Mule Day
2005-10-26 @ 9:17 p.m.

Butler University is so persistent in sending me e-mails, I almost feel like applying just to see if I'll get in. Will bear that in mind, just in case all six of my UK choices don't even make me an offer. Talking to Duana, or trading SMSes with her to be precise, is reassuring, even if we've been discussing matters which usually drive people crazy, like tests and interviews. She is, dare I say it, one of the nicest people I've met who hails from the vaunted halls of RJC. (Not that you aren't nice, assuming you're one of my Rafflesian readers of course.) A very pleasant character, and I hope she gets into Cambridge. I wish the History syllabus were narrower and that there were an MCQ paper for History. Do you think the study of history is a somewhat perverse preoccupation? I once dismissively referred to it as "impassioned debate masquerading as intellectual discussion", a comment that at times is not too far from the truth, in my not-so-humble opinion. Honestly, does the average person really care about the origins of the French Revolution? I think not. Even the study of literature offers greater intellectual rewards, for literature at least reflects the transformation of words into art. Historians, defend yourselves! (Comments, Shirley?) Ironically, I'd probably like studying history a lot more if I didn't have to study History, if you catch my drift.

Finished reading The Lemon Table before dinner, which I've decided is good and clever, but when you think carefully about it, doesn't say anything particularly new. Then again, Alexander Pope might argue that poetry doesn't say something new, it recasts the familiar in a refreshing mold. So why can't prose be like that too? Misunderstand me not. I like Barnes's work, but it tends to leave me feeling hollow, even if the intention's the exact opposite. Appeals more to the head than the heart. Perhaps this is the problem with a good deal of modern literature? Clever, erudite and witty, but not exactly engendering sympathy. I now proceed to flatly contradict myself by noting that I felt horribly sad when Clare left Bobby and Jonathan in Cunningham's A Home At The End Of The World. Ditto for when Lola leaves Max in Hoban's Her Name Was Lola.