"Remember: You must die."
As someone who has too frequently taken himself seriously, Muriel Spark's 1959 novel Memento Mori acted as a useful tonic. The sentence opening this post are the words an anonymous phone caller repeats to a group of elderly English people. As her characters react to this undeniable truth in a host of ways, Spark sculpts universal truths from a simple story, creating literary magic in the process.
While reading, I tried to imagine how much less angst my life would have had if my temperament were more like Charmian Colston. Her even-handed and gracious response to the anonymous caller reminded me that acceptance of the inevitable is not the same as surrendering to fate.
"If I had to live my life over again, I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever-present sense of death, life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs."
While trying to uncover the identity of the mystery caller, the police inspector's remarks above are met with a range of reactions - outrage, appreciation, obtuseness. Finishing this novel of manners, I made a resolution to try being more like the characters who embraced the police inspector's credo. I believe I'll be healthier doing so.
Karen and I have a morning ritual wherein we read aloud a passage from a book with some spiritual insights. Just finished "A Joseph Campbell Reader" which we can enthusiastically recommend. Started in on "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche. Jury is out on this one but, yeah, everybody dies is pretty much the heart of the matter. However it is the manner in which we live that shapes our attitudes to dying. I hope there's an antidote for the predicament of Jack and Diane.
ReplyDeleteSteve; Man, how I yearn for your comments; couldn't be happier that they are recently on the rise. And you made my week by that sly reference to Jack and Diane from another recent post of mine. At least, I think it was a sly reference. If, in fact, that reference is just a coincidence, you and I have officially moved into Spock-ish mind meld territory. Best to Karen.
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