| The Amateur (4) |
| The other day my daughter came home, proudly telling me that her teacher had praised her twice for always paying such close attention. This is something she hasn't inherited from me. I used to daydream all the time when I was young. The majority of what the sisters, the brothers, the teachers and, for a while, the lecturers and professors had to say passed me by, except when Lucas van der Land was talking, during his lectures on the history of political theories. A modest man who never made it to professor and ended up taking his own life, but I've always remembered him. |
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If you knew everything there was to know, you'd say that the truth tends to be harsh, but have a little patience and it will sort itself out. The keys hurt my fingertips as I am writing this, but expletive deleted, didn't I tell you that the process of gaining awareness can be painful too? I have thought my share of evil thoughts on the influence of the left-wing ideal of popular edification on the level of culture, but at the end of the day this is a rather obvious thing: tightening one's belt, taking a step down for those who already consider themselves edified is something people are also loath to do where cultural consumption is concerned. The repetition of a previous phase tends to repulse people. Which implies that in a society made up of sub-cultures operating at varying levels of perception, people quite spontaneously allow themselves to get worked up about all kinds of things. This outpouring bubbled up when I was reading in the September 2 edition of "Het Parool" that a cartoon version of Gerard van het Reve's "De Avonden" (The Evenings)* is about to hit us (or is possibly merely threatened to do so, accuracy having been shown to be a luxury which I cannot always afford). You should furthermore know that in times of complacency I subscribe to the false notion that comic books have literary status for the average left-winger. I can't imagine why I would think evil of this, for those who read invariably end up reading more. It may take a while, but things always sort themselves out in the end. The question that remains is how close this should be allowed to cut to the bone. It's okay to say out loud that the screen version of The Evenings is unacceptable once you've read the book, even though no-one will make the connection I've just made between literature and cartoon versions thereof. And yet this doesn't do anything to make me feel less disgusted. As much as I detest guilt being foisted on me without my knowledge, I do want to let you know that I can be pretty tolerant provided the guarantee is up to scratch, and that while thinking I am beginning to understand that translating a feeling into sensible policy just about takes a lifetime. And just before the thought slips away, the insight dawns that although resistance will not work, what it will do is slow things down. * Gerard van het Reve (or Gerard Reve, as he has been known for several decades) is a sort of "Author Laureate" of the Netherlands. His book "The Evenings" has been on the required reading list ever since 1947, when it first appeared, with its controversial author continuing to enjoy virtually Shakespearian status in the Low Countries to this very day. |