Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (24 page)

There is a young French Canadian I know whose brain is seething with just such
thoughts. He smells of genius a mile off. His letters are packed with extraordinary pickings
and gleanings from every imaginable realm. He seems to be acquainted with all the doctrines
and dogmas, even the most hairsplitting ones, which man has ejected from his tortured brain.
He can write in the tone of a sage, a poet, a madman, or like “Jesus the Second.” In one
letter he will lift me to the heavens, in the next crush me like a worm. He can take Freud and
Einstein apart, put them together again, and make lamb fries of them. He can analyze his
imaginary ailments with the skill and dexterity of a Hindu pundit. He can almost walk on water
but he can’t swim worth a duck. He is at once the most endearing, the most lovable, the most
promising young man
and
the most pestiferous. He can be cantankerous to such a degree
that you feel like taking the axe to him. And when he chooses, he will woo you like a
turtledove. In one letter he’s found the solution to the world’s problems, his own included,
and in the following letter he’s impatiently marking time until his next incarnation. If today
he’s avid about Ramakrishna or Krishnamurti, tomorrow he may be even more so about the Marquis
de Sade or Gilles de Rais.

The question which agitates my young friend most is: what role shall I play in
life? Joseph Delteil, in an early work, says simply:
“Sois potentat!”
In the chapter
called
“Toi d’abord!”
he begins thus:
“Fouille-toi les tripes: là sont toute
puissance et toute vérité! La vertu est un mot romain qui signifie estomac.”
He
continues—I am lifting phrases here and there:
“Tu as droit de volupté. La vie est ta
femme: baise-la à ta guise.… Méfie-toi des penseurs: ce sont des paralytiques. De doux et
tristes impuissants…. Méfie-toi des
rêveurs: ce sont des aveugles…. Sous prétexte qu’ils ne voient pas le
monde, ils le nient.”
*

Chesterton, in his book on Dickens, has much to say about playing the fool, or
rather, being the fool. Above all, about appreciating the fool. In the chapter called “The
Great Dickens Characters” we get passages like the following:

“He [Dickens] declared two essential things about it [life]—that it was
laughable, and that it was livable. The humble characters of Dickens do not amuse each other
with epigrams; they amuse each other with themselves.

“The key to the great characters of Dickens is that they are all great fools….
The great fool is a being who is above wisdom rather than below it. … A man can be entirely
great while he is entirely foolish. We see this in the epic heroes, such as Achilles. Nay, a
man can be entirely great because he is entirely foolish.

“It may be noticed that the great artists always choose great fools rather
than great intellectuals to embody humanity. Hamlet does express the aesthetic dreams and the
bewilderment of the intellect; but Bottom the Weaver expresses them much better.

“There is an apostolic injunction to suffer fools gladly. We always lay the
stress on the word ‘suffer,’ and interpret the passage as one urging resignation. It might be
better, perhaps, to lay the stress upon the word ‘gladly,’ and make our familiarity with fools
a delight, and almost a dissipation.”
†

There is not such a world of difference between being a “potentate,” as
Delteil urges, and being a great, a sublime fool. In a later work called
Jesus II
,
‡
Delteil, writing with all the fire and enthusiasm of youth, plus the divine wisdom of the
fool, gives us a profound and hilarious piece of writing, profound because it is so hilarious.
It is something like the Sunday of Creation, this book, and the message it conveys is one
which could only be given on the
Seventh Day. In it Jesus the Second runs
around like a chicken with its head cut off.
“Sauve qui peut!”
he screams as he
gallops from one corner of the earth to another, warning of the imminent destruction which
threatens. Toward the end, somewhere in the vague vicinity of Mt. Ararat, he runs into a rum,
staid fellow, none other than old Adam himself. There ensues a delicious dialogue about the
wicked ones, “they” who are responsible for all our ills. As this Jesus enumerates the great
crimes being committed in the name of humanity (the book was written with the war fresh in
mind), old Adam scoffingly says: “Pooh!
Nada, supernada!”
It is apparent that this
Jesus is at the end of his rope, and what is worse, at the end of his wits. Old Adam has
blandly dismissed all the horrors, all the crimes, all the atrocities with
a—“Gestes que
tout cela.… Jeux de mains, ombres chinoises, phénomenologie.”

