Gotham Diary:
Consciousness
1 March 2012
Today at the DBR: Consciousness explained, ha ha.
Gems from Edward St Aubyn’s A Clue to the Exit:
Death and writing go so well together because the unbearable everything — the chalk squealing on the blackboard, the Albinoni at full volume, the Othello-felling jealousy — can all be vaporized on the hotplate of wild indiscretion. And, at the same time, nothing changes: the chalk squeals on, the violins scrape our heartstrings, Othello dies in a pool of green blood, worrying about his reputation.
After all the Tantric sex courses she had attended with Peter she was nothing if not open-minded, but, caught between an unconscious husband and a revived ex-boyfriend, she felt unable to take on this newcomer with his heavy charge of troubled desire.
“Ah,” said Patrick, “so that’s why we’ve been made to wait. It’s the royal train. Who knows which member of that legendary family is jumping the queue?”
“But if we’ve stopped for them,” said Crystal, “why have they stopped as well?”
“This is a parliamentary democracy,” said Patrick. “Even the royal family have to acknowledge the paralysing influence of Didcot Junction.”Would the crabs feasting on my brain find themselves, as they sucked the morsels of Broca’s area or Wernicke’s area from their busy claws, troubled by the problem of consciousness, or burdened by the need to finish Off the Train? It seemed no more likely than my wanting to fulfil the aspirations of the langoustines I had for lunch.