WALKING (AND SMILING:) IN RUINS

So you write a book titled Walking in Ruins, it gets published and all, and then you find “To Fortune” (1648) by Robert Herrick.  Thus:

And the only reason I discovered it now is because there’s suddenly a bIg fuss that it contains the first emoticon, and obviously it kind of does.  But you know, only kind of.

It also seems that Herrick may have been the first man in England to have a 1970s perm and mustache:

WALKING PERVERTEDLY

As we all know, there’s a ton of walking in the Bible.  And Proverbs 10:9 has something very definite to say, although the specifics of what that something is vary considerably depending on the translation.  

Those of us who like language and literature, as well as walking, might be interested in the ways that an apparently very simple thought has been molded by various translators.  I had always assumed the King James would get it spot on, but now I’m not so sure.

King James Bible

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

Look, I reckon I walk “uprightly,” I mean my posture could be better, but whose couldn’t?  And I don’t reckon I’m a man who “perverteth his ways,” certainly not while walking, and surely if you believe in an all-knowing deity, all your ways shall be known anyway, right?

As you see below, various hands have taken a stab at changing the language, insisting on “integrity” while walking though sometimes “safely” or securely” or blamelessly,” which strike me as a bunch of different things, but then also there’s an insistence on rejecting the “crooked path.” 

I mean OK, I know it’s a metaphor and all, but really I do enjoy walking the occasional crooked path, and honestly I don’t think that makes me a pervert.  Others, evidently, take a different view.  Here are some translated variations, a couple of which don't even include the walking aspect all:

New International Version

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.

New Living Translation

People with integrity walk safely, but those who follow crooked paths will slip and fall.

English Standard Version

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.

New American Standard Bible

He who walks in integrity walks securely, But he who perverts his ways will be found out.

Holman Christian Standard Bible

The one who lives with integrity lives securely, but whoever perverts his ways will be found out.

International Standard Version

Whoever walks in integrity lives prudently, but whoever perverts his way of life will be exposed.

NET Bible

The one who conducts himself in integrity will live securely, but the one who behaves perversely will be found out.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

He that walks in perfection goes in hope, and he who perverts his ways will be known.

GOD'S WORD® Translation

Whoever lives honestly will live securely, but whoever lives dishonestly will be found out.

Jubilee Bible 2000

He that walks in integrity walks securely, but he that perverts his ways shall be broken.

King James 2000 Bible

He that walks uprightly walks securely: but he that perverts his ways shall be known.

American King James Version

He that walks uprightly walks surely: but he that perverts his ways shall be known.

American Standard Version

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely; But he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

Douay-Rheims Bible

He that walketh sincerely, walketh confidently: but he that perverteth his ways, shall be manifest.

Darby Bible Translation

He that walketh in integrity walketh securely; but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

English Revised Version

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

Webster's Bible Translation

He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

World English Bible

He who walks blamelessly walks surely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out.

Young's Literal Translation

Whoso is walking in integrity walketh confidently, And whoso is perverting his ways is known.

Language and walking and metaphors; it’s a minefield innit?

PEDESTRIANIZING WITH PYNCHON

Back in the late seventies, Aloes Books was publishing Thomas Pynchon’s early, at that time uncollected, short stories.   They came as separate pamphlets, and the only place in London I knew to buy them was a bookshop called, if memory serves, Agneau Deux.  There I fell into conversation with the guy behind the counter who had it on reasonable, though apparently very hush hush, authority that Pynchon was actually living in London at that time.  There was a small but significant frisson in knowing that I was walking the same streets as the great “recluse.”

Between 1996 and 2003 I lived in New York (more or less – I mean I actually commuted between London for some of it) and obviously I walked the streets, because that’s what I do wherever I am, and it’s what people do in New York whether they want to or not.  And I did know by then that Pynchon was living in New York too.  His novel Mason and Dixon was in the works, and there had apparently been sightings of him in the corridors of his publisher, Henry Holt.  Word was that he looked pretty much like any other sixty year old novelist.  I guess I had become more cynical or realistic, and the frisson of walking the same streets as Pynchon wasn’t quite what it had been 15 or 20 years earlier.

With the newly published Bleeding Edge Pynchon has written his New York novel (a thing many novelists feel the urge to do) and to some extent his 9/11 novel (a thing that many novelists feel very, very uneasy about).

Of course Pynchon walked the streets of New York: and if we doubted it, there’s a pretty low quality picture (seen above) taken in 1998 by James Bone, then of the London Sunday Times, showing Pynchon and his son walking on the Upper West Side.  The authenticity of the picture is slightly contested, but I’m happy enough to believe it’s Pynchon, the first new picture published in over 40 years.  And yes, he looks pretty much like a 60 year old novelist.

Anyway, the book contains this pretty great description of New York pedestrianism:

“Next day, evening rush hour, it’s just starting to rain … sometimes she can’t resist, she needs to be out in the street.  What might only be a simple point on the workday cycle, a reconvergence of what the day scattered … becomes a million pedestrian dramas, each one charged with mystery, more intense than high-barometer daylight can ever allow.  Everything changes.  There’s that clean, rained-on smell.  The traffic noise gets liquefied … Average pushy Manhattan schmucks crowding the sidewalks also pick up some depth, some purpose – they smile, they slow down, even with a cellular phone stuck in their ear they are more apt to be singing to somebody than yakking.  Some are observed taking houseplants for walks in the rain.”

Gotta say I never saw anybody walking in the rain with their houseplants in New York, but I completely believe it.

Flaneurism is all over Pynchon’s works: it’s pretty much an inevitable part of any detective or “quest” novel.  Still, I do believe that this passage below is the only place in the Pynchon oeuvre (and of course I stand to be corrected) that he uses the word flaneur. One of the characters, Emma Levin, is dating Naftali a former member of Mossad, now working as a security guard for a diamond merchant: (yep Pynchon has kind of gone Jewish for this novel).

         “‘There he is.  My dreamboat.’  Naftali is pretending to lounge against a storefront, a flaneur who can be triggered silently, instantly into the wrath of God.”

         Wouldn’t we all like to that kind of flaneur? 

         Oh, and another thing, if you make it to page 354, there's an appearance by two characters, Promoman and Sandwichgrrl, described as cyberflaneurs.  But really, aren't we all flaneurs in cyberspace