“The evil’s not there,” says old Adam, in a suave, secretive voice, a voice as
“inouie”
as the first almond blossom. “The evil is within.” It is not act but
state, he explains.
Being
, and not doing. “Evil is in the soul!”

There was a Biblical silence. One heard the centuries clicking away beyond the
sky … then a salvo of machine-gun fire somewhere … military laughs, boots….

“Each man for himself! Scram!” cries Jesus.

“Child!” says the other…. “The earth is round…. ‘They’ are everywhere…. Even
in the Garden of Eden.”

Jesus is speechless.

“So what!” says Adam. “I’ve been here, calm and tranquil, since the
beginning….
Incognito
, my son: that’s the great secret…. I’ve taken to the
underground … the underground of the soul.
(le maquis de l’âme).”

When you put the book down you feel as if God’s own angels had made pipi in
your hair. The raciness of the language, the exuberance of spirit, the hilarious blaphemy and
obscenity, the reckless freedom of invention, give it a magical quality. Nobody is spared,
nothing is left sacred. Yet the book is an act of pure
reverence—reverence for life. When your stomach muscles cease twitching, when you have
wiped the last tear away, you realize not that you have been made a fool of (which is what the
critics would have you believe) but that you have just parted company with a fool of the first
magnitude, a fool who scuttled your addled pate and, in lieu of wisdom, in lieu of salvation,
took you for a ride “to laughter unending.”

And this, if I possessed the gift, is what I would offer my young Canadian
friend who passed his bleak youth in an even bleaker atmosphere but who is now, thank God,
living a life of sin in that delightful city of vice and corruption, Paris. He has not yet
taken his soul to the underground—but give him time! After the imaginary ailments come the
real ailments. After inoculation, immunity. After immortality, eternity. After Jesus first,
second, third and last, old Adam remains. Adam Cadmus. Aren’t the hollyhocks just glorious?
And have you seen those Johnny-jump-ups? Why did you take that crucifix down from the wall?
Put it back! Haven’t I said that every crucifixion worth the name is a rosy one?
“Suave
qui peut?”
Poouah! Try this Liederkranz … it’s sublime….

One of the subjects frequently discussed in these parts is discipline, the
discipline which children should or should not be given. No subject, not even the atom bomb,
can create more divergence of opinion, more conflict, between good neighbors. Pressed to the
wall, every one will agree that the only discipline worth the name is
self-discipline. But, and here’s where the fireworks commence—“children have to be taught how
to behave!”

How does one go about teaching children to behave? (
Properly
, of
course.) Off-hand one would think that there was but one answer:
by example
. But
anyone who has participated in such a discussion knows that this is the last thin line of
defense. The power of example seems to be regarded as a minor technique in the strategy of
daily warfare. It’s the reply of a saint, not of a harassed, bewildered parent or teacher.
Somewhere in the course of an interminable argument you are sure to be informed that saints
didn’t have children of their own, or that Jesus, who said, “Suffer the little ones to come
unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,” might have spoken otherwise had he known what
are called domestic problems. In other words, that Jesus was talking through his hat.

The other day, getting my shoes shined, I had a most interesting conversation
with the colored bootblack, William Greenwell. I always patronize the Reverend Greenwell
because with the shoe-shine I receive a few gratuitous words of wisdom. My friend, who is a
trustee of the Baptist Church and a lecturer and critic of Bible teachings, is probably well
known in Monterey. One can’t help noticing his stand, which is in the hallway of a rooming
house, because at the entrance there is always a pair of high boots from which calla lilies
are sprouting.

From morning till night the Reverend Greenwell is at his stand shining shoes.
And always in the same attire: a shabby army coat and pants, a dingy apron, and a
battered-looking fedora dating from the Civil War. No matter how the conversation starts, it’s
sure to finish with the Bible. My friend
knows
his Bible. He quotes from it freely,
and often at length, giving chapter and verse together with commentary and exegesis. In his
mouth the words sound pungent and provocative, alive and immediate.

The other day, as I took my place on the throne, he inquired
after my boy, who usually wants a shoeshine too. That started the conversation.
Youth!
The Reverend Greenwell’s eyes lit up when he pronounced the word. He has
four sons of his own, all grown men now, whom he had done his best “to raise the right way.”
But it was the grandson, he remarked, who opened his eyes. This little fellow was
different
. He had a way of his own, and at times he presented a problem.

He went on to say that this grandson had awakened his curiosity. Instead of
correcting him, instead of pushing him around, he had set himself to study the boy’s ways and
to discover, if possible, why he behaved as he did.

“You can shout and threaten and punish all you like,” he observed, “but the
truth is that each and every one of us is unique, has a nature all his own. It’s no use saying
‘Don’t do this,’ or ‘Don’t do that!’ Find out
why
it is he chooses to do this instead
of that, or that instead of this. You can’t push people around, especially not little people.
You can only
guide
them. And that’s an art! Yes
sir!”
He looked at me with a
gleam in his eye.

“Now look at Nature. Nature has her own way of handling problems. When a man’s
old, Nature takes him and she stretches him out in death. ‘You’re finished,’ she says. ‘Give
the young ones a chance!’ The world belongs to the young, not the old. As soon as a man comes
of age he hardens and stiffens. He
rigidifies
, that’s what. Nature
never
grows old. Nature stands for life, for growth, for flexibility, for experimentation. With
Nature it’s all give and take. Nature is all one substance; she’s not at war with herself. We
too are members of the one body.” He paused a moment and held his arm aloft. “Mutilate
that
and the whole body suffers!”

Another pause to expectorate. He’s a tobacco-chewing man.

“No, my friend, man is full of pride and conceit. Full of arrogance. Always
wanting it
his
way, not God’s way. Look at the world! Look at these young people
milling about—they’re all at sea. No one to tell them which way to go, which road to take.
It’s
all wrong from the start—I mean our system of education. We fill
their minds with a lot of things that are of no use to them and we tell them nothing about the
things they ought to know. We stuff them with false knowledge. We try to bend them and twist
them to
our
way of thinking. We never teach them to think for themselves. We’re on
their backs all the time.
‘Don’t do this, don’t do that!
Not
that
way,
this
way!’ It’s no good, it won’t work. It’s not Nature’s way, or God’s.

“Every child that’s born into the world has the power to open our eyes, to
give us a new vision of life. And what do we do? Try to make him over, make him into our own
image. And who are we?
What
are we? Are we models of wisdom and understanding?
Because a man has wealth or fame, because he commands an army or has invented a new weapon of
destruction, does that make him a better man than you or I? Does that make him a better
father, a better teacher?

“Most of us know little more than we were told. That isn’t very much, is it?
Nothing to brag about, anyway. Now a child is born innocent. A child brings with it light and
love … and a hunger to learn. The adult is looking toward the grave, or else toward the past.
But the child lives in the present, in the spirit of the eternal. No, we’re not
educating
our children: we’re driving them, pushing them, shoving them around.
We’re teaching them to make the same foolish mistakes we made—and then we punish them for
imitating us. That’s not Nature’s way. That’s
man’s
way …
the human way
. And
it leads to sin and death.”

I often think of Greenwell’s words when my own two youngsters get to plying me
with questions I can’t answer. As a rule I tell them the truth—“I don’t know.” And if they
say, “Mommy would know,” or “Harrydick knows,” or “God knows, doesn’t He?” I say, “Fine! You
ask him (or her) next time.”

I try to convey the idea that ignorance is no sin. I even hint, softly, to be
sure, that there are questions which nobody can answer, not even Mommy or Harrydick. I hope in
this way to prepare them
for the revelation which is sure to come one day
that acquiring knowledge is like biting into a cheese which grows bigger with every bite. I
also hope to instill the thought that to answer a question oneself is better than having
someone answer it for you. Even if it’s the wrong answer! Only on quiz programs do we get the
“correct” answers—but what do they add up to?