If only it came with its own spackling trowel.
See the whole Lost in the Supermarket series
The Book of, uh, something and something else
I was too darn busy this weekend to write about that final Montaigne essay, and this week’s going to be pretty rough at the office, but I don’t want to leave you guys in the literary lurch. So here’s the closing passage from Philip Roth’s 1980 interview with Milan Kundera.
It’s not that I’ve been poring over Kundera lately, or contemplating this interview. Rather, an acquaintance sent out a request for someone to dig this interview up and provide him with the passage for something he’s writing. It initially ran at the end of Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, but Roth included it in his Shop Talk collection of interviews & essays. I typed it up for him, then decided to share it with you:
Roth: Is this [novel], then, the furthest point you have reached in your pessimism?
Kundera: I am wary of the words pessimism and optimism. A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions. I don’t know whether my nation will perish and I don’t know which of my characters is right. I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means I ask questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is the legacy of the first European novel to the entire subsequent history of the novel. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. The totalitarian novel, whether founded on Marx, Islam, or anything else, is a world of answers rather than questions. There the novel has no place. In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties.
What It Is: 3/23/2009
What I’m reading: Zot! 1987-1991
What I’m listening to: Bill Simmons’ 2-part podcast with Chuck Klosterman.
What I’m watching: Some NCAA hoops, some of our regular TV — 30 Rock, The Soup, Dollhouse, Eastbound & Down — and, um, The House Bunny.
What I’m drinking: Boy, I drank a lot last week at the conference. I managed to go from gin to Guinness to wine over the course of an evening on Monday, but escaped a hangover. I hate to say it’s hard work, but I do get pretty wiped out walking an exhibit hall all day and being in business-mode. It’s kinda sad that the first drink is really a relief, but there it is. I mean, beyond that, I get into this really weird conference-metabolism, where all my habits are thrown off: eating, sleeping, drinking, bathroom, etc. At least I was able to replace my daily walks with Rufus with a 1.4-mile walk each way from my hotel to the Javits Center. Still, I was all sorts of out of rhythm last week.
What Rufus is up to: Getting used to the house routine again after spending a few days with Ruby & Willow (and Jason & Kristy). No dog-park or greyhound hike for him this week; we were too lazy on Saturday and I had to go down to Philadelphia on Sunday.
Where I’m going: Nodarnwhere!
What I’m happy about: One conference over! Three more (plus our own) to go! Also, my wife & I belatedly celebrated our anniversary this weekend with a fantastic dinner at Cafe Matisse.
What I’m sad about: That Continental failed to log both of the flights I booked for April & May conferences. I rebooked ’em at a net savings of $30, but they’ve never messed up any of my ticketing before this.
What I’m pondering: Whether the addition of a giant, high-end Whole Foods to Bergen “Dark Underworld” Mall was one of the signs of the apocalypse in the book of Revelations. (Whoops! I mean, “Bergen Town Center.”)
At least they weren’t working with a cement truck
If only they had watched Mythbusters:
First Rule of Fight Club
At first, I thought, “Why would a high school administration keep records of cage fights?”
But then I realized that if you don’t keep records, there’s no way of knowing who’s toughest.
Unrequired Reading: March 20, 2009
0-fer Down By Law edition
This week’s 0-fer is . . . John Mortimer!
Christopher Hitchens’ obit for Mr. Mortimer was pretty entertaining; any idea if his books are worth checking out? And did everyone but me know that he’s Emily Mortimer’s dad?
Lost in the Supermarket: Taste the truck
My old man used to tell the story about how my brother & I gave a big f*** you to Tonka Trucks’ claim of indestructibility. To be fair, I’m not sure the manufacturers really expected 3-year-olds to have mastered power tools.
I just think it’s weird that you’d want to feed children pieces of rubber shaped like the toys that you don’t want them eating. Also, they’re pieces of rubber shaped like industrial trucks. Yet another reason I don’t have kids, I guess.
See the whole Lost in the Supermarket series
Monday Morning Montaigne: The Grand Finale!
Aesop, that great man, saw his master pissing as he walked. “What next?” he said. “Shall we have to shit as we run?” Let us manage our time; we shall still have a lot left idle and ill spent.
Sorry, dear readers, but I’ll write my last MMM post next week. I’m kinda busy this morning and I had some stuff to do last weekend. But I did finish the final essay, Of experience (pp. 992-1045), whence the passage above derives.
What It Is: 3/16/09
What I’m reading: I finished reading Montaigne’s Essays
What I’m listening to: A whole ton of The Who, and some Lloyd Cole.
What I’m watching: Iron Man
What I’m drinking: Bluecoat gin & Q Tonic
What Rufus is up to: Getting freaked out by the noise of the trains in Ramsey. He may have been bummed that we didn’t take him to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Morristown with all the other greyhounds, but I think the noises there would’ve freaked him out worse than the Ramsey train.
Where I’m going: NYC for Interphex! (with a side trip to the Waldorf to meet some people at DCAT)
What I’m happy about: What part of “I finished reading Montaigne’s Essays last week” didn’t you understand?
What I’m sad about: Being away from Rufus for a few days, but he’s staying with our greyhound-owning friends who took care of him for us last December, so he’ll be fine.
What I’m pondering: What sorta world we’d be living in if In Bruges made $582 million in worldwide ticket sales and Iron Man made only $33 million, instead of the other way around.