Who Never Ate His Bread in Tears

               

                                Harfenspieler

Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß,

Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte

Auf seinem Bette weinend saß,

Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte!

Ihr führt in's Leben uns hinein,

Ihr laßt den Armen schuldig werden,

Dann überlaßt ihr ihn der Pein:

Denn alle Schuld rächt sich auf Erden.

                                          --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

                                            from his novel, Wilhelm Meister

The Harpist

Who never ate his bread in tears,

Who never lay awake for hours

Plagued by doubts and fears,

Knows you not, you heavenly powers!

Into life you lead every being,

You let poor man hurt foe and friend,

Then turn him over to suffering:

For on earth all wrongs are avenged.

                               --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

                               translated by Thomas Dorset

Last night I had difficulty sleeping--I woke up at 2 A.M.  Usually when I can't sleep and feel as wide awake as I did last night, I get up and read the newspaper online.  But I usually wake up at 4 A.M, not 2.  I decided not to get up, so I could be more energetic the next day, hoping that I would somehow doze off.  Then that poem of Goethe's came into my head.  I knew the German well, and to pass the time, I began to translate it into English.  By morning, the translation was finished.  I did get some sleep, I think, but I felt that I worked on the translation through the night.  Is it possible to translate while dreaming?  If it is, this is my first dream-translation of a major poem.

It is such a major poem that I decided to spend some time, while awake the next day, writing about it.


1.

I first became acquainted with this poem in 1964, during a course in German literature taught by someone I very much admired, Israel Solomon Stamm.  He was well-read, religious in a very philosophic way; he also had a good aesthetic sense, and  a good sense of humor to boot.  He spoke exclusively in English; his aim was to give his students a solid introduction to the humanities  He succeeded.  A very talkative man, he also listened.  (When a rather dour student asked him how he managed to be so happy and so confident, he replied without missing a beat, "Because I know I'm just as crazy as my neighbor!"  The dour student smiled.)

This was one of Professor Stamm's favorite poems by Goethe.  He especially admired the first stanza; he felt that the second stanza had much less of an impact. This is certainly a major poem; Goethe is saying a lot with an extreme degree of compactness and efficiency.
The first stanza asserts that if you don't know sorrow, you don't know life.  Goethe was not a traditionally religious man--Note that he uses the term, "heavenly powers" instead of the more usual "God."  It all sounds almost as impersonal as the laws of physics--Einstein's "God."  They  represent the mysterious source of everything.

Once you know sorrow, the subject of the first stanza, you are more likely to have access to how nature, specifically human nature, works; this is the subject of the second stanza. In this stanza, the powers seem to be very impersonal.  Without our consent we are born; whether we like it or not, we die; in between we fall far from what we could be .  The literal meaning of the German of the second line in stanza two, is "You let the poor human being become guilty."  The implication, the antithesis of the dogma of original sin, is that one is born innocent.  Once one is out of the womb, the environment and one's reaction to it inevitably lead to trouble.  The powers then consign one to suffering--Goethe sees this as  a passive process, the result of inexorable psychic laws.  The last line is very  subtle--A close translation is, "All misdeeds (debts)  are avenged on Earth."  Like a hurricane, wrongdoings must work themselves out before the tempest is over. The reflexive, that is, the passive form of the verb, is used; the process is inexorable and impersonal.  It is the most lovely definition of what Buddhists call karma that I know of.

I think this is one of the most beautiful and profound poems ever written.  Let's return to the first stanza now, and examine it under the aegis of evolutionary biology..


2.

What is the possible evolutionary advantage of knowing those heavenly powers through sorrow? .

"Knowing those heavenly powers" is another way of saying that one has attained  a profound understanding of life.Goethe's wise poem informs us that periodic sorrow is necessary if one is to achieve wisdom.  If a deeper assessment of human nature and of  the world offers a Darwinian advantage for survival, there must be a genetic reason for both pathological depression and what might be called adaptive or healthy  depression.  It all depends on the degree of expression of the genes in question--and of course enabling factors from the environment also play a crucial role..   Let me give an analogy.

