firing the canon

In David Lodge’s comic novel Changing Places, a group of academics play a confessional dinner party game called “Humiliation”(on the topic of that, please someone from the States bring me Cards Against Humanity). The objective is to own up to a major gap in one’s cultural experience and the contest culminates when a young literature scholar triumphantly declares that he has never read Hamlet (gasp!). He wins the game but subsequently loses his job (that would have never happened nowadays).

My first impression of surveys of people’s “favorite books” is that the nation is invited to participate in a massive, inverted version of Lodge’s apocryphal game. It’s impossible to know how honest people are: I mean, how many of us are prepared to admit that we’d rather (imaginatively) hang out with Harry in Hogwarts than with Dedalus in Dublin (or with Lisbeth in Stockholm - *raises hand)? J.K. Rowling’s series makes the top 100 in its entirety but so too does Joyce’s modernist masterpiece (nothing yet about the Millenium trilogy, but I can wait).

Lists like the 100 best books of all time have, of course, become a very familiar part of the way in which we construct our sense of shared identity. The fact that new “best ever” lists are generated annually suggests a kind of instinctive restlessness coupled with a desire to remake the personal and public self. These polls represent a risk-free playing out of the “anxiety of choice” that seems to be part of our radically unstable age. The impermanence of the so-called “timeless classics” is arguably further evidence of a lack of social coherence: a couple of years ago, Titanic and OK Computer seemed dead certs to transcend their times. Today Radiohead are those hipster dudes nobody really, thoroughly liked, and Titanic a huge moneymaker. Granted, with a cool soundtrack. But would they really want to be blessed (or cursed) with the dubious label “classic”?

Conferring permanent significance to a work of art is a problematic act. George Steiner has argued that “post-modern culture” is an oxymoronic term: culture, he maintains, is necessarily hierarchical whereas the “postmodern condition” wishes away al boundaries, divisions and pecking orders. The cultural anxiety implicit in this position is, in my view, misplaced. Culture is transient and so too are the purposes that it serves. We should be prepared to critique our heritage, in all of its literary, artistic, political and religious manifestations.

That’s why I agree with these people’s choice lists, when they are being honest. The results might upset some academic specialists, but the point is that this is not an undergraduate reading list, nor was it meant to be. I mean most of us have a sneaky suspicion that what we like to read might not be what we “should” be reading. How else would we explain the presence of a Dan Brown or Paulo Coelho novel within these lists?

No matter how instable cultural canons are, we do have to make choices and I’m happy that there is a difference between the books we nominate as personal favorites and those that we believe will make us better people by reading. This contradiction is very difficult to wrestle our way free from without imposing an impossibly restrictive and highly fictional form of ethics on our reading habits. 

Lists and rankings might be inadequate gestures towards making a fragmented culture cohere. We don’t worship or even watch television together anymore but we do like to remember together. The pursuit of collective memory need not be a seductive-destructive, honeyed nostalgia, but part of a creative quest to discern what and why we like what we like. 

traffic and catching up on your classics

I used to hate traffic. All that obnoxious horn blowing, fist shaking, name calling and fender bumping. Then one morning, while fuming in a frozen pack of steel, it hit me: it’s a waste of time to hate traffic in Bucharest. You might as well move to an Arabic country and hate polygamists. Traffic in Bucharest is, literally, not going anywhere.

Moving out isn’t an option, though. There’s too much great stuff here: the idyllic climate, the tomatoes that taste like actual tomatoes, the cheap pretzels at every corner. So I recommend you do as I did: learn to make the best out of traffic. It’s quite easy. First, stop believing the traffic myth – that people hate traffic because it keeps them from getting places quickly.

I assure you, this is not the reason people hate traffic. Consider: when is traffic at its worst? At morning rush hour. And where is morning rush hour taking you? To work. Now, can you honestly tell me that you hate traffic because it keeps you from that pile of papers on your desk? Of course not. Why, for this reason alone, traffic is your best friend. Take this simple test: walk into work late one morning and tell your boss, „Sorry, but I got completely absorbed watching the re-run of CSI New York and lost all track of time.” Five-to-one says you get a pink slip. Now, at your new job, try this: arrive an hour behind schedule and say simply, „Sorry I’m late. Traffic.” Not only will your boss accept this excuse without a blink, I bet you’ll even get a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

The real reason people hate traffic is this: it’s a race. It’s not the 10 mph crawl that sends your blood pressure soaring. It’s the sight of that little blue Honda slipping past you into the distance. „I knew late two was the hot lane today!” you mumble. „I should have cut off that busload of kids when I had the chance!” Morning gridlock is nothing more than the grown-up version of Chutes and Ladders. And being the eternally competitive Bucharestians that we are, it drives us absolutely postal to think that someone might be maneuvering their two-ton game piece better that we are. Conversely, who among us doesn’t feel a sweet surge of satisfaction when that annoying Audi running alongside gets stuck as our lane sails ahead?

Once you accept that traffic is a game, it’s easier to stop worrying about how to win. Then you can concentrate on wringing the most from your unavoidable traffic hours. Here are a few time killers that might work:

·         Reading between the lines. Try books on tape. It’s a great way to catch up on Tolstoy, Melville – all the classics. Choosing the right audio book is vitally important. Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer might seem like an okay idea for the first few miles or so, but there’s always the risk of growing so engulfed in the story that you smack into the bumper of the car ahead. Also, don’t choose a book that is really interesting or with major hook-potential. You might end up parked somewhere, with side one over and all the traffic gone.

·         Tote cuisine. Eating in the car is underrated. I’m not talking about wolfing down an Egg McMuffin while balancing an orange juice and a double soy latte on your knees. With Bucharest’s glacial traffic, there’s plenty of time to enjoy a four-star dining experience behind the wheel. If you find yourself on your way back to the office from a noontime appointment, don’t let your stomach churn at being stuck in such gridlock. Enjoy your well-deserved five-course lunch. Commence with a lovely consommé, taking care not to let the bowl tip. Move on to the salad, which will be so savory you won’t even mind when an overzealous stab of the brakes sends a chunk of goat cheese tumbling down the air vent. Then comes the garlic and rosemary chicken, which will be a tad difficult to slice, but overall just delicious. All this time, you’ll hardly even notice the traffic. In fact, after a leisurely dessert and coffee, you’ll almost find yourself irritated when things begin to speed up. You’ll be at the office in no time, ready to take a nap.

·         Wait lifting. Your car is a great place to work out. If you don’t believe me, go to the beach sometime and notice all the people with „clutch calf” – a highly enlarged left leg muscle that develops from years of using a manual transmission in Bucharest. A good hour of gridlock can be nearly as healthful as a personal-training session at the gym. You can practice deep breathing exercises. Bring along some hand weights and tilt your power-reclining seat, and you can perform a full bench-press routine (if you have a sunroof, you can even do squats). And the cockpit of an automobile is perhaps the only place where one can use a ThighMaster without fear of being seen. (Bonus: In case of a serious accident, a ThighMaster doubles as a highly effective Jaws of Life.)

·         Tranquility base. Finally, try this: Turn off the radio. Unplug the cell phone. Roll up the windows and click on the air-conditioning. Hear that? It’s the sound of yourself thinking – something we who live in this perpetually frenetic city don’t get to hear often enough.