Exercises in Loneliness. Unfinished Essays

But I want to be united with her.

This is a verbatim translation, so don’t be misled by “her”: it was a reference to Soul, which is a feminine-gender noun in Russian. In hindsight, this was how I expressed a desire to gain inner comfort. This was the voice of a youngster searching for peace and love in early 1990s.

As I grew older and went to the university, I started getting torn between the inner comfort that came with studies and a feeling that I wanted to be one half of a pair. Moreover, I was determined that my family life would be full of passion or even Passions – a far cry from comfort and peace, as you can imagine. At the beginning of 2000s I read a few interviews with celebrities who claimed their family was their “peaceful haven”. I found the expression alarming, as it oozed that particular bourgeois boredom I wanted to escape. I was convinced, as a true romantic, that love had to have some challenges. It could therefore be tumultous, hot, problematic – anything, as long as it didn’t embody “the tedium of living”. I hadn’t read Hyusmans yet, by the way.

As with independence, I got what I asked for, and even more. I had a seemingly peaceful haven that more often than not looked like a teacup, overtaken by a storm.

My first reaction was to find solace in the familiar idea of a hermit’s life. By then, however, I had learned to reason, and various experiences convinced me that I was a very capable person. It just didn’t make sense that I couldn’t have a normal family life. It was then that I began to deconstruct the debris of my own conflicting views on marriage and peoples’s relationships.

In the end, I admitted that I also wanted to live in a peaceful haven. I discovered that life outside your abode was rather unpredictable, and therefore the only place where you could gain confidence and strength to carry on was your family and your home. It had to be the first and the last place where you would turn for support, solace and determination.

Of course, it is possible to gain these from yourself, and some of us get quite good at it. But, believe me, it is the most wonderful thing when your near and dear believe in you, when they look up at you and proudly share your example with others.

I somewhat willingly got back to living alone. I know it won’t last forever. As an historian, I believe in cycles, so waiting doesn’t hurt. The French author, of whom I am to write more in the next chapter, wrote in one of his works: il y a un plaisir non pas d`être seule mais d`être capable de l`être (there is a pleasure not in being alone but in being capable of it). I agree, yet the topic, generously fed by personal experience, couldn’t help but fascinate me. I wanted to think why people craved loneliness, and what they did after they obtained the inner comfort that arguably comes with it. I had a feeling that leading a solitary existence, with little socialising and not caring for anyone, could not be fulfulling in the long run. After a period of evolutionary development people usually need some sort of a revolution because, well, you know, we all want to change the world (The Beatles).

3

Generally, I love sleepless nights. I love the time when I can read or write, without being disturbed. There is only one exception: I prefer it when I am actually enjoying either writing or reading. Right now I’m about to embark on a very lengthy text on the topic of martyrdom in Sikhism. And although I already know and understand how the text needs to be written, I find it daunting to write because – God knows! – I’d prefer to write about something else. Something more inspiring, more creative.

To stay up at night has never been difficult to me. I don’t even know how I came to develop such ability. When I was a student, however, my mates at the University used to ask me with all seriousness what to do in order to stay awake. The question would normally rise during the exam session. I could never give any sound advice, and from what I know, they never actually stayed up.

Writing daunting texts is also nothing new. The text I need to write only needs to be around 15 pages. The topic of martyrdom borders on History, Philosophy and Religion, and I’m looking at the whole of 17th c. in India. Of course, Asia is not Europe, but 17th c. is not something totally alien. I think it’s because of him. He is Pascal Quignard. Ever since I read Terrace à Rome I wanted to find and read as many of his works, as possible. Naturally, since 2006 I’ve read most his works that were translated into Russian, as well as the French edition of Le mot sur le bout de la langue and a superb collection of essays about world paintings, also in French. (Mr. Quignard remains one of my favourite living authors).

What fascinates me in Mr. Quignard is a true joie d`écrire. A good writer, to me, must love people and language. This doesn’t mean he can be oblivious to people’s shortcomings but he must believe that Love is the power that rules this world. The love for language manifests itself in a variety of methods used to compose the text and in the ability to find a proper expression to make a description. Mr. Quignard has mastered both to perfection, for which reason some people casually note: “Oh, but he’s an aesthete”. You can hear irony, if not disdain, in their voice, even if this line appears typed on a computer screen. I dare say, in the world where aesthetism has shrunk down to a perfectly coiffed beard, it costs a lot to have someone who commands the language beyond its everyday and even conventional literary usage. Language, as something intangible but infinitely powerful, is what makes us closer to the divine source of Life.

