Elsewhere in my bloggery, I have paid tribute to two writers who had a huge influence on my earlier reading career - namely Messrs Wodehouse and Asimov. But more recently ( and by recently, I mean in the last ten or twenty years - when you get to my advanced decrepitude, you count the passage of time in decades...) where was I..? Damn those parentheses ... Oh yeah, more recently, I was saying, I came across the work of one Terry Pratchett.
I confess that I had ignored the books of Pratchett up till then, largely on the basis, and I hope I can be forgiven for this, of their covers. The early books were encased in the artwork of Josh Kirby - a fine artist, and much admired by many, but his style was not attractive to my eyes. I thought the books were juvenile looking, and the garish colours and gnarly, distorted figures did not appeal to my sense of humour or aesthetics.
However, when I was on holidays in Majorca, lo, these many years ago now, I was stuck for something to read. I am a confirmed bibliophile and the prospect of a holiday in the sun without something papery and print-covered struck fear into my heart, so an emergency expedition was launched and I discovered an Oxfam shop in the nearby town. And in that blessed place of trade, I found "Feet of Clay" by one T. Pratchett. Desperation whispered in my ear, saying "go on, give it a go." The only other option that presented itself was a shelf of Mills and Boon and a solitary dust-coated copy of Arthur Hailey's "Hotel". I heeded the voice of desperation.
I never looked back. Once bitten by the Pratchett bug, I was a confirmed addict and embarked on a quest to redeem my previous sin of omission by collecting the complete works. For those of you who haven't read any of those books, I can only say you should also try at the earliest possible opportunity to correct that error.
The background to all of his stories is fantasy - but he has re-invented a great many onventional monsters in his own unique way. Dragons, golems, vampires, witches and wizards are all here, but they all march to a slightly different drum and have acquired an internal logic that is delightfully credible and entertaining. I won't bore you with the details of how he does it, 'coz half the fun of reading his books is waiting to see what he'll do next.
What sold me on Pratchett's writing is the ability the man has to tell a story from start to finish and leave you satisfied that the story has been told as well as it possibly could be told. There are far too many best selling writers who bring you from page to page in a breathless rush of steadily mounting excitement, only to crash through the last few fences ignoring or forgetting seemingly crucial plot points, and leave you wondering what it was all about. Pratchett doesn't do that. His pacing is perfect, and he plots as well as anyone I've read.
He manages in every book to find ways to dodge clichés and avoid repetition of old and hackneyed plotlines. His characters are flawed, but try to do the right thing, and he retains a strong moral core in all his books without being preachy or po-faced about it. The sense of humour that pervades all of his work is very Monty Python in the earlier books, and becomes more subtle as they progress, acquiring darker shades and carrying more gritty social satire in the more recent publications.
I won't go on too much more about this - it starting to sound a tad eulogistic. But the main thing that I like about this guy's writing is the intelligence and cynical common sense he brings to bear on so many societal assumptions. Human vanity is a regular target of his. Whether it's the concept of monarchy, hierarchy, patriotism, bigotry, religion, academia, or just plain self-importance, there's a Pratchett Pin for every foible's bubble.
The conceit I like best is one he has revisited himself several times - the notion of the innate superiority of the Human Race. I'm reading Richard Dawkins at the moment, and he has similar things to say in his own style, and maybe I'll vent my admiration for his work on another day.
Anyhoo, Prattchett questions the impartiality of the anthropologists who assigned the name "Homo Sapiens" to our species. It translates as "man the wise", you know. In fairness, if you look around at our various political and social pillars, how many times could you apply that term to the so-called great and good of our world? I mean, seriously now...?
Pratchett's thesis (which I understand is not unique to him, but I'll call it that) is that we are not exactly God's Last Word - unless God has a really warped sense of humour. That's hardly earth-shattering, I know, but I really like the idea that the whole issue of anthropological taxonomy should be revisited. That's what the bould Terry suggests in one of his books - that the scientific community should sit down and agree collectively to re-label the human race in a more appropriate manner.
Current evolutionary evidence tells us that we are most closely related to the Chimpanzee, or Pan Troglodytes as the boffins would have it. In fact, the general trend of scientific thought seems to indicate that our common ancestor is distressingly close in evolutionary time - distressing if you are a creationist, that is.
The principal thing that distinguishes us fundamentally from Pan Troglodytes is not our computers or our sailboats or rocket ships or racing cars. It's not even our opposable thumb, although there's no denying that it is very handy. (Sorry)
No, what distinguishes us is our linguistic skill - our ability to communicate. We do it all the time, obsessively and compulsively. By computer or television or radio or telephone, by the written or the spoken word, in cinemas and theatres and concert halls, in poetry and in songs and in paintings and in text messages, the biggest part of our lives is given over to sending and receiving explicit and implicit information. And the thing we do with all of these words and ideas and dreams is this - we tell stories.
