The Custodian's Journal: A Biography of the University

By Michael Gessner

Simon Walker has been keeping a journal of his last year living on the grounds of the university, the only home he has ever known. In it, he offers an account of his 'family', from kitchen-worker confidants to Nobelists and high-ranking university officials. Among these interlocking narratives, he explains his involuntary transfer to Harmony House, a home for the unfit and unwanted. His chronicle captures the politics of ambition, intrigue, and fame of those who surround him and his own curious contributions which will affect them all.

"A great talent."

-Ray Powers, Scott & Field

"An important satire on the culture of institutions and the uses of intellect . . . . rich in allegory"

-Walter Proctor

"Structurally ingenious."

-Jonathan Galassi, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 1, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469111667

Michael Gessner

Michael Gessner lives in Tucson, Arizona and directs the creative writing program at Central Arizona College. His work has appeared in books by Allyn & Bacon, C. V. Mosby, Times-Mirror, and St. Martin's Press, and in periodicals including The American Literary Review, The English Journal, The Kappan, Oxford Magazine, Pacific Review, and others.

Book preview

THE CUSTODIAN’S JOURNAL

A Biography

of the

University

Michael Gessner

Copyright © 2000 by Michael Gessner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

The Journal

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX C

APPENDIX D

To

John Dolis,

Constructor and Act

Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen out of mere art, any more than

anything essentially reasonable has ever arisen out of pure reason. . . .

After all, mankind in the main has always regarded reason as a bit of a

joke.

—G. K. Chesterton,

The Defendant

History’s memory exceeds her conscience.

—Walter Proctor

But those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost

everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious.

—Rainer Maria Rilke,

Letters to a Young Poet

So your argument is that life is serious, is it? Well, yes, perhaps, in some

limited, transient sense, but it cannot be truly serious because it allows

its own creations to perish. In fact it often assists them in this process.

—Walter Proctor,

A Dialog Among Gods

. . . Fame gives and fame takes away. In part it celebrates uniqueness, and

in part it requires that uniqueness be exemplary and reproducible. What

special individuals pioneered, many can imitate.

The ignorance of what fame means and what it can bring may itself be a hallmark of our period.

—Leo Braudy,

The Frenzy of Renown

When you think about future fame, you imagine that you assure

yourselves a kind of immortality. But, if you consider the infinite extent

of eternity, what satisfaction can you have about the power of your name

to endure? If you compare the duration of a moment with that of ten

thousand years, there is a certain proportion between them, however

small, since each is limited. But ten thousand years, however many times

you multiply it, cannot even be compared to eternity. Finite things can

be compared, but no comparison is possible between the infinite and

the finite. And so, however long a time fame may last, it must seem not

merely brief but nothing at all if it is compared to eternity.

—Boethius,

The Consolation of Philosophy

I want facts, not poetry.

—Captain Kirk

Here there are thousands of persons desiring to be that for which they

have no talent, longing to be movie stars, for instance. . . . Most people

in American do not know what they have a talent for: they have become

A Wish.

—W. H. Auden

The world is better, the more things it contains.

—Arthur O. Lovejoy

. . . The works of traditional art, those of mediaeval art, for instance,

are generally anonymous, and it is only very recently that attempts have

been made, as a result of modern ‘individualism’, to attach the few

names preserved in history to known masterpieces. . . . The being who

has attained a supra—individual state is, by that fact alone, released from

all the limiting conditions of individuality, that is to say, he is beyond

the determinations of ‘name and form’ which constitute the essence and

the substance of his individuality as such; thus he is truly ‘anonymous’,

because in him the ‘ego’ has effaced itself and disappeared completely

before the ‘Self’.

—Rene Guenon

I felt like a guilty person—nothing but shame and regret. . . . I have set

fire to the forest, but I have done no wrong therein, and now it is as if the

lightning had done it. These flames are but consuming their natural food.

—Thoreau Walden

By dint of constructing . . . I truly believe that I have constructed myself.

. . . To construct oneself, to know oneself——are these two distinct acts

or not?. . . . But the constructor whom I am now bringing to the fore . . .

takes as the starting point of his act, the very point where the god had left

off. . . . Here I am, says the Constructor, I am the act.

—Wallace Stevens

[after Valery’s Eupalinos]

It is bad luck to kill a wizard.

—Conan, The Destroyer

Everything of massive proportions makes the peculiar impression of

being both sublime and comprehensible.

