A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy Read online

  For John

  She needs no worldly admiration, as little as Abraham needs our tears, for she was no heroine and he no hero, but both of them became greater than that, not by any means by being relieved of the distress, the agony, and the paradox, but because of these.

  Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

  philosophy 101

  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE:

  Human, All Too Human

  chapter 1

  I WOKE UP LATE THAT MORNING. It was because I kept getting stuck in a dream. It used to happen to me all the time, and it was a bloody nuisance. In the dream, I'd wake up, switch on the bedside light, and walk over to the window. I'd draw the curtains and look outside, and then I'd see that everything out there was in negative: white trees against a black sky, a white road snaking into the distance with black cars traveling up and down on it. Seeing that would make me realize I was still in the dream. So I'd walk back to the bed, get in, and try waking up all over again. But each time, however hard I concentrated on every little detail, the little beaded chain on the lamp, the wood grain on the bedside table, I couldn't wake myself up. And each time I walked over to the window, I'd still find myself staring at that landscape in negative.

  I knew the only thing for it was to scream my way out. I wasn't very keen on this idea. It just didn't seem right, screaming your head off as you woke up every day. It was weird behavior. But I didn't have much choice. If I wanted to wake up, there was nothing else for it. So I summoned my voice, which seemed to have disappeared somewhere far down in my chest, and with a huge effort I called out. At first I knew I was only dreaming I was screaming, but then I managed to make my voice break into reality, and I was.

  I stopped as soon as I could. I was making a hell of a racket. I was pretty sure I was awake, but I looked out of the window to double check. The curtains were slightly open and outside I could see a watery blue sky, with dull, soggy-looking trees against it. I didn't need to get out of bed and go over to look out. I knew I was wide awake now. And I was all right. I turned over to see if I'd woken Jason up, but when I did, he wasn't there.

  I wish he had been. All I needed was to hold on to his sleeping body, his back towards me, just for a few minutes before I got up. After that, I always felt better. With Jason, you could wake up screaming and he'd just shift a bit and groan and go back to sleep, and then you could cuddle up to him for as long as you wanted with his back towards you and it wouldn't disturb him at all. And later, he wouldn't ask you anything about why you'd been screaming. He'd have forgotten all about it. He wasn't the kind of person to ask himself what was going on in your mind, or his. That was one of the things I liked best about him.

  But anyway, this morning he wasn't here. That wasn't anything unusual, he often stayed up in London instead of driving back to Brighton. I just wished he had been, that's all. And it gave me a sick, sinking feeling that he wasn't. As though everyone had forgotten about me, even my boyfriend. As though I could wake up and scream myself to death one morning and nobody in the world would give a shit.

  I got up, went to the bathroom and cleaned my teeth, looking in the mirror. The sight of my face always cheered me up, however bad I felt. I looked completely normal, like one of those girls you see going off to work at their job in an insurance office or something. Long brown hair, a roundish face with a pleasant, mild expression on it. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

  When I went back into the bedroom and put my new jeans on, I felt even better. They were FUs from Jean Machine that I'd bought the week before in London. They were uncomfortably tight but a nice shape, with flares from the knee down to the ground, over my platforms. With the jeans looking so good, I didn't have to spend much time thinking about what else to wear. I found a T-shirt, slung on my jacket, and packed my files in my shoulder bag. I was running late, so I didn't have time for breakfast. I let myself out of the flat.

  It was a wet day outside, mist hovering over the sea and a dull, rhythmic sucking noise coming from the beach as the waves rolled in and out. It was the kind of morning that could turn out either way, with the sun breaking through the mist or staying behind it. The big Regency houses on the square looked impressive in the mist, but close up you could see they were all falling to pieces. It was the same with the grass in the middle; it looked clean, but if you walked across it you'd get half a ton of dog shit on your shoes. So I walked around it, up to the bus stop, and took a ride to the station. On the way, I looked out at the guest houses with their lopsided, rusting balconies and “Vacancies” signs in the front windows. It started raining.

  At the station, I could see the Falmer train still at the platform, so I ran over and caught it just as it was pulling out. I got a seat by the window and lit a cigarette. I liked the Falmer train. It was small and scruffy, and the windows were filthy. Everything rattled as it went along, even though we were only going at about two miles an hour. Normally the only people on the train were students, but as it was nine in the morning, today there was no one at all. It felt snug in there, as though you could forget about the whole world, and the whole world could forget about you.

  I was late for my tutorial, but only by about ten minutes. I ran out of the station and nipped over the dual carriageway through a hole in the hedge instead of taking the underpass. By the time I got there, I was out of breath and sweating a bit, but I thought, well, even if my face is all shiny, at least it will seem as though I've made an effort.

  That said, the shiny face was a bit of a worry, because I wanted to look good in the tutorial. The tutor, James Belham, was one of the trendiest guys at Sussex. He was quite famous, actually. Modern European Mind, the course we all had to take in our second year, was his idea, and a journalist had written an article taking the piss out of it in a Sunday paper. Belham didn't seem bothered though. He was a serious person, even though he was very good looking and could have acted the star and flirted with all the female students. He had brown curly hair and was into Nietzsche, which I was as well. We were reading The Birth of Tragedy, and writing these essays about Dionysus and stuff. It was all very intense, what with it being nine in the morning and Belham being so serious and handsome, and there being only two other people in the tutorial this term: Dennis and Rob.

