On ne trinque pas tout seul. On boit sans amitié, sans rien, comme une vache, et ça, ça oui, c'est mauvais, si mauvais qu'il n'y a même pas plus mauvais au corps.
(p 28)
Du moins, c'est que je pensais adolescent et un peu après. Plus après, j'ai trouvé que, dans certaines circonstances, un bon livre, ou même juste mes propres pensées, peuvent être une compagnie aussi bonne que les gens.
Où c'est de la satire politique / sociale, il est drôle. Où c'est de la satire sur les liaisons sexuelles (c'est-à-dire, fornications), il est ennuyeux. Malheuresement, environ le troisième quartier du livre paraît comme que l'auteur n'écrive que de baiser.
Citation:
Mais le curé Ponosse est doué de cette obstination des natures faibles, qui sont capable des grands efforts pour défendre leur tranquillité.
(de Augustin Ponosse, p 179)
Oui, c'est moi. Capable de faire beaucoup pour ne devoir rien faire.
In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.
(quoted in Umberto Eco: Il nome della rosa)
Which translates as "Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book."
I usually only note down quotations I've come across in their original context, rather than quoted by a 'third party', but this is one of those rare exceptions that I like so much I can't just let them go. Because this truthfully describes most parts of my life, including my childhood: not finding the real world calm enough for my liking no matter where I went, unless escaping somewhere secluded, and there into the virtual world of literature.
Unsurprisingly, COP26 didn't deliver what could really save this planet. Unsurprisingly, because those who have the power to make the necessary changes are not actually willing to do so. They do not truly believe the necessity is there. In the words of Greta Thunberg, they still believe in the fantasy of "eternal growth on a finite planet". And they will continue to do so until it's too late.
Not that they are alone. We are, almost all of us, culprits. Humankind as a whole behaves like me - a patient diagnosed with cancer who nevertheless can't make himself stop smoking. We take some token steps to salve our consciences, but instead of making changes that would actually save us we live in the hope that progress in science and technology will eventually solve the problem for us.
Only it won't, for two complementary reasons: there are more and more of us, and each individual expects his or her standard of life to at least remain the same, preferably to go on improving. Thus lately Thunberg; but as early as 1969 Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five:
The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000.
"I suppose they will all want dignity," I said.
"I suppose," said O'Hare.
And of course, our perception of what is necessary for our dignity gradually rises. For the half century since Vonnegut published his book, world's population went on rising, our lives went on growing more comfortable, and environment went on deteriorating.
To sum up, unless we stop breeding like vermin, and accept that our individual standards of living have to be rather drastically lowered, we'll keep driving down the road to perdition. Human mentality being what it is, I can't see us making these changes. We'll just continue living in our cloud cuckoo land until we get past the point of no return.
Unless we're already past it.
Bu toigh leis a bhith a' dèanamh nithean anns an robh ùidh aige fhèin. An robh sin ceàrr seach nach robh ùidh aig càch annta? Cha robh esan a' smaoineachadh gun robh.
(td 80 anns an chruinneachadh Caogad san Fhàsach)
Eadhon dar a bha mi òg, cha robh ùidh agam ann an iomadh nì anns an robh ùidh aig mo chàirdean, mo cho-aoisean: ball-coise, càraichean, caileagan agus mar sin sìos. Aig an aon àm, bha ùidh agam ann an grunnan nì anns nach robh ùidh aig cha mhòr duine sam bi eile air a bha mi eòlach: cànanan, Alba, òganaich agus mar sin air adhart. Agus cha do dh'atharraich sin rè nam bliadhnaichean.
Seadh, cha robh 's chan eil e idir furasta aig amannan. Ach a dh'aindeoin sin, cha chreid mi gum bithinn na bu thoilichte, mar eisimpleir, a' coimhead air geama ball-coise ann an telebhisean le daoine eile 's a' leigeil orm gun robh e inntinneach dhomhsa, seach a bhith ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig nam aonar. Mar a tha an seanfhacal ag ràdh, 'sòlas an dara duine, dòlas an duine eile'.
