The House of Disfavor

She went away and all she kept was the weight of disfavor and the force of blame.  Ill repute: what impressed her was the utter solitude and privacy of it.  Now, when she no longer had youth or money, and when it seemed certain that all would be lost, she was surprised to find herself with this unexpected possession, this solitude which was a like a house in the forest, a house built from the stones of disapproval.  It was a private and silent and, once she got used to it, entirely acceptable house. 

Nothing stirred within it.  It was as if even the animals had been warned off.  It was her house, built from the substance of blame and accusation, and at the same time it was not her house at all.  It belonged to those who had built it, who built walls and heaped blame.  It was her house – and at the same time it had nothing to do with her.  What had she done?  Who was she?  To those who accused her, it did not matter in the least.  They took meticulous care to avoid questions and investigation, so as to maintain their verdict spotlessly intact.

In the beginning she’d resented this hotly, but in time discovered it to be a boon, a place where she could live, a space hollowed out and guarded by disfavor, by everyone’s squeamishness and avoidance of anything uncertain or discomfiting – in this case, her existence.

She’d made a home of it, of the stones that people threw, of the space they left behind when they had gone.  She was amazed by how good and solid a home it was, how it stayed cool during the heat of the day and slightly warm at night.  She thought of India.  From television she’d learned that many people in villages there lived in houses built of dung.  From the dung of cattle, which not only dries without an odor, but which even can be polished till it gleams.

Sometimes she asked herself why she had chosen this, this solitary life in the forest of disfavor.  She could return to the city, demand to be heard, and refute the accusations against her.  She did not think more than three sentences would be required.  She could say those three sentences anytime – but that would mean losing her home.

 Also, she did not wish for people to be disappointed.  She had the sense that, just as people wanted their sons to be doctors, their daughters virgins, their cousins dentists, what people wanted from her was for her to be a wicked and crazy woman.  She had to be.  Otherwise everything would have to be done over, thought again.

Her job was to be the terrible woman.  Her job was to do nothing at all.  Others would hang costumes, compose a script, concoct scenes and speak as though she had performed them.  She had to do nothing – only consent to the role.  In return she was granted a solitary home of her own. 

Even the breeze was silent as it breathed through the pines around the house of disfavor.  The water was cold and sweet, the stars bright.  Sometimes now she heard a sound or felt a presence and she wondered, Am I alone or not?

She thought about moving to a respectable neighborhood, clearing her name, re-establishing herself.  But then she thought fondly of her quiet and solemn house of disfavor, her home in the forest, where she had at last begun to live.

(Kochi, 10.18.12)

Guttersnipe Bookshelf: Gyula Krudy

Gyula Krudy, The Adventures of Sindbad

Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes

This edition published by the New York Review of Books

Originally published by Central European University Press, 1998

Welcome to the world of Sindbad, the long-dead and eternal seducer who will lead you into a world of white stockings and simmering passions, a world where betrayed lovers, mad with grief, kill themselves weekly and never come to harm.

In most of these 24 stories Sindbad’s ghost revisits the women he has loved and finds them grown older and sadder, but still beautifully dressed and not yet bereft of either passion or charm. 

Here is a characteristic reunion, between ghost and lover:

‘How white your hair is now!’ exclaimed Francesca after she had taken full stock of Sindbad. ‘There are long boring nights in the village when I put my feet up in front of the fire and try to conjure up a picture of you, but I can only manage your voice.  There has only been one man since then with a voice like yours, a horse-dealer who tried to steal my cross-breed mare from me.’

Sindbad smiled sadly. ‘I have never completely forgotten you.’

‘You really should have given up lying by now, especially since I hear that liars are put in irons in your present abode in the afterlife’.

-- This is how it goes, story after story, yet I never tired of it – no more than these immortal lovers tire of telling lies and hearing flattery.    Written between 1911 and 1917, these stories could still serve as useful models for world-be seducers.  They would serve even better as company for anyone who finds their bones aching and their hair turning white, anyone who lies and says they are no longer interested in the mad vanities of love.

