Unlike many around me, I don’t get down in the dumps much, especially looking back on my life, which frankly has been pretty much a blank page.
I could never claim, for instance, to be a Kafka who at 30 wrote his great work Metamorphosis, where a person wakes to discover he has become a dung beetle. Nor a Mozart, who composed his first symphony at age eight. Or Grandma Moses, who gave up knitting at 74 and picked up a paint brush instead. Or Proust, who insisted he could only live in a room coated with cork. No, I am content to wallow in the knowledge that there will be no ripples when I slip below the surface, as it were.
Most of the famous people I have read about were deeply unsettled. It seems it takes a toll being brilliant and accomplishing things. Van Gogh, after a whale of an argument with his pal Gauguin, sawed off part of his ear and then demanded on the steps of a brothel that someone called Rachel accept his ruined ear as a gift. Is that normal?
I mean if one sees a chappie coming down the road waving an ex-ear, one could be excused for stepping into the nearest shop to fervently examine the merchandise while the spectre passes. Of course in this country the bleeding artist would likely get a grant of some sort, but that might encourage him to cut off more bits every time his grant was due for renewal.
I love Tolstoy, who at 84 had had enough of his wife, and so stole into the night. She found him a few days later at a train station where he died. I put it to you, would not it have made more sense to stay at home? One knows the woman is a horror but one has have made it this far, after all. Separate bedrooms I can understand, but a draughty station with no tea? A definite pass for me, I am afraid.
You take my point. Being famous means one is a little odd, to say the least. However my wife thinks I fall into that category (odd and boring) nevertheless, mainly because I go to the club every morning and return by the late afternoon unless there is a function that I should stay to attend.
Now what is so unusual about that? I go, I come home. The sameness is almost music to my ears, both of which are still firmly attached to the old coconut.
Kitty has on occasion shouted something about my lack of spontaneity, which I find highly unfair. In my defence, I produced the following facts:
Sometimes I change my route going to the club. Once in a while I won’t wear my traditional blue blazer, but instead put on my Queen’s Own Rifles green version. Finally on more than one evening I have declined a martini for a gin and tonic.
Absolute cast-iron proof that I am not far away from being a gadabout. Almost a Dante, who completed The Divine Comedy at 56. I should add that I really put some mustard on it when I told her my thoughts.
Predictably it all ended badly and I slept in my study, staring at my bookshelves. My only fun was sprinkling catnip under the door for the wretched cats, who no doubt would ruin my wife Kitty’s normally unbroken snooze. By the noise coming from our bedroom I am not at all sure she did not throw water on them, which they hate.
The atmosphere was still pretty frosty the next morning, although I was cheered up by the sight of two damp cats sitting by their bowls. I decided to shock my wife so I disrobed and sat naked eating my porridge (it was Mrs. Bleak’s day off).
Kitty arrived shortly after and simply said, “Get dressed, Nigel, you will frighten the postman.” So much for my attempt to be spontaneous and artist-like.
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Karen bromley
That is a great giggle Chris. Breakfast will never be the same.