I wrote this book twenty-two years ago. I wanted to write a book that had no plot but was a complete unadulterated stream of consciousness. I called it an Antinovel.
My heroes are Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac. I don’t claim to be like them or anywhere near as good. I just mention them as they inspired me.
Chapter 1
I am a watcher. I spend a lot of my time watching the people around me going about their life and looking for some signs of intelligence, understanding, planning; even a few hints of consciousness might be a novelty.
I can make no sense of it. I can see no sense in it. The more I study them, all caught up in their tiny lives, the more they appear like termites in a huge termitarium, building ever more grand mounds, rushing around doing essential things earnestly, importantly, frivolously, while a forest fire rushes towards them. I look around at the different mounds and see that they really believe each one of them will last forever. I look back across a huge flat plain of history littered with mounds that did not last forever. It matters little.
We live in the outer atmosphere of the sun. We breathe its flame.
I am merely the watcher. It was said by Tom David Thoreau — ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.’ I want to sing every note of my song.
I sit in shopping malls and watch the shoppers spending seconds. I don’t expect much. Some purpose would be nice, perhaps an aim or two, something to work towards, some greater purpose than self-aggrandisement. After all, there’s enough to get your teeth into when we take the time to look around at life. We could set about proving Jesus wrong by eradicating poverty. We could make a fool out of Malthus by solving the population problem. We could save all those hundreds of thousands of species destined to die. We could end pollution, solve the energy crisis, transport dilemma, end all wars or simply protect the erosion of our environment. Oh, there’s no end to the possibility and scope that we are presented with. On the face of it we are, of course, doing precisely that. Pompous politicians set out plans to tackle this problem and that, seven-year plans, ten year plans. But I am the watcher. I see the money being siphoned off, the pockets being lined; I see the extravagant life styles as those that purport to be solving the problems set themselves up; I watch the political juggling as they build and protect their power base and defend themselves. I watch the deceit and hypocrisy. One set of politics against another – intrigue – manipulation -dirty tricks – undermining – power struggles – wealth – opulence and POWER. Amidst it all the purpose is lost and the problems mount up. Nothing is solved. We act like termites building bigger piles, seizing thrones and gaining followings. In amongst the amassing and gaining the problems go on and we continue to prove fucking Jesus right about the poor and he was an ignorant zealot from the dawn of time before we knew about planets, stars and atoms. But I like to believe that one day we will wake up and deal with the issues; the poor will not always be with us. We might be stupid chimps with oversize brains and a power-mad vindictive streak, but we have the capacity for compassion and problem solving. We can do it if we want. One day we will come out of our crazy self-centred madness and use our energies for good. We will build and not simply destroy.
Everyone points to the bear-pits, the nuclear war-heads, the Jihads and Crusades. They know better than me.
I am a watcher; an idealistic dreamer.
Jan tells me I do not notice anything about people; what makes them tick. I think she is right.
53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
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