Some Truths About Lies

“Where is your brother Abel?”             The Lord asks Cain that question, and Cain answers: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” Very early in Genesis, the Judeo-Christian book of origins, we encounter the first lie.
          On an individual basis, what is the genesis of lying? It has its root in human nature. The infant is born with simple wants. It wants the nipple, it wants to be rid of an uncomfortable wetness. A squall gets its wants taken care of. But as the child grows older not all its wants are met. Instead of gratification it gets, No, you cannot stay up late. No, you cannot have the other boy’s toy.
          The first outright lie may begin with a cookie. A child – call him Herman – is not allowed to have cookies before dinner. But he wants one, so while his mother is putting clothes in the dryer he raids the cookie jar. When she returns to the kitchen she looks at him with an expression of disapproval. He wonders why. The cookie jar is back in place, and he has hurriedly consumed the evidence. Still, she asks, “Herman. Did you eat a cookie?” Punishment looms. “No, Mommy,” he answers.
          His first lie has been spoken. The results are discouraging. Herman gets a scolding: he has told a lie, and that’s a very bad thing; he should never, never lie. Mommy orders him to stand in a corner. And, worst of all, when dessert comes that evening – apple pie, and with whipping cream too! – he gets none; instead he is sent to his room.
          After a torrent of tears comes some hard thinking, and Herman (a smart little fellow) realizes how Mommy had known. It must have been the cookie crumbs around his mouth; he gobbled it and didn’t have time to wipe away the crumbs (Mommy was always telling him to wipe the crumbs from around his mouth). That was it. Next time . . .
          For there is a next time, and a next. And a next. Herman is no different from you and me. If we keep a conscious watch out for lies (including our own) we will see that they run through the fabric of life. Lying is so prevalent that disbelief, or just doubt as to the truth of what we hear or read, becomes a natural response. Eventually Herman learns that there’s no tooth fairy, no white-bearded, jolly fat man bearing gifts for good little boys. He observes that Mommy lies; she even uses him to lie for her when she asks him to answer the phone, and if it’s Granny to tell her that she’s taking a bath. Daddy lies too; one day he called in sick at work and then went fishing in a big boat. The kids at school lie – a lot. To teacher, to one another. Herman lies, and his lies are better prepared and sounder than the cookie lie – no crumbs. The crumb-free lie is the answer, and it often works. It gets him what he wants and it prevents him from getting what he doesn’t want.
          A study revealed that lying reaches its peak around the ages of twelve to fourteen. Puberty! Sex! The time when one is trying to disentangle oneself from the bonds of childhood and wants to explore the tantalizing mysteries of adulthood. But the young person is definitely not allowed to explore those mysteries; rules and restrictions become more rigorous. This opposition – the wanting and the being denied – has its predictable result: lies, elaborate, sophisticated ones.
          The turmoil settles down by the late teens, when the young are allowed to take responsibility for their actions.
          And then you are an adult, and you carry on your life, lying a little or a lot. Those driven by strong, irrational wants – such as power and greed and sex – will likely lie a lot.
          Lying reaches its lowest ebb in old age. With most of the wants gone, what is there to lie about?
          Wants: the root of our lies. And when will man stop wanting?