If you have to decay, decay with elegance and grace.
(p 254 in the How to be a Brit omnibus)
Yes, I should accept that I'll probably never again be able to work full time, walk several miles in a oner, leave this country even for a week's trip, will have to think twice each time before spending any money, take conscientious care of my diet and regimen and so on. But maybe, with a bit of luck, I'll be able to go through the rest of my life without feeling, behaving and looking as a victim of some tragedy, preserving instead my mental faculties and my dignity.
He was terrified of losing everything he had, so he’d convinced himself he had nothing to lose.
Maybe that's one of the mistakes I did myself after discovering I was probably exiled forever: having had lost so much throughout my life I convinced myself I'd lost everything, and consequently also lost all interest in the future, carrying on merely out of inertia and remnants of defiance.
"Try to live simply. A simple lifestyle freely chosen is a source of strength. Do not be persuaded into buying what you do not need or cannot afford."
There at least is one precept I've been trying to follow throughout my life, and fairly succesfully. Maybe with the exception of books, but that I'm told is common to Quakers themselves.
"Although old age may bring increasing disability and loneliness, it can also bring serenity, detachment and wisdom."
Unfortunately, while the former are now taking an increasingly heavy toll on me, the latter seem hardly to be even beginning to approach.
'My mum always told me money can’t buy you happiness, sir.’
Yes, Vimes thought, so did my ma, but she was glad enough when I gave her my first wages, because it meant we could have a meal with meat in it, even if we didn’t know what kind of meat it was. That’s happiness, isn’t it? Blimey, the lies we tell ourselves …
It is refreshing to read a favourite author of yours attacking a cliché which has a grain of truth in it but has by constant repetition been turned into something very remote from it. Because of course there are some sorts of happiness no amount of money can buy, like true friendship or having good luck, but there are likewise many sorts of happiness that you absolutely can buy for money, from good food and drink to a comfortable home to a pleasant trip or book and so on and so forth ...
That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.
For me the problem isn't about visual but about auditory pollution, but otherwise I absolutely agree: as soon as you find someplace that feels 'nice and peaceful', pretty soon somebody will start DIY, blethering or even shouting, playing music, whatever to make the place no longer peaceful. The only way to prevent this is simply being somewhere where there are no people.
But that, of course, has problems of its own.
There was work to do. It was dull, but it had to be done. So he did it.
One of the few things I pride myself on is this: I'm certainly no friend of doing useless work, but when something has to be done, I'm not in the habit of shirking it or 'delegating' it to somebody else. It has to be done, so it will. Maybe that's why my flaws were often forgiven by my employers: they knew that if I get a dull but reasonable task I'll just go and do it, rather than look for excuses like far too many of the others.
They might have done, many of them. So many people will do. But once you've actually been in love, you can't live with "will do"; it's worse than living with yourself.
This can be a problem not just with romantic relationships. Of course, like everybody I often do use and even enjoy substitutes for the real thing: e-reader for a printed book, e-cig for a tobacco one, masturbation for sex and so on. But I guess that just as often a substitute is even worse than total absence: an obvious example is the preferability of silence to music one doesn't like, or even music one likes but isn't at the moment in the mood for. And I remember how after my three boon companions in a certain town left it shortly one after another, I began visiting different pubs - on my own, because meeting those left reminded me about the absence of those three more painfully than solitude.
"Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people’s opinions may contain for you. Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue. Think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Another area where I fail too often. Maybe I'm more likely than most to consider the idea that I may be wrong, but as long as I am convinced about my truth I can easily be outspoken to the point of being rude. Unfortunately I'm no stranger to making acerbic and snide remarks, especially when a debate becomes heated. And while I may be always attempting to be fair, I'm by no means always successful.
This is a quotation from James Robertson's book 365: Stories (specifically, the story Only Disconnect). In it, a woman gets rid of her TV, computer, mobile and so forth, later on explaining to her daughter that she wanted human contact rather than 'connectivity' via gadgets.
