Irmgard Keun was a self-confident woman novelist whose books were banned in Germany and who in exile had a romantic relationship with Joseph Roth, whereas I am a shy, far less assured woman with nothing compiled or published in book form (my self-published efforts don't to my mind count) whose passion is reserved for reading...and reading...and finding (to me) new voices, new books; there's no emotionality left for any significant other.
What a sad state of affairs, you might say, but my affairs (of the heart) are quite in order thank you. For nothing fires me up or warms my soul anywhere near as much as gaining knowledge, sometimes useless knowledge but nonetheless knowledge. About peoples, about feelings and perspectives, and about worlds I haven't known and can only come to know through another's research or experience.
This love of words sustains me like nothing else can. Or is ever likely to, for I'm athirst for this nourishment whereas other desires are either fleeting or easily satisfied. Words accompany me from the moment I wake to the moment I bed-down which seems an obvious statement to make as aren't we all surrounded by words in various tongues in such a way? Yet how many of us are alert, really alert to this inescapable fact? Or are led by words – in the reading of them, the hearing of them, and putting them to use – as if they're the teacher guiding the student when really it's the author or speaker doing that job through verbal or written means, who furthermore don't know the people they're reaching, specifically who, in what numbers or what effect their structuring of them will have. Some of these figures reach out from beyond the grave or have been resurrected (by another) to give a different perspective of their life, their character, or to give them the recognition they deserved.
There's always something new to discover, about yourself, about another – known or public – and words are the best method in which to educate and be educated. Pictures have their place but often they need a linguistic context or a descriptive background which naturally words provide. Pictures too can be created in the mind by words - of a time, a place, a land – whereas the reverse, I find, is harder and mainly conjecture.
But then as I remarked at the beginning I have a tendency to question (and doubt) absolutely everything, including at times my own imagination when it's not asking questions of others to which they like myself don't know the answers. Because unlike Irmgard Keun of whom this was written I'm not as sharp-witted though I can be just as headstrong: motivated to know and quick to critique.
I have an opinion and it's mine and that's all that matters which doesn't mean that it won't change or even that I'll share it; or that having gained knowledge or being in possession of facts I'll be able to form one. Sometimes there are no camps in which you feel strongly enough to align yourself with; sometimes there's nothing for you personally to be opposed to but that doesn't mean your interest or learning has no significance. The interest, the almost childish curiosity is the point. Without it, life itself is uncomfortable, especially for those afflicted by such thirst because for them it's not enough to just live and go through the conventional motions. That would be suicide in thought alone if not in deed, though too often it's where these intellectual types wind up, and usually after trying to do the very thing that chafes. The modern world is the enemy, regardless of whether it contains more friends than actual foes.
The present-day, the history that's being made or advancing towards us, can overpower or seem in its pettiness uncalled-for, so much so that I prefer to dive into the past, just like some of the writers in 1936 who in a Belgian seaside town chose to pen works concerning ages past rather than confront what had happened, what was happening. History, removed many steps from you, bears no threat.
Picture credit: Plague Here, Plague There, Plague Everywhere, 1888, James Ensor, Royal Academy of Arts