We are storytellers - every one of us. It's how we make sense of the world. We build an artifice of information into a coherent structure that tells us enough to help us understand or deal with any issue. The story of the creation or of evolution or relativity or of Gilgamesh the King - they are all vessels for information that allow our brains to cope with the world.
That's not to say that all stories are equally valuable - Jeffrey Archer is not William Shakespeare and L. Ron Hubbard is not Einstein. You have to evaluate every story you are told in the light of all the other stories, and hopefully arrive at a sensible, workable set of conclusions.
Be all that as it may, and I'm not going to debate the relative merits of any of the forementioned here, the point is that we tell stories. We are narrators. And the name Pratchett mooted for our species and which I would like to second with all my heart is "Pan Narrans" - the storytelling chimp.
Oook!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Things to say in Dublin when you're dead - Philosophy 101
I'm in a philosophical frame of mind today. Imminent redundancy gives one furiously to contemplate one's own place in the universe, and I've been looking into the meaning of life, the universe and all that. I've done a bit of research, gazed at my navel introspectively, removed any belly-button fluff that was getting in the way, and I thought I might share some of my insights with you, if you don't mind…
Now I know you'll be familiar with Kant and Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and Nietzche, so I won't bore you with repeating the more familiar aphorisms - Nietzche's old "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you" or Hegel's "Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights." spring to mind here, but I did do a trawl of some of the less well known but equally entertaining boffins of the philosoverse - if I may coin a neologism.
Life, according to the philosopher Gump, is like a box of chocolates. (Actually, he said chawk-lets, but I think we all know what he meant.) Personally, I think he was a bit on the optimistic side there. Experience tells me that life is more like visiting the toilets in our beloved workplace. Until you lift the lid, you don't know what you're going to have to deal with. Sometimes, it's pristine porcelain and you can just get on with your own business in a calm and relaxed manner, but more often than not you find yourself having to deal with the crap someone else has left behind. And sometimes it's all just too much and you run screaming from the cubicle. (I've only seen that happen once, in fairness.) But, and of this we are all certain, when that great final flush eventually comes, only God knows what kind of shite will be left.
Some of the stuff that's out there is written along the same lines as the Lisbon Treaty or the recent NAMA legislation. I mean, if someone says "I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying," you're going to feel a tad confused. That was Charles C. Finn's contribution, and it frankly left me in the same zone as the Zen thingy that advises you should knock on the sky and listen to the sound.
Of course, one of the classics of this sort was by a dude called Chuang Tzu, who said "The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?" This was clearly a man who understood the Soul of Ronan Keating, or who had been smoking something very herbal very recently.
Ram Dass said that if you think you're free, there's no escape possible, which didn't really cheer me up much and Heraclitus wasn't much better with "Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death." A lot of these guys erred a trifle on the gloomy side, and wouldn't be ideal holiday reading in the same class as, say, Dan Brown or Cecilia Ahern.
Stanislaw J. Lec said "If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky?" which I thought was pretty good. Edward Albee said that sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly, which I also thought was fairly ok, but not as witty as Lec's line. Santayana, not to be outdone on the cryptic paradox thingy told us that almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
A guy called Robert Brault, who's obviously spent a lot of time on Ticketmaster, tells us that "I've observed that there are more lines formed than things worth waiting for." I concur. Although I did enjoy the recent Leonard Cohen gig, which was definitely worth waiting for and supplied more than a few philosophical moments of its own. But I think shopping in Tesco or Dunnes on a Friday evening bears out Brault's thesis.
Of course, if you want profundity, you've gotta go to Buddha (he ain't heavy…) who said "The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground." I don't know if he actually said that for the record, but you know how it is when you're at a good party. A few pints and a couple of shorts later, and you'll say any old thing that comes into your head, and the next day it's all over Facebook or Bebo. Look at Antonio Porchia, who told us in 1943 that "a thing, until it is everything, is noise, and once it is everything it is silence". He never heard the end of that one from the lads, and eventually started going to a different local just to dodge the wisecracks.
The Greeks, while we're in the classical world, apparently have a saying that goes:" A thousand men can't undress a naked man." That sounds like something Graham Norton might have said at a party, but it is, apparently, both ancient and authentic. Stand-up comedy has clearly been a part of human culture for a long time. In the modern world, and not to be outdone by those Greeks, America has a proverb that states that eggs cannot be unscrambled, but I betcha there are plenty of government research groups and Fas employees out there trying to disprove that one.
