Lessons from Camus' The Plague: or, Doing one's duty in the present moment

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain at Tate Modern. [Public Domain, photo by David Shankbone, London].

The Plague by Albert Camus

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This literary work by Albert Camus might be rewarding if read simply as a novel. But to comprehend the work in the context of his philosophical "book-length essays", The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel (which I am yet to read), and his other famous novel, The Stranger, requires an understanding of Camus' philosophy of the absurd. While Camus refused the label of existentialist philosopher, it is clear that he develops a philosophy of the absurd in the three of the above works I have read thus far. 

I suspect that a reading of The Rebel and also Nuptials will provide further insight into his ideas, but much like reading Nietzsche, I think one could develop a sense of Camus' ideas no matter where one starts. I enjoy referring to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy when trying to comprehend philosophical works, but I follow Mortimer Adler's advice to read the work first, so as to form my own impression, before immersing myself in the interpretations of others'. This particular edition of the novel is helpful in that it contains an afterword, rather than an introduction, by the late Professor Tony Judt.

Whenever I think of absurdity, I tend to think of the Dada Movement. But the ridiculousness of Dada served the purpose of mocking the bourgeois, so it does not relate so much to the absurd in the philosophical sense as it does "absurd" in the sense of "ridiculous". What I gather from my reading is that the absurd relates to the absence of any meaning of life. It is irrational in that you cannot reach, by reason, the meaning of life other than that you live and then you die. 

There is an element of Nietzsche's "God is dead", too, in that Camus attacks religion, no, challenges religion, in its attempt to provide meaning to life (or the after-life). As the title suggests, this novel is a fictional story about the plague striking Oran, Algeria, and the lives of a group of men who are caught up by the inevitable quarantining of the city. In his afterword, Tony Judt tells of how Camus relied on his personal experience of Nazi-occupied France (Camus was a reluctant hero of the French Resistance) as a basis for his story, and how as soon as the tragedy is over, people simply pick up from where they left off and seem to forget the lessons learnt from the trauma.

Without giving too much of the plot away, nor the interesting use of the narrator, the non-religious protagonist simply does his duty. In doing so, we see a human Sisyphus at work. It probably didn't help being sick myself while reading this, and wondering if each time one of the pets scratched themselves I might be in for a dose of the plague, but like all of Camus' work I have read thus far, it leaves me with a strange sense of resignation. I was going to say hope, but this is where Camus disagreed with Sartre and the existentialists: he saw them as "deifying" the knowledge that there was no god (or God or gods), and turning existentialism into its own form of religion, much like the anti-religionist non-scientist science-lovers do on social media these days.

Something that strikes me with Camus is the absence of hope. If one doesn't like it, then one can always end it. And here I draw parallels with the Stoics. There is always that macabre option. But if we choose to live, we can only live for the present moment. What appears again and again in The Plague is a sense of duty. Not so much for a cause, but to do what one does because that is what one does. To live in the present moment, for the future is death, and the past is beyond our control.

Yet this doesn't mean we adopt a hedonistic approach to life, but rather that we do our duty, in accordance with our nature. Of course, these ideas are difficult to comprehend without a thorough reading of Camus, Nietzsche, and the Stoics; even so, it is still difficult to articulate the concept. Camus' use of the novel to explain these concepts is powerful, in that through metaphor, we can come to understand his non-philosophical philosophy.

Rather than attempting to find meaning in life (which is absurd because there is none), we can exist in the present moment and do our duty. And while this may sound nihilistic, there is a sense of peace one can gain by acknowledging that all we can control are our impressions of external events, and then how we react to the things we cannot control. As Camus observed in The Myth of Sisyphus (p. 64):

...integrity has no need of rules.

It would seem that there is some relation to Stoicism, in that personal decision and choice is a central theme. 

But that is just my take on it. If you would rather just read an excellent novel, then this is it. If, of course, you can not wonder about the absurdity of it all after reading it.