                                                                                     Mea Culpa
            On the Liar’s 1 to 10 Scale, I’d rank myself a four. A little better than most, mainly because I haven’t been a teller of malicious lies. Such as: “Do you know that Michelle had an abortion? She couldn’t have the baby because the father was black, so Fred would know it wasn’t his.” There’s a whiff of evil in these words, originating solely from the desire to harm someone. I’ve never had the stomach for such bottom-feeding. But many do engage in malicious lying, if only in a mild form.
          One of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” The commandment is not, significantly,“Thou shalt not lie,” though that wording is simpler and more sweeping. Is there a partial acceptance of this human foible? I’m guilty of the foible. I’m a commonplace, mainstream liar. I’ve lied to get what I want and to avoid what I don’t want. There are things I choose to keep hidden from others (the withholding of the truth is a form of lying). I concoct a false version of past events in which my role is more noble. I exaggerate, to put myself in a better light or to make an event more colorful, dramatic. I tell little white lies to make my life easier. Of the lies I tell, the worst are the gain/avoidance ones. But I’m not ruled by strong wants, and I’ve never been in a position where I needed to make high-stake lies. I’m not the head of a corporation, nor the leader of a nation, so I’ve had no missing funds or unjust invasions to lie about. Since I’ve never murdered anyone I haven’t had to lie about that.
          Though there’s another common sort of lie that deserves attention, different in nature from every one so far cited. These are the lies one tells to oneself. They can be innocuous: the pleasing belief that you’re better-looking or wittier than you really are. But self-deceit has its dark side; it can become self-delusion. I’ve known people who, in their mind, rearrange events – events in which they have acted badly, even done great harm – and transform themselves into innocent victims. Perhaps this is a form of self preservation: they want – they need – to escape guilt and remorse. It seems that this self-delusion is effective in achieving its end; I’m convinced that these people truly believe in their innocence. But if it is undetected by them, am I also one who has deluded myself? Am I more guilty in certain instances than I will ever own up to? I don’t think so – mainly because I have not, like the true self-delusionist, escaped feelings of guilt and remorse for my failings.
          A doubt regarding this came to me when I re-watched a movie after a 40 year span. I had been quite impressed by the diabolical twist at the end, and I had told the story, including the final frightening moment of revelation, to a number of people. When I saw the movie anew, I waited for that moment – and it never came. What I had described as happening did not happen. I went on the internet, to find out if the movie had been released in a different version, with a different ending; it had not. There was only one ending, and it wasn’t mine. I had altered the truth.
          I can give a plausible account for this incident. I have an imaginative nature; I found the movie interesting; I thought about it, perhaps before going to sleep, and at some point it occurred to me that it would be more effective, more startling, if the director had done – this. I developed “this” until it took on shape, substance. At some point over the years my alternate ending imposed itself into my memory of the film. It was there, as real as the truth.
          I hope this transformation (disturbingly similar to self-delusion) is limited only to movies, sporting events and other such matters – and not to the actualities of my life.
          Self evaluation is a good exercise, but only if you’re truthful. Maybe, if I work at it, I can get my liar’s rating down to a three. Although I must admit that at times in my life I've been a seven or an eight. I found myself in situations that seemed to demand that I lie – it was a matter of survival, if only emotional survival. I call these circumstantial lies. Circumstantial lies can even be “good” lies; there were those who lied to protect Jews from being found by the Nazis.

