Wipes

‘Literature softened our brains,’ says W. ‘We should have been doing maths. If we knew maths, we might amount to something. As it is, we’ll amount to nothing.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with literature per se,’ says W., who cannot go a day without speaking of Kafka, and takes his books to read to the tulip garden at Mount Edgcombe to read on his own, ‘but it’s had a bad effect on us. Besides, I bet Kafka was good at maths.’ – ‘He was good at law.’ – ‘Oh yes, law, it’s a bit like maths. Perhaps we should drop out and become lawyers. Perhaps that would be the making of us.’

‘Of course, it would different if we read literature alongside philosophy’, W. says, ‘but literature, for us, could not help infecting our philosophy. Yes, that’s where it all went wrong.’ – ‘But don’t you admire the fact that we feel something about literature? Don’t you think it’s what saves us?’ But W. is not persuaded. ‘It makes us vague and full of pathos. That’s all we have – pathos.’

Before beginning to give our collaborative papers, W. and I always dab our wrists and then the skin behind our ears with moisturising wipes. ‘It calms you down,’ W. said. ‘A doctor told me on a train.’ He takes his tissues everywhere with him. ‘I learnt it from Sal. You see this is what women can teach you.’

They were handy when we were travelling across Poland. We sat there with flushed faces until W. got his tissues out. ‘Dab your wrists, where women put on perfume, and then behind your ears’, W. told us, giving out tissues. Suddenly a marvellous coolness descended. ‘You see!’

W., on the train, is reading Thomas l’obscur. I was reading Agamben and shaking my head. Why do you keep shaking your head. ‘This is a terrible book! He got to the party too late. The party’s over! Why won’t he learn!’ – ‘What party? What are you talking about?’ – ‘He doesn’t feel anything. All this pathos, but it’s all fake. And he’s so programmatic! Listen to this!’ I read W. a passage. He’s impressed at my vehemence. I have certain instincts, W. allows. Occasionally I’m right, he tells me. ‘It’s like a chimpanzee who knows a storm’s coming, jumping up and down and screaming.’

Meanwhile, the Polish countryside flies by. There’s no beer on this train, to our chagrin. On the way out, we sat at round tables as in a cafe, and we were brought bottles of beer. It was joy itself: everything was there: good company, good beer, cheap salty snacks, the sense of adventure. But now we are going home. ‘How’s Thomas l’obscur?’, I ask W. – ‘Too clever for you, fat boy’.

Once, W. had dreamt of becoming a writer. ‘I was young then, and full of hopes and dreams.’ But he knew when to give up, he said. Philosophy came along. ‘I was good at philosophy once.’ W.’s great period is one of our conversational defaults. Others are 1) our stupidity, 2) my stupidity, 3) W.’s stupidity, 4) my obesity, 5) the state of my stomach, 6) the state of W.’s stomach, 7) The greatness of one or more of the following, a) Plymouth Gin, b) Bill Callahan, c) Will Oldham, 8) the cleverness of certain of our friends, relative to us, 9) maths, and our inability to do maths, 10) classical Greece and our inability to read it, 11) the trouble that literature has brought us.

‘It would different if either of us had literary talent’, says W., ‘do you think you have literary talent?’ – ‘No.’ – ‘I know I don’t have literary talent. But I don’t think you know.’ – ‘I never said I had literary talent!’ – ‘But you don’t deny it enough. Anyway, it’s very clear: you don’t have literary talent. And just so you know, you haven’t got any philosophical talent.’ – ‘Do you have any philosophical talent?’ – ‘I’ve got more than you. Just a little bit more, but that’s enough.’ – ‘Your IQ’s higher than mine, isn’t it?’ – Just a little bit, but that’s what separates us, man from ape.’ – ‘And you’re from a higher class than me, aren’t you?’ – ‘Yes. I have manners. You have no manners. And you’re continually touching yourself. Look at you: you’re doing it now!’ I take my hand out of my shirt. – ‘Why do you like touching your chest so much? Does it arouse you? Keep your hands on the table where I can see them. Read your book.’

The Polish countryside rushes by. – ‘It’s very flat in Europe’, I say. – ‘What about the mountains?’ – ‘I can’t see any mountains.’ – ‘Not here, you idiot. But there are mountains in Poland.’ – ‘It all looks flat to me.’ And then, ‘Right I’m giving up reading. I can’t when you’re about.’ – ‘You weren’t reading!’ – ‘I’ve read from here to here.’ W indicates a paragraph. ‘It’s so boring!’ – ‘What sort of literature would you write if you could?’ – ‘I would write a book called The Idiot, and it would be about you.’

‘Literature,’ W. muses. ‘It’s our downfall. To be fascinated by something we can never, ever do. And it’s not as if we know our limits. We keep bumping our head against it, over and over again, like idiots.’ – ‘But that’s our joy,’ I tell W., ‘it’s saves us.’ But W. is resigned. ‘You have to know what you can do, and what you can’t do.’ Then he looks at me. ‘Where do you think your strengths lie?’, and then, ‘Do you have any strengths?’ – ‘You know what I always say: we have to find something only each of us can do, and do that,’ I tell him. – ‘Oh yes?’ – ‘Pathos, in our case. We’re very good at that.’

When in doubt, W. and I pile on the pathos. We read with great pathos, and write papers of great pathos. Confronted by a potentially hostile audience, we attempt to wear them down with pathos. When there’s an audience more intelligent than us, exactly the same: the pathos trick. ‘I’m sure they know what we’re up to,’ says W., ‘but somehow they’re charmed by us. It’s our pathos.’

I close my eyes. ‘What are you contemplating? Your next magnum opus?’ And then: ‘you have to know what you can do, in your case, nothing, and what you can’t do, in your case, everything.’ I look out of the window. ‘Europe is full of intellectuals’, I tell W., ‘they value the intellect out there.’ – ‘Do you think they’d value your intellect?’ – ‘I wish there was beer on this train!’ It’s hot. W. gets his wipes out. We dab our wrists and then behind our ears. ‘Ah, that’s better!’