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I am convinced that Leo Sayer was channelling Nietzsche in 1974!

Leo Sayer in 1974. I say he was channelling Nietzsche! [Image via YouTube]

The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This work is where most of Nietzsche's ideas begin. The poetry was unexpected, even though poetry is "the gay science". I routinely reflect on La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, and The Gay Science follows a similar structure. Based on my own reading, I also see elements of Voltaire's style. La Rochefoucauld's influence on Nietzsche has been acknowledged by numerous scholars, such as Brendan Donnellan, but also to Voltaire. 

Writing in the New Republic, Jacob Soll includes Nietzsche as an extension of Voltaire in terms of the critique of religion, which interestingly extends into a critique of socialism. (In the Marxian tradition, religion is the "opiate of the masses".) Borrowing from Mortimer Adler, my approach to reading Nietzsche is to read it myself, and later to look toward critiques of his work, so I am pleased that my connections between La Rochefoucauld and Voltaire do not stray from the mark. Nevertheless, my comparison was based purely on Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique and La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, rather than an in-depth study of either. 

In many ways, Nietzsche sets out the work as a dictionary of his ideas, not so much in the style of aphorisms, but certainly as a form of developing his own ideas in the style of a list of definitions, ideas, critiques, and polemics. Having said that, Nietzsche points out so many things that remain relevant today, including working for the sake of work, the "non-voluntariness in forming opinions" in academia, and even Rousseau's idea (apparently Nietzsche disliked Rousseau's work) of experience being "dearly bought and hardly worth the cost", nationalism, and the idea that science is not rational but merely a form of metaphysics where we attempt to measure things that are for the most part immeasurable, just to name a few. I also noticed echoes of Nietzsche in the work of Anton Chekhov and Albert Camus. 

But to return to Jacob Soll, who suggests that, in the US, the Enlightenment has been more or less abandoned, provides an interesting counter-point to what routinely appears in political debates in Australia. For example, the Enlightenment is often reified as the benchmark for all things good, yet, much like the US, there seems to be a disconnect with the great thinkers of the Enlightenment. (Soll, in effect, includes Nietzsche as an extension of the Enlightenment heavy-weights.) What this indicates to me is a weakness in my own understanding based on the glossed-over ideas of the Enlightenment that are too often taken-for-granted. I need to read much more and not just the philosophers, and Nietzsche points out Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer (that "pedantic Englishman") as worthy of further critique. 

Rather than suggesting we do what the social sciences try to do now by emulating the natural sciences, Nietzsche suggests we should, in effect, refer to the social sciences as "the unnatural sciences". Which brings me to an interesting observation. The Delphic Oracle's motto, "Know thyself" is based on the idea that knowledge (as Nietzsche suggests) is simply about attaching something we do not know to something we already know. So rather than seeking to understand, we seek to know. This subtle yet powerful difference seems to link to the Dionysian approach that Nietzsche develops in his later works. In many ways, it is also a critique of the natural sciences, especially Newton ("If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of giants"). In the current era, everything must be measured or it is not valued (and to quote Galileo, "Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so" - see also the Canadian designer, Bruce Mau). 

Nietzsche provides one of the best critiques of these ideas, and in ways I would never have dreamt of in a lifetime of thinking. He also has his usual go at Aristotle, Socrates, the Stoics, yet seems to agree with Epicurus, and introduces Zarathustra, but I think I have only seen the tip of the iceberg. I intend to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra for my next Nietzsche reading, but I can only imagine how much I am missing as I have not the complete grasp (is it even possible?) of the many influences that Nietzsche draws on. 

It would seem logical that to read Nietzsche, one might begin at the beginning and work through in chronological order. Then again, I would have lost so much had I read this book early on, as many of Nietzsche's ideas remain largely undeveloped, at least in terms of how he converses with the reader. Interestingly, Nietzsche suggests that we only know something when we are able to discuss it. But this is simply the herd instinct monopolising our intellect. If we seek rather to understand than to "know", we may well not be able to communicate it at all. 