Sickle cell disease is a serious disease.  Good modern treatment has lengthened the life-span and has eased the pain of those afflicted with this disease; prior to modern treatment, however, they died young and suffered much pain.  The gene that causes the disease is a one-point mutation, that is,one of the four bases that compose DNA codes has, by chance, been altered here at a single point--in this case from adenine to thymine.  Sickle cell disease is a disease of the red blood cells; each of the countless hemoglobin molecules in each red blood cell has two long chains, an alpha and a beta chain.  On position 6 of the beta chain one amino acid is replaced by another due to the point-mutation.  This causes the red cells to be defective and results in serious symptoms only if the sickle cell gene is inherited from both parents.  If the gene is inherited from only one parent, one has sickle cell trait which confers a distinct advantage for survival.  The mutation occurred in Africa where malaria has been and is still endemic.  If a person with the sickle cell trait is infected with malaria, the infected blood cell sickles and bursts, preventing the onset of the disease.  The vast majority of people with the sickle cell gene have only one copy of the gene, which is called the heterozygous state.  Indifferent nature, which works through chance, "caused" the mutation; Darwinian adaptation, which does not work through chance, actively preserved the gene, since it gives those who have it a better chance of survival.  It is, of course, not a compassionate process.  As long as the gene is of benefit to the majority it is preserved, even though it causes a life of misery to those unlucky ones who have two copies, or are homozygous, for this gene.

I think the same process might be at work with depression.  Depression is not thought to be inherited as a simple point mutation as is sickle cell disease; it is multi-factorial, involving several genes.  They probably all affect mood due to their effect on neurotransmitters, specifically serotonin.  Those with more receptors that bind serotonin tend to be more depressed.

Just like with sickle cell anemia, I think it very possible that those whose genetic makeup favors a more severe depletion of serotonin might be like those who have sickle cell disease, while those with mild impairment might be more like those with sickle cell trait.  In other words, the "mild impairment" might actually be adaptive, giving the affected individual a better chance of survival. Goethe's great poem is consistent with this interpretation.

There are scientific indications for this assertion.  Nature tends to preserve the health of those in their reproductive years, since the production of offspring is of primary evolutionary importance.  This process is much less concerned with degenerative diseases associated with old age; as long as they are not manifest during one's child-bearing years, the genes causing them can be passed on without affecting the survival of the species.  Depression is different.  It has a special predilection for the young.  It is also not to be assigned to disorders caused by modern living; the most primitive societies in the world contain individuals of all ages who are depressed. Depression is also not rare; about 30% of persons will have an episode of major depression some time in their lives.  This indicates that depression might convey an evolutionary advantage, thus assuring that the genes that tend to cause it are preserved.

What might those advantages be?  We've already mentioned a profounder understating of life, leading to better ways to adapt to it.  Sorrow enables us to see life as a path full of  problems to be solved.  Beneficial, adaptive sorrow causes us to ruminate and to analyze .  It encourages periodic periods of relative social isolation, enabling one to devote  time exclusively to problem-solving.   I do not think it possible to devote the enormous effort needed to create or discover the highest achievements of art and science without being dissatisfied with things they way they are.  Don't think Beethoven, Goethe or Newton worked only on weekends.  They were obsessed, they were dissatisfied.

The example of a Hindu sage is also informative.  Ramana Maharshi experienced enlightenment at an early age.  From then on, he informed his followers, he experienced the bliss of being--and never wavered from it until he died at the age of 70 in 1950.  He also stated that once the state of permanent bliss is achieved, all striving ceases.  He showed compassion to all, but life was no longer a problem for him.  His brain must have been overflowing with serotonin.  After his enlightenment, he went to a sacred hill and never left it until his death more than a half a century later.  Ramana Maharshi was a genuine sage; the point here, however,  is that great sages do not discover things like the theory of relativity or create things like the Ninth Symphony.  In addition, he remained celibate for life, hardly the goal of Darwinian adaption.  (This does not reduce in any way his spiritual achievement.)

