~ Note: followers of my blogs may have read this before in Notes From the Boundary: http://www.peter1arnold1hart.blogspot.com/ I've moved it here, as the first in a new series of less formal blogs. Some of the blogs in Notes were 'course essay' length, and I guess rather taxing on the reader. ~
1
“Speech is free perhaps, but I am less free than
before: I no longer succeed in knowing what I want, the space is so saturated,
the pressure so great from all who want to be heard.” Jean Baudrillard.
Don’t you feel that? I do. It is hard, is it not, to maintain
much of a semblance of balance when subjected – and that constantly – to a
barrage of ideas? We do not want of be one of the ‘boring balanced’; but, if
too many ideas impinge on our minds at once, then the ensuing ‘psychic chaos’
may render us near paralysed. We are always afraid of losing ourselves –
whatever exactly ‘ourselves’ may be. But – unless we join the Moonies, the
Mormons, or some other crackpot sect – is there really any danger of this? I
doubt it; and anyway, given that we enjoy postmodern literature – Slaughterhouse V, The French Lieutenant’s
Woman, etc. – why should we worry so much about those aspects of ourselves
that remain stubbornly recalcitrant to our understanding: those mysteries that
we live with all our days? Simenon’s ‘Romans Dur’, The Venice Train, is a superb novel – from one of the twentieth
century’s greatest writers – in which the reader is left, at the end, without
the slightest idea of what set in train the tragic consequences for its
antihero. How much more satisfying is this than the fully explained ending!
Henry James’ The Bostonians and The Portrait of a lady anticipated the
postmodern novel — to this extent: in both we are left to ponder on the fate of
the main characters, and whether or not James had any ideas in mind is
completely beside the point: certainly he had no need to.
2
I’m always pleased when a second hand
book I’m ordering is describes as ‘Ex–library, with the usual markings.’ I
please my imagination thinking about the unknown borrowers; and then a bound
library book is somehow much more satisfying to handle than a brand new
hardback. Here are some examples.
_____________________
3
You may doubt my characterisation of
Simenon as ‘one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.’ Well, Andre Gide
held him in the highest regard; and, to help you judge, here are a few of his
opening lines.
I
How
Julius de Coster soused himself at the Saint George tavern, and how a bolt from
the blue struck his second in command
As far as Kees Popinga personally was
concerned, it cannot be denied that there was still time; his destiny still
hung in the balance. Could he indeed have acted otherwise than as he actually
did, convinced as he was that his act that evening had had no more significance
than those of the thousands of evenings that preceded it?
The
Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (Penguin translation by Stuart Gilbert)
___________________________
I
Prosper
Donge’s Puncture
A car door slamming. The first thing he heard every
day. The engine ticking over outside. Charlotte was probably saying goodbye to
the driver? Then the taxi drove off. Footsteps. The sound of the key in the
lock and the click of the electric light. A match being struck in the kitchen and the
slow ‘pfffttt’ as the gas came alight.
The Hotel
Majestic (Penguin translation by
Caroline Hillier)
___________________________
I
Cell
No. 1
Somewhere in the Santé prison a clock struck two. The
condemned man was sitting on his bed. Two large knotty hands gripped his knees.
A Man’s Head (Penguin translation by Geoffrey Sainsbury)
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