'Cultural Amnesia'

The first book of literary criticism I paid attention to was Nha Van
Hien Dai of Vu Ngoc Phan, a voluminous tome from the 40s that included
biographical essays from a number of Vietnamese writers of the time.
The treatise was long on geographical details: so and so was born in
Province X, District Y, Village Z, sometime even specifying the
hamlet. I was never really sure why we went into such level of details
but figures it must be a Vietnamese things. The book was divided into
a number of essays accompanied by a picture of the author under
discussion.

Over Christmas I read a book that brought to mind Nha Van Hien Dai. It
looked the same: a big tome with a number of essays accompanied by a
pictures of the writer under discussion. And just as the old book
provided me much pleasure in my school days, so does this new book
give me tremendous pleasure over these holidays. I am still reading it
with delight, discovering new things all the time. The book is
Cultural Amnesia by Clive James, and truly it has been a long time
since I found a book so interesting.

I did not know the author, Clive James, but as I read on I discovered
a kindred spirit whom I then trusted to help me discover uncharted
intellectual territory.

Cultural Amnesia is about culture, the one we live with and the one we
inherited, whether we want to or not. A lot of what constitutes the
bedrock of contemporary western thought. But it will be interesting
for me to describe how I discovered and fell in love with a book, Like
a person, a book when looked pass its cover sometimes reveal a multi
faceted treasure.

First of all the treatise is a love paean, a declaration of love and
faith to liberal democracy. In not so many words, it states that
culture is inseparable from its political environment and the West was
lucky enough to have benefited from a commitment to humanism and
liberal democracy.

These are concepts that I cherish myself and I find it good to be
reminded by an apparently very learned author. I received
confirmations of my likes and dislikes: like me, James likes Aron,
Camus. Marc Bloch (the founder of the Annales school of historiography
in France, executed by the Germans for his involvement in the
Resistance); and dislikes Sartre, and the glamorous but
incomprehensible contemporary philosophes – Foucault, Derrida etc.
These serve as litmus tests that led me to trust him when it comes to
unexplored cultural territory, and what territory it was: the vast
landscape of western culture ranging from German to English, Spanish,
Italian, Russian, Polish and even Japanese, all looked through the
prism of the influence of the two crushing forces of the twentieth
century: fascism and communism.

The author reminds us that tyranny begets tragedy. He details the work
of Tacitus, reminding us how the Roman author was so good at
describing the horrors of absolute tyranny, which started in Rome
under Tiberius. One anecdote from Tacitus: when the young daughter of
a nobleman was led away to be executed, she asked:” What have I done,
I will not do it again.” A plea that resonates across the centuries,
to be echoed by the plea of a young Jewish woman, about to be shot by
Nazis. A group of Jews was herded naked in a field in Russia in WWII.
One of the Germans, the author of the recollection, was walking
nearby. One of the girls pointed to herself, and said “twenty three”
These two anecdotes-- two cries of innocence stated so innocently --
put together were devastating. It pointed out the roots of tragedy and
the culmination of tragedy in the 20th century. Clive James pointed
out how literature by keeping these episodes alive was impacted and
impact life. And life in the 20th century was not pleasant.

Literature cannot escape politics, and cannot escape history because
they are part of life, and literature – the best of it – is also about
life. Clive James is a wonderful guide to both.

I will share some more as I delve further.