Note that  the poem states, "Who never ate his bread in tears...knows you not, you heavenly powers: the poem does not assert,"Who always eats his bread in tears..."  We are talking about a sickle cell trait-like beneficial process here!   Pathological depression, if prolonged, is decidedly maladaptive; it shortens the life span and incapacitates those afflicted with it, sometimes even leading to suicide.  Although it is much less severe,  I am not making light of what I call adaptive depression; even sorrow that is only periodic is sometimes very difficult to bear. What almost destroys us can make us stronger, wrote Nietzsche--and the stronger, as Darwin proved, are more likely to survive.  Getting almost destroyed, of course, isn't enjoyable; the result, however, can be sublime.  (Hamlet is a good illustration of this process.  The melancholy, very intelligent, overburdened Dane becomes a veritable sage at the end of the play.  The irony is that just when he is able to become an outstanding king, he is murdered by Laertes.)


3.

What is the alternative to wisdom gained through sorrow?    Ethel Merman sang it best: "Life is just a bowl of cherries/ Don't take it serious/it's too mysterious." Superficiality!

That has always struck me as one of the most idiotic lyrics ever written.  Goethe's poem is sublime, the once-popular lyric is extremely banal.  How does one know this?  How does one become wise? By having eaten one's bread in tears through difficult nights; there is no other way. Only then can one really appreciate life's exquisite cherries, despite the terrible pits.  Goethe, as his poem indicates, knew this well.

The Harpist, a thing of beauty, is indeed a joy forever; here, in addition, truth is beauty and beauty is truth-- the joy strengthens and deepens, sounding the depths of our innermost well. 

MY GRANDFATHER, UNDER THE CHICKEN TREE

1.

I had a bout of insomnia a few nights back, during which I was an intermittent visitor to the realms of Sleep, Awake, and In Between.  It was in the In Between state when the song came to me, whole and without any effort.  It was only later that I realized how odd this was.  I hadn't heard the song for over fifty years; in addition,  it's about as popular as the national anthem of Kazakhstan is in the United States.  Its obscurity assured me that I hadn't heard the slightest reference to it in all those years.  That I remembered not only the tune but the words was odder yet; I cannot remember my grandfather singing it, and if he didn't, no one else in my family could have.  I am certain that I never heard a recording of it, or heard the tune played on the radio; it was a vaudeville tune that predated World War I and was no more popular when I was a teen than the Kazakh anthem. I do, however,  remember listening to Grandfather recite the lyrics, after he had grown too old to sing and accompany himself on the guitar.  He must have sung it to us years before that--I have no recollection of it, but how else would I know the tune so well after half a century?

My brain was obviously trying to tell me something.  A few hours later, when I got up, it directed me to the piano.  My fingers proceeded to play the song I never played before while my voice sang the song I never sang before.  I felt I had nothing to do with it.

Tears came to my eyes for several reasons.  I recalled a song from a long time ago.  I wrote a song a short time ago.  Fifty years from now, all the coins in my memory bank will be selfless, disembodied atoms.  I felt nostalgic because I am coming to the end of the tunnel--(The other side just better not be New Jersey, where I started.)  I also shed a tear for my grandfather, whom I hadn't thought about for a long, long time.  (There are only about three or four people left on Earth, who, if hard pressed, might recall that he once existed.)  I also shed a tear of delight--the song is absolutely wacky in a Jabberwocky-sort of way.

Modest musicality is part of my inheritance.  Immoderate Jabberwockiness is, too.  I suddenly realized whom I got both traits from: that often stern yet quintessential English eccentric who was my grandfather.

I am writing this little piece to commemorate the three types of tear I shed at the piano: memories of my grandfather; nostalgia for the past and acceptance of a limited future, and, finally, delight in jabberwokiness.
(I am, most of all, dear reader, writing it for you.) A recording of my singing the song will be attached at the end of this essay--My conscience demands that I provide a warning at this point to those with talent; you might want to click yourself out of my amateur world while you still have the chance.

First a few words about my grandfather, Walter Hammond, 1889-1972.

2. My Eccentric and Musical Grandfather

My great-grandparents were James Hammond and Hannah--(I don't know what her maiden name was; I'm not even quite sure of her first name.)  They lived downstairs in an Upstairs Downstairs mansion in the vicinity of Stockport, near Manchester, England.  She was the head cook; he was the head butler.  There were many servants; they all worked to keep the upstairs royalty happy.  Then my great-grandparents disappeared!

Did James make Hannah pregnant?  I'm not sure.  I am sure, though, that they abruptly went off to America without telling anyone a word.  My family has a very long working-class tradition of sub-par communication skills.

