The Bonfire Of The Vanities Of The Pillars Of The Earth We Now Know
(A 3-for-1 Book Review And Society Column, With Craftily Orchestrated Moral)
It's been about two weeks since the Mercy Ships gala here in Jacksonville.
Ordinarily there's nothing like time to bring a little perspective, but in this case, it would probably have been more fun if i'd have written about it right away. I think i'm feeling more charitable now.
That said, i suppose it was a success. I don't know how much money was raised, but the goal was two million dollars, and from the sounds of things, they were well on their way. Mercy Ships needs the money, and i'm glad for every dollar that was guilted out of the local elite. But by the same token, K. and i certainly would not have been invited had we not been former crewmembers and available to work behind the scenes. We were right around twenty grand short of the qualifying (estimated-donation-ability) cutoff.
In a sense this was quite understandable, given the cost of the production. It does take money to make money, and when you invite a Mayor, a Lord, some Congressman or other, and a former British Prime Minister (who is also a knight), well, you're looking to skim the heavy hitters. No British royalty was in attendance, though the Mercy Ships royal family was there, which was quite enough. It was just that the timing was so unfortunate. See, i'd just finished Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and it was too absolutely lovely a juxtaposition. I sat at our rear table looking around at all the aging lawyers and jowled Rotarians, and i had a Realization: I disliked them, in part, because part of me wanted to fit in.
If you've read Bonfire, you know. If you haven't read it - well, it made me think, sitting there at our rear table in front of my lemon tart dessert. About ostentation, and insecurity, and basically, how life is pretty short to spend chasing so remarkably unfulfilling a thing as money. These are obvious thoughts, if you've already thought them yourself, but then, look how many haven't. I was surrounded by them.
This made me think about wealth and aristocracy in general (this was during Lord McColl's speech) - and the simplicity with which the two have combined to control the fates of most of humanity since the beginning. I think this particular detour was due to another book i'd just read: Ken Follett's The Pillars Of The Earth. (yes; don't laugh yet.) This is an epic-sized novel, a meticulously plotted chronicle of European life in the late Middle Ages, and what i mainly took away from it was that the happiness of the vast majority of humanity was pretty much subject to the whims of the wealthy (-and-therefore-powerful; or vice versa). Living as we do in a basically democratic society, we easily forget that life in many lands has changed really not at all. Now, i've met Lord McColl; he's a wonderfully humble twinkly-eyed old guy with a fine sense of humor. As an accomplished surgeon, he's a regular on the Anastasis outreach roster, and when he's not straightening injured limbs in the onboard O.R., he's twisting arms in support of Mercy Ships back home. But there are nasty Lords, too; and in years past, they had a lot more room to be nasty. Or any way they felt like being - and that was that.
This made me think of a third book. I'm not a poser, really i'm not. I skimmed this one, and i probably will not finish, because it has to go back to the library tomorrow. It's John Lewis Gaddis's We Now Know, a look at the Cold War armed with all kinds of newly declassified documents. Gaddis tosses off anecdotes on everyone from Nikita "I Squeeze The Testicles Of The West" Khruschev, to FDR (whom i now respect even less than i used to), to Churchill (whom i now respect even more), to Chairman Mao (whom - at 27 million of his own people - Gaddis crowns above Stalin as the most proficient mass murderer of all time). And this, too, made me think. When i was small, the Cold War was still going on. It shaped my views of the world. I imagined huge, ponderous states carefully considering well-informed actions on a scale so great as to be faceless. And now i find my fate was bobbing lightly on the mercurial emotions of a handful of certifiable psychopaths. Which - really - it still is.
Cheerful thought, that.
So the next time you're at a gala hobnobbing with Prime Ministers and such, remember these things: Be humble, and be proud. And if you happen to shake a famous hand, think this: Will i vote for you because i believe your character to be so high that you are worthy of holding my very life and death in your hands? Or because i think you'll give me things for free?
It's been about two weeks since the Mercy Ships gala here in Jacksonville.
Ordinarily there's nothing like time to bring a little perspective, but in this case, it would probably have been more fun if i'd have written about it right away. I think i'm feeling more charitable now.
That said, i suppose it was a success. I don't know how much money was raised, but the goal was two million dollars, and from the sounds of things, they were well on their way. Mercy Ships needs the money, and i'm glad for every dollar that was guilted out of the local elite. But by the same token, K. and i certainly would not have been invited had we not been former crewmembers and available to work behind the scenes. We were right around twenty grand short of the qualifying (estimated-donation-ability) cutoff.
In a sense this was quite understandable, given the cost of the production. It does take money to make money, and when you invite a Mayor, a Lord, some Congressman or other, and a former British Prime Minister (who is also a knight), well, you're looking to skim the heavy hitters. No British royalty was in attendance, though the Mercy Ships royal family was there, which was quite enough. It was just that the timing was so unfortunate. See, i'd just finished Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and it was too absolutely lovely a juxtaposition. I sat at our rear table looking around at all the aging lawyers and jowled Rotarians, and i had a Realization: I disliked them, in part, because part of me wanted to fit in.
If you've read Bonfire, you know. If you haven't read it - well, it made me think, sitting there at our rear table in front of my lemon tart dessert. About ostentation, and insecurity, and basically, how life is pretty short to spend chasing so remarkably unfulfilling a thing as money. These are obvious thoughts, if you've already thought them yourself, but then, look how many haven't. I was surrounded by them.
This made me think about wealth and aristocracy in general (this was during Lord McColl's speech) - and the simplicity with which the two have combined to control the fates of most of humanity since the beginning. I think this particular detour was due to another book i'd just read: Ken Follett's The Pillars Of The Earth. (yes; don't laugh yet.) This is an epic-sized novel, a meticulously plotted chronicle of European life in the late Middle Ages, and what i mainly took away from it was that the happiness of the vast majority of humanity was pretty much subject to the whims of the wealthy (-and-therefore-powerful; or vice versa). Living as we do in a basically democratic society, we easily forget that life in many lands has changed really not at all. Now, i've met Lord McColl; he's a wonderfully humble twinkly-eyed old guy with a fine sense of humor. As an accomplished surgeon, he's a regular on the Anastasis outreach roster, and when he's not straightening injured limbs in the onboard O.R., he's twisting arms in support of Mercy Ships back home. But there are nasty Lords, too; and in years past, they had a lot more room to be nasty. Or any way they felt like being - and that was that.
This made me think of a third book. I'm not a poser, really i'm not. I skimmed this one, and i probably will not finish, because it has to go back to the library tomorrow. It's John Lewis Gaddis's We Now Know, a look at the Cold War armed with all kinds of newly declassified documents. Gaddis tosses off anecdotes on everyone from Nikita "I Squeeze The Testicles Of The West" Khruschev, to FDR (whom i now respect even less than i used to), to Churchill (whom i now respect even more), to Chairman Mao (whom - at 27 million of his own people - Gaddis crowns above Stalin as the most proficient mass murderer of all time). And this, too, made me think. When i was small, the Cold War was still going on. It shaped my views of the world. I imagined huge, ponderous states carefully considering well-informed actions on a scale so great as to be faceless. And now i find my fate was bobbing lightly on the mercurial emotions of a handful of certifiable psychopaths. Which - really - it still is.
Cheerful thought, that.
So the next time you're at a gala hobnobbing with Prime Ministers and such, remember these things: Be humble, and be proud. And if you happen to shake a famous hand, think this: Will i vote for you because i believe your character to be so high that you are worthy of holding my very life and death in your hands? Or because i think you'll give me things for free?
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