As T.S. Eliot observed in his epic poem The Waste Land: "April is the cruellest month."* One cannot help wonder if someone broke up with him in a weenie way in April. Eliot penned the Waste Land in 1922, which was well before the advent of email or computers, so it was not via email. Wonder what the weenie ways of breaking up were in the early 20th century.
In more contemporary times, tax protesters have passed out copies of the Waste Land to last-minute tax filers standing in line at the post office. Cleverly, poetically driving home the axiom that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. And weenie asshole men or perhaps that is only an additional certainty in my own life.
Today begins the month of May. Which theoretically marks the end of April's cruelty, the transition from the death occasioned by Winter and the violent renewal of life occasioned by Spring. (Or as more simply put: April showers bring May flowers). It has been a long, busy weekend that I am ending at the office, trying to make May less cruel professionally too.
It's a gray, rainy Sunday. If I had my druthers, I'd be curled up under my soft, clean sheets, listening to the rainy, wind, alternately reading and napping, drowsy and lazy and relaxed. Instead, I am listening to my team play baseball online (best $20 spent ever except for the plunger that has its own case), hoping that my boys of summer can step up their game, end a 5-game losing streak this season, and a 10-game losing season at the stadium in which they are playing today. After losing Friday and Saturday's games in walk-off fashion. My boys had taken the lead in the top of the 8th but the home team has pulled ahead. Lots of pop ups and some excitement by intentional and retaliatory beaning of hitters by pitchers, including one in the bottom of the inning.
May Day equals mayday for my baseball team.
Arrgh....Sigh....
*APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
I'm not fan of taxation, but as a fan of literature, I do find it silly to pass out copies of "The Waste Land" to sheeple waiting in line to be sheared based solely on the first line. "April is the cruelest month" has become a cliche to so many who otherwise know nothing of the poem...
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm more of a Prufrock sort, anyway.
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
I love, love The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and that is the passage that I quote too. I actually wrote it inside one of my all-time favourite books, of which I have multiple copies.
ReplyDeleteBut the Waste Lands is still my favourite Eliot poem. Even if that makes me a cliche.
Did you take Melita Schaum's (sp) class that covered Eliot, Pound, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, O'Connor (Flannery), and West? I cannot remember what it was called, but it was a survey class of American lit.
I did have that class with Schaum. I think it's when I really developed my appreciation for Hemingway and "Lost Generation" lit, not to mention the others.
ReplyDeleteEver read West's "Miss Lonelyhearts"?
No, I have not. Just Day of the Locust. Which depressed the hell out of me and not in a good way like Hemingway or Fitzgerald. How does Miss Lonelyhearts compare?
ReplyDelete