I remember when I first read Gyula Krudy, about five years ago.  I read the novel Sunflower, which is the only other work by Krudy available in English.  I adored it.   I was 100% certain that Gyula Krudy was about to be “discovered” in North America, that his work would rush into print in English and be received with fanfare and adulation – something like what is happening now with works of Roberto Bolano.

Certainly it is a good thing that I am only a wanderer and not working in marketing. . .  Five years later, I’ve never met anyone who isn’t actually Hungarian who has even ever heard of Gyula Krudy, the scapegrace drunken saint of Hungarian 20^th century literature.

As the Szirtes’ introduction points out, Gyula Krudy makes gorgeous use of what has come to be known as “stream-of-consciousness” and “magic realism”.  He does this with concision and black humor and comedy.  His subject is always that of obsessive love.  How could this combination fail to find readers!

Unlike Sindbad, the reader does not have three hundred years to live.  This seems to be a shame.  Three hundred years would give one time to read properly.  As this is not possible, I suggest starting with Krudy’s novel Sunflower, before progressing to this famous book of stories.  Although both are excellent, I reckon it’s a little easier to fall in love with the strangeness of Gyula Krudy by first reading Sunflower.

I continue to hope that time may yet prove me right, that the genius of Gyula Krudy will be recognized outside of Hungary, and that more of his vast body of work – fifty novels! – thousands of stories! -- will be made available in English.    

The Humble School

Could there be an openly humble school of literature, which goes ahead and admits that the page is not superior to fifteen minutes of an ordinary morning, if you are in good health and paying full attention?

Writing like a friend who says, Look.  Who sits near you, and now and then holds your hand.  Writing that is quiet company.  A cleaning lady with a kind word as she confronts the mess.

The manifesto for such a school would likewise have to be modest and brief, free of posturing and denunciation, and without any sort of shouting or waving of hands or flags.

(08.22.12, Phuket)

Guttersnipe Bookshelf: Takehiko Fukunaga

Takehiko Fukunaga

Flowers of Grass 

Originally published in Japanese as Kusa no Hana in 1954

English translation by Royall Tyler

Dalkey Archive Press, 2012

I remember reading a book review in the New York Times, by a man who was dismayed to discover that real-life Tokyo is not at all the way it seems in Haruki Murakami’s novels.  Yes, indeed!  

If you are one of the lucky few who chooses to read Flowers of Grass, you may sometimes find it off-putting, the dialogue perhaps a little wooden, the action a little too far removed.  But, if you later visit Japan, you will find evidence of the truth of this book everywhere.  It is a beautiful book, and a vital one to have available in English – but, please be prepared, if you are accustomed to modern American or European novels, it may take some getting used to!

The author, Takehiko Fukunaga, was confined in a tuberculosis sanitarium for seven years.  When he was at last released, he wrote this novel over a period of just a few months.  The translator’s useful afterword says Fukunaga saw this book “as a sort of graduation thesis.”  Indeed, the opening section, which takes place in a sanitarium, is one of the most vivid parts of the book.

The body of the book is a manuscript left behind by a character who has just died on the operating table.  It tells of his passionate love for a brother and sister – and his rejection by them both.  Both brother and sister feel that the narrator’s love is so idealized and soaring that it has nothing to do with them – I promise the reader will agree!

To a non-Japanese speaker, it may seem odd that the characters profess utter devotion to their college archery club, speak in vague terms at the most crucial moments, rhapsodize repeatedly about Chopin, and say that they are so overwhelmed with regret they can hardly go on living – but actually there was nothing they could have done anyway.  Irrashimase!  Welcome to Japan!  This isn’t nearly as catchy as Murakami novel – but it’s the real thing. 

The actions of the book often seem like just a set-up for long pronouncements on the nature of love, Christianity in Japan, and resistance to war.  I found the narrator’s love for the brother far more convincing than his love for the sister – who seems a disembodied ideal even when she is in his arms.  At the same time, thoughtful readers will get a very useful picture of how love is perceived in Japan.

The wonder of the book is that the long philosophical passages are truly beautiful and thought-provoking and exhibit a passion far more convincing than that which drives the love affairs.  A long consideration of Christianity may or may not seem like promising material for a novel – but still I had to catch my breath when the narrator ultimately rejects conventional Christianity and says, “I chose my solitude over God.  The outer darkness seemed a more human place to be.”    

