{"id":420,"date":"2020-08-24T16:10:23","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T14:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/?p=420"},"modified":"2020-08-24T16:10:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T14:10:23","slug":"the-poetic-art-of-putting-up-with-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/?p=420","title":{"rendered":"The Poetic Art of Putting Up with Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marianne has two children of school age, so, during our weekly Zoom call we touched upon the challenges facing parents and education authorities as children return to the classroom.<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019ll be fine,\u2019 Marianne said. \u2018They are climbing the walls at home. They need new walls to climb.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hmm,\u2019 Kim said. Kim has a medical degree as well as a PhD.<\/p>\n

\u2018Chekhov would have been against premature re-opening,\u2019 I noted. \u2018He had first-hand experience of typhus and . . . that sort of thing.\u2019<\/p>\n

As I spoke, I realized a knowledge of linguistics is no basis for the making of epidemiological pronouncements \u2013 but then I thought: everyone else is making epidemiological pronouncements and most of them know as little as I do, so I added, \u2018He wrote a whole book about typhus in Sakhalin . . . I think . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It was cholera that exercised Chekhov,\u2019 Dimitri said, \u2018in Moscow and thereabouts. His Sakhalin book is more about the evils of the penal system. But you\u2019re right, he would probably have placed public health above other considerations. He was a conscientious doctor \u2013 very generous, didn\u2019t charge.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018They call me and I go. \/ It is a frozen road \/ past midnight, a dust \/ of snow caught \/ in the rigid wheeltracks,\u2019 <\/em>Patrice said.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s not Chekhov,\u2019 Marianne suggested a little uncertainly.<\/p>\n

\u2018William Carlos Williams?\u2019 Kim asked.<\/p>\n

\u2018Correct,\u2019 Patrice said. \u2018On the limitations of the doctor\u2019s art.\u2019<\/p>\n

As we were apparently on the topic of literary physicians, I was going to mention that Arthur Conan Doyle modeled Sherlock Holmes on his old anatomy professor at Edinburgh University \u2013 but I then I concluded that my inaccurate recollections about Chekhov might have dented my credibility in this particular field, so I remained silent.<\/p>\n

\u2018Wasn\u2019t Arthur Conan Doyle a doctor?\u2019 Marianne asked.<\/p>\n

\u2018He was,\u2019 Kim said, \u2018and so was Keats.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Didn\u2019t do him much good,\u2019 Dimitri remarked, rather acerbically.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well,\u2019 Marianne said, \u2018the medical science of the time had no response to tuberculosis.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Chekhov was in the same predicament.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018So, they explored alternative responses to the problem of existence when they wrote,\u2019 I said. \u2018It was their way of sidestepping the limitations of their profession.\u2019<\/p>\n

It was, I felt, an eminently valid point.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah,\u2019 Patrice said, \u2018. . . for I will fly to thee,\u00a0not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, but on the viewless wings of Poesy<\/em> . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Ode to a Nightingale<\/em>,\u2019 he added for the benefit of the rest of us.<\/p>\n

\u2018What about Bulgakov?\u201d Kim asked.<\/p>\n

There was a silence and then Dimitri said, \u2018Bulgakov?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He was a doctor,\u2019 Kim said. \u2018Served at the front in the First World War . . .\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He did,\u2019 Patrice said. \u2018If memory serves, he was wounded and was given morphine. Is that what caused those grandiose flights of fancy in The Master and Master and Margarita<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No, no, Patrice,\u2019 Dimitri said, suddenly and uncharacteristically earnest, \u2018He weaned himself away from morphine. The flights of fancy were his response to the Terror.<\/p>\n

\u2018William Carlos Williams was a cardiologist, wasn\u2019t he?\u2019 Marianne said.<\/p>\n

It occurred to me that we had drifted rather far from the original subject \u2013 the advisability or otherwise of sending children back to school in the midst of a pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u2018A pediatrician,\u2019 Dimitri corrected, and then he added, \u2018But undoubtedly a heart specialist in the non-medical sense.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Night is a room \/ darkened for lovers,\u2019 <\/em>Patrice said, \u2018through the jalousies \/ the sun has sent one golden needle! \/ I pick the hair from her eyes \/ and watch her misery \/ with compassion.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Patrice, you cannot possibly have that from memory!\u2019 Marianne said, almost accusingly.<\/p>\n

Patrice chuckled. \u2018I looked it up when you were talking. But it\u2019s from the poem I quoted before \u2013 about the doctor\u2019s ultimate incapacity and the poet\u2019s ability to see to the heart of the matter.<\/p>\n

\u2018None of this helps Marianne resolve her dilemma,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh, there\u2019s never a resolution,\u2019 Kim said with sudden but not unkind conviction. \u2018Life is what happens \u2013 and poetry is about how we put up with it.\u2019<\/p>\n

For, lest o’ersaddened by such woes as spring<\/em><\/p>\n

To rural peace from our meek onward trend,<\/em><\/p>\n

What else more fit? We’ll draw the latch-string<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Kim said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0And close the door of sense; then satiate wend,<\/em><\/p>\n

On poesy’s transforming giant wing,<\/em><\/p>\n

To worlds afar whose fruits all anguish mend.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Williams again,\u2019 she explained. \u2018And, yes, I do have that one by heart.\u2019<\/p>\n

Soon after this, we returned to the question of who should write the introduction to the next issue of the magazine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Albus McInerney edits a literary magazine. Marianne has two children of school age, so, during our weekly Zoom call we touched upon the challenges facing parents and education authorities as children return to the classroom. \u2018They\u2019ll be fine,\u2019 Marianne said. \u2018They are climbing the walls at home. They need new walls to climb.\u2019 \u2018Hmm,\u2019 Kim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[76,78,80,81,79,77],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/cropped-banner-K1-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sullivan.ba\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}