Anyhoo, having dipped my slightly discoloured big toe in the shallows of philosophy, I can only say that my own experience leads me to the conclusion that the man with the most profound insight was an Irishman. Apparently, some years ago a deep thinker called Murphy formulated a Law as all-pervasive and accurate as Einstein's wild notions about Relativity, and I firmly believe that Murphy's Law underpins the very fabric of our day-to-day existence within the walls of this wonderful world.
Days like today and months like the coming months and governments like the present shower definitely drag me, kicking and screaming, to the sad conclusion that anything that can go wrong will surely do so with vim and gusto.
Best regards and philosophical salutations,
Des
Now I know you'll be familiar with Kant and Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and Nietzche, so I won't bore you with repeating the more familiar aphorisms - Nietzche's old "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you" or Hegel's "Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights." spring to mind here, but I did do a trawl of some of the less well known but equally entertaining boffins of the philosoverse - if I may coin a neologism.
Life, according to the philosopher Gump, is like a box of chocolates. (Actually, he said chawk-lets, but I think we all know what he meant.) Personally, I think he was a bit on the optimistic side there. Experience tells me that life is more like visiting the toilets in our beloved workplace. Until you lift the lid, you don't know what you're going to have to deal with. Sometimes, it's pristine porcelain and you can just get on with your own business in a calm and relaxed manner, but more often than not you find yourself having to deal with the crap someone else has left behind. And sometimes it's all just too much and you run screaming from the cubicle. (I've only seen that happen once, in fairness.) But, and of this we are all certain, when that great final flush eventually comes, only God knows what kind of shite will be left.
Some of the stuff that's out there is written along the same lines as the Lisbon Treaty or the recent NAMA legislation. I mean, if someone says "I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying," you're going to feel a tad confused. That was Charles C. Finn's contribution, and it frankly left me in the same zone as the Zen thingy that advises you should knock on the sky and listen to the sound.
Of course, one of the classics of this sort was by a dude called Chuang Tzu, who said "The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?" This was clearly a man who understood the Soul of Ronan Keating, or who had been smoking something very herbal very recently.
Ram Dass said that if you think you're free, there's no escape possible, which didn't really cheer me up much and Heraclitus wasn't much better with "Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death." A lot of these guys erred a trifle on the gloomy side, and wouldn't be ideal holiday reading in the same class as, say, Dan Brown or Cecilia Ahern.
Stanislaw J. Lec said "If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky?" which I thought was pretty good. Edward Albee said that sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly, which I also thought was fairly ok, but not as witty as Lec's line. Santayana, not to be outdone on the cryptic paradox thingy told us that almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
A guy called Robert Brault, who's obviously spent a lot of time on Ticketmaster, tells us that "I've observed that there are more lines formed than things worth waiting for." I concur. Although I did enjoy the recent Leonard Cohen gig, which was definitely worth waiting for and supplied more than a few philosophical moments of its own. But I think shopping in Tesco or Dunnes on a Friday evening bears out Brault's thesis.
Of course, if you want profundity, you've gotta go to Buddha (he ain't heavy…) who said "The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground." I don't know if he actually said that for the record, but you know how it is when you're at a good party. A few pints and a couple of shorts later, and you'll say any old thing that comes into your head, and the next day it's all over Facebook or Bebo. Look at Antonio Porchia, who told us in 1943 that "a thing, until it is everything, is noise, and once it is everything it is silence". He never heard the end of that one from the lads, and eventually started going to a different local just to dodge the wisecracks.
The Greeks, while we're in the classical world, apparently have a saying that goes:" A thousand men can't undress a naked man." That sounds like something Graham Norton might have said at a party, but it is, apparently, both ancient and authentic. Stand-up comedy has clearly been a part of human culture for a long time. In the modern world, and not to be outdone by those Greeks, America has a proverb that states that eggs cannot be unscrambled, but I betcha there are plenty of government research groups and Fas employees out there trying to disprove that one.
Anyhoo, having dipped my slightly discoloured big toe in the shallows of philosophy, I can only say that my own experience leads me to the conclusion that the man with the most profound insight was an Irishman. Apparently, some years ago a deep thinker called Murphy formulated a Law as all-pervasive and accurate as Einstein's wild notions about Relativity, and I firmly believe that Murphy's Law underpins the very fabric of our day-to-day existence within the walls of this wonderful world.
Days like today and months like the coming months and governments like the present shower definitely drag me, kicking and screaming, to the sad conclusion that anything that can go wrong will surely do so with vim and gusto.
Best regards and philosophical salutations,
Des
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