“People who call themselves ‘writers’ are deserving of our time if only to better understand what part of their personality caused this aberration.”
Why are the British (well actually, English) people so unrevolting?
I will be brief. The place I grew up in, where I osmotically developed as an ‘Englishman’ (English person) is no longer that place. It is a different, a much darker place; but this is not the interesting or surprising thing.
The interesting and surprising thing is also the horrifying thing: far too few – look, it’s the English to be honest, not really the Scots, Welsh or the Irish; perhaps they have some ancestral, residual Gallic/Celtic spirit of rebellion – are willing or able to realise the patently obvious, let alone to do damn all about it: the country is being slowly and not-at-all subtly converted by its rulers into an authoritarian state. A whatee? A state wherein the ruling minority – not governing, per se (that demands working with reality), but ruling (imposing an artificial reality) using a well-worn combination of propaganda and thuggery (Putinism, for the sake of argument) – tell the ruled majority what they must believe and what they cannot do; and it’s always a very long list, often with criminal sanctions attached. Why are the non-ruling majority English people using every tired old trick in the book of Great English Mythologies – read: delusions carried over from times past – to convince themselves that this is not really happening? Why are the English people so unrevolting?
Perhaps, to respond as the French do under similar circumstances would be the ultimate treason: to adopt Gallic remonstrance over and above good ole un-French stiff upper lip. Ne’ mind eh? Perhaps its the under-studied multi-generational effect of funds pulled from public education. Perhaps it’s the boiled [human] frog syndrome: spiritual death by tyranny is a sly, gradual thing. Perhaps it’s the powerful distractions of gaming, streaming and social media. Et-bloody-cetera; I wish I knew.
But what I do know is that the dynamics of a radical shift away from democratic and egalitarian values (notwithstanding that those values are always judiciously manicured by the ruling minority) are well underway; more than you will ever admit, Oh Al-bi-on! The present government of ‘En-gland’ – in its nauseatingly obvious trajectory and its clueless, wave-riding reprobates’ associated, clumsy ideological slobberings – has more in common with Russia, Hungary, Myanmar, the US and the multiple other countries around the world recently or now fronted by – usually – fragile-ego’ed individuals who must never confront their personal demons and must make YOU pay for THEIR perpetual anguish, whether they are the Capo or merely the Capo’s creepy funereal willing servants. Nota bene: none _wish _you _good.
Once upon a few times, the ruled majority were partially revolting. St. Peter’s Fields? The Peasant’s Revolt? And now? Well, let’s say the signs aren’t good. People are too busy dealing with the consequences to attend to the (bloody) obvious root cause; that’s the most generous take. When I hear the incessant, incoherent ramblings, lies, excuses and self delusions being promulgated in the media and expressed more widely in various polls, I do, really, want to be sick. I want to turn off, but yet find it painful to ignore like the dilemma one might (and some do) face of having a family member lose their mind and yet not being able to accept it with both sides of your brain: that yesterday has gone away and won’t be coming back, EVER. There it is then; the answer to why the English are so unrevolting: plus l’Angleterre change, plus c’est la même chose.
Rabbits! Rabbits!
While I was browsing the used book shelves today a thought spontaneously evanesced (as they do) and I found myself asking: is it too late to say Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!? No, I decided. Talking to the cats doesn’t count; they are not people, even if I speak to them like they were. This recitation trick, that my paternal grandmother of a rural upbringing embedded in my brain from the age of seven, rewards the speaker with good luck all month if and only if they say aloud ‘rabbits! rabbits! rabbits! before speaking to anybody on the first day of each month. Speaking to animals or yourself doesn’t count (that’s my gloss.)
Most months I remember to unlock the secret to good fortune, which in itself is remarkable since my grandmother stopped reminding me when her own luck ran out in 1985. Some months, like this one – March 2023 – I do remember, but too late. Either I’ve already spoken to another human being – the bus driver, my neighbour, a work colleague who also happens to have decided to come to the office that day – and so accept, with some regret, the futility of trying to cheat fate or, like today, I get the day wrong. Only sitting here, in the evening of March the second, do I now realise looking at my desktop calendar that my rabbits! ran a day late. Sincerely, I chastise myself, for a moment anyway.
What can I expect now? A month’s days of irksome ill-fortune? Late wakings, spilled drinks, missed buses, poorly-judged emojis and flapping shoelaces? The fact that these thoughts even occur is embarassing (thoughts that ‘just occur’ tend that way). I’m objective, rational, not given to organising my affairs according to, or even with a liminal nod to, time-interwoven superstitious tendencies (I claim).
