the best novel beginning ever

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expe- dition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr. Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days.

The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr. Farraday himself one after- noon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step- ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves.

On seeing my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalized plans to return to the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue, and stretched out his legs. It was then, gazing up at me, that he said:‘You realize, Stevens, I don't expect you to be locked up here in this house all the time I'm away. Why don't you take the car and drive off somewhere for a few days? You look like you could make good use of a break.’

Coming out of the blue as it did, I did not quite know how to reply to such a suggestion. I recall thanking him for his conside- ration, but quite probably I said nothing very definite, for my employer went on: ‘I'm serious, Stevens. I really think you should take a break. I'll foot the bill for the gas. You fellows, you're always locked up in these big houses helping out, how do you ever get to see around this beautiful
country of yours?’

This was not the first time my employer had raised such a question; indeed, it seems to be something which genuinely troubles him. On this occasion, in fact, a reply of sorts did occur to me as I stood up there on the ladder; a reply to the effect that those of our profession, although we did not see a great deal of the country in the sense of touring the countryside and visiting picturesque sites, did actually ‘see’ more of England than most, placed as we were in houses where the greatest ladies and gentlemen of the land gathered.

Of course, I could not have expressed this view to Mr. Farraday without embarking upon what might have seemed a presumptuous speech. l thus contented myself by saying simply ‘It has been my privilege to see the best of England over the years, sir, within these very walls.’

Mr. Farraday did not seem to understand this statement, for he merely went on: ‘I mean it, Stevens. It's wrong that a man can't get to see around his own country. Take my advice. get out of the house for a few days.’

As you might expect, I did not take Mr. Farraday‘s suggestion at all seriously that afternoon, regarding it as just another instance of an American gentleman's unfamiliarity with what was and what was not commonly done in England.

The fact that my attitude to this same suggestion underwent a change over the following days — indeed, that the notion of a trip to the West Country took an ever-
increasing hold on my thoughts — is no doubt substantially attri- butable to — and why should l hide it? — the arrival of Miss Kenton's letter, her first in almost seven years if one discounts the Christmas cards.

from The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro

boys will be boys

whether one looks at fighters or lovers, men engaged in the dramatic arts or simply men engaged in just about anything, one can clearly see that the image a man must show to the public depends largely on where he's from. this is the idea explored by jeffrey yang, of harvard.*

though the image of "he-man," in the west, seems ubiquitous, "Our findings suggest that Western men have a distorted view of what they ideally should look like, whereas men in Taiwan don't seem to have this problem," says Harrison Pope Jr., a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

"Disorders of body image, including a pathological preoccupation with muscularity, are growing increasingly common among Western males, notes Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang, a Harvard senior. "By contrast, such male body-image problems appear to be rare in Asian societies."

A few years ago, [Pope] and several colleagues gave a computerized test to male college students in the United States, France, and Austria. The students could adjust images of male bodies through 10 layers of muscle and 10 levels of fat. Asked to build bodies they thought would attract women, the males consistently layered on a lot more muscle than females preferred when they looked at the images. The Leonardo DiCaprio types were judged more appealing than the Sylvester Stallones.

The tests revealed that Taiwanese men show less dissatisfaction with their bodies than Westerners. They did not add as much muscle to build an idealized body. And they added a scant five pounds to make a body they thought would be a woman's ideal.

To reach their ideal, more and more Western men are resorting to anabolic steroids. The Taiwanese men Yang talked with had heard of the drugs but did not know anyone who actually used them.

What accounts for the difference in body images and drug use between East and West? Yang, Pope, and Gray propose a combination of three possible answers in their report, which appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Chinese culture places less emphasis on muscle as a measure of masculinity. Also, Asian men are less exposed to the unending images of pecs, abs, biceps, and triceps common in Western media. Finally, Taiwanese men retain a tighter grip on the traditional roles of household and corporate masters than men in the United States and other Western countries.

Western societies have equated muscles with masculinity from Greek and Roman statuary to modern television and print ads. There has been no such emphasis in Asia.

Although a macho tradition exists in China, Yang notes, "a cerebral male tradition is dominant. In this tradition, masculinity is composed both of wen, having core meanings centering around literacy and cultural attainment, and wu, having core meanings of martial, military, force, and power. Wen is more highly regarded."

Yang, Gray, and Pope also call attention to other research showing that Asian cultures are being invaded by Western patterns of body dissatisfaction among women.

