The title of the 1984 novel by Milan Kundera was actually The unbearable lightness of being, but I prefer my version, which I hope will be self-explanatory later. I’ve wanted to use such a title for one of my blogs for ages, and I’ve just found the excuse or hook, even if it’s a little contrived.
The story centres on two women, two men and a dog in the late 1960s and early 1970s, incorporating the1968 'Prague Spring' when Czechoslovakia was invaded by Russia … These guys just can’t break the habit! The central character is Tomáš, a womanizer who “considers sex and love to be distinct entities: he has sex with many women but loves only his wife, Tereza. He sees no contradiction between these two positions”, (per Wiki).
Despite what you might think, the book is tasteful and philosophically sophisticated, whereas I found the film of the same name to be gratuitous and uni-dimensional. One example: Tomáš came home to his wife one day, after dallying with another woman where he’d been careful to wash with his own soap. At first his wife was clueless, but then she started to sniff his hair, which smelled of another woman. He’d forgotten to wash his hair, the silly chump. In the book, the description of her sniffing his hair frantically like a wild animal is vivid, enthralling yet believable. The same scene in the film was, well, a woman sniffing a man’s hair. Boring!
Anyway, the main thrust of the book, per the title, is whether we should take life seriously (as heavy) or not (as light). If you want to delve deeper, read Nietzsche. Last time I checked he hadn’t been cancelled for his supposed fascist / racist views, but it won’t be long. He wasn’t either of those, but you know the woke – they read what they want into anything that suits if it furthers their aims and keeps them in the news.
Back to the message of the novel – a heavy life (sex = love) is a burden but worthwhile; a light life (sex doesn’t mean love) is easy but meaningless. What a conundrum.
You’ll be relieved to learn (well, Hubby was) that my hook for this blog was nothing to do with sex or love, but started with a clock. Yes. A clock. Mum inherited her parents’ Art Deco mantelpiece clock that had pride of place in my own parents’ various living rooms over the years. Mum left it to me in her will. We haven’t got probate yet but, rather than have the clock sit silently in the bungalow (it needs winding every two or three days), I brought it home with me last weekend, wound it carefully, and placed it on the sideboard in the dining area right outside my study.
Oh! The tick-tock of my youth! Visiting my grandparents’ comfortable, welcoming council house in West Cumbria. Yes, a council house. I’m a proper Red Waller, not just an interloper. It’s not a tick-tock as in tick and then tock: more like a ticktock, pause, ticktock, pause, like a slight limp. If I were to engage the chimes, then a mini Big Ben would intrude very 15 minutes. I do turn it on every so often for nostalgia, but it’s not a regular occurrence otherwise Hubby might go off on his own hunt for lightness of being, if you catch my drift.
The clock on its own on the sideboard looked a bit minimalist. It needed something else with it to make it look homely and meaningful. Something that said ‘Me’ rather than a pretentious photoshoot for Homes and Gardens. After several experiments with vases, photos and candles, I leant half-a-dozen of Dad’s hand-written anthologies of his favourite poems from 1945 to the early 1950s against the side of the clock. Houseman, Brooke, Kipling, Chesterton, Emerson. What beauties!
And voilà! A memento of Mum and my Nana and Granda, and of Dad, right outside my study and within easy view of the kitchen: two rooms where I spend most of my time. In a few short hours, that corner of my home went from nice but nothing special (light) to profound and poignant (heavy). But rather than being a burden, it’s comforting, spirit-lifting, joyful. It says so much without saying anything, other than ticktock (pause), ticktock (pause).
It's given me an incredible lightness of being that I haven’t had for quite a while.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I have a Neil Armstrong on the moon clock a Bill Murray Groundhog Day clock, a gothic Satanic clock, a cow jumping over the moon clock (except somewhere down the years I lost the cow, and a BB8 (ask Tom) alarm clock. You should complete your collection with Grampys assorted Cuckoo and Grandfather clocks, (if only to see the solicitors face when Hubby sites Cuckoo's , gGrandfather's and Tick Tocks as a cause for divorce.
ReplyDeleteAnd on the woke front, can't have a blog without a bit of woke bashing, how come it's OK to air "Play that funky music White Boy" (colour and sexist) over the airwaves but bleep out the obvious "offending" word in Elis Costellos "one less white nigger" lyric, not even predictive text recognises that. Oh and for those on spelling watch I blame predictive text and fat fingers. Oooops! am I allowed to say "fat"?