                                                                     Lawyers, Leeches, Leaders, Lovers
            People in the categories above commonly lie, or are perceived as doing so. Lawyers, the first in the queue, get enough abuse; I have no intention of piling on. They serve a legitimate purpose – even a constitutionally-based one. In their profession their sworn duty and legal obligation is to represent a client to the fullest. They understand an extremely intricate system of jurisprudence (complete with its own arcane language); their job is to get the most for their client from these intricacies. They can accomplish this without doing anything illegal; they can even avoid telling a lie. When a defense attorney says, “I will prove to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that my client is innocent of the charges against him,” he is merely stating his intent. Let’s suppose that he suspects (or knows) that his client is guilty. He will still maneuver in the shadowy realm created by the words, “Beyond a reasonable doubt.” If the guilty party – maybe a murderer – walks free, we feel outrage, and we direct it partly toward the lawyer. But he’s merely doing his job, doing it well. Some lawyers lie and commit ethical violations, but so do some dry cleaners, plumbers, doctors, cops.
          Leeches of the human variety are greedy not for blood but for money. I’m referring to the person whose actions raise him to the class of professional criminal. The armed robber immediately comes to mind, but I find crooks who are seemingly respectable to be of more interest. The man with the gun doesn’t lie when he orders the clerk to hand over the cash, but the white collar (or blue collar) thief approaches his victim with lies: the roofer tells the elderly lady that he’ll need money for the shingles before he can start work; the chiropractor, after performing various tests, prescribes a regime of herbal supplements; the televangelist asks for donations so that he can carry on the work of the Lord. But – of course! – the “roofer” will never come back; the chiropractor’s “tests” are hocus-pocus and the herbs he sells are placebos; the “man of God” will build his third earthly mansion. The variations of this type of thievery can fill a book; far more crooks use lies than guns. In corporate boardrooms lies are seen as an essential aspect of running a business.
          The elected leaders of our country don’t fare well in polls, which consistently show that the public has a low opinion of their honesty. On what is this perception based? On the facts! Our “public servants” too often wind up in prison. When first accused, they typically proclaim their innocence and intention to fight the false allegations (later they opt for a plea bargain). Being in the public spotlight, their crimes and lies are glaringly conspicuous. No doubt some politicians truly serve the public. What sullies them all are smear campaigns. In the city where I live, in a race for District Attorney, a candidate portrayed himself as supremely honest, God-loving, immensely qualified; in his TV ads he was shown walking in a pastoral setting with his loving wife and lovely children. Next on the screen came the opponent’s ad: the candidate is a taker of bribes, an associate of convicted felons; he's shown with a cigar in his grinning mouth. A regular Boss Tweed. Of course, this was a back and forth affair. These mud-slinging matches go on across our nation; neither candidate comes out looking good. Both could be corrupt, both could be liars; we don’t know. Then there are simple observations that lead to our belief that we are being lied to. Why are lobbyists swarming around state capitals and Washington, DC – are they handing out money and getting nothing in return, as politicians claim? Why does someone running for the job of insurance commissioner spend millions to get elected – is it simply to serve us? We see campaign promises fade away after the person is elected. In my state a gubernatorial candidate running on a platform of ethics reform was fined for ethics violations; a senator who proclaimed his solid family values was found to be a client of the “D.C. Madam.”
          As for our adulterous senator, he stonewalled the story until faced with incontrovertible evidence; then he held a press conference, his wife by his side, and apologized for his actions; his wife said nothing but looked grim. I’m certain that, in the privacy of their home, he first concealed his infidelity from her; then, when matters got hot, he lied (as he initially did to the public). It’s what you do when you’ve been unfaithful to a loved one. Lovers lie about sex. It’s so common that you, dear reader, have almost surely lied to a loved one (and been lied to). Some have told thousands of lies, from their teens to their Viagra years. But there’s no need to belabor what we all know. Morals are loosening (by the minute, it sometimes seems), yet in our culture there are still some emotions stubbornly hanging on. Maybe, in fifty years, the whole matter of faithfulness and exclusivity will be passé. You will be able to love someone and still be free to fulfill your wants with another to whom you are attracted. No trust will be destroyed, no pain will be inflicted, no marriages or relationships will be undermined, no guilt will be felt. No lies will be needed. In this golden future a husband may simply say, “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, honey. What’s for dinner?”

