In the past, if a book fell on your head, you only had your shelf to blame. But coronavirus has changed everything, including our reaction to the written word. From now on, some words or phrases will ignite a mental spark that wasn’t there previously. No personal remarks, please.
Not all that long ago, the only virus that troubled us to any great extent was a flaw in a computer programme, when our software got sick and not us. Self-isolating was something done by contemplative monks — a religious habit that probably kept them safe from viruses of both kinds.
Many people, or most people, probably, will not be too familiar with Ernest Dowson, the poet who coined the phrases ‘days of wine and roses’ and ‘gone with the wind.’ His poetry provided inspiration for Cole Porter (“Always True to You in My Fashion”) and he was the first person to use the word ‘soccer’ in writing. To start the ball rolling, so to speak.
In Dowson’s novel, A Comedy of Masks, the main character ‘took care of a diseased lung by travelling to a warmer climate’, in his case Blackpool, not something recommended nowadays. Elsewhere, he proclaims, “It’s all masks and dominoes, but what does the colour matter,” (Does he play with coloured dominoes?) “because underneath, you are yourself.”
And who can forget The Mask of Dimitrios? — “The important thing to know is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.” Sounds quite meaningful, in 2023, doesn’t it? Not that I approve of guns except at fairgrounds, and then only if I win a prize.
A disturbing idea in The Mask of Sanity: “most patients suffering from mental disorders are easily recognised by psychiatrists.” Their sanity-masks can’t be much good, then. Recognition wouldn’t be a problem in The Mask of Aribella, because when the eponymous heroine is angered, sparks shoot from her fingertips, which might ruin her gloves if she wore them.
The Mask of Mirrors offers us a world filled with disguised vigilantes, which makes the mirrors seem like a foolish purchase unless they want to trim their beards behind closed doors. If they have beards. And door keys. And beard trimmers.
In Mary Renault’s The Mask of Apollo, a travelling actor carries with him a gold mask of — you’ve guessed it — everywhere he goes, a relic of a golden age now past. The actor talks to the mask, making us wonder if he is on the run from some other book, The Mask of Sanity, perhaps. We also ask ourselves if he shouldn’t swap his gold mascot for a mirror and reflect on his own sanity.
Poor young Fudo in The Mask of Fudo has worn a wooden mask since childhood, which is one of the worst examples of parenting you can imagine. And in Primitive Mythology, the writer claims ‘the one wearing the mask does not merely represent the god, he is the god.” Some deranged reviewer wrote “this author is a genius.” In which case, I’m off to slip into my Bacchus mask.
