The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays (New York Review Books Classics)

by Leys, Simon

  Actually, when he heard the story, the wise and prudent Professor Krokodil felt utterly indignant: Hutudan was really reacting in a most irresponsible manner—even if his complaint was groundless, it could potentially damage the reputation of the university; but if it proved to be true, then the consequences would naturally be far worse. This could obviously not be tolerated. He immediately instructed his most trusted assistant, the dean (whose name I forget), to launch an inquiry into the matter. The dean was a very insignificant man; so insignificant, in fact, that everyone constantly forgot his name—he had to carry it written on a filing card which was attached to the lapel of his coat with a clothes-peg.

  As soon as he received his brief, the dean set to work. First, he conducted a long interview with the tea-lady of the faculty, during which they discussed the weather. He faithfully recorded these meteorological considerations. Then, he tore some twenty pages from an outdated telephone directory. Finally, he picked up an old issue of The Timbuctoo Times, destined for use as wrapping paper in a nearby fish-and-chip shop. Back in his office, he stapled together the minutes of his conversation with the tea-lady, the pages torn from the telephone directory, and the fish-and-chip wrapping. He put everything in a folder; with the colour pencils that Santa Claus had given him at Christmas, he wrote on the cover: REPORT PRESENTED TO THE VICE-CHANCELLOR ON THE TEACHING OF PATAPHYSICS AND OTHER MATTERS RELATED AND UNRELATED.

  The vice-chancellor devoured the report from cover to cover, and felt immensely relieved. He immediately wrote to Hutudan: “As promised, I consulted with the dean on the matter you raised. You will be pleased to learn that the dean’s report does not contain the slightest shred of evidence supporting the misgivings and fears you voiced.” Upon reading this, Hutudan was greatly relieved too; he went back to scrubbing the departmental toilets with a lighter heart.

  From time to time, Hutudan still experiences brief pangs of nostalgia; he misses the autumn mornings in the meadows with their smell of mist and mushroom, when he would guide eager young pataphysicians in their first attempts at observing cows swinging their tails—but then he remembers what Professor Krokodil told him: to employ a world-famous pataphysician to clean the toilets is to adopt a “multi-disciplinary approach”—that is what they do in all modern universities nowadays.

  Galosh is still blind as a bat, but it does not matter really; he received a diploma of clear-sightedness honoris causa and was recently made pataphysician extraordinary. It is rumoured that even greater things are in store for him—but this I cannot ascertain, for I do not live in Timbuctoo.

  Part VI

  MARGINALIA

  I PREFER READING

  People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

  —LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

  SOME PEOPLE seem to know everything and understand nothing: usually this is a reproach one would be tempted to throw at academic critics, but it came irrepressibly to mind as I was reading the last volume (posthumously published) of Edmund Wilson’s notebooks, The Sixties. Actually, long ago, oblique hints in Anaïs Nin’s diaries, as well as the fascinating Wilson–Nabokov correspondence (I hope to come back to it on a later occasion) should have warned us of a central hollowness inside the old giant of American letters.

  For the most part, The Sixties is made up of endless name-dropping and a dreary record of attendance at social and literary functions—the climax being an official dinner at the Kennedy White House. The book is not altogether uninteresting, though; there are occasional flashes of sharp perception (for instance, Cartier-Bresson “is so little provincial that one should not take him for a modern Frenchman”); there are also provocative observations from illustrious interlocutors—for example, Malraux told him that the New York Metropolitan Museum was “un musée de province,” whereas the National Gallery in Washington should be considered the real thing (this judgement may seem unfair at first, and yet when you think of it, it has an intriguing pertinence).

  There are also distasteful and grossly indiscreet passages. Could any form of sexual exhibitionism ever be redeemed by youth and beauty? I very much doubt it, but what is sure is that old people who expose themselves are always painfully obscene. Wilson records love-making sessions with his wife in the same way as a zoologist would describe the laborious coition of elephants; one episode appears at the end of a paragraph that had started with the mention of an appointment at the dentist—the unconscious association seems lugubriously appropriate.

