Here is the diary I kept more or less diligently during the writing of my dissertation. Because I live such an extraordinarily exciting life, very little of the following pertains to writing a dissertation. After all, who would want to read about the rituals and rigours of academia when they could be reading about my thrilling adventures with beautiful people in dazzling locations? That's right. Nobody. Someone like me, someone so handsome, intelligent, charming, and handsome, invariably takes part in japes and capers beyond the scope of normal mortals. So, like an incredibly handsome latter-day Prometheus, I now enlighten your dark, squalid lives with my elegant account of the last three weeks...
Wednesday, 21st March
A day which began with great promise has gradually been slipping downhill since I received a minor electric shock from a socket on the third floor, resulting in temporary paralysis of my right hand. Woe is, as ever, unconfined. On top of this, I sorely regret wearing a jumper, as it is far too warm, and even the most trivial physical exertion causes patches of prickly heat to erupt on my back and shoulders. Nevertheless, the older lending stock on the newly opened fourth floor has yielded a wealth of useful material, though even this boon brings with it a uniquely unpleasant frustration. The pile of books and essays that remain un-sifted is now engorged beyond the limited bounds of my time, patience and mental stability. I've barely glanced at the Tennyson stuff, and there is, predictably, much more of that. This is a nuisance for the very obvious reason that my dissertation is due in just under three weeks, but, to make matters worse, what I've unearthed within the ineffably regimented Dewey Decimal System upstairs is really very interesting. I knew, for instance, that Swinburne's 'Faustine' was written to see how many rhymes he could find for the name. I did not know, however, that it was written on a train journey, alongside Rossetti and, I think, William Morris, in the kind of contest one simply doesn't encounter in the twenty-first century. This sort of thing is not particularly useful when writing a ten-thousand word piece of serious literary criticism, eating up precious stretches of the word count as it would, but it is the sort of thing I enjoy. Another literary anecdote: Swinburne, having spent the evening at a London gentleman's club, became frustrated in his attempts to locate his top-hat in the cloakroom; infuriated by this, he threw everyone else's on the floor and trampled them beyond recognition. Returning home, he realised he had, in fact, not worn his top-hat to the club. I find that amusing.
Anyroad, I shouldn't be surprised at any of this, because, electrocution aside, it has happened to me almost every time I have sat down to work on anything. Revising Dickens before Christmas, I had to skim only a few chapters of Dickens the Novelist by F. R. Leavis and many others like it, to which I would have rather allocated more time. Time, however, is always in limited supply, and I am forced, again and again, to salvage what little I can from cursory readings, brutally shoehorning anything of any vague significance into whatever cesspool of pseudo-literary criticism I happen to be wallowing in at any given moment. I don't think this is necessarily because I am such a lazy arsehole; the structure of any of the university's literature courses is such that we spend only a week on each text (two in exceptional circumstances), and most of that week is spent reading the texts for the next, so it isn't exactly ideal for someone who would rather take his sweet time. Having said that, I am a lazy arsehole, and most of the above, electrocution included, is my own fault.
The heat, on the other claw, is not my fault. Nor are any of the assorted unpleasantries therein. Sitting within a necropolis of spiralling book towers, ancient laptop howling in protest at being forced to run Microsoft Word and iTunes simultaneously, prickly heat creeping with needlepoint talons up my now permanently hunched back, and light-headed from hunger, I am confronted (what fresh new hell is this?) with people who seem happy and carefree and full of youthful vitality. I am a man prone to acts of staggering speculative violence, and my persistent desire to eviscerate any person who appears happier than me is hardly assuaged by the fact that this demographic often appears to incorporate every other arsehole within view. Every other arsehole with carefully cultivated stubble, with fashionable, open-collared shirts clinging to their obscenely trim bodies and generally sporting an aesthetic that is so transparently self-conscious it gives me piles. Never mind the fact that what I really hate about these people, besides how many of them there are, is that they emphasise just how much of a haggard scarecrow I am.
