Eric Maas > Recent Status Updates

Farrar is the third name who is introduced and announced dead in the same breath. Sebald effortlessly and seemingly random goes from one subject to the next. Along the way, I figured it’s like these staan of fragments, like the debris of the Rings of Saturn are orbiting around a (yet) unarticulated point. So far, a lot of decline and loss…

2. The diesel train – Morton Peto’s palace – Visiting Somerleyton – The cities of Germany in flames – The decline of Lowestoft – The former coastal resort – Frederick Farrar and the city of King James II

[Frederick] devoted himself to breeding rare roses and violets. I need hardly add that the iris was also one of his favourites.

.. on account of course of his sisters names are Violet, Iris and Rose. I love how Sebald takes for granted that we paid attention on the previous page…

The great pain of separation, Frederick recalled, was with me for a long time, especially before going to sleep or when I was tidying my things; but one evening at the start of my second year, when we were told to assemble on the west forecourt, this pain was transformed within me into a kind of perverse pride. (p. 46)

The stuffed polar bear in the entrance hall stands over three yards tall. With its yellowish and moth-eaten fur, it resembles a ghost bowed by sorrows.

1. In hospital – Obituary – Odyssey of Thomas Browne’s skull – Anatomy lecture – Levitation – Quincunx – Fabled creatures – Urn burial

The writing is more than fine, switching effortlessly from subject to subject however, which asks a strong concentration that cannot be expected to simply and easily be coughed up. An interruption seems disastrous...

To see one’s name to a work gives no one a title to be remembered, for who knows how many of the best men have gone without a trace? The iniquity of oblivion blindly scatters her poppyseed and when wretchedness falls upon us one summer’s day like snow, all we wish for is to be forgotten.

Under the wonderful influence of the painkillers coursing through me, I felt, in my iron-framed bed, like a balloonist floating weightless amidst mountainous clouds towering in every side. At times the billowing masses would past and I gazed out at the indigo vastness and down into the depths where I suppose the earth to be, a black and impenetrable maze.

6. Day Six – Evening (Weymouth)

That final chapter just broke me in the best possible way

…in bantering lies the key of human warmth. (p. 213)

…adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? (p. 212)

Quite the confession, up to now there hasn’t been a sign of self-blame other than between the lines. Pay mind to what Stevens is not saying…

All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile. I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one had to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that? (p. 211)

Be careful about how you spend the best years of your life, I suppose. But you’ll only recognize those years in hindsight, won’t you?

…that doesn’t mean to say, of course, there aren’t occasions now and then - extremely desolate occasions - when you think to yourself: “What a terrible mistake I’ve made with my life.” And you get to thinking about a different life, a better life you might have had. For instance, I get to thinking about a life I might have had with you, Mr Stevens. (p. 207/208)

More than serving his employer or his profession, Stevens serves the desperate wish of a little child to be but a good boy.

His uplifting sense of triumph for never to remove his clothing in public, either in front of young Mr. Cardinal or Miss Kenton is just terribly sad…

I had, after all, just come through an extremely trying evening, throughout which I had managed to preserve a ‘dignity in keeping with my position’ – and done so, moreover, in a manner even my father might have been proud of. (p. 198)

‘What do you think dignity’s all about?’
The directness of this inquiry did, I admit, take me farther by surprise. ‘It’s rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,’ I said. ‘But I suspect it comes down to not removing one’s clothing in public.’
‘Sorry. What does?’
‘Dignity, sir.’

(p. 183/184)

5. Day Three – Morning (Moscombe, near Tavistock, Devon)

Stevens among commoners

Why Stevens, you can argue otherwise long and wide, but were you just now, though ever so clumsily, flirting with Miss Kenton? I think you were! :D

’I suffered so much over Ruth and Sarah leaving us. And I suffered all the more because I believed I was alone.’

This after just unreservedly admitting how she didn’t follow up on her threat to resign out of fear. Miss Kenton has a beautiful talent for being human. She is authentic, sweet and professional all the time. And then there is Stevens…

4. Day Three – Morning (Taunton, Somerset)

Polishing silver and welcoming Von Ribbentrop at Darlington Hall. Get your priorities straight, Stevens!

3. Day Two – Afternoon (Mortimer’s Pond, Dorset)

02. Day Two – Morning (Salisbury)

01. Day One — Evening (Salisbury)

[The great butlers] wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit […] he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone .

Which must be during the remains of the day…

…the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their undeniably demonstrativeness.

Stevens, making me laugh out loud. He is so conditioned, that a different reality is out of the question. And the understated British landscape being the summum would fit him perfectly of course.

And yet tonight, in the quiet of this room, I find that what really remains with me from this first day’s travel is not Salisbury Cathedral, nor any of the other charming sights of this city, but rather that marvelous view encountered this morning of the rolling English countryside.

So Eric, not the few hours of privacy remaining after a day’s service, but that which stands out most at the end of the day

00. Prologue: July 1956 - Darlington Hall
Already feel sorry for Stevens. How can he ever expect to give an authentic response to Mr. Farraday’s banter, if he has never been endorsed to develop a sense of humor. It feels like, with this nutshell character sketch of a very restricted man, of which I am sure he’s not even aware he’s given, the point of the story has already been made…