Spurious

New interview at The Cherwell.

A Crack in the Wall

‘Staines — what a name for a town!’, W. says. And, a little later, ‘Egham — it's unbearable!’ ‘These names, these names!’ True life is elsewhere, isn't it?, W. says. True life is elsewhere. But we are in the suburbs, and on the slowest train in the world.

This is suicide country, W. says. He’d top himself if he lived here. He’d either top himself, or think some great thought, W. says. To think against the suburbs. To think in the suburbs, hating the suburbs. What pressure of thinking you could build up! What a head of steam! – ‘But it didn’t work for you, did it?’

Oh, but he sees why. It gave me the fear – the fear of falling back here. The fear of crash-landing here where I grew up. That’s why I’ve flung myself into administration. That’s why I’ve tried to lodge myself in the administrative work of the university like a tick in an armpit. – ‘They’ll find you in the end’, W. says. ‘They’ll smoke you out. There you’ll be, coughing in the sun …’

We speculate about the lost geniuses of the suburbs. Bracknell's secret Rilke (Coetzee lived in Bracknell, W. says) ... Martin's Heron's hidden Leibniz (W.: ‘Martin's Heron: what kind of a name is that?’). And Sunningdale's own Solomon Maimon, drunk in Tesco's carpark ...

You'd have to go on the sick, if you lived in the suburbs, W. and I agree. You'd have to stay unemployed, wandering the streets with the early-retired and mothers pushing buggies. And you'd go mad from isolation. You'd go off your head. And then you'd top yourself.

It's different in the north, of course. It was different in my Manchester, back then before the regeneration, I tell W. It was different before Marketing Manchester and Heritage Manchester and Superclub Manchester. It was a shithole, I tell him. It was a shithole, W. agrees. But we should only live in shitholes. Where else could we live? (W.’s house, for all its grandeur, is in the worst part of Plymouth).

Maimon would have felt right at home there, in old Manchester, we agree. I felt right at home there, as muggers held knives to my throat and junkies trailed after me asking me for money. I felt right at home in my bedsit next to the curry house extractor fans.

There's a crack in the wall, I told the landlord, when he showed me the room. — 'A crack in the wall, yes', he said and smiled. I could hardly breathe for cold and curry, but I took the room nonetheless, because it cost nothing and I had nothing. — 'You were born for squalor', W. says, and that’s my gift. I live the life of the abased, of the abject, he says. I can’t help it. I’ve found my level, which is very low, and I’m bringing him down to my level, W. says.

Stalker's Cousin

The suburbs, the suburbs ... There are still bits of countryside, we notice from the train. Forlorn horses in tiny fields. Rabbits hopping across a golf-course. Rats crawling along a wall by the sewage treatment works.

W. pictures me as a teenager, cycling out to every green patch I could find on the map. He pictures me making my way through fir plantations to the patch of scrappy woodland fenced off by the MoD where solders came to train for future wars. I listened out for artillery fire, but heard nothing but the wind in the trees and birds singing.

What was I looking for? What did I discover? There were the suburbs and the suburbs were everywhere. That my non-town was growing on the verge of every town; what does it matter where you were? And even the firing range was sold off, the last of the old woodland, to build a new housing estate. Didn't I see myself as Stalker's cousin, ready to lead others through the last patches of wilderness?

What was I looking for in the wide patches of grass between the plots on the hi-tech industrial estate where I used to work? What, in the rain that was allowed to lie in long puddles in the grass and mud?

The gypsies came with their caravans and churned up the grass. We were warned about them on the tannoy. — 'Make sure you lock your cars'. They left quickly enough, and the companies organised diggers to cut trenches along the perimeter of each plot. But beyond the trenches, beyond the new chain-link fences ...

A pristine snow bank like a blank page. And whirling snowflakes above. And silence, deep silence. I underlined a passage in my book. K. stood a long time on the wooden bridge that leads from the main road to the village, gazing upwards at the seeming emptiness. And I gazed across the snow into the white emptiness …

K. on the bridge, that’s where it all began for me, I’ve told W. that. K. on the bridge, gazing upwards into the swirling emptiness, just as I was on a metaphorical bridge staring upwards into a metaphorical emptiness.