I think this is what Nietzsche captures best in this work, and I would hazard a guess that his poems pick up on this theme, and his epilogue (mirrored in the final poem) invites us to "dance". It doesn't matter if you do not understand the Minstrel, but the more you can hear the music and the melody, so much better can you... dance. I can dance!

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Theodore Roosevelt: An Exemplification of the Golden Mean of Virtue

George Street, Sydney, decorated for the visit of the US "Great White Fleet", 1908. State Archives and Records  NSW [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia.

The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt by Theodore Roosevelt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This autobiography is a mini-tome. Reading it from the perspective of a foreigner means I comment disinterestedly on the work of one of the US Presidents who was immortalised in Mount Rushmore. I have read Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life, and while I enjoyed reading it, I was surprised by the rather cumbersome writing style of a man who allegedly read tens of thousands of books. Maybe speed-reading (for which Roosevelt was apparently famous) doesn't help with writing? 

There was so much of the man, speaking plainly and as one might expect a politician to write one's memoirs, but I felt the endless ebb and flow of agreement and disagreement, while the numerous letters included as annexes to the chapters read something like following President Trump's Twitter feed. Justifications and defences and sharing text of his earlier and others' letters - all the things one might expect a president to do. 

While reading this book, I completed a humanitarian training course that enabled me to use some of my long underutilised military skills. During the course, I found myself using these skills but with the opposite purpose. Indeed, if I did the exact opposite of my military training, it would invariably be the right decision in the humanitarian sphere. This had me thinking about Aristotle's "golden mean" of virtue, at the precise time I was reading about Theodore Roosevelt's idea of courage. 

Roosevelt, for example, stayed away from bars and other trouble spots, preferring to respond decisively to unexpected challenges to one's safety or dignity only as a last resort, rather than go looking for trouble. He wore glasses, and as a "cowboy", he had to work doubly hard to earn the respect of the men he worked with. All of this follows closely the idea of the golden mean. Brave, but not cowardly or reckless. (Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts in leading "Roosevelt's Rough Riders" during the Spanish American War; dealing with the police corruption, corporate and political corruption, not to mention the Philippines, the Panama Canal, Russia and Japan and so on.) 

Roosevelt appears to have ever been in the right place at the right time, especially in being awarded the Medal of Honor (he was only four months away at war); to become President (he became President in the first instance after William McKinley was assassinated); and to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

His achievements were remarkable. I did not know the extent he had played in bringing about modern corporations and competition laws. The Sherman Antitrust Act came into being in 1890 but by Roosevelt's time it was hardly having the desired impact. All sorts of modern checks and balances we now take for granted in liberal democracies were simply not happening. It would seem that Roosevelt's leadership in creating a governance culture made liberal democracy, in the American sense, to function at least somewhat fairly. 

The United States had been a wealthy, functioning democracy for at least four decades (from the time of the Civil War until Roosevelt's presidency). Yet we assume much poorer, less well governed, less educated countries can become functioning democracies in the space of a few years when the oldest liberal democracy in the early 1900s suffered from all of the corruption we see in poorer nations today. 

Roosevelt had the idealism of the times; a form of neo-conservatism tempered by a strong sense of moral purpose. He was tough with the corporations and the unions, but equally interested in prosperous businesses looking after workers - a form of "fair trade" that was unique for the times. I also found the references to Australia interesting, around the time of the "Great White Fleet" and its circumnavigation of the globe, visiting numerous ports throughout the world (including Sydney - pictured above) over a sixteen month period. 

I didn't have the "Team America" theme song playing in my head while I read this, but rather the thoughts and actions of a sober, intelligent man influencing my own thoughts and actions as I discovered, in the practical sense, the idea of the golden mean of virtue. 