In my life as a reader I went through a series of very intense “love affairs” with different authors. Those whose works I most hungrily devoured were Shakespeare, Hemingway, Chekhov, Bulgakov, de Sade, Henry Miller, Maugham, Süskind, Marquez, Llosa, and Vonnegut. Oh, yes, also Wilde, Prévert, and most Russian poets. I took an all-embracing approach to Literature, hence I have been reading (or trying to read) practically everything. As I studied History at the University, I read ancient playwrights, troubadours, Renaissance poets, 17

c. philosophers, the literary works of the Enlightenment, and the poetry and prose of the Orient.

As a result, a sleepless night has never been a lonely night for me. It certainly cannot be when you are in bed, so to say, with a good playwright, poet or writer. Someone shall certainly argue that a living man is better than the dead Shakespeare. Personally, I hope to never reach the state of mind when I claim that I like books better than people. But being on my own, drinking tea or coffee and reading or writing (and since 2003 – also translating or editing), is a bliss. The only thing that can ruin this otherwise happy state is something I don’t want to do, be it writing a text you have no particular desire to work on or vain socialising.

There is one more reason why I admire Quignard’s work. His erudition is immense, as becomes a person who translated from rare languages, whose novels are always full of music, in which language he is also fluent, and who set his works in different countries and epochs. And yet all his novels are very easy to read, and none of them is too long. The author, having an absolute ear for both music and literature, seems to know exactly when he must stop.

I read a lot in a few languages, and I always find it amusing when authors try to jam every possible bit of information into their narrative. Laconism is a dangerous thing because, as Balzac said, it is like a lightning that blinds you and you no longer know where it leads you. But the so-called intellectual literature, as practised by the authors less potent than Eco or Vargas Llosa, sometimes resembles a Kunstkammer that terrifies you with its sheer size, not to mention the content. I have read a few 700-odd page novels recently, and I felt each one could be at least two times shorter. Today a commercial purpose also dictates to serialise stories, yet some novels that were awarded the Nobel Prize don’t exceed 300 pages. The impression the latter make, however, is usually indelible.

The art of writing consists in finding the form to best shape and project the content. Like in silent film they used to move camera and change lighting to tell the story visually, so a writer should, too, use the language and its means to produce precise descriptions without falling into verbosity. I do believe that a writer and a film director are rather similar. Both are creators who should be stifled – in a good sense – by their art, if not budget or word count, to produce a work that expresses their ideas, while using the methods of each respective art to their full potential. Just as you don’t need too much money to make an epic film, so you don’t need too many pages to compose a good novel.

In Quignard’s work every scene and every word are in their proper place. Laconism and precision produce a remarkably rich, detailed narrative. There is no thoroughness that makes you feel the author is trying to reach the word count. No long-windedness, walking in circles or constant repetitions. Instead of a cluttered text there is a virtuoso incarnation of a writer’s idea that has obtained a perfect shape and now flows effortlessly, like some of the best improvisations. Such is the music of Mr. Quignard.

4

I’m sitting at Cornerhouse in Manchester, on the first floor. There aren’t many people there yet, and I am fortunate to find myself by the window in the farthest corner. People are eating, or drinking, and chatting, and at the next table to mine sit two Spanish girls, in similar clothes, with laptops.

It’s almost seven o’clock. Going to work in the morning happens pretty quickly, or so it seems, perhaps because I’m in a hurry. But in the evening homecoming takes ages. In truth, it takes probably just a little bit longer than in the morning – about 20 minutes longer – but somehow I’m conscious of this difference.

And so, I’m sitting here, writing this, and the tea in a delicate glass cup is still fairly hot but will get colder by the time I finish writing.

What is it that I wanted to say? I came here with the intent to carry on with my musings on self-identification and categorisation. I spent the most fulfilling half an hour on the train spilling the words out on the lined pages of a reporter’s notebook where I’m now continuing with this. Henry Miller – and with him many a writer – would call this a “dictation”. It’s this wonderful state of things when you feel yourself as a tool in someone’s hands who is sitting somewhere afar and whispering these words into the tip of the tool, and they pass at the speed of light to land in your head to be heard and discovered.