waltondammerung

L'interview

From my crusty brother::

Rules
a. Leave me a comment saying "interview me".
b. The first five to leave a comment requesting to be participants will be interviewed.
c. I will respond by asking you five questions.
d. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
e. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
f. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some).
1. What three works of fiction have most influenced your life, and how?
This question is the main reason I've held onto this interview for at least three weeks without posting it. Even if it had been a simpler question, like "name your three favorite books", I would have had trouble narrowing it down to three. I have chosen three books that have left an indelible mark on the way that I view the world, and/or given me deeper understanding people and human nature. I think those things qualify as "influencing" me:
Huis Clos (No Exit) by Jean-Paul Sartre Even though I completely disagree with the French Existentialists on just about everything, I've always felt drawn to their work. I first read Sartre and Camus in high school, and their works were my introduction to Continental philosophy and my first real exposure to the deeper philosophical undertones of literature in general. I'd read some great books in my English classes in high school, but we'd never touched on the questions of Being and essence and the core of the human condition. You can't help but talk about those things when you read Sartre. Huis Clos is part of the climax of my own coming-of-age story. It is one of the books that led me to major in French and, later, caused Clarence Thomas to berate me for reading "fascist" literature. But that's another story.

Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions) by Honore de Balzac. Those of you have heard me belittle twentieth century literature were probably surprised to see Huis Clos top my list. Here's an older on for you. This book is about moral ignorance masquerading as innocence and how it can be quickly and easily corrupted. It's about rampant selfishness of human nature in its many guises, about the difference between what people say and what they think. I read this for the first time when I was in graduate school, my first year out of Hillsdale College. For all that it was intellectually challenging, Hillsdale was still a bit more of an incubator for young minds than a proving ground. I've learned a lot since I left Hillsdale about the difference between honesty always requiring the "whole truth" told bald-facedly all at once and the prudence in discrete speech, in choosing and timing your words carefully. Illusions Perdues is about the world that requires truth to be discrete and honest people to be as sly as snakes while striving to remain as innocent as doves.
Paradise Lost by John Milton. This one would certainly also make it to one of my favorite works of literature (as would "Illusions Perdues"). I'm not huge on poetry-- my favorite poet is Mallarme, and that more for the fact that his poems are literary brainteasers than for their artistry--but you can't help admiring the beauty of the poem. Beyond that, I've come to see the work as a kind of worldview litmus test in literary form. I recently read a book pitting the ideas and life of Freud against ideas and life of C.S. Lewis, using them to represent to two dominant twentieth-century worldviews. Their theories hinged on the questions that really get people going in our era (mainly secularism/atheism vs theism).

Paradise Lost works in a similar way: do you agree with Blake, that Milton was "of the devil's party without knowing it?" Or do you think Milton held a belief more in tune with his time and culture (and a mind familiar with the teachings of the Bible) that we are all born into the devil's party whether we realize it or not, that we are tainted by it down to the very language we use, and that even a poem about the Creation story, when written by a human being for the glory of God, is doomed by man's sin to make the devil and sin itself look enticing and glorious? The people in the first group tend to call the tree in Eden the "tree of knowledge", those in the second group, the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil". I could go on for a long time about this, but this is only the first question Will asked me.

2. Where would you, realistically, rather be living, instead of L.A.
and why?
Well, first of all, anyone who actually lives in LA would put their hands over their ears and run away screaming if they heard you intimate that Rancho Cucamonga is anywhere near LA. They are worlds apart. (These are the same people who refer to Ohio as an "East Coast state".) That said, I'm not particularly picky. I just don't like it that much here, although it has grown on me. I would like to live somewhere with more of a sense of community, or at least a sense of community that doesn't revolve around collective self-pity over traffic conditions and pride in rampant materialism and "good" weather that you can hardly see through the smog. Rather than a list of particular places, I have a list of criteria:
1. Cheap enough that we could afford to buy a home if we wanted to.
2. Within an hour of major cultural activities and a baseball stadium (not necessarily major league)
3. Not in the South.
4. Plenty of stores and other interesting places accessible on foot or public transit.
5. Plent of nearby outdoor activities (parks, skiing, something)
6. A unique local flavor
Where we live now meats three of those criteria (we're in the Southwest, not the South). Ugh. I like Chicago, Anchorage, and Boston. (Don't let Josh know I refered to Anchorage as a city. I always tell him it's too small, that it's more like a hamlet.) I wouldn't mind living in Europe, but, while it's not totally out of the question, I can't really see it happening.

3. How does contemporary Amy compare to the envisioned Amy of the
same age ten years ago?

Let's see... Ten years ago, I was 16. If my memory is reliable, I thought that I would be a foreign correspondent of the Associated Press in Algeria or a professional violinist at this point in my life. I'm pretty sure I thought I would be married by now (as I am), and I think I had some sort of sub-conscious assumption that I would have at least one kid by now. I'm not really sure how those fit in with being a foreign correspondent in Algeria, but there's nothing in the question about me having realistic visions of my future self at age 16.

I can safely say that I never thought I would be living in California or working in a cubicle. California never appealed to me at all (maybe because I sunburn so easily), and I spent a good bit of my career planning trying to think of ways to avoid winding up with an office job. That said, I think things have worked out well for me. Algeria was, well... I was 16. I am glad I didn't pursue a career in music, much as I enjoy playing the violin. My hands are protesting even as I type this, since my tendinitis kicks in at least once a month or so. And that's just from typing a lot. With wrist guards. I can't imagine practicing for 6-8 hours a day without being able to wear wrist braces to guard against tendinitis (They would definitely get in the way.) or having my career depend on the health of my hands.

I could go on and on about why I'm glad things are the way they are, but suffice it to say that my best laid plans have never held a candle to the things God has had in mind for me.

4. Who wins in a fight between a manatee and a swimming water
buffalo, and what are the odds?

The manatee. While everybody's got a water buffalo, mine is slow and doesn't stand a chance. The manatee from heaven would definitely win. The odds are good, and the goods are odd.

5. What do you hope to be doing with yourself immediately before and
after you retire?
Boy, I'm not even sure what I'll be doing three years from now. Let's just say:
1. Still married to Josh
2. Travelling a lot (before AND after I retire).

Posted by waltondammerung at June 9, 2005 8:25 PM