'So you went north', W. says. I went north. — 'Of course you did, where else were you to go?' For his part, as a semi-northerner, a man of the Midlands, W. went south, lured by the promise of a course on which he could study Kafka in translation (back then, he could only read Kafka in translation). But they'd lied in the prospectus, of course. He never studied Kafka, but he studied other things instead. He learnt things — great things. He studied overseas. He visited the great archives. He criss-crossed Europe on the great railways of Europe.

'And you, what did you do?', W. says. I became Stalker's cousin all over again, looking for space, looking for time under viaducts and on the tow-paths of canals, climbing over rusting pipes and broken girders. I arrived in Manchester while it was still a rust-zone. I arrived just before its regeneration, and the city was still falling apart like a Russian space station.

The Suburbs

'We're in the suburbs of a suburb', W. says. 'In the suburbs of a suburb of a suburb ...' Through the suburbs on the slow train, travelling back to London. — 'Did you really grow up here?' I really did. — 'You're lucky to have escaped'. I know that. He's amazed I got out. What would have happened otherwise?

I point out my old school from train window, in the suburbs near Reading. It was the worst of schooling, I tell W. No one knew anything. We didn't know anything. Our teachers didn't know anything, I tell W. The blind led the blind. The blind stabbed out the eyes of the sighted. They stabbed out our eyes, I tell him.

‘When did the other children turn on you?’, W. wonders. ‘When did they find you out? When did you go home in tears?’ Because that’s how he sees me, W. says, going home in tears, snot running from my nostrils, an idiot child alone with his idiocy.

I point out the warehouse where I worked as a contractor when I left school. It was the worst of jobs, I tell W. We stood about doing nothing. Sometimes management would come downstairs and tell us to get on with our jobs. From time to time, there'd be a cull; they'd sack a few of us. But we'd reappear in the warehouse sooner or later, employed by another agency, and go back to standing about and doing nothing.

‘When did your fellow workers turn on you?, W. wonders. When did they find you out? When did you go home in despair?’ Because that’s how he sees it, W. says, my heading back to the station, quietly sobbing to myself, an idiot alone again.

And I tell him about my escape to university, my escape to Manchester, although I knew nothing whatsoever about Manchester, indeed nothing whatsoever about the north. — 'You had an instinct', W. says. 'It's admirable'.

Mount Sinai

Fog descends as we head back to the campus. It's as thick as the cloud on Mount Sinai, when Moses went up to meet God. He descended with the Tablets of Law, but what will we bring back with us?

We're lost, hopelessly lost. Our kidnapped speaker's worried. What about the conference meal? He's supposed to be sitting at the high table. — 'Never mind the high table!', W. says. Our speaker's too full of sausage and mash to be able to eat anything else, for one thing. — 'You had a real appetite!', W. says to him, impressed.

Where are we going? It's a very verdant campus, we agree. Very lush. The Thames Valley's known for its humidity, I tell them. It's very bad for asthmatics. I developed asthma when my family moved out here. And eczema. – ‘And scrofula’, W. says. 

In the thick darkness: that's where God was waiting for Moses, W. says. That's how God appears to the mystic, Gregory of Nyssa said. The mystic receives a dark vision of God. But what do we see? Not God, at any rate. Barely even each other! It's a real pea-souper, we agree, speaking like the commoners in Brief Encounter. Cor blimey, guv’nor.

Our speaker says he feels unwell. He feels unwell! What have we done to him?, we wonder. How can we make reparation?

It's our duty to talk, we know that. We need to settle his nerves, our kidnapped plenary speaker. We need to settle his stomach! So we tell him of our Kierkegaard project, of our collaborative endeavour, for which we are constructing an elaborate dossier. We tell him about the intimate link we expect to discover between Kierkegaard and contemporary capitalism, about the Danish philosopher's despair and our despair.

Despair is everywhere, W. says. – ‘Even monkey boy feels it’, W. says, nodding at me. ‘He’s full of despair, monkey boy, though he doesn’t really understand why’. Still, perhaps our researches will help me grasp my despair for what it is, W. says to our speaker. Perhaps I’ll learn its real cause – which is to say, not simply its proximate cause.

Oh, I feel a great deal, he’ll give me that, W. says to our plenary speaker. – ‘Look at him, monkey boy, full of pathos!’ My eyes are always ready to brim with tears, W. says. But when it comes to thought ... When it comes to thinking from my despair, out of it …

Silence. We’ll need to say something else! Religion! What does our speaker think about religion?, W. wants to know. Does he, like W., have a sense of the urgency of the question of religion? Our speaker says he has no particular thoughts about religion. What about despair, then? What does he think about despair?

