An Experiment in Criticism

 

 

Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented ...” [page 89 of C.S. Lewis' "An Experiment in Criticism "]

 

Read it online here

 

C.S. Lewis may be most famous for his beloved children's fantasy series, "The Chronicles of Narnia", especially "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", but they all passed me by as I spent my childhood in bombed-out Germany. I discovered him rather late in adult life through his non-fiction works, one of which is "An Experiment in Criticism", in which he proposes that the quality of books should be measured not by how they are written, but by how often they are re-read.

 

"If on the other hand we found even one reader to whom the cheap little book with its double columns and the lurid daub on its cover had been a lifelong delight, who had read and reread it, who would notice, and object, if a single word were changed, then, however little we could see in it ourselves and however it was despised by our friends and colleagues, we should not dare to put it beyond the pale." [page 69]

 

I couldn't agree more and have re-read this essay at least twice!

 

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A sign of the time?

 

 

I don't sleep well as there's simply too much on my mind, although seemingly not enough because last night, as I woke up thinking of my old mate Noel, I couldn't remember the name of the town he had lived in. I did remember that it was something starting with 'Mount' but was it Mount Morgan or Mount Carbine or what?

Not being much of a physical person, I had always regarded my mind as my greatest asset, and there I was, unable to remember the name of the town where my best friend had seen out his last few years and where I had visited him just after having come back to Australia in 1985, and of which I had often written in my blog. Was I losing my marbles?

The thought of losing my marbles bothered me so much that I got up to get my mobile phone to look up a GOOGLE map of the area around Bundaberg - yes, I did remember the nearest big city! - amd there it was, a hundred kilometres to the west, MOUNT PERRY ! What a relief!

Is this a sign of the time? Is this the early onset of dementia? (or is it Alzheimer's Disease? I've never worked out the difference!) Should I call my wife who reads up on all those things? What's her name again?

 

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We're ready to run!

 

 

Those New Year's Eve fires in 2019 were horrific, but we stayed to fight them. If we hadn't, the house and everything in it would have burned down, as the wooden verandah steps were already burning when we formed a bucket brigade.

 

 

Did we get a Christmas card from our insurers for having saved them a million-dollar pay-out? Of course not! Instead, we got an even higher premium bill on the next renewal date for our home & contents insurance, and so we went ahead to replace the burnt-out verandah steps. Since I did it all myself, it cost even less than the policy's excess.

 

 

We are back to bushfire weather, but this time we won't stay! We're ready to run at the first sign of fire, taking with us the receipt issued when we paid our insurance to give them no wriggle room to get out of paying us the $900,000 for the house and the $90,000 for its contents.

PS I also take the last tax return, so I know what lies I told the taxman!

 

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I ran

 

 

What a clever piece of street art spotted on the streets of Tel Aviv! I accidentally found it on the facebook page of Hananya Naftali, who added the disclaimer "This is satirical street art, not intended to offend or promote hate toward any group".

What an unnecessary disclaimer! I mean, who would want to incite hate against an 86-year-old man who is universally loved by his own people?

Just as unnecessary as the pregnancy warning to be displayed here on alcoholic drinks. I mean, any woman who doesn't know that drinking alcohol during pregnancy is bad for her baby can't read either.

Anyway, why should I worry about the state of the world? Why should I worry about all those men who want to marry men, and all those women who want to marry women? Let them! In three generations, there'll be none left. And why should I worry that our flag and culture offends so many and yet our generous welfare benefits don’t?

Mind you, I'm absolutely tired of being told that we have a huge number of drug addicts in Australia and that I must pay for their treatment and support. Did I grab them and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arms while they tried to fight me off?

Some 1,371,000 square kilometres of this island continent is desert which means there's plenty of room for 'drying out'. Just give them all a one-way ticket to the Tanami or Great Sandy Desert and let the rest of us law-abiding and tax-paying citizens get on with our lives.

Anyway, why should I worry about the state of the world when I won't be of this world much longer? (now I sound like my 93-year-old brother in Germany who, for the past ten years, has been sending me Christmas cards with the handwritten notation, "This may be my last Christmas!")

 

 

Which is why, when visiting the Nelligen Village Market this morning, I bought Padma a hand-crafted handbag for our 30th wedding anniversary.

"But that's still five years away!" she remonstrated. "Just in case I won't be around by then", I replied. German humour is no laughing matter!

 

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P.S. Did I hear you ask about the weather? Well, North Queensland is bracing for a category two cyclone while whole towns in Victoria are on fire. Here at Nelligen the computer warnings seem to oscillate (that means 'swinging back and forth in a regular rhythm', Des) between ...

... so take your pick!

 

 

Sieh nach den Sternen — gib acht auf die Gassen!

 

 

I can't think of a better way of summing up my own life, in fact, life itself: one moment you're doing well, feeling well, being pleased with yourself for having safely negoatiated another one of life's many obstacles, then BANG! — you're back in a deep hole again.

Maybe it's just the German "Schadenfreude" I was born with, but I can watch this funny Rowan Atkinson clip for hours. It's life in a nutshell!

 

 

Maybe that's why they put "Sieh nach den Sternen — gib acht auf die Gassen!" on the front of my "Abschlusszeugnis" on the last day of school!

 

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