Doug Bruns

Archive for the ‘Death’ Category

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Curiosity has ceased. Contemplation has set in.

In Death, Life, Memoir, The Examined Life on May 21, 2012 at 7:00 am

I’m traveling…er no…got in last night. Late. Jet lagged to nth degree…coffee…

This is a repost.

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My cousin said to me a few weeks before she died, “When I come back I’m going to do it differently.” We chuckled over this. Sadly though, it was her confession of remorse, an admission of disappointment over the life she had lived–at least I think that was what she was saying. (The Latin from which the word remorse is derived means literally “to bite back.”) Later, at her death-bed, the pallid riddle was laid out for full inspection. I have to admit, as bad as it sounds, watching the death of my cousin was a curious, even interesting, thing. That was my reaction at the time, at the bedside. I thought it odd then–my reaction–and still do.

I recall that Diane Arbus sneaked into her dead father’s room to photograph his body–odd, yet understandable. My cousin’s death was over a year ago and I find myself thinking about it often, though the spectrum of reflection has shifted. Curiosity has ceased and contemplation has set in. Her death was a study; now it is a meditation. So much has been written on the subject, indeed, everything has been written in the shadow of death. I cannot add an iota of originality to the subject.

I am drawn to the idea of living life in preparation for its end. In some traditions this complex notion is reduced to something so mundane as a rote ideal, a doctrine, in the most extreme instances, denial. I guess there is nothing wrong with that, though mass consumption of rote ideals never seems to turn out as hoped, an observation I believe history supports. I am self-taught at everything so am stubborn as a result. I can’t accept a doctrine so much as rush down a blind alley, take a U-Turn or be lectured to. The big questions generate itches I must contort to reach.

I am reading both Montaigne and Nietzsche so one should not be surprised at such musings.

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The state of my (reading) mind.

In Books, Creativity, Death, Literature, The Examined Life on March 7, 2012 at 6:00 am

I just left my local bookstore, Longfellow’s, empty-handed. That is significant and speaks to the current state of my mind. I finished reading a book last night and didn’t have one in waiting. That is unusual. It appears that I’m at a reading paralysis, brought on by irrational fears of mortality. Allow me to explain.

But first, the book I finished last night was the latest by Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending. It is a beautiful little book. I sat down and read it straight, stopping only to refresh my bourbon, also straight. (It was a marathon reading. I needed my electrolytes!) It is a novel of ideas, filtered through a simple but clever story. The first-person narration steadily works up to a crescendo, albeit muted. I liked it very much, but am puzzled that it won the Man Booker Prize. Geoff Dyer wondered too, saying as much in a review in the Times a few months ago. Even without Dyer’s echo, I could not but wonder at the scope of the work, or lack thereof. A prize like the Booker or the Pulitzer calls for a bigger canvas in my scheme of things.

Back to my mental state.

Reading is so important to me that I’ve become trapped by it. The problem specifically is absurd and in telling you I am revealing more than my nature usually permits. Perhaps breaking down the fourth wall, as they say in theater, is just the thing.

Do you ever worry, that should you die tomorrow, the last book might not be the right “last” book? Wouldn’t you want it to be something big and profound to send you off? Like Moby Dick, perhaps? That would be a good one. (Not an option, I just re-read that last summer.) Or Ulysses? Or Proust? (I simply don’t have the discipline to wade through those again–at least not while in such a fragile mental state.) Getting my drift? I told you it was absurd. The “next book” used to hold such promise; now it seems a dark test.

At fifty-six I am starting to plan for the end. Morbid? I think not. Just being prudent. What haven’t I read? What do I need to read? And I’m not just thinking titles. I’m thinking genres. Science, literature, philosophy, history and so on. The bigger question–and this is the important thing–the bigger question is: as a person who has gained most of his knowledge through books, what do I want to know next?

I’m curious by nature and I’ve spent a lot of time attempting to keep curiosity alive. Curiosity is an expectant little beast that needs attending to. Ignore it and it will die. Give it too much attention and you will die. It’s a balance. Moderation, said the Greeks and the Buddha. Where is my moderated curiosity leading me? And to that question, distressingly, I don’t have a solid feel-good answer.

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As a side note, Philip Roth famously stated last summer that he no longer reads fiction. That created quite a stir in the lit community. Now, this morning, in a piece at The Daily Beast, Cormac McCarthy is quoted as saying, “I haven’t read a novel in years.” I don’t know what, if anything, to make of this situation.


