New Year Resolution # 2666: Seek Out Imperfection

The mention of Trakl made Amalfitano think, as he went through the motions of teaching a class, about a drugstore near where he lived in Barcelona, a place he used to go when he needed medicine for Rosa.  One of the employees was a young pharmacist, barely out of his teens, extremely thin and with big glasses, who would sit up at night reading a book when the pharmacy was open twenty-four hours.  One night, while the kid was scanning the shelves, Amalfitano asked him what books he liked and what book he was reading, just to make conversation.  Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he liked books like The Metamorphosis, Bartleby, A Simple Heart, A Christmas Carol.  And he said that he was reading Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Leaving aside the fact that A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something revelatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist, who in another life might have been Trakl or who in this life might still be writing poems as desperate as those of his distant Austrian counterpart, and who clearly and inarguably preferred minor works to major ones.  He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby-Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pécuchet, and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers.  What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano.  Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown.  They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters.  Or what amounts to the same thing:  they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.

-- Roberto Bolaño, 2666

Resolutus Interuptus

Hey, look, it’s the dawn of a new decade (give or take a day or two)! And what would any new year be without a compulsory list of resolutions.

My friend Michael made several good points about resolutions over on his blog, The Pastoral Urbanite. One of which was this; if you’re serious about setting resolutions for yourself, don’t tie yourself down with the New Year timeframe. Take your time, put some serious thought into it, and avoid letting your good judgment be tainted by the lingering effects of a New Years Eve hangover.

Sage words. I agree that often delaying change or commitment due to chronological constraints is stupid. Issues often arise that need a prompt response, not a brush-off to be addressed in the new year. Things don’t work that way.

That said, I’m still sticking with making my resolutions on the first of the year. Perhaps I’m ignoring the spirit (and definition) of New Year resolutions, but I like to think of resolutions less as commitments to make a radical change in my life, and more as a prescribed chance to take an honest assessment of myself and my actions over the past year. A proofread for the soul, if you will. No rigid new rules or mandates, just an objective(ish) critique of Judd in 2009. And while Michael makes a great point about not rushing yourself with meaningless dates, there is something to be said about composing a retrospective while the body of the previous year is still warm. I’m one who prefers to get my musings of the previous year wrapped sooner rather than later, eliminating one more distraction from my enjoyment of the new year.

Also, I’m not going to post them. Pretty anticlimactic, right? I started this post with every intention of shuffling last year’s skeletons on to the front lawn of cyberspace. Two days later, I’ve decided against it. My assessments/resolutions will remain classified. Not that there’s anything sinister in there. I wish. Basically it just got a little too introspective for me to feel comfortable throwing out in the open. Rest assured though that it is a beautifully crafted list, piercing yet comforting, both sharply humorous and blindingly melancholy, written in iambic pentameter.

So you’ve missed out (or lucked out, depending on how you feel about iambic pentameter) on one list, but take heart, dear reader! Already I’m practically hard at work composing retrospective top-ten lists and predictions for the new year, which will no doubt be much more entertaining than some silly resolutions.