Fyodor Dostoyevsky
This week, I selected the ten schools where I will apply for entrance into doctoral programmes. They range from the ‘probably too ambitious’ to the ‘probably too cautious’, with the hope being that I will be accepted into at least one of the middle options. My great hope is the University of Michigan–it is a solid school, and would mean that I could remain in-state. But, the reality of the market is such that there are other factors to consider in addition to mere geography: the quality of the programme, the personalities of the key scholars, and (inevitably) the money.
This all assumes, of course, that I get in. With the subject GRE in English Literature coming up, I find myself anxious. To say that a comprehensive knowledge of English literature is required would be an understatement. A read-through of the example test shows that one must be intimately familiar with the plots, structures, and writing styles present in a dizzying array of works from all areas of the canon from Beowulf to Tom Wolfe. Curiously, some of the Russian novelists find their way in as well: perhaps someone at GRE-HQ has a thing for Dostoyevsky.
Whilst these issues remain hanging overhead–the grim atmosphere of the moment–the quotidian aspects of academic life continue to roll on like waves upon a beach; and with the same slow, erosive effect. Discussions are had, crackpot theories are advanced, colleagues show themselves brilliant and boobish by turns, and professors are exasperated by the occasional raving of this or that ageing student. In general, the whole is very satisfactory; peculiar events stand out and–retrospectively–are more occasion for humour than actual frustration. I am fortunate in that nearly all of my peers are capable and intelligent, few as they are.
Charles Baudelaire
For the first time since I began college-level studies, I am accomplishing some personal reading in the course of a semester. It is a cheat, of a sort, since it has a direct bearing on the classes I am taking, but Baudelaire is, nevertheless, one of my great joys. I last read his Les Fleurs du Mal in English when I was in high school; now, I am at last able to do so in French (though admittedly with some concentration and the occasional glance to reference works). The work is amazing; I appreciate it far more than I did when I was younger, just as I appreciate Wuthering Heights far more. If academic studies have taught me anything, it is how to examine, interrogate, and appreciate literature. I get far more out of books now than I ever did before.
But what is such an extraction without someone to discuss it with–someone of like mind and a similar literary bent? Luckily, I am just as fortunate in this regard. And so my academic studies provided me with Thea who, like me, loves the great poets and their many works–who enjoys hearing them read, discussing them, and meditating upon their ideas. It is a happy restoration which, as though fated, restores order from chaos. Working against the laws of entropy which seem to govern all else, human relations inclusive, the situation is a compelling argument for destiny (at least).
A few days ago, I observed that my academic pursuits have stopped being ‘tasks to which I must attend’, and have become instead ‘my life’–by which I mean that I no longer view them as hurdles to be jumped, but rather as contingent parts of my experiences. In the same way that I must shower, shave, and make tea, I must also read books and write papers upon them. This is what I meant about the erosive effect of academia: it has taken my rough edges–rebellious here, slothful there–and worn them down into a more agreeable shape. Rounded thus, they accept the waves with less rebuke, even as they lightly impregnate the waters with something of my own granite will.
