Sense and uncertainty

Two writers one reads, whose sites are referenced in Context, are confiding of impairments in their senses, writing with candour and eloquence on attendant uncertainty. It's a tricky season for candour, there being suddenly so much of it, particularly about loss; but I'm not suggesting this custom is suspect, for occupying a window of permission. On the contrary, Andrew Jefford and Mark Doty resort to language for framing uncertainty, despite acute pressure in the first person. Every incongruity, unless willed to the contrary, seeks reconciliation in form, and for these writers the instinct must be expected, even if the result is stunning.

People who don't know Andrew Jefford's writing will now see in an absolute sense, what his readers saw initially by comparison and then ultimately by complete trust. Jefford is read by producers and consumers alike, as a passionately scrupulous and incomparably sophisticated investigator of winegrowing and wines. He knows the physics and he knows the metaphysics of this flux, and he knows the content and the dignity of thirst. Like Valéry Lorenzo, he also likes the keyboard performances of Glenn Gould. Now he is experiencing sudden and permanent loss of hearing, in one ear.

The unexpected, the life-changing and frightening are central to the vision of Mark Doty, who writes now of severe danger and invasive remedies in one of his eyes. A necessary poet if ever there were one, Doty carries the visceral gratitude of all single men over 30, as a mediator and advocate in time of horror and pain, and is important to all readers of English over the age of 12 who may be discovering poetry. His report on this predicament continues at his own blog.



These are two men who have compelled one to think about that state of holding someone in esteem. This holding, not this stature, is the state, it is a condition; although it may be arbitrary, for the sake of plucking some word for it from the roster of likely candidates - respect, &c - esteem pops into mind because it is appropriately less commonplace, nowadays, as a verb or a noun. You can be great and not earn it; you can be simple and never lose it. 

It's not a ranking of skills; it's closer to gratitude for guiding one to an achievement of mental pleasure, the pleasure of arriving at understanding. I know: many people don't believe in the existence of understanding, but I reject that posture. Belief hasn't anything to do with it, except in a shared respect for the task. I know many deny any understanding that isn't belief. We suffer for their fanaticism. But it is human to desire understanding, proper to seek it, and humane to share it. I may not know these guys, but to paraphrase Leon Trotsky on war, they are interested in knowing me. 

I wish them well.