Don’t tell. Don’t show. Paint the picture, even so. · 2:46am Aug 14th, 2014
Read Cynewulf’s “A Psalm of Life” yet? Give it a look, it’s just (exactly) 5,000 words.
Thinking about it, I recalled something I’d read about Japanese poetry: the most important thing a haiku says, is often the one thing it doesn’t--
This apple is plucked
From a barrel of many--
Let it not be bad!
(Because one bad apple spoils the bunch, see, and spoilers follow…)
So Poet’s Corner is dead, the owner of Ponyville’s used book store and the little lion of its attendant bohemian circle. Which circle included Rarity--and Twilight, emeritus since she moved to the castle. The two of them are walking back from the funeral, talking about this and that and…
…every time the subject of the deceased comes up, and especially the subject of her last conversation with him, Rarity acts weird.
The author’s very persistent in telling us so: Rarity stumbles, or almost trips. Rarity stares ahead, or looks at anyone but Twilight. Rarity misremembers the extent and nature of that last exchange with Poet's, and keeps changing her story—subtly, but markedly—about how well she knew him. She seems to be constantly talking around something.
And at the end we’re told, in allusion, and filtered through Rarity, that that final discussion was a rather intense and passionate one about…art. That’s all
I’m sure that was a part of it, but all? I’m not sure I buy it.
Because there are other things, hints from the characters and the text itself. There’s the opening paragraph, with its reference to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (“singing each to each”), to courting lovebirds and to lovers entwined. And Rarity sitting very uncomfortably in the midst of all this, trying not to draw attention to herself at Poet’s funeral.
There’s Rarity talking about how she’d admired Poet’s work ever since she discovered it in college.
There’s Twilight’s own last conversation with Poet’s Corner—how he spoke at length about Rarity and that he “seemed to think the world” of her.
There’s the fact that Poet’s wife left him just before he died—not after, as it says in the summary box.
What happened here? What almost happened? What might have happened?
To assume the worst is not to make Rarity a monster. That’s not necessary. She need only be what she is—passionate, greathearted, a lover of beauty. And Poet’s Corner a lonely old soul (one can become very lonely when one lives with the wrong person), looking for beauty, for communion, for things that are dwindling in the distance…
It is some lie that under a windswept tree
Touching your lips, I touched my vanished youth,
And found again a young, new ecstasy.
It is a lie, I say: this—this is Truth!*
Loneliness, admiration, a shared passion—call it the Fire Triangle. A spark. Fwoosh. And after, ashes.
But it needn’t have come to that, and the up-front shout-out to “Prufrock” leads me to think it didn’t. The poem, after all, is about frustrated desire, failed hopes…
…but that would imply Poet’s Corner had desires, had hopes. And Rarity’s too sharp not to have known. And knowing, not to have wondered: in his death and his wife’s desertion—what role did I play? Albeit unintentionally, but…were his feelings entirely unwelcome? I think not.
That would explain Rarity’s stumbling, her circumlocution and averted gaze. That would also explain all the drinking—three ciders and wine afterwards, Twilight even remarks upon it—during the course of the day, as well as that bottle of scotch hidden in the boutique because “some conversations were more stressful than others, and these things required a bit of fortification.” Like that last one with Poet’s corner, perhaps:
“In any case, he wanted me to be bold. Suggested… well.”
“What?”
“Told me that if I really felt this way I should try new things. The most terrifying thing anypony has ever told me.”
“New things?” Twilight asked. “Like what?”
“That’s the best part,” Rarity chuckled. “He died before he told me.”
“Other kinds of art? I know you draw.”
“No, no I think he meant something else. I may never know.”
He never told her of his feelings. But she knew what they were by the outline in his words. She won’t tell of her feelings to Twilight, or even admit them to herself, but Rarity knows what they are by the lacuna in her thoughts.
And we know these things from the precise way the author neither shows nor tells us about them.
Am I overthinking this? I dunno. Maybe.
I mean, why would I expect hidden messages from a guy who goes by “Cynewulf?”
* ”Sonnet,” John V. A. Weaver
I am in a terrible rush—it's late—so I'm going to condense my usual verboseness into three sentences, viz:
1. The story, by your description, is excellent—I actually had a story marinating somewhere with much the same start, but this seems better.
2. You've a deft touch with words, and are really clever.
3. Based on (2) and on the text above and others, too, let me just offer the following understated suggestion: WRITE!
Well, you're not crazy--I was wondering along the same lines as I read it, about just how Rarity and Poets Corner... related. I noticed that the wife left before, and the disconnect between Rarity's actions and her words, and my eyebrow rose.
I appreciate the confidence to leave those two things to stand next to each other and allow the reader to draw the conclusion. I usually harp on this as an aspect of comedy writing, but it's just as important here: you have to accept that you won't be able to make every reader catch every detail, and it's deadly to the story to try.
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It's probably best I never got the chance to meet our esteemed Jedi master in person. I don't think I would have stopped pestering him to write something.
Definitely not crazy, intelligence can come from all sources, regardless of how they might appear on the surface.
You've not done much on the doc lately, do I need to start pestering you again?
Cynewulf, the Saxon poet who is indirectly responsible for The Lord of the Rings. "Crist" I think.
I like you. You're good people.
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Well thank you Cynewulf, that's very kind! And I must say (strictly in the interests of openness and accuracy) that Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan quite agree with you. They even wrote a little song about how nice albeit misunderstood Yours Truly is:
(And then some impertinent jackanapes set new lyrics to the tune:)