—Goethe Italian Journey

Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not

more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the

known account of time?. . . . The greater part of men must be content

to be as though they had not been. . . . The number of the dead long

exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day.

—Sir Thomas Browne Hydriotaphia

One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.

—Thoreau Journals

The eternal mystery of the universe is its comprehensibility.

—Albert Einstein

Image601.JPG

Mr. Vincent J. McCauley

Senior Editor

Dear Mr. McCauley:

I must apologize. In the rush to prepare for my trip, (I’m leaving for the South Pacific within the week, which all came as something of a surprise, and a situation which I will explain presently,) I’ve not come around to answering your letter. Do forgive me.

Allow me to take your questions in the order in which you have raised them. First, you ask how the manuscript came into my possession. The fact is, it has been in my care for some time now, and, I should say that it was never entirely my intention alone to submit it for your consideration, or, for that matter, anyone else’s, although since you have taken an interest in it, your reassurance regarding my rather sensitive position* in this matter has meant much to me, and your recent remarks concerning the future of the journal are most encouraging.

I was prompted—persuaded may be more the word—by Dean Berring who is responsible for academic affairs here at the University, to attempt to have the journal actually published. Had I known he would accept the post of provost at another institution, it is highly unlikely that I would have pursued the project. However, I did so only because of old obligations to him, and at a time when he had considerable influence over my professional life. Of course his recent departure has caused me to reassess my indebtedness, and, he has far less, if indeed any control over my career at this point. Then, I suppose I should have anticipated as much: people are forever coming or going around here. Why with all the sabbaticals, extension services, adjunct programs, grants and the like, no one really stays at the Universityvery long. They all like to think their contributions here take on a special significance as though the University itself were a larger living thing that will somehow protect their efforts; endow them into perpetuity. Anyway, Berring’s going is for the better since his work here is done.

He first approached me about the manuscript a year ago. The fall semester had just begun and already I had the distinct sense of having overextended myself. It seems to be a habit of mine; one I doubt if ever I should overcome. I either volunteered for, or was assigned to, several committees; a planning council for the reorganization of the College of Humanities, the development of several funding proposals for various projects; building, and staff additions to the Hall of Archives including our own section of cartography, and this was in addition to my duties as senior lecturer to the Department of Geography. I mention this not to labor you in detail; least for sympathy, but to give you some account of my general disposition at the time. I was most susceptible. I’m sure you understand.

The evening Berring called, I was working late in my office preparing papers for a presentation to the Chancellor’s committee on campus expansion to convene early the following morning. Berring has always been ready with one scheme or another. I should have known it. He comes to me because he knows I will consider what he has to say. Yes, I will listen to him. He knows I will listen because I must. I was about to leave when his call came through. He was excited, overly so. He wanted to see me at once, and, although it was well past eight in the evening, and I was suffering from a sinus condition, I reluctantly agreed to meet him at the faculty club.

At certain times the atmospheric pressure and the moisture in the air combine to produce an intense throbbing in my head. It is so severe that I am afraid I may lose my memory. A silly notion, isn’t it? Yet it shows you how serious this condition is, and whenever I experience one of these episodes, I have difficulty recalling specific incidents and, should I lose my memory, I’mafraid I may do something terrible. Another silly notion I suspect. The pain permits concentration only on itself. It is only because the pressure leaves me so debilitated that I entertain such peculiar thoughts as these. (I do find sleep helpful, and occasionally I nap).

Gladly would I have postponed the invitation to join Berring at the club, or better, declined altogether, were it not for the fact that his father, now emeritus, was vice-chancellor when I secured my appointment here. Of course, his son had risen rather quickly through the ranks and certainly there was more than one individual on my selection committee indebted to him, or to his father (which amounts to the same thing). After all, he was the kind of man after whom buildings are named.

But then professional incest is a way of life at the University. If our younger faculty do not begin to compromise themselves generously and early in their careers, they tend not to do well. After awhile, one thinks nothing of it.

Also, I remember that at the time Berring approached me about the manuscript, I had applied for a sizeable grant from the World Geographic Association. Unfortunately, it required matching funds from the University. It didn’t stand a chance of being approved from the office of academic affairs without Berring’s hand in it somewhere along the line. So, I suppose I was willing to go along with his scheme whatever it was. I decided to be as cautious as possible. Why it wasn’t so long ago when he included me in a proposal to the National Justice Institute; an attempt to acquire funds by offering vocational programs to penitentiaries. A doubtful calling, nonetheless I assumed the responsibility of making inquiries and drafting the statement—a rather notable contribution to the