A platitude examined

Notes on the differing and possibly completely at-odds senses of meaning of the phrase, “do your best.”

While attempting to come up with a way in which I could get a cynical friend of mine to watch the excellent Pixar film Ratatouille, it fell to me to attempt to describe to him in a few words what the film’s general message is. There’s much there to be described, of course, and certainly not all of it congenial to his sensibilities, and I made the mistake of telling him that the movie is substantially about doing your best. “Ah jeez,” he muttered, and passed on the whole enterprise. He may come around yet, but his rejection of that theme was instructive.

The problem as I see it is that we were operating under different assumptions about just what “do your best” actually entails. I expressed it as a sentiment to be admired and towards which we might strive; it was received as a banal saying, divorced from any great meaning, and substantially wrong into the bargain. How could this have happened? I thought at first that it may simply have been a case of differing values between the two parties involved, but that did not seem likely upon further analysis.

A more intriguing possibility presented itself: the phrase actually has two meanings. He responded to one, while I had meant the other.

He could scarcely be blamed for responding to it in the manner in which he did, anyway, because the meaning he so deplored is far and away the most popular when it comes to the phrase’s utterance and reception, and is indeed precisely the sort of sentiment one would expect from an animated children’s film. That meaning is this: it doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail, or whether people say you’re not good enough; just do your best and it will all work out. Such is the guiding ethos of countless works of art aimed at children, and stories of scrappy underdog sports teams or new kids in school or children thrust into some adult occupation would be nothing without it. There would be no loveable misfits or surprisingly competent waifs. There would be very little of all sorts of things.

The trouble with this reading of “do your best,” and why I think my interlocutor (rightly) rejected a film he thought propounded it, is that it is essentially predicated on a sort of magic. It is not the case that mere effort or a positive outlook will guarantee a favourable outcome. It may be the case that the runt or loner or nerd may have vast wellsprings of Spirit or Spunk or Moxie that will make up for deficiencies in strength, training or native skill, but those latter attributes will in all real cases carry the day ninety-nine times out of a hundred. I’m also greatly ill-at-ease with the cheerful unconcern with results that this reading engenders. I do not mean that we are to be consequentialists, by any means, but to say that success as a concept is irrelevant next to mere effort is insane.

Anyhow, it is not with such an idea that I attempted to convince my friend to see this movie, though he could, as I said, be forgiven for thinking as much. What I meant was quite different, and it is this: do your best, and nothing less. Of course it matters whether you succeed or not, and that’s why your best is required. Don’t hold back because of other people; don’t pretend to be mediocre to fit in. Whatever you turn your hand to, do it with all your might. Do your best!

Which is, as you see, something rather different.

Experimenting

My general distaste for rap, hip-hop and most other forms of music that could be loosely collected under those names is widely known, but, responding to the not implausible possiblity that my objection to such music stems mostly from its often monstrous and despicable lyrics rather than from the forms themselves, I have begun an experimental program of abstraction whereby I will subject myself to such music in the same manner in which I am necessarily subjected to many of the great choral and operatic works – that is, in a language I do not understand.  The internet will help with this.

If anything comes of it, for good or ill, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Hail and farewell

Maurice Jarre, composer of such legendary scores as those for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, has died. He was 84.

Not a nice way for this day to start.

Here he is conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a medley of Lawrence of Arabia material during the 1992 tribute to Sir David Lean:

And from Doctor Zhivago, at the same event:

I won’t say that movie scorecraft is a dying art, for there are many promising young composers at work alongside several established and reliable names, but I think it may be said with some justice that they don’t do it like that anymore nevertheless.

Bouvard and Pécuchet

Bouvard and Pécuchet
Gustave Flaubert
Trans. Mark Polizzotti
Dalkey Archive Press; 2005 (1881).
328p. second reading.

Back in the days of my undergrad, my creative writing professor – Larry Garber of the University of Western Ontario, long may he live – was something of a Flaubert fanboy. You could hardly make it through a conversation with him without Madame Bovary coming up, and fortunately for all of us he mixed his enthusiasm with genuine authority on the subject. I regret in hindsight that he never saw fit to talk about Flaubert’s Salammbo – one of the greatest and most appalling books ever written – but he also spent a lot of time recommending something far more obscure. Bouvard et Pécuchet, of which none of us had ever heard, was set up as a brilliant and cynical and modern and insightful romp through the wildly unsatisfactory fields of human knowledge. It is that, in fact, and much more besides.

François Denys Bartholomée Bouvard and Juste Romain Cyrille Pécuchet, two Parisian clerks, meet one day in 1838 on a park bench when they discover that they share the habit of writing their names inside their hats to prevent them being taken by accident. They fall to talking, and become fast friends. They are both tired of the city, and would both like to move out into the country. But what is to be done? There’s never any time or money.

