Nedtur

It had to happen. Today was a hard day workwise, as I was overwhelmed with just how much about Nordic literature (and literary scholarship in general) I don't know, but should. Usually I get along pretty well, faking and fudging, and occasionally actually knowing something, but today it hit me how tenuous my grasp of my academic discipline really is.

I'm sure this feeling of inadequacy relates to a couple of things:

1. KE and I had kind of a collective melt down over the weekend. We're both just so tired all the time, and so overwhelmed by all the practical tasks we still have hanging over us. We had a really good talk and tried to work out some strategies for surviving, getting things done, and trying to come even close to meeting E's endless need for attention. After that talk I think I went a little manic, and spent Monday cranking through a long list of things to do. Naturally, after a manic high, a depressive low was bound to result.
2. I'm starting a massive new project -- a book that ranges over 200 years of literary history and culture -- and a lot of what I want to write about is unknown territory for me. I have to learn the entire bodies of scholarship on a bunch of different writers, some of whom (like Hamsun and Ibsen) have produced grotesque amounts of secondary literature. The project is still totally amorphous and vague at this point, and I'm reading tons of new material that is taking me in all sorts of uncontrolled directions. Unfortunately, this week at least, the stuff I'm reading is taking me away from the proposed book and onto entirely different topics, which kind of scares me.
   

So, with all that it's no surprise that I found myself feeling like a total idiot today. My solution was twofold: to buy a good handbook to one of the topics I feel I'm not strong enough in (narrative theory) and start reading it really thoroughly (I feel stupid for needing it, but better for at least taking the effort to learn or in some cases relearn the theoretical material) and then go to "strikkekafé" in Oslo (a very nice evening indeed).

I picked up some more Rauma 3-tråd yarn for KE's islender sweater on the way to the knitting group, so I started on the first sleeve for that while I was there. The kidsilk haze birthday shawl has become too big to take along to a restaurant!