They came to New York, where my great-grandfather peddled eggs on the lower East Side.  My great-grandmother continued to cook apparently wonderful meals, but our family lost this tradition almost entirely.  She was so vain--or so unsure of herself which is often  just about the same thing--that she refused to ever share a recipe.  The eccentricities begin to accumulate.

After a few years, they decided to return to England for a visit, again unannounced.  Everyone was astounded to see them--they showed them clippings from the paper about them. Was James Hammond Murdered? The police had searched and searched--they even drained a little lake--I'm not kidding!  Foul play was suspected--I don't think my great-grandparents were particularly likeable.  I imagine them, in true English fashion, not to have reacted much when they encountered all this fuss.  After a short stay, they disappeared again, never to return to their native land.  What can I say?

My grandparents--they were my maternal grandparent--never made it to high school.  I believe they quit school around the fifth grade.  My grandfather continued the downstairs tradition by starting a business; rich people from the upper East and West sides brought in their bibelots--mostly vases--which he fashioned into fancy lamps and such.  The shop was on 49th Street; he commuted every day from the house in Jersey City where we all--grandparents, father, mother, brother and I--lived.  He was very successful in between alcoholic binges.  He was the breadwinner for all of us.

My grandfather was the only--except for, eventually, me--member of our family that played a musical instrument..  He had taught himself how to play guitar and would sing to his own accompaniment.  Mind you, music was not an everyday part of our family life; I only can recall two or three occasions when he sang.  By the time I became a teen, his guitar had long since vanished; he could no longer play--eek! at just about the age I am now--due to  arthritis.  I remember listening to him sing and strum, when I was very young,  at a gathering of friends.  I don't remember what he played, but I do remember that he was fluent and had no problem fishing around for chords.

I can't understand why he never taught me to play.  I also don't understand why I never asked him. Oh, those communication skills!

Although I was only about five at the time of the above-mentioned gathering of friends, I recall a salient characteristic of his performance: he was confident, damn sure of himself.  (I am fairly free of performance anxiety myself, a trait, I do not doubt, I inherited from him.)

My grandfather thought he had a lot of talent.  If there was a stage anywhere, he would invariably and inevitably be on it. His hubris was a source of acute embarrassment for my mother.  If you read my blog entry, "Romney and the Triumph of the Egg," you already know what I mean. If you haven't, let me recount  an anecdote contained therein.  My mother was stopped by a friend while she was rushing out of an assembly of some sort.  "Stop, Mabel--don't leave now!  Don't you know that your father is on the stage, about to perform?"  My mother, without missing a beat, replied, "Yes, I know.  That's why I gotta leave now!"

After my grandfather grew very old, he decided to make his professional debut as a performer.  In those days, there was a popular variety show called the Merv Griffin Show.  (Griffin was known for saying, "I'll be back after this message," before breaking for a commercial.  For his tombstone he chose this epitaph: "I will NOT be back after this message!")  Although Grandfather could no longer sing or play the guitar, he was determined to get on the show.  What was his act going to be?  You'll never guess it: he planned on reciting, with tremendous sentiment and self-satisfaction,  zany lyrics of songs from the beginning of the 20th century, such as those to Under The Chicken Tree.  (My grand aunt, Clara, a relative of my grandmother, had given him her collection of sheet music which she collected from about 1890 to the end of the Great War.  I believe she played the piano--I still have the sheet music--hey! I guess there was another  musical person in the family after all. The music to Under the Chicken Tree was, by the way, part of her collection.)

He thought he was giving a brilliant performance  when he recited lyrics so dated that they had become, albeit unintentionally, hilarious.  I remember watching him practice one before the mirror:

                                    Tetrazini has a horse,
                                    A horse that can't be beat;
                                    And Mildred Schnecky is a hit
                                    Because of her big feet...

His performances, were, of course, pitiful.


Believe it or not, he actually got an audition for the Merv Griffin Show.  He bought a little carrying case, in which he stored his material and of which he was very proud.  Working-class people in those days never dreamed of ever owning a little carrying case.  Self-absorbed and happy as a toddler, he looked like he was getting ready to compete for cake at a Senior Center's Show and Tell.