Silence again. Do we drink?, our speaker asks us. He drinks, our speaker says. He drinks every night. Do we drink?: we muse, separately considering the speaker’s question. Of course we drink! Whatever can he mean, Do we drink? What kind of question is that? What are we being asked?

We probably have no idea of what drinking means, we think to ourselves. Do we drink?, we wonder. Have we ever drunk? Ah, but what do we know of drinking, and what could we know?, W. and I think to ourselves. And about despair, about religion: what could we know about those topics, either?

Our speaker falls back into silence. All three of us are silent, as the fog grows thicker. – ‘Marx and Kierkegaard’, W. says finally, to fill the silence. ‘We intend to think the conjunction of Marx and Kierkegaard’, W. says. ‘They were both born in the same year, you know’, W. says to our speaker.

He’s feeling really ill now, our speaker, that much is clear, we think to ourselves. What will we do? The fog's thickening. We need to stay close! To keep a head count! And it's darkening, too. Are we really going to meet our God? Do you think we'll receive the Tablets of Law? — 'Go on, say something profound', W. says to our kidnapped speaker.

Sausage and Mash

In the pub, we wait for our plates of sausage and mash with our kidnapped plenary speaker. — 'You know they hate you', W. says to kidnapped speaker. 'They hate us, God knows, and they hate you, too'. — 'Who hates me?, the speaker says. — 'Everyone. Everyone here', W. says. — 'I don't think they hate me', the speaker says. — 'They do! They hate us, and they really hate you'.

‘They hate thought!, W. insists. ‘Don’t you see? They hate thought, and want to drive all thought away!’ – ‘Why did they invite me, then?’, our kidnapped plenary speaker wonders. It's a mystery, we agree. Perhaps there's still some instinct among the Reading philosophers concerning what they lack, W. speculates. Perhaps they feel some residual shame about their inability to think.

We feel shame, W. tells our speaker, setting down his cutlery. Well, he does (W.) at any rate. He’s been trying to teach me the meaning of shame, W. says. How can you teach a grown man shame?, W. says. If only he’d known me as a child, he says to our speaker; what I might have been! Give me a child till the age of seven, and he’s mine for life, say the Jesuits. Give me a full grown adult idiot, and he’ll never be yours, W. says. – ‘In fact, you’ll be his. You’ll be his for the rest of your life!’

Our sausages and mash arrive on big oval plates. It looks disgusting, we agree, but what can you expect for £3.95? Eat, man, eat!, we urge our speaker. He needs to keep up his strength! After all, very soon he'll have to go back to the conference! We'll protect him, we tell our kidnapped speaker. We'll flank him like the president's secret service bodyguards. We'll keep our sunglasses on and speak into earpieces. — 'The package is in the building', we'll say. 'The package is about to give his speech'.

The Last Dog and Pony Show

This has to be our last lecture tour, W. says. This has to be the last time, the last dog and pony show. We came here against our better judgement, it's true. We were invited, personally invited, and how could we refuse? Our trouble is, we're too polite, W. says. We want to please people, despite everything.

How will we survive? We need a rallying point, for one thing. — 'Look for a pub!' We need a place of safety, W. says. We need a panic room. A war room! And we need a general strategy. — 'Keep your head down! Talk to no one!'

Then we spot him in the foyer: the plenary speaker who W. recognises as an ally. How did they get him here?, I wonder. — 'Just as they got us. Through flattery', W. says. Suddenly we feel a great surge of tenderness. We have to protect him, we decide. He doesn't belong here. For one thing, he actually has ideas. He needs to be rescued!

We resolve to smuggle him off campus to a pub. We need to save him, the plenary speaker. To save thought!

And in the meantime? Be careful. There are enemies everywhere.

Horror of Reading

Reading University campus. W. is full of dread. He has the feeling that it's about to go terribly wrong. What, our presentation? No, no — more than that, W. says. Something catastrophic is about to happen.

I knew Reading would appal him, I tell him. How could it be otherwise? On the bus out to the campus, he was already squirming. Driveways packed with Range Rovers and 4X4s ... Mock Tudor houses ... Mock Georgian ones, with pebbledash rendering and plastic windows, in great estates at the edge of everywhere ... All the styles of history and mocking history, laughing at it. All the styles, and all at once. This is the end of the world, W. says. The eternal end.

