As I was going to St. Ives ....

Land's End 
Most westerly point in England

After my planned visit to Kashmir, India, in March collapsed at the last minute, because of a crisis between India and Pakistan, I began holding my breath about the viability of my planned hike in May along the coast of Cornwall, England. 

My readers have been offered various previews of that trip, various references to oddities to be learned about Cornwall, various hints that the time for Cornish hiking was drawing near.  Always with my fingers crossed, fearing that talking about it would cause it also, like Kashmir, to evaporate .  Wondering if Brexit, originally planned for March 29, would lead first to riots, and then to the collapse of civil government by mid-May, requiring us to cancel this trip as well out of fear of being drowned in ale or pelted with scones upon our arrival.

But all seems calm in the still barely "United" Kingdom, and I intend to board an Icelandair flight to London via Reykjavik tomorrow afternoon.  Let the wild coastal hiking begin -- starting out from St. Ives, rounding Land's End and Lizard Point, and ending up in Falmouth!

The downside, of course, is that you'll be without your twice-weekly (or so) stories on the pages of what Trump would call "Your All Time Favorite Blog."  But I'll be back by the end of the month, and soon thereafter will be churning out the posts that have so cleverly eluded, to date,  a Pulitzer Prize.

The messy homeless

Seattle Times photo

Seattle in springtime has been beautiful this week, each day warmer until it reached the mid-80s today.  My neighborhood is bursting with flowers -- as is even my own house, the house of a guy who has never planted anything throughout his adult life.  And we are on the edge of the Seattle Arboretum, which has become a paradise of leafy trees and blooming rhododendrons and azaleas.

So it was discouraging a couple of days ago, as I was returning home from a stroll through the Arboretum, to find a decrepit tent erected a half block from my house, with a stolen Safeway grocery cart beside it.  The owner had made no attempt to conceal the tent -- it was perched right beside the arterial leading into the Arboretum, and was sitting right on the property line between the backyard of one of my neighbors and the Arboretum property.

The owner wasn't in residence, but this was clearly not the tent of neighborhood children, the sort of tent we played in as kids.  It was someone's short-term home.  Very short-term, as it was gone today. 

During the last couple of years, around twilight, I've seen a number of men, and a few women, carrying backpacks into the park.  I don't think they were flower lovers or bird watchers.

It's a dilemma.  Seattle is an expensive place to live, and houses are difficult to find, for either purchase or rent, even by people with money.  And we have a lot of people with little or no money roaming the city.  The city needs to provide housing of some sort for those who need housing but can't find it.  And it's struggling to do so.

But there's another problem.  A minority of those without housing don't really want housing.  At least, they don't want to live in a structured environment, the sort of housing the city hopes to provide.  Some are simply individualists who like to live under the stars -- but under the stars in a city, not in the wilderness.  Many are mentally ill.  And many are so drug addled they hardly know what they're doing.

Seattle has been -- and remains -- quite tolerant of homeless encampments.  It shuts them down only when they become unsanitary or overly offensive to others living in the area.  The Seattle Times ran a story a couple of days ago about efforts by volunteers to clean up these camps.  Seattle residents themselves, relative to citizens of many other cities, share this tolerance.  It isn't the camps that drive them nuts, so much, but the mess they generate.  Hence the volunteer efforts to both help the homeless to live in a safe environment, and to calm the nerves of more fastidious neighbors.

Many of the homeless try to keep their areas clean, but are frustrated by the messiness of some of their homeless neighbors.  The Times story reported that many of the homeless have a "hoarding disorder."  Who knew?  I thought I was the only one. 

But the problem is that only a portion of the homeless are capable of acting rationally.  I don't think a rational illegal camper would pitch a tent on a busy, major street, partly on a resident's property.  Many are too confused by mental illness or drug addiction to worry about finding a safe and hidden campsite, let alone living neatly and tidily.  As one such man, whose campsite was being cleaned up by volunteers, admitted -- he was embarrassed.

"This feels really awkward," he said.  "It's my mess.  I'm a drug addict -- I hate to fall back on that -- but I'll just be brutally honest.  I can't get my [expletive] together."