Friday, 23rd March
The birthday party I attended on Wednesday night proved itself more than worthy of the dissertation time I sacrificed to go. There was the usual meeting of new people, which I generally dislike, because I am in the habit of making truly awful first impressions. However, by strict adherence to my new policy of drinking less, I managed to emerge from most encounters without the other party thinking me a lunatic. I cannot - and I don't know how unfortunate this is, if at all - escape the reality that everyone I ever meet appears to view me as a kind of gentle, bumbling eccentric. Sidestepping temporarily the possibility of this being an accurate appraisal, I will say that my ridiculous voice is generally of great help. Never very good at small-talk, I welcome the opportunity to break the ice by explaining that I am not English, that my parents are both from East Lothian and in possession of the corresponding accent, and that it was to the astonishment of everyone involved when I started speaking as I do. Cue apologies from everyone who has just asked what part of England I'm from, and then it's time for me to appear supremely magnanimous by dispelling their anxiety with an effortless 'not at all, not at all'.
The highlight of the evening was meeting a girl with a fringe of sufficient volume and lustre not to disappoint the expectations raised by my jealous female friends. She shall, in the interest of good taste, and as a result of a sieve-like memory, remain nameless. Quite probably I shall never see her again, and just as well I suppose. This is not an ideal time to succumb to such an attraction. But really, it was a superb fringe. I think my fervent desire to find any diversion whatever may constitute an adequate explanation for the fact that I am repeatedly falling briefly but debilitatingly in love with assorted women. I have not spoken to any of them, though she of the dynamite bangs stands as an exception to that particular rule. Generally, the infatuation only lasts long enough for them to wander out of view behind a bookshelf, but this does not stop the whole thing being rather mentally exhausting. J. R. Ackerley wrote once about how he often found it impossible to finish a journey because he was being endlessly forced by his own romantic whims to divert his route in the hope of catching a second glimpse of some young man or other, or praying desperately to be granted an opportunity to strike up a spontaneous conversation. Ackerley was, notoriously, much more successful than me, but then he was also appallingly handsome.
Later today I plan to knock up a two thousand word comparison of Swinburne's 'Ave Atque Vale' and Tennyson's In Memoriam, supplementing the resultant skid-mark with references to a number of T. S. Eliot's essays, and trying not to accidentally plagiarise the work of Kerry McSweeney, whose Tennyson and Swinburne as Romantic Naturalists has been a constant source of both comfort and exasperation.
Pink socks on today, a provision which normally yields good results.
Monday, 26th March
It is sunny once again, after the bizarre and inexplicable fog which descended over the weekend. I say bizarre and inexplicable, but most likely anyone with a peripheral knowledge of meteorology could explain it in a simple, not at all supernatural manner. I do not possess a peripheral knowledge of meteorology and can only attribute it to vengeful sky gods visiting upon us their eerily manifested wrath. But gone is the fog, and come is the sun. Walking across the Meadows I find myself consumed with horror at the prospect of rogue footballs, scatologically brazen birds and girls in short-shorts or summery dresses. Truly, there is no respite from the horrors of spring for a young man who just wants to complete his dissertation.
Speaking of which, Friday's attempt to compose a chapter on 'Ave Atque Vale' and In Memoriam came to nought. And the weekend did nothing to alter this. I was immersed instead in reading Lolita, which proves that inside or out, I am doomed to feel acutely uncomfortable by some bloody thing or other. Dissertation progress, then, temporarily halted. To make matters worse, today's two-person Naturalist Theatre ALG proved pointless. Neither Katie nor myself realised until too late that we were desperately trying to answer the wrong question. No matter.
Perhaps it is simply the never-ending angst incumbent upon dissertation writing, but with each passing attempt I become yet more convinced of how utterly unsuited I am to such a task. My sole aim now is to get ten-thousand words down on paper as soon as possible, so that I might undergo the hopefully less harrowing process of editing. I find editing to be a much simpler and - I am a detestable intellectual pervert, you see - enjoyable endeavour than writing from scratch. I remember being a sixth year at secondary school, painting a self-portrait of sorts for my Higher Art folio. The first application of paint elicited a surge of doubt so intense it nearly provoked a violent bowel movement. Subsequent brushstrokes were hardly less difficult, but once the whole sheet of paper was covered, corner to corner, with paint, I settled into what musicians call a 'groove', and everything from thereon in felt a great deal more natural. I revelled in tiny modifications, probably too insignificant to be noticed by anyone but me. My art teacher described my approach as 'delicate', which was rather nice of her, given that she was actually quite impatient with my unremittingly slow (I prefer meticulous) progress.
