Against Nihilism

Violence and viruses have snuffed the life from millions of people these past few years. The increasing sight of mass graves suggest a growing indifference to the value of the individual life. Remember how easily people talked a couple of years ago of the “culling” of the elderly – adding the phrase to the euphemisms which imperial governments have been using increasingly in the past half-century such as “friendly fire” and “collateral damage”. With the global population growing in only 20 years from 6 billion to 8 billion, it is little wonder that we can’t share Steven Pinker’s optimism about human aggression. 

Nor that, beneath our civilised veneer, we are beginning to pose questions about the readiness with which Russian leaders have been willing to sacrifice millions of individuals over the past century. 

“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic” was first attributed to Stalin in 1947 as ‘If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics’. 

I for one will never forget a conversation with a young Russian interpreter in St Petersburg in January 1991 when I was on a WHO mission to the city - when she spoke about how meaningless life was for her as a Russian.  

 

With Ukraine descending into hell, I stumbled yesterday – via an article and book about the country’s cultural heritage – into the field of memoirs which I last posted about some 7 years ago.

Somehow, against such slaughter, it seemed appropriate to assert that life has value – and should be lived to the full. The website Lives Retold reminded me of Theodor Zeldin’s great venture of self-portraits – with Roman Krznaric’s (of “Carpe Diem” and “The Good Ancestor” fame) being perhaps the most thoughtful. 

 

Other examples of people who led fascinating lives and whose account of them avoids the vanity of most autobiographical efforts are –

·       Dennis Healey’s “Time of my Life” (1989) - a beautifully-written and wry study of the political life at a time when politics mattered – with a dash of culture thrown in.

·       En passant he mentions that Leonard Woolf’s 5-volume “Memoirs” were an inspiration and, when I eventually got round to reading them, they proved to be one of the best in the English language both for its insights into social aspects and personalities of the time

·       “Moments of Being” is a marvellous posthumous collection of Virginia Woolf’s autobiographical writings.  

·       Arthur Koestler's four volumes - "an unrivalled study", as the blurb on the back of the third volume ("The Invisible Writing") puts it, "of twentieth century man and his dilemmas"

·       Elias Canetti’s 4 volumes; “the Tongue set Free”; “The Torch in my Ear”; “The Play in the Eyes”; “Party in the Blitz” are somewhat more caustic and show the less attractive side of humanity

·       Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov is in a genre of its own – with a mixture of styles

·       My Happy Days in Hell; Gyorgy Faludy (1962) amazing, poetic and life-affirming memoir from an émigré who returned to communist Hungary in full knowledge that he would be thrown into jail (where he spent 3 harrowing years)

·       Victor Serge’s Memoir of a Revolutionary best conveys the self-sacrifice involved in the harrowing struggles for a better world in the first few decades of the 20^th century

·       Gregor von Rezzori’s trilogy of novels were based on the life he lived in Czernowitz which was then in Romania

·       The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig which I rate as the best simply because it is so self-effacing

·       My Century – the odyssey of a Polish Intellectual is Aleksander Wat’s stunning memoir which rates with Faludy, Koestler, Serge and Zweig.

·       The various volumes of Simone de Beauvoir’s autobiography conveyed for me a powerful sense of an exciting new Europe taking shape in the post-war rubble. All Said and Done is the last.

·       graphic artist Tisa von Schulenberg’s harrowing little book “Ich Hab’s Gewagt” tells the tale of a woman who left privilege behind to pursue a life of art and integrity….

·       I also thoroughly enjoyed historian Fritz Stern’s “Five Germanies I have known”

·       And Gunther Grass’s so poetic “Peeling the Onion”

·       Poet Dannie Abse’s “Goodbye Twentieth Century” is a gentle memoir

·       Diane Athill’s various Memoirs are as good as they get

·       Des Wilson, the great campaigner, I knew briefly in the late 70s and he was good enough to send me his rumbustious “Memoirs of a Minor Public Figure”

·       JK Galbraith’s “A Life in Our Times; Memoirs” offer an unsurpassable repast of memories and intellectual musings

·       Clive James’ voluminous output is almost unclassifiable – memoirs, essays, notes – give a real insight into a great mind, prolific reader and writer of prose which jumps off the page – for example Cultural Amnesia – necessary memories from history and the arts

·       Amitai Etzioni (“My Brother’s Keeper”) and Richard Rose ( jazzily entitled Learning about Politics in Time and Space) are two prolific academics whose foray into Memoir help us understand the process of intellectual development 

·       Herbert Simon was an amazing polymath who launched the post-war interest in decision-making. The intro to his memoir Models of My Life (1996) is one of the best

·       The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler 1880-1937 cover German culture and politics during this period

·       The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt was written on his death bed at the tragically early age of 62 and gives a powerful sense of what we have lost with his death

·       Journalist Sebastian Haffner – who had to leave Germany in 1933 and whose Germany – Jekyll and Hyde made a huge impact when it was published in 1940

 The Hooligan’s Return; Norman Manea (2003) a Romanian émigré much esteemed in the US paints a powerful picture of post-war Romania

·       An Encyclopaedia of Myself; Jonathan Meades (2014) pyrotechnics from a rumbustious life

·       The Pigeon Tunnel – stories from my life; John le Carre (2016) UK’s greatest spywriter’s memoir

·      Making the Most of it; Bryan Magee (2018) epub Final part of a spell-binding trilogy which started with “Clouds of Glory – a Hoxton Childhood” (2003) and “Growing up in a War” (2007) which resonate with the honesty and clarity this amazing philosopher/politician/interviewer embodied.

·       Je Chemine avec Susan George (2020) It’s an epub so needs conversion! George is a French/American radical political scientist and gives a sense of her political journey in these interviews

·       What Does Jeremy think? Is a rare biography of a top British civil servant

An Heretical Heir to the Enlightenment – politics, policy and science in the work of Charles Lindblom ed Harry Redner (1993) takes 110 propositions attributed to him by his colleagues in this tribute to his work and assesses their veracity

Models of My Life; Herbert Simon (1991)

A Synthesising Mind – a memoir; Howard Gardner (2020)