Dealing with the Desultory.

There I was, a desultory sort of specimen sitting in his office on a desultory sort of evening, the curtains drawn against the dark and a desultory sort of wind moaning outside, wondering what on earth I could do to stop being quite so desultory.

I decided to read – for probably the fifth or sixth time – Mr James’s most celebrated short story, Casting the Runes (it’s the most celebrated because it’s the only one to have been adapted for a feature film called Night of the Demon.) And as I was reading it I realised that one of the leitmotifs in MR James stories is the bachelor of middle or advanced age, living alone and spending desultory evenings closeted in his study and engaged in some form of sedentary pursuit involving paper.

Recognition of both the type and the lifestyle quickly became apparent. All I needed was a guttering candle to replace my smart chrome desk lamp, and the likeness would have been complete. The story became rather more personal in consequence, which wasn’t encouraging because it’s about a man suffering the metaphysical machinations of a spiteful and highly skilled alchemist intent on bringing about the poor chap’s demise. I persisted nonetheless, since I knew that the protagonist was to escape his fate at the conclusion of the story.

I also had the advantage of knowing that I had a DVD of Agatha Christie’s Marple to watch, and that such a marvel of the modern age would be more than adequate to lift both the desultoriness and the sense of doom with sufficient plot holes and other devices devoid of plausibility to leave me chortling into my mug of cheap coffee. And that’s what I’m going to do now.

(Incidentally, I fear that the last of my metaphorical candles might be guttering and about to expire. If it does, it will be reported here – with sadness.)