Living in the Mystery

I spent a wonderful weekend with a fine group of poets digging into the mystery and complexity that is work of Rilke. His challenge to the reader --to me-- feels just as demanding and as prickly (in good ways) as Emerson, as Keats-- he wants us to experience living, not live a life. To slow down, to be patient--no, that's not quite it: he wants us to be patience. To embody quietude.

That is a tall order for those of us who must scurry through our days. It's also a really good point to ponder: what is necessary? What is it that I actually need? And how do I practice becoming?

Needless to say, I almost fell fast asleep in my chair around 7pm. I roused myself and watched something or other on TV-- a complicated British mystery that I have no idea what is actually going on, but it is interesting in the character development. That is one thing I've noticed about British vs. American mysteries, that the characters in British mysteries always seem to be tortured, complicated, sad people with really layered and distressing back stories that have not a whole lot to add to the main plot. The characters in American mysteries seem to be almost beside the point, that the plot is the focus (except for the main characters in Robert Parker's novels). This is interesting to me, because in the print literary tradition, it's quite the opposite. In an English Country House Murder Mystery (also known as a cosy mystery), the characters are sketches of types, quite often, and the plot is paramount. This is not a hard and fast rule, of course, but we don't know that much about most of the investigators until we get to perhaps Dalgliesh, created by P.D. James.

I've spent most of my adult life reading various subgenres of mystery fiction, and I can't say that I've read too many that didn't please me in one way or another, even the more predictable ones. The richly textured characters with their (usually) awful haircuts and wind-burned faces, crying into a cuppa and worrying about how they'll go on with their lives, somehow seem to get the job done. I suppose there's something very heartening, even a little noble in a pedestrian way, about that. 

The quirkiness of Poirot and Holmes, in "real life," would get them ridiculed, not revered. But in literature, and in the films, they are the smartest ones in the room, and room must be made for their oddness. They are depended upon, and they get the job done. Everyone is in awe.

So hooray for mysterious, odd characters. I suppose many of us would fit into that category in one way or another. Maybe the oddness allows a person to do as Rilke suggests, to exist in the moment, if we don't hide it. Maybe the answers are there, as well. 

Have a good day,

C