EMBARKING ON THE READING OF MIDDLEMARCH BY GEORGE ELIOT (READING AS VOYAGE)

I went in to the store yesterday and bought Middlemarch by George Eliot. I wish I had purchased it earlier, when I had the chance at the used bookstore. It was half that price, and I liked the cover. This book I love the cover. So, it’s all fine. I know this is an important book overall, and an important book for me to read. This is a destiny book in a way. But not one of the younger destiny books. This is more of an approaching middle age destiny book if there could be such a thing. I have been reading the snippets or vignettes taken from larger pieces of work, such as The Mill and the Floss, and Middlemarch itself, and just have to dive in.

It’s been a long time coming.

I don’t have the education on paper, being more an autodidact than anything else, to read the book as well as some others might be able to. Contextually, anyhow. But I have the talent to understand the words, and to understand intuitively what is happening and more importantly, what is meant by it all. George Eliot would be an alien in these times, but any psychological insights or even questions, - are timeless in a way. Not all actually, not ‘any’, but ‘many.’ So I know I can handle the book. The introduction is by A.S. Byatt (sp?), and is wonderful. A lot like Eliot in a way. It said what I somehow expected, suspected. It said, among other things, that Eliot, and I paraphrase heavily here, - that she does not belong really to the Victorian woman writers. Though she may appear to belong to the genre of the Bronte sisters and so on, says the intro,- she is not merely painting a time period, its mores, nuances, hierarchies, et al. It says, and this is the wonderful part, that she is of the same soul-gene pool (my term), as Goethe, Proust, and Thomas Mann. 

 

The introduction writer has seen the importance of women, and transcended it perhaps w/out knowing it, - by categorizing Eliot as a writer first (to my way of reading it at least). And to me, it does not matter if the writer is a man, woman, or green alien. What I care about primarily is I would think reversed from that of most other readers. It is not plot per se, or even character development, though those and other elements like them can be really be a pure joy at times. It is, instead,- that moment when the descriptive prose passages of a given work does something quite fourth dimensional, - when literature as art surpasses itself and almost or does flip over into a spiritual or semi-spiritual experience. And so well wrought is her writing that this has already happened during two sentences. I am only twenty pages or so in.

So it’s going to be an adventure. Like East of Eden. Or IQ84. Or several others. Embarking on the reading of a new book, if the reader is serious enough to truly care, is like going on a voyage. I am aboard now, and floating off from the docks. I can relate through postcards where I went, but I shall not be able to really perhaps evoke the feeling that a reader can receive when reading something great. 

And so the autodidact sets out on the ocean.  

NIGHT STORM AND DREAMS OF THE MASTER

It was late. The rain that was spoken of had not arrived. Some souls said that the forecast had changed and this in fact was true. The torrential precipitation that was to begin in the early night had been called off. Yet, after the good day with family and friends both, - and the no-rain during the regular evening, - something happened…

 

Thunder erupted from the firmament. It echoed for about fifteen minutes. The impression it gave was of a cymbal crashing, yet still with a more ‘further down’ sound than a higher pitch of any sort. The animals were concerned. Perhaps one of the dogs, we thought, before becoming a rescue animal, - had been out in such storms.

Alone.

Uncared for.

Horrifically amazed.

Wet and matted.

A truly lost soul.

Or, it could have been the regular worry and fright than any young sentient being might feel in the begging or duration of nature’s power and prowess. They gathered close, and the radio sounds played, a speaker talking to a group about forests and national parks where strange occurrences and disappearances had happened. 

Those were the sounds. The thunder and the speaker. Then flashes of light from the sky made it to seem like something was flicking on an outside switch. I think some of the animals tried at those instances to go under the covers. The rain came down and pattered at the glass, the rooftops, the pavers below, and more.

The rain came down and pattered and splattered the world.

For hours it stayed like that.

I dreamed that Osho was eating a meal and was eating this meal slowly, determinately, and at his own pace. Previously I had dreamed that Osho had had a bad year early on- scarce, unknown, having to wait it out in his own way.

These dreams these dreams these dreams. If the animals dreamed a dream, I do not know what it or they were. I always imagine, however, that they chase a rabbit across a meadow.

And it they could just get to it, they must think, they could go back to the side of their master as all would be right and well…

ORIGINS

We took the doggies to a long and winding path. At the end it leads out to a circular field with old tractors in the middle. There is a sand pit, a large and haunting old tree that waits in the sun, and obviously lots of room. Birch trees and others surround the place, frame it. Beyond that is a large and presently vacant golf course where they can run for a bit also. Exploring all of this, the dogs have exercise for their brains and limbs and spirits. 

 

The sky was blue and the greenery on its way to coming to life. At one of the places a black butterfly with some kind of small flecks of coloring passed us.  A branch from a tree in the distance, weak and wounded perhaps from the storms of the previous days, interrupted the silence of the area as it fell away from its brothers and sisters and rolled down to rest upon the ground.

On the way back, we headed up a ridge full of growth large and small. There were feral

shrubs, crazy looking chaparral of all shapes and sizes. There was a deep valley to the right, and in many places for the shade of the trees that grew there, the sun had not yet reached and melted the snow. Where we walked the natural path was much more interesting than the manufactured and manicured paths of the suburbs. Small and large root systems carried themselves across our feet making steps and bridges. Old leaves scurried past, blown by a light wind borne from an unseen origin.

Osho said the origin of the River Ganges occurs in the astral. I don’t know anything about that. But our path, so silent but full of something unseen and beyond language, felt like it too had a secret origin…

THE SUN

Finally the sun has come out. It has begun to warm the world and melt some of the ice from the storm. Soon enough the water will flow down the gratings, and there will not be the crunch-crunch or slip-slip when walking on the sidewalk or in the forest. I think some of the animals are confused though, like the ducks and loons and the seagulls and dogs. It had gotten warm, and then cold again. Now, - this could happen and does- but it was extremely so. Who knows? All I know is that the weather is bound to get better. Earth changes, natural weirdness, cloud seeding, or whatnot aside, - things are what they are- and now it is warming and well. By late today, and possibly tomorrow if this keeps up, - I and the dogs shall be able to have a good walk. It’s the same or similar routine. Forest, field, - but it’s good for their brains, bones, muscles, and spirit. It’s not rocket science, - it’s just the same old things- fresh air, some movement, a car ride. And a coffee for daddy and some landscape pics if possible. Though the sky can do amazing things in the winter, I have noticed that there is nothing quite like some of the shades, deep and textured, as it presents in summer months. And varied too. Pink, purple, sometimes orange-y and other. So I long to see and capture in words and pictures some vistas, some landscapes, and some tree lines. I would like to be in there and look up to the left or right or straight on after rounding a bend and be taken aback by the same thing many people before, now and in the future are: sky, star, summit, and tree. Strong interesting feral shrub, wildflowers boasting and dancing purple and orange or white hues. Other things. 

A hawk circles amidst the blue and under the easy going lazy cumulus.