(The Way Of Perfection) – Writing Days Journal

As I get a more firm grasp of all the various strands of plot in my novel, I am able to recognize where I need to pick up a stitch when I look at something I wrote the day before or much earlier even. For example today I followed up a scene with a few characters I wrote yesterday with a scene today exploring how those events simultaneously effected another character.

I wrote that scene in the car on my way to some things with my folks for Father’s day. I got my Dad some X-Files action figures (yep). Today I also did some shopping and got an awesome pink chair.

I decided to brush up on the vampirism spirit since someone in the writers group is writing in that genre. I’ve written some vampire stuff before when I spent years working on a comic script as one of my first projects. It never went anywhere but I look on it as an important part of my development as a writer.

So far this film is nooice.

My reading in ‘Eyeless in Gaza’ by Aldous Huxley today, chapter ten specifically made me think that this book, which I mentioned in my last post I’ve read before, certainly had an influence on me; Flavoring my intellectual character. The main character Anthony and his friend Brian discuss reading and spirituality and how Anthony in his voracious imbibing of books looks at knowledge of spiritual subjects perhaps in a way some would consider disingenuous. It made me think of the way I (and this may have developed somewhat from my reading this book) of the way I have enjoyed keeping religious statues around my house and a fancy Byzantine Crucifix for a while, telling people I wasn’t ‘really’ a Christian “I just like the iconography”. It’s a way of getting close to ideas and becoming familiar with them, while, I suppose hedging your bets? Here’s an excerpt from the passage in question:

• 

‘But I do believe,’ Anthony insisted. ‘Not in the orthodox explanations, of course. Those are obviously idiotic. But in the facts. And in the fundamental metaphysical theory of mysticism.’

‘You m-mean that you can g-get at t-truth by some s-sort of d-direct union with it?’

There was a silence. Absently, Brian picked up The Way of Perfection, and, turning over the pages, read a line here, a paragraph there. Then with a sigh he shut the book, put it back in its place and, shaking his head, ‘I c-can’t understand,’ he said, ‘why you read this sort of st-stuff. S-seeing that you d-don’t b-believe in it.’

‘But I do believe,’ Anthony insisted. ‘Not in the orthodox explanations, of course. Those are obviously idiotic. But in the facts. And in the fundamental metaphysical theory of mysticism.’

‘You m-mean that you can g-get at t-truth by some s-sort of d-direct union with it?’

Anthony nodded. ‘And the most valuable and important sort of truth only in that way.’

Brian sat for a time in silence, his elbows on his knees, his long face between his hands, staring at the floor. Then, without looking up, ‘It s-seems to me,’ he said at last, ‘that you’re r-running with the h-hare and h-h-h . . . and h-h . . .’

‘Hunting with the hounds,’ Anthony supplied.

The other nodded. ‘Using sc-scepticism against r-religion – ag-against any s-sort of i-idealism, really,’ he added, thinking of the barbed mockery with which Anthony loved to puncture any enthusiasm that seemed to him excessive. ‘And using th-this st-stuff’ – he pointed to The Way of Perfection – ‘a-against s-scientific argument, when it s-suits your b-b-b . . .’ ‘book’ refused to come: ‘when it s-suits your bee-double-o-kay.’

Anthony relit his pipe before answering. ‘Well, why shouldn’t one make the best of both worlds?’ he asked, as he threw the spent match into the grate. ‘Of all the worlds. Why not?’

‘W-well, c-consistency, s-single-mindedness . . .’

‘But I don’t value single-mindedness. I value completeness. I think it’s one’s duty to develop all one’s potentialities – all of them. Not stupidly stick to only one. Single-mindedness!’ he repeated. ‘But oysters are single-minded. Ants are single-minded.’

‘S-so are s-saints.’

‘Well, that only confirms my determination not to be a saint.’

• 

Now, I did read a description for the book somewhere that makes me believe this is only a footfall on an incomplete path for Anthony’s character. The synopsis of the novel is this:

“Anthony Beavis is a man inclined to recoil from life. His past is haunted by the death of his best friend Brian and by his entanglement with the cynical and manipulative Mary Amberley. Realising that his determined detachment from the world has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice, Anthony attempts to find a new way to live. Eyeless in Gaza is considered by many to be Huxley’s definitive work of fiction.”

There was also some talk in this chapter of how Anthony views his rich friends and how their wealth makes them freer in ways that his books don’t. His self-awareness lets him point out to himself that it’s snobbery that calls them disinhibited but in a less refined sense than he. I am curious both how this theme might interact with my novel’s ideas with the rebellion against tech which is represented by a more working class versus big tech struggle, and also whether Huxley won’t betray himself and his snobbery more so as the book goes on, as he certainly let slip some race-related language in this chapter that could mean either one of two things. Could be he was showing either a conscious awareness of the time represented (the chapters are dated to earlier periods that it was written, e.g. this chapter 1912 whereas the book was published in 1936, etc) or it could just BE a representation of the racism of the time.