For me, what makes this book most important is its wrenching portrayal of the helplessness Japanese people felt as they waited to be drafted, believed the war to be pointless and wrong, but felt too terrified, isolated and powerless to oppose it.  This book does not seek to excuse that silence but it is nonetheless very moving to see what they were up against.

Although Takehiko Fukunaga was well-known in mid-20^th century Japan, this is currently his only novel in print.  I hope that somehow a way will be found to have his other books translated and made available, particularly his last novel, about the bombing of Hiroshima.

Lemur Tulku Rinpoche

Conflict:

Everyone is extremely upset with Rinpoche.  Two monks and a nun have already disrobed.  Prominent laypeople threaten to withdraw vital funds from the community.  Rinpoche continues to be adamant, though he remains in seclusion, reportedly due to ill health.  Fervent devotees continue to perform long life prayers morning and night.  Rinpoche points out that his life has been long already.  He says that soon he will die and, when he comes back, he’s coming back as a lemur.  A Greater Bamboo Lemur, specifically.  Also known as the Broad-nosed Bamboo Lemur or Prolemur simus.  The very rarest lemur in the world.  

Development:

In the shock following Rinpoche’s initial announcement, the secretary, in tears, flees to Google.  “The Greater Bamboo Lemur is native only to Madagascar!” cries the secretary.  “Its habitat is almost entirely destroyed.”  Rinpoche says, “So you’ll know how to serve me,”  “Less than 300 exist!”  wails the secretary.  Rinpoche says, “Think of how easy I’ll be to find.”  Then quickly adds, “Once you do find me, please leave me with the other lemurs.  If tagging is necessary, it’s got to be gentle.  I don’t approve of tattoos and I don’t want my ears notched or anything.”

Rinpoche brushes off Buddhist conservatives, who claim that what he intends to do is unheard of.  He maintains it is now quite common for bodhisattvas to be reborn as members of direly threatened species, or as the last living speakers of languages nearly extinct.  “All beings have Buddha Nature,” insists Rinpoche.  “It is in the nature of compassion to improvise.” 

A prominent Dzogchen master – he refuses to say whom – was recently a coelacanth.  Others enlightened beings have taken rebirth to keep company with direly endangered marsupials or tree frogs nearly wiped out by the epidemic of chytridiomycosis.

According to Rinpoche, the most prominent of these buddhas was an emanation of Chenrezig who arrived in Washington in 1972 and spent nearly 30 years proclaiming the dharma at the National Zoo, very far indeed from her beloved bamboo forests.

Response and conclusion:

In the beginning the community refuses to accept any of these arguments.  As time goes on, so, too, does their opposition.  Scholars continue to argue that it is the human rebirth which is precious, as the dharma is only available to those in human form.

“How could it be so?” says Rinpoche, appearing visibly strained.  “I promise you that the lemur dharma maintains that a lemur rebirth is of paramount desirability.”  The lemur rebirth, too, is precious.  Certainly it is exceedingly rare.

Even on Rinpoche’s deathbed the monks continues to argue.  Rinpoche is told that he must live forever, that he must go on teaching the dharma, that there is no precedent, that he must resume human form. 

For many hours Rinpoche does not respond.  As his devotees look down fearfully upon his brown gray skin, on the whirls of white hair which sprout from his ears, it seems  that he has already begun to resemble a Greater Bamboo Lemur. 

Finally, deep in the night, as his disciples keep vigil around his hospital bed, Rinpoche’s  old and enormous gnarled hard reaches out from beneath the sheets.  Refusing to be stopped, he turns and reaches down toward the floor beside the bed.  As he touches it, his voice booms out, as the Buddha’s did on the night of his enlightenment, The Earth is my witness.  Then he dies. 

Grief-stricken, the Rinpoche’s followers arrange for the vigil and cremation.  The ashes are barely cool before the devotees are on a plane to Madagascar. 

Holy Books of Guttersnipe Das: Active Hope

Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy.

