Buridan’s donkey
There’s a small field nearby, more of a paddock than a field, and it’s been empty of livestock for a while. As the Spring has progressed and with the grasses starting to grow, a small flock of very woolly sheep has been put in to take advantage of the succulent new shoots of green. This small posse of ruminants just potters about and watching them of an evening is quite calming, no wonder counting sheep is thought to be soporific. The ‘flocking’ characteristic is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this little collection – one of them will start to move and as if all the others are caught in a magnetic field, they too will move in unison (except one which has a limp and doesn’t always keep up). This collective approach extends to them all scratching on the fence at the same time, like a very slow-moving line dance. They were shorn yesterday and they’ve lost their bulk, each now looking a little ‘sheepish’ and with an itch needing to be scratched.
In George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, the sheep are not named – they are just referred to as a mass, collectively chanting the ideologies and propaganda of the dominant pigs. This satire, based around Russia’s move towards Stalinism after the great revolution, is as relevant today as it was when first published over 70 years ago – great literature never dates, and in Orwell’s case, it has a habit of knowing how the future plays out – there’s always an itch that needs scratching.
‘On a Ruined Farm near the His Master’s Voice Gramophone Factory’ by George Orwell
As I stand at the lichened gate
With warring worlds on either hand –
To left the black and budless trees,
The empty sties, the barns that stand
Like tumbling skeletons – and to right
The factory-towers, white and clear
Like distant, glittering cities seen
From a ship’s rail – as I stand here,
I feel, and with a sharper pang,
My mortal sickness; how I give
My heart to weak and stuffless ghosts,
And with the living cannot live.
The acid smoke has soured the fields,
And browned the few and windworn flowers;
But there, where steel and concrete soar
In dizzy, geometric towers –
There, where the tapering cranes sweep round,
And great wheels turn, and trains roar by
Like strong, low-headed brutes of steel –
There is my world, my home; yet why
So alien still? For I can neither
Dwell in that world, nor turn again
To scythe and spade, but only loiter
Among the trees the smoke has slain.
Yet when the trees were young, men still
Could choose their path – the winged soul,
Not cursed with double doubts, could fly,
Arrow-like to a foreseen goal;
And they who planned those soaring towers,
They too have set their spirit free;
To them their glittering world can bring
Faith, and accepted destiny;
But none to me as I stand here
Between two countries, both-ways torn,
And moveless still, like Buridan’s donkey *
Between the water and the corn.
* Burdian’s donkey couldn’t decide whether to take the food or the drink, and so took neither … and perished.
Coles Signed Editions – Professor Alice Roberts has always made history accessible, her writing, just like her TV presentation, seeks out the interesting, neither dumbing down nor over-complicating the subject matter – her most recent work, Ancesters, is now available as a Coles Signed Paperback Edition, and her forthcoming book ‘Buried’ is now available for Pre-Order below. Also now available as a signed paperback, musician Tracey Thorn shares the story of her friendship with Go-Between’s drummer Lindy Morrison; music features strongly in the life of journalist Jude Rogers in ‘The Sound of Being Human’; another tale of friendship can be found in the novel ‘Ruth & Pen’ by Emilie Pine and the friendship thread continues in Yen Ooi’s ‘Rén’; when it comes to sports promoting the Hearn family are world leaders, and now the founder of the family business shares his knockout story and finally local historian Matthew Hathaway has popped in and signed some copies of ‘Bicester Reflections’ – a wonderful journey through the then and now of this marvellous town.
The complete Newsletter can be found HERE
