I'm not laughing, thanks. As predicted, I'm not especially good at keeping up with these sorts of things. Consistency is not a virtue I possess, I can admit that.
I'm really only back because I've been struck with the sudden desire to rant about 'Narcissus and Goldmund' by Hermann Hesse. Why is it that some translations read so smoothly and some just feel...awkward? I'm not sure, of course, but I am really enjoying the language of Hesse's novel. I haven't actually finished it yet, I'm about two-thirds of the way through, but some of the themes are just kinda...smack-you-in-the-face obvious. Light and dark, maternal and paternal, freedom and duty, emotion and reason, love and abstinence. Art versus intellectualism. I could go on. Got a lot of lovely point and counterpoint, classic foils, and epic quotes. Like....
"I call a person awake who with his reason and consciousness, knows himself, knows his innermost, irrational forces, urges and weaknesses, and how to take them into account."
Or
"Perhaps, he thought, the root of all art, and perhaps also of all intellectual activity, is the fear of death. We fear it, we shudder at the ephemeral nature of all things, we grieve to see the constant cycle of fading flowers and falling leaves and are aware in our own hearts of the certainty that we too are ephemeral and will soon fade away."
Calm down, Hermann. Like I know you got a Nobel Prize for Literature, I get it. I see why. You're a counter-culture icon and I know it.
Also, as a prediction: I have the sneaking suspicion that Goldmund is going to die. He's gonna die in the end, and you know how I know? Because he's symbolised life and living in the animal reality of the body and with the winds of fate and chance and you just know that he's going to die and Narcissus will outlive him and probably watch him die and be all....I dunno, psychopomp to Goldmund's soul in the same way that he was Goldmund's awakening to life. Might be crazy. I'll finish the book and get back to you.
I definitely ought to be more focused on writing my first TMA, but I really can't help myself.