Eisengeiste: Sports Fans!

September 12, 2008

The Front said...: I believe this is as good a time as any to quote a passage from Wodehouse, which pitched me into embarrassing peals of laughter on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore:

(Two young women are chatting at Blandings as twilight approaches.)

'Ever read Schopenhauer?' she asked, after a silence.

'No.'

'You should. Great stuff.'

She fell into a heavy silence again, her eyes peering into the gathering gloom. Somewhere in the twilight world a cow had begun to emit long, nerve-wracking bellows. The sound seemed to sum up and underline the general sadness.

'Schopenahauer says that all the suffering the world can't be mere chance. Must be meant. He says that life's a mixture of suffering and boredom. You've got to have one or the other. His stuff is full of snappy cracks like that. You'd enjoy it. Well, I'm going for a walk. You coming?'

'I don't think I will, thanks.'

'Just as you like. Schopenhauer says suicide's absolutely OK. He says Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day.'

'What a lot you seem to know about Schopenhauer.'

'I've been reading him up lately. Found a copy in the library. Schopenhauer says we are like lambs in the field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses first one, then another, for his prey. Sure you won't come for a walk?'

'No thanks, really. I think I'll go in.'; September 12, 2008 at 9:45 PM