“We’ve forgotten now, but until the advent of the light bulb it was common to sleep in two shifts,” Simonov said.”The first started soon after dusk when the day’s labor was done. If there were no lights to see, what was the point of staying up? Then we woke around midnight for a few hours before the second phase of sleep, which lasted through the morning. This was the body’s natural rhythm, before Thomas Edison let us make our own schedule.“
“The British called this wakeful interval the watch and in France it went by dorvay. It was a respite from the normal world and its demands, a hollow of private enterprise carved out of lost hours”
This excerpt is from Harlem Shuffle, written by Colson Whitehead and found on page 135. The main character, Ray Carney, is sharing with the reader a recollection from his financial accounting class. Professor Simonov recommends one maintains a scrupulous vigil over one’s accounts while picking one time every day for bookkeeping. He introduces the concept of dorvay. ( In a USA News article focused on Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle, I found the following: In a convoluted way, this word means division- it comes from a bad hearing of the French “dorveille”, referring to a period of awakening in the middle of the night-“) The professor’s lecture went on. Dorvey that midnight pasture. You went over your accounts whatever they may be- reading, praying, lovemaking, attending to pressing work or overdue leisure.
In the early 1960s Ray Carney owned a furniture store in Harlem. He also had family ties to thieves. He grew up with his cousin who became a full time crook. He lured Carney into his world by having Ray “fence” his ill-gotten treasures. Whitehead paints the image of Carney’s imbalance of his dual enterprises with this statement. Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…
If you have had the inclination to read any of my past Lighthouse Reflected blogs you know I am a fan of Colson Whitehead’s novels. He has an ability to weave drama throughout historical moments or subjects that allow me to satiate my love of history. In the reading of his novels, I experience a different point of view or aspect of life I have not experienced in the silo of my own life. Whitehead also shows his genius at “word play” leaving the feeling that it is only a matter of time before he solos by earning his third Pulitzer. As of today, Colson Whitehead is one of four authors to have received a Pulitzer twice. William Faulkner, John Updike and Booth Tarkington being the other three.
This month, as I visit my metaphorical lighthouse, I reflect on the concept of duality and polarity. Harlem Shuffle highlights the main character’s adventures that fit nicely into his opposite nature. A nature not displayed during the light of most days.
Author Kathy Oddenino points out why we may need to act or face the other side in her book Bridges of Consciousness. Man learns his lesson by experiencing the opposites. Therefore, a man of integrity may find himself in association with a group of no integrity. In this instance the lesson of integrity has already been learned but may need reinforcement before a choice is made to BE absolute truth and integrity. My reflections echo the truth that polarity or duality are opposites in life. Day and night, periods of activities and periods of rest, also periods of being and periods of non-being, laws in life but not immutable laws. Only the Absolute Law rises above pairs of opposites.
Speaking of opposites, today’s calm and sun is a polar opposite from yesterday’s blizzard of winds and waves crashing higher than my lighthouse! Thank God my imagination kept me dry!
Be in peace and joy!
Thank you,
Mark