                                                                                      The Supernatural
            The Aztec religion, which explained the universe, sanctioned cannibalism, flaying, dismemberment. Sacrifices were done on a massive scale; on important occasions tens of thousands would have their chests cut open and their beating hearts torn out; this was done to appease malignant gods. To us the world of the Aztecs is dark and deluded; it reeks of death and brutality. Yet the people of a great civilization believed.
          As late as the 1940s the Japanese believed that their emperor, Hirohito, was a deity. It wasn’t until he told his people to end all resistance that the war ceased; the people obeyed their emperor/god. One of the world’s major religions – Hinduism – is inexplicable to the Western sensibility, with its pantheon of strange gods, such as Ganesha, depicted as an elephant riding on a mouse. And yet millions believe.
          All religions, in explaining the world, move into the supernatural – into the realm of the miraculous. As does the Christian religion. The Old Testament is filled with miraculous events; there’s a constant interplay between God and man. In the New Testament Jesus performed many miracles (in front of witnesses, sometimes huge crowds). Most were cures. Again and again are accounts of how he cured lepers, the blind, the mute, cripples, the possessed. He also taught, but before he spoke he would heal those brought before him. And who would not listen to his words after witnessing these miraculous cures? The awe and wonder of it! Who would not follow this Son of God? Indeed, the New Testament refers to crowds following Jesus. They follow him to the gates of Jerusalem, crying out “Hosanna!”
          It is from the accounts of the disciples that we have the words and actions of Jesus. But many biblical scholars are not at all clear as to the identity of the disciples; the time period in which they lived is a matter of speculation. Also in question are the exact words of the Bible, as originally written. These disciples relate events concerning the birth of Jesus which they could not have witnessed: the Lord appearing to Joseph and telling him that what is conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit; angels bringing news to shepherds that a Savior has been born in Bethlehem.
          Throughout the story of Jesus, from his birth to his ascension, we are suffused in the supernatural. And this story comes solely from shadowy sources.
          When Jesus entered Jerusalem we also enter the domain of historical fact – for there were objective historians of that period; the Romans were diligent in documenting events of note. Yet no contemporaneous account of the last days of Jesus’s life can be found. If a crowd of believers (crying out, “Hosanna!”) had accompanied him, if large-scale unrest had occurred, it would have been recorded. The reason that historians of the time did not write of the matter of Jesus is because it was insignificant.
          Stories of the supernatural were – and are, universally – needed to elevate ethical and moral precepts to gospel. The Aztecs were given a belief system based on the supernatural; we reject it, as we reject other alien belief systems. But thousands were fed with seven loaves of bread and a few fish. Jesus walked on the sea. He changed water into wine, he raised Lazarus from the dead. And he performed those miraculous cures. Yet as he hung on the cross nothing supernatural occurred; Jesus was jeered at for just that: Save yourself; if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. He did not come down. He was not capable of doing so.
          I believe that the Bible, in its relating of supernatural events, lies. Was the use of lies a practical, calculated means to an end – to gain converts? We are told that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, but the flesh and blood Jesus may have considered himself only a teacher of men.
          For the words I’ve written some may condemn me to hell. Hell (and a form of it appears in many religions) is the most poisonous lie that man has conceived, for its purpose is to coerce people into obedience by instilling fear in them. The believer is given an eternity of bliss, the unbeliever writhes in eternal fire.
          Yet religions meet a deep-seated need. We humans want (that word again, for the last time) answers. There is a lack of answers provided by the natural world; death is a great and inexplicable silence. Religions tell us why we are here, what life is about, what happens to us when we die. So people take a leap of faith over a wall of logic and into the realm of the supernatural (though some don’t leap; they struggle up the wall, hand by bloody hand). They accept lies as the Truth. But if belief in these lies brings them peace and solace, if it makes them better human beings, it is of value.

