Suppose, there were no social reward for taste

I very much enjoy, reasoning through

such questions. Even loaded as this

one is, by a cluster of indefinite

terms - or, possibly partly because

of it - we can just see the room 

refilling with friends, even if a-

larmed and elated to be with each

other under the auspices of some-

thing challenging us. The nature of

the love which convenes such meet-

ings is quite central to this proj-

ect, and I sometimes think I have

neglected it.

Oh, treasures, every one of them;

but all or very nearly all, lent

to society's refurbishment in the

very dreams they knew. Prolifer-

ators of wonders, as we appraise

such people; one can't help but

wonder at the line between the

social and the humane, and self-

effacement and ambition, can one?

    

But is there such a line? Or have

we not just contemplated ambition

as the same thing as self-efface-

ment? This is Friday, not an occa-

sion to gather in abstractions. On

the other hand, it is a day like

any other, in which one catches a

glimpse here and there of what 

it may be like, not to pursue it

as a tautology. 

i - iv  Jeremy Young

I disagree, that the President was diminished by self-control

  

  Oh, my goodness. I was embarrassed

  last evening, by the quick reactions

  of the enthusiasts, to the effect

  that the manic challenger in the

  evening's Presidential election

  'debate' was more impressive than

  the reserved incumbent. It was never

  so clear to me before, how scribes

  treat our politics as entertainment,

  as if Callas were out of voice (more

  than her style anticipated, that is)

  in a new production of Manon Lescaut.

  That would be regrettable, of course.

It's as if there were no point to drawing reference to the fact, that he is the President, and people do know him. On the 'strength' of his conduct this evening, I'm certain that this still cannot be said of the challenger, an unbecoming anxiety's reinforcements aside. I am confident that anyone who respects his vote, and can distinguish it from a ticket to the sadomasochistic tragedies of Puccini, will have no difficulty in finding the President's unflappable consistency to have been exactly suited to his recitals of what he has done, what he believes, what he expects and what he intends; and that the cascade, not to say blizzard of novations of himself offered by the pretender, are of a piece with his established cynicism.

To anyone who has been watching this Presidency with a fraction of the attention for which our scribes are paid to do it for us, the spectacle of more flailings against this holder of the office will also be utterly of a piece - with the character of his position, in a time of unseemly polarisation. It may well be, given the influence of any concert of reviews, that voters will imbibe the belief that the President fared poorly. But that will mean, that the President fared poorly, as we have seen in his legislative conflicts throughout his term of office. It will not mean that he is electorally impaired.

On the contrary. The challenger's task was far from met, in persuading voters to adopt a selection of him-self, in an etch-resketched profile of remixed posturing and deception, as the justification for an aban-donment of a relationship of endur-ance. This characteristic of the President's plainly earned respect, for his embrace of the nation's ordeal with patience of no compla-cency, endows voters with a feeling of trust which cannot be disturbed by a hectically showy night on the stage with a settled phony. It is easily compatible with resolve to stay the course, to concede that the President may have 'lost' in the kind of show which is of interest only to quar-relers. This is not what he does.

           The professed 'Conservative' commentator,

           George Will, has theorised that the Pres-

           ident may enjoy re-election because of re-

           luctance to compromise what the electorate

           senses as its own racial achievement, in

           his election four years ago. How little

           that philosophy's claim to grasp human na-

           ture has ever been deserved. The resistance

           is that of a historical tide of struggle,

           much deeper than novelty, to be sundered 

           by a shallow phosphorescence in its way.

Now that we have Argentina

Now that Argentina has restored

herself to our google map, it's

possible to hope that we might 

move on from American politics,

and get about the serious bus-

iness of play at this page, in

lamentably short supply since

the medical distractions of late

winter. How splendid it is, of

Argentina to return on the heels

of Quixote and of Ishmael, yet

so Brucefully Patagonian at the

same time.

Now, can you stand it, there

are people who will say, there

is not the slightest excuse for

anything in this posting: not

one shred of contribution to

the vitality of the mind, much

less of any nobler organ of op-

inion. But there you are: we

who argue, for a fact-based im-

pression of the world, are well

advised to project one without

remorse, and let the Edict of

Aunts try to find us. So, allow

me to level with you, and drive

you completely nuts in the bar-

gain.

There is a satirist named Edward

St Aubyn, who is the likelier son

of the writer of Lucky Jim and

Girl, 20 than the massively bril-

liant Brooklynite who surely is.

Mr St Aubyn is dangerously funny,

in almost the only way funny ever

can be, whose latest venture caps

a quintet of novels chronicling a

gloriously extended Tory boyhood,

At Last to the death of his parent

of great financial hope.

If, in short, we are to lay aside 

the cudgels of political fratricide

in favour of delight, St Aubyn's

substitution of failed infanticide,

suicide, and gladder sides of beef

can not have come into print for a

higher purpose, or reached America

at a timelier moment. I realise, 

too, there are Argentines who've

not laughed since the last Waugh,  

and I celebrate their elating re-

turn with a probitive turn of our

laughter's priceless estate. 

Edward St Aubyn

The Patrick Melrose Novels

  Never Mind, Bad News,

  Some Hope, Mother's Milk

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

  Picador Press, 2012©

At Last

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011©

Loomings ii

I offer this posting with regard

for a direct inquiry I received.

Most of us who blog, I'd wager, 

have our private correspondents,

who trade ideas and feelings out-

side of the repartée of the pub-

lic page. And I interpret the

character of the private corres-

pondent also to include the lit-

erary resource and the diaries

which interact with us in per-

mission and resiliency, uninter-

rupted by postal vicissitudes -

dynamic waveforms of memory, by

content less infused than style,

crystalline, sensuous, resurfac-

ing resources of our passage. 

Have you ever been asked, what

need there is for a masterpiece? 

Of course, one is always delighted

to find another person who under-

stands, say, that the right against

self-incrimination is the absolute

core of human rights; but one can

get along pretty well, simply to

allow it to shape one's judgment 

of pretty new suggestions, such as

enhanced interrogation.

Those who know their Peter Grimes

will know what I mean, when they

call to mind Britten's sea inter-

ludes, which I warmly believe un-

derstand Melville as well as Crabbe,

the naïve as well as the mad, and

speak to us undyingly of their

quest for reconciliation. The sea

interludes are suspiciously akin

to acoustic production design, 

but work as internal soliloquy.

Politics in America cast us back 

on that sea, to which we are not 

called by any inner voice or na-

tural, Parliamentary timing, but 

by a Constitutional calendar com-

manding us to stamp government's 

ticket of legitimacy. The artifi-

ciality of the occasion undoubt-

edly lends that quality to its

enactment - inducing, it seems

very likely to me - a chronic

and distracting resort to reli-

gion, where the ingredients for 

a spirited secular dispute were

not mature enough in their clar-

ity to generate the savagery of

partisan vituperation. This is 

the natural space of the naïve 

as well as the mad. 

Now we are at it, again - as

the chorus has it in Britten,

Grimes is at his business -

and tomorrow night, the two

principal parties will put

forth their arguments to hold

the Executive sinecure in our

government - the submerged, 

regulation-writing, fate-dic-

tating borough of that showy

surface of name-calling tirade

which passes for an election in

this country. As in most such

diversions in the past, we are

to be fed a religious quarrel -

who detests Marxism more, who

apologises for slavery less -

to drive us toward a monument-

al financial consequence, of

often mortal dimensions.

Who knew, Ishmael? This year, the

great whale looms frenetically, as

the question of white, male rule,

by a thousand harpoons maddened in

its grazings out of sight, the on-

ly explanation for the morbidity,

hysteria, and birther refusal to

navigate the current with us all.

At the same time, the threadbare

Manichaean Heresy of revanchist

reasoning in our politics has

gained personification in a cham-

pion of absolute greed, a vocal

idolator of the Great Bear and 

Pleiades of money - only money,

mated by a minstrel of Palin-

esque depth and conscience. It's

almost an afterthought, to dismiss

everyone else as ugly, but with 

sublime, unwitting modesty. He is

right, of course. 

We're not his job to worry about.

    Well, then, however the old sea-

    captains may order me about - 

    however they may thump and punch

    me about, I have the satisfaction

    of knowing that it is all right;

    that everybody else is one way or

    other served in much the same way

    - either in a physical or metaphy-

    sical point of view, that is; and

    so the universal thump is passed

    round, and all hands should rub

    each other's shoulder-blades, and

    be content..

    And, doubtless, my going on this

    whaling voyage, formed part of the

    grand programme of Providence that

    was drawn up a long time ago. It

    came in as a sort of brief interlude

    and solo between more extensive per-

    formances. I take it that this part

    of the bill must have run something

    like this:

Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.

WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN.

    The pale usher - he loved to dust his

    old grammars, it somehow mildly remind-

    ed him of his mortality.

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick

  or The Whale

  i  Chapter I: Loomings

  ii Etymology

op. cit.