Something more serious? Probably not. Actuarially: unlikely. But then again, one could definitely classify avoiding death or serious injury as good luck. That’s inarguable, we can agree; but devilishly hard to prove, in a causative sense. Stuff doesn’t happen all the time, it just doesn’t get clicks. The human gait is a controlled fall; we are one neurological hiccup away from a visit to the accident ward each time we lurch into perambulation – one second or less in our conscious awareness behind our brain’s grip on the reins (free will is an illusion: discuss).
So why do I recite (or try to remember to) on the first day of each month: rabbits! rabbits! rabbits!? Well, luck (or trepidation at the prospect of not renewing my subscription to the avoidance of bad luck), isn’t it. Traditions are triggers: reminders (if we really wanted or needed them) that we are mere synapses in the collective nervous system of all conscious life: conduits for signals – of the most miniscule and universal frequency. When I say rabbits! each month I see my grandmother’s smiling face, I see us picking raspberries in July, playing dominoes on Sunday, roaring fires and solemn chiming mantelpiece clocks. I give voice to time passing, to life branching and branching. Luck is being part of the tree.
Subterfuge.
As if the slow, meticulous etchings of time, upon any face, consumed also, immoderate flux in its workings on physiognomy and all. It would surprise, to view, disjunctive, brows raised and sallow mouth - oddly conjoined. Nature intrigues with us yet we are in its communion, melded in the cells, to follow, to listen if we care, to eternality at work. What conspiracy outdoes nature's work? To frame us in such lurid light as bleaches her away. Some subterfuge akin to other rules, some aberration yet unknown. It is not gentle, deep, recurring.
Oh dear. I seem to have sadly died.
This is an impromptu submission so please forgive the wordiness. I might edit it one day. It’s inspired by a bursting into life, if you will, of a particular expression that is — insidiously and malware-like — embedding itself in the lexicon of public speech in this part of the world.
We do not simply die, in the public announcement sense — anymore. Our mortal coils are not shaken off. We no longer join the choir invisible or kick the bucket. Indeed, our last reported moments no longer merit such life-affirming drama; we do not not go gently into that good night. Not according to the evening news. Nope. Now, we go sadly: sadly, like a teddy bear missing an eye or a houseplant wilting, neglected in the corner. Death is then, after all, one of life’s casual disappointments: regrettable indeed (heartfelt thoughts and prayers et cetera), until our attentions are momentarily and predictably redirected to a talking iguana or a shuffle dancer.
If you wish your death to be publicly reported, beware then that there is probably nothing you can do to avoid your fate. You will sadly die. You will not fight to your last breath, drop dead in flagrante delicto in the arms of someone only recently known to you, or meet the side of a mountain in the cockpit of a jet-propulsed vehicle. The glory of your passing, of your heroic last act, will have sadly died. The answer to the question — how do you sadly die? — is rendered moot. Common usage has determined that your dying is mostly, well…sad.
I have to admit, sad is just the right word to use if you view the death of someone you knew as usefully comparable to the death of a houseplant. If a human life is broadly equivalent to an aspidistra then ‘sad’ is the proper adjective for our demise. But I would argue otherwise. Would you agree?
When I am drawing my last breath (however and whenever that might be) I am convinced that one of the least likely emotions I will be feeling is sadness. I imagine I’ll have other things on my mind. My relatives, if I still have any and they are sitting by my side, are surely not feeling ‘sadness’ either. Sadness is for the emotionally disengaged. Sadness is what professionally sombre undertakers express to relatives with a frowny face as the deceased is wheeled in for the two-thirty booking. Or, ‘sadness’ is for the embarassed reporter. Not wishing to give offence to anyone, or to be perceived to possess a cold-hearted journalistic objectivity, the ugliness of death is pixellated away in the editing room and replaced with a soothing dab of sugary ‘sadness.’ There now, all better.
But if we must all sadly die, what is the kind of death we have avoided? Is it a happy one? Some deaths surely are a relief to the unfortunate few, but are they ‘happy’ therefore? Probably not, I would say. If all the weeds prospering in my garden — and stifling my summer veggies — go the way of all living things a little sooner than expected, then as far as I’m concerned they did indeed – as much as I am concerned – happily die. But they’re the unusual case. They’d have been happy to have lived and stifled my beans.
I admit that, surely, for most sentient beings like ourselves, with the luxury of reflection after some time has passed, death could be described as sad: if I were explaining to a child, for instance, why we can’t go to grandma’s house on Sunday anymore, I’d probably use the word sadly somewhere in my explanation.
For the record, then: no death is sad. Death is a lot of things but none is adequately conveyed by this silly little adjective or its adverbial playmate. If you one day announce that I have sadly died then you can be sure of one thing: that I’m just plain dead, but perhaps the happier for being rid of you.
Riff on a John Clare Poem but which one?