  Still, these are mere trifles. What dumbfounded me is the following confession: “(I had dinner with Mike Nichols); he had just read Tolstoy’s Death Of Ivan Ilyich, which had made a great impression on him. I do not care for this story as much as many people do. I do not believe that a man like Ivan Ilyich could ever look back on his life and find it so empty and futile; I don’t believe that Tolstoy, in the period where he was writing his great novels would ever have invented such a character.”

  Gore Vidal, in a review of The Sixties, specially extolled this very passage: “This is simply true. Ivan Ilyich would not have regarded his past life as empty and futile any more than Edmund Wilson could ever have found his life anything but fascinating and full.” In this extraordinary comment, Vidal unwittingly hit the nail on the head: the corollary of his observation is indeed that, if an eminent and influential Supreme Court magistrate such as Ivan Ilyich can, in the light of his approaching death, suddenly discover that his apparently successful life was in fact dreadfully wanting in some essential human aspects, this would also mean that eminent and influential men of letters such as Wilson and Vidal ought perhaps to re-examine whether their sense of importance and achievement was warranted. But this is probably an exercise which no successful man would willingly contemplate. Yet whoever feels in the end that he had a successful life must not have been aiming very high in the first instance.

  Late last year, Cynthia Blanche concluded her review of Dorothy Hewett’s The Toucher: “Surely age without wisdom must be the worst fate to befall anyone: the sure sign of an empty life.” In a lifetime, Wilson and Vidal devoured entire libraries; that, in the end, so much reading seems to have generated so little understanding is sad and puzzling.

  * * *

  And yet, are books really so useless? I still believe that at least political leaders and statesmen should try to read more literature. This might enable them to acquire an elementary self-knowledge that, in turn, could prevent them from making disgraceful fools of themselves when they are forced into retirement. This thought occurred to me as I came across a comment by Orson Welles on King Lear: “Lear becomes senile by giving power away. The thing that keeps people alive in their old age is power . . . But take power away from any of these old men who run the world—in this world that belongs only to young people—and you’ll see a ‘babbling, slippered pantaloon.’”

  Talking of Orson Welles, I wonder if many people still remember how, soon after the Second World War, his artistic reputation in Europe was nearly wrecked for a while by a blistering attack which Sartre launched against Citizen Kane. The profound silliness of this diatribe is startling half a century later:

  Although Kane might have been interesting for the Americans, it is completely démodé for us, because the whole film is based on a misconception of what cinema is all about. The film is in the past tense, whereas we all know that cinema has to be in the present tense. “I am the man who is kissing, I am the girl who is being kissed, I am the Indian who is being pursued, I am the man pursuing the Indian.” Any film in the past tense is the antithesis of cinema. Therefore Citizen Kane is not cinema.

  The impact of this condemnation was devastating. The Magnificent Ambersons was shown soon afterwards in Paris but failed miserably. The cultivated public always follows the directives of a few propaganda commissars: there is much more conformity among intellectuals than among plumbers or car mechanics.

  A few years earlier, Jorge Luis Borges (who wrote superb film reviews) had also expressed a critical opinion of
Citizen Kane, but whereas Sartre’s censure now appears odious and ridiculous in its self-importance and dogmatism (it was actually dictated by a “politically correct” anti-American prejudice), Borges made a point that should retain its validity—even for the admirers of Citizen Kane:

  We all know that a feast, a palace, a huge enterprise, a lunch of writers or of journalists, a cordial atmosphere of frank and spontaneous comradeship are all particularly hideous. Citizen Kane is the first film that made conscious use of this reality . . . It is not an intelligent film, but it is the work of a genius—in the most nocturnal and Germanic sense of this ugly word.