He never told us the result of this interview, but we all knew what it was.  After that, he gave up his ambitions and began to age more rapidly, until the day he, too, like his parents, disappeared.

Was he musical?  Yes.  Eccentric?  You betcha.

Writing at the beginning of the fifth decade after his death, I readily admit my admiration for him, so different from me and yet so similar.  I learned a lot from him, such as not letting the possession of merely a modest amount of talent get in your way: if you like to do something, don't give it up.  (Even halfway up Mount Parnassus, one sometimes gets a spectacular view--It might not be from the pinnacle, but one will still have the feeling of being between heaven and earth, which is the realm of art ) Regarding music, I greatly admire professionals and attend concerts regularly; I am saddened, however, by the fact that most adults have left the performance of music entirely up to those who earn their living by it.  It is a source of amazement to hear a great performer play X in an A+ fashion; it is even more exhilarating to hear yourself play X, albeit in a C- way.  (I"m not completely sure you think that's true, dear reader; my grandfather, however,  would have no doubt here, and I agree with him.) Active involvement in music, I strongly believe, should play some role in nearly everyone's life--not too long ago, this was indeed the case.  Trying to return to this tradition,  I have founded a "Meetup,"  the Baltimore Musicophilia Society; during periodic meetings at my house, amateur musicians gather to listen to themselves and listen to each other.  It has been alas! only intermittently successful--you guessed it, I'm not giving up.


3, Under The Chicken Tree

Most standards are the musings of Judy Garland-like outpouring hearts; this non-standard is the cluckings of Murakami-like downpouring hens. Dating from the 1890s, it is very much in the vaudeville tradition, silliness of an almost English variety.   The subject is--Well, the time has come for you to find that out. (Don't expect much--it's over the top, not Over The Rainbow.)

4. The Performance

5. Conclusion

If you haven't found anything in the essay to amuse you, I apologize.  You are now free to return to your latest page-turner on inferential statistics.  If you enjoyed the blog--Congratulations!  Be proud of your Wocky within.  My advice to you, dear fellow Borogove: don't let vicissitudes bury your mimsy! Thanks in part to my grandfather,  I never shall, that's for sure.

THE BALTIMORE ONLINE BOOKCLUB'S REVIEW OF 'DISGRACE' BY J.M. COETZEE

                                                                                            J. M. Coetzee
                                                                                            Disgrace
                                                                                            Penguin
                                                                                            First Published: 1999
                                                                                            220 pages      

Not everyone who received a Noble Prize for Literature deserved it; many former winners are deservedly forgotten. Others--Philip Roth comes to mind--deserve what they'll (probably) never receive. J.M. Coetzee, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, did indeed deserve what he received; his novel, Disgrace, makes this abundantly clear.  

His polished, masterful prose tells the story of the disgrace of a compromised man who refuses to compromise.  Is it the portrait of Flannery-O'Connor-like redemption?  Yes, but not quite.  The fall of a man with a tragic flaw?  Yes, but not quite. Is it the story of a man who is out-of-joint with an out-of-joint world?  Perhaps.  Is it a tale of a professor who deeply cares about literature in a world in which nobody cares what he has to say? Perhaps.  This short novel is actually all these things--and much more.  It is clear; it is ambiguous--It is a masterpiece.

l.

The professor protagonist is named David Lurie, twice divorced and fifty-two years old.  He has withdrawn into an inner world of aestheticism; no one is aware of his inner depths, and, if they were, they would likely be indifferent. .  The university at which he has taught for many years  has been transformed by "the great rationalization."  The institution that employs him, formerly called Cape Town University College is now called Cape Technological University.  Formerly a professor of modern languages, Lurie was demoted to an adjunct professorship of communications, after the literature department had been  decimated.  He is allowed to teach one literature course, called "a special-field course" once a year.  Mostly he must  teach communication skills--He hates this so much that he makes little impression on the students; they have difficulty recalling his name.  Not that anyone in his yearly literature course admires him either; the only reflection the students seem to be passionate about is their own in the mirror.  He is like an aesthetic Saint Francis talking about the love of words and thought to a flock of birds, some of them quite good-looking birds, yet bird-brained nevertheless.  Even worse, he has no friends, merely acquaintances.

