Pleasure or Sorrow?
Combine the fact that I rolled in drunk around 2am on the Saturday night/Sunday morning, therefore staying in bed til well past midday, with the fact it’s still too damn hot at night and you get the picture. Not sleepy enough to sleep and too hot to anyway. The worst thing about this kind of night isn’t so much the lack of sleep (although that obviously sucks too), it’s the bizarre dreams you have when you do occasionally drift off. Exact details of the dreams are mostly forgotten within 10 minutes or so of waking up but certain things stay with you.
For instance, I had been reading various articles online that afternoon with reference to philosopher and author Alain de Botton and his reaction to an unfavourable review of his latest book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. It interested me as he had personally commented on the blog of a colleague of mine who was rather unimpressed with the book. She said this to which he replied (first comment under the blog)…”blogs like yours make me want to be sick, you ignorant vindictive and mean-spirited person”, which seems a tad over the top to me. Seems like he makes a habit of offending total strangers, more evidence in the comments section of this Guardian article and the comment with regards to New York Times book reviewer Caleb Crain’s blog . Totally childish overreaction or perfectly justified response by an author worried that a negative review will adversely affect his book sales? The former, in my opinion. He is, in his own words, an author with 9 books published in 25 countries. Surely he has a well established fan base, a following if you will, who will buy his work no matter what various reviewers or critics say about it? Surely the man who wrote ‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ can be confident enough in his own abilities to brush off a negative review every now and then? And all this begs the question, how does he find this stuff? Fair enough, he probably reads blogs of well established reviewers such as the NYT, but my colleague’s blog is hardly the Guardian, or even the Metro (excellent thugh it is!). So, does he sit at home and Google himself? Well here’s the test, I’ll add ‘Alain de Botton as a tag to this entry, and if he finds it somehow it’ll just be proof that he’s a sad case with nothing better to do than search for mentions of himself on the interwebs. And in the interests of fairness I will read his book before passing judgement on it.
But what does this have to do with my dreams? Well, in one of them de Botton was in my work throwing a hissy fit, shouting at my colleague that she’d ruined his career, and was being forcibly removed from the premises by security. I don’t remember much of the details but I remember a real sense of aggression. Then after waking up a few times and drifting back off again I had one of those ‘I’m late for work’ anxiety dreams, where I’m convinced something is preventing me from getting to work and I have no way to contact them. I dreamt I’d missed St Enoch somehow so got off at the next station, which was Bridge Street. But the way I come in to work on the subway means Buchanan Street is the next one, not Bridge Street. Also, it looked totally different, in that way that places in dreams do, yet you know where it’s meant to be. There was a big motorway overhead and a huge shop, a HUGE shop, that sold nothing but cheese, crackers and wine & I couldn’t make up my mind what to get. So when I woke up I was a tad confused as to what time it was, but thankfully I wasn’t late. Still, lack of sleep & so many weird dreams left me a bit discombobulated for the first few hours of my day.
(And if you’re interested, Times Online wasn’t keen and the Daily Mail wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it all, but felt de Botton was ‘sneering’ at low paid workers. )