Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses

[marycatelli]

Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses by Theodore Dalrymple

A collection of essays in two sections.   It opens with one about how he has come to retirement age and will be leaving his work in the British slums.

The first is about literary stuff and other arts.  Like photography -- one essay is about an exhibit of photography taken in Vietnam by photographers who were killed there.  William Shakespeare appears in two essays, one on the relationship between totalitarian states and Macbeth, and another about Measure For Measure and the relationship between sexual issues and society.  Dystopias, such as Brave New World and 1984, in another.  The paintings of Mary Cassatt.

And then there's second section, on life in the underclass that he knows so much about.  The appalling malnutrition among the underclass -- white and immigrant -- though not among the poor Indians, who, being as poor, nevertheless take the care to cook from scratch and sit down to meals and so often rise from the poverty.  The willful destruction of Havana through allowing endless decay.  The cloying sentiment about Princess Diana's death.  The horrors of many an English childhood nowadays.  true crime.  (I must warn that the essay "Horror Story" is not understating itself, what with the depravity of the criminals involved.)

Not light reading.  But worth it.

Comments

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

The appalling malnutrition among the underclass -- white and immigrant -- though not among the poor Indians, who, being as poor, nevertheless take the care to cook from scratch and sit down to meals and so often rise from the poverty.

...The fact that I'm instantly worried about that probably means we're safe. *sigh* I'm still going to go over our diet, again, and then worry afterwards anyways.

[marycatelli]

If you sit down to eat meals, you're a jump ahead of the "Starving Criminal," who appears to try to subsist off chocolate and potato chips. Dalrymple observes that freedom is like a concentration camp to these people -- let out of jail, they lose weight and start to turn into the perfect extras for a film about concentration camp inmates.

[marycatelli]

Come to think of it --

you can read it here and realize that you are safe.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

I really need to buckle down and finish that dang cookbook I keep threatening to write. Maybe give it away free.
I over-indulge in chocolate and chips, but not feeding your kids? It's so easy to do! And it's so much cheaper than chips!

[marycatelli]

These types wouldn't buy it. And would not buy pots and pans if they did buy the book.

It's sad.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

It's aimed at college kids who don't have a pan to fry in-- I'm doing sections based on what you have.
Including one for "no fridge."
Worst case, a kid could make himself an egg and ramen....

[marycatelli]

Sounds useful.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the "chocolate" they're talking about is things like Snickers bars-- I can see someone managing to live off of them, though not well.