New World Library, 2012

To read deeply in ecology without having this book on hand would be like deep-fat frying without a fire extinguisher nearby.  Tremendously foolhardy. 

To examine and consider the threats to life on Earth without evasion or self-delusion can be tremendously painful, frustrating and overwhelming.  If you’re feeling optimistic – it may be that you are not paying much attention. 

I remember finishing another entirely essential book -- “Wasted Word” by Rob Hengeveld -- and thinking, “OK, so there’s probably not going to be a future.”  I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to function.  I didn’t know how to go on.

That’s what this book is for.  Feeling overwhelmed or hopeless about the crisis facing life on Earth?  Wondering how your life or anything you might do could make a molehill’s amount of difference?  Here is your book.   

A lot of people think that facing our troubles, as individuals or as a planet, means maintaining some kind of chipper optimism, as if everything were going to be just ducky.  But that’s not necessary at all.  That’s the wrong kind of hope. 

We can look at what is real, we can face what is excruciating and frustrating, and still go on, and still find the heart and energy to act.  This book is the guide for living in this way.  Now that it is here, I don’t know how I got by without it.  

Ants and Sex

The man at the next table must have been in his fifties, but he had the boyish affability of inherited wealth, that stroke of good fortune which so often resembles a blow to the head.  Never in his life had he worked.  He often enjoyed a few cold beers in the morning, followed by more throughout the day.  

His dining companion was a German lady in her early forties.  She was somewhat gaunt and, even after a day at the seaside and even this late in the evening, her posture was perfectly upright.  The two of them, both tourists, had obviously just met that day.  The way the man leaned toward her, beer in hand, suggested he assumed they would be spending the night together. 

The lady seemed to like him well enough.  Anyway she was trying.  Perhaps she was convincing herself he was a charming rake.  She knew she was no great beauty either.

The German lady’s glasses didn’t suit her.  I guessed that a recent bout of dysentery, acquired in some Indian backpacking hotel, had removed the agreeable curves from her face and figure.  I suspected she was the pragmatic sort of woman who, because she exacts total honesty from herself and sees that she is no classic beauty, proceeds from there to the grave error of assuming she possesses no beauty at all.

If I were a genuinely spiritual person, I would not listen to strangers’ conversations.  If I did happen to overhear something, I would not comment on it or criticize it in my mind.  These are pointless activities which serve only to strengthen the ego.

I did not only listen, I did not just criticize – I sought an intervention.  I wanted to stand behind this man’s drunken head with a sign that read, Sister, seriously, you are WAY too good for him.

Alas, I’d recently given up rescuing people.  The withdrawal symptoms from this habit were horrendous.  Look at me now: I was craving the salvation of a random European tourist.  I feared I might soon start smoking cigars.

The man spoke of his years of travel, his drinking buddies, his early and more recent boats.  A cockroach hurried across the floor.  The German woman flinched.  The man assured her that there were no cockroaches where he was living.

He admitted that he did have a problem with ants.  “Sugar and protein.  That’s what ants like.  Going to bed with a sandwich?  That’s a serious mistake.”

He was still reasonably good-looking.  He would always be rich.  Intelligence simply wasn’t something he’d ever had a use for.

“No sandwiches in bed!  The other thing is semen.  Ants love semen.”

Now, if I’d been this man’s friend, the thing to do would have been to jump up, upset the table, knock over the lantern, and set fire to the tablecloth.  It was conceivable that, in the commotion, the German woman might have managed to forget what he had just said.

Even that providential disaster would probably not have saved him.  Almost certainly not.  Anyway I was not his friend.

I turned in my chair and pretended to admire the lights of the fishing boats in the distance.  The light was on in the German woman’s mind: it was as harsh and unforgiving a fluorescent as what is found in a bus station toilet.

The man hadn’t noticed anything.  Beneath his own dim light he continued to appeal.  He talked about his brother, who had just gotten married for the first time at the age of 50.  “The bride’s 23!  And my bro’s not handsome either.  Used to be a junky.  Only got one leg.”

Life was difficult even for the rich, I reminded myself.  I ought to be more sympathetic.  Instead I only felt happy for the German lady, who had gained, with the help of tiny fortuitous insects, the opportunity to reconsider before committing herself to acts which very likely would have further hampered her already ailing self-esteem.

