Having finished watching Parting Glances, I can see – yes, it is a good movie; but I don't think I missed so much, walking out on it twenty-odd years ago. An interesting and touching slice of a certain kind of life, and the party scene is indeed great fun; of course from my current point of view they are all so young – this is a film about, perhaps, 28-30-somethings in the midst of becoming whatever they are going to become. (Except the argument in the stairwell with the 20-something, who is so excruciatingly young as to be merely annoying.)
All of which carries me back, through the music, the behavior, the ideas... into the past. I couldn't watch any more AIDS movies (I'll do Les nuits fauves tomorrow, but not now; and I'm still putting off Longtime Companion and Philadelphia, yet again), so I put on whatever was on television – which happened to be Clueless (1995). Which, though it is the blithest and ditziest of comedies (despite some unexpectedly edgy bits – did you remember the mugging, or the kid throwing up in the pool?), itself constitutes a certain nostalgia, a certain memory – perhaps its innocent concentration on the life of a sixteen-year-old, and one whose every whim is automatically paid for and handled, makes it very much about youth and memories of happiness. As though its then ultra-current 1995 instantly became a cherished memory, just through being framed in a certain way.
I wonder how film scholars handle the endless backward-looking, the endless nostalgia, the idealization? – don't they get tired or confused about time and memory? As much as musicologists get tired of having their emotions jerked around by lively or passionate music, I suppose... or film actors get tired of seeing themselves eternally younger, prettier, and perfectly framed.
***
Another frame – the non-events of my day all seem determined to push me back into the past. Reading E.F. Benson's ghost stories is a pleasant diversion – not a very strongly flavored one, as they are not imaginatively eerie like those of M.R. James, nor of course as dense as those by the other James (no, of course I don't mean William). The truth is, the ghost part of each story is rarely that interesting; the pleasantest part of reading them is the exposition, with its comfortable prewar houses, leisurely days, and his rather obsessive fussing over large, well-appointed rooms. But the stories are amusing enough; and as I get to the end of a large omnibus collection, the last few show a little more work and imagination, and are therefore more interesting.
'Pirates', which he must have written in the early 1930s, is very simple: you can see the end coming a mile off – but it is still quite beautiful, much more delicate and subtle than anything he'd written before (perhaps because it is apparently based on autobiographical elements). A lonely, aging man remembers the house where he grew up with his large family, all of whom are now dead; he finally returns there, redecorating it to look just as it once did... and of course you can guess the ending. It's nicely done, though, and gracefully nostalgic (especially for an old guy like me).
These stories have a forward by Joan Aiken, celebrated and prolific children's author. She is a favorite of mine, but not the way you would think – I never liked her famous The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, finding it confusing (I didn't understand her alternate England with its similar but different history, at least not when I was young – why would anyone want a Victorian England with wolves and villains?). The one book of hers that I own, and still reread every few years, is Armitage, Armitage, Fly Away Home, a wonderful series of comic fantasy stories that unfortunately apparently never gave birth to a sequel.
My copy is actually a school prize, given to me as – I quote – "Library merit award... for the most creative annotated list of books read during the school year 1967-68, Mamie H. Spruill, Librarian". I was eleven at the time; you get the sense that dear old Mrs. Spruill, a kindly, rather horsey woman with curly blonde hair, was trying to figure out the appropriate spin for giving me some kind of award. Her book was really a perfect choice, being both fun and peculiar; it may be telling that I'd handed in a reading list that was interesting, but not a winner in any of the normal categories – that certainly fits my later life and work.
In fact, quite possibly, the only teacher whose hopes I've fulfilled has been Mrs. Spruill. Some other favorite teachers from long past would probably not be too disappointed with me – the tough and well-named Mrs. Sargent who taught algebra, Mrs. Hollingshead, who had me do an independent tutorial my last year to read Joyce's Ulysses (my chemistry partner, a football player, kept trying to borrow it to find the dirty bits he'd heard were there), the egomaniacal Mr. Hoffman who taught me music (he later died of apoplexy, which was completely appropriate); and others... but I didn't do much with math, nor have I written great novels, and I don't sing or play much music any more.
But Mrs. Spruill hit the nail on the head: at least I still read interestingly.
Time, and its frames....
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