Walker Percy said that Wednesday afternoon is the worst time of the week, when an existential fugue settles over you – and as T-Bone Walker sang, “Thursday’s also sad.” The narrator of Ikiru said, “he will have to get a lot worse before he can get better.” So here’s some afternoon Law to help, from Conrad’s Lord Jim, as he describes a man trying to define himself, to narrate a shameful mistake from his past in such a way as to lessen his guilt:
It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure.
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“Thursday’s also sad.”
Ah, yes – “also.” Of course! I’ve listened to the Allman Brothers’ version of Stormy Monday dozens, if not hundreds, of times, and I’ve always misheard that line as “all so sad.” If there are any other blues fans here, they will know what I mean when I say that “also” just doesn’t sound like a blues word.