Hobby-Horses, redux

In Anthony Powell’s third novel in his twelve novel magnus opus Dance to the Music of Time, narrator and character Nicholas Jenkins remarks “I reflected not for the first time, how mistaken it is to suppose that there exists some ‘ordinary’ world into which it is possible at will to wander. All human beings, driven as they are at different speeds by the same Furies are at close range equally extraordinary.” An interesting observation, even one with insight, I consider, though I am aware that it is not remarkably original. What Jenkins suggests—and I suppose it is important to remember that narrator Jenkins is not author Powell—is that though we are all driven by the same Furies each individual expresses their Furies in a different manner; there is no ordinary world into which one may wander but only the extraordinary world of individuals dealing differently with their Furies. This has been expressed before. For example, Tristram Shandy asserts, “have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting Solomon himself,—have they not had their hobby-horses; their running horses,—their coins and their cockle-shells, their drums and their trumpets, their fiddles, their pallets,—their maggots and their butterflies?” We all have our idiosyncrasies, our peccadilloes which we ride out in society and to which the rest of us will witness and hopefully give acceptance. At a minimum I might consider that we are our Hobby-Horses upon which we ride from out of our stables. Tristram is willing enough to practice a liberality and accept the extraordinariness of others, “and so long as a man rides his hobby-horse peaceably and quietly along the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I do with it?” I am thinking of the song by Kris Kristofferson, “Here Comes That Rainbow Again:” the waitress sells candy to two Okie kids for less than the candies cost, and when the truck drivers note that “them candy’s not two for a penny,” she answers, “What’s it to you?” On their way out they leave a large tip and the waitress calls out, “You’ve left too much money,” and they answer, “What’s it to you?” Indeed, I tend to agree. When we observe a person riding upon their hobby-horse, well, don’t they certainly look extraordinary. Don’t we all appear so upon our steeds. Here comes that rainbow again. 

            The Furies are the Greek goddesses of vengeance, retribution, and divine punishment. The Furies are famous for mercilessly pursuing oath-breakers, murderers (especially familial, think Oedipus), and the wicked to inflict madness and torment. Jenkins suggests that we are all pursued by the same Furies but at different speeds and strengths. I don’t think so, however; our histories are all different and distinct. So, too, must be our particular Furies. What their ancestries might be is a personal matter—“what have either you or I to do with it?”—Tristram is more benevolent towards these peculiarities and even foibles, and so long as I do not demand anybody to ride along on mine and no one insists that I ride along on theirs then  “what’s it to you?” Jenkins suggests that from a distance everyone looks ‘ordinary,’ but on closer examination we all seem a bit mad. Of course, I comment, from a distance not much is visible; what we see is our fantasies, and so, yes, ordinary is what we see. That way illusion lies! I think I prefer madness. As D.W. Winnicott announces, “I must ask your forbearance if in the process I seem to suggest that all of us are ill, or, on the other hand, that the mentally ill are sane.” They do not attend to the strictures and customs of accepted society; they do not say please and thank-you when they really do not mean it. But that is alright, Winnicott says, for “we are poor indeed if we are only sane.” Our creativity derives from the energies of the private self as it comes into contact with objects that the world has made available for use. “What are they doing,” we wonder. “If we can accept the Hobby-Horses of others with equanimity, even an acknowledgement of our own full stables, how much more joy we might realize! As Ricardo Reis in Saramajo’s novel plaintively says, “We are all ill, with one malaise or another, a deep-rooted malaise, that is inseparable from what we are and that somehow makes us what we are, you might say that each of us is his own illness, we are so little because of it, and yet we succeed in being so much because of it.” How would we get anywhere except atop our Hobby-Horses?

Freud knew something about Hobby-Horses; he referred to them as personal neuroses upon which an individual has constructed beliefs and behaviors. They are the belief and behaviors of the individual. I own a few myself and take then out of the sable for a ride regularly. Everyone notices and some even comment; I respond, “What’s it to you?” 

There is no ordinary world, in fact, and with that I am content.