Kevin's Watch

In his book A Little History of Literature author John Sutherland attempts as a bit of fun to place Shakespeare, Dr Jhonson, George Elliot, Thomas Hardy, Chaucer and Dickens on a scale of literary happiness, with 'gloom and greyness' at one end and 'bright sunny optimism' at the other. By far the lowest of the authors, even of the bottom end of the scale he says, is Hardy. No matter where you stick in your thumb, he says, with Hardy you will pull out a plumb of misery. To an extent Hardy had an excuse. The repeal of the Corn Laws [1846] had devastated the economy of the South-West of England with a manifest increase in poverty and suffering which he experienced daily, and to cap it all the cornerstone of his existance [his faith] had been swept away by the publication of On the Origin of Species - a work whose detailed argument and soundness he could not as an honest thinker ignore.

But the reason that Hardy survives as one of our greatest writers is not, Sutherland says, because he was just an unrepentant pessemist, a peevish whinger who we would listen to, but then pass by with ne'er a second thought - but because what he was expressing was much more than just his personal opinion, his 'feeling about things', but rather he was giving voice to a 'world-view', a weltanshauung, which he bought into.

Reading about this led me to question my own weltanshauung; had I been a writer, where would my particular world-view have sat on the scale of literary happiness. I am not proud to say that I am by nature not an optimistic individual. My inner core always seems to be expecting the worst, preparing myself as to how I will deal with it, worrying about when it will strike. More fool me; if I could be different I would be. But this is all on a personal level - selfish stuff that in the end matters not a jot or tittle to the wider world - so what of 'the bigger picture'; do I see things as good, getting better, falling apart; how are things going to be for our grand children, and their grand children after them.

Well, [Z. will understand] I feel an obligation, a responsibility to lean toward optimism. And more than this in the long term I truly do lean toward a positive view. I have such faith in humankinds abilities to overcome all obstacles, to surmount all the difficulties and dangers it faces that I'd wager a hefty bet today for my descendants to claim on - that all things and all manner of things will be ok. But that - alas - is in the long term. Before the happy state is acieved where the default condition of humankind is one of the 'five freedoms' [human style; ie fear, disease, war, poverty and ignorance], we have a ways to go and unfortunately there is going to have to be some big readjustments en route. If we consider the 'western model' of life as the one that the bulk of peoples would strive toward [and it does seem to be the case], then looking at those of us currently lucky enough to enjoy it, it really does seem to be that for the first time in 200 or so years the model is stalling. There is an increasing divide between rich and poor and the likelyhood is [if what we are told is true] that for the first time for many, many, generations the up and coming one will have lower expectations in terms of 'life-quality' than their parents. They will travel less, they have a lower chance of achieving home-ownership and more of their [likely exiguous] salary will be spent in just supporting their existance with a much smaller proportion available as 'discretionary income' ie that portion of what you earn that remains after all your living needs are met.

Presumably before we are to acieve the state where all humans live at a high level [or at the level that most of us in the West currently enjoy] there is going to be a need for a radical population reduction. That is not to say that we can't or will not ever support billions more people than we currently do on this planet - just that at our current level of technology and political advancement, I can't see us being able to move into the state of being able to support the burgeoning population growth ad infinitum unless our technology and the manner in which we distribute rescources is radically altered, and I just dont see this happening in time.

So to sum up, my world-view in terms of optimism/pessimism is one of profound optimism gor the long term, but salted with a hefty dose of pretty unpalatable medicine in the short [sorry guys of the next few generations, but you I am afraid will shoulder the 'hard stuff' of waiting it out while we get things together].

For those who are interested, here's the result of Sutherland's thinking in respect of authorial disposition:-

Chaucer - Happy as a pig in ****
Shakespeare - Largely sunny but with the odd spot of rain.
Elliot - things are tough, but they are getting better.
Dr Johnson - pessimistic but stoic [take your fun where you can].
Hardy - supply a cut-throat razor with all copies of his work.

