The Year of Not Sleeping (4)

One day, fairly soon, I expect, I will listen to a doctor tell me my results, and I will ask “How long have I got?” and the doctor will probably hedge his or her bets. (How long is a piece of string? that kind of thing.) So I will provide some helpful context- “long enough to read Homer, War and Peace, Ulysses? Before you answer, it might help if I tell you that my copy of War and Peace has 1317 pages; Ulysses 783; The Iliad 594; The Odyssey 474.” (In fact, I have more than one translation of Homer, but I had better leave that out; it would needlessly complicate the question.) In a civilised world, the doctor would get there first- “How long have you got? Ah, you know, long enough to read Dante, shall we say; the entire Commedia, I mean, not just Inferno.” Of course, we don’t live in a civilised world, but there should be some NICE* guidelines available- for example, ‘Jane Austen’ means 6 months or less, ‘Shakespeare’ 1 year, ‘Thomas Mann’** 5 years, ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’- you’ll probably outlive me.

If the doctor says “Time enough for a few haiku”, he or she should not be surprised if the patient bursts into tears. NICE guidelines recommend having the Clinical Nurse Specialist present during these sensitive discussions. The CNS should have at least a first degree in Literature and/or have published either a novel or a volume of poetry.

When I retired from work, a nice woman gave a nice speech saying how good I had been at my job and how much I would be missed, and she added “And now you’ll be able to read all those books you haven’t had time for”. She was right about that, except that one of life’s tragedies is that there isn’t time to read all the books. It is said that Coleridge was the last man to have read everything, and he died in 1834. Time is running out, and I haven’t or have hardly read Victor Hugo, Nabokov, Zola, to name just a few. And don’t talk about living writers! Hundreds, thousands of the buggers, and probably 99% of them unread by me. Unheard of, even. The shame, the shame!

    Living poets are needed
    If only to write elegies for the dead ones

*National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. In USA, ICER (The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review) is similar but not the same.

**Thomas Mann’s Joseph und seine Brüder runs to 1492 pages. Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities) has 1774. It is, God help us! an ‘unfinished’ novel!

I have eighteen pairs of trousers in my wardrobe

14 pairs of shoes

What's it all for?

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Somebody tried to paint my portrait once

I have photographs to prove it

No Life Model, me; I am wearing trousers, shoes

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A wind has got up

I, for the moment, only hear it 

And can't tell if it is full of frogs, locusts, wheat

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My distant cousin, the poet,

has been praised for his 'restless energy'

Is this something taught in schools? Recommended? Required?

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I am lying awake

Listening to the wind do what it does

So, sort of restless. As for the rest...

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What a c**t the God of the Old Testament was

However, he's much older now and helpless

And I'm tempted once in a while to believe

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I know he's a real poet, the d.c., because

I don't understand what he's on about.

Damn nigh broke my neck reading Pound's Cantos (1lb15.9ozs! 818pp!)

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I am restless

We are all restless

It's the energy that's lacking