The volunteers are doing wonderful work, both for the community and for the homeless with whom they are working.  But the problem appears intractable.   Even if Seattle built beautiful free housing for those unable to pay rent, that housing would solve only part of the problem.

We have evolved a segment of the population that is unable to function in an organized society.

Canterbury Cathedral

In 1162, Henry II, King of England, nominated his closest friend, Thomas Becket, to be Archbishop of Canterbury.  The Pope duly approved the appointment. 

From that point on, everything went downhill for Henry -- I'm reminded of Trump's appointment of Jeff Sessions as attorney general.  Becket's newly-acquired loyalty to his God proved superior to his long-standing friendship with his King.  Becket argued repeatedly for the rights of the Church as opposed to those of the Monarchy.  In a fit of rage, Henry uttered the fateful words -- "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"  Four knights did just that, on December 29, 1170, attacking Becket and dashing his brains out in his own cathedral. 

The story is familiar to most of us from the Jean Anouilh play, made into the 1964 movie starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole.  It has special meaning to me, because in 1961, I wrote my junior year history thesis -- some thirty pages with voluminous footnotes -- on a topic relating to the dispute between the King and the Archbishop.

I visited Canterbury Cathedral for the first time when I was 21, just three months after completing my thesis.  The Cathedral was sacred ground to me, like walking through an incarnation of my own research and writing.  There, I told myself, was the spot where Becket was stricken down by four swords.  And over there was the place where King Henry voluntarily submitted to a lashing by four monks, doing penance for his part in the death.

I visited the second time when I was 31, while hitchhiking in England with my friend Jim.  I guess I was less awed that time, especially because I was with another person, and we had similar senses of humor.  We hadn't yet had breakfast.  We sat down on the grass in the middle of a cloister, poured dry cereal and milk into our aluminum mess kits, and dined.  We were unaware that The King's School (founded 597 A.D.) was located on the cathedral premises until a line of smartly-uniformed students came pouring out one of the doors onto the cloister, did a double-take, and stared at us with delight and amazement.  A priest came rushing up and told us that this simply wouldn't do, dear boys, and hustled us and our unfinished breakfasts off the premises.

I hope to visit the cathedral for the third time next week, the day before I climb aboard a train headed for St. Ives, Cornwall, where I'll join my fellow hikers.  I suspect my visit will be neither so filled with awe as in my first visit, nor so oblivious to proper standards of behavior as in my second.

In writing my junior thesis, and in both my earlier visits to the cathedral, I approached Canterbury with the attitude that I was doing homage to the site of a martyrdom.  Thomas Becket was canonized just two years after his death, and it was while they were making a pilgrimage to honor St. Thomas Becket that Chaucer had his fictional pilgrims tell their "Canterbury Tales" a couple of centuries later.  Aside perhaps from those with strong anti-clerical leanings, most people view Becket as the hero of the tragedy -- not only as a religious hero but as a symbol of resistance to the absolute rule of kings.

An exception might be the writer André Aciman.  As a 14-year-old boy, he first viewed the Oscar-winning movie in 1965, the year his family was to be driven from Alexandria. He recalls the movie's being the sensation of the European community in Alexandria.  He himself was obsessed by it, saw it every night for a week, and has continued seeing it whenever possible ever since.  He claims to know by heart much of the film's dialogue.

And to him as a boy, the hero -- or at least the man with whom he could identify -- was not Becket, but Henry II.

The King, one senses, has lost everything he cared for and is now condemned to wander the icy, wintry palace rooms, learning, as he says, "to be alone again."
…
I, too, like King Henry II … was learning how to be alone.  In this, I had found a sister soul.  My sympathies were always with the lonely King, never with Becket, or the honor of God.

--A. Aciman, False Papers, "Becket's Winter"

Aciman certainly gives me insights to consider, and perhaps new empathy for the powerful -- if lonely and bereft -- King Henry.
But I suspect that, as I view Canterbury Cathedral next week, my hero will still be Burton's St. Thomas Becket, not O'Toole's King Henry II.

