Orsino’s Desire - On Reading and Writing

‘If music be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it, that surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.’

Twelfth Night by Shakespeare begins with a dramatic monologue by Orsino, one of the main characters in the play. He speaks of love, with melancholy and despair, agued by its pangs and poison. He loves Olivia…at least that is what he thinks. For his perfervid words are not directed at Viola but rather at love itself. He is in love with love. He is enamoured by the very thought of being engaged in it, breasting through its thick waves. It is a subtle deception to Orsino’s character, and it shows with his passionate yet strangely shallow attempts at courting Olivia.

I do not know if this the case for other readers and writers. Moreover, I do not think that this is a defining characteristics to this aspect of my interests (if it was, then this would be an unflattering essay, in fact, it is not flattering in any case). But if I try to match my desires and aims to their concomitant actions, it does not always align.

Sometimes, it seems like I am Orsino while the actual process of writing and reading would seem to be Olivia. And no matter how hard I pursue her, these ventures are not always successful. Because when Olivia is the subject of my desire, it is not her that I am truly in love with. Though my eyes may cast Olivia before me when I think of such love, my mind and inner heart (however, which is cozening who, I do not know) are infatuated by the idea of reading and writing. Belletrism, academia, it all has a wreath of gold laid over and I cannot resist. That leads to bibliomania and hours spent ruminating on the bed, wanting to read, wanting to write, hoping for the impetus to come somehow, yet staying there on the bed, thinking and not doing. But this does not mean that I do not write or read at all. After all, how am I writing this right now? How so? Because sometimes that fog of illusion and inaction is dispelled and I realise that I am not hopeless, and that I can read these shapes of ink on paper and take inspiration from them, and further, take those same hieroglyphics to my own writing. Then Olivia vanishes, and Viola appears before me: a true passion that I will take action for. Even when I am sat on the chair, with the glaring screen in front me of, I am frustrated, flummoxed. But my goal is clear: Viola, and viola is aesthetics. Aesthetic perfection. Something mellifluous, something beguiling. For what is anything, but aesthetics? Why does anybody enjoy anything if not for aesthetics? Sure, there is the thought, but before that, there is the aesthetic of the thought, and isn’t that my case with Olivia and Viola (but there is difference between the aesthetics of the word and aesthetics of thought, but I am not getting into that)? So I persevere on.

To think or to do. I want to do, but I cannot help it. I just keep thinking and dreaming about doing, fooling myself into thinking that this new book means that I will read it and makes up for all of my shortcomings.

But once again, how so? How do I manage to write. What made the fog vanish? Perhaps sometimes the inspiration is too great. I read a new author, find a new prose stylist, fall in love with a sentence, get excited by a word. Then, the Muses have instilled within me boundless passion that strikes me with frissons every time I think of what could be, how great this art could be, my eyes become big and dreamy, so what can I do but oblige? Occasionally though, there is an existential root to my sudden bursts of activity in the literary world. There is only this life to live, and I must do something for it. I cannot say that life has no meaning, it may well have some secret hidden behind its primordial lips, primed on the tongue, but never meeting the eye of a mortal, but that does not mean that I do not find my own meaning. There is something to do and I must. Because there is only this life to live. That is why one must read, if not write as well, to make the most of the knowledge that is available. It is quite like Plato’s theory of the immortal soul, even though I disagree somewhat with it. The soul has within it, imbued the knowledge of previous lifetimes and it incrementally grows. Rationally, there is nothing like the immortal soul. But writing and reading is the closest to it. Reading to grasp the knowledge of previous lifetimes, writing to perhaps, maybe, just maybe, have some impact and leave knowledge for future lifetimes. The cycle goes on and on.

I am Orsino, plagued by Olivia, in search for Viola.

To conclude, a quote from the late William H. Gass:

Few of the stories one has it in one's self to speak get spoken, because the heart rarely confesses to intelligence its deeper needs; and few of the stories one has at the top of one's head to tell get told, because the mind does not always possess the voice for them. Even when the voice is there, and the tongue is limber as if with liquor or with love, where is that sensitive, admiring, other pair of ears?

— William H. Gass, from the Preface of In the Heart of the Heart of the Country