In the wilderness

     I'm reading Katherine Mansfield's Journal - not a book to choose if your spirits need a lift, as she was frequently ill, depressed, anxious, agonising over not writing (as opposed to not being able to write), unsettled and leading an almost painfully itinerant life. But that said, there is much here worth reading: some humour, some beautifully descriptive passages - notes for her writing, jotted lines and images which she'd later work up - and some ideas which require reflection.

     Here's a piece from 1920 on 'Cultivated Minds' : "Such a cultivated mind doesn't really attract me. I admire it, I appreciate all 'les soins et les peines' that have gone to produce it - but it leaves me cold. After all, the adventure is over. There is now nothing to do but to trim and to lop and to keep back - all faintly depressing labours. No, no, the mind I love must still have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two (real snakes), a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of  - and paths threaded with those little flowers planted by the mind. It must also have real hiding places, not artificial ones, not gazebos and mazes. And I have never yet met the cultivated mind that has not had its shrubbery. I loathe and detest shrubberies."   

     What do you think? Any views on 'wild places' - or, indeed, shrubberies?

Comments

[Barbara]

I'm reminded of Dr Johnson's saying that the comparison between Racine (?) and Shakespeare was like that between a clipped hedge and a thicket. I admire the clipped hedge but relish the thicket. And where would a lady walk without her shrubbery?

[Rebecca]

That is a wonderful passage, hmmm, not sure my mind is a terribly cultivated thing these days, a fair few wild areas full of brambles and long grass....

[Peter the flautist]

As Cornflower no doubt suspects Dark Puss has some dark and sinister places in his mind. Occasionally these can be espied from the more formally laid out garden that he inhabits normally. Darkly beautiful, wonderful and disturbing creatures may occasionally be seen there. Whether Ms Mansfield would have loved my mind I do not know, but I'm not changing the layout now!

[carol]

I think that we all have not only those wild places and the beautifully cultivated areas in our minds, but if we are honest with ourselves, the shrubbery too. There is nothing wrong with shrubbery in my opinion. Great stuff - it fills in beautifully, often without meticulous care, yet year after year it blooms, grows and continues on in its own quiet way.

[Danielle]

I've been working on this one for what feels like ages, too. Maybe you're right and the heavy content is keeping things moving slowly. I do like the descriptive passages, though--especially the ones that are rewritten--it's interesting to see how her mind changes and progresses.

[Tui M.]

Karen, I recently read "Uncommon Arrangements, Seven Portraits of married Life in London Literary Circles 1910 - 1939". The marriage of Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry was featured in one of the chapters. It seems that the worse things got around her, the better she wrote.