“I’m sorry to tell you this, honey,
but this book is me at my worst.”
“Oh, I know it is, dear. I know.”
As a guy pushing hard into his middle-ages, seeing yourself in a book isn’t always the most flattering thing. Most of us got hooked on storybooks in our youth, identifying with titular characters, heroic protagonists, hoping soon to sprout pubes and join with Hardy Boys in acts of derring-do.
These easy, encouraging connections continue on through the student years, where lonesome frustrations find release in the discovery of other rebels-sans-cause, with fantasies of endless days and never-ending lady-chasing nights that promise soon to be real, a birthright awaiting the chosen few who dare to take up the pen and press plans into action.
And now I’m reading Weary Men by Arne Garborg, a book that, from the title down, was a hard pill to swallow. It’s a loose novel, published in Norwegian in 1891, consisting of a series of journal entries and rambles from a guy nearing 40, a guy who flails about and flounders, his despair shielded by the protective guise of middle-class desk-job respectability.
He’s arrived at a spot in life where he’s comfortable yet unfulfilled, busy but lonely, and has seen enough of the world to know that satisfaction will not be found in further striving. Thus, he loses days to dissipation, nights to dubious romantic obsessions, soon crawling back to his midnight cave, to light a fire and mourn his neglected literary ambitions, hoping to find a shot of solace in the pretense that he’s a writer with a novel yet in him.
As a window to the fella’s mental state, here’s his cynical take on that most Christ-like of all Christ-uttered passages:
Seven beatitudes:
Blessed are the poor: for if only they had a million…
Blessed are the oppressed: for if only the revolution came…
Blessed are the misunderstood: for if only there arose a real critic…
Blessed are the disappointed in love: for if only they could embrace that one and only…
Blessed are the drunken: for if only they could restrain themselves for just one year…
Blessed are the sick: for if only they became well again…
Blessed, blessed are all who suffer loss and pain: for they still posses the illusion of happiness.
But woe to you, ye wealthy, ye mighty, ye healthy, ye famous, ye who are lucky in love and in war: for your heads are no longer shaded by any curtain of illusion from the consuming sun called truth.
Life. So what’s the point, eh?
I’m still hoping to avoid a full-blown midlife crisis — that dark night of the grey-templed soul — but if you find yourself in such a place where camaraderie must suffice in the place of compassion, you might want to search out a copy of Weary Men. Sometimes seeing yourself at your worst isn’t a bad thing. Those quickly-deleted selfies can be enlightening, might even be motivating. After some reflection, you might decide it’s time to make some changes. As our protagonist finds, learning the fates of other weary men can shock one to action.
It might do the same for you. No guarantees. For in the end, the next step’s on you. It’s always on you. And that, my friend, is the hard part.
