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In the Mount Cook area, N.Z.
far from Brugge. |
I have
been in a relatively secluded spot this week; in my apartment, home alone, on
account of a bout of bronchitis; a first for me. In spite of hope of
a quick recovery, I can see that the coming week will also be spent in
a continuing bout of house arrest! But there is much to be cheerful about on
the family front. One daughter and family happily removed to a new
house they are buying in Silicon Valley; one son and daughter-in-law
finishing a five week exploration of New Zealand in a camping van;
one grandson and girl friend happily ski-ing in France; one grandson
and partner, newly returned from super holiday in south Mexico and
moving this weekend into their first home they are buying together; one grand-daughter and partner about to explore Amsterdam. All good then. And it puts my temporary bronchial exhaustion into
perspective! The arrival of a tax demand on my 2015 income, already
taxed in Britain, is a Big Problem to be solved. I am shelving it
until mental acuity returns. Plus, a stern letter in Dutch, with accompanying photographs, threatening a fine for putting out my re-cycling on January 5th, mistakenly, Jan 12th being the exact collection date. The letter to me was registered as must be my answer. Now for the first time, I see the steel behind the velvet glove of the pristine appearance of Brugge.
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An imaginary place where life is perfect,
socially, politically, morally |
Otherwise,
the week’s big event, in a relatively event-free week, has been the arrival of
Utopia, bought under
the influence of the marvellous exhibition recently in Leuven. More wrote much of the book during his diplomatic tour of Flanders in 1515 to protect the interests of English merchants. He took the name Utopia from the Greek ou-topos, meaning
'no place'. But there is a pun there; the Greek word eu-topos is
'a good place'. As I
read, I am staggered by its modernity which must also be attributable
to the splendid translation from More’s Latin by Paul Turner. The Utopians
follow a keen sense of virtue and rationalism. They seek to avoid the
social complications of private wealth and class structure and they
rely upon an education in reason, morality, and religion to keep
Utopians well-behaved. Utopians believe the greatest pleasures to be
those of the mind and not the body, and they devote much of their
free time to these pleasures. Utopianism seems to be a superior form
of Communism with more emphasis on intellectual pleasures.
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The island which gave its name to signify
a place where life is perfect
|
More takes a reflective tone in his final letter in the book, to his great
friend, Pieter Gillis, but More is not telling the literal truth. He
describes his work as not necessarily "
a fictional presentation
which would make the truth slip more pleasantly into the mind like
medicine smeared with honey." At the same time, More gives the
clues confirming that his work is fictional: the name Utopia means
that the island is nowhere; the name of the city Amaurot means
phantom; the name of the river Anyder means that there is no water;
and the name of the ruler, Ademus, means that he has no people.
 |
| By Bruno Vincent |
And now, from the sublime to the ridiculous. My sister has sent me
a copy of
Five On Brexit Island by Bruno Vincent. I became
quite excited when she told me about it during one Facetime a couple
of weeks ago. Memories stirred of the joy I had when young in reading
the Famous Five adventure stories BUT recent publications by an Enid
Blyton for Grown-ups, covering such titles as
Five Go Gluten-Free
and Five Give Up The
Booze, had all passed me by, just when I thought I kept abreast
of important British news! Anyway my copy arrived on Friday and I
read
Five On Brexit Island before getting up on Saturday
morning. There are blissful touches like the picture on the outer
cover which includes a boy in a boat brandishing a notice saying,
‘
£350m for the Picnic Fund.’ and inside, a drawing
of the Famous Five with Timmy the dog eagerly sniffing, and the
caption, ‘
Timmy was neutral, although if he had understood the
variety of sausages available on the European mainland, that would
have been a factor.’ A
delightful touch is to label the move of the Five to declare
independence for (their)
Kirrin Island from the UK
mainland, Krexit, with the accompanying, inevitable, ‘Krexit
means Krexit’, to further
burnish the fun. Bruno
Vincent, the author, is inspired! This is a spoof par excellence and one of a series. Below, and above, are more titles placed in an apparently random fashion. Putting images into this blog can be challenging; there seems to be An Unseen Hand governing the process!