How tortuous it was, the practice of self-restraint!  I would have liked to send a cold glass of champagne to her table, along with a note that read: Congratulations on dodging the ants.  

(Varkala, India, 10.07.12)

Seeing

Notes from Sri Lanka #22

The mind is such a new place, last night feels obsolete.  
– Emily Dickinson.

As long as I can remember I’ve had very slow eyes.  Now of course they’re even slower.  I can’t just glance at something and see it all at once.  If I want to see, I have to really look.  I think you understand.  It’s a wonder I’ve never had my nose broken.  It’s a miracle I have teeth.

This explains why I am so hilariously inept at crossing the street.  When I get to the corner, I have to stop.  Stop and get a sense of the situation.  Ask myself important questions. 

For example: Precisely which country is this?  On which side of the street do they drive?  Is the romantic notion of yielding to pedestrians alive and well in this nation?  What are traffic patterns like here?  How are the road conditions?  Are any policemen nearby to administer breathalyzer tests, or are drunken drivers joyfully and heedlessly zooming along the highways and byways?

Before I can cross the street, I need to stop and consider all of these things.  A fortnight is ideal. 

I stand thinking on the street corner as traffic hurtles past.  I am not really thinking.  I am only pretending to think.  What I am actually doing is waiting.  Waiting and hoping for a respectable matron, a slow-moving woman with a hat and heavy jewelry and at least three children.  A woman of substance, a woman for whom traffic grinds to a halt. 

I wish to join her stately procession across the street, to merge with such total seamlessness that no one will take note of one hairy cross-eyed queer hunchback limping along with her flock.  Or, if someone does notice, he or she will only say, “And who is that older hairy child amidst her pink and well-combed darlings?”

“Must be a child she had with her first husband, god rest his soul.”

“The husband who was also her brother?”

“Yes, indeed.”

This, in short, is how I feel when I first arrive in a city in Asia.  First, I think, “How will I survive?”  Then I worry, “Won’t it all be wasted on me?”  It seems a shame that there is so much, and I can see only so little.

For example, this morning in Kandy.  High in the hills overlooking the lake and the golden roof of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. 

That high-pitched noise I hear -- is not in fact a bird.  It’s a squirrel.  The black and white cat sits at the base of the tree doing her innocent cat routine.  The squirrel goes off like a car alarm.

Looking down from my balcony, I watch a woman with long gray hair and an orange dress as she sweeps her front steps.  She sweeps around old black pot-bellied dog and his operatic bark.

A chorus of crows and one blue corner of a public swimming pool.  White diving caps sailing when the coach blows the whistle.  A motorbike goes in one direction and a green parrot goes in the other.  Children gather in white uniforms.  Atop the Sharon Inn there is a resplendent garden.

Around the lake, the car horns have started up.  Soon the hammering will begin on the new guesthouses anxious to cancel out each other’s views.  Further up the hill, a bus goes by.  The breeze is still cool – just enough to rustle the leaves.

A list.  It would need more repetitions to be an honest one.  For example, every other sentence would have to include the words vanilla-colored concrete and brown doors and corrugated roofs.  Many more pages would be necessary for the trees and flowers I’ve left out, ashamed at not knowing their names.

    

So many girls in white dresses now – soon it will be time for school.  I forgot to mention the black plastic water tanks squatting on roof tops.  Here is a very shaky rendition, on trumpet, of Send in the Clowns.  This vantage point is useful for noting hair loss, of which there is remarkably little in the hills of Sri Lanka.

I have said nothing about the sky.

Perhaps this is why I write as I do, in notes and fragments, on cards and scraps.  No overview, little structure, no big picture.  Only one very small thing at a time.

I guess that once I looked for twenty minutes I could pretend to see it all at once.  But that is only be make-believe.

Other people see so much.  So much more and all at once.  They have an overall sense of things.  There is something continuous, which unwinds like a spool of thread.  More importantly, they possess a continuous sense of themselves.  At least that is the sense I get from the way people speak, as well as from their books.

