010. Has The World Changed, Or Have I?


Bugger.

This Sunday is Sirius's birthday. Normally, this would be cause for much raucous celebration, merry-making and general well-mannered frivolity, but lately, Sirius has been acting very off. Especially considering that his birthday is coming up, in a more normal and Sirius-like state, he would be bouncing off the walls, unfolding my socks, stuffing things in places where they do not belong, preventing me from doing work at all cost, and setting various objects on fire which are not meant to be on fire. Instead, he's doing this very strange sort of despondent pouting thing that I do not understand at all. He won't talk, which is strange in and of itself, and he's been rather standoffish when I try to get him to talk.

I'm starting to think that I did something wrong, but I haven't done anything, certainly not that I remember. Maybe he thinks I have done something that I haven't done, which is tainting his perception of me in a way I had nothing to do with and could not possibly be aware of. Or else, perhaps I did something on accident and without realizing it which has greatly inconvenienced him in some way, but he would tell me, wouldn't he? He wouldn't miss out on a well-presented opportunity to poke fun at me over something.

Unless, of course, he's grown tired of making fun of me and has finally purchased a grammar book and this is his way of letting me go gently.

On top of all of that, it's his birthday on Sunday, and I don't have anything good to give him. I am absolutely terrible at birthday gifts. I always try to give people what they actually want, and always end up getting frustrated and giving them a book that sits on their shelf until the day that they die, move, or otherwise become physically separated from the book.

Maybe he would like Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. It is a collection of short stories, which means it might be perfect for his attention span, but the short stories are mostly written as book reviews for books that were never written, so it takes all these interesting ideas for a plot, and puts them in a short, easily accessible format. And this is the one that has Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. In the story, an encyclopedia article about a mysterious country called Uqbar is the first indication of Orbis Tertius, a massive conspiracy of intellectuals to imagine (and thereby create) a world: Tlön. It also has The Circular Ruins, which is a very interestingly constructed fantasy short that deals in dreams, and the difference between dreams and reality. Which, according to Borges, is a very, very large difference to such an extent that really, what you dream about may have absolutely nothing at all to do with your actual thoughts, feelings or desires. However, I think the resolution isn't nearly resolved enough. It raises some essential questions in the places its resolution seems to contradict directly with the philosophy of Descartes, but only if you're reading it that way. It's interesting if you just read it for fun, too.

Perhaps he would like Burgess. I didn't like A Clockwork Orange very much, but he might. It seems that teenage boys tend to, with some obvious exceptions. It's funny, Burgess really didn't like that book all that much, either. He preferred some of his other works.

Or I suppose I could always give up and give him another book of poems. I'm beginning to worry that I may be the only person who genuinely thinks that a teenage boy can never have too many books of Byron poems, which is quite ridiculous, because one can never actually have too many Byron poems. Not that Byron is my favorite poet, though he is certainly among them. It's very difficult for me to decide on a favorite poet, as excellent and varied as they are. Perhaps a collection would be in order. Or else, perhaps a bit of Tennyson. He might actually like Tennyson. Or perhaps Keats. Or Coleridge.

Or not.

Bugger.



It's rather too quiet in the Gryffindor dorms lately, which is something I never believed that I would say. It certainly isn't that I mind the quiet, because God knows that I don't. I am perfectly capable of enjoying long moments of silence, and I have been known to seek them out, but this is an eerie sort of silence in which one cannot help but wait for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. The nature of a Gryffindor dormitory is not to be quiet, but to be loud, boisterous and irritating, and when it is otherwise, it is incredibly unsettling for all those around to experience it. Though I would hate to encourage my dormmates to amend the situation.

The general quiet environment, however, which has extended to the common room in a far less severe fashion, has been very conducive to reading. I have been rifling through a few books I had meant to read a long time ago and am just now getting to, since I decided to abandon the Satyricon until further notice. Honestly, Rabelais, whose works I settled on isn't all that much better, but it seems like it has been a long time since I've read any French literature. The Abbey described in chapter 52 of Gargantua is quite an unusual and interesting phenomenon, though. Rather comical, which was Rabelais's intent, I'm sure, but sort of an interesting concept. It's a little microcosm of the community without walls, without clocks, without the typical restrictions that an Abbey imposes, so it's very, very little like an Abbey. It begs the question, is there something inherently spiritual about a spiritual place, or do the rules and restrictions set in place by an organized religion make something more or less spiritually connected? Do these monks and nuns who live in the Abbey constructed by Gargantua feel any less connected to a higher power because they are allowed to marry and to come and go as they please, or are they, perhaps, more connected, as they come of their own volition?

Who knows?

Salvete Omnes,
Remus J. Lupin