I'm following three news threads today. Donetsk vote, rise of a new anti-establishment party in Spain, and clashes in France. I feel Chaucer-like. What does that make of my mind?

Love the guy's summation, peter. Also, maybe this belongs in the Close?

I guess I can get my two cents in before we move it (if indeed we decide to...).

I'd argue, peter, that the current crop of 20-somethings are better traveled than we were at their age. At least here in the US, college admissions people reportedly give extra points to kids who've been abroad, and a lot of colleges also stress the importance of some kind of experience abroad. Take my kids: MagickMaker's been to England, Venice, Jamaica and Australia; Batty's been to England, Ireland and Venice. I didn't get to Europe 'til I was in my 40s. Of course, a lot of their travel has been on my dime.

And I'm not confident that their generation will do better than ours. They're getting such a late start on their working lives due to the crappy economy. But I agree with you that in the long run, things will continue to trend upward. So I guess I'm at Elliot's level, more or less.

Ali, by all means this across into the Close if it will 'sit better' over there. Your youngsters are indeed well travelled, but in some respects America is a 'special case' re travel. Possibly because your country is so vast and varied, there is less need for overseas travel in order to 'broaden ones horizens' [not sure it actually works], but for whatever reason, as I understand it, Americans tend to travel abroad less than Europeans and Australians. I believe a smaller percentage of Americans avail themselves of their passports than in most other western nations - but perhaps, as your daughters demonstrate, this is beginning to change.

Elliots level seems a perfectly sensible place to be by the way Ali .

Thanks for that endorsement, peter.

You're right, I think, that most Americans are not well-traveled. Part of it is 'Murica! And part of it is that it takes us a lot more time/money/effort to get to Europe from here.

I'd argue that the "'Murica!" attitude is precisely why Americans should travel abroad more. We tend to be both provincial, and proud of our provincialism. Why should we go to one of those weird foreign places where we don't speak the language when we can do the same thing here? I suspect some of it is sour grapes on the part of people who haven't got a prayer of ever being able to afford a trip outside the US. But at least some of them cover that disappointment with chest-beating patriotism. Makes me a little crazy, in case you couldn't tell.

Just re-read my above post Ali and discovered how ambiguously I phrased it.; what I meant was that I'm not sure travel actually works to broaden the mind, not that the American mind is not broadened by travel within America.

Yes I agree the 'logistics' of travel are way more complicated from the USA [in some senses] and this has is bound to affect people with both limited budget and time.

Going back to the original book where the thread sprung from, I've just read the short chapter on Kafka and Camus and Beckett, authors all who's take on life goes way beyond the mere tragic or depressed but rather focuses us on the absolute pointlessness and meaninglesness of the whole business. To quote the two we have Camus' opening lines of The Myth of Sisyphus "There is but one serious philosophical problem and that is suicide" which is an echo of Kafka's bleak "The first sign of understanding is a wish to die".

It is not enough just to dimiss these idea's as the products of depressed and pessemistic minds - to do so is to bury ones head in the face of unpalatable [possible] truths because of ones inability to squarely face them and [also possibly] bear that which must be bourne. If I might be so presumptious, I'd like to use as an example of the correct way to approach these thorny issues our own dear [ ] Avatar, who seems [if I have got this right] to acknowledge just the points that these authors make about life - but then finds it within himself to 'rise above it anyway' and laugh in the face of such absurdity; truly is 'joy in the ears that hear'. Sutherland [the author of my book] also raises the point of Satre, for whom the novel itself [as an art form] serves as a "machine to inject spurious meaning into a [meaningless] world" and as such is "inherrently dishonest", but still however, necessary. These authors who lead us through the meaningless and on into the absurd [with it's own attendant theatre] will have to be adressed [or at least the nihilism of their world view will] by any thinking individual at at least some point during the journey of their life. How we deal with it is up to us.