Day 558 | Pental Island: away from the roads

52 km | zzOz total: 18,121 km

I wasn’t so fussed about the end of the world, being away from the usual media hype.

In any case at quite a young age I’d read Norman Cohn’s Pursuit of the Millennium, a scholarly work about the history of the Apocalypse. When you realise the disciples sat around waiting for the imminent Second Coming for a few weeks, surprised it didn’t happen, you come to think there’s an extensive tradition when it comes to Ends of the World.

For some reason, at the time, I was quite taken by the idea of those walking the roads of Europe in the Middle Ages, scourging themselves until they almost fainted from blood loss, all because they felt unworthy. (Thinking of linking my recent activities with those in times past, my assertion is that there is little in common other then the idea of a road, my motivation is entirely different.)

I’d been recommended the book my housemate of the time, an older guy, Steve, with an extensive library which may or might not have included the complete work of Lenin, and a proper Graduate School education in the US, not our light weight NZ version, we enjoyed many late night discussions over a bottle of whisky, me downing one finger to his fistful.

Steve also alerted me to a number of books that have stayed on my reading list over the years: Death on the Instalment Plan, by Celine, in fact any of his pre WW2 masterpieces, Journey to the End of the Night. The Instalment Plan has such energy, humour and vitality in the writing, all recounted by the grumpiest, let’s just be honest here, obnoxious narrators in literature, but such humanity behind it, such life.

Also from my reading list was V, by Thomas Pyncheon, more readable than Gravity’s Rainbow, which was once on the most read list of any aspiring pointy head.

Cat’s Cradle, by Vonnegut, also rated highly although it wasn’t my book, I’d brought Catch 22 to the table which Steve felt was acceptable due to my youth but I had to get into those weighty tomes, you had to get the brain power working.

If Infinite Jest has been written, it wouldn’t for another 15 years, it would fit comfortably with all those other uncomfortable reads.

What do I think about another end of the world having survived Jonestown and that horrid 70s Cold War tension when the cruise missiles moved into West Germany?

Pessimistic?

S’pose.

Somehow people’s need for immediate, or short term, gratification and general gross materialism trumps the greater good.

It was 42ºC today, and the warmest December night ever recorded in Melbourne last night, at least not the uncommonly high 45.5ºC of three weeks ago in these parts.

I’m not so much judging others, much, but something’s gotta happen and it might as well start with us.