(posts) a quote from Middlemarch by George Eliot (true name Mary Anne Evans)

"That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity."

 

something about "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy

This remarkable novella drags a well-heeled federal judge through the ultimate crisis.

Tolstoy does not flatter our protagonist in The Death of Ivan Ilych. In an efficient account of Ilych's professional and social advancement, we learn that the man is shallow, conceited, and vain; he is a social climber and, having climbed, immediately became condescending (though not unkind) in his privilege.

One of the remarkable things about this novella is that these traits do not make Ivan Ilyich a villain; instead, they make him average.

In the story, Ilyich's health declines and he suffers exquisite pain in his illness. Incapacitated, the pointlessness of his life imposes on him. And the degree of suffering mystifies him because he has only ever done what he thought he was supposed to do: develop a career, get married, have kids, get established. But doing what was expected could not spare him an agonizing, slow death. In the end, the inauthenticity of his life leaves him lifeless.

My favorite parts--all of these include a comment on averageness and unoriginality:

On Ivan Ilych's parentage:

He was the son of an official who had worked his way through various ministries and departments in Petersburg, carving out the kind of career that brings people to a position from which, despite their obvious incapacity for doing anything remotely useful, they cannot be sacked because of their status and long years of service, so they end up being given wholly fictitious jobs, anything from six to ten thousand a year, and this enables them to live on to a ripe old age.

On Ivan Ilych decorating his fine new house:

But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming--everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class.

On Ivan Ilych's trip to the doctor early in his mysterious illness:

He was made to wait, the doctor was full of his own importance--an attitude he was familiar with because it was one that he himself assumed in court--then came all the tapping and listening, the questions with predetermined and obviously superfluous answers, the knowing look that seemed to say, "Just place yourself in our hands and we'll sort it out, we know what we're doing, there's no doubt about it, we can sort things out the same way as we would for anyone you care to name."

Note: The Death of Ivan Ilych was published in 1886. Tolstoy was supposedly suffering a personal crisis of meaning.

about the Rolling Stone article "Keith Urban's Hard Road"

Keith Urban achieved fame Down Under before relocating to Nashville, USA and hitting it big. Married to famous actress and fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman, he's a huge commercial country-rock success whose own celebrity status grew even larger recently through his casting on hit TV show "American Idol."

The famous musician is the subject of this short Rolling Stone profile with the foreshadowing subtitle, "His rise to fame, paved by talent, looks and drive, has led the country megastar to the darkest of places."

He is a legitimate songwriter and musician, but baby pacifiers have more edge than Keith Urban. The man seems charmed. So it's somewhat compelling to read about him that, "In truth, the hard times were harder than almost anyone except his wife knows, and more desperate, and more frightening, up to the point of should-I-live-or-should-I-die, with him favoring the latter. 'No, man,' he says later on, 'I didn't just walk into this gig.' And then he proceeds to open up a little bit about some of the stuff that happened."

When he opens up, we learn that Urban's darkest places are filled with piles of cocaine. From the profile:

He's going back in time, to 1998, seven years since he released his four hit records in Australia, five years since that girl called him a novelty, another long year away from success. He was at a house out in Franklin, about 20 miles south of Nashville, staring at a big pile of coke, about to embark on another one of his binges, which is how he used to roll–-a few days or weeks off, then blammo.

"I had plenty of stuff," he says. "I didn't seem able to stop. There was no stopping this time. I'd go to sleep, wake up a couple of hours later, go at it again, drinking to take the edge off. I remember thinking, 'I'm probably not going to make it until tomorrow.' And then I thought, 'Fuck it. I really don't care. It'll be a relief to not have to. I'll take an Ambien and at some point I'll pass.' I was taking everything. I remember thinking, 'Oh, good, this is the end of it, yahoo.' I was quite happy about it." He leans back in his chair, smiles and shrugs. "Well, I woke up the next day at lunchtime, in my bed, sweating, going, 'Fuck! Guess I'm not going to get to go this way.' I thought the choice to quit would be taken from me, which would be easier than me trying to do it on my own. There was coke left, so I went at it again."

And that is pretty much it. There is a discrepancy between this shoddy profile's melodramatic setup and this payoff.

How can you foreshadow "the darkest of places" and then omit the details that would really comprise a tragedy, like, how much money was he blowing every day? was his health failing somehow? what symptoms led him to think he was going to die? who was around him? was he alienated? did he have any troubles with the law? what were his days like? is there something particularly seedy about being "at a house out in Franklin, about 20 miles south of Nashville"?

Those kinds of details are missing. Instead we hear his claims that he "had plenty of stuff," didn't care, and was even "quite happy about it." (Buddy, if you have coke left in the morning, maybe you have more self-control than you think.)

Addiction is serious and I do not doubt that he suffered from it. Urban apparently had a coke problem, but that is as far this story goes.

Urban and the author similarly skip past dark places in the subject's childhood. About his father, Urban says:

"My recollection is that he was a physical disciplinarian. Ten years ago, I would have said, 'He never did anything I didn't deserve.' Now I realize it's not about deserving it." He leans forward, says, "I don't recall him ever telling me he loved me as a kid. I'd do a gig I thought was fantastic and the only thing he'd say is, 'When you speak onstage, you've got to slow down.' He never commented on anything else. And the way he disciplined me, he seemed to have forgotten about it as he got older. I don't think he was in denial, he genuinely had no recollection. 'Hitting you? I never did that!'" This comes as a bit of a shock, mainly because Urban has never publicly mentioned it before ...

Is this an allusion to child abuse? Urban uses the word "disciplined," not abuse. There is nothing dark about being disciplined.

The profile promises darkness and pain, but delivers only pithy allusions.


Notes:
I had to reread the article to verify that the author was not being sarcastic. I blame both the author and Urban for the misdirection.

Abuse your illusions

In addition to events in your personal life, this year's Carrier IQ story and revelations about mental illness and its treatment show that everything that seems good is actually bad. And if not actually, then eventually. But that won't change anything.

(Taking the Carrier IQ story to its logical conclusion, in the not-too-distant future we'll have contact lens computer screens. Soon after that, thoughts can be harvested and stored on Google servers. Then thoughts will be stored on a centralized, searchable database. Scary!)

Happy New Year!