In the Clearing: a space to think and write.

I have finally managed to create a kind of clearing in my study. I will now be able to look around me and get my philosophical bearings.

I thought I had understood the literary materials I had been working on. I had made perfect kinds of non-sense of them. The case was almost closed. It soon sprung open again. The more I thought, the more I had to read. And the more I read, the more I needed to read. And the more I needed to think and write.

The mystery novels were soon buried under a mass of other materials. Texts piled up on texts. I pushed  various objects to the back of my desk. The photos of Proust and the old Broadwood piano were shoved away. One old postcard fell down the back of a bookcase. I did not retrieve it.

There, on the floor, were copies of works by Plato and Aristotle, arranged in piles. To my right, all the documents relating to one of my previous projects had spilled out of a folder and had not been replaced. Sheets of lined paper covered in faded, hand-written notes; copies of paintings; music; manuscript paper; the letters of some great author.

Now, though, I have got everything in something like an order.

Françoise is very happy with this change. She attributes this miraculous event to her own influence, her own pervasive sense of propriety. When she came into my study a few moments ago she almost fell over herself with surprise. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s about time. I told myself you needed to have a good sort out. How could you ever have expected to get any work done with all that paper sitting around?’ I told her that I was a critic, a detective-critic, and that all these documents were essential to my thinking. Her face lit up with a smile that told me that she felt nothing if not sorry for me. ‘You call yourself a writer,’ she continued, her tone one of supreme condescension, ‘and yet you never write. You tell me that you are reading and yet you never read. All you ever seem to do, so far as I can see, is take books off the shelves – books that I will only have to put back.’ These were, I admit, hard words to hear – hard because true. Françoise sees through me.

I’m sitting in the clearing I have created for myself. I am calm.

The philosopher Heidegger speaks of standing in the clearing – a space in which Being is revealed. My clearing is not that kind of clearing. It is just a space in which to write.

The Literary Critical Detective En Plein Air.

The time I have spent in these same old spaces has lead me to keep thinking the same old thoughts.

My ongoing case presents peculiar challenges that I will not be able to overcome with these worn out ideas. I must admit that even my most radical readings will not serve in this instance.

I knew I had to change something. I knew that, despite the fact that there is no place that I would normally rather be than in my study, where the still air is filled with the smell of those books accumulated over long years, the burning wick of my candle and warm sealing wax, I would have to leave my comfortable environment.

So this morning I packed up my notes, my books, my stationary and my hat and left these cluttered streets behind. I adopted the Romantic pose and headed out into the country. I became the literary critical detective en plein air.

After walking for an hour across fields I eventually reached an old country monument, a stately reminder of time lost. Here, with my back to a stone post, I sat down and re-arranged my notes in front of me. I looked for the meanings. And as the shadows of clouds drifted across the parklands I felt the shadows moving and lifting from the ideas in my mind. New concepts, new solutions drifted into my own sky. I scribbled these down furiously, occasionally consulting the texts at my feet.

After two hours I became aware that the monument behind me had a door on its front. The thought of this closed portal stopped me dead, I had to put my pen down. The sudden realisation of this locked door struck me as being greatly portentous. It became significant; it seemed to suggest something to me, something that may have a bearing on the case at hand.

Now I have returned home to make sense of all this, if there is sense to be found. Françoise has brought me my evening meal, which I have barely touched, and my wine, which I have nearly finished. I must work.

Comments can be left here or sent to my special postal address.

The steam train of my thought

I am making bold to write up another of my 'cases'. Unfortunately, it is taking me longer than I originally intended; the document lies languishing upon my desk. Francoise, my housekeeper, has, of course, been no help whatsoever. I leave strict instructions not to be disturbed and yet find myself constantly beset by questions of the most trivial nature, queries to which I simply do not know the answers. 'I am sorry to disturb you (this after the heavy tread of her shoes on the stairs, three loud knocks on my door and a slight clearing of the throat), but when will the Doctor require dinner? And will the Doctor be going out because the floors need to be swept (a downward glance here that implies some kind of criticism) and I have precious little time to finish all my other jobs?' And with each interruption, the steam train of my thought is broken, derailed; my sense of critical unreason is forced to become reasonable in the face of daily concerns.

It is the question of memory that now possesses me, the question of the work of memory and the question of the writing of memory. Texts that are about memories themselves have memories; they dream of other things.

When this literary critical investigation is complete, when the work is over, I will gladly send it to those who contact me at my postal address (which I have again temporarily forgotten).

Perhaps I should get a special hat

The rain continues to drum its military tattoo on my study window. Neverthless, I feel pleasantly - and for me quite unusually - positive. Looking down at all these scattered pieces of paper on my desk, the faded and tea-stained covers of old paperbacks, I could almost smile. For, the account that I sent out, the brief description of a critical moment in my own life, has been well received. I never looked for or expected such praise. Indeed, my embarrassment initially stopped me from signing the work. But now I feel emboldened, ready to dare to misinterpret the universe.

I shall turn this study into my office, get frosted glass fitted and put a sign up on the door: 'Dr Holden, The Literary Critical Detective'. Perhaps I should get a special hat.

But that would be absurd. I do not want fame, and can only hope in vain that others will want to consult me upon literary matters. I am no man of action. Although I declared to Francoise a moment ago, when she brought me my drink, that I should make a brilliant new career for myself I realise now that I was wrong. I will be better sitting here quietly, surrounded by the great works of fiction, misreading motivations and making my scribbled notes.

I will, of course, continue to write up my findings, present my cases to those associates who claim to understand my work and who have expressed their desire to follow it. They can contact me through my special postal address, which I've got written down here somewhere but can never remember (there it is - over there, on the side); or they can write their comments on this journal, which I will leave open for them.