Some things remain the same and some things pass.
--Ronald Blythe, Akenfield.
There is something of the matter-of-fact about the statements of the people that populate Blythe's wonderful book (not finished). This makes the simple statements actually more profound, mysterious, because they've been lived inwardly rather than 'thought'. Similar, in some respects, to Alexievich's superb Chernobyl. It's the voice of the hedgehogs- people who have only known one thing and one place. An old-world solidity that comes, one imagines, from living close to the land and being in touch with the seasons. Less idle chatter, more connection to harsh realities ( which echoes G. Thibon's observations in Back to Reality). A certain kind of narrowness, no doubt, but can there really be a sense of missed opportunities if that's the only kind of life you've ever known?
That's the way it was; and that's just the way it is. Fatalism and the harshness of the conditions of life are perhaps intertwined with one another. The existence of an apparent profusion of opportunities can, on the other hand, lead to superficiality (I say "apparent" because Chesterton's remark should always be kept in mind: after all the frenetic whirl of changing opinions, fads, machines..the "factory remains").
~~~
Zizek writes that in 1970 Agatha Christie wrote an odd book in which she expressed her utter bewilderment about the direction England was taking. The 70s, the decade in which nothing happened, the afterglow after the raging 60s. Nothing new to be said: just retro and conservatism.
Agamben: By the 1870s the bourgeoisie had forgotten all its gestures; from now on they'd have to be recorded, preserved.
~~~
It is time we spoke in plain English. At the end of times we must recall the most primitive of words and feelings, that long-forgotten love of the world, those old human instincts that drew us to beauty (of a woman's face, the order of our homes, of nature gloriously free from the touch of human hands). Plain and simple words. But also great ones, for the smog and soot from the world-ending fire is reaching us already.
--Ronald Blythe, Akenfield.
There is something of the matter-of-fact about the statements of the people that populate Blythe's wonderful book (not finished). This makes the simple statements actually more profound, mysterious, because they've been lived inwardly rather than 'thought'. Similar, in some respects, to Alexievich's superb Chernobyl. It's the voice of the hedgehogs- people who have only known one thing and one place. An old-world solidity that comes, one imagines, from living close to the land and being in touch with the seasons. Less idle chatter, more connection to harsh realities ( which echoes G. Thibon's observations in Back to Reality). A certain kind of narrowness, no doubt, but can there really be a sense of missed opportunities if that's the only kind of life you've ever known?
That's the way it was; and that's just the way it is. Fatalism and the harshness of the conditions of life are perhaps intertwined with one another. The existence of an apparent profusion of opportunities can, on the other hand, lead to superficiality (I say "apparent" because Chesterton's remark should always be kept in mind: after all the frenetic whirl of changing opinions, fads, machines..the "factory remains").
~~~
Zizek writes that in 1970 Agatha Christie wrote an odd book in which she expressed her utter bewilderment about the direction England was taking. The 70s, the decade in which nothing happened, the afterglow after the raging 60s. Nothing new to be said: just retro and conservatism.
Agamben: By the 1870s the bourgeoisie had forgotten all its gestures; from now on they'd have to be recorded, preserved.
~~~
It is time we spoke in plain English. At the end of times we must recall the most primitive of words and feelings, that long-forgotten love of the world, those old human instincts that drew us to beauty (of a woman's face, the order of our homes, of nature gloriously free from the touch of human hands). Plain and simple words. But also great ones, for the smog and soot from the world-ending fire is reaching us already.
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