The Onset Of Winter Midst The Palm Trees

I just finished reading The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain which I seriously enjoyed, although I am not sure that the word records my emotion.  I was quite depressed when I began to read the book and seriously depressed when I finished it.  Of course, the depression which is the most profound I have experienced in some time was set off by the political events in our country for which I see no improvement in my foreseeable lifetime.  So, as the expression goes, "get used to it."  In the midst of my reading of the Tremain novel I stopped to read Alan Bennett's charming Uncommon Reader, a day's read, and something that for a moment lifted my spirits.  We also watched the film "Genius," about a once successful novelist named Tom Wolf and his relationship with his editor at Scribners, Maxwell Perkins, who is always referred to as legendary since among his authors were both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and a host of others, also well known, if not quite such star power.  Wolf's novels were immense, he was wordy wordy wordy, and I remember thinking at the time, boring, boring, boring, and could never understand how he attracted such a following.  The acting in the film was extraordinary, and although throughout I wanted to throttle the Wolf character I was dazzled at Jude Law's undertaking a Southern accent, indeed, the American accents of most of the principals who were Brits, except for the Australian Nicole Kidman.  It did not lift my depression, however, because Wolf's logorrhea was so insistent and threatening, stifling from beginning to end.  I wonder how to get out of this mood.  Creative work, I always say.  I wish I could write a novel, and I have tried yet again to do so in the last year.  The plot just does not work out, however.  I am preparing lecture notes for my Odyssey lecture course, all of eight sessions for the old folks academy, and this for some reason does not enchant me in the doing.  I have never really made any friends down here so I cannot go out to lunch and dinner as I would do in other cities in which I have lived.  How much physical exercise can one perform?  At least the severe balance problems seem to have diminished slightly thanks to my persistent trainer.  Well, back to Odysseus who is now sitting down with King Alcinous and Queen Arete and telling them of his wandering since he was blown off course on his way home from Troy, the Cyclops and all that, quite a lengthy narrative and reminds one somewhat of the Gilgamesh story, which is interesting, and I am going to work that into my lecture, and from the depths of my despair I am wondering if it is worth the bother.  But hope springs eternal.  Of course, I don't believe that, but it is a consolation to write.