Redemption Blues

The title was suggested by a track from the Cocteau Twins album Heaven or Las Vegas (released in 1990). In the chorus of I wear your ring, Elizabeth Fraser seemed to sing “Redemption Blues”, although I am not so convinced now that those are her exact words.

Redemption Blues refers to the search for God and salvation (prior to my release from the baleful influence of religion through feminism and Émile Durkheim); my frantic search for a partner in order to comply with expectations and acquire status and my relationship with my lover (the melancholy at the mixed blessing of having obtained your heart’s desire).

Redemption Blues was conceived as an autobiography in fragments, but equally as a work in progress not easily reducible to any single (or simple) category. My hope is that Redemption Blues will eventually attain the status of a "blog" as opposed to a "good blog of the hour" to adopt and adapt John Ruskin's classification in Sesame and Lilies: "The good book of the hour, then (...) is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of a novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; - all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weather, last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a 'book' at all, nor, in the real sense, to be 'read'. A book is essentially not a talking thing, but a written thing; and written, not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would - the volume is mere multiplication of his voice (…) But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; - this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize".

As to whether readers admire or revile me, I take consolation from the scholar:

“Tastes differ so widely, and some people are so humourless, so uncharitable and so absurdly wrong-headed that one would probably do far better to relax and enjoy life than worry oneself to death trying to instruct or entertain a public which will only despise one’s efforts or at least feel no gratitude for them”

Thomas More, Utopia, 1516

Leaving comments illuminates the manuscript, a curlicue to adorn the page:

“Besides, some readers are so ungrateful that, even if they enjoy a book immensely, they don’t feel any affection for the author. They’re like rude guests who after a splendid dinner-party go home stuffed with food, without saying a word of thanks to their host”

Thomas More, Utopia, 1516

Chameleon Caught on Camera