I cannot manage continuous.  I do not appear to have experienced it.  For me there are only hints and parts, flashes and fragments.  Not only are there different experiences, there are different people showing up for them.

I wondered if this might be cause for concern. 

It turns out this is a thing which happens and, luckily for me, it is included in the spectrum of sanity.  Some people have a narrative sense of self, which appears to be continuous.  This is called diachronic.  Others, like me, have a sense of self which is episodic. 

I admit I feel a little jealous of the people who think of themselves at age 19 and feel, that was me.  That seems to me very convenient.  Unlike waking up each morning and barely opening my eyes before I ask, Hello, who is it now?  Who am I this time?

I must therefore end by apologizing, before I set foot off of the curb and disappear.  I apologize for the lack of an overall something, for that one same self who can be counted upon, reliably, to show up for all appointments.

The big picture has never happened to me.

Pathologically Brave

He always said, I am afraid, I am afraid, but that was not the whole story.  He was afraid, its true, he was afraid of everything, he was always afraid – except when he was not afraid at all, and then he was not afraid of anything.  He was pathologically brave.

It didn’t happen very often.  But even to be pathologically brave for thirty minutes could have far-reaching effects.  Especially since that brave person plotted while it lurked in the background and sprang up prepared to book flight tickets, interviews, or liaisons.

The brave person made decisions and left the fearful person to carry them out.  It was sadistic really.  The poor fearful person spent his life running errands for the brave person, who always had some sort of scheme.  The fearful person wanted only to stay home, with the door locked, but the brave person sent him, trembling, all over the world.

Sometimes people became so confused that they said to him, in all seriousness, you are brave.  He wanted to say, No, I am afraid, I am the slave of a brave person.  He wanted to tell them this, but he was afraid.

(09.29.12, Trivandrum)

Fear of Lunch

Often he thinks, I know how ghosts must feel.  Here it is, time for lunch, but he lacks sufficient substance.  Some prerequisites are present: money, pockets, hunger.  Others appear to be lacking: visibility, force, location.  Often he tries to convince himself, I am not so hungry really.

On this occasion, hunger cannot be denied and so he hangs his clothes on empty space, unbolts the door, and peeks out timidly, like a man expecting to be stampeded by mice.

He is in a foreign city far from where he was born; it is an exotic destination which will be entirely overrun in five years time but is now, despite having plenty of tourists, still a place where some real people also live.    

The tourists are enormous tanned Europeans.  Always in couples or small groups, they appear garlanded by cameras and security belts, ornamented with broad shoulders, water bottles, muscular calves and absolute total self-confidence.  They are like the hurtling red buses native to this place: they take up the entire road.

How tremendously unfortunate, he thinks, that I have chosen to incarnate as a goose feather.

A bustling popular restaurant is out of the question.  He does better at deserted places, where the waiter may not mind so much that he has shown up as only 11% of a person.  He enters, ducking his head though the roof is not low, sits down in the corner.

All  previous challenges pale beside what he must do next.  He must speak.  Speak so as to be heard.  In restaurants one is esteemed if one is able to boom, Chicken and chips, please!  And an ice cold beer!

It is unimaginable, really, how people manage to live.  How much noise they make and how much space they take up, and how they do it all so unapologetically as if the world belonged to them.

He seeks out places where you can write your own order, but even in places like that they can ambush you, oh just tell me. 

He opens his mouth.  At first no sound comes out.  When he does finally succeeding in producing a sound, his voice is that of a starving orphan girl in a nineteenth century costume drama. 

These initial sounds may not be fully audible, but they alert the waiter, here we have a character, and so the waiter leans in to hear him whimper, “T u n a  s a l a d . . .  i s   p o s s i b l e ?”

He always assumes that what is written in the menu is not actually available, and certainly not for the likes of him.  It is impertinent to even ask.  If he must order, he ought to order the simplest possible thing on the menu.  For example, he ought to eat only vegetable fried rice.  Or plain toast.

The waiter looks at him as if to say,  “This here is what is called a restaurant.  Here you order food.”     

If only this were the end!

