Re: New Song at Treasure Island (Look and Despair)
Posted: 21 Nov 2012, 21:59
Wow, you guys are amazing.
I agree with claire about "While elsewhere Tobias and the angel diguise.." instead of "Well, I swear.." - even though that phrase is one that would be at home in a Joanna song.
Also, I hear "lorn and leveled" instead of "lone and leveled"?
Alex, the "I" in that narration... it struck me as a sort of universal plea of the dying person - to be held and remembered by the people they love - I imagined it as the refrain of the 20,000 underfoot, with no monuments erected in their honor. Like, listening in on their collective memories of their dying moments.... especially "I call, I call for the doctor" makes me think of someone perishing of a feverish illness - and most of the local victims of the yellow fever epidemics were buried there. But then - that passage is so woven in to John Purroy Mitchell's story, that maybe it's all just his voice... he falls (from the plane), he tried to do well, but thinks he won't be remembered (he never got to the Western Front, where his work might count), all that matters now is his love for his wife (although it could be some other hidden love, as you said), and hers for him - her remembrance, he calls out desperately for the doctor, but death takes him before any help can arrive. His life becomes obscured by the hand of the Master as it moves on (like Florry Walker, the woman under Patch of Grass, the mother and kid). I love what you said about the personal and heartfelt stories underneath the bombastic tributes... and even the personal and heartfelt stories live only in print... and the print can't ever really contain the full measure of a person, their essential nature - what is essential is really unrecordable.
Sorry if I'm repeating things, just trying to put it together in my own mind.
I agree with claire about "While elsewhere Tobias and the angel diguise.." instead of "Well, I swear.." - even though that phrase is one that would be at home in a Joanna song.
Also, I hear "lorn and leveled" instead of "lone and leveled"?
Alex, the "I" in that narration... it struck me as a sort of universal plea of the dying person - to be held and remembered by the people they love - I imagined it as the refrain of the 20,000 underfoot, with no monuments erected in their honor. Like, listening in on their collective memories of their dying moments.... especially "I call, I call for the doctor" makes me think of someone perishing of a feverish illness - and most of the local victims of the yellow fever epidemics were buried there. But then - that passage is so woven in to John Purroy Mitchell's story, that maybe it's all just his voice... he falls (from the plane), he tried to do well, but thinks he won't be remembered (he never got to the Western Front, where his work might count), all that matters now is his love for his wife (although it could be some other hidden love, as you said), and hers for him - her remembrance, he calls out desperately for the doctor, but death takes him before any help can arrive. His life becomes obscured by the hand of the Master as it moves on (like Florry Walker, the woman under Patch of Grass, the mother and kid). I love what you said about the personal and heartfelt stories underneath the bombastic tributes... and even the personal and heartfelt stories live only in print... and the print can't ever really contain the full measure of a person, their essential nature - what is essential is really unrecordable.
Sorry if I'm repeating things, just trying to put it together in my own mind.