As if this tremendous isolation were not bad enough, there are several other bads that accompany it.  He has been at times a womanizer in his life; now at 52, he has to work harder at attracting women.  He is thus terrified about growing old.  This is what he has to say about aging:

Yet the old men whose company he seems to be on the point of joining, the tramps and drifters with their stained raincoats and cracked false teeth and hairy earholes--all of them were once upon a time children of God, with straight limbs and clear eyes,  Can they be blamed for clinging to the last to their place at the sweet banquet of the senses?
                                                                                                        (p. 24)

Aging gracefully this is not.  Lurie has never taken the effort to maintain a relationship with someone his age, during which the pains of growing old are compensated to a considerable degree by the joys of a long-lasting love.  Notice that in the above-quoted passage that Lurie is frightened of losing even more respect in old age; the lack of regard he now receives from others will only get worse.  He will not become a respected patriarch; he believes, with some justification, that he one day will be a friendless, pitiful tramp.

The only somewhat satisfying connection he has with anyone is through sex.  This eventually makes matters worse. The novel begins with him in the arms of a call girl whom he visits once a week.  He begins to fall for her.  When she unexpectedly leaves, he has a detective trace her whereabouts.  She is furious when he calls; even she, apparently, has a happy family and forbids him to call her again.  She had absolutely no emotional involvement with him.  After this, he has an affair with one of his students, the highly attractive but very bland Melanie Isaacs.  Coetzee is very careful to assure the reader that this is not an exploitative situation.  Melanie has a very casual attitude toward sex; she gives in to him in much the same way that one would imagine someone giving in to a persistent friend who  asks her to watch a movie she's not particularly interested in.  They have sex a few times.  One night she arrives distraught at his flat and asks if she could stay for a while.  She apparently has had a fight with her boyfriend.  Now Melanie has a need; she wants him to be a father figure and provide solace.  The narcissistic Lurie misses this cue completely and has sex with her again.  This time she feels used and humiliated.  She withdraws from school.  Her tough boyfriend confronts Lurie; Melanie's parents arrive.  The walls of the little corner he lives in fall, revealing an abyss.

He is accused of sexual harassment and is brought before the college board that handles such things.  Some are sympathetic; they advise him that he will probably be able to keep his job if he humbly apologizes, accepts some sort of punishment, and agrees to receive counseling.  Even the feminist member of the board, who is after his blood, gives an indication that she might show some clemency--if he is sufficiently humiliated.  Lurie has had enough; he refuses to cooperate, he the apolitical individualist refuses to submit and defend his own interests.  He would rather give up his sole source of income, rather than surrender his integrity. He is dismissed from the college in disgrace.

2.  The rest of the book is about how Lurie comes to accept his disgrace and transcend it.  Having no place to go, he moves in with his daughter, Lucy, who has a "smallholding," a little farm on the East Cape.  She runs a kennel and grows flowers and vegetables which she sells at the local market.  She calls Lurie by his first name--there isn't much of a father/daughter relationship left.  She has heard of "David's" troubles.  In a remarkable passage, he explains to her why he gave everything up rather than accept the censure of the college morality board.  He asks Lucy whether she recalls a dog that belonged to a neighbor when Lucy was a small child:

'It was a male.  Whenever there was a bitch in the vicinity it would get excited and unmanageable, and with Pavlovian regularity the owners would beat it.  This went on until the poor dog didn't know what to do.  At the  smell of a bitch it would chase around the garden with its ears flat and its tail between its legs, whining, trying to hide.'
He pauses.  "I don't see the point," says Lucy. And indeed what is the point?
"There was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired.  One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offence like chewing a slipper.  A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing.  But desire is another story.  No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.'
"So males must be allowed to follow their instinct unchecked.  Is that the moral?'
"No, this is not the moral.  What was ignoble about the Kenilworth spectacle was that the poor dog had begun to hate its own nature.  It no longer needed to be beaten.  It was ready to punish itself.  At that point it would have been better to shoot it.
'Or to have it fixed.'
'Perhaps.  But at the deepest level I think it might have preferred being shot.  It might have preferred that to the options it was offered: on the one hand, to deny its nature, on the other, to spend the rest of its days padding about the living-room, sighing and sniffing the cat and getting portly.'
"Have you always felt that way, David?
'No, not always.  Sometimes I have felt just the opposite.  That desire is a burden we could well do without.'
'I must say," says Lucy, "That is a view I incline toward myself.'

