Oh hello
When I leave the house, all I see are empty streets, cold, blank exteriors, and slabs of concrete. Things in my life seem impermanent, unstable, flimsy: like the chair that I am sitting on will, over time, disintegrate; the table, too, will not last. The plant on my desk is always close to death.
Without a sturdy environment to rest my elbows, I’ve been focussing instead on grace as a principle I can use to guide decisions about both the mundane and the magical. Look, terms like grace, I know, are hard to pin down and speak about with precision but I am equipped with youth and a confidence that wants to hold a conversation with a glass of red wine in one hand and a serving spoon in the other. And so, for me, grace looks like a sense of calm, compassion and kindness. It is a sensitivity to and warmth towards others when acting and expressing yourself. It touches knees with elegance but is less preoccupied with silhouettes and more interested in how to live. What I’m trying to say is that it looks like Jane, Holly Hunter’s character in Broadcast News (1987): Jane is still her brash, anxious, honest self, but when making decisions about how to live her life, she is deeply concerned about those close to her. She acts with grace.
The Water Statues (1980) by Fleur Jaeggy
The Water Statues is about time going by: about the dual horror and joy that can be found in that inevitability. It begins: “Though the years vanish as swiftly as ever, sorrow, and life coming to an end make time seem too long.” The first half of the story focuses on Beeklam, the second on Katrin, both of whom are grappling with this.
Nothing much happens in The Water Statues. And it is hard to keep track of what time has in fact passed. Sentences like, “There is, in helping others, a vague homicidal passion hard to contain in less bloody impulses”, are repeated, sometimes with minor adjustments, by different characters. The story proceeds as more of a collection of images; of moments that end only because a new one begins. “Just like life!” I yell, now hoarse. “Time went by,” the narrator says.
Beeklam, who “wished to live as though he’d drowned”, lives in the flooded basement of his villa where he keeps statues. Statues offer him permanence and “stillness” when real life does not. It moves him to a previous life “full of incredible [presumably never ending] paradigms of perfection”. With his statues and their “chipped lids”, he can ignore the tragedy that he is getting older. Katrin is similarly embittered. She watches guards carry out their routines and admires “their bent afflictions, living in a sort of penance, in that free zone of humanity, desireless”. But Katrin is not like them. She has desires. She wants control over her life and feels an entitlement to “everything ephemeral”.
It is not all gloom, though. When Beeklam leaves his basement, he finds in the world new perspectives on time. While passing other homes, he sees “how very quiet the lives of others could be, how pleasant it is to be in an armchair and to hear the patter of rain on glass panes”. This persuades him that “his life was passing, had passed” and that brings him pleasure but only because of his disdain for the world that he is living in.
If there’s a crack between these two positions of despair and joy, Beeklam finds it one evening watching the sunset. He observes the time between the sun going down and darkness. Beeklam, in that moment, experiences what we all have during a perfect evening with a friend or lover. Time seems to extend, to stretch out, not forever, never forever, but for a bit longer, a little bit longer than he felt like he had a right to. There, finally, as the sun went down “it seemed to him that the death rattle of eternity resounded between sundown and the night; for the first time he felt buoyed, for the first time he felt as though something was lasting too long”.
Archipelago (2010) by Joanna Hogg
A rich British family go on a holiday to the Scilly Isles, off the South West of England. Edward, the son, played by Tom Hiddleston, is about to go to Africa to help fight the AIDS crisis. His sister, Cynthia, thinks he needs to get on with his life. His mother, Patricia, keeps on calling her estranged husband, crying, and taking landscape painting classes on the Isle. They fall, painfully, into the roles that they have always had. Edward is the naive younger brother. He is kind, cringes at how his family acts and avoids confrontation. Cynthia is the serious one. She takes responsibility. But she wears this role with a grimace and disgust for her family’s passivity. Patricia would just like a nice holiday with her family.
Archipelago is the sophomore feature by British film director Joanna Hogg, known for The Souvenir (2019) and The Souvenir Part 2 (2021). Like in those films, Hogg focuses on the tensions and disillusionment within white British wealthy families. Archipelago is a study of repression. Something is wrong, but, for most of the film, you do not know what. The characters prefer to console each other rather than talk about what is going on. Lots happens out of earshot.
Hogg creates worlds of clattering plates, of sighs, and forced smiles. Watching her films you get a real sense of the heaviness of social expectations; of how, particularly in certain contexts and in certain relationships, it is oh so very hard to do like your close friend or therapist is telling you to do and communicate clearly. Archipelago made me mourn the areas and times of my own life where I don’t or haven’t said how I feel; or where I’m labouring or have laboured within roles that don’t, in fact, fit. Hogg doesn’t provide, I don’t think, motivation to be always and forever true to yourself and honest to others. But she is sensitive—she offers a consoling pat on the back—to the effort required to establish that life and build relationships that support it.
Love
Anne
The Water Statues and Archipelago
Ok I love this - a fan
like a beam of light to read how you write