  Dennis wasn't the sort of guy you'd fancy. He had wishy-washy blond hair and pink skin, and a neck covered in spots. Every week, he wore the same clothes: a sickly green sweater and some dark blue jeans that looked stiff and new. His shoes were a horrible tan color. You could see his socks between the bottom of his jeans and the shoes, which was not a good sign. Only a very determined girl would want to take someone like Dennis on: you'd have had to completely change him, starting with the jeans. But he was incredibly bright, in an over-keen sort of way. You could see Belham loved teaching him. The pair of them kept the whole tutorial going, and all Rob and I had to do was sit back and listen.

  At that time of the morning, it was hard for me to think, so I usually didn't say much. Neither did Rob. Belham didn't seem to mind too much because we'd done some essays for him in the first week of term and he knew how much we loved Nietzsche. And also, the situation with Dennis was interesting.

  A few weeks into the term, Dennis had taken his sweater off in the tutorial. And underneath, his chest had been bare. He'd sat there, talking very fast, naked from the waist up. I'd sensed there was some kind of Dionysus thing going on with him. Belham didn't seem to mind. He wasn't an uptight sort of guy. He'd just let Dennis talk on, and so had we. After the tutorial, Dennis had put his sweater back on and walked off, but over the next few days I kept seeing him wandering around campus wearing a sleeveless red vest, e
ven though it was October and freezing cold and raining most of the time.

  The following week, Dennis had come to the tutorial wearing the vest and his jeans but with no shoes on. He'd been waving a copy of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human and was very agitated about something he'd read in it. He'd started talking about it to Belham, and in the heat of the discussion, he'd taken the vest off and bared his chest again. Then he'd opened the book and started reading from it, stabbing his finger in the air and shouting out, “Cannot all values be overturned? And is Good perhaps Evil? And God only an invention, a nicety of the Devil?”

  Once again, Belham hadn't reacted. I think he'd decided it was best to let Dennis get whatever was bothering him out of his system. But we all felt a bit uncomfortable, especially when Dennis walked off half-naked into the rain at the end of the tutorial, muttering something about “a great separation” under his breath. We were all wondering what he was going to do next.

  When I came in this time, I noticed immediately that Dennis wasn't there. I apologized for being late, and then I asked where he was. Belham looked embarrassed and said unfortunately Dennis had suffered a mental breakdown and had left Sussex for the time being. Then he changed the subject and started talking about Husserl, who was next on the list for Modern European Mind and was a bit of a drag, especially after Nietzsche.

  Without Dennis, the tutorial didn't go with much of a swing. Rob and I spent most of our time looking down at the floor. It was partly that we didn't have much to say about phenomenology, and partly that we'd become self-conscious now that we were left on our own with Belham. And conscious of each other. I found myself glancing at Rob as if I was seeing him for the first time, which I was in a way. I wondered whether I fancied him. I did a bit. He had brown curly hair like Belham's, only it was longer and more tangled. His jeans were the right length, and he wore a silver bangle around his wrist. His eyes were brown and soft, and there was a downy moustache on his upper lip. He had a kind of innocent look about him. He was my age, about twenty. Just a boy really. But anyway, I put my head forward so my hair fell across my face and peered through it, which I always did when I wanted to look at someone without them looking at me.

  Eventually Rob and I got out of the tutorial and decided to go and have a coffee together, which we'd never done before. We both wanted to talk about Dennis. So we went down to the European Common Room, which was full of people smoking and stubbing their cigarettes out in plastic cups and talking about politics. We saw Paddy in there, so when we'd got our coffees, we went over to talk to him. Paddy was a tall bloke of at least twenty-five who'd never finished his degree and just hung around campus with all the students. He'd had a serious accident by driving into a tree when he was drunk, and had nearly killed himself. Afterwards, he'd had a pacemaker fitted in his heart which he'd let you listen to, if you were a girl that is. You had to press your ear against his chest. Everyone on campus looked up to him. He knew everything that was going on.

  Paddy leant back in his chair and began the story of Dennis. You could tell he'd told it a lot of times now, and he was enjoying it more and more each time.

  “Dennis finally flipped,” he said. “Two nights ago, he started wandering round campus, completely starkers. In the end this girl reported him because he jumped out at her from a bush as she was going up to West Slope. She thought he was going to rape her or something but he just started babbling at her. When she got in he went on babbling at her, kneeling down and talking through the letterbox in the door, so her flatmates completely freaked out and called the police.”

  “God!” said Rob.

  Paddy warmed to his tale.

  “So then a couple of policemen come down, and when they ask Dennis what's going on, he just looks at them and says, ‘The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.’ The policemen think he's stoned or taking the piss, and call the Vice Chancellor. While they're waiting, Dennis starts talking to them about Schopenhauer, which cracks everyone up.”

  “So what does the VC do, then?” said Rob.

