Global Travelling Epidemic

When I initially started this blog, my vision was that I would transcribe my ‘larger-than-life’ escapades whilst travelling around the globe, (a guess a little like something out of the Disney film Anastasia) and I had come to envision it as being  a more articulately expressed For Dummies guide. Awkwardly enough, I have found myself in the position in which I acquire such a guide, rather than in the position in which I am able to impart the esteemed knowledge of voyage. In short, my inadequate ability of self-expression and lack of knowledge has curtailed this very vision of mine. Instead I’ve decided that what I would actually like to discuss in this blog post is probably one of the most imperative experience I have gained whilst on my two week excursion, travelling through Northern Italy and Greece (besides learning how to deal with the inevitable tension that accumulates when travelling alongside 3 other girls)- that is grasping how to value the finite time that we have. Before I sound too pretentious, or lest any misunderstanding arise in that I am suggesting that I’ve mastered the art of time, what I’m trying to say, is that between all the hustling and bustling of trying to cram in as many (free) tourist attraction sites, when we actually took the time to just sit down and stare at the clouds I was reminded of the beauty of absence and how easily we forget the gratification of doing absolutely nothing (and yes, doing ‘nothing’ is stereotypically associated with immobilised elderly people, but I think this  almost nonbeing takes course in two period of our life- our youth and our old age- the difference is that in youth, you have more of a say as to exactly where you would like your nothingness to take place, whereas in old age it sort of just dawns upon one without consent.) Now don’t get me wrong I have thoroughly enjoyed the last week in Italy- it has been action-packed, filled with more drama, and more natural and man made beauty than my eyes have been exposed to this whole year. I do think however that sometimes we attempt to see so much of the world that we forget the integral satisfaction in just lying back allowing time to pass by and in observing the moments that are shared between others.

Sitting outside the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, I began to ponder why do people have such an unquenchable desire to travel? As with everything in life, there is the ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ approach in striving to reach an answer to this question. Admittedly, my initial perception was one more in line with the pessimistic stance, with the main reasoning being that it is the inherent flaw in mankind’s acquisitiveness that propels us as a species to aspire to see and experience everything ourselves. I’ve seen so many churches over the last week in Italy, all of which I am sure are subtle in tone and diverse in their own individual ways, but in a mass communal sense, they are- for me- very much more of the same, (here I refer predominately to Catholic churches) –ornate and ostentatious embellishments, with the €2 donation to light a candle dotted around the perimeter of the church. Yet almost every-time we passed a church I wanted to look inside, as if in not doing so I could be potentially depriving myself of some crucial experience. Perhaps it is simply for the very fact that I can say I saw them all.

Moving onto the optimistic response to the question, I guess this line of thought has its foundation in the Greco-Roman concept of theoria; travelling for the sake of knowledge. Studying this concept last semester in the context of the Odyssey, it is tangible to see how Telemachus’ adventures as a means to ‘secure’ his own ‘identity’ is heavily dependent on his own experiences and wisdom (having an absent father figure, who traditionally would be the source of a young man's moral and literary instruction), but how far does this concept relate to modern day expeditions? According to Slatkin, quite a bit: “however much the poem valorizes home, it is travel and the proto-ethnographic cultural comparison travel invites that allows the son…to re-think…the space of home.”[1]

I cannot take credit for putting forward this point of view, for when I opened up the question to my friend, she provided me with the alternative insight of travelling being in fact a humbling experience, in that one allows oneself to be immersed and overwhelmed by the talent and skill of others or of nature, which only naturally pertains to one wanting to see more and to recapture the feeling of awe and incredulity.  I would like to believe that more often than not, people do indeed travel for the intrinsic value of travel itself rather than by virtue of a checklist which they simply aim to complete, but the remaining problem for me, is who obtains the authority to decide what monuments and  markers are valuable enough to be a ‘must-see’? Evidently, certain statues, paintings and piazze have repeatedly been visited over the years and with good reason, but when my memory unavoidably denigrates, the reminiscences I will retain won’t be the specific artist who built La Torre di Pisa in the piazza dei miracoli or the type of material used to build il duomo in Firenze, it will be about the moments I experienced with the people I was with.  This was my second time visiting Florence, only a year later (I visited last February on a school trip and only for a day-trip, so a very different experience) yet to my surprise, I didn’t re-fall in love with the architecture and I was no longer astounded by it as I imagine I had been a year prior. In fact in a strange way I felt accustomed to the city already; un locale of some sort. What I did fall in love with was the experience of being with my 2 of my amazing friends, in what I suppose is meant to be the best years of our lives. Just knowing that I would never be able to get this moment right here and now back ever again, and having no regrets or desire to spend it with anyone else was what really, for me, made my experience singular and memorable.

Ironically, I’d like to end this blog post with probably the one piece of art that has stood out to me the most during my week in Italy, which in relation to the other famous art works is probably remote and insignificant, but nonetheless has moved me more profoundly than any of these imposing structures.

(Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice/ Venezia)

De Chirico developed what he himself described as Metaphysical Painting, in which he disrupted our normal sense of scale, space and the relationships between things to create a sense of dream. Here the plaster bust with its eyes covered (like Homer, the poet is blind), the mannequin, the fish mould and the obelisk are compressed into a narrow vertical format that creates a claustrophobic and enigmatic space. The forms, though rendered as solid and static, bear no apparent relation to each other. Such a combination of elusive meaning and displaced objects was to fascinate the Surrealists a decade later. 

(Italiano)
De Chirico sviluppa quella che lui stesso definisce Pittura metafisica, che sconvolge le nostre normali percezioni di dimensione, spazio e relazione tra le cose per creare un'impressione di sogno. Qui il busto di gesso con gli occhi coperti (come Omero, il poeta è cieco, il manichino, la forma del pesce e l'obelisco sono compressi in un angusto formato verticale, che crea uno spazio claustrofobico ed enigmatico. Le forme, sebbene presentate come solide e stazioni di significati inafferrabili e oggetti dislocati affascineranno i surrealisti un decennio più tardi.  

Perhaps the answer to my question lies in the Socratic paradox ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat- I know one thing; that I know nothing, for there seems to be something rather humbling and unassuming in Socrates' line of thought here, that he's only so wise as the next person in knowing (and accepting) that he knows nothing.

[1]Slatkin, Laura. A Companion to Ancient Epic. Ed. John Foley. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2005.

The End of the Affair and Brideshead Revisited: Propaganda for Catholicism

This blog post today will be my first attempt at some sort of assimilated book review/ book comparison. As mentioned previously in my last blog post, I have most recently been reading The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, and after what I calculate to be a month of protracted reading, I have finally completed the 160 page long novel. To give a brief outline, the novella is set in London during the Second World War and follows the relationships between three central characters: Maurice Bendrix (a writer); Sarah Milles (Maurice’s lover) and Henry Milles (Sarah’s husband) Fundamentally the novel examines the themes of, jealously, envy, self-delusion and obsessions that develop within these relationships. Whilst Bendrix and Sarah fall quickly in love, their relationship is left unspoiled for only a short period of time, for very soon into their relationship it begins to dawn upon Bendrix that their affair will end just as quickly as it began (predominately due to his unconcealed jealously). Hence, one evening during a liaison, a bomb blasts Bendrix’s flat and he is nearly killed. It is at this point that Sarah breaks off their affair, with what at first seems to be for no apparent reason, and it is only two years later (this is the point where our story commences) that Bendrix discovers the reason for Sarah’s desertion, through an abrupt and troubled encounter with Henry, transgressing the Common which partitions their flats.

Intrigued as I was by the novel, I decided to do some further background research, from which I found that the novel was predominately based on Greene’s own love affair with Lady Catherine Walston (wife of a farmer and agricultural author) As much as it is in some ways a personal story of Greene’s own love affair, it is also a collective story of an individual’s inner conflict between self-happiness and religion, which contributes further to the portentously victorious tones of Greene’s explicitly Catholic novels.  I believe I read once, in the introduction to Greene’s novel The Heart of the Matter, that his reason for writing that particular novel (and by extension, most probably his reason for writing this book too) was what he described to be the same reason for Evelyn Waugh writing Brideshead Revisited (another fantastic book I would highly recommend), namely boredom and war; It was from this point onwards that my eyes were opened to the painfully obvious connections between the two authors’ lives and works.

Both Evelyn Waugh and Greene converted to Catholicism within a relatively parallel timeframe. (Greene in the late 1920s and Waugh in the early 1930s). Up until that point Waugh had led an irreligious life, as he expounds however, the realisation that life was “unintelligible and unendurable without God” was the catalyst for his conversion.  Greene’s own conversion was bought about by his correspondence with his future wife Vivien Dayrell-Browning, during which time he was in fact agonistic, and perhaps would have remained so, if he had not considered seriously pursuing their relationship and eventually wedding. The resemblances are not however limited simply to their religious conversions- more profoundly the similarities resonant within their works. The central theme of God and religion 'triumphing all' undeniably pervades throughout the entirety of both these texts, and indeed I am in no way up to the challenge of endeavouring to clarify the significance of this or to recount the various scholarly arguments and interpretations put forward for the success of these novels as propaganda for Catholicism (many of which essentially question how effective the novels are as propaganda for Catholicism, if ultimately characters are in some form or another enforced (either by duty or guilt) to endure misery and sacrifice self-happiness- an argument to note for these novels being propaganda in favour of Catholicism is the idea that they promote the theory of asceticism- severe self discipline and avoiding of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons. ) I have no doubts or delusions that the idea I would actually like to focus upon in this blog post has been deliberated and re-studied several times and with much more fluidity, yet it is a concept which has imprinted upon my conscious and is arguably one of those timeless ‘human’ themes that will be pertinent, no matter when or in which context you may read either of these novels- that is, the theme of beauty. I find it to be no strange coincidence that both the female protagonists in the novels are illustrated as being extremely beautiful and for this very reason both express their discontent with the gratification their beauty may bring for others, yet yielding no benefits for themselves. Sarah’s diary entry (TEOTA) in which she expresses her desire to be ‘ugly’ like Richard introduces the intriguing discussion between asceticism and beauty, advocating here that bearing pain (in the form of unattractiveness) keeps one closer to god: “I couldn’t tell him I envied him, carrying the mark of pain around with him like that, seeing You in the glass every day instead of this dull human thing we call beauty” (pg98) Now I struggled a bit with this statement, not so much for the fact that it implies that one should be grateful to God for providing you with pain to endure (for it is debatably reasonable in helping one grow as a person and detach oneself from materialistic conceptions of beauty etc) but rather it causes, at least in my understanding, a contradiction of mankind being said to have been created "in the image of God"(Genesis 1:27), as how can Richard's physical deformity be seen as a mirror to God's eternal beauty and power? Possibly (and most probably) the exact same sentiment is not being expressed, nevertheless I couldn’t help but recall Julia’s own disillusionment with her beauty in Brideshead Revisted (BHR) as our narrator Charles betrays that “Time had wrought another change, too; not for her the sly, complacent smile of La Gioconda; the years had been more than “the sound of lyres and flutes,” and had saddened her. She seemed to say, ‘Look at me. I have done my share. I am beautiful. It is something quite out of the ordinary this beauty of mine. I am made for delight. But what do I get out of it? Where is my reward?”. Is this simply a typical case of desiring what one cannot have? Perhaps, but I think it is a little deeper than this.

Beauty has always been an awkward, intangible and quite frankly nonsensical concept to talk about. It’s an ever-changing phenomena; a trend created and sustained by human action, which in itself is not worth very much. It’s ironic when you think about it, because these supposedly 2 dimensional characters (which for me are in some aspects indeed 2 dimensional, but certainly in a lot more ways substantial) so happen to be born in the period of time when their physical appearance is deemed socially to be beautiful- how different it would be perhaps if their cast was explored in the modern context of beauty. Recently a good friend of mine sent me a YouTube video, entitled Woman’s Ideal Body Types Throughout History (Click here if you want to watch). Although it is in every respect a generic and in a way ‘basic’ video  (it misses out various era’s of beauty for reasons unknown- BUT in particular the Roman era, which I take to be a personal jab) nonetheless, it does a solid job in demonstrating the alternating nature of the perception of beauty in society.  

Anyway, as not to discourse too far from the main subject matter, I thought I could include in here, some other parallels that I have drawn between The End of the Affair and other various novels that have stuck with me. In particular, I found it fascinating how the relationship between Bendrix and Henry developed. The element of gaining comfort from the ‘enemy’/ the very person who has cheated on you with your wife, seems to echo the episode between Tom Buchanan and George Wilson in The Great Gatsby, whereby George, in utter despair turns to Tom for consolation. Or perhaps a more suitable comparison to be made here is with the book Revolutionary Road, where by the protagonist Frank is comforted by his neighbour Shep Campbe (who, as it is revealed beforehand, has previously had an affair with his wife, April) I’ve never actually gotten around to reading the book, but the film is portrayed by the power couple Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet, so if you’re a film maniac, or just love Leo then definitely give it a watch. The book/film is centred on the concept of the failed American dream, and unlike The Great Gatsby is not the failed dream of an individual, but one gains the sense of the failed dream of an entire generation, in a much more focussed and family orientated canvas. What's more, I’ve always been a fan of literature that appeals to ideas and works bigger than itself, or can have connections drawn to other art forms; it feels like the author makes a conscious effort to associate with another human being, and project their own interpretation and understanding of that particular text: “He repeated: ‘I will take everything off your hands’, repeated it in a tone of admonition as though he were addressing Lady Macbeth, and promising her some better process of sweetening her hands than the perfumes of Arabia.”(TEOTA) 

Back to the topic of the relationship between Bendrix and Henry, I can not help but ponder upon how realistic is it that Bendrix and Henry move in together after Sarah’s death; the lover and husband? It is perceivable that they only have each other to preserve Sarah’s memory and can only express to one another the love they felt for Sarah- “There are times when a lover longs to also be a father and a brother: he is jealous of the years he hasn’t shared.” But does this work vice versa? So true it is indeed that the lover is always jealous. There are times when I have longed to be a friend rather than a lover to my beloved one, simply because there is a different dynamic of closeness I will never get to experience and the time past that I shall never be a part of.

As I end this blog post, I think it is only appropriate that I too discuss the ending of these novels. The overriding message appears to be that religion triumphs all- just as both the female characters are made to feel guilt-ridden and even culpable for the pleasure their beauty inspires, so too are the male protagonists of the novels left disenchanted with their reality and particularly their religious beliefs. Greene’s novel however appears to have a more pessimistic tone, ending with Bendrix’s desperation not to believe in “You” but at the same time praying to God to “leave [him] alone for ever”. On perhaps a more optimistic ending in Brideshead Revisted, Charles too appears to be converted- he understands that the beauty of the Brideshead estate (as with all other materialistic and physical objects in life) is ultimately transient: “quomodo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

Just because I couldn’t manage to fit these in anywhere else in this blog post coherently, here are some of my favourite quotes from The End of the Affair:

-       “eternity is said not to be an extension of time, but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to me that her abandonment touched that strange mathematical point of endlessness.”

-       “but a delayed victory can strain the nerves as much as a prolonged defeat.”

TEOTA- The End of The Affair (2004 edition)

BHR- Brideshead Revisited (online text, available here)- please note however that there are textual discrepancies between this version and the actual hard copy.