Happy Sunday! I'm taking a break from the series of excerpts I've been posting from my upcoming novel, in order to share this morning's minor literary epiphany.
Douglas Murray has a Sunday column called "Things Worth Remembering," available (among other places) on The Free Press. This morning, the column discussed Persian poet Omar Khayyam and his famous work The Rubaiyat, brilliantly translated by English poet Edward FitzGerald. While Murray emphasizes the extent to which this collection of quatrains follows a "seize the day" theme, he also quoted one with quite a different message.
LXXI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
I've read this poem more than once over the years, but only this morning did it strike me how similar its point is to that sometimes conveyed by another famous author.
I've long been an admirer of British author George Eliot. One of her rarer qualities is the willingness and ability to impress on the reader a particular uncomfortable reality: some choices, some actions or failures to act, are irrevocable. Good will, good intentions, good reputation, good self-image can do nothing to undo certain decisions. The novel in which she most directly focuses on this fact is, I believe, Adam Bede. (For a description that includes spoilers, see Wikipedia. I was surprised to note, in that write-up, that this was Eliot's first published novel.)
Are there other authors you know about who also confront readers with this fact? Let me know in the comments!
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