                                                                                                  page 90

Lucy has obviously inherited her father's intelligence; she's even more of an enigma.  The child, to paraphrase Wordsworth, becomes the mother of the man--by the end of the book, Lurie accepts his daughter's view that "desire is a burden we could well do without."  What compensates for the loss of this (glorious?) burden is that Lurie begins to care for others. The learning of empathy is perhaps the most difficult task for a narcissist; Lurie, under duress, does indeed make spiritual progress.   He has given up any desire to mold Lucy according to his wishes.  He accepts her.  It is not easy; Lucy has grown portly, a trait her father detests.   She had been living as a couple with a woman who has left, apparently never to return. This, if one reads between the lines, has traumatized her.  Lucy is also broken like her father; she has given up on any desire for happiness in the conventional sense.  All she wants is to be left alone in the country with her dogs, of which she is very fond.  (An essay could be written about the canine symbolism in this book.  Are they the objects of compassion--even love--on the part of those who have been reduced by society to being dogs themselves? Are they emblems of good beings ignored and abused by corrupt ones?  What else?)

Poor Lurie has little to do with his time; he decides to work at a local ramshackle veterinary clinic where he is the assistant to a woman named Bev Shaw.  He finds her at first physically repulsive--a dumpy, poorly dressed woman with "no neck"--the very opposite of Melanie Isaacs.  He soon learns that she, unlike Melanie, is not bland on the inside; we learn by the way she treats animals that she is quite compassionate. She is also sex-starved and lonely.  He eventually has sex with her too, but with a major difference: for perhaps the first time he has sex with a woman not to please himself, but to please her.  Things are changing.

It is now Lucy's turn to be disgraced. She is brutally raped by three men, who had locked up Lurie in the bathroom before attacking his daughter.  After they're done, they return to Lurie to get the keys to the car so they can steal it.  After this, they set him on fire.  He escapes with minor injuries, but his hair is gone--the ironic reference to Samson is obvious.  This is the low point of his daughter's--and also of her now loving father's--lives.  On this tragedy he poignantly reflects that he can speak French and Italian, but had not been able to protect what is most important to him, the welfare of his daughter.

Lucy has decided to stay on the farm, no matter what--she apparently has given everything else up and has no other hopes for the future than to be left alone with her dogs.  Since the end of apartheid, however, it has become much more dangerous to live on an isolated farm--especially for whites, not to mention for a single white woman.  She needs protection.  She has hired someone, a black man named Petrus, whose ambition it is to take over everything.  She knows this, and assents to it, provided that she be allowed to live in her house and maintain the kennels.  Petrus, almost always on the farm, has mysteriously disappeared during the
rape.  The implication is that Petrus was behind the attack; he wanted to humiliate her and make her realize that she cannot survive without his protection.   She is shocked by the hate of her assailants.  (The long era of apartheid was not particularly good for race relations!)  Petrus's involvement is made more likely by the fact that one of the men turns out to be a relative and begins to live on the property.  Lurie is furious and wants to call the police.  She forbids this; she knows that she would not be able to stay on the farm if Petrus's relative is charged with rape.  Even worse: she soon finds out she has been impregnated by one of the three men, which one she doesn't know.  The deal she eventually works out is this: she will marry Petrus, provided that he allows her to live in the house alone  and continue the services she supplies for the dogs.  He will own the entire property. The farm has become her only refuge; she will do almost anything--except becoming Petrus's mistress--to remain there.  Most people would  view her as being at least as stubborn as her father, equally unable to look out for her own interests.

Lurie is determined to take his daughter out of danger; he moves back to his flat in the city in  the hope that  he and his daughter will live there as they did when she was a child.  Neighbors shun him.  The university has replaced him and forgotten about him.  It's not going to work.  He decides to move back and rent a flat near his daughter.

