For writers of nonfiction, there are subjects, and then there are stories. McCullough always told stories. In 2003, in an electrifying speech titled “The Course of Human Events,” which he gave for the Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, McCullough famously said that “no harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.” History, he believed, was for everyone. It affected us all, so it belonged to us all. It could begin or prevent wars; expand or distort human understanding; connect us to other cultures, other times, other species. It was important, but that did not mean that we had to grit our teeth and set out on a forced march through the past. On the contrary, we should be sucked in from the first page.
One of the stranger sights on the University College London campus is the clothed skeleton of the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Stranger still is that a waxwork head sits on its shoulders, where Bentham’s own head should be, as per his will. Meanwhile, his preserved head is elsewhere – his friends thought it looked too grotesque for display, and commissioned the waxwork one instead. Legend has it that Bentham’s real head was stolen by some students from King’s College London as a prank against their University College rivals, and a ransom demanded for returning it. Apparently, this was eventually paid up, and the head was returned.
Apocryphal or not, such tales of mischief are amusing, and apt to elicit in us a certain kind of sympathy. But there is something curious about this. Mischief is essentially a form of misbehaviour, and its practitioners are generally met with punishment and reproach rather than praise, at least when they are caught. Why is it, then, that tales of mischief so often elicit in us such a positive response? Could it be that there is something virtuous about mischief, and something noble about mischievous people, considered as a type?
I have my suspicions about nudist colonies. Nothing to do with hanky-panky, mind you. I’m just guessing that some residents have a secret reason for going au natural: namely, to avoid deciding what to wear.
It’s the question we face anew every morning, a reminder that to live is to choose — perhaps the last thing we want to do before we’re fully awake. Granted, this choice weighs more heavily on some of us than on others. There are those who seem to copy the Eudora Welty character who dressed like she just opened her closet and said, “I’m going to town. Who wants to come along?” Then there are the more discerning dressers who would amend a famous Nietzsche quote: “To live is to suffer” — especially if you’re wearing the wrong outfit.
If I were desperately wanting a punch in the gob this August, I might well saunter over to Don Paterson and tell him how much I admired his new collection of poetry, and how surprised I was that he had mellowed. I would richly deserve said gubbing, as there is a seam of righteous indignation throughout this new book; but, in my defence, I am also partially in the right.
Keith Corbin is many things at once: a James Beard Award-nominated chef, a formerly drug-addicted convict, a devoted grandson, a gifted storyteller. His weaving of the earliest aspects of his extreme upbringing, sitting on his mother’s or uncle’s hip as they sold drugs, should have defined a life of another Black man falling through the cracks of an American society that has no desire to catch him. Instead it makes his success all the more gripping.
The result is a buffet selection of a book, offering a delectable selection of bite-sized mouthfuls of pub lore. It’s almost charming at times, and yes, it’s quite a page-turner, and a bit like a buffet, you often end up consuming far more than you planned to at a sitting.