Dear Illusion by Master Zen Kingsley Amis, author of I Like It Here http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/09/i-like-it-here-by-glorious-kingsley.html and at least fifteen more masterpieces - 10 out of 10

 

Dear Illusion by Master Zen Kingsley Amis, author of I Like It Here http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/09/i-like-it-here-by-glorious-kingsley.html and at least fifteen more masterpieces

10 out of 10

 

 

Dear Illusion is story number six in the Collection that starts with My Enemy’s Enemy http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/my-enemys-enemy-by-magister-ludi.html a tale of excess in the military service, something that the author has experienced himself, while assigned to a signals unit in Belgium, during World War II, when he could officers abusing their position – the chapter where a general asks for a special courier, pretending it is for official business, when in fact he just wants his dirty laundry sent to Brussels to be cleaned and cigars plus wine to return from there has echoes from real life.

 

Court of Inquiry is the second little saga on the list, it also has a military theme, Major Raleigh is the preposterous, pompous ass who organizes the court in the title http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/court-of-inquiry-by-messiah-of-comedy.html ‘to make a point’ if a flawed, absurd one, for the subject of the investigation and prosecution, Frank Archer, has left behind an engine, true, only that piece of equipment was not functioning, had no parts and furthermore, there is one available, with more pieces in store if needed, which nobody claims and thus this is all futile.

The last in the miniseries would be I Spy Strangers, which is exposing the same limits, narrow views of those who lead that and other armies – my cousin used to say that APV, those in the army in this realm are just nut cases, promoted because they have obeyed any foolish order, and then when in top jobs, they inflict the same pain they suffered when they were enlisted men…look at the idiot Flint, who wanted the other cretin, Trump, to impose martial law, so that they can claim a win in elections they had lost – and we have some extreme views from the left, let us embrace the Soviets and become Reds ourselves in a nutshell, and the right, where some missed Hitler, who could have helped fight the soviets

 

Moral Fibre has left the battlefield and is about the immorality of someone who works in a domain that involves nobility of spirit, munificence – positive psychology has demonstrated that among the activities that generate happiness, those that involve generosity are the most effective…we should be magnanimous as much as possible, Harvard Professor Tal Ben- Shahar http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/choose-life-you-want-by-tal-ben-shahar.html speaks of the virtuous spiral of giving, being kind, which attracts gratitude, then more kindness and thus we reach Nirvana or something

Webster is a social worker and keeps boasting about having saved Betty, only the latter says the former is a cow, and Betty is at her best, in Flow http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html - the state of grace, which we can reach when a few conditions are met, time becomes fluid, we are in control, lose the ego, goals are clear, feedback is instant and continuous, challenges meet skills – when she joins the ‘business girls’, has sex with sailors and earns money…

 

In Dear Illusion we have a celebrated poet, Edward Arthur Potter, and a journalist, Sue Macnamara, in the leading roles, so to say, and the latter, thirty, long-legged, tall, is interviewing the older man in his home, in the beginning of this story

‘He is good, Milton would be putting him a bit too high, but he is up with Keats and Hopkins all right, or so they say’ we have thus an idea about the image, the status of the hero, among the public and critics…

 

Early on, he asks the young woman ‘do you fuck’ and her answer is ‘yes, but only my husband, with some approximation to the truth’ – we find her later fucking a colleague, photographer…the poet eels ‘this is a pity, because I get so few chances these days’, besides, he is not very attracted to his wife, women of 68 in general

 

His question has taken Sue by surprise, ‘a gigantic achievement the face of one so constantly asked if she fucked’…this is of course an episode that is unimaginable these days, at least in some realms – if we are talking Gutter aka Qatar (as some comedians have put it, after the scandals involving the football World Cup, the oppression of workers, the many deaths, work in excruciating heat, discrimination of LGBTQ and others, the list is long) Saudi Arabia and other places, then this is the norm, not the exception

Otherwise, in most of the western world, the poet would be on trial, then imprisoned, perhaps sent to see some doctors to assess if he is still in control of his senses…as it is, in fiction, he has written 423 poems, writing on any kind of paper –he avoids the typewriter and laptops were not an option then,

 

It all seems to be just ‘occupational therapy’, if we look back from the moment when we have the huge surprise at the award ceremony, we have read about people who weave rugs, without regard to their quality, when all they aim for is to be occupied with something and notwithstanding the success with critics, the poet plays a strange game- he is awarded a prize and a check for one thousand pounds (maybe five thousand today) but he shocks everyone (spoiler alert) when he says he is no good, he played around with his last book of poems and he tells everyone to clear off (just to avoid the more frank, genuine, but also hostile fuck off) without meaning any personal insult or affront, he just does not see value in his work and he destroys the cheque for 1,000, and does not do the same with the award, because someone has worked on it, they have hired one of the best designers for the task

 

'I suppose it was conceited of me…But it was fun. And I felt like getting a bit of my own back on some of the people who'd conned and flattered me into wasting all those years.'

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-russian-girl-by-magister-ludi.html