More Work in Progress

Well, I finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie a few days ago - the film with Maggie Smith captures so much of the tone and tensions of the story that it always repays; I can't remember how many times I have watched it, and it's funny how every time you watch a movie, or read a book, you pick up things you missed on the first time. But when I listed the books I'm still reading - and I do it by picking up a different one every chapter or so, though sometimes I get so hooked that I stick with one straight through to the end - I forgot several others: one is A Dance to the Music of Time,by Anthony Powell. I'm on Volume 1, Spring. And another is For One More Day by Mitch Albom. I first encountered him though Tuesdays With Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I don't read a great deal of spiritual stuff - I have an interest in Buddhism - particularly Zen (which kind of goes with the territory if you're my age) but I do like Albom's writing. It's so simple and conversational and leads you, well, Me, through the narrative. This one is about a guy who feels he has hit rock bottom and can see no point in living. I don't like to give things away for anyone who hasn't read a book so I prefer to keep my comments vague. I've never felt that bad myself - though I've certainly had those points when your, well, My, life seems to fall apart - completely out of the Blue! And at such times I've not been able to see any way through the maelstrom - I do mix my metaphors, rather. So, while I have never contemplated suicide myself, I have lost several close friends to it, and can understand that when someone has lost all hope and can only visualise themselves in a black hole with no way out, it must seem as if bringing death forward is a solution which will release them from their anguish and , somehow, set others free as well. Of course, it rarely does the latter, but when you are in such a dreadful place it is probably impossible to see alternatives, or consequences. For many years I worked as an Addictions Counsellor - principally with Alcohol Dependency - and most of my clients were probably heading on that downward spiral Charley Benetto has been on at the start of the book. I think, I hope, my work with them helped them see that there were ways in which they could regain control of their lives, distance themselves from the destructive relationship they had with Alcohol, and start climbing out of the Hole. What Counselling does is offers a helping hand which can lead the client towards the light. Of course, it doesn't solve all the problems which had put them there, but it can help someone find the strength within themselves to take responsibility and, hopefully, rebuild their lives. Of course, if you never see your clients again, you never know what happened next - but in a small town, in a rural area, you usually hear from someone.
Oh and after I had written a heterosexual scene in The Adventures of Daphne and Maude which had given me some difficulty, because it felt not only voyeuristic but also somewhat pornographic to be writing about something I had never experienced myself - naver have, never will - I read a passage in Orlando in which Woolf, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, addresses the diffficulty for a Biographer, if her subject is doing nothing, and writes that for a Male Novelist it is easy, to simply conjur up a Gamekeeper to satisfy the needs of a wife whose husband has had an unfortunate accident with a Combine Harvester, and he need only whistle below the window for a period of activity which can move the story along. This was published in 1926, the same year as D H Lawrence published Lady Chatterley's Lover, which Virginia Woolf must have read - or heard sufficient about, to puit that short passage into her story. Neat, eh?