Tabucchi’s notion of time (e.g., aging) is a
weird one. I grew up thinking it didn't really exist, that it was just
something us humans invented as a measurement, like cm or mm. But I also used
to think tomato soup was lava. Time is the only God, because it behaves in
exactly the way any self-respecting God should: it continues to do its thing
utterly dependably, and ignores everything else. The problem, I think, is that
our scientific knowledge of time is so limited that in any discussion, we can't
avoid drifting into metaphysics, which doesn't really add to the discussion.
Regarding "time" as an entity, I feel we are like a caveman looking
at the Mona Lisa and wondering how it was done and what it could mean. We simply
don't understand the extent of what we're looking at, and, like every
generation, fall into the familiar trap that, because we are the here-and-now,
we are the cleverest there's ever been, so we KNOW the answer, when, in fact,
we're not much smarter than all the thousands of generations before us. The
generations who follow us will behave in exactly the same way.
They don’t understand. When you are young, you don't
really believe it will happen to you. 'The old' are a different species. By the time
you get it, you are old yourself. Age sneaks up on us. I look in the mirror and
ask 'Who are you and what did you do with my body'? Old age is just are the last pages
of a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying only the rare
pearls you found in an ocean of manure, and letting the glowing memory of those
rare pearls play you out into oblivion. Hand me my single malt, please. The upside
of being dead? Much of the bad, maybe even the worst, is behind you. You feel
no pain, or even mild frustration, when you are dead. That's good!
I used to think I was old when I was 30. Getting old is not something that
worries me rather than the inability to do certain things that comes with age.
There are many things we do not understand. But I have come to understand two
very important things due to personal experience. The first one is that we are
not alone, and that there are beings who treat us in a similar way that conservationists treat
wild animals by tagging and observing them. I have come to accept this, and I
do not need have a need for anyone to accept this, I accept it myself, and that
is good enough for me! The point is: Am I getting on in years? We all
are! But I can still pedal the living arse off any of the teenagers or 20
somethings around here. I'm still reading about string theory, loop quantum
gravity and topology. As Petruchio puts it in “The Taming of the Shrew”: “Where
is the life that late I led?” I had this sentence come at me about 10 times
in my life, but it's true (I know it’s all in Shakespeare you dumb ass!). The
real meaning of this sentence dawned on me a long time ago, but the sentence
only neon-ed up two years ago when I re-read all of my Shakespeare.
I don't doubt that someone, finally, will
unravel the mystery of "time", but I don't realistically expect it
for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Meanwhile I’m still on this wonderful
journey of reading all of Tabucchi’s body of work. Aging, Time? Bah! Read
Tabucchi! It’s all there.