When the food at last arrives, one must receive it appropriately.  One must not coldly ignore the fact that one has been served – though this is exactly what the gigantic glamorous European tourists do.  (It is all right for them.)  It is also extremely wrong to over-thank.  For example, to thank the waiter when he brings a water glass, and then an empty plate, and then the food.  To thank him individually for the fork and the knife and the spoon.  This is extremely wrong.

The meal must not be eaten too quickly. (That might seem ungrateful.)  It should also not be eaten too slowly. (Think of how boring that is for the waiter!)  He also feels badly if he takes up a table for too long, and he feels this way even if the restaurant is empty.

Then he must decide whether or not to have coffee.  This is a critical decision.  Because a cup of coffee has the potential to almost entirely reconstruct him, rendering him a functional, plausibly normal person in just a few minutes. 

A cup of coffee could also result in total calamity, like switching on an industrial fan in the vicinity of an elderly community of dandelions.  There’s just no telling what will happen, if he orders coffee.

Asking for the bill is something gentleman know how to do.  It ought to be crisp and matter-of-fact, bold but not over-bearing, confident, capable, take-charge.  It ought to pass between customer and waiter like a nearly telepathic snap of the fingers.

It is impossible, he thinks.  Yet somehow everyone else manages do it.

Getting attention is a challenge for someone who is nearly entirely invisible.  He must try several times.  Each time he fails he shrinks slightly in size.  When at last he succeeds, his tone that is not quite that of a confident gentleman.  Invariably his tone is oh my god please help me. I am trapped in this restaurant.  Paying the bill, no matter how difficult, is my only hope, my only chance of escape.

He is certain that never even once in his life has he had the exact change.

The contortions and calculations necessary to decide the tip – would exhaust the reader.  The man himself is quite exhausted and desperate to exit.  He staggers to the door and must try hard to appear sober, although he has had nothing to drink.

Then he is back on the street with the locals, real people who actually belong somewhere on Earth, and the tourists, who are all seven feet tall and have obtained post graduate degrees in Being Aloof.

He knows he must return to his room and nap even though it means facing the hotel clerk who may at any moment demand, But what is your plan, sir?  If this happens, he must feign intestinal distress, because a man of no substance can have no plans, even if he is perfectly capable of having diarrhea.

At last he is back in his room with the door locked.  Which is not to say that he ceases to be afraid.  How did it ever happen, he wonders, that other people learned how to live?  They cannot understand.  How merciless they are when they say, There’s no right way to have lunch, when they say, Just show up.

(Kandy, Sri Lanka, 09.25.12)

Guttersnipe Bookshelf: The Ego Trick

Julian Baggini, The Ego Trick

Granta Books, 2011

The Ego Trick is an engaging and approachable introduction to the trickiest of subjects and the blindest of blind spots: Who is this “I” person anyway?

As a Buddhist, I am familiar with how Buddhists challenge the idea of the self.  I lazily assumed the Buddhist way was the only way to take it apart – how wrong of me.  Baggini carefully examines the Buddhist view, with the help of Stephen Batchelor, the respected “atheist Buddhist”, and he finds much that is useful – and much that is unnecessary.

The book is enlivened by discussions with transgendered persons, theologians, transhumanists, psychologists, prostitutes and neuroscientists.  That he manages to include all these people in a way that seemed to me both a propos and respectful seemed to me a remarkable feat of both writing and sensitivity.  (That said, I would be especially interested to hear the response of transgendered persons to this book.)

This book is so lively and readable that it would serve as good company even at the end of a very long day, as you drink a glass of red wine and look to revive your weary mind.  Only the most crucial chapter, chapter 7, “The Ego Trick”, will require a clear head, a bright morning, and a strong cup of coffee.  Or maybe just a few re-readings.  But that is no problem at all, not for this, the trickiest of investigations!

 

I remember being a young man, sitting in a Buddhist monastery, listening to discussions about the nature of the self.  I felt like I sat there for years before I understood anything at all!  Baggini is a wizard of clarity – though, unlike a wizard, he endeavors to show you each part of the trick.

It is delightful  to find a work of popular philosophy that is so graceful, respectful and convincing.  I can’t imagine a clearer introduction to this subject, nor one as fun to read.