My trepidation with reading Roosevelt is that many modern fans of his work talk up his manliness and courage. But having read the man's memoirs, I discovered a sensitive man (which appears obvious in his letters - I think Woodrow Wilson cut him a little too deeply) who was far from fake and far from superhuman, yet strong and of moral righteousness all the same. 

The book ends along with the end of his presidency, almost as if he was hoping to write more after he was re-elected. (Roosevelt was encouraged to stay on after his second term, as he had not been elected to the first term, nor had served two full terms, but he refused on principle.) And so the book ends with a few letters. No uplifting moral lesson, no standing ovation. And that was how he lived. 

If I am to take the Stoic's view, he lived a good life. Not the Disney-fied life we have come to expect from the popular media, but a real man doing real things for good. How times have changed.

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The Extroverted Introvert Escapes into a Prison (and other stupid things)

Window from church into anchorite's cell, All Saints, Staplehurst. [CC0] via Wikimedia.

The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a delightfully sad book that deals with promiscuity, money, loneliness, extroverted insensitivity, and theology - quite the combination. Published in 1960 but set in late 1800s Poland, and translated from Yiddish, it reads like a risqué nineteenth century novel. 

Milton Hindus' 1960 review in the New Yorker does a much better job at capturing the essence of the novel, and I like the idea that the hero, the magician and escape artist Yasha Mazur, "escapes into a prison" of his own making. 

But I was constantly reminded of Epictetus' idea that nothing is either good or bad, except our own choices. Who hasn't lived to regret the choices of the past, when all seemed so banal until the banal things we didn't know we cherished were compromised by our own stupidity?

Yasha exemplifies the chaotic choices of the extroverted introvert, and gives us a glimpse into the damage that one can cause in the pursuit of pointless selfishness. It is all well and good to read such things when one has finally calmed the hell down. 

If only one could travel back to their selfish younger selves and hand them a bag full of books to read. But life isn't like that, and no doubt my selfish younger self would have spat in my face. 

Yasha does that to almost everyone, and like all selfish people, punishes himself so badly that he punishes the few remaining people who still love him, gaining fame through his sagacity earned at the expense of others. At the end of the novel, I was hoping that Yasha would see the light, but no. Selfish prig. 

Without giving too much away, I read up on "anchorites" last year and the concept makes my skin crawl. But in a way, Yasha gets his just deserts. 

We can learn from Singer that our choices, rather than our circumstances, are right or wrong. We can learn from Yasha what our life could be like if we pursue selfishness to its logical conclusion.

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Vance the Brave: or, Re-imagining My Poor White Life

Publicity photo of Buddy Ebsen and Phil Silvers from The Beverly Hillbillies. [Public Domain] via Wikimedia. 

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have had this book on my notifications list from Book Depository for some time now, and then I stumbled (or bumbled!) upon it in the tiny English section of the bookstore at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport. 

At the time of writing, I understand Vance was 31 years old. He mocked himself for daring to call a book by someone so young a "memoir". Having read it, he had no reason to mock himself. 

This is the story of a smart kid who grew up with little social capital, but because of a sympathetic grandmother, was able to finish school then join the Marines then finish college and then practise law after graduating from Yale. Change a few place names, sans the drugs and the guns, and I could re-publish this as the story of my own life. 

Even though I would be lying because I didn't experience the familial breakdown Vance experienced, but his ability to get the hell out of a small town by joining the military, getting through university despite himself, and learning the importance of social capital, was as important for a boy from Western Sydney and later Far North Queensland as it was for this ex-Kentucky hillbilly. 

I cannot bring myself to be as honest here as Vance is in the book. Given nobody would bother to read this but thousands must have read Vance, he is certainly brave. I can imagine he must have upset many members of his family to write about such private and personal matters but I am glad he did. 

Assuming, of course, that a kid lacking in social capital would bother to read it. 

For those who have survived, reading the book is eminently cathartic. I found myself nodding in agreement as I read of the trials and travails. At other times, I was screaming at Vance with things like: "You still don't get it!" then remembering that at 31, I didn't get anything at all. 