As is often the case in such novels, an unexpected inheritance from Bouvard’s dead uncle provides them with the capital they need to acquire a large country manor and all the comforts of modern living. But even doing this carries with it a portent of the problems that will later afflict them:

In deciding where to move, they considered all the provinces one by one. The North was fertile, but too cold; the South had an enchanting climate, but the mosquitoes made it unbearable; and the Center, frankly, was utterly devoid of interest. Brittany would have suited them fine, if not for the sanctimoniousness of the locals. As for the eastern regions with their Germanic dialects, not a chance. But there were other areas. What, for instance, were the Forez, the Bugey, or the Roumois like? The geographical maps gave no clue. (14)

This crippling uncertainty will come to be the chief hallmark of their adventures, for they shortly determine to learn all about the things that had always interested them, when they were clerks, but for which they had never had any time. This innocent pursuit quickly balloons into an attempt to understand the sum of human knowledge and to fall into line with the established experts in every field. Unfortunately for them, the sum of human knowledge is by no means a definite and unchanging thing, and many of the facts and theories they assimilate are hopelessly at odds with one another. And as for the experts… well, the less said the better, perhaps. Anyway, these sad and humourous adventures in learning take place against the fairly idyllic backdrop of the little country town in which their house is situation, and also against the not-so-idyllic backdrop of the lead-up to the Revolution of 1848. The two clerks’ various interactions with the townspeople are almost uniformly delightful, and they often find themselves shown up by the seemingly provicincial priest and the heartily urbane doctor.

There’s not much of a plot to the thing, unfortunately, and the novel remained unfinished in any event (Flaubert died while writing it), so its chief merit is to be found in its commentary on expertise and in Flaubert’s luminous wordcraft. Some examples follow.

Their experiments lead them to some unfortunate passes:

To induce digestion artificially, they crammed meat into a vial filled with the gastric juices from a duck, and they carried it under their armpits for two weeks, with no result other than infecting themselves.

They were seen running along the main road to town, wearing sopping wet clothes under the broiling sun. This was to verify whether thirst can be quenched by applying water to the epidermis. They returned home panting and both suffering from colds.

Hearing, speech, and vision were handily dispatched, but Bouvard lingered on procreation. (57)

Even collecting geological samples is a troubling business:

At the end of the day, they huffed and puffed under the weight of their [rocks], but intrepidly brought them all home. They lined the steps, the staircases, the bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, and Germaine [the housekeeper] complained about the dust.

It was no mean feat to determine the names of these rocks before attaching the labels. The variety of colors and granules made them confuse clay with marl, granite with gneiss, quartz with limestone.

And besides, nomenclature irritated them. Why Devonian, Cambrian, Jurassic, as if the soil designated by these words could not be found other than in Devonshire, or Cambridge, or in the Jura? Impossible to find one’s bearings; what for one author was a system for another was just a stage, and for a third a simple stratum. The different layers became intermingled, confused; but [the Belgian author and geologist] Omalius d’Halloy warned not to believe in geological divisions. (76-77)

Some of their scholarly adventures anticipate much of what afflicts us now:

In olden times, towers, pyramids, tapers, milestones, and even trees signified the phallus – and for Bouvard and Pécuchet, everything became a phallus. They collected whippletrees from horse-cars, chair legs, door bolts, pharmacists’ pestles. When someone came to see them, they asked, “What do you think this looks like?” and then divulged the mystery. And if the person protested, they shrugged their shoulders, out of pity. (99)

And so on.

I should add that the substantial section in which the two friends attempt to grapple with religious ideas is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, but that’s about par for the course for an author in 19th C. France. Still and all, Bouvard et Pécuchet is a delightful piece of work, and certainly not too taxing. I don’t know if I’d call it an ideal introduction to Flaubert for those who haven’t yet experienced him (that would probably be Madame Bovary), but for those who already know they’re cool with him, or who find the premise as describe to be promising, B&P has much to offer.

Pursuant to that last

Two items:

First, the Harper Collins publishing company, which is responsible for the publication of C.S. Lewis’ books in North America (and possibly elsewhere; I haven’t looked into it too deeply), has a C.S. Lewis blog at which various academics occasionally post essays about his work and thought. Needless to say, this is right up my alley.

Second: while reading one of the entries there – Michael Ward’s analysis of one of Lewis’ short poems, “Le Roi S’Amuse” – I discovered that Ward is serving as editor for the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Speaking as a devoted fan of both Lewis and the Companion series, I can only greet this news with the warmest approbation.