The Decline of the American Bestseller
          Some hold to the idea that a greater proportion of the population in the past read higher quality fiction than they do now. I’ve put together statistics that support that belief.
          Let me first give a sketchy definition of what, for me, “literary fiction” is not: it’s not shallow; it does not pander to the reader’s base desires; it does not slavishly follow a much-used formula for success; its characters and situations are not phony concoctions. It rises above all that; it can rise far above it, to the celestial heights, or it can merely settle securely in one of the lower aery spheres, where there’s a touch of late afternoon smog in the air.
          My definition is meant to spread a wide net. Literary fiction cannot be an exclusive club, allowing in only behemoths like Moby Dick. Reader-friendliness is a virtue. The man or woman in the street who can respond to quality writing and be willing to pay for it must not be excluded. Only they will constitute a substantial readership.
          A rosy picture of a past with a more discriminating reading public is considered by some to be a myth. In a way they are right; people have always been attracted to those “nots” I noted above. But it’s a matter of degree. Included with the shoddy novels being read in the thirties through the seventies, there’s a lot of quality work. This is not the case in the eighties, nineties and the first years of this century.
          I got the material to support the decline theory from a book called Making the List by Michael Korda, editor-in-chief of Simon and Schuster. He gives the bestsellers in every year from 1900 to 1999, as compiled by Publishers Weekly. These PW lists are available for your perusal on the internet (my information for the years from 2000 to 2007 comes from that source).
          I have great respect for Thornton Wilder’s Heaven’s My Destination (1935), Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), James Jones’ From Here to Eternity (1951), Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools (1962), and Richard Adams’ Watership Down (1974). I searched through the lists for the years that follow and I cannot find one book that has their combination of richness and readability. (I would have included Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities, but it missed the top ten cut; it was number 12 in 1987 and number 11 in 1988.)
          So you have a sense of my taste. I also appreciate more lofty work, but it doesn’t usually reach the bestseller lists. Or it does so for the wrong reasons (Lolita and Tropic of Cancer being prime examples).
          To get this down to simple numbers, I looked at the titles and their authors for each year and assigned (or did not assign) them to the category of literary fiction. Though seeming at first to be wildly subjective, I don’t think my choices should be an area of contention. That’s because I’m not judging a specific book (most of them I haven’t read) but their authors (most of whose work I am familiar with). An example is John P. Marquand, who has six novels on the list; I’ve read two books by him, and both were excellent. In the case of Edna Ferber, I think it can be agreed that she wrote fiction that had scope and purpose and was done with craftsmanship. Anyway, there’s a tradeoff. I include Ferber in the thirties and forties, but I include Jean Auel in the eighties and nineties. In exchange for Marquand you get Michael Crichton. I believe that, if I’ve erred in my choices, it’s in favor of the more recent years (1980-2007).
          Among the authors in different decades that I passed on are the mystery writers Mary Roberts Rinehart and Mary Higgins Clark. There was a large audience in the thirties and forties for historical and religious novels; I excluded the likes of Kenneth Roberts and Lloyd C. Douglas, but I also left out the omnipresent Stephen King and John Grisham, because now there’s a large audience for horror and legal thrillers. These six authors, though adept in what they do, mostly limited themselves to a successful formula. As does Ann Rice with her vampire novels.
          The authors mentioned above, past and present, have something in common: they geared their writing to the popular taste. But among the bestselling authors in the earlier decades I find many names that occupy the higher spheres of literature. Included in the thirty-two who made my list for the thirties are Willa Cather, Aldous Huxley, Isak Dinesen, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, Virginia Woolf and four Nobel Prize winners: John Galsworthy, Pearl Buck, Sinclair Lewis and John Steinbeck. In the nineties I can come up with only one name in that league: Toni Morrison.
          After sampling the depth of the thirties, it’s instructive to look at all eight authors of literary fiction I selected from the nineties. Besides Morrison (for Paradise), they are Jean Auel, James Michener, Laura Esquival, Michael Crichton, Anonymous (Joe Klein), Charles Frazier, and Tom Wolfe (for A Man in Full, his disappointing follow-up to Bonfire). Instructive indeed . . .
          Below are the numbers of authors of literary fiction who wrote at least one novel in a decade’s top ten bestseller list. The numbers represent different authors; those who wrote multiple bestsellers in a decade are counted only one time.

