My brain has made some odd connections lately, so I noted them down. Note: this may be conclusive evidence of my insanity.
Watching the extract of Archbishop Rowan Williams’ Hay Festival “all smiles” speech (”everyone is bustling around, talking cheerfully and in an upbeat sort of way. It’s like being on an ocean liner where all the staff are talking brightly and smiling at you rather too cheerfully and you think ‘what’s wrong?’“) made me think of the news. In a very literal sense, TV anchors and newreaders on certain channels (not all!) give off horribly disconcerting vibes with their constant smiles. Just switching over to BBC London News is enough to witness this.
Armando Iannucci’s rather excellent documentary on Milton’s Paradise Lost hit on the part where Eve eats the apple in Paradise Lost: “it’s the most momentous moment in history according to this poem, and yet its given and delivered in the barest of lines: ’she plucked, she ate’”. My mind managed to connect this to the MPs expenses story, where this one momentous event has revealed the attitudes of dozens of MPs towards the public, and has finally given a great mandate for reform. The actual event is meaningless: it is only the enabler. The real news is the change. Instead, “the news” has dwelled on the scandals to the point of absurdity, without deciding to move on from questions about manure and chandeliers to real questions about what reforms should be made.
Finally, another brain connection came between the end of Paradise Lost, and the final line of Eyes Wide Shut. “The epic religious verse of Heaven and Hell and War and Battle: that all disappears. What we’re left with are these bare words: ‘they hand in hand, wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way’. To me, the bare word at the end of Eyes Wide Shut directly connects with the end of this epic poem. “Fuck” was all that was needed. A very realist ending in both accounts!
