Letting other people see

It's coming to be that time when I show my chapters to other people so they can proofread them, and it's a strange sensation. Like all writers, I'm protective of my baby, but I'm also curious what impression it will make on friends who have heard me talk about it for so long. I feel a bit like James Spedding did when he had written a biography of Cromwell; he wrote to Tennyson remarking on what he wanted from critics:

"Is it likely that a man, who has written a serious book about anything in the world, should not know more about that thing than one who merely reads his book for the purpose of reviewing it? [...] What I want to know is whether men and women and children who care nothing about me, but take an intelligent interest in the subject, find the book readable. What its other merits are nobody knows so well as I."

Of course, my friends are hardly likely to be painfully critical. But Martin is a proper historian, so letting him see my historically-oriented first chapter makes me nervous that he won't find it rigorous enough. And Ian is a proper ASNC scholar, so he'll detect the places where I've fudged my Anglo-Saxon literary generalizations. Phil writes absolutely gorgeous prose, so when I send him what I think is my best chapter, I'm still aware of all the awkward phrases and stilted transitions that I just can't seem to make better.

Yet for all that, I know I've packed in a lot of original material. One of my favorite things in my PhD is a single footnote. No one else would have been in a position to write it, and it brought a wonderful punch to the point I was trying to make. Naturally, it's about Kemble.

If you recall, two years ago I met up with fellow Kemble enthusiast Simon Keynes over at Trinity. He showed me a pamphlet Kemble had given to his friend Arthur Hallam. Now, in one of my chapters I make the point that Kemble's friends couldn't avoid hearing him ramble on about his latest projects. Apparently, there was a typo in this pamphlet, because there's a funny letter from Hallam to Kemble assuring his friend that he will "cheerfully […] make with pencil or pen that important alteration of swylce for swylke on which the destinies of mankind may be reasonably supposed to depend." So... did Hallam actually make the correction in his copy? I emailed the eminent Dr Keynes, he sent me a photo, and yes! He did! (Or Kemble did before he sent it.) See, look:

(If you're paying close attention, you'll notice that Hallam was slightly confused. Kemble was correcting an earlier scholar's transcription from swyke to swylce, but the printers goofed and swapped the y and the l. That's what needed correcting.)

None of this has any real impact on my argument, but it's just so darn cool.

The downs and ups

I said in a previous post that I would try to be honest about the downs as well as the ups of this PhD roller coaster, and so I must admit that last week I was feeling very, very down. I'd burned myself out in a race to get a full draft in to my supervisor, then taken a week to go to France with the chapel choir.  When I returned, I discovered that the supervisor and I had seriously misunderstood each other as to what kind of draft he was expecting from me. For two days, I was miserable. I felt betrayed, abandoned. It seemed I would either have to forge ahead with only my own judgment for justification, or slink home, having missed my four-year deadline and been kicked out of the university and the country accordingly. To my unspeakable relief, however, our meeting went very well; it's now up to me to finish the damn thing and submit it by the end of the month. Wow.

One of the plaques thanking Ste Anne for her help

So now that I've climbed out of that pit of despair, I can report that the choir trip to Brittany was a much-needed, crêpe-filled holiday, though it didn't look like your typical holiday. We had all day free until 3:00pm, but staying in the village of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, there wasn't much to do with that time. One day trip to neighboring Auray broke things up, though it was haunted by our concern over catching a bus back in time for rehearsal.

Each day, after some afternoon rehearsing and a dinner break, we spent our evenings making our legs and feet very sore by standing for long stretches to record our first-ever CD(!!!). When it is released (hopefully on a *real* label in *real* stores!), you should buy it, because it's going to be stunning. Andy demanded the best we could give, and it turns out we had a lot to give into the echoing wells of sound in every nook and cranny of side chapels, shrines, and carved stone. When you listen to Bairstow's "Lamentation", know that it was a grueling night of takes and sub-takes, after which we could only sit round with our wine and stare at each other, exhausted. When you listen to Wood's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, know that we had sung them so often this past year that we could have done it in our sleep, and so it was an easy joy to let it loose.

And what a release it will be to hand in this dissertation! I can't even remember writing most of it anymore, it's just perpetually with me. I wonder if I've become institutionalized to it, like the prisoners in "The Shawshank Redemption". I'm going to assume that, no, it will be a real pleasure to have the chance to work on something different.