Benefit . . . or Else

Yesterday, Melbine had this to say:

Yes, your world, or my world, might be a lot more insulated than lots of other people in the world - but I don't think that it means that you can't feel an empathy towards the people in 'less' insulated situations. I think that people like yourself and the people who surround you have a strong capacity to understand and appreciate all of the complexities and horrors of the real world. Does this mean we should be doing more to make our world less insulated? I don't know. Is it something that we should feel guilty about or unhappy about? I don't know. I do know that I feel very blessed and fortunate in this life.

And it made me think, and my response ballooned, so here it is formatted:

I don't think feeling guilty should enter into it. Some of the things we insulate ourselves from - things that are undoubtedly real - from the genuine love of the junkie for the needle to the mass conviction of former enthusiasts that Britney Spears is fat (which helps them deal with the facts that she has always been nothing but a shitty performer doing naive burlesque to musically worthless accompaniment, and that the attractions of that act had a shelf life exactly as long as her first, semi-legal flush of youth - thereby revealing uncomfortable truths about America's sexual relationship with children) are really lousy things that everybody should be spared.

And therein, I think, lies the difference. The existence of safe, deferential and respectful cocoon in which my conference-mates were ensconced relies on the fact that they are the only group of people in it; indeed, that it feel as much as possible as though their personal success is valued above the success of the people who wait on them or the women around them. But a good person, which I'd love to be, would like everyone to benefit from the good things he or she benefits from - loving parents, a relationship that makes one's life better instead of worse, education, financial security, unpasteurized milk, non-addictive drugs, and an emotional and imaginative life rich enough that one doesn't need to have make-believe relationships with celebrities.

You know, all I'd need to do is add 'trains that run on time' to that list and I'd start wondering if I should start campaigning to be a fascist strongwoman. My slogan can be 'Benefit . . . Or Else!' Sweet.

Anyways - as promised -

Books I Read on Planes:

Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake, and The Little Sister. He has fantastic similes. The stories don't always quite make sense and one gets the impression they were written for money in a hurry but they're tearing yarns with colourful language and great characterization anyways. The Big Sleep was my favourite.

Haruki Murakami: Underground. A collection of first-hand accounts of the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack carrired out by Aum Shinrikyo, followed by accounts of former and present Aum members and commentary from Murakami himself about how Aum represented a part, even an integrated part of Japanese culture, no matter how evil and bizarre it was - an inevitable response to the accepted violence of the Japanese way of life, which wears men down to nubs and isn't so easy on the ladies either. Fantastic, and not just Japanese, if you know what I mean.

Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory. Call me crazy, or ascribe it to my own prejudices rather than anyone else's, but whenever an Anglo man writes a novel set in a developing country, or even developed but dago-type country (Italy, Spain, etc.), it ends up looking less like a tearing good yarn about real people and more like a collection of archetypes forcefully combined to make a POINT. I see that as a running theme from the wops in Where Angels Fear to Tread (although not the Indians in A Passage to India - an absolutely marvellous book - I like E. M. Forster, including Angels, but I love A Passage to India - super good) through to the Old Man and the Sea. And now even to Graham Greene, whose realism I usually enjoy.

Explorations of the Vietnamese characters in The Quiet American was different because of the first person narration from an English opium addict who understood there were gaps in his understanding and bigger gaps in other people's understanding. But the Mexicans (that is, almost everyone) in The Power and the Glory are described by your standard God narrator. And to me this nudged The Power and the Glory towards being a Catholic parable rather than a proper novel - an almost opportunistic use of the upheavals of the Mexican state as a way to illustrate the supreme difficulties of morality AND of immorality - the search for reasons to remain Catholic when it's patently such a silly and unfair church . . .

That's not to say it wasn't good, though. It's a very atmospheric and engaging parable that makes you feel like you're wandering, too hot, around Mexico. But A Man for All Seasons it ain't.

Anyways, now I'm reading Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald to wash all the testosterone out of my aching-jawed mouth - the Murakami translation wasn't rough but a one-two of Chandler and Greene has left me feeling bruised and manhandled - and so far it's good. Very atmospheric in a creepy, visual way, but not too laboured. Has she written anything else since? No time to check, for I am off to work.