There it is again, that recurring theme in my life: my being too busy to write any blog posts. I’ve been so busy I feel stressed, I’ve been so busy I didn’t have the time to sleep much, I’ve been so busy I don’t sleep much because I’m also busy worrying about everything I’m busy with. I’ve been so busy my work suffers from it, I’ve been so busy my body actually starts protesting against me by giving me the flu. I’ve been so busy I feel like I’ve been running in circles like a madwoman, getting nothing done. And before you start rolling your eyes and sighing that I should take better care of myself: I know. But there’s actually a pretty good reason I’ve been so busy, and despite the lack of sleep and the worrying and my body giving up and the running in circles, I kind of love it. Really? you may wonder. Yes, really. Here’s why.
I’ve been busy with school, as always. Nothing interesting to mention here, which is why I won’t spend any more time on this particular topic.
A cooler thing I’ve been busy with is a lecture. Two weeks ago, I had to give a lecture on Charles Dickens in a city a couple of hours away. I had given this lecture before, so it didn’t take me very long to prepare for it, but I was still pretty nervous. That’s because this time, my audience would consist of die-hard Dickens devotees. The Dickens Fellowship is an international organisation celebrating Dickens’s life and word, and my lecture was for its Dutch branch. Everyone put me at ease, so when I started talking, I felt quite comfortable (even though my PowerPoint wasn’t working at first). Everyone listened attentively and many questions were asked afterwards, including one about why I hadn’t applied for a PhD in Dickensian insults yet. I said I’d think about it. I also stayed for dinner, which was highly entertaining, too. I even became a member of the Fellowship. When I took by train back home, I realised that I needn’t have worried about this lecture at all.
I was still busy, though. That’s because a week and a half ago, I had to give another lecture. This time it was my annual lecture series for a book club society. This is my fourth year doing so, and while you may think I would get used to it all, I still had a bad case of nerves. That’s because this time, I had to talk about Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize winning novel Prophet Song. It’s about how Ireland suddenly turns into a totalitarian state, and protagonist Eilish has to decide if she wants to stay and wait for her husband to return after he’s been arrested, or to flee the country with her family. It’s an extremely claustrophobic and depressing novel, and it reflects our current state of the world with painful accuracy. Usually, I make sure to add humour or something lighthearted to my lectures, but this time I felt myself unable to think of anything. I struggled to come up with an interesting topic, until eventually I accepted that it wouldn’t be a positive lecture at all; its now called ‘On the dark times’. I would reflect on the novel and compare it to our own lives, and it turned out that was a good decision. Many people asked questions afterwards and shared their reading experiences with me. So far, I have done two lectures, which means I’ll be busy with this particular lecture for three more weeks.
And then there’s the last thing I was busy with. This one has actually taken up most of my time and most of the space in my brain dedicated to worrying. Last Friday, two days ago, I gave yet another lecture, but this time it’s one I came up with all by myself. This wonderful bookshop, Boomker in Haren, kindly allowed me a space to give a lecture on Ian McEwan’s latest novel What We Can Know. It’s about a twenty-second century literature professor Tom Metcalfe, who is obsessed by a fictional poem that was written a hundred years earlier, in our time. Our greatest fears have come true: McEwan’s future England is completely flooded, and only a couple of mountaintops still rise up from the sea. Tom, obsessed with the early twenty-first century, is desperate to find the poem he appears to know so much about, because every text, email and letter Francis Blundy, the author of the poem, has ever written is available to him.
For this lecture, I asked a friend of mine to join me on stage. Marjan Brouwers has written a trilogy about how the Netherlands have been flooded, in much the same way as McEwan’s novel. Together, we analysed why we’re so obsessed with water, we talked about what people do when their worlds are slowly disappearing into the water (in McEwan’s novel, people pretty much carry on doing whatever they like, which means they still talk to AI a lot, they still claim that studying science is much more useful than literary topics, and they calmly live their lives as though nothing special has happened; Marjan’s novels aren’t as peaceful), and we talked about how much we can know about the past and about ourselves.
The last time I prepared a lecture like this, it was cancelled due to a lack of interest, but this time, almost forty people showed up. They listened attentively and asked some good questions afterwards. It was a pretty successful night, all in all. I still can’t quite believe it, if I’m honest.
So that’s what I’ve been busy with. I’m now wondering what my next lecture will be about (well, I do know this, in fact, because this Wednesday, I’m doing my third Prophet Song talk), and whether anyone will show up. I’m busy worrying about whether I’m doing the right thing, and whether people like the things I talk about – or, whenever I’m particularly downcast, whether they like me in the first place.
As you can see, my September was filled with exactly those things I’ve been dreaming about for years. I gave three different lectures, all of which were so much fun to do, and all of which were met with great feedback. I am happy I survived all three of them, and even though I’m not done yet, it feels like I’m slowly returning to normal life again. I’ve got time to write again, and I even managed to read a book that wasn’t written by Stephen King.
Talking about Stephen King, by the way. I’m currently working on a longer blog post about why he’s actually quite feminist, indeed. After all, I do need something to keep myself busy…
Have you ever given a lecture? Or several of them? Which one of these would you like to attend? If you could go to a lecture about a recent book (or, in Dickens’s case, a classic one), which book would you choose? Do you think I’m too busy? Do you have any idea how to take care of yourself? Please – especially in case of that last question – leave your comments below. Also, don’t forget to follow me for more bookish posts!
The Open Book 