Public v. Private

Robert Velarde, author of Conversations with C.S. Lewis (a pleasant excursion already discussed), has posted a short reflection on whether one could describe C.S. Lewis as having lived a public or a private life. The answer of course is a little of both, but Velarde sees a man who in no sense shied away from the responsibilities of the spotlight that had fallen upon him:

C.S. Lewis not only wrote about and discussed ethics, but also lived his life accordingly. Although he would likely scoff at any strict distinction between “public” or “social” and “private” ethics, the term private is used here to refer to his daily life and activities and how they demonstrate Lewis’s ethics as realities in his life.

His arguments were not just talk or abstract intellectual pursuits. Indeed, he practiced what he preached — or at least made a great effort to live virtuously. Lewis had an active spiritual life, for example, which included extensive and regular times of prayer alone and with others. Considering his busy academic schedule, ongoing writing projects and speaking engagements, such dedication to prayer is revealing.

Lewis also personally responded to large quantities of correspondence, viewing each letter as a ministry opportunity. His letters to children demonstrate the personality of a kind, caring person who encouraged children and took their questions seriously.

It has always been my understanding that a life in the academy essentially precludes any hope of being a private person without a certain modicum of deceit. Pedagogy requires a great deal of personal engagement and candour, and the academic profession is so necessarily tied up in questions of personal authority and respectability that one must, sooner or later, go about “making a name for oneself” if one wishes to get anywhere at all. It is of course possible to “make” that name in the strictest sense – that is, to manufacture it – but it is far easier and certainly more wholistically fulfilling to simply expand the scope of the self already extant until it has become the pseudo-public figure that the profession demands. Jack seems to have known this, however unwelcome it may have been, and his students and readers are all the better for it.

Rasselin’

Craig Burrell has posted a note about Samuel Johnson’s delightful History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759), a short tour of the different (and universally unsatisfactory) philosophies of happiness in the form of a slightly fantastical travelogue. In terms of casting around for similar works, Craig has the right idea:

It bears obvious similarities to Voltaire’s Candide [which was in fact released in the same year as Rasselas - NM], but it is not satiric, and it is as hearty beef to Voltaire’s thin gruel. It also reminded me of Pilgrim’s Progress for its systematic examination of various conceptions of the good life, but it is not allegorical, and it is not half so dull as Bunyan.

I think it might be fruitful to also look to Gustave Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pecuchet (1881), that author’s unfinished and posthumously-published masterpiece. In it, two clerks retire to the countryside to learn all that there is to know and become masters of all contemporary notions of history, science and philosphy. Flaubert being Flaubert, however, it is unfortunately the case that the two friends are completely incompetent, and the aggregate knowledge of mankind isn’t all that great to begin with. Every experiment to which they put their hands ends in failure and (often) injury, and they discover that the opinions of the experts in more abstract fields are hopelessly at odds.

But more on this shortly. Now that I’ve started thinking about it I want to make a note out of it myself.

Busy day, nothing to say

It’s unfortunate, but there we are.

Speaking of which

Now I wish I hadn’t spent all my money on that English village:

This is a one-of-a-kind full-size hero mock-up of the Viper Mark VII piloted by just about every major pilot [on Battlestar Galactica]. Features completed, functional interior with LCD screen, seat and hydraulic canopy. The ship is made out of metal, foam and wood. This piece rests on metal casters where the skids are, allowing movement of the ship.

The ship measures 30′ x 13′6″ and features detachable top fin and side wings, allowing the ship to be easily transported.

Frustrated cry

Daybreaking

Brian Visaggio beats me to the punch and posts his initial thoughts on last Friday’s conclusion to the furious and excellent endeavour that was Battlestar Galactica. My own take on the finale and the series in general will probably be up later this week (and certainly no later than Monday; I’m still rewatching the rest of the series to make sure I know what’s going on), and I’m both glad to be at last able to appraise the series as a whole and sad that there’s to be nothing further from this creative universe apart from Caprica and The Plan.

Anyway, the key graf:

What struck me the most, though, was the extent to which it didn’t answer our questions. The nature of the divinity guiding the series, how much God was involved, is left unclear, as was the true nature of Kara Thrace, who’s story arc is itself the principal one of the show. There are, in the end, things which simply cannot be understood, and that must be accepted. The beauty of mystery, which permeated the whole show, in the end turned out not to be a puzzle to be solved, like on LOST, but something to be embraced as beautiful for itself. That’s exceptional and rare, and to be considered deeply.

It’s key for Brian, anyway, but it’s oddly the case that we seem to be focused on completely different things. I cared less and less about the metaphysical content of the show the more it became apparent that it would not end with the revelation that God was simply real. Gaius Baltar’s “gospel of perfection” was also a shabby sort of thing, too, and put me off a bit. This is not to say that I don’t care about this (admittedly enormous) aspect of the show at all, to be sure; there are just other parts of it that interest me more.

But you’ll hear all about it later. In the meantime, Bear and his boys can play us out: