On the relativity of cutting and slicing:

Slicer makes a few observations on "The Wood Cutter."

 

The song claims, “The First Cut is the Deepest”; but if the first cut is deep enough, it’s a slice (or maybe a sliver)...

Slicer has just returned from holiday in the 'Far East.' He’s confident he’s only one of many who’ve noted the relativist nature of the term: given that since we’re on a sphere, if you go far enough East you end up West. Not only is it relativist of course, but it’s relative to a very particular location. That location, however, isn’t commonly made explicit - since the UK, the Americas, and Europe are regularly referred to as 'The West.' So where (apart from in an old Christian song recently re-arranged by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco) is neither East nor West? And what justification is there for regarding any location as the reference point by which to locate all others anyway? Why would any location (or people living there) ‘deserve’ that privilege? We'll come back to the subject of deserving later.

Egocentricity or focus/emphasis on the self and self-interest are commonly observed traits in individuals in “The West,” but on holiday Slicer was struck with the humility and desire to please others, which are evident in the (largely Buddhist) Thai people. No doubt they too are not immune to self-interest but generally their behaviour (in tourist areas anyway – apart from a brief jungle trip by elephant, Slicer didn’t venture far off the beaten track) contrasted strongly with the behaviour of (mostly) Western characters in one of the novels Slicer enjoyed on the trip - “The Wood Cutter,” by Reginald Hill:

‘The moral code of her circle... was basically ‘do what thou wilt shall be all of the law.’ Hill, presumably, was quoting from Alistair Crowley’s Thelemite thinking, which of course wasn’t novel as it had precedents/roots (ancient Egypt, Rabelais), even if it distorted its forebears. Interestingly it also shares ground with Augustine of Hippo who preached “Love, and do what you will.” However, that qualifier puts considerable constraints on “doing what you will,” constraints that are notably absent from the characters in Hill’s book, despite apparently warm affection. As Crowley wrote: “There are no ‘standards of right’. Ethics is balderdash....To hell with moral ‘principle’; there is no such thing.” Amongst duties to others and to the natural order, Wikipedia states that, in the Thelemite’s duty to self, the self is the centre of the universe.

Without any plot spoiling, Slicer can state that The Wood Cutter is a great novel which keeps you guessing about guilt, innocence, betrayal, deception, retribution, insight and attraction right to the end of its 581 pages. There is plenty of action, and its characters are vivid and varied. At one point a shadowy character known as JC, who works in some way with the Home Office and is able to pull a few strings, says, “It’s all right to feel sorry.... only don’t let it turn into guilt. No one got more than they deserved.”

As is his habit, Slicer wondered about musical resonances with the book. The Cutter by Echo & the Bunnymen was briefly considered:

“Some of us 6 feet tall

We will escape our lies.

Spare us the cutter

Spare us the cutter...”

 

(It’s amazing that Slivers of Being hasn’t cited this song before, given the similarity of Slicer and Cutter...) However ultimately John Lee Hooker’s “It serves me right to suffer” is a much more fitting soundtrack.

 

Justice is often expressed in terms such as ‘the punishment fitting the crime.’ The argument is usually that punishments are (or should be) relative, as are crimes. So, Einstein wasn’t alone in figuring that relativity was important. The Wood Cutter features a quotation from Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas:

“Il n’y a bonheur ni malheur en ce monde, il y a la comparaison d’un etat a un autre, voila tout. Celui-la sel qui a eprouve l’extreme infortune est apte a ressentir l’extreme felicite. Il faut avoir voulu mourir pour savoir combine il est bon de vivre.” *

In other words, the relative states of happiness and misery only exist by comparison, and if no-one is around to do the comparing they don’t exist (so... a bit like good and evil then in some worldviews...). This notion is reinforced in The Wood Cutter:

“Autumn 2018: nothing changes; the world continues as mixed up as ever, the same mélange of comic and tragic, triumph and disaster, sweet and sour, as in every age since humanity hauled itself upright and put on pants.”

The implied absence of these things, because no-one was around to perceive them before ‘humanity hauled itself upright’, sits comfortably alongside the Dumas quote. Slicer isn’t convinced that humanity deserves credit for willfully hauling itself upright – there is, however, a usefully voyeuristic account of us putting on pants. That same account, interestingly, seems to link guilt with the experience of perceiving what is good by reference to what is evil, there having been an age of innocence, without guilt, prior to that referential knowledge. Trees feature in that book too...

The Dumas quote implies that we can only appreciate the nature of a situation by a reference point to another, which differs - sometimes in the extreme. This certainly applies to the central figure in The Wood Cutter, who develops a wide experience.... and a unique viewpoint:

“To survive everyone needs a viewpoint from which they can look down on everyone else... with some it’s intellect, with some it’s beauty, with some it’s religion. What is it with me? --- [censored to avoid plot-spoiling]---, came the uncomfortable answer.”

Does this particular book end with restoration? You’ll have to read it to find out. Meanwhile Slicer will leave you with another Dumas quote, and ask, 'Is it an attainable alternative route to survival:

“All for one, and one for all”'?

 

 

*”There is neither happiness nor misery in the world, only the comparison of one state with another. Only the man who has plumbed the depths of misfortune is capable of scaling the heights of joy. To grasp how good it is to live you must have been driven to long for death.”

Comments

[Diamond Saw Blade]

Buddhist are also not immune to self-interest but generally their behaviour (in tourist areas anyway – apart from a brief jungle trip by elephant..