On the way back he stops at the house of Melanie's parents.  He abjectly apologizes--he gets down on this hands and knees and bows down.  Yes, a rather extreme way to say you're sorry,  but Lurie, as is his daughter, is given to extremes and has probably never really apologized before.  A comical element is that Melanie's father is convinced that he's doing this to obtain their help to get him reinstated at the college.  He can't imagine that Lurie is just apologizing and has no ulterior motives.

The ending of the novel is particularly beautiful.  He is back volunteering at the animal clinic, helping Bev euthanize unwanted animals.  This is hard on her; she loves animals.  She reasons that if they must die, they should at least  die at the hands of someone who treats them with compassion.  Lurie, who has learned this compassion through her, has befriended a crippled dog, one who must drag his hindquarters behind him as  he walks.  They develop an inordinate affection for each other.  One day, the dogs that were to be euthanized that day are all already dead.  Lurie's dog is the only one left.  This is how the novel ends:

He crosses the surgery.  "Was that the last?" asks Bev Shao.
"One more."
He opens the cage door.  'Come,' he says, bends, opens his arms.  The dog wags its crippled rear, sniffs his face, licks his cheeks, his lips, his ears.  He does nothing to stop it. 'Come.'
Bearing him in his arms like a lamb, he re-enters the surgery. "I thought you would save him for another week,' says Bev Shaw. 'Are you giving him up?'
"Yes, I am giving him up.'

4.
This great novel is a story of redemption after all, but not of a Christian sort--Lurie is a lapsed Christian.  He is a Buddhist even if he is unaware of it. He obtains something very similar if not identical to Nirvana at the end, the peace that comes with the extinction of desire.  He doesn't even have the desire to spare the dog he loves for a week; the dog is doomed and he will not prolong its misery just because he is fond of it.  His needs are no longer paramount.I don't think he will now become anything like the drifter in the first quote or like the miserable dog in the second.  I think he will go on to be a good grandfather--certainly better than he has been as a father!

Lurie is now a master of the four cardinal virtues of Buddhism called the Brahma Vihara:

1. Karuna--compassion--something new for him.  He has completely triumphed over his narcissism.  A touching example of his compassion and new humility is that he now takes the dead dogs in bags to the incinerator.  He is there to assure that workers don't strike the bags with shovels--the dogs are in a state of rigor mortis and would fit in the incinerator better if the contents of the bags were beaten into a smaller size--like garbage.  He is there to assure a modicum of dignity.  No one will notice. .  Yes, he has learned karuna well..

2. Metta-love.  Love has replaced lust and self-absorption in his life.  His love for his daughter, the animals and others--including his unborn grandson-- is obvious by the end of the book.

3. Muditha--sympathetic joy, the joy in other people's success, Mitfreude, the opposite of Schadenfreude, Buddhism, as far as I know, is the only system that emphasizes this virtue--or even has a name for it.  The Buddhists thought that compassion was to be given freely to  those less fortunate--it is not enough.  The ego must be humbled further by love of those more fortunate--resulting in the destruction of envy and jealousy.  Actually, Lurie has not been a jealous person--he had been too self-absorbed for that.  He now has opportunities, however,  for a more active role of muditha.

4. Uphekkha--Serenity.  He no longer bears the burden of untoward desire.  He has gained inner serenity which cannot help but make the world--even his much reduced world--a better place.  He has lost almost everything, but what remains will be enough.  He no longer has to chase rainbows; he is now at home on the earth and accepts his place.

A happy ending--of sorts.  (Buddhists are allowed to have friends!)

This might not be the only possible interpretation of the novel, but is indeed a valid one..  Coetzee is a subtle author, and, just like life, indicates what is important without providing a manual.

I have been deeply affected by this extraordinary novel. Uncompromising devotion to a speck of inner integrity, pressed by experience into a diamond, can indeed reflect the light of the sun, the light of the entire world.
.            

                                                                                                Thomas Dorsett

You are welcome to read book review of the Baltimore Online Bookclub by googling the title of the novel along with my full name.

1. The New Life by Orhan Pamuk
2..Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3. Exit Ghost by Philip Roth

Our next meeting will take place on April 3, 2014.  The six member of our group will discuss the novel, A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter, on that date; I will post my review shorty after we meet, You are invited to read the book, followed by the review, and, if you wish, post your comments onto the blog. I wish you pleasurable reading!