Christopher Hitchens

In Death, Writers, Writing on December 16, 2011 at 8:40 am

From: More Intelligent Life.com (The Economist)

Reprinted without permission:
TWITTER ON CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

~ Posted by Tim de LIsle, December 16th 2011

By their tweets shall ye know them. The death of Christopher Hitchens, the polemicist and boulevardier, came not as a shock, but still as a blow to many, and thousands of them were moved to comment on Twitter. Some just said they were sad, a fine sentiment but a fairly pointless one to broadcast to the world, because it’s not about you—it’s a lot sadder for family and close friends—and there’s not much point grabbing people by the lapels if you don’t have anything to say. Happily, many tweeters pushed themselves harder. Here’s a snapshot of some of the different approaches; tallies of followers have been trimmed to the nearest round number.

Salman Rushdie (150,000 followers) struck a note seldom heard on Twitter—the epic.

Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops. Christopher Hitchens, April 13, 1949-December 15, 2011.

That line was widely quoted, and given prominence by the BBC. Among those who saw it there was the biographer and Intelligent Life contributing editor Julie Kavanagh, a friend of Hitchens, who said it was “the only time I’ve been moved to tears by a tweet”.

Richard Dawkins (283,000 followers), who has an interview with Hitchens in his role as guest editor of this week’s New Statesman, went for epic with added polemic:

Christopher Hitchens, finest orator of our time, fellow horseman, valiant fighter against all tyrants including God.

Tony Parsons (20,000 followers), the columnist and novelist, told a story:

Memory of Christopher Hitchens. 20 years ago—a live TV debate. Never saw anyone drunker in a green room. Never saw anyone sharper on air.

Matthew Sweet (2,000 followers), the BBC Radio 3 presenter and Intelligent Life regular, had a crisp vignette:

My #Hitch moment: singing a song about Tom Paine with him to the tune of God Save the Queen. He had a deep whisky & cigarettes bass.

At a moment like this, you see the importance of tone. Richard Bacon (1.37m followers), the BBC DJ, found the acceptable face of the “I’m sad” school of thought:

Oh bugger. Christopher Hitchens has died.

He was echoed by the young rock band Wild Beasts (13,000 followers), who were matey but sharp:

Christopher Hitchens, you old contrarian, RIP, in anywhere but heaven.

Violet Towers (400 followers), a probation officer who writes under a pseudonym, quoted Hitchens himself, elegantly:

“The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.”—Christopher Hitchens

The devout faced a dilemma: to chide or not to chide. One of them published a vindictive line about Hitchens and hell which is too dismal to quote in full. Another, the journalist Cristina Odone (700 followers), struck a happier note, as well as finding room for a gerund:

RIP #ChrisHitchens For 40 years being a journalist meant trying to be like the #Hitch. He’d laugh at my praying for him, but I will

Sterling Sunley, a book-lover from Vancouver (0 followers—quite a feat), gently upbraided some of the duller tweeters around him:

The person I would most like to hear about the legacy of Christopher Hitchens is Hitch himself; he would suffer no false sentiments.

Stephen Fry (3.5m followers), the actor, writer and British national treasure, marked the gravity of the occasion by restricting himself to only two adjectives, and going big on verbs instead:

Goodbye, Christopher Hitchens. You were envied, feared, adored, reviled and loved. Never ignored. Never bested. A great and marvellous man

There was plenty of warmth, but not much wit. Almighty God (27,000 followers)— one of several characters of that name on Twitter—did His best to fill the breach:

In honor of Christopher Hitchens I will admit it just this once: I Am Not Great.

while the writer Lisa Appignanesi (800 followers) found humour in the obituary on the Guardian site:

Laughing while reading an obit is an event only #Hitch makes possible

Someone said Hitchens had a God-given talent for writing—that might have really irritated him. And so might the fact that the tributes were joined by Piers Morgan, a journalist of a very different stripe. But in the best of these tweets, you could see what Hitchens himself stood for: vision, spark, the power of the word.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Intelligent Life

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“…largely ignored…”

In Death, Travel, Writers on October 20, 2011 at 9:11 pm

Full quote: “It is good to live in a place largely ignored by the rest of the world.”

The quote is from my favorite living American author, Jim Harrison. It’s from his new novel, The Great Leader. (My review can be found here.)

I was deep in the lake region of Patagonia, maybe five, six years ago, I don’t remember. (Time and space, especially time, escapes me.) I met George, from France, the village of Joan, of the Arc fame. He’d come, as had I, to chase the brown trout that were big deep in the ice rivers of the Andes, the Futalafu and other rivers. Huge trout, weighed, not measured. (Not fifteen inches but six pounds. And more.) Blue green rivers, fresh out of the mountains. One thing leading to another and I discover George is a reader. “Who is your favorite writer,” I ask. “Jim Harrison,” he responds. I jump–yes, jump–”Mine too,” I exclaim. “He is,” George says, “the only writer who combines the life of the mind and the life of action.” Leave it to the French.