Two studies have shown that normal-weight women in Hong Kong and Polynesia want to be thinner. Another investigation in Fiji found striking increases in body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls in Fiji after television became widely available.

star to follow

KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-
dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were
girdled round:
And there were gardens bright
with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an
incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient
as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic
chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick
pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted
like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

i offer you something more entertaining than sensible. just curious, though-- am i the only one around here that has a passion for print and pattern? not that i'd stop those posts, but y'all can be so quiet for so long!

russe

DUST LIGHT, LEAVES

Above autumn's burgundy
and rust,
beyond the orange groves
chafing and ruddy in the frost,
a cloud lifts into blue . . .

the west goes up all haydust, flame,
and the flat land glimmers
out to it on the day-stream--
it is Millet's sky of "The Angelus,"

that nine- teenth century sky
we have only in paintings
and in these few still moments
in their rose and amber rags.

As a child, I remember this . . .
standing on the creek stones,
dusk moving over the fields
like a ship's hull pulling away

with that first sense of loss
and release; I saw it was
all about the beginning of dust
rising into the long sky's seam.
into my own two eyes and hands.

A chalk-white moon overhead
and to the right, umber waves
of sparrows back and through
the empty trees . . .

Soon, stars will draw analogies
in the dark, but now the world
is simple as the dead leaves
glowing in this late hour,

simple as our desire
to rise lucent as clouds
in their camisoles of dust,
the cool air burning though us

over leaves drifting on a pond,
over the last memory
of ourselves looking up,
stunned as a carp blinking at the light.

Christopher Buckley

(this whole exploration in hue began when i noticed, in the metropolitan museum's collection, the oddly matching color schemes of the (at top) dagobert peche textile and the callot soeurs gown. i am not sophisticated in color theory, but i poked around until sense seemed to begun being made. the ballet russe had a tremendous influence on design in the first quarter of the twentieth century. how those became the colors of the ballet russe, and how these same colors came to become circulated around the western world, i do not know. but know that matisse as well as bakst designed their costumes, then carried the language of their colors into the world.)

paper wonder cloth wonder

what
frivolous
important
joy.

another cornucopia of treasures have opened their doors much wider than they'd done before -- the metropolitan museum of art. it just occurred to me that one no longer is required to say 'the metropolitan museum of new york' because the great museums of the world are no longer fixed in one place.

you cannot imagine how much this thrills me. for example, one of the first things i did in paris was to go to the museum of decorative arts (i'm not sure if that's what it was called then, then being 1989), go into the back rooms where the glassware wasn't so much displayed as stored in cabinets with labels on them. and i was so enthralled that i took notes so i would never forget:

"daum-- pink fleurs, silver a nuit; albert louis dammouse-- les colours l'art nouveau et iris verre; alphonse georges rayen-- red wheat a blend & lotus; galle-- very pale blue & green; pannier freres-- red carp & lotus; george despret-- les colours...." of course i remember none of these and am not even sure that i am reading my own writing correctly. what you are reading is ecstasy by glass.

having the newly increased access to the met's collections feels like that too. one (me) can spend all day viewing french clothing from the 20th century, taking sidetrips at coco chanel, callot soeurs, madeline vionnet, and the house of worth. while i wish the timeline searches were more, the whole set of fine-tuning possibilities can make finding your particular interests easy.

and look at these colors; it might as well be spring. after the first world war, design was bursting out all over, nature, color, and the drift towards abstraction had become normalized to the western eye, and there was reason to celebrate.

"after the austerity of the war years there was a move towards strong colors and a touch of the exotic." 1

these styles, these artists, are not new to this blog; chinoiserie is more mentioned in that book than japonisme, but it's traces are evident.

designers from the silver studio "show their interest in the formal clarity of japanese designs. particularly influential were the beautifully rhythmic, conventionalized patterns of woodblocks and stencils. arthur silver himself was deeply interested in japanese art, subscribing to bing's artistic japan, and collecting japanese prints and stencil sheets."

the book is quite clear in reminding us that these scrumptious designs were available only to the rich. the rich had more a taste for them; the rich could afford them. i had a similar realization in perusing the 1920s fashions on the met's site. had i been there, i might have worked where i helped design them, but i would never ever wear one. i would never hang these papers on my walls.

fortunately that ache can be assuaged with glory: that one may now devour the riches of the past, almost up close and personal, is incredibly satisfying, and takes up much less room in the closets.