’t realize I was running along the edge of a hurricane. No wonder there were moments when I was blown across the sidewalk. And later, when I returned home from work, I was the only pedestrian for miles. Such moments offer a peculiar, lonely satisfaction: I’ve outlasted everyone; I’ve won.

Last week I covered fifty-six miles outside, on foot. It was no special effort. It’s becoming normal.

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With Cat, my neighbor, I saw A River Runs Through It: a movie about fathers and sons. The son shows his writing to his father; the father praises it, then highlights every error. That was kind, said Cat. That’s what I do all day long, I told her; that’s my job. Showing people how stupid they are, said Cat.

That amused me: it was accurate. Well, I said, I manage to do it with some tact.

Gradually I’ve amassed a sort of clientele: students who hope to be tutored specifically by me. I suppose that deep down, I wish to outperform the other tutors. But I try to concentrate on other things. Before I go in to work, I pray that I might show my students and colleagues the love of Christ. Then I put that out of mind, and until a student approaches, I try to focus on Agatha Christie, or upon the problems in my life. And when I’m finally asked to tutor, I’m able to give the student my full, bemused attention. The trick is to coax the student into sharing that bemusement. Usually it works.

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What’s your name? said one student. It’s not just Paul.

It’s John-Paul.

I don’t want to forget your name, she said.

I will forget yours, I told her. I see hundreds of students; I don’t remember all of them. And I don’t expect them to remember me.

They will remember you, she said.

She told me she wanted to become a social studies teacher, Lord willing. Lord willing indeed. That job is hard to obtain. She wasn’t stupid, not at all, but she was a college senior who still had serious trouble writing. My heart was aching for her.

Usually my feelings are more triumphant. In this small arena, I’m the unquestioned expert. I bask in the students’ awe and gratitude. My confidence is unchecked: it shines, and the students photosynthesize some of it for themselves. I take pleasure in explaining, in being the one who’s able to explain. I’m discovering that this job really winds my clock.

Jane Eyre, pt. 3

And so I’ve reached the end of Jane Eyre, which I began reading in January. In March, I remarked upon Mr Rochester’s “marvelous ferocity.” Now here’s someone worth knowing, I thought. But I expected his brutal way of speaking would be tamed by love.

Fortunately I was wrong. Love embraced it:

I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

And so I (JP) was treated to a stimulating ping-pong match: Rochester slamming and spinning with all his force; Jane neutralizing each blow, often with a mere “Yes, sir” or “No, sir”: these artless, artful utterances causing Rochester to stagger. Jane says “Master” and “Sir” to Rochester knowing that she owns him; and when she says “I love you” it’s the freshest sentence in the world.

There are other interesting competitions in the book, not least the one between heavenly and earthly pursuits. But the novel’s greatest achievement is its depiction of two true originals and their delight in one another.

(And yet I worry that outside of fiction, this ping-pong match would be unsustainable. Over time, would sour words continue to excite? Or would they inevitably corrode?)

Spain, pt. 386: On tackling

This is from my brother Stephen:

Xabi Alonso on English soccer:

There is a pause as Alonso reaches, again, the crux of the issue. A single English word he returns to that, unpacked, analysed and investigated, explains much. “I don’t think tackling is a quality,” he says. “It is a recurso, something you have to resort to, not a characteristic of your game. At Liverpool I used to read the matchday programme and you’d read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They’d ask: age, heroes, strong points, etc. He’d reply: ‘Shooting and tackling.’ I can’t get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play. How can that be a way of seeing the game? I just don’t understand football in those terms. Tackling is a [last] resort, and you will need it, but it isn’t a quality to aspire to, a definition. It’s hard to change because it’s so rooted in the English football culture, but I don’t understand it.”

The tackle is perhaps the greatest expression of an English conception of the game — physical, epic, emotional. By definition, reactive. …

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Come to think of it, what is the Ecuadorian word for tackling? I’m not sure. The behavior lacks referential magnetism.

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So it goes for soccer — and for religion — and for romance more generally. Fleeing solipsism, we embed ourselves into those narratives which seem most universal, only to discover, bitterly, that the tropes which are most sacred to us are widely disregarded or despised: not just by foreign interpreters, but also by our colleagues, and even by our loved ones.

