This
week I have been reading The French Lieutenant’s Woman
and a couple of passages caught my eye and I thought I would share
them (and my thoughts) with you.
In this book there is no question but that John Fowles is the
narrator even when he writing as if in one of his character’s head
(albeit a narrator with special access to their thoughts and
emotions). This is in sharp distinction to the way that Marcia
writes: each scene is written from within one character’s head: we
see what they see, hear what they hear and share their thoughts and
emotions. By definition anything else is off limits. I happen to
believe this is one of Marcia’s greatest strengths as a novelist
even though it is an approach which is hugely tiring.
Anyway, here we are inside Charles Smithson’s head but this section
(as so many others) is not designed to carry the story line forward but to enter more deeply into Charle’s psyche.
There
was worse: he had an unnatural fondness for walking instead of
riding; and walking was not a gentleman’s pastime except in the
Swiss Alps. He had nothing very much against the horse itself, but he
had the born naturalist’s hatred of not being able to observe at
close and at leisure.
Here I am at one with Charles. Indeed I have to confess that going
for a walk with me could easily become a tedious affair for people
with the odd and totally mistaken idea that the purpose of walking is
to get from A to B. Indeed, at certain times of the year when there
is much happening in hedgerow and woodland, an entire morning could
be lost while progressing less than a few hundred yards.
There are two aspects of nature that I find important to me: hills
and the minutia. I need to be able to ‘lift mine eyes up unto the
hills’ in order for me to see myself within the whole of existence.
At this stage, of course, that me is tiny – totally overshadowed to
the immensity of creation (of which, of course, those hills on this
planet are themselves infinitesimally small when one takes into
consideration the whole universe. It is not too good for men to feel
the weight of such a burden without something to help them carry the
burden and that is where the minutia becomes important. Creation may
be huge but it is made up of uncountable small fragments and all are
important for without them all there would be nothing.
Back inside Charles’ head: What little God he managed to derive
from existence, he found in Nature, not in the Bible; a hundred years
earlier he would have been a deist, perhaps even a pantheist.
I am not entirely sure about the reference to a ‘hundred years
earlier’ (which would have been about 1750) but I must confess that
what God I have managed to derive from existence I have found in
nature. Within various churches, as choirboy, chorister and
choirmaster, I have been enriched by the fellowship that is to be
found whenever a group of people are working towards a specific aim
but for me it is the intimate contact with nature that brings me
closer to a sense of the eternal. What is it that I then feel? A very
difficult question. Whatever it is it has little to do with any of
the dogmas associated with the various religions all of which seem to
me to be far too concerned with petty rules and regulations. No. it
is something far bigger than that, and a something that by some
unfathomable process seems to give one a sense of great security and
of joy. As has been used many times: I cannot explain but I will not
deny. I suspect that makes me a deist.
Oh - no, I haven't forgotten. The raised beds need a bit mor going on but I will put up a picture soon.
