Nothing To Be Frightened Of

Further to the post below, I've been reading Julian Barnes' Nothing to Be Frightened Of , which is (because quoting the blurb simply makes things much easier), "among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his philosopher brother, a meditation on morality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the French writer Jules Renard." "Sorry, what is it called? 'Something To Be Frightened Of'?", queried the man in Borders after I asked in which category I might find it.

Mainly the book's about death. Its becoming increasingly apparent that it's perhaps not a very good choice of book to read in November, especially this cold, wet and dark November (which may be why it was published in May). It levies you with somewhat weighted thoughts. But at the same time it has me nodding my head vigorously - it articulates many things I've longed for someone to articulate (or, at least, articulate in a particular way). The format for the book is interesting, in many respects reading like a collection of blog posts. This passage in particular stood out as a thought for the day:

"A question, and a paradox. Our history has seen the gradual if bumpy rise of individualism: from the animal herd, from the slave society, from the mass of uneducated units bossed by priest and king, to looser groups in which the individual has greater rights and freedoms - the right to pursue happiness, private thought, self-fulfilment, self-indulgence. At the same time, as we throw off the rules of priest and king, as science helