Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

World Enough and Time – Christian McEwen

1/3/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping…We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat too fast, and do not know the true savour of our food”
              -  Thoreau
​

In theory Christian McEwan and I should be soul-mates. She’s written a book called “World Enough and Time”, which is about slowing down and she has the crossword addict’s love of words. She delights in finding “significant” anagrams, such as Listen/Silent, Begin/Being and Busy/Buys. She derives enormous pleasure in a game where you take away the first letter of a word to form a new word, such as making laughter from slaughter; here from where; earth from hearth and yes from eyes.

She’s a writer, a teacher and a poet, and years of research have produced a cornucopia of literary and poetic allusions to the Slow Life. 
There’s delight on every page. In fact this would be a perfect read were it not for her intensely irritating habit of equating Slow with a rejection of the modern world. She repeatedly cites the example of a monk (either Christian or Buddhist) as her ideal (strangely, never nuns, but perhaps she’s heard what it’s like to be taught by one) because of their ability to free themselves from the material world and to spend the day in contemplation and prayer. To my mind such a life is pointless, fatuous and parasitical, more to be despised than admired. A person who devotes their life to contemplation and prayer is deliberately choosing not to make the most of whatever talents they possess. It’s one thing to ask people to slow down, quite another to suggest that they drop out altogether.
​
The picture on the front cover of “World Enough and Time” shows a Scottish landscape which has been photo-shopped onto a picture of the author’s unfeasibly tidy desk. The Scottish scene has been chosen as this is where she was brought up, although she has lived for most of her life in the States. She’s thoroughly American now and this book would be much better if only she had retained more of the Presbyterian Scottishness of her youth.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    ​About Slow Life

    The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

    Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

    This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.

    Archives

    June 2017
    December 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    RSS Feed

Home   |   About Me   |   Contact Me

Jonathan Denby's Slow Life blog from the Lake District

© Copyright Slow Life 2020. All rights reserved   |   cookie policy    |   Site by Treble3
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me