Where is the sun when I arise? I want some bird to sing To dream her song in sleep’s demise Each dawn is a birth For a moment’s ease, ceased burden The night’s release, unwelcome I love the sun, the beckoning glow That enriches everything It enjoins everything below Like swallow’s spiralled wing A motion magical, in flight, A glimpse and then, a parting light.
Garbo
Among the personal effects of Bert Spalding, Joan his estranged widow found in his papers the following brief account that took her somewhat by surprise after their ten years of marriage. While not a widely acknowledged fabulist, Bert, sadly no longer with us, undoubtedly had a rich inner life. Upon brief enquiry we found his story unfortunately without merit.
Reproduced with the permission of Joan Neesden (nee Piper):
Before I came along, my wife Gertie (or Greta as you may perhaps be more familiar) was working at what used to be the local Odeon behind the counter. I spotted her a mile off, with that unmistakeable gaze and the way she flapped her eyelashes. I always knew this moment would arrive.
It was a Thursday afternoon and I was looking forward with great relish to another sojourn to Gone with the Wind. A small Tizer, I announced, summoning the courage and giving her a knowing wink. Something in my expression caught her eye, and her lavishly mascara’ed lashes droopped ever so slightly. I felt hot all of a sudden and wanted to remove my coat and scarf.
When the picture had run its course I emerged into the foyer but Gertie had clocked off. Fighting my disappointment but girded by the possibilities of the silver screen, I left a cheeky but polite note for her with an usher. Ten weeks to the day later Gertie and me were married in Elmsley Wood town hall. Best four bob I ever spent.
Dear S.,
Dear S,
=====
It’s been a while. Thirty-two years actually. When I see that number, and the encrusted life I now own, it seems unnatural – perversely multiplied. It can’t be true that I still feel this way – a third of a century later – about someone I knew for barely two months. What a strange thing the memory is. What odd curators we are – shelving and cataloguing some moments but not others, of visceral longing too much unacknowledged at the time – irresistible, real and deeply strange, but now so divorced from the blood blind compulsions of our youthful senses.
I do know, of course, you are no longer here. I know that, of course. I heard the news from a friend of a friend – a text, some months ago. Almost offhandedly she told me: how odd I thought until I realised how much of what I’d stored inside was entirely unknown to anyone except myself. When she mentioned your death in passing, along with the odd lurching sensation of a silent fall from a tall building I saw you – in an instant – before me, in your black leather bomber jacket, your ever so slightly reddened by the cold March air ice blue eyes and your tight ponytailed dirty blond hair – perched for the first and last time on the edge of the bed in my flat on Redcliffe Gardens, applying lip balm habitually with your long fingers. It was your dry skin but so too an under-managed manifestation of your vulnerability, and so a flash of hope that you weren’t en-tirely lovely and perhaps not en-tirely beyond my reach, after all. You didn’t stay long, perhaps half an hour – but your visit meant something I suppose neither of us could bring ourselves to acknowledge, then or afterward. Time had run out before I realised the clock was running. I loved your silly travel letters from Tokyo and Adelaide, hashed out on flimsy blue paper in terminals and hostels.
Aren’t we just animal spirits? First, predominant, hormones bursting, bloody and startled, resplendent and chattering without the time, need or inclination to reflect? Then spirits more, reflecting on what we did, what we felt, our animal selves dutifully contained or compromised by an embarrassment of later riches and failures? I don’t have answers S-. I only know that I think I can recreate what made you you, that even now I want to recreate what made you you, without ever having had the chance to discover it then. I’m our last remaining record-keeper. Without me we cease to exist. I suppose, after all those months since I heard, this is what seeped into my consciousness, that I feel the need to speak to you, to make up for lost time and lost chances: chances not taken when I knew there was some spark between us that only required one of us to ignite, with some trivial act of courage. For whatever reason, neither of us embraced the courage we might have had. Perhaps we felt it was inevitable and thus unnecessary to hurry along. We’ll never know. It’s too late. But what do I do otherwise with all these evergreen thoughts? Do I pile them high, at last, on the bonfire at the bottom of the garden and stand, contemplative, alone, as the particles of a life unlived dissemble themselves in the intense heat and float way into the winter night as I stand shivering in my borrowed winter boots? Do I preserve them in jars, for occasional inspection? Or should I reanimate them, bring to them new life, that we might not cease to exist after all?
Forgive me now if I choose the last. I feel it is something I should do – that I want to do – as selfish as it sounds. I’ll treat you fairly, I promise. Only I want you to come alive again, in some way that only I could bring about. I know you wouldn’t mind, entirely too much.
Fragment
…
It is not so hard to imagine these papers, in some few years from now, consigned to some drawer, mingled with other artifacts of a time in your life which, when you weren’t paying attention, finally lost their resonance, their energy, as a candle burns down or a stem sags slowly in its vase. Then, the words written here will have been pressed finally dry and flat, beneath the weight of consequent events.