  Sartre had an unquestionable genius (and we just learned what this means)—which may not be enough to reach posterity; in this respect, Borges was perhaps better equipped: he had a sense of humour—which is also the other side of a genuine humility.

  * * *

  Trans-cultural literary comparisons are sometimes risky. The basic problem was aptly summed up in a fable by Randall Jarrell: “The Patagonians have two great writers; the name of the most famous one is Gomez. The Patagonians call Shakespeare ‘the English Gomez.’”

  Only once did I have a chance to attend a public lecture given by Manning Clark; it was in many respects a memorable experience. The topic of the talk was Henry Lawson, and it took place in one of Canberra’s largest lecture halls. The vast auditorium was jam-packed with a respectful and enthusiastic public, young and old, all communing in fervour and anticipation. When Manning Clark climbed onto the stage, there remained not one empty seat in the hall; people were standing against the walls and sitting on the stairs. At once, the small and frail old man commanded effortlessly a silence that had a monumental quality. He spoke with eloquence and passion, without notes. The ultimate test for a lecturer is always the ability to think on his feet and to talk empty-handed: then you know what he has to say—and if he has something to say. Manning Clark captured and retained the total attention of his huge audience for the full hour of the lecture.

  As I came to Australia relatively late in life, I had never read anything by Lawson. The gist of Manning Clark’s lecture was that Lawson was “Australia’s Chekhov,” and the point was made with such convincing force that as soon as the lecture was over, I rushed to the nearest bookshop and bought a copy of the Portable Lawson. I started reading at once—but this was an anti-climax. The stories were readable, for sure, interesting, even touching—but in what one might call a Patagonian fashion: this was more Gomez than Shakespeare, if you see what I mean.

  Retrospectively, the brilliant lecture suddenly appeared to have been built around a hollow core of myth and fantasy. And yet I felt not so much disappointment or cynicism as a genuine gratitude: after all, my mind had been stirred and my curiosity aroused; I had felt a compelling urge to look for the original sources and to read them; as a result, I had been able to form my own opinion on an interesting subject. Could any teacher aim for more?

  * * *

  Should I buy Patrick White’s Letters? I am still hesitating. The truth is, I was never able to finish any of his novels—I confess this with shame. I always watch with envy and frustration the true connoisseurs who derive from his impenetrable prose an enjoyment that remains obstinately denied to me. Although I am perhaps not alone in suffering from this singular disability (actually I know a number of people who share it, and not all of them are illiterate), it is always stupid to flaunt one’s infirmities as if they were a badge of originality; thus, Roger Stéphane, having once foolishly declared to Gide that he found Goethe unreadable, was coolly put back in his place by the Master: “Tant pis pour vous.” And whenever I re-read “The Screaming Potato” (this prose-poem is scarcely a page long but it ranks on an equal footing with the masterpieces of the genre, from Baudelaire to Lu Xun), I feel that I should—and I know that I will—attempt once more to find an access point to his fiction. Meanwhile Flaws in the Glass had moved me—but in the way one is affected by the groaning of a man in pain. And now all the extracts and quotations from the Letters which have been published in the newspapers have further stimulated my desire to read this volume. Yet $50—which should be no obstacle for a true aficionado, however penniless—seems a steep price for someone who merely wishes to satisfy an idle taste for literary gossip. The traditional method which enables writers to obtain new books is to secure a free copy for reviewing, but this entails a double pitfall:

  1. You have to write the review;

  2. You have to read the book (even if you discover that, after all, it was not really your cup of tea).

  And the obligation to finish a book when you do not enjoy it is a ghastly prospect. I would sooner sip, spoonful by spoonful, an entire bottle of cod-liver oil. Since the reviewing formula appears fraught with too great a risk, only one solution remains: wait for the paperback edition to appear. Meanwhile, I keep browsing the hard-cover volume in bookshops.