If I were to sum up this work, I would say it was courageously honest. I cannot remember where I first stumbled upon this book, but it was probably in early 2017 in The New Yorker. It provides a glimpse into the gaining of social capital through constant struggle, being mentored by someone who can see where one is at (even when one's ego wouldn't allow one to be mentored), stumbling from class conscious faux pas to class unconscious faux pas, only to arrive at what Rousseau would have said was buying an experience that was hardly worth the cost. 

We are fortunate that writers such as Vance have the courage to do what most of us will never. The work provides a glimpse into explanations for the intolerant world we are living in at present, while also providing hope that there is a way out of this mess, even our personal messes.

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Turgenev: The End History and the Last Serf: or, A Satirical Sketch of Sherwood Anderson

Illustration for the short story "Lgov" by Ivan Turgenev (from the collection A Sportsman's Sketches) by Pyotr Sokolov, circa 1890s [Public Domain] via Wikimedia.

Sketches from a Hunter's Album by Ivan Turgenev

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Turgenev was born into two aristocratic Russian families. His mother had inherited some wealth before marrying, which offset his otherwise titled but broke father. As a young man he lived on the family estate, and this collection of short stories, published in book form in 1852, encompasses his experience with people and places as he hunts throughout Russia during the twilight years of serfdom.

I have read many instances of people claiming that these works are his masterpiece, and that the sketches brought to light the plight of the peasants, ultimately leading to the end of serfdom in 1861. Whether the works had such significance I will leave to the experts, but when I teach social movements as a process of institutional evolution, a key text (such as Martin Luther King's speech during the American civil rights movement) usually motivates the masses towards some form of social change, which concludes with a change in institutions.

Clearly, Sketches played a part in motivating social change, and I use this book as an example of the impetus for the social movement that led to the emancipation of serfs. I also understand that Turgenev adopts the "Russian realist" style in that the narrator is "uncommitted" to the other characters in the work, and this is true of the Sketches in general.

This translation is by Constance Garnett, and I must say that it reads well. Having read Turgenev's Fathers and Sons a few years ago, I recognise the clarity of the prose that I also found in my first reading of Chekhov. My limited reading of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, however, suggests that these two authors have become somewhat dated, at least in translation. Hemingway said as much about Tolstoy's War and Peace in "Old Newsman Writes" (see By-Line, p. 188). Which leads me to all sorts of interesting comparisons I have mentioned previously in my review on Chekhov's comic stories.

Harold Bloom and Italo Calvino saw the relationship in style between Turgenev, Chekhov, Maupassant, and Hemingway. Having now read each of these authors, I feel that way about their prose technique. But while reading a little about Turgenev, I discovered that Sherwood Anderson "echoed" Turgenev (according to Ridout), and that Turgenev had also written a short work entitled The Torrents of Spring. Now I see the greater part of the humour in Hemingway's novella The Torrents of Spring, which was written as a parody of Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. I immediately purchased a copy of Turgenev's Torrents to see what else I can learn about this interesting clash of egos.

Given that Sketches is now 166 years old, and has well and truly stood the test of time, I can see how it is a classic of the highest order. That other brilliant Russian author, Nabokov, rated the great Russian authors with Tolstoy first, Pushkin and Chekhov second, and Turgenev third (ahead of Gogol and Dostoevsky). According to Nabokov, of the Russian authors, Pushkin loses the most in translation.

What I find most interesting is not so much the actual reading of the book, which of course is worth every moment, but how Turgenev and this particular work fit into my bumbling reading scheme. I met a man just recently who had an achievement style he coined "Managing by bumbling along". It seemed to work for him, and, in my reading, at least, it seems to be working out quite well. While there does seem to be a logic that a smarter reader might follow, I do enjoy the various surprises I discover while reading back and forth between the classics, the early twentieth century authors, and the present.