1930's – 32
1940's – 30
1950's – 36
1960's – 37
1970's – 28
1980's – 16
1990's – 8
2000-2007 – 5

          Michael Korda gives a commentary on each decade. A sentence from his book’s last paragraph sums up the situation: “At the end of the day, the bestseller lists of the nineties made for relatively depressing reading, except to accountants.” At least to those accountants of the publishing conglomerates that had a Tom Clancy or a Danielle Steel in their stable.
          These lists support the already-existing opinion that literary fiction is on life support. Blame it on TV, home videos, computer games, the bossanova. Or the new ways people’s minds are wired (short attention span and all that). Some point the finger of blame at authors, MFA programs, editors and publishers, even booksellers. Or an educational system that fails to foster a love of literature.
          But why suppose this and that? The simple truth is that a cultural shift has occurred, and literary fiction has been elbowed aside by less demanding forms of entertainment. My original premise is actually pie-in-the-sky thinking: the man and woman in the street no longer have the least interest in reading novels of quality. There is no interest in any of the arts. Entertainment that is nourishing to the intellect and the spirit is no longer a part of most people’s lives, nor is its absence felt. As a nation we are culturally-starved, though we feel glutted.


(Originally appeared, in a different version and under a different title, in Monsters and Critics)

To Whine or Withstand
          Existential despair is characterized by a feeling that life is void of meaning. Death, the final inexplicability, is a cessation of the only reality we’ll know; it’s best not to let our mind go there. Yet in Philip Larkin’s poem “Aubade” he does exactly that. The first two stanzas:

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation; yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
— The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused — nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

          Religious belief can provide an antidote to the despair Larkin expresses. Religion gives us assurance that there’s a purpose to life; it cares for us after death. But it’s an inability to believe that prevents the sufferer of existential despair from taking that curative. Larkin’s third and fourth stanzas:

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear — no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen; this one will,
And realization of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

          The Believers of the world – involved with family and occupations, not questioning the unknown – are to be envied. Larkin never married, though he held a librarian’s job until his death at age sixty-three (he wrote “Aubade” when he was fifty-five); he achieved fame as a poet, but that did not offer him refuge from pre-dawn thoughts. As a child, did he go through those “wrong beginnings” he refers to in his poem? Maybe, in the cause of right beginnings, it's a parent’s duty to instill in their child a firm foundation of belief – to innoculate them from the disease that Larkin suffered from. In other words, is there responsibility involved?
          Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher/author, wrote “San Manuel Bueno, Martyr” in 1930 (six years before his death, at age seventy-two). This story also addresses the issue of existential despair, but from a different perspective. It is about responsibility.
          In the course of the story it is revealed – though Don Manuel is deceased and is being considered for beautification by the Catholic Church – that he was a non-believer. But what matters is how he lived his life. As a parish priest he guided and counseled people with unwavering compassion. He kept religion a simple matter; he had no patience for theoretical discourse. He immersed himself in the life of the village, working beside the farmers on the threshing floor, writing letters for the illiterate, chopping firewood for the poor, making wooden toys for children, playing drums at village dances; his was a life of ceaseless activity. He discouraged gossip and meanness. He was always present at deathbeds – the dying held to Don Manuel’s hand as if to an anchor chain.
          There were two people that he allowed a glimpse of his secret. The first was Lazarus, a non-believer who was “converted” by Don Manuel; the other was Lazarus’s devout sister, Angela, who sensed, even when she was in her teens, that the priest was bearing a great burden. I put “converted” in quotes because Lazarus did not become a believer in the doctrines of the Church; Don Manuel did not attempt to accomplish that transformation, for he knew, in Lazarus’s case, it was futile – as it was for him. Instead, he urged Lazarus to feign belief even if he did not feel any. To do it for the sake of the villagers. Lazarus is converted not to the church but to belief in Don Manuel.
          Don Manuel lived by a simple credo:
         “First of all, the village must be happy; everyone must be happy to be alive. To be satisfied with life is of first importance.”
          Despite the happiness he wished for others, Don Manuel struggled with life. He was constantly drawn to suicide. He confides his darker side to Lazarus:
          “The truth? The truth, Lazarus, is perhaps something so unbearable, so terrible, something so deadly, that simple people could not live with it!”
          “I am put here to give life to the souls of my charges, to make them happy, to make them dream they are immortal – and not to destroy them. The important thing is that they live sanely, in accord with each other – and with the truth, with my truth, they could not live at all. Let them live. That is what the Church does, it lets them live. As for true religion, all religions are true as long as they give spiritual life to the people who profess them, as long as they console them for having been born only to die.”
          “I know well enough that one of those chiefs of what they call the Social Revolution has already said that religion is the opium of the people. Opium . . . Opium . . . Yes, opium it is. We should give them opium, and help them sleep, and dream. I, myself, with my mad activity, give myself opium. And still I don’t manage to sleep well, let alone dream well. . . . What a fearful nightmare!”
          “There is no other life but this, no life more eternal . . . let them dream it eternal . . . let it be eternal for a few years . . .”
          Don Manuel is a martyr because, though he suffers on the cross of his bleak perception, he perseveres to do good. The doubts that are revealed in Mother Teresa’s writings (which she wanted destroyed) suggest that her thoughts were not dissimilar to his.
          Unamuno, like Larkin (and so many philosophers – Hume, Locke, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Erasmus, Santayana) never married. But he was extremely active, immersed in the intellectual and political life of Spain. He was a man who lived in a world of words, ideas. Larkin would have considered that to be a diversion from reality – while admitting, surely, that he too engaged in diversions, his writing of poetry being one.
          The character of San Manuel Bueno is a saint. In “Aubade” Larkin purports to be nothing but a flawed man. Larkin’s poem offers no answers, no path to follow. Facing the unadorned truth – though a hollow sustenance, the truth being what it is – is a point of honor with such as Larkin; no “tricks,” no “specious stuff” will be allowed. Don Manuel and the sleepless thinker in “Aubade” suffer from the same affliction, but the authors differ greatly in their aims. One presents a model of how to live; the other looks at Nothingness and gives us its essence.
          Existential despair is acknowledged in psychiatric texts, but it is hard to say how many suffer from it. Most of those who call themselves existentialists, agnostics, atheists, secular humanists – non-believers of any stripe – give every indication that they are perfectly comfortable in their skins and expect to face the hour of their deaths calmly. No doubt there are people who might not label themselves – who may not even know what the word “existential” means – but who feel despair, either fleetingly or as a constant and oppressive presence. I suspect that most carry on, not sharing their feelings, not disturbing the peace of others with their doubts. They rise and get on with the things of life (sometimes crowding their existence with the things of life).
          Which brings us to the last stanza of “Aubade”:

