Tag: Simon Leys

Cigarettes are Sublime – Simon Leys

“As smoking is going out of fashion, insanity is growing more frequent.” Samuel Johnson. Today, the manic fanatismo of the anti-smoking lobby eloquently confirms the accuracy of this observation. I always instinctively opt for the smoking section in coffee shops, waiting rooms, restaurants and other public places: the company is better, In one respect, smokers do enjoy a spiritual superiority over non-smokers – or, at least, they possess one significant advantage: they are more immediately aware of our common mortality. On this particular point, they certainly owe the anti-smoking lobby a debt of gratitude. The warnings that, by law, must now be printed on all tobacco products unwittingly echo a beautiful ancient ritual of the Catholic Church: on Ash Wednesday, as every faithful is marked on the forehead with the blessed ashes, the priest reminds him , “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Most of the time, modernity endeavours to blunt or to obliterate this awareness of mortality. It should not be confused with a morbid cult of death – which is abhorrent to Christian humanism. (Viva la muerte! Was an obscene fascist slogan when one of Franco’s generals launched it at the beginning of the SpanishCivil War. Unamuno – who was then at the end of his life – denounced it in a speech of sublime passion); on the contrary, this awareness is a celebration of life. Mozart confessed in a letter that the thought that death accompanied him every day, and that it was the deep source from which all his creation sprang. I do not mean that the inspiration which can be drawn from the ominous warnings issued by official Health and Correct thinking agencies will turn all smokers into new Mozart’s, but they will certainly endow smoking with a new seduction – if not metaphysical meaning. I confess when I look at them, I am seriously tempted to buy cigarettes again.

Simon Leys – The Hall of Uselessness

In his last work, Kafka described the search for salvation; Flaubert, the quest for meaning. But these pursuits take us into mysteries no mortal can fathom. So, it seems strangely appropriate that death should have intervened, ensuring these heroic explorations remain open – forever.

“The mob reads confessions and notes, etc., so avidly because in their baseness they rejoice at the humiliations of the high and the weakness of the mighty. Upon discovering any kind of filies they are delighted. He is little like us! You lie, scoundrels: he may be (little and vile) anything, but differently, not like you.”

Memento mori

Simon Leys, The House of Uselessness – Collected Essays

Do you grieve at the thought that your life must come to an end? The alternative could be worse – Swift showed it convincingly in Gulliver’s Travels. Arriving in Luggnagg, Gulliver heard of the existence of “Immortals” among the local population. From time to time a child is born with a large round mark on his forehead, a sure sign that he is a “Struldbrugg”: he will never die. This phenomenon is not hereditary; it is purely accidental – and extremely rare. Gulliver is transported with wonderment: so, there are some humans that are spared the anguish normally attached to our condition. These Struldbruggs must be able to store a prodigious wealth of moral and material resources through the ages – a treasure of knowledge, experience and wisdom! In the face of Gulliver’s enthusiasm, his hosts can scarcely hide their smiles. Though the Strudbruggs are indeed immortal, they do age: after a few centuries they have lost their teeth, their hair, their memory; they can barely move; they are deaf and blind; they are hideously shrunken with age. The natural transformation of language deprives them of all means of communication with new generations; they become strangers in their own society; burdened with all the miseries of old age, they survive endlessly in a state of desolate stupor. The progress of medicine provides us today with good illustrations of Swift’s vision.

We never cease to be astonished at the passing of time… This shows clearly that time is not our natural element: would a fish ever be surprised by the wetness of water? For our true motherland is eternity; we are the mere passing guests of time. Nevertheless it is within the bonds of time that man builds the cathedral of Chartres, paints the Sistine Chapel and plays the seven-string zither – which inspired William Blake’s luminous intuition. “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”