So I look forward very much to the editing stage, however far-off it may seem. Meanwhile, I am foiled in my search for a way to relax. Normally my periods of relaxation consist of chain-smoking cigarettes, chain-drinking cups of tea, and chain-eating custard creams. This trio, unhealthy as it may be, is all that is left to me since I was robbed of the opportunity to self-abuse unmolested - so to speak. Not too long ago one of Sarah's friends barged drunkenly into my bedroom while I was enjoying my own company. I apologised, of course, because that is the kind of spineless - and, by that time, erectionless - cretin I am. Since dumbbells stacked against the door have failed to provide adequate fortification, I can hardly fashion these evenings into the therapeutic sessions of self-love to which I was once accustomed.
If my dissertation does not live up to Bob's expectations - he told me my thesis was of Masters, if not PhD, standard, if I might be allowed a moment of arrogance - I shall not blame the above events. In fact, as I have said, I will now happily settle for ten-thousand words of any quality. I know the dissertation is a sixth of my degree, and so has the potential to alter its class significantly, but I am so exhausted and poor and fed up, I will settle for anything. After all, W. H. Auden only got a third from Oxford, a 'gentleman's degree' as they were once called. If a sub-par degree is good enough for Auden - who himself became Professor of Poetry at . . . wait for it, Oxford - then it's good enough for me.
For now, I entreat the sky gods to spare me the sight of another bare-chested would-be footballer on that accursed morass . . .
Tuesday, 27th March
I was denied sleep last night by an incident of singular unpleasantness, into which I shall not go, but from hereon in, up with which I shall not put. My nine o'clock class on Lolita was therefore even more distressing than anticipated. I managed to make some good points in my Naturalist Theatre seminar, but towards the end I lost the ability to form sentences, threw my hands in the air and conceded defeat. My essay for that class - a shameful smear, an odious stain - has been marked and will be available for collection tomorrow morning. Receiving a dreadful mark is probably not the best way to start a day of intellectual productivity, but receive a dreadful mark I must.
I have set myself Friday as a deadline for the main body of my dissertation - introduction and conclusion can be added later - and plan on using the weekend to begin editing. If all goes to plan, then, I shall have something in the region of eight thousand words by the beginning of next week.
My body, though, is conspiring against me. I am probably going to die. It might just be tiredness, but I have been subjected to a series of disturbing pains, most of them manifesting soon after climbing stairs, or during periods of intense emotional repression. Emotional repression, at which I excel, is a necessary survival mechanism for the man about town with a dissertation to write, and with springtime temptations to resist.
On which subject, my usually serene walk through the Meadows has, of course, been ruined. It feels more like wandering on the outskirts of a perverse refugee camp; fires and barbeques punctuate a seething horde of colourfully, but scantily dressed, well-fed, and boozed up arseholes, all of whom, come dinner time, are enshrined in a haze of stale smoke, while overflowing litter-bin sentinels maintain a slowly rotting and unspeakably pungent perimeter. None of the election candidates has even mentioned this blight. I confess myself disappointed.
Friday, 30th March
A productive day, I think. Nonetheless, the internal workings of my feeble body continue to enact their ruinous conspiracies. I had to cut short my time in the library this evening after foreboding omens rumbled within me. It's the old complaint of the man trapped in the regime of a habitually poor diet: the sharp warmth pulsating from depths not quite deep enough to be wholly comfortable. When one must make a frantic dash to the loo whilst struggling to maintain composure, that's probably the cue to retire to more private environs. Still, seven hundred words escaped the gastrointestinal guillotine, and that, by my standards, is an enviable platform from which to launch tomorrow's scholarly efforts.
As ever, girls in short, summery dresses continue to distract and depress. Stifling an uncomfortable number of swoons is not ideal given the powers of concentration my appointed task necessitates. Still, I suppose it's quite pleasant in its own way, although I can't fathom why short, summery dresses are considered appropriate or necessary for working in the library. I suppose if I had a summer wardrobe I'd understand. But I don't. I have a winter wardrobe, and when it's warm I just wear less of it.