  The other day, in the course of this exercise, I came across his letter to Dorothy Green. I am not absolutely sure of this attribution: one can hardly take notes when browsing. (Oh, for a civilised bookshop that would provide deep sofas where one could read and write at leisure, under a cloud of tobacco smoke, with good coffee at hand!) In that letter, White was vilely berating his correspondent for the disgraceful lack of self-respect she had displayed in accepting a perfectly respectable Australian honour; and then, practically in the same breath, he expressed his own desire to visit the Soviet Union—on the condition that the Communist authorities invite him, and pay for all his expenses. Obviously he had not perceived any contradiction between the two halves of his letter. I found this hilarious. I cannot wait for the paperback edition.

  A WAY OF LIVING

  There are many ways of living, and reading is one of them . . . When you are reading you are living, and when you are dreaming you are living also.

  —J.L. BORGES, answering an interviewer who asked if he did not regret having spent more time reading than living

  IN PRAISE OF LAZINESS

  WE HAVE just visited old neighbours who recently retired and settled on the coast. As I was congratulating them on what appeared to me a blissful state of unlimited leisure they replied rather defensively that, actually, in their new situation they found themselves much more busy than they ever were during their professional lives. Now, they proudly explained, there were so many activities and commitments that they had to draw up a tightly organised timetable which was posted on the door of the fridge: yoga classes, bowling club, bush-walking, reading group, bingo, lectures, cooking classes, arts and crafts (in the latter field, the hand-painted plates that covered the walls made one regret that the lady of the house had not opted instead for judicious Doing Nothing).

  Chesterton has already confessed his puzzlement at this sort of attitude: “There are some who complain of a man doing nothing; there are some, still more mysterious and amazing, who complain of having nothing to do. When actually presented with some beautiful blank hours or days, they will grumble at their blankness. When given the gift of loneliness, which is the gift of liberty, they will cast it away; they will destroy it deliberately with some dreadful game with cards, or a little ball . . . I cannot repress a shudder when I see them throwing away their hard-won holidays by doing something. For my own part, I can never get enough Nothing to do.”

  The poet Reverdy said: “I need so much time to do nothing that I have none left for work.” This is a good definition of the poetical activity, which itself is the supreme fruit of the contemplative life. However much we should value the contribution of Martha attending to the household chores, we must always remember that it was Mary, by simply sitting at the feet of the Lord, who chose the better part. What the vulgar call laziness can in fact reflect better judgement and demand greater inner strength and spiritual resources than the facile escape into activism. La Bruyère put it beautifully (but I despair to convey in translation the rhythm of the most perfect classical French prose): “In France you need great inner str
ength and vast learning to do without official position or employment, and simply stay home, doing nothing; almost no one has sufficient character to do this with dignity, or to fill their days without what is commonly called ‘business.’ And yet the only thing that the wise man’s leisure lacks is a better name: meditation, conversation, reading and inner peace should be called ‘work.’”

  From the earliest antiquity, leisure was always regarded as the condition of all civilised endeavours. Confucius said: “The leisure from learning should be devoted to politics and the leisure from politics should be devoted to learning.” Government responsibilities and scholarly wisdom were the twin prerogatives of a gentleman and both were rooted in leisure. The Greeks developed a similar concept—they called it scholê; this word literally means the state of a person who belongs to himself, who has free disposition of himself and therefore: rest, leisure; and therefore, also, the way in which leisure is used: study, learning; or the place where study and learning are conducted: study-room, school (actually scholê is the etymological root of “school”). In ancient Greece, politics and wisdom were the exclusive province of the free men, who alone enjoyed leisure. Leisure was not only the indispensable attribute of “the good life,” it was also the defining mark of a free man. In one of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates asks rhetorically, “Are we slaves, or do we have leisure?”—for there was a well-known proverb that said “Slaves have no leisure.”

  From Greece, the notion passed to Rome; the very concept of artes liberales again embodies the association between cultural pursuits and the condition of a free man (liber), as opposed to that of a slave, whose skills pertain to the lower sphere of practical and technical activity.