Sydney writers' festival 2015

Tuesday 26 May 2015

I had an extremely limited, though, nevertheless, incredibly rewarding, experience at the Sydney Writers' Festival this year, mostly revolving around interactions with one of my favourite authors and the subject of my thesis, David Mitchell. Before the weekend was over, I would hear him speak at three events, meet him at two book-signings, and have my photo taken with him. 

Walking to see Mitchell a second time at the Theatre Bar at the End of the Wharf for Coffee and Papers with the Sydney Morning Herald and David Mitchell.

Mitchell and I after his third appearance (and my second book-signing) at the Roslyn Packer Theatre for 'Imagined Futures'.

My favourite interaction, however, was the first: Friday night at the City Recital Hall Angel Place event 'David Mitchell: Bending Time', where he was interviewed onstage by Kate Evans. The night had a number of highlights, including when Mitchell claimed to be, in fact, a novella writer rather than a novelist, an assertion Evans rebutted with a single heft of his latest 595-page behemoth, The Bone Clocks; when he revealed that the tea he was drinking was made accidentally with sparkling water (it happens to the best of us); and when he suggested that the key to avoiding the dystopian though all-too-plausible near future he depicts in The Bone Clocks is to 'vote in more idealistic politicians who will need to pass things that cause us some financial pain' and not to 'listen to demagogues that says, 'Vote for me and I'll scrap the carbon tax', met, of course, by enthusiastic applause from the predictably assenting literary festival audience.

Kate Evans interviewing David Mitchell, sparkling water tea in hand.

Two questions before the end of the interview, Evans invited audience members to start making their way to the microphones positioned around the hall. As she asked her final question, I noticed they were all still vacant, so I plucked up my courage and seized the opportunity. When I got to the microphone, Mitchell was still making his way through his answer. I felt conspicuous standing there, ten or fifteen metres away from where they were seated onstage, blocking the view of the audience members behind me with my not inconsiderable height, so I decided I would crouch in the aisle, which also felt somewhat ridiculous, but the best choice under the circumstances. 

Then came my moment. 'Now, is anybody going to make their way to—' began Evans, before I sprung up from my position like a Jack in the Box.

'Hello!' said Mitchell jovially, before assigning me seven years good luck for being his first questioner and offering me some of his (nearly entirely in tact) block of Cadbury's vegemite chocolate.

'That's actually kind of relevant to my question', I began. The whole event was recorded and broadcast by Radio National, and you can hear our full interaction from about 37:45 here (look for number 7. 'David Mitchell – The Bone Clocks'), but here's a summary, starting with my question:

'So, I just wanted to say thank you first for coming and speaking to us and your wonderful work. Cloud Atlas actually really changed my life ... mainly through kind of clarifying my personal ethics, just by thinking about it a lot and the ethics that I find embedded into it. One of the main things was that it kind of removed the last ethical blocks that I was putting up into vegetarianism and now veganism. So I couldn't take you up on your offer to eat the chocolate.' We laughed. 'You were talking before about how, you know, we make ourselves feel better by dehumanising those that we exploit. And I wondered if you have any feelings about the way that that would apply to eating animals and farming animals and killing animals.'

'Yeahhhhhhh ...' he said in a long, thoughtful sigh. 'Not a contentious question, then!' he added, eliciting a round of laughter from the audience. 'Uh, thank you. Yeah, you're right. Thin ice, because I'm not a strict vegetarian. I'm an occasional guilty lifeform-eater. I'm riddled with hypocrisies and this is one of them. I don't eat mammals any more, though, um, because—because they love their mums, and they don't wanna die.' 

We all laughed at this. 'I'm glad to hear it!' I enthused.

'And their mums love them as well', he added. 'I'm sort of working towards where you are, I suppose.' For some reason this struck us all as hilarious as well. Perhaps the incongruity of it all – that I had hijacked the event to talk about animal rights and, unexpectedly, I suppose, for many omnivores in the audience, Mitchell was agreeing with me.

The best response I could offer, as an aspiring writer speaking to one of his literary idols was, 'I'm working towards where you are as well,' which the crowd loved – the round of applause that followed is clipped from the Radio National recording, but it was there!

From there he discussed his progress in slowly crossing birds off the list, and then fish, and how it's interesting to think of the shock that would ensue if it became part of the syllabus to send secondary school students to abattoirs to learn about the process. He concluded his answer by saying something that took me quite by surprise:

'You seem incredibly healthy. You sort of radiate health,' he said. 'You're a walking advertisement for veganism,' prompting another burst of laughter. Personally I'd attribute any glow to the fact that I was talking to a literary legend and he was speaking positively about veganism, but I'll take it. 'You just seem one of those healthy people. You know sometimes you see someone and they're looking a bit "uhhhhh"' – here he made a groaning zombie noise. 'You had an enormous slab of cow for lunch, didn't you?'

For the rest of my interactions at the festival this question gained me some sort of notoriety. Immediately afterwards several people congratulated me on asking it, and everywhere I went afterwards people would say, 'You're the one who asked that question!' It also meant I stuck out in Mitchell's mind, so that he had some personalised messages for me when I got my books signed. I couldn't be happier that the man who wrote the book that set me on my current path, and who continues to delight me with his fiction, is of a similar mind to me, and is on his way to fully embracing the ethics that he so talentfully depicts in his work.

Helen Razer and Bernard Keane at the only non-David Mitchell event I got to attend.

My haul from the festival – all signed!

Thanks for reading!

LPL

What's wrong with 'sex appeal'

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott instigated a Twitterstorm yesterday when he listed 'sex appeal' as one of the assets shared by Fiona Scott and Jackie Kelly, the current and former Liberal candidates for the seat of Lindsay. Predictably, commenters and commentators of the Right, such as my own personal bête noir Miranda Devine, have since responded to the criticisms with lamentations about 'political correctness gone mad'* and 'confected outrage' and, of course, the usual deluge of abhorrent eructations from Andrew Bolt fans:

Comments from Bolt's readers, as tweeted by the good people at @BoltComments.

*I've previously discussed (and mounted a small defense of) political correctness here.

The point of this post isn't to condemn Tony Abbott, as condemnable as I think he is. Aside from his history of misogyny and his lack of expressed compunction I actually don't believe what he said is that personally reprehensible, just inappropriate and symptomatic of a larger issue. What I want to try and do is explain to those people inclined to agree with Devine, Bolt and company, why the Left finds the comment so objectionable. 

But first I want to address what's not wrong with the remark. Firstly, no one's claiming there was any malice in it. I think there's a common misconception that the lack of intention to offend excuses someone from having done so, as indicated by Opposition assistant treasury spokesman Mathias Corman's explanation that '[i]t was just a light-hearted comment, which I'm sure was not meant with any offence' (news.com.au). But this is an oversimplification. What this kind of thing reveals is not the speaker's unkindness or immorality, but rather their ignorance, often of how words, acts and omissions can reinforce cultural attitudes that privilege some and disadvantage others. 

Think of that disgusting 'Trayvoning' trend that's taken off recently, to much obloquy. Realistically, I'm sure most of the boys posing in those pictures are otherwise reasonably good people, who'd probably respond to criticism by saying it was all just a joke and they didn't mean any offence. Their wrongdoing is not a deliberate intent to mock a murder victim, but rather an unthinking insensitivity to a tragic and politicised issue and a grieving family, a selfish, immature transformation of a tragedy into a source of entertainment, posted thoughtlessly online.

To return to my personal holy text, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (or rather, the Twyker–Wachowski film adaptation), it puts me in mind of the casual, unintentional sexism spouted by smarmy would-be architect of a nuclear disaster Lloyd Hooks, as portrayed by Hugh Grant, to Halle Berry's Luisa Rey:

This kind of talk belongs in the '70s.

Secondly, I don't have an issue with the fact that Tony Abbott or anyone else has appraised Fiona Scott as possessing 'sex appeal', that anybody finds her attractive. Human beings are always going to find other human beings attractive, but there's a difference between thinking someone is attractive and saying it, and that distinction takes us to the heart of the issue.

As I said above, I find Abbott's comment inappropriate. Not deplorable, not opprobrious, not disgraceful, just inappropriate. Whatever Abbott thinks of Scott's and Kelly's physical appearances, it should not have been brought into the discussion of their merits as candidates. What business does anybody's attractiveness have in a list of their qualifications to represent an electorate? 