The approach of summer always seems to make me more sentimental than normal. Perhaps because I am still young enough to remember even dimly being happy and carefree in the sun, such memories find it relatively easy to force their way to the surface in their quest for the light. Certainly, much that I can look back on fondly took place in the spring and the summer. This past summer was, I freely confess, a nightmare, but the one before that, which would make it summer 2010, I remember being as pleasant as one can expect. In fact, what I remember most is having a fair bit of money, and enjoying the odd crate of beer in the Meadows, before shuffling in my slippers to the Hive or the Picture House and failing to enjoy myself, giving Michael much cause to worry at my sudden absence. That, and listening to Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose at spleen-rupturing volumes while baking mango upside-down cake and sipping vodka. I was not yet an Honours student back then, and still had some confidence in my own intelligence, enough that is, to dim my cognitive functions with booze, pizza and lack of sunscreen without guilt or concern for my medical wellbeing. How times change. I hope this summer, having graduated with whatever class of degree it is decided I deserve, will be more in the vein of those past summers of my youth: those evenings spent reclining in the twilight, warmed from within by beer and burgers only half cooked, back when I could laugh without it sounding like a dying man's last breath, and academic pressures didn't make it physically hurt to regain consciousness after a night's fitful sleep. Back when I would compose awful poetry in the pale grey morning light, listening to Randy Newman, puffing cigarette smoke into the slowly warming air. Back when I'd never had haemorrhoids, or exploding-head syndrome, and remained brimful of self-confidence at having conquered my acute, intermittent agoraphobia.
Anywho, targets for tomorrow are to finish, at long last, my chapter on elegies, and, as usual, not to kill myself.
Wednesday, 4th April
Less than a week until the final dissertation deadline, which is as cheerful a thought as I can muster at this moment. All I have to show for my hard work is a single complete chapter on elegies. Suitably, the chapter I am working on at the moment is called 'Dramatic Monologues: Longing for Death'.
On a cheerier note, I made my bed, pillow cases and all. This means I can sleep between clean sheets in clean pyjamas, none of which smell of despair or self-disgust. What sort of creature have I become that fresh sheets and a clean duvet-cover constitute a treat? I shudder to think . . .
Thursday, 5th April
Attended my last university seminar this morning. Unfortunately, I had read approximately twelve pages of Kerouac's On the Road - the original scroll, which was not the edition up for discussion - and was unable to participate in any meaningful way. To be fair, I have only once contributed during my Modern American Novel seminars; for some reason I have repeatedly found myself incapable of mustering any cogent thoughts between nine and eleven o'clock in the morning. I did, however, receive rather a good mark for my essay on The Sun Also Rises, which has boosted my dissertation confidence considerably. I am still only half way through, and most of what I've written is decent but disjointed. Chapters Two and Three are more or less complete for now, with just a few paragraphs on Swinburne's 'The Leper' waiting to be written tomorrow morning. After this I shall churn out Chapter One, during which I expect the individual chapters to merge in my mind; then it's a very simple matter of inserting relevant linking material into what I've already written, and hoping the whole thing jells into a coherent argument. I'm yet to even mention Harold Bloom, whose The Anxiety of Influence, in many ways, forms the crux of my thesis, but after today I am nonetheless brimful of optimism.
Celebrated my essay mark with an Easter cupcake, which was delicious, and two small raspberry crumbles, which were satisfactory, but rather paled in comparison. Incidentally, the cake stand was manned by several people I know, although I didn't fully realise this until they drew my attention to the fact. I will never fully understand why I have so many friends.
My Granny has sent me a fifty pound cheque for Easter, which is mighty kind of her, and some of this I plan to spend celebrating the completion of my dissertation. Fortunately, because I have given up drinking in its most solitary and voluminous sense, celebrating is no longer the wallet-holocaust it once was. It seems, as proven a fortnight or so ago, that I can enjoy myself without getting completely rat-arsed. This has many advantages over the old system, which always involved excessive amounts of remorse, which I firmly believe is an emotion second only to grief in the scope of its unpleasantness. Essentially, I get drunk enough to believe myself charming, and that keeps me pretty content for most of the evening, and a jolly time can be had all round.