Primavera a Levanto

Next spring, as some of you know, I celebrate a landmark birthday.  (For purposes of this post, we shall designate it as my 30th.)  I'm arranging a two-week celebratory stay in Italy, which -- to this point -- some 28 persons, in addition to myself, have indicated a desire to attend.

I don't fool myself that my birthday -- rather than any old excuse to hang out in Italy -- is the chief drawing card.

Anyway, as always, my motto is that if you want something done the way you want it done, you do it yourself.  Hence, I myself am planning the logistics for this extravaganza.

We have picked Levanto -- a beach town on the Ligurian coast, between Genoa and Pisa, as the destination.  Levanto is a gateway to the Cinque Terre, five small, impossibly picturesque villages hanging on hills overlooking the sea -- all of them reachable from Levanto by both mountain hiking trails and railroad.  In high season, the area is overrun by tourists.  We will gather in late May -- a couple months after my actual birthday, but a time when the weather is becoming recognizably warm and "Italian," and (hopefully) before the crowds of summer descend.

My original plan was to find a small town where I could sit, drink espresso, and mull over my life for two weeks -- with friends invited to drop by for visits.  But, like Topsy, the plan just grew.  They say that planning a vacation is, for many, half the fun -- and I find that it's an aphorism that applies to me.  So I'm enjoying the experience of finding ways to fit some 29 people into residences in a small beach town, all in the same two-week period.

Luckily, the relatives and friends invited are, with few or no exceptions, pretty laid back and accepting of whatever comes their way.  In my experience, moreover, long hours in the Italian sun, nourished with pasta, wine, gelati, and strong coffee, only accentuates that pleasant languor, that relaxed sense of la dolce vita. 

I have a year to complete arrangements.  While I refuse to wish a year of my life away, I admit I'm looking forward to Birthday 2020.

The Bell

An abbey of cloistered nuns hidden in the dense woods of Gloucestershire, in the West of England.  Across the small lake from the abbey, Imber Court -- an ancient manor house, now somewhat decayed, where a small band of Anglican men and women attempt to live, under the shadow and guidance of the abbey, lives falling half way between that of the mundane, modern, daily world and the exalted and almost medieval world of those subject to religious vows. 

Religious sincerity, inter-personal strife, ancient legends, self-delusion, jealousy, and revenge -- all take place within a small, self-contained world reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel.  And in the lake -- legends of an ancient bell that long ago flew from the abbey into the lake in response to a bishop's curse.

I first read Iris Murdoch's The Bell when I was in my twenties, and those were my vague memories of what I had read.  I have never read any other novel -- and there have been twenty-five -- written by Ms. Murdoch, but a recent article about the author encouraged me to re-read The Bell.

Murdoch, a graduate of Oxford, where she pursued a course combining literature and philosophy, and a fellow at Cambridge where she did post-graduate work in philosophy, taught philosophy at Oxford for fifteen years in the mid-1950s.  She wrote her first novel in 1953.  The Bell (1958) was her fourth work of fiction.

I detail her background to emphasize that Iris Murdoch's novels -- which are quite readable, and many of which were quite popular -- were not superficial pop fiction.  However, I'm afraid that's how I read The Bell on first reading -- as a rather curious, almost Gothic adventure.  After re-reading the 1999 introduction (in my edition) by A. S. Byatt, I realize that even this time around I missed many of the philosophical currents in the novel. 

Therefore, I warn you that my comments are those of a reader trained in neither philosophy nor literary criticism.  I hope merely to suggest why I enjoyed it and why you might find it a good read.

Murdoch writes the novel formally in the third person, but writes from the viewpoint of three characters in alternating chapters -- Dora, Michael, and Toby.

Dora is in some ways the main character, and may be viewed as representing a typical modern type -- she has no belief system, she reacts rather than thinks, she sees herself as practical-minded and yet is intimidated by the high-minded people about her at Imber Court.  She comes from a lower middle class London background, has studied art although she has no real talent, and has married Paul, a totally unsuitable spouse who is considerably older than Dora, is an intellectual of sorts, and is rigid in his thinking and selfish in his dealings with other people, especially Dora.