Abbott's comment doesn't show us that he's a cruel person who consciously believes women are inferior to men. What it does give us is a direct window into his worldview, a worldview he may not necessarily have that much control over (how much do any of us really decide our worldview?), but one that he nevertheless holds and must be judged by if he wants to be the leader of the country. It shows, unsurprisingly for a conservative of his generation, that at a fundamental and unconscious level, Abbott cannot see women in the same way he sees men. This attitude I am able to overlook in people of a certain age who grew up in a different era, the way we forgive our 'racist grandparents', but not in the leader of our country.

If you still disagree, just think about what it means that, when called upon to list some of the similarities of his female colleagues, which he must necessarily accept as an opportunity to list their assets, the first things that come to mind are their youth, 'feistiness' and sexual appeal. He's struggling in that video. As we all know from his comments about scripted and unscripted commitments, his conspicuous absence from interviews and television programs like Q&A (despite an open invitation) over the past few months, the 'suppository of wisdom' contretemps, and that 'bizarre 28 seconds of silence', Abbott isn't the best with impromptu speaking. You can tell he's grasping for positive adjectives in that video, buying time with a string of ums and ahs, and in the top three he comes out with is 'sex appeal', something that would never occur to him had he been speaking of men. Abbott himself knows this, as you can tell if you listen to him stressing the words 'smart' and 'hardworking' (proper qualities) when he's asked about it later, after he's had some time to think.

'Sex appeal' is the descriptor getting all the attention, but I'd argue the others weren't that flattering, either. 'Young', I'm sure, is supposed to connote enthusiasm and energy, but it's a dubious distinction if that's the primary positive similarity you share with your predecessor.

Then there's 'feisty', the suspect implications of which Elizabeth Reid Boyd has already discussed (I agree the word is condescending, with the suggestion that women have to be feisty in the big, rough boy's game of politics, but I completely reject the notion that its long-forgotten etymology has any impact on its meaning today).

Then comes 'sex appeal'. It's as though what Abbott wanted to say when the interviewer asked about the comparability of the two candidates was, 'Well, the similarity is obvious: they're both women ...' Would you ever say 'They're both men' in that situation? No, because maleness is the standard state of being, while muliebrity is a distinguishing condition to be remarked upon.

Even Abbott's final and most relevant compliment, that the two women are 'connected to the local area' reflects very little agency grammatically. They aren't active, agentive leaders in the community, prepared to make the tough calls and fight on behalf of the electorate. They're just passively 'connected' to the local area ...

I've seen Bolt commenters and others saying they've heard male politicians being referred to as sexy without any such backlash, but we rightfully hold our leaders to higher standards. Was it by a private citizen or media personality, or was it by someone holding high public office? Can you imagine Julia Gillard endorsing a local candidate in comparison to a predecessor by saying, 'They're both young, scrappy, and strappingly handsome'? I can't see it. What about Rebecca Shaw's example:

'It is unequivocally true that if Abbott had been asked a similar question about a male candidate, he would never say: “Well, um, well, Andrew Laming is young, feisty, has great hair and a very nice jawline”. If you are saying something about a female candidate that you would never say about a male candidate, you are treading on dangerous ground in the scary swamp of sexism.' (Shaw 2013)

We live in a society that consistently judges women by different standards to men (speaking of Julia Gillard), especially in terms of their appearance, a fact the Right fights against remedying at the worst of times and seems blind to at the best. The very fact that large segments of our society are held in the grip of an ideology that teaches them it is normal and natural to behave this way prevents their being able to see it. What the Left objects to about this incident is that it violates the principle that women in this day and age should be able to be enter the political sphere subject only to the same amount of attention to their physical appearance, whether positive or negative, as men are (i.e near none). The rules shouldn't suddenly change when it's a woman politician, so that it becomes a matter of public importance how she dresses, what she looks like, whether she's married or anything else. It's not so much what Abbott said, it's what his comment shows about him: that he is incapable of seeing the world in this way.

Thanks for reading

LPL
L Phillip Lucas (Facebook page)
@LPhillipLucas (Twitter profile)

References

The Australian Brodcasting Corporation's image.

Screenshot of Bolt Comments' (@BoltComments) twitter feed.

Amalgalmation of Simon Chillingworth's image and Warner Bros. Pictures' image.

News.com.au's 5:38pm AEST 14 August 2013 article 'Abbott cites exuberance in latest gaffe'.

Rebecca Shaw's 9:49am AEST 14 August 2013 The Guardian article 'Sexygate: how Tony Abbott should have complimented Fiona Scott'.

Tom Twyker, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski's 2012 film Cloud Atlas.

I am a boat person

Wednesday 7 August 2013

My I am a Boat Person petition photo, showing me holding the campaign sign and my Fellowship of First Fleeters certificate of membership.

My ancestors (great great great great great grandparents, I believe), Nathaniel Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne, arrived in this country as convicts in the First Fleet. There's speculation that Nathaniel, a master carpenter, was framed due to the demand for his skills in the nascent colony, while Olivia was a servant who robbed her master at gunpoint. She was to die by hanging until her sentence was commuted to transportation.

Nathaniel's entry (highlighted) in the convict register.

Like me, everyone else born in Australia has predecessors who arrived here from somewhere else, whether a generation ago by plane, or fifty-thousand years ago from South Asia. That's the idea behind the 'I am a Boat Person' campaign, which seeks to re-emphasise the humanity of so-called 'boat people' and demand a more humane response to those seeking asylum by boat.

I have sympathy for those politicians with a genuine desire to address this issue, who are faced not only with the ethically fraught situation itself, but also with an agitated, uninformed, bigoted public as well as unconscionable politicians seeking to capitalise on those sentiments. But even so, the policies of both major parties are thoroughly unacceptable. It's despicable and nonsensical to me that 'stopping the boats' has become such a politicised issue and such a major factor in the election. What's worst is that it's not about stopping the boats by, say, helping to alleviate the dire situations in asylum seekers' origin countries, or by opening overseas facilities run or funded by Australia to an Australian standard where those in danger can seek protection or lodge applications. Rather, it seems to be about stopping them by holding a race to the bottom to see who can be the least humane.

The thing about genuine refugees (which the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers are), is that their lives are in immediate danger. There's no time to sit around waiting to be accepted for immigration. They're real families in desperate situations, doing what they need to do for survival. If people in your community were being killed every day because of their ethnicity, and you felt you could be next, you'd do whatever you had to do to get to a safe place. And the Refugee Convention, to which the Commonwealth of Australia is a signatory, gives you the right to do so without persecution.

Hypothetically, on the other end of things, if a family, battered and bleeding, banged on your door in the middle of the night, begging to be let in because someone was chasing them down the street with a knife, you wouldn't say, 'No, kindly contact the authorities and seek protection via the appropriate channels' or 'No, you can't come in here, but there's another, brown family down the street without any locks on their doors; go and ask them.' You'd just let them in.

And that's the other troubling element of the issue: race. If the asylum seekers were white, there wouldn't be nearly so much public resistance. Don't believe me? Imagine the following scenario:

A number of volcanoes begin to erupt in New Zealand, desolating several towns and cutting off land evacuation routes. Desperate, several hundred survivors turn to boats to escape the destruction and get to safety. At sea they are caught in a storm and lost for some time before reaching Australian shores. Eager to start new lives, they hope for resettlement in Australia, but are denied under Labor's new policy.

It'd be an outrage. No one would argue that (white) people in that situation should be turned away or resettled in Papua New Guinea merely because they arrived by boat. As long as this policy is in effect, how can we ever again intone the words of our national anthem with integrity?: 'For those who've come across the seas we've boundless plains to share.' It's an embarrassment.

Perhaps my position on this issue originates from my defined opinions about action and inaction. As with all things in this world, literature is valuable mirror for these issues. The book I often refer to as my Bible, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (and thankfully also its film adaptation), repeatedly demonstrates how turning our backs when others seek our help, remaining in comfortable self-interest, always constitutes an indulgence of the worst, most selfish sides of our nature, rather than the best, and how the right thing to do is always in accordance with saying yes, acting, speaking, taking a risk in the service of the needful Other. [The following discussion contains Cloud Atlas spoilers]

This dilemma is evident in the novel when escaped Moriori slave and stowaway Autua reveals himself to narrator Adam Ewing, asking the lawyer to speak on his behalf to the ship's captain, who is likely to kill Autua or throw him overboard without Ewing to argue his worth as an able seaman. At first Ewing protests, considering himself an 'innocent bystander' and stating, 'The Moriori’s adventure was his own & I desired no part in it' (Mitchell 27). Autua responds by closing Ewing's

     fingers around the hilt of a dagger. Resolute & bleak was his
     demand.‘Then kill I.’ With a terrible calmness & certitude he
     pressed its tip against his throat. I told the Indian he was mad.
     ‘I not mad, you no help I, you kill I, just same. It’s true, you
     know it.' (Mitchell 27)

Ewing reluctantly accedes to this argument, acknowledging its sense. Once involved in a situation, whether intentionally or not, inaction can be as much of an action as action. He is rewarded for intervening on Autua's behalf when the former slave saves his life later in the novel. 

Autua (Dave Gyasi) cares for Ewing (Jim Sturgess) in the film adaptation of Cloud Atlas.

In the book's final passage, which I have quoted before, Ewing argues for acting in the interests of others rather than purely for the self, in a conclusion that is apt in the context of the 'asylum seeker debate':

     You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not
     fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of
     it if our consciences itch? Why underminde the dominance of
     our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight
     the 'natural' (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?

     Why? Because of this: – one fine day, a purely predatory world
     shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until
     the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness
     uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.
     (Mitchell 527–529)

The same exchange that occurs between Ewing and Autua is echoed again and again throughout the book, when Isaac Sachs must choose between his own safety and exposing a planned nuclear reactor explosion, when Timothy Cavendish appeals to his brother to help him escape some thugs, when Sonmi-451 must become the figurehead of a rebellion even though she is merely a 'server', not 'genomed' to be a revolutionary, and when Zachry must overcome his xenophobic mistrust of the Prescient Meronym in order to help her.

I'm someone who is typically suspicious of nationalism and patriotism, but even I can't help but be moved when I hear an immigrant expressing gratitude or appreciation of their new life in Australia. Nothing makes me more proud to be Australian, and we should be doing everything in our power to allow that to continue. Don't turn your back on the people seeking our help. Demand a more humane solution for asylum seekers.


Thanks for reading

LPL

L Phillip Lucas (Facebook page)

@LPhillipLucas (Twitter profile)

References

David Mitchell's 2003 novel Cloud Atlas, published by Hodder and Stoughton.

Tom Twyker, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski's 2012 film Cloud Atlas.

A small addendum for the los angeles review of books

Sunday 5 August 2012

This morning in the course of my internet rounds I came across a fascinating LA Review of Books article by Matthea Harvey investigating the relationship between tennis and poetry. I was disappointed, however, at the omission of my favourite tennis-related passage in literature, and what I think is one of the most beautiful tracts of prose in all Western literary canon. Continuing in the lazy (busy) man's blogging tradition I started with 'Cloud atlas and the left', I've decided to post this passage as a small redress for the overlooked literary tennisphile, Vladimir Nabokov.

The passage comes from Lolita, when a tennis game as decidedly mundane as the titular character's is transmuted in the eyes of the narrator Humbert Humbert into 'the highest point to which [he] can imagine a young creature bringing the art of make believe':

She would wait and relax for a bar or two of white-lined time before going into the act of serving, and often bounced the ball once or twice, or pawed the ground a little, always at ease, always rather vague about the score, always cheerful as she so seldom was in the dark life she led at home. Her tennis was the highest point to which I can imagine a young creature bringing the art of make believe, although I daresay, for her it was the very geometry of basic reality.

The exquisite clarity of all her movements had its auditory counterpart in the pure ringing sound of her every stroke. The ball when it entered her aura of control became somehow whiter, its resilience somehow richer, and the instrument of precision she used upon it seemed inordinately prehensile and deliberate at the moment of clinging contact. Her form was, indeed, an absolutely perfect imitation of absolutely top-notch tennis -- without any utilitarian results [...] My Lolita had a way of raising her bent left knee at the ample and springy start of the service cycle when there would develop and hang in the sun for a second a vital web of balance between toed foot, pristine armpit, burnished arm and far back-flung racket, as she smiled up with gleaming teeth at the small globe suspended so high in the zenith of the powerful and graceful cosmos she had created for the express purpose of falling upon it with a clean resounding crack of her golden whip. 

It had, that serve of hers, beauty, directness, youth, a classical purity of trajectory, and was, despite its spanking pace, fairly easy to return, having as it did no twist or stung to its long elegant hop. (262–263)

Here we witness Lolita's deification, her ascension up the ranks of ancient mythology from nymphet to deity – the nymphs were, afterall, spawned of the gods – celestial and potent, beautiful and terrible, creator and destroyer of worlds, endowed with, instead of an ordinary tennis racquet, something altogether more divine, like Artemis' silver bow, a golden whip. 

I must say, though, I prefer to imagine Humbert talking about Ana Ivanovic here than little Dolores Haze.

This is, of course, Nabokov, so there's more going on here than just a celebration of tennis, or even the surface-level attraction of the narrator to 'his' Lolita. This ode to the game is wrapped up into the novel and imbued with meaning, like everything else. I think there's something in the way Humbert apotheosises Lolita, the way he immerses her in abstract systems which she manipulates and controls ('white-lined time', 'the very geometry of basic reality', 'her aura of control', 'a vital web of balance', 'the powerful and graceful cosmos she had created', even 'the service cycle' and the almost illicit 'act of serving') that speaks of agency. It's as though by empowering his victim, significantly just before Humbert is called away from the court by a fake phone call, a scheme of Lolita's to aid in effecting her escape, he makes it appear she is more in control of her situation than the we otherwise might think and, therefore, by extension, Humbert becomes less a villain.

References

Matthea Harvey's 2012 article 'We Can Be Heroes: Poetry at the Olympics (Part 3) - Can Braveheart (Andy Murray) Upset Twinkletoes' (Roger Federer) Apple Cart', published by the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel Lolita, published by Penguin.

Lucas Dawson's 2009 photograph of Ana Ivanovic.

Cloud atlas and the left

Monday 16 April 2012

I'm quite short of time at the moment (one assessment due tomorrow, one on Thursday, three books to read this week, editing work needed for Wednesday, going to Melbourne for the comedy festival from Thursday to Monday, with a presentation on a book I haven't started reading due two days after I get back), so in lieu of a real post, here's something I've been meaning to put up here for a while that won't eat too much into my time.

A while ago, while Til and I were travelling around Italy and Greece, I read a wonderful book by David Mitchell called Cloud Atlas, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004 and which was recommended to me by one of my lecturers, the excellent Dr Joshua Lobb.

I'm increasingly interested at the moment in tracing back the texts and ideas I encountered that led me to certain conclusions, because sometimes my conclusions (eg socialism, vegetarianism) seem so radical when just looked at bare. But if I could present people with a more manageable sequence of ideas that, once accepted, lead to that conclusion, it might be more understandable.

The book is full of beauty and poignancy, but in particular the passage I want to quote below, the ending of the book, when read after undertaking the journey of the entire novel, was one of the first things I encountered that led me to start thinking about why a progressive, leftist, socialist (look it up if that sounds alarming; it might not mean what you think it means) approach to world governance is a better one than a conservative, capitalist, individualist one. I now see the divide between left and right as largely one of cooperative socialism and competitive individualism. It even had a part to play in the development of my ideas about vegetarianism (note the 'weaselly word' the narrator identifies, and possibly see my post ''Naturalness', semantic decay and veg(etari)anism (part two of three)').


And don't worry, it doesn't have much in the way of spoilers, although being the final passage there are a few references you obviously won't understand if you haven't read the book:

Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts.

What precipitates acts? Belief.

Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & beastiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why underminde the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the 'natural' (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?

Why? Because of this: – one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

Is this the entropy written within our nature?

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peacably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth and its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Tortuous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Upon my return to San Francisco, I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.

I hear my father-in-law's response. 'Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don't tell me about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the red-necks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their imperial slaves' rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's! Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & grey in caucuses! You'll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed Hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!'

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops? (527–529)

Incidentally, there's a film adaptation of Cloud Atlas coming out late this year with Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Jim Sturgess, so get your hands on a copy and read it beforehand!

LPL

References

David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas, published in 2003.

Cover image.