Did it ever have a history, Reading? Did anything ever happen here?, W. wonders. But he knows it did. He's read about the Abbey, and he knows Oscar Wilde was imprisoned here. He might as well be imprisoned here, W. said on the bus. He might as well write his own Ballad of Reading Jail.

Of course, it’s very hard to explain Reading, the horror of Reading, W. says. What happened here? What failed to happen? He could think against Birmingham, W. says – it was easy enough: the city looks disgusting. It’s easy to think against the Bull Ring, all the more so since it’s been rebranded as BullRing. But here, where I was brought up? You can’t hold Reading apart from you in the same way as Birmingham, W. says. It isn’t as obviously repugnant. There’s nothing in particular on which to focus your disgust.

Nothing in particular … but there’s something wrong, W. says, you can sense that. Something colossal, but at the same time, hidden. – ‘The horror of Reading is yet to come’, W. says, mystically. What rough beast is slouching towards Reading to be born?

Even I have a sense of it, W. knows that. Even I am saturated with disgust when I come back here to my hometown. Even I know there’s something fundamentally wrong. Wasn’t that what drove me towards philosophy, the attempt to diagnose the horror of Reading? Isn’t that why, despite everything, I have a taste for philosophy – for European philosophy – and for the more philosophical of the European novelists, W. says.

Reading and the southeast made me think the whole, he has no doubt of that, W. says. Reading led me to philosophy and abandoned me at its doors as a foundling. And who was it who opened the door to admit me? Who who swaddled me and took me in?

The Train South

The train south. We're heading into the belly of the beast, we agree. We heading into Dante’s Inferno. We'll need to take special measures to survive.

We check our survival kit. Do we have our bottle of gin? Check. Of Plymouth Gin? Of course! It’s safe in my rucksack. What else? What books have I brought?, W. asks me. The Sickness Unto Death. The Concept of Anxiety: ‘Ah’, says W., ‘nothing better’. And Simone Weil: Gravity and Grace. – ‘Hmm, there’s a wild card’, W. says. ‘What drew you to Weil? What was she doing on your bookshelf?’ Perhaps there's something serious about me after all, he says. He's brought some Rosenzweig – a collection of miscellaneous writings, he says. We'll need some Rosenzweig in the south. We’ll need protection.

Plymouth's in the south, of course, we acknowledge, but not in the south south. Plymouth's in the southwest, which is entirely different. In fact, W. thinks of Plymouth as being part of the north. In his mind, it's as far north in England as Newcastle, he says, albeit with a warmer climate.

W. has always appreciated the rawness of Newcastle. It’s barely touched by the Westerlies which ravage the southwest, but it’s cold, terribly cold in my city. Even the summers are cool, the blue of the sky as remote and hard as that of Scandinavia.

W. wonders whether he might become a keener, sharper thinker if he lived in the northeast, whether his ideas might become less diffuse and more jewel-like, coalescing like new stars, and whether I might become a warmer thinker, a tenderer one, full of love and generosity, if I lived in the southwest.

But now we’re heading into the southeast, which is entirely different prospect, W. says. The southeast: hasn’t it always meant, to us, the destruction of thought, its complete compromise? Hasn’t it always meant the destruction of philosophy?

In the end, philosophy can only survive at the periphery, we agree. It only thrives among the poor, the working class, when the working classes are given a chance to think. There were universities like that once in the southeast, W. says. That’s where the University of Essex, W.’s alma mater was, in the southeast. And there’s Middlesex, of course, and Greenwich: departments of the margins, we decide. Peripheral departments, where the working classes are given a chance to think.

That Kierkegaard Wrote ...

Of course, one mustn't start reading too soon, W. is adamant about that. One mustn't simply devour an oeuvre, tempting as it may seem, the many-coloured spines of Kierkegaard's works in the Hong and Hong edition, lined up on my windowsill, as inviting as boiled sweets.

One cannot just begin at page one, and then read one's way to the end. There must be a kind of pause before reading, a dwelling in the clearing opened by the fact of Kierkegaard, by the fact of his writing, by the fact that he lived.

That Kierkegaard wrote: we should pause before that fact, mulling it over. That Kierkegaard was at all: we should mull that over, too. And that we exist, too: ah, that's what's unbearable, W. says. The fact that, despite our best intentions, we'll never be able to understand a word of Kierkegaard.