Moleskine Modality IV
Through someone writing to me about his recent purchase of a Moleskine notebook, which he proposed to use to draw for his beloved, I have clarified (after more than one attempt) what this Moleskine modality is about: It's not the Muse, though that comes into it; it's not a Talisman, though that plays a part; it's more an incantation. Don't knock each other over in your rush to your dictionaries to prove this is the wrong word. It is about inspiration and motivation to write.Take a man walking across a swath of mown grass. He sees mole-hills. Walking up to them, with a view to seeing if there is a fresh one - and whether he can detect a pattern which will tell him in which direction the mole is digging - he notices something sticking out of the finely minced earth of one of the excavations. He bends down for a closer look. To his surprise it is the tip of a notebook. Gently pulling it out of the soft soil, he brushes it down, recognising it is a Moleskine.
Opening the cover, he sees some writing (shall we say in soft pencil?). Turning the pages, he realises it has many pages full of writing. He pockets the book and takes it home. In the comfort of his study, he sits to read the notebook......
In the 1963, Harrap edition of Le Grand Meaulnes, with its lengthy introductory biography and analysis, is the claim that Henri Fournier carried around in his pocket notes he had scribbled the evening of the day he dared to speak to Yvonne de Quievrecourt (she of the famous, "A quoi bon?")in a Paris street, to act as an 'incantation'. He considered Yvonne his Muse, but it was the fantasy he began to write about her which kept him focused on the idea of writing his famous novel. It took him 8 years all told, finally being published in 1913. Before the end of 1914 he was dead: swallowed up like Hans Castorp in the last two or three pages of The Magic Mountain.
posted by Adfero Affero @ 4:25 PM
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