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Monday, December 31, 2007
The Phenomenology of Christmas
From John Crowley, Little, Big
“Christmas," said Doctor Drinkwater as his red-cheeked face sped smoothly toward Smoky’s, “is a kind of day, like no other in the year, that doesn’t seem to succeed the days it follows, if you see what I mean.” ...
“I mean,” Doctor Drinkwater said, reappearing beside him, “that every Christmas seems to follow immediately after the last one; all the months that came between don’t figure in. Christmases succeed each other, not the falls they follow.”
“That’s right,” said Mother, making stately progress around. Behind her, like the wooden ducklings attached to wooden ducks, she drew her two granddaughters. “It seems you just get through one and there’s another.”
“Mmmm,” said Doc. “Not what I mean exactly."
The noetic-noematic structure of Christmas - its peculiarly trans-annual protentive-retentive character - is an appallingly neglected subject in contemporary phenomenology. And grabbing people by the lapels and barking this intelligence in their face doesn’t seem to help. There is no reasoning with a certain class of thinker.
I suppose the tree will have to come down today. I’m going to be dull and say: I had a really great Christmas season this year, very wisely spent it by not blogging too much. Indeed, neither writing nor reading much. I feel considerably restored and am expectant of a Happy New Year. And a Happy New Year to you, too.