  Paddy went on: “When the VC gets there, he keeps Dennis talking about Schopenhauer and tries to put a blanket round him. But Dennis keeps taking it off. Then the VC says, ‘Thank you, officers, I'll handle this.’ The fuzz are only too keen to get away, but as they leave, Dennis turns to them and says in this really serious voice: ‘In individuals insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.’ One of the policemen looks well pissed off, and leans over to Dennis and says, ‘You watch it, sonny boy,’ but the other one goes, ‘Come on, let's get out of this madhouse.’ Then the VC leads Dennis outside to his car. Dennis gets in the car meek as a lamb, and that's the last anyone's seen of him.”

  “So has he gone off to the loony bin or what?” I asked.

  “There's a rumor his parents came to get him,” said Paddy. “Or he could still be living in the VC's house.”

  “Aren't there some students camping on the VC's lawn at the moment?” Rob said.

  Paddy laughed. “Yeah. That guy's got problems. Exam strike, I think.”

  “What do you mean, exam strike?” said Rob.

  “Well, exams are part of the hierarchy, aren't they,” replied Paddy, as though this was blindingly obvious. Then he turned away, lit another cigarette, and went back to talking to his friends. We sensed Paddy had had enough of us and our second-year questions. So we moved away and continued the conversation.

  “God, poor Dennis,” said Rob. “Maybe we should have done something.”

  “Done something?” The idea of doing something about Dennis had never occurred to me. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I don't know. Helped him a bit. Tried to calm him down. Asked him if he wanted to have a coffee with us.”

  I thought about this. I couldn't really imagine socializing with Dennis. He was too odd. And to be honest, if it had turned out that he was lonely or upset instead of just super-intelligent, my instinct would have been to avoid him like the plague. That kind of thing was embarrassing.

  “Don't be stupid, Rob,” I said. “What could we have done? Told him to put his woolly on before he went out in the cold?”

  Rob laughed.

  “He's probably all right,” I continued. “A bit of a rest and he'll be fine. In individuals, insanity is rare.”

  Rob laughed again. “I suppose so.”

  “It was too much Nietzsche, I reckon. You need to be careful with that stuff.”

  Rob looked at me. As he did, I started feeling a bit panicky. What I'd just said had come out more serious than I'd intended. The hairs on my head started prickling and a wave of fear went through me. Just for a second, I remembered screaming myself awake that morning. Then the feeling passed.

  I hoped Rob hadn't noticed, but maybe he had. There was an awkward silence. Then he said, “Shall we go down to the library basement?”

  I didn't have a lot to do on campus that day, and I wasn't in a hurry to get home. I wanted to pay Jason back for not being there in the morning, even though I knew whatever time I turned up, it wouldn't bother him. That was the problem between us. He knew he had me, but I didn't know I had him. So I hesitated for a minute, just to give Rob the impression I was usually quite a busy person, and then I said, “OK.”

  On the way to the basement, we stopped off at the library and I went off to the short loan section to get a copy of Human, All Too Human. I was intrigued to find out what had upset Dennis so much. There was only one copy left, so I took it out and queued up to get it stamped. Then I put it in my bag and went downstairs to meet Rob.

  The library basement was a filthy place that served disgusting coffee from vending machines, but it was the most popular spot on campus for socializing, mainly because people went into the library to study and came out after about five minutes for a break that lasted all afternoon. There were loads more people to talk to in there, and we told and retold the story of Dennis and the policemen until a crowd had gathered round u
s and were all hooting with laughter. The smoke in the air got so thick we could hardly breathe, so after a while we moved on again.

  This time, we went over to the crypt where some Buddhists had set up a café called Atlantis. The food looked horrible. There was cold, sticky brown rice and some red mush they called “refried beans.” But the way they did the tables was nice. They were low on the floor, and beside them were big yellow and orange floor cushions you could sit on. There were joss sticks burning everywhere and a tape of Indian music was playing in the background.

  We found a table in a quiet corner and sprawled out on the cushions. We didn't order any food, just cups of jasmine tea. A girl next to us had just eaten, and kept burping loudly in a pointed way, as though to show she was not bothered with social conventions. We tried to ignore her. We talked about philosophy for a bit, and after a while Rob said, “So where do you live?”

  “In Brunswick Square,” I replied, not adding, “with my boyfriend.”

  “You've got your own flat then?”

  I hesitated. “Not really. I'm sort of … sharing.”

  Well, it was Jason's flat. And I was sharing it with him. I changed the subject before he asked me anything more.

  “And what about you, Rob?”

  “Oh, I'm living over by the London Unity in a communal house.”

  I knew that area of town. It was full of run-down little houses and scruffy corner shops, and half the rooms up there had blankets instead of curtains in the windows. You could tell just by looking at it that it was student land.

  “Right.” I couldn't think of anything more to say. I found all that student stuff a bit depressing, which was one of the reasons I lived with Jason in Brunswick Square. At least he was an antique dealer and not a student. But when I was on campus, I didn't go on about Jason too much. I thought people might think I was a bit straight if I did. And anyway, I wanted to keep my options open. Jason was a lot older than me and sometimes it was a relief to be with people my own age, like Rob. Even if they were a bit studenty.