The 2003 Claret by Magister Ludi Sir Kingsley Amis author of a magnificent magnum opera, one of which is Take A Girl Like You http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/take-girl-like-you-by-kingsley-amis-one.html - 10 out of 10

 

The 2003 Claret by Magister Ludi Sir Kingsley Amis author of a magnificent magnum opera, one of which is Take A Girl Like You http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/take-girl-like-you-by-kingsley-amis-one.html

10 out of 10

 

 

The 2003 Claret is a mesmerizing Short Science Fiction Story wherein we have a (brief) look at time travel and the surprises it can bring, as scientists send one man called Simpson into the future, 2010 to be more exact, and they try to do this before the Russians will have developed time travel on their own.

 

We can see the devastation they have inflicted on Ukraine, for about ten months now, and the monstrosity of the Putin regime – mind you, it is not just the would be emperor who suffers from the Napoleon complex on some fronts, it is a problem with many, for the demon could not do all this by himself – which is now sending missiles to destroy the energy system of a peaceful country, killing hundreds of thousands through cold, and not just in Ukraine…an article in The Economist was looking at the high figures of the deceased in the rest of Europe, where the high price of gas will make many become victims of the war.

One of the things that Simpson has to do in 2010 is to…taste the wines, he is one of the Knights of Bordeaux and does not get inebriated, but the humor is present – what if he turns back a raving lunatic, it will be our fault, say the scientists in charge of the project of playing with time travel around 1970 I think it was – and the serious purpose of claret tasting is described thus ‘find how people treat their port and you find out a lot about the kind of people they are’ so this is a social experiment as well

 

Now, if we look at what has really happened in 2010, there are some mixed messages on this alcoholic front, because I think I remember reading that alcohol intake is decreasing, at least for large segments of the population that is health conscious, then there are many who dedicate more time to careers that sipping Bordeaux, and there has been the pandemic, albeit that is a decade after 2010 and the jury is still out

One pressing question is if there will be any war, and the hilarity of the response if ‘there was no war (as witnessed in 2010, in the imaginary world of the tale) but ‘it would have been better if there had been one ‘because what Simpson finds is quite appalling, notwithstanding the fact that Russia has joined the Western Customs Union (that would be the European Union of our days, in its prehistoric form)

 

Russia therefore joined the Western Customs Union in 1993, China some time after 2000, when in reality they are both adversaries of the West, the former openly, it is waging war on Ukraine, but through the pains, deaths, economic, social, financial, humanitarian and other crisis it inflicts on the rest of the continent, we can say it is in open conflict, with the exception of some rogue regimes, such as the would be despot Erdogan, rough goodfellas in Serbia, the lost case of Belarus and then the usual monsters elsewhere – North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and some other sheep in wolves clothing, Modi of India, regimes in the Gulf that try to play with both sides, from MBS to sheiks of the Emirates…

 

The Royal Air Force is to be disbanded in the fictional 2010, but that is more a joke made by Zen Master Sir Kingsley Amis, who was sure this will not happen, but just threw the idea on paper for us to laugh with it; when Simpson arrives at Hyde Park, he changes the raw gold that he has with him…to cope with the problem of changing currency, paper banknotes and such, plus the inflation, he has to work with a pawn shop.

To explain his peculiar outlook, he says he is from Australia – which is yet another comic gem from His Serenity, the author – but that will not prevent the awkward, bizarre new generation from showing contempt – apparently, the future as seen from 1970 is one where the fashion is to wear crumpled outfits, worn for many days in order to be acceptable and this shows His Holiness is also clairvoyant, I mean look at the torn jeans that were (are they still one wonders, for they are to be seen in our metro aka Tube, if that is an indication of them being still trendy or just that people have to wear what they have bought some years ago is hard to tell) the norm some years ago, which could be a more resilient fashion (yes, this is an oxymoron, fashion is by definition temporary) seeing the need to protect the planet and apply more Stoic norms, such as ‘wish for what you already have’, avoid consumerism http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/08/stoicism-stoic-approach-to-modern-life.html

 

For the last short story, I discovered an article in The Guardian that looked at Irritation and the massive presence, the role it has in the works of His Serenity Kingsley Amis, who, according to his first wife, was grumpy and permanently on the lookout for negative traits https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/06/kingsley-amis-irritation-ending-up-martin-craig-brown - nonetheless, I see him as one of the best providers of happiness, what with his humor, fabulous writing, immense talent, visible not in one or ten books, but already more than fifteen, and I still have about as much to go through

This is an intriguing paradox, The Holiness and his fabulous magnum opera is on the one side so illuminated, enchanting, hilarious most often, though there is the Irritation present for sure, such as in Ending Up http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/ending-up-by-kingsley-amis.html and on the other we learn that His Serenity was grumpy, perhaps just like Martin Seligman, co-founder of positive psychology, who lived for fifty years or so in a negative mood, only to give the world the gist of the science of happiness

 

What must have helped is The Upside of Your Dark Side as described by Biswas Diener in his book

http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-upside-of-your-dark-side-by-biswas.html for instance the negative people see better the details, while the positive ones have a better view of the big picture and there are domains where one is better as a negative individual: detective work, financial analyst, traffic controller…

 

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html