Turgenev gives an eye-opening account of life during the end of Russian serfdom. One imagines it was eons ago, but one only has to consider that the transportation of convicts was still in full-swing in 1850s Australia to understand that this period in history was far removed from life in the Anglo democracies today. Without Turgenev's work, we would lack many primary sources into the life of the Russian peasant. That one can read and still enjoy reading such works today is remarkable.

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Snakes on a Train: Can You Imagine?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Reptilian Horror Story. Photo via Pixabay [CC0].

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recently read Juan Gabriel Vásquez's New York Times review of this book and bought the book immediately. An actual railroad? What a re-imagining! Yet the story works. Never mind that even today, with Chinese technology capable of tunnelling vast distances at lower costs, it seemed as improbable as it was then impossible. Yet Whitehead doesn't miss a beat. Who built it? How did they build it? How did they keep it a secret? As far as the story goes, it doesn't matter. You often wish the runaways would just get back on the damn train and keep going all the way to Canada. I recall Hemingway writing about truth and good books (By-Line: Selected Journalism, pp. 188-9 but originally "Old Newsman Writes" in Esquire December 1934):

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can give that to people, then you are a writer.

Clearly, Colson Whitehead is and has done just that.

I don't want to harp on about the plot, but rather about the use of imagination in Whitehead's writing. I have a little story I have been thinking about writing; something I saw during a previous winter that haunts me to this day. In fact, just thinking about it makes me shudder.

I put a small round log with a narrow hollow through the middle on the fire. I closed the glass door and sat watching the flames as they worked on the log. Shortly after, a small snake emerged from the hollow of the log. It extended some four inches out of the log, then shrunk back into the hollow and disappeared as if it had been pulled back in by the tail just as the log burst into flame. I imagine it was me. I am comfortable in my space, and then it gets hot. Unbearably hot. I decide to get out, but it is even hotter outside and I am trapped by glass and flames and heat and the air is sucked out of my lungs and I try to retreat and then nothing. What did the snake think? Did it feel helpless? Did it have time to think or feel? Would I?

The scene repeats over and over and I try to imagine the scenario and it makes me shudder. Could I write such a thing? Is it even a story? Maybe The Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Reptilian Horror Story.

I daresay I do not have Whitehead's gift of imagination, yet he makes a story that is not only believable, but despite its implausibility, the railroad exists as if it were true. Could I be that snake? And what the hell does that have to do with this book? But that is the point of a novel like this. What would it be like to be a slave and to exist in an implausible yet believable reality?

And that is why I like to read broadly, and sometimes without reason, or as Emerson or Oscar Wilde's Vivian (of The Decay of Lying), on a Whim. It challenges us to imagine, it makes us fill in the blanks and develop an imagery that makes the unreal real. Surely this is what Hemingway meant, and Colson Whitehead does in this haunting yet wonderful novel.

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Chekhov: You've gotta laugh or you'd cry!

Desk of Anton Chekhov at Melikhovo estate museum. Photo taken in 2008 by SiefkinDR, CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia.

Chekhov: The Comic Stories by Harvey J. Pitcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Chekhov is mentioned by Harold Bloom (How to Read and Why, p. 36) as one of the short story authors who had:

...achieved something like perfection in their art.

Bloom sees the lineage from Shakespeare to Turgenev to Chekhov to Hemingway, which stems from their:

...affinity with their landscape and human figures...

It is interesting that Mortimer Adler (How to Read a Book) doesn't mention Chekhov (or Turgenev), yet Bloom and Italo Calvino (Why Read the Classics, p. 185) see Chekhov as focused on:

...the relationships between the facts of existence... [and his story The Steppes was] the prototype for so much modern narrative.

I wonder if this is the result of Adler's focus on the Western canon (in its narrowest sense of the term)? The interesting thing about this particular set of short stories is its relatively recent translation into English, and its focus on comedy. Calvino mentions The Steppes, while Bloom mentions several other stories, none of which appear in this collection. So there is more reading of Chekhov for me to do. Yet this collection is funny.

