The main feature of my bronchitis is a persistent cough that really only abates when I'm eating or sleeping. This is extremely frustrating, though it does give a little extra pleasure to two of my favorite activities.
It’s probably a sign of the current uneventfulness of my life, but I find myself eagerly looking forward to Charles’s coronation on May 6. I have little interest in the royal family, and am mystified by Americans who are fascinated by them, but I am a traditionalist and an Anglophile – and I love liturgical music. In last week’s Spectator, John Rutter wrote that there will be “no fewer than 12 new commissioned pieces, plenty of traditional favourites, and a wealth of expert performers to give their all.” He added, “We will also have a handpicked orchestra and an ace team of military musicians, with the wonderful Westminster Abbey and Chapel Road choirs at the heart of it.”
An Episcopalian's idea of heaven.
I went to Urgent Care yesterday morning and learned that I have bronchitis. The beauty of Urgent Care as opposed to my primary care physician is not just that someone there will see me on Sunday but that someone there will see me when I’m sick.
Someone recently posted on social media an interview that William F. Buckley did with Jorge Luis Borges. At one point the great Argentinian writer says that English is a finer language than Spanish. Buckley asks him why. Borges says that English is a combination of German and Latin. As a result, it often has, to say one thing, two words that are similar but not exactly the same. He gives as examples “regal” and “kingly,” “dark” and “obscure.” He says that if he writes “Holy Ghost” – “ghost” being a dark Saxon word, it is very different than if he writes “Holy Spirit,” “spirit” being a light Latin word. This makes English a more nuanced language.
Borges also claims English is a more physical language. “Loom over,” he says, is something you can’t really say in Spanish. He mentions other combinations of verbs and prepositions – “live up to something” “live down something” – that make English such a rich and satisfying language.
A recent starred review in Publishers’ Weekly of a work of fiction quoted two lines from the book: The first, a racist comment from a peripheral character and the second, another character’s statement about the prevalence of racial hatred. And I wondered: Do writers win points these days simply by citing the currently approved obsessions? Wouldn’t readers be more impressed by the sharing of some telling observation from the author, a brilliant apercu perhaps, or an unusual or interesting use of language?
Yesterday I found myself reading to some grade schoolers, one of whom, Franklin, was not taken by the enterprise. He unenthusiastically handed me his book, The Velveteen Rabbit, and slumped in his chair with the resignation of the hopeless. As I read the classic aloud, his eyes, big behind his clunky glasses, searched the room for more enticing pursuits. At one point he dropped his head on the table, not so much resting but impaling it there, his cheek scrunched against the wood, his glasses pushed up to his forehead, his eyes closed in deepest misery. And looking at him, I kind of admired his lack of inhibition, his exquisite physical demonstration of boredom. How many times, stuck in dull conversations, have I felt like assuming the exact same position but refrained out of a learned sense of decorum?