cutriver

In my research here in Paris, I have been reading various bits of anthropology and, yesterday, came across a lengthy discussion, in Roger Caillois, of the traditional significations of left and right across numerous cultures. Now I have always been proud to be left-handed, but this description just made me even prouder! It seems that, in 'primitive' cultures, left-handed people were often looked upon as sorcerers or considered to be possessed by the devil; the left hand is the hand that deals in deception and betrayal. There is something 'worrying and vaguely dangerous' about the left, it is of ill omen. It seems, too, that, in all indo-European languages, there is an etymological link between the word for 'right' and words designating moral rectitude, manual dexterity, that which goes directly to its goal; whereas the left is associated with bad faith and with failure, with clumsiness, with that which is indirect, curved, oblique (queer: I have frequently been struck by the unusually high incidence of left-handedness amongst gay people), with miscalculation and misdirection, with that which is not sure or which one cannot be sure about. This latter point suggests to me that my much-discussed indecisiveness is not merely the result of my having been born under the sign of Sagittarius, but also of my ineluctable left-handedness.

Speaking of indecisiveness, ce qui devait arriver est arriv: following a certain amount of prompting from me, Adelaide have replied to my e-mail and are encouraging me to take more time and think further about their offer of a job. Which thing I am doing. This one will run and run!

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The painter/decorator/carpenter/bricoleur who is refurbishing the apartment next to mine, and who is about 5' tall and smokes like a chimney and heavily tanned, when he isn't covered in sawdust or plaster dust or something, keeps engaging me in conversation at the beginning and end of the day, when I'm fleeing to or returning from the library where I take refuge from the interminable hammering and drilling for which he is responsible. The other day he asked me if I was Dutch (this happens a lot). When I told him I was English, he said 'I wasn't far off'. Today he asked if I was a student and when I said not anymore, he said I must be a doctor. University lecturer, I said and again he declared 'I wasn't far off'. How is it that this man, who has only seen me three or four times and exchanged 30 or 40 words with me, thinks he knows who I am and indeed, he does know who I am or, at least, to use his expression, he's not far off. How is it that, in trying to give nothing away, I give everything away? (I wonder if the reverse is true of these journals: in trying to give everything away I give nothing away?)