Also, my mother texted me to say she saw David Tennant, who is apparently staying at the Crieff Hydro Hotel with his family. I am quite jealous. The last time I saw a famous person, it was David Blunkett being escorted by a burly man to the public toilets beside my old flat. I found this amusing, but David Blunkett has never been a Time Lord; you can't have a non-cyborg guide-dog flying a Tardis for you. Certainly not. Unconscionable.
Saturday, 7th April
I continue to worry about the future of my body, particularly those aspects to be found below the knees. Whenever I stand up after a prolonged period at my desk, the muscles and tendons in my shins, ankles and feet suddenly feel like they have caught fire. I've fallen down twice as a result, but I am more accustomed to falling down than just about any other experience you could care to mention, so I can direct myself towards something soft with an admirable success rate.
But this is the least of my concerns. As the date of this entry will attest, the dissertation deadline is looming frighteningly close. Still, I remain cheerful. 'Dramatic Monologues: Longing for Death' took a little longer, and is a little longer, than anticipated, but it's done, and that is the only thing of importance right now.
I've been writing each chapter in a separate document so I can check the word count of each with greater ease. I have only just compiled both chapters and my bibliography-in-process into a single document and formatted it all to my liking. TWENTY-FOUR PAGES! That means the whole thing, front cover and all, will be over forty pages long! OVER FORTY PAGES! That's bordering on obscene, and if I know anything, it's the obscene; I've just spent an hour writing a thousand words on a poem about a necrophiliac who is also both a leper AND a priest.
But no matter, I must now write chapter one. Chapter one, the title of which remains a mystery, should be the easiest part of the whole dissertation. This is for reasons I can no longer remember. All I know is that three weeks ago, when I started writing properly, I postponed the first chapter, and I attribute this decision to what I assume to have been thoroughly sensible motives. This is the chapter in which I get to describe the poetic equivalent of small-man-syndrome, so I am quite excited.
I am beginning to think that Mozart's Requiem is not the best thing to listen to while writing to a deadline. Whenever it reaches 'Dies Irae', I can't help but feel a deep sense of foreboding . . .
Also, of tenuous relevance, I was accosted by Mormons on my way to the library to check references. I walked away furnished with The Book of Mormon, yet another holy text to own for the purposes of mockery. They were very forward, as I understand these religious types tend to be; they asked if they could come and see me to talk more about God, but I explained my situation dissertation-wise and they appeared to understand. Apparently prayer is an excellent way of dealing with university work. They themselves had tried working with and without God, and assured me the former was far easier. I think calling upon an ageless and omnipotent celestial being for help with formally assessed work is, at best, cheating, and definitely borders on frivolous blasphemy. That they both prefixed their names with 'Sister' I found unnerving, but still, they were both very pleasant in that way only Americans can be, and one was impossibly pretty, in that way only out-of-bounds religious nut-jobs can be.
Monday, 9th April
All that is left to do now is conclude. Then it's the silly, complicated, and probably stressful business of printing it out, and fighting my way through crowds of my fellow Literature students to pay someone to bind it. This is how I imagine a mother feels the night before giving her baby up for adoption. This damnable, hellish, soul-crushing, youth-stealing monster has been with me now for more or less nine months, and I must now surrender it to a stranger, who will judge it dispassionately, and allocate it a number based on its net academic worth. A chilling thought. But since I will never carry a child inside me, I'll take what I can get.
Robbie and assorted others are in the living room having a nice time. I am quite jealous. They're not being disruptive though, which is considerate of them. I think dissertations are one thing the seriousness and horror of which everyone understands.
Anyroad, I'm currently listening to some Elvis Costello to keep my spirits up, though with the end so nearly in my cross-hairs, this is hardly necessary. I just really like Elvis Costello, as any one who has ever been at a party with me will know only too well.
Had beans on toast. Refilled the pepper grinder, which was a rewarding enterprise.
Friday, 10th April
I am free! Unfortunately, I slept in a bit and didn't have time to get the damned thing bound properly, so Robbie and I spent about fifteen minutes trying to implement an alternative. But it worked and I am happy. The cheque from my Granny came through today, so now I can celebrate. The Scotmid downstairs has stopped selling chocolate raisins, which is an affront to decency, but I refuse to let this get me down. All I have to do now is crank up the jazz and do some of this revelry I have heard so much about.
