Off the cuff: 42
Tonight, I aspire to whip The Daily Dose of the Good (and Not So Good) Words out in record time. Short and sweet. Like the number 42. Which as the answer to the question of the meaning of life is short or perhaps, I should say small, but as the number of years one has been alive on the planet earth- excluding ridiculously long lived trees and tortoises- is not such a small number. It is not short at all. It fact it is long and full of meaning that number when related to a human life.
The reason for going on for some length about 42 is not because I am anywhere close to turning 42 years old (though it is five and a half short years between now and 42 for me). No, it is because I have been reading The Meaning of Life by Terry Eagleton, an enjoyable little book by the English professor famed for writing a book on literary theory that every wanna be critical theory thinker cuts their baby teeth on and then for slowly becoming a bit of a cantankerous old curmudgeon about the excesses cultural studies and the misuses of critical theory.
Most of that is hearsay since I haven’t read most of his books though I do have the book on literary theory sitting on my shelf. It was given to me by a well meaning friend. This will all get back to 42 in a moment or two, maybe 42. While searching for After Theory, because I have high hopes to spend a short little while this summer pleasantly entertaining myself with his understated, restrained, passive aggressive prose about how theory is used within the halls of Academe, I came across The Meaning of Life. As a tangential aside, I also am very much looking forward to his new book attacking atheist crusaders like Dawkins and Hitchens, or whatever the hell their names are, they are all mangled together in my mind because a review of Eagleton’s new book mentions his gorgeously catty smashing their two names into one.
I may be overstating the understated passive aggressive nature of his prose, since I am all about the overstatement as a rhetorical device, but I’ll willing to go toe to toe that he’s catty from time to time. If I wasn’t too damn tired, I’d find the quote about dreary Marxists that is just one example of his now you see them, now you don’t claws. Now, I don’t particularly have problem with this, I am a fan of the Algonquin Round Table after all, even if sometimes, when referencing popular culture, he begins to sound like a querulous, old man shaking his fist at the whippersnappers of the world. My off the cuff ramblings have lead me to focus on his acid drips (never baths that would be entirely too much).
It would be a mistake to characterize this book by my oversized enjoyment of the small flashes of tooth and claw. It really is a lovely, well written book that invites us to explore with him the question, “What is the meaning of life?” through some of the various ideas presented by philosophers, writers, theorists and even a few theologians. His discussion of Samuel Beckett, a playwright that I am finding to my chagrin more and more people have not heard of, is nuanced and useful both as a bit of literary/theatrical criticism and a piece in the puzzle he is trying to put together.
Unlike many academics, Eagleton writes well about difficult ideas. I am not suggesting that there are no problems in his arguments, though I often find myself agreeing with him, but I do think that it is argued well. Eagleton deals with complex ideas without letting his sentences become a mass of overwrought, badly written jargon slop heaps. This is a refreshing change of pace.
42 comes up because he takes a moment to look at Douglas Adam’s bit of humor about the supercomputer programmed to find the answer to the meaning of life spending eons churning to spit out the number 42. And I don’t have much to say about that now. 42 was just what got this particular bit of writing started.
42 made me think of meaning. What I like about Eagleton is that he believes all those intense ideas and theories might actually have something to say about our lives inside and outside of academia. Those of you who have read my longer, more involved Daily Doses about theory as a form of scripture know that that idea is right up my alley. I am sure that some of his writing about cultural studies will bug the hell out of me- the best writing does, making me think and question and talk back. But I find I am willing to be annoyed, if it means I get to believe, at least for a little while, that something I love, wrestling with theory, may possible be meaningful.