It is selfish and naive of me to believe that it should be otherwise.
Acknowledging that the impression of our lives upon each other will and must fade (for how else are we to go on?), the need to leave you with something of myself persists still. I don’t wish, however great the temptation, to be sentimental. If anything, the thin strands of sentimentality will surely cause what I write here to lose its potency as if somehow writing were itself the agent of devitalisation. Sentiment floats, like motes of dust in sunlight, when love, fallen from the tree and not finding the substance to nourish its potential, endures its slow annihilation.
Jimmy and the Dangerous Woman
Dear P_,
I’m going to make an appointment with the doctor here to see if there’s a medical reason why I feel so low all the time. It’s winter now. We barely get five hours of full daylight — that’s if the clouds part. My starting point is social awkwardness. I’m in a foreign country. I’m at — a disadvantage. Perhaps it’s a lingering symptom of my fixation on the recent past — the divorce etc — but that is years ago now. Can grief and self-pity hang around that long? I tell myself not, most days anyway.
Yes, I read the short story we discussed last week in our session. It’s odd; even though I found it in my collection and shared an image of the header page with you, I still somehow managed to fix the title in my memory as Jimmy and the Dangerous Woman.
When I got your WhatsApp message yesterday asking me what I thought about the story, naturally then my thoughts sprouted from the seed that I thought Lawrence had planted. He wanted us to take it as given that poor downtrodden Mrs. Emilia (Emily) Pinnegar was ‘dangerous’. Dangerous to whom exactly (other than Jimmy)? Well I can see it clear enough, I thought. He tells us so; she has slow, cat’s eyes…smoldering, like a predator weighing up her next meal, coiled and languid in equal measure. When she washes her coalminer husband’s dust-caked back before the fire, she does it as if she were prepping a turkey for the table: industriously, dispassionately. She can switch off — up there. Or perhaps she has long ago switched off, and the recession of life’s spirit has left behind an imprint, a cold shadowy place where joy, kindness, happiness once used to jostle energetically. Does that make her dangerous though? That she might appear sinister and derisive while fulfilling the unpleasant daily duty of washing her husband’s back without prospect of reward by way of a kind look, a smile, a recognition that she was anything more than a household appliance? Did that make her dangerous — the vacuum, the absence where emotion should be?
Well of course, as I went back to thinking about the story again I realised the mistake I’d made, and I couldn’t then help thinking how telling it was, that I’d transposed that adjective with that one. Desperate. Dangerous. A cornered creature. But then more fertile ground came into view. Why would Lawrence want to mark Emily as ‘desperate’ anyway? Surely it’s Jimmy who’s desperate? Really. He’s the pathetic, middle-aged divorcee of no obvious allure. Poor little Jimmy. But he’s still the ‘man’ — with the instincts of his sex intact (and this is Lawrence’s work after all.) What is not desperate about determining in an instant to plunge yourself into an open-ended commitment — to a wo-man, a hu-man about whom and about whose living situation you know nothing — and to which you’ve applied little if any practical aforethought? What is not desperate about defining one’s desirable future self by alliance with an inferior? Imaginative self reconstruction…with magic mirrors.
Is it salvation that Jimmy the beta, shambling man wants to sell to this stranger of a woman who sends him poetry for publication? Desperate Emily? Is that the lure and the power he wishes to dangle in front of her? Can he (does he) really become the Solomon in the eyes [and heart] of this lowly, chosen novitiate? I wonder, knowing just a little about myself (and by extension perhaps about the nature of things for others (one hopes to not be alone)) that there’s first the declared propositions we make to ourselves: the justifications, the ‘reasons’, the product of our admirable, shiny cogitations. And then there’s the animus — the primal — within us. It thinks too, wordlessly, and more quickly than ‘I’ can. It decides, before I can, why a certain thing should really be done — to soothe the storm inside perhaps, to settle scores or balance the books, to refloat the sinking boat. Sharp, unscrupulous Id motions in our heads that our conscious selves mostly have to sheath in acceptably safe justification: countering moderations. What Jimmy really wants is revenge. Revenge for being rejected goods, the cuckold. He even admits it (on Page 584 in my copy). Desperate and adventurous he feels he’s been — to enter another husband’s house and boldly steal his wife away. Poor, desperate Emily, who cannot make up her mind for so long whether she wants to leave even this grey existence she has, who puts him off and delays her departure as long as possible. To her, it’s a viable business proposition I would think — an exchange of known misery for something different; at least not so oppressive, she thinks. Clarissa the former and Emily the future might not be so different after all. And Jimmy will realise this — too late of course. The story ends and I think he realises it, too late of course. The worm has indeed turned: back on itself. Poor Jimmy.