There are some who are shocked or saddened because I’m not fond of Lent or Christmas; and I pity those who can’t sense that a backpass may be performed simply to sustain a pleasing rhythm.

The game against Venezuela

Ecuador and Venezuela scored one goal apiece.

(Video)

Before the game, when it was time for the Venezuelans to perform our anthem, they performed the anthem of Mexico … jackasses.

(Video)

We’re second in South America, nipping at Argentina’s heels, well on pace to reach the World Cup. This was our last qualifier of the year. Our next qualifier will be contested in March.

Pink socks.

The game against Chile

By now you surely know that Ecuador defeated Chile, 3 goals to 1. These were the most important plays.

On Facebook the nation’s mood was generous. The Football Federation took a poll: Who was our best player? And in comment after comment, Ecuadorians replied: Everyone played well. Even the Hormiga Paredes played well, despite his autogolazo. (No Chilean was able to score.)

But if one player was commended more than the others, it was Felipe Caicedo, our prodigal son. After having suffered a 14-month banishment, he’s returned to score four goals in three games.

Our next qualifier, in Venezuela, will be played tomorrow — Tuesday — at 6:00pm (U.S. Eastern Time). Pray for Ecuador to win.

Alas, Caicedo has been suspended.

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Readers in your twenties: find this book. I wish I had. My twenties were 10 times tougher than my teens. This book explains why.

There’s still hope for you. But not for me. Now that I’m thirty, my personality is set, and I’m doomed.

Columbus Day

I almost forgot!

What: World Cup qualifier, Ecuador vs. Chile.

Where: Quito.

When: TODAY !!! (Friday) at 5:00pm, U.S. Eastern Time.

Pray for Ecuador to win.

Antonio Valencia, our best player, has been suspended. But some fine Chileans will be absent as well.

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[Edit:] In Ecuador, today is El Día de la Raza; and where I am, in this empire of rugged individualists, it’s Columbus Day.

For years I searched the Internet for one particular comic strip, and never found it. But here it is, thanks to my brother Stephen:

This is just perfect.

Voss

Excerpts from Voss, chs. 3 and 4:

Men are necessary, but are they not also, perhaps, tedious? Una Pringle debated.

Una and Laura began to extricate themselves.

‘Woburn McAllister, the one who has been telling about the worms, is the owner of a property that many people consider the most valuable in New South Wales,’ Una remembered, and cheered up. ‘He must, by all accounts, be exceedingly rich.’

‘Oh,’ said Laura.

Sometimes her chin would take refuge in her neck; it could sink low enough, or so it felt. …

Laura listened to Voss’s feet following her shame in soft, sighing sand. Una did look round once, but only saw that German who was of no consequence.

‘And such a fine fellow. Quite unspoilt,’ said Una, who had listened a lot. ‘Of excellent disposition.’

‘I cannot bear so much excellence,’ Laura begged.

‘Why Laura, how funny you are,’ said Una.

But she did blush a little, before remembering that Laura was peculiar. There is nothing more odious than reserve, and Una knew very little of her friend. But for the fact that they were both girls, they would have been in every way dissimilar. Una realized that she always had disliked Laura, and would, she did not doubt, persist in that dislike, although there was every reason to believe they would remain friends.

‘You take it upon yourself to despise what is praiseworthy in order to appear different,’ protested the nettled Una. ‘I have noticed this before in people who are clever.’

‘Oh dear, you have humbled me,’ Laura Trevelyan answered simply.

‘But Miss Pringle is right to admire such an excellent marriage party as Mr McAllister,’ contributed Voss, drawing level.

Shock caused the two girls to drop their personal difference.

‘I was not thinking of him as exactly that,’ Una declared.

Although, in fact, she had been. Lies were not lies, however, if told in the defence of honour.

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‘I think that I can enter into the minds of most men,’ said the young woman [Laura], softly. ‘At times. An advantage we insect-women enjoy is that we have endless opportunity to indulge the imagination as we go backwards and forwards in the hive.’