I wondered whether Oscar Wilde had anything to say about Chekhov. Surprisingly, it was Stephen Fry (who played Oscar Wilde in the 1997 movie Wilde) who puts the two together in an interesting way. Fry writes:

Chekhov is probably better known in Britain for his plays than for his prose. For many, however, it was his short stories that mark the high water of his genius. It might at first glance be hard for those not used to his style of narrative to see what the fuss is about (and fuss there is: for most authors and lovers of literature Chekhov is incomparably the greatest short story writer there ever was): these tales appear to be about nothing.

Fry also says (and I quote at length):

Anton Chekhov is a case in point. Grim. Russian. Gloomy. Stark. Bleak. Melancholic. Sorrowful. Suicidal. Tragic. Well, I’ll give you Russian. He was that all right. As for the rest. Grim? Chekhov? Bleak? No, no. Chekhov was the foremost comic artist of his age. If by comic we mean something more than slapstick, farce or revue. There are satirists, like Swift, who cannot hide the fact that they believe humanity in all its forms from the grandest king to the lowliest serf to be nothing short of pathetic, ludicrous and disgusting; there are others, like Chekhov who find it just as hard to conceal their sympathy, kinship and fellow feeling.

Having read almost all of Hemingway's short stories, Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album, and Guy de Maupassant's A Parisian Affair, I see similar assumptions of human nature, and indeed a similar philosophy and aesthetic with Chekhov picking up from where Turgenev (channelling Shakespeare) left off. Whether I could put this correctly in a theory-of-literature perspective is another thing, but certainly the brilliance is obvious. 

Some of Chekhov's stories could easily be adapted to the social life of Canberra, Australia's capital, and its concentration of public servants. Maybe less so now, but certainly in the 1990s and early 2000s. And stories of musicians, doctors, and emerging technologies (such as the telephone) retain their humour despite more than a century's passing. 

The test of good literary work is its ability to stretch beyond ephemera. Chekhov achieves this, and his sense of humour is not lost on a contemporary audience.

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Oscar Wilde on Contradiction: Learning Unintended Lessons Through Art

Cartoon depicting Oscar Wilde's 1882 visit to San Francisco, from The Wasp, 31 March 1882. Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Intentions: The Decay of Lying, Pen, Pencil and Poison, the Critic as Artist, the Truth of Masks by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This collection of dialogues and essays demonstrates Oscar Wilde's aesthetic, but also his vast knowledge of the classics, Shakespeare, and other great things in nineteenth-century Anglo art, literature, architecture, and theatre. Three pages into The Decay of Lying and one has been exposed to Aristotle, William Morris, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He uses a form of the "iceberg" principle (later perfected by Hemingway) that demonstrates his knowledge without appearing to be name dropping. It is one thing to mention Aristotle, Morris, and Emerson as part of Vivian's critique of nature; quite another to append one's own aesthetic to the name dropping that leaves no doubt as to the author's learning. For instance, William Morris once said:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

Wilde, in discussing nature versus art, mentions Aristotle (p. 3):

Nature has good intentions, of course, but as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out.

Vivian is discussing his preference for the indoors, and says (p. 4):

Why, even Morris' poorest workman could make you a more comfortable seat then the whole of Nature can... If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture, and I prefer houses to open air.

This first part of the introduction is then neatly wrapped up with reference to Vivian (p. 5) writing the word "Whim" over the door of his library, echoing Emerson doing similar in his famous essay Self-Reliance. What does this all mean? It sets out several themes that thread through these five dialogues and essays. First is the interaction of art and nature in the human spirit. Second is contradiction. Vivian doesn't want to go outside, until he does. Vivian thinks writing is a waste of effort. But he is writing an article. In the final paragraph of the collection, Wilde writes:

Not that I agree with everything I have said in this essay. There is much with which I entirely disagree. The essay simply represents an artistic standpoint, and in aesthetic criticism, attitude is everything. For in art there is no such thing as a universal truth. A Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.

