Paradise Lost - Finally 8-25-2015

I actually read all of Milton's Paradise Lost (Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004; David Hawkes, ed.) A disturbing read - my mind wandering into thickets and playing what-if with the will-o-the-wisps of memory - but one finished. I see why this epic poem declined in favor. I feel I have eaten a very heavy meal, with lots of English boiled beef. Not that boiled beef lacks good points - although a side of horseradish does improve it.

 So farewll hope, and with hope farewell fear,

Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;

Evil be thou my good

p. 110

 Uh huh, been there, done that. Maybe not all remorse left me. My 1989 trip to Orlando came to mind - if I had a decent bone in my body, I should have killed myself then. Maybe I still had hope and fear. But towards the end, actually in 2009, I thought myself hopeless. The Who's "The Good's Gone" in my head. If not for returning to the Church, I wonder if not killing myself was not a grievous error on my part.

I think I know why the poem went uncompleted back in 1978. Why read Milton when one can read Genesis instead? I can see myself thinking so and telling myself that I had read Genesis already before haring off somewhere to do something useless.

But, oh, how Milton got me thinking on tangents! This brought forth the reactions felt after a crack binge.

...but apparent guilt,

And shame, and perturbation, and despair,

Anger and obstinancy, and hate, and guile.

p. 310

Others brought up ghosts. Of a life could have been worse. I may have finally gotten over TJ.  But when I started Milan Kundera's Laughable Loves (Penguin, 1988), I found this appropriate for what I had been thinking about my life:

 Man passes through the present with his eyes blindfolded. He is permitted merely to sense and guess at what he is actually experiencing. Only later, when the cloth is untied can he glance at the past and find out what he experienced and what meaning it has had.

"Nobody Will Laugh", 2 

I see things I could have done, but none of these things would have led to a better life. Hard to admit to being a mediocre dullard - or it being an apt epitaph.

 Did a 5-page play for the playwriting class. I think I will keep it. I am calling it "The Overreacher". Good review from Russel O. on Perversion. But changes needed.

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