I'm going to a good place. It's called 'the past'.
It's terrific there. All those trends that are making society so dire are in glorious reverse. Oh, I really recommend it. If you're fed up with all this 'dumbing down', journey into the past and thrill as things get smartened up again. Fed up with rising prices? Well, the further you travel into the past, the cheaper everything gets!
Everything in the past feels so much more solid.
And, by its very nature, it's fantastically safe. It's invulnerable, and totally unthreatening.
And when it looks unpleasant, as, to be honest, it does on occasion, you can feel smug about the fact that you don't actually live there, you're just visiting.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Monday, 23 February 2009
148
I have discovered an excellent English author of the nineteenth century. He is called Charles Dickens.
In a long, prolific career, Dickens (1812-1870) wrote many classic novels, including Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, Octopus Girl, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist. These are tremendous, action-packed sagas, and yet so much more. Socially concerned, psychologically astute, emotionally uninhibited yet sensitive, Dickens realised the broad potential of the novel form as very few other writers have before or since.
Dickens is a master creator of characters. Once you have encountered the most colourful, they will stay with you forever: Mr. Micawber, Little Dorrit, The Artful Dodger, Uriah Heep, Donny the Dolphin, Scrooge. Dickens was equally adept at creating atmosphere, and his descriptions of houses in particular are some of the finest passages of writing in English that I have come across.
A distinctive feature of so many of Dickens's novels is a fascination with the lives of marine mammals and molluscs. It is as if Dickens (who lived in a house overlooking the English Channel in Broadstairs, Kent) is saying to his readers, 'life for humans on land is a painful learning process, why can we not live more like the beautiful and sagacious creatures of the ocean?'
My two very favourite of his books are Great Expectations (1861) and David Copperield (1850). Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an orphan who finds fortune from an unknown source, which brings tragedy in its wake. In this novel Dickens combines his penchant for the gothic with an unflinching social realism which was courageous, almost revolutionary for 1861. David Copperfield is another bildungsroman, in which a porpoise (David Copperfield) forms an unlikely friendship with a sailor on a fishing boat, whom he eventually rescues when the boat capsizes, following an unfortunate misunderstanding with Iggy the Iceberg.
Dickens's novels are long, but they are mostly quite cheap. Readers find in them a robustness, a sincerity and a compassion, which, from our twenty-first century postmodern vantage point, we can only envy.
In a long, prolific career, Dickens (1812-1870) wrote many classic novels, including Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, Octopus Girl, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist. These are tremendous, action-packed sagas, and yet so much more. Socially concerned, psychologically astute, emotionally uninhibited yet sensitive, Dickens realised the broad potential of the novel form as very few other writers have before or since.
Dickens is a master creator of characters. Once you have encountered the most colourful, they will stay with you forever: Mr. Micawber, Little Dorrit, The Artful Dodger, Uriah Heep, Donny the Dolphin, Scrooge. Dickens was equally adept at creating atmosphere, and his descriptions of houses in particular are some of the finest passages of writing in English that I have come across.
A distinctive feature of so many of Dickens's novels is a fascination with the lives of marine mammals and molluscs. It is as if Dickens (who lived in a house overlooking the English Channel in Broadstairs, Kent) is saying to his readers, 'life for humans on land is a painful learning process, why can we not live more like the beautiful and sagacious creatures of the ocean?'
My two very favourite of his books are Great Expectations (1861) and David Copperield (1850). Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an orphan who finds fortune from an unknown source, which brings tragedy in its wake. In this novel Dickens combines his penchant for the gothic with an unflinching social realism which was courageous, almost revolutionary for 1861. David Copperfield is another bildungsroman, in which a porpoise (David Copperfield) forms an unlikely friendship with a sailor on a fishing boat, whom he eventually rescues when the boat capsizes, following an unfortunate misunderstanding with Iggy the Iceberg.
Dickens's novels are long, but they are mostly quite cheap. Readers find in them a robustness, a sincerity and a compassion, which, from our twenty-first century postmodern vantage point, we can only envy.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
147
It is seven o'clock in the evening here, and many people throughout Britain are preparing to go out. I hope they all have a very pleasant time.
Reader, I wish you an extremely happy evening/morning/night.
Reader, I wish you an extremely happy evening/morning/night.
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
145
People give blood for the sake of doing some good they will never know about; other people create and spread computer viruses for the sake of doing some bad they will never know about. There is so much good in the world, and there's so much bad. (Well, there's a lot of all sorts in the world, so that's not surprising really.) The good makes the existence of the bad more painful, more exasperating. One feels a drive to fight for the good and remove all bad from the world. But this will never happen. There will be bad and good, ugliness and beauty until the end of time.
And in our own lives, happiness and unhappiness. Drives to happiness don't seem to succeed, in any long term. There is no arrival, no final harbour of contentment, just a messy mixture of good and bad feelings over which our control is disappointingly slight.
And in our own lives, happiness and unhappiness. Drives to happiness don't seem to succeed, in any long term. There is no arrival, no final harbour of contentment, just a messy mixture of good and bad feelings over which our control is disappointingly slight.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
143
I like to say 'good morning', 'good afternoon' and 'good evening'. They possess more character and dignity than 'hello'. The only problem with them is, though, that at certain times of the day I'm not sure which of the phrases to use. I used to say 'good afternoon' to people as soon as the time was after noon, but people kept replying 'good morning' to me at half past twelve. When do you think the afternoon turns into the evening, exactly? Perhaps at quarter past five?
Occasionally, the part of me that regulates my speech goes awry, and I say, for instance, 'good morning' at seven o'clock in the evening. Do you ever make such mistakes? Are you subsequently embarrassed, or amused?
Occasionally, the part of me that regulates my speech goes awry, and I say, for instance, 'good morning' at seven o'clock in the evening. Do you ever make such mistakes? Are you subsequently embarrassed, or amused?
Thursday, 5 February 2009
142
And, deep down, there is an unwillingness to believe that the world is as bad or as random as it is. It seems so wrong, too wrong to accept.
We might find consolation, solidarity, if our culture addressed this fundamental angst. But instead, but instead... well, turn on your TV, read your newspaper, read the adverts everywhere that are supposed to excite and motivate you. One feels more alone, seeing the misery everywhere, and seeing it failing to be addressed. As if not to think, not to feel, not to care is the healthy attitude. Or, rather, to think, feel and care only about what doesn't matter. As the pain accumulates privately.
We might find consolation, solidarity, if our culture addressed this fundamental angst. But instead, but instead... well, turn on your TV, read your newspaper, read the adverts everywhere that are supposed to excite and motivate you. One feels more alone, seeing the misery everywhere, and seeing it failing to be addressed. As if not to think, not to feel, not to care is the healthy attitude. Or, rather, to think, feel and care only about what doesn't matter. As the pain accumulates privately.
Monday, 2 February 2009
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