But, the point being the quote: What is it that makes a man (me)  what to go further and farther away to the place people largely ignore? Is there a place where a person can hide? Escape? Evaporate? It will happen soon enough, given a few years, or less, and a person, all of us, will be extinct. Gone. Vanished. Dead.  And we will be so very dead as to not even know it. So why rush to the place that is largely ignored, either specifically or, in a more surreptitious manner, figuratively? Can’t answer that. There comes a time, as Hemingway observed, when we (might)  decide to sprint to the finish line. He did. Don’t think I want to sprint. I’m more of an endurance guy, taking my time. But the destination is the same, all together the same.

They say a society is not a civilization until the poets arrive. I believe that. I hold my lantern to the darkness, at the foot of the citadel, outside the drawn gate, alone, peering into the darkness, looking, waiting. Where are the poets? Where is the civilization? Will they arrive before the extinction?

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In memory of Maggie

In Death, Dogs on December 17, 2010 at 7:30 pm

I re-post this in loving memory of my Maggster:

How is it that Maggie, my ten-year old vizsla, is so excited every morning upon waking up? She’s not a puppy any more, but you wouldn’t know it at 6:00 am, with the sun streaming in and the gulls screeching. As soon as I move, she leaps from her bed and throws herself on the floor at my bedside. (My wife is certain that she hears my eyes opening.) She rolls over and arches her back, twisting. Then she rights herself, stretches, squeals, and rolls over again, crashing to the floor. I struggle to get out of bed amidst her bounding and cavorting. Lastly, she rises, braces her legs in support and flaps her ears. I’ve tried to count. It’s either six or seven rotations of her head, ears slapping accordingly. Lately, she has taken to letting out a deep resounding howl, as if to announce to the world that she has risen. She is like the German grandmother, wagging her finger, “Morgen Stund hat Gold im Mund,” or “The mourning hour has gold in its mouth.” It is all, frankly, annoying. But learning by repetition can be annoying. Yet, for some such as myself, that is, individuals for whom the previous day’s lessons are likely forgotten with each new dawn, repetition is the only way. That is the stuff of habits and I have always believed in them–at least the good ones. The bad habits require belief in something opposing. That is the only way to break their backs. Good habits are practices of self-sustaining discipline. Yet, I have much to learn, even as I’m subjected to the habitual morning training at the hands, dare I say paws, of my dog.

Every dawn, rain or shine, Maggie performs her routine at my feet. All that excitement and enthusiasm and joy. Every morning that lesson gets drilled into me. You must see where I’m going here. I have never met a soul who musters, at the prospect of each day, such happiness as Maggie. Life should be so simply learned as to watch our dogs and emulate them. Unconditional love, curiosity, loyalty, boundless joy. (I choose to ignore the chewed shoes, the ruined carpet, the surprise in the closet. Learning to ignore the troublesome aspects of existence is sometimes a lesson too. ) And the current lesson: a canine reminder, carpe diem. I’m a slow learner. Maggie is a good teacher. Her work is not yet done.

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Storm as Metaphor: On Death

In Death, Dogs, Family, Life, Memoir, Photographers on October 23, 2010 at 8:00 am

“I think the first sentence of Jim Harrison’s novel, The Road Home, is sublime: “It is easy to forget that in the main we die only seven times more slowly than our dogs.”  Harrison’s observation puts a twist on an old adage, reminding me that my pace to likely oblivion is a crawl compared to the sprint of my faithful Maggie. I was reminded of this recently after spending much of the night on the floor next to Maggie’s bed trying to comfort her during a thunder storm. A dog afraid of a storm is enslaved to terrible demons. At one point she attempted to climb the vertical drawers of an open closet to seek refuge amongst the sweaters and tee-shirts. Maggie has tremors when she’s afraid and her whole body becomes racked and frozen except for her pulsing nerves. Her tail drops and draws around her vitals. Her ears lay back astride her sleek skull and her eyes bug out eerily. She turns to stone, a hard stone, granite or marble. It used to be that only thunder upset her. Later, lightening too tormented her. Perhaps she made the connection that lightening is followed by thunder. Now, even a rising breeze prompts an anxiousness from her. I wonder at it all. I doubt dogs have the cognitive powers to associate a storm with anything other than noise and flashes of light. They can’t draw conclusions, presumably, and certainly not arrive at metaphor.  A storm is a storm–nothing else, for a dog.”

The rest of this essay can be found at The Nervous Breakdown, Storm as Metaphor.