Now if I got rid of my laptop I'd just lose the human contact I get through it and gain none instead. But I think I understand her all the same. The point isn't that a talk over a cuppa or a pint is in itself better than one on Skype, a letter written with a pen better in itself than an email and so on. The difference is about making time for that talk, and ensuring that it isn't constantly disrupted by calls, texts, mails, 'notifications' and all that coming form divers sources and directions.
Oh for those halcyon days when the average pub didn't even have a radio, when at most you would read a newspaper until you were joined by your friends ... People tend to talk approvingly about multitasking, but fairly often it is initially a cause of, later an excuse for, a minute attention span.
"When prompted to speak, wait patiently to know that the leading and the time are right, but do not let a sense of your own unworthiness hold you back. [...] Beware of speaking predictably or too often, and of making additions towards the end of a meeting when it was well left before."
This sort of lists exactly the things I tend to get wrong. Either I'm so keen to have my say that I don't make time to think the matter properly through; or I overthink, and by the time I'm ready to speak the conversation has already moved elsewhere; and while I'm probably not known for speaking predictably or too often, I do find it hard to let a closed topic go for good, without attempting again and again to amend it.
When a character in Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time sees an Igor for the first time, he's naturally somewhat taken aback by all those scars and stitches, but reassured by somebody else telling him this was a 'cultural' thing.
‘Cultural, is it?’ Dr Hopkins looked relieved. He was a man who tried to see the best in everybody, but the city had got rather complicated since he was a boy, with dwarfs and trolls and golems and even zombies. He wasn’t sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was ‘cultural’, apparently, and you couldn’t object to that, so he didn’t. ‘Cultural’ sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there.
Now this is beautifully ambivalent. You can interpret it as 'people often see problems in other cultures where there are none and need to be shown they are just prejudiced'. And you can interpret it as 'the easiest way of dealing with a problem is pretending it doesn't exist'. Knowing Pratchett's style I tend towards the latter interpretation: an ironic take on those who could accept even human sacrifice if they were told it was an inseparable part of a particular culture's tradition.
"Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment?"
At first sight this may seem self-contradictory, but it isn't: hard as it may be, it is possible to approach new ideas without prejudice, even when they come from what we consider an unreliable source, while giving due consideration even to those coming from a reliable one before accepting them.
"While respecting the experiences and opinion of others, do not be afraid to say what you have found and what you value. Appreciate that doubt and questioning can also lead to spiritual growth and to a greater awareness of the Light that is in us all."
I suppose this may refer, partly at least, to what Quakers call 'ministry', but it can be understood more broadly: as an advice to strive for balance between paying proper attention to what others are saying, respecting their right for a point of view different from ours, even pondering whether that point of view may not have aspects to accept as our own; and between having our own point of view, based on experience and consideration, one which we are ready to defend before other people, and would only give up or change with a very, very good reason to do so.
I loved James Herriot's books ever since I've read them (the four taking place before the war) for the first time as an adolescent - in fact, in my late teens I thought that if I could take just one book to a desert island, it would be one of these. Like in real life there was humour and there was sadness; but most of all there was kindness, and it all happened in a landscape I loved without having ever seen it.
In time, other books inevitably replaced them as my favourites, but I kept liking them a lot. Over the years I've read all the eight books, most of them more than once, the first four several times. Eventually I concluded that I liked best the very first one, describing the young vet's first year in Darrowby. So I was completely annoyed when the Kindle edition I bought turned out to miss the last chapter or postscript, making the book feel like a printed one from which some barbarian has torn off the last few pages.
But before discovering this I was enjoying once more the rest of it. Including the following quote I'd meanwhile forgotten, concerning one of the remoter farming families: "They seemed to me to be survivors from another age and their world had a timeless quality. They were never in a hurry; they rose when it was light, went to bed when they were tired, ate when they were hungry and seldom looked at a clock."
I realise this must be a bit idealised (what if there was some emergency? did they all get hungry at the same time? and so on), but that's just the nitpicker in me talking. I believe that families and communities like this did, hopefully still do, exist, and all I can do is envy them, regretting that the only times when I can temporarily live like this are those rare ones when I can safely ignore everything and everybody.