The story begins with Dora's arrival in Imber, where she has come to rejoin her husband after she had briefly "abandoned" him.  Through her eyes, we picture Imber -- luxuriant in vegetation, imposing in architecture, and filled with people who seemingly share a religious commitment and dedication which is wholly foreign to her way of thought.  Imber -- the abbey, the Court, and the surroundings -- are described in exquisite detail, but even so I wished a map had been provided.  But it wasn't necessary -- the detail is provided to create an impression of intensely dense surroundings, not facts essential to follow the story.

Dora arrives by train at the same time as James -- a co-leader of the Imber group -- and as 18-year-old Toby.  Young Toby has had an excellent upbringing and "public" school education.  He is innocent, happy, adventuresome, and religious, and he wishes to spend a portion of the summer at Imber before beginning his studies at Oxford.

On arrival, they meet the other members of the religious community, most critically Michael, who has inherited the Imber Court property and who, together with James, leads the community. 

The community engages in agricultural work, and is developing its own religious program -- a very "high church" program, parts of it in Latin, that observes the traditional monastic daily hours  -- with some guidance from an Anglican priest who also offers daily Mass.  The Abbess from across the lake is revered by all, and communicates rarely but with wisdom and compassion when she does.

Even the casual reader picks up the fact that James and Michael -- who are on excellent terms with each other and are equally dedicated to the Imber community -- have differing ethical philosophies.  James believes ethics is simple; we know the rules, and all we need to do is follow them,

The good man does what seems right, what the rule enjoins, without considering the consequences, without calculation or prevarication, knowing that God will make all for the best.  He does not amend the rules by the standards of this world.  Even if he cannot see how things will work out, he acts, trusting God.  He does the best thing, breaking through the complexities of situations, and knows that God will make that best thing fruitful.

Several days later, Michael delivered his own sermon, in which he compliments that of James and never suggests that their two sermons said quite the opposite in some ways:

We must not … perform an act because abstractly it seems to be a good act if in fact it is so contrary to our instinctive apprehensions of spiritual reality that we cannot carry it through ….  We must work, from inside outwards, through our strength, and by understanding and using exactly that energy which we have, acquire more.  … This is the struggle, pleasing surely in the sight of God, to become more fully and deeply the person that we are; and by exploring and hallowing every corner of our being, to bring into existence that one and perfect individual which God in creating us entrusted to our care.

The plot itself is simple and somewhat melodramatic.  As a teacher, fourteen years earlier, Michael had fallen in love with Nick, one of  his students.  Nothing had "happened" beyond long, intimate conversations, and Nick's hand, once, flirtatiously on Michael's knee.  But, in a moment of religious scruple, Nick had "confessed" their mutual affection, and Michael had been fired.  Nick, through an improbable coincidence, has ended up arriving at Imber, now a bitter alcoholic, and Michael has avoided him so far as possible.  Meanwhile, history repeats as Michael finds himself attracted to Toby.  Again, nothing happens aside from a quick, impulsive kiss, quickly regretted.  Nick learns of it, however, and -- apparently jealous and offended at being ignored -- orders Toby to "confess" Michael's attraction to James, which he does.  James is upset, but by then other developments are causing the Imber group to break up. 

As a final affront to Michael, Nick blows his own brains out with a shotgun.  Michael, who still cared for Nick despite Nick's sad degeneration, is overwhelmed with guilt.

Michael meets with the Abbess and reveals to her the entire story.  She is sympathetic, but suggests that Michael should have been more aggressive in approaching Nick and trying to help him, rather than worrying so much about his own feelings, fearing for his own moral purity and a possible revival as adults of the prior closeness they had as teacher and student.  In other words, Michael should have followed his own sermon, rather than acting according to James's more rigid standards of conduct.

And what about the bell of the title?  Oh there's a bell all right.  In fact, two bells.  I strongly suggest you read the book to learn about them.  Because … this post already is too long!