Third is the rhythm of life and the pursuit of human excellence. Wilde's characters in the dialogues go from contradictory point to contradictory point. In the essays we learn how ill-discipline and ignoring our intuition can lead to trouble (for instance, the poisoner leaves his ground-floor curtain open and is instantly recognised from the street); how Shakespeare used architecture and costume to make a point (as opposed to the theatrical archaeologists who point out Shakespeare's character's anachronistic raiment); how one moment we are focused, the next bored, even depressed, but we can be humorous, witty, intelligent, and dull. The dialogues read like a moment of intense thought that begins out of boredom and ends in boredom with thought. An indoor conversation is the scene of energy, but after talking "long enough", the outdoors beckons:

Egotism itself, which is so necessary to a proper sense of human dignity, is entirely the result of indoor life.

It is unsurprising that Oscar Wilde is so well-read and witty. After all, he was a graduate of Oxford at a time when only the elite or those with elite patronage could dream of studying there. Yet there is an intense use of Plato's form of dialogue, an interesting blend of self-reliance and pompousness, intensity appearing indoors (even within Shakespeare's Globe Theatre), and the outdoors being a place of leisure (for the well-to-do, at least!). Yet the point of contradiction is not to be dishonest, but, through art, to bring to Nature the human experience:

The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.

I recall in high school, when studying English literature, the teacher would ask: "What does the author mean by this or that?" to which I would say, "How should I know? And how do you know if you didn't ask them?" Logical to an egotistical teenager, to be sure, but hardly intelligent. And now? It would take several re-readings of these dialogues and essays and some intense study into Wilde's life at the point in time of writing these works to discover more. Yet, armed with the knowledge of reading given to me by Harold Bloom, Mortimer Adler, Italo Calvino, and Theodore Roosevelt (to name but a few), I think I can safely tell my teenage self that, contradictory to what I thought then, one can interpret and learn from the writings of others, even if the lessons learnt were never intended. And if Art cannot deliver such lessons, what other medium can?

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Beauty and Human Excellence: Getting the Job Done, Bird by Bird.

Concert of Birds by Frans Snyders, circa 1630s. Via Wikimedia.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The title of this book comes from a story of the author's brother who procrastinates all through the holidays on a project about various birds. The day before it is due, the lad sits at the table in despair - how is he to finish the project in time? His father, an author, sits down and says:

Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

As I sit here writing this, I am killing bird #12 on my to-do list and it is sound advice. Anne Lamott tells her story of the writing life in this beautiful book on love, death, birth, tragedy, drugs, and learning to love oneself while agonising over writing. Just ask anyone who has completed a PhD and they can tell you all about it. 

A friend once described the process as if you were rowing a boat. While you left the shore, others were around and you could call out for guidance, but soon, you were on the wide expanse of ocean and there was only you and your inner world to guide you. It seems like years, and often it is, until you reach the other shore, at times not knowing where you are going or where you will land. But one day, you reach the other shore. Or you don't and you are bitter and dejected forever. But that is a different story. 

This work reminded me of parts of the 2015 movie The End of the Tour, the story of David Lipsky's (of Rolling Stone magazine) 5-day interview with American author, David Foster Wallace, except Lamott mentions some of her "I am not so famous" stories. But the sentiment is there. The agony of writing, the endless work, the endless self-doubt and self-loathing. Lamott tells her story in a way that is helpful, rather than whiney. 

I often think of Charlotte Bronte and Mary Shelley and how their important works seemed not quite right, whereas Lamott hits the nail on the head with a somewhat gendered perspective that is simultaneously relevant to all. Elements of drugs, religion, friendship, and working with editors will be familiar to many. 

Yet Lamott's story is beautiful in the Stoic sense of beauty being related to human excellence. Even if the only thing the reader takes away from this work that one can achieve great things "bird by bird", it is a worthy lesson.

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