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

                                                                                            *
          After many readings of the poem and story, “Aubade” emerged for me as the more honest work. Also, the braver; it takes courage to admit to the fears which Larkin lays bare. In Unamuno’s story his characters serve his didactic purpose. He was clearly enamored with the saint he created. He has Don Manuel gazing into the waters of the lake, where the night stars are reflected, yearning to disappear into those tranquil depths. So romantic an image! – (while Larkin lies in bed, staring in dread at “unresting death”). Other things struck me as inharmonious to the story’s premise. Leading the congregation in Mass, when Don Manuel comes to the words “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh and life everlasting” he grows momentarily silent, though his lips continue to move; the absence of his voice is submerged by those of the others. Why is he silent? If he doesn’t believe, if he consciously lies, why avoid this lie? When Don Manuel dies peacefully in the church, surrounded by weeping villagers, the devoted fool Blasillo, who is holding Don Manuel’s hand, dies at the same moment. Seems like a miracle to me.
          Unamuno approaches despair intellectually. In “San Manuel Bueno, Martyr” he constructed, to borrow Larkin’s words, a “musical brocade” (though not a “moth-eaten” one). Unamuno would probably not deny that. Yet he would insist, “Despite that, despite that – let them live in peace.” Larkin did not move to “despite that”; he never moved past the stark fact that he stared at. In his poem, Larkin whined – his disparaging word, and it is a fitting one. He refused to ennoble any aspect of this world he was born into, and which he feared leaving.