‘And in my instance, what does your imagination find?’ [said Voss.]

He was laughing, of course, at the absurdity of that which he expected to be told. But he would have liked to hear practically anything.

‘Shall we go a little?’ he invited.

‘Walking in the darkness is full of dangers.’

‘It is not really dark. When you are accustomed to it.’

Which was true. The thick night was growing luminous. At least, it was possible almost to see, while remaining almost hidden.

The man and woman were walking over grass that was still kindly beneath their feet. Smooth, almost cold leaves soothed their faces and the backs of their hands.

‘These are the camellia bushes Uncle planted when he first came here as a young man,’ Laura Trevelyan said. ‘There are fifteen varieties, as well as sports. This one here is the largest,’ she said, shaking it as if it had been an inanimate object; it was so familiar to her, and now so necessary. ‘It is a white, but there is one branch that bears those marbled flowers, you know, like the edges of a ledger.’

‘Interesting,’ he said.

But it was an obscure reply, of a piece with the spongy darkness that surrounded them.

‘Then you are not going to answer my question?’ he asked.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that silly claim I made! Although, to a certain extent, it is true.’

‘Tell me, then.’

‘Everyone is offended by the truth, and you will not be an exception.’

That it would take place, they both knew now.

Consequently, when she did speak, the sense of inevitability that they shared made her sound as if she were reading from a notebook, only this one was her head, in which her memorandum had been written, in invisible ink, that the night had breathed upon; and as she read, or spoke, it became obvious to both that she had begun to compile her record from the first moment of their becoming acquainted.

‘You are so vast and ugly,’ Laura Trevelyan was repeating the words; ‘I can imagine some desert, with rocks, rocks of prejudice, and, yes, even hatred. You are so isolated. That is why you are fascinated by the prospect of desert places, in which you will find your own situation taken for granted, or more than that, exalted. You sometimes scatter kind words or bits of poetry to people, who soon realize the extent of their illusion. Everything is for yourself. Human emotions, when you have them, are quite flattering to you. If those emotions strike sparks from others, that also is flattering. But most flattering, I think, when you experience it, is the hatred, or even the mere irritation of weaker characters.’

‘Do you hate me, perhaps?’ asked Voss, in darkness.

‘I am fascinated by you,’ laughed Laura Trevelyan, with such candour that her admission did not seem immodest. ‘You are my desert!’

Once or twice their arms brushed, and he was conscious of some extreme agitation or exhilaration in her.

‘I am glad that I do not need your good opinion,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s opinion!’

He was surprised at the vehemence of feeling in this young girl. In such circumstances, repentance, he felt, might have been a luxury. But he did not propose to enjoy any such softness. Besides, faith in his own stature had not been destroyed.

He began to bite his nails in the darkness.

On the ownership of books

Your ambition in life should be to have libraries and libraries of Voss.

[My brother David]

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Sabby — Sam & Abby — are the most agreeable couple I have met. Some weeks ago I hosted them in my apartment for beans and rice, and then obliged them to carry away half a dozen Agatha Christies.

A week later, they told me how much they’d been enjoying those books.

I gloated about this to David. “They accepted my Agatha Christies and have been reading and enjoying them!”

“Of course they have been,” said David. “Sabby are agreeable. There is nothing they don’t enjoy.”

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Last night we again discussed that couple.

“What books of mine are in your apartment?” said David.

“A considerable number of Agatha Christies,” I told him. “You were saying how eager you were to repossess them.”

“I was saying how eager I was to burn them,” David said. “I suffer from the cold: I need kindling for the fire.”

“You were desiring to read them,” I said. “Your interest in them is keen. Recall also that Sabby have been enjoying those books.”

“What Sabby enjoy is Phantastes,” said David, changing the subject. “I’ve read much of that, on Sabby’s recommendation.”

“I own Phantastes — the Dover edition. Do you have the Dover edition?”

“No,” said David, “I don’t own that book. The copy which I read was Sabby’s. But yes, Dover was the publisher.”

There was a pause, pregnant with fellow-feeling. And then I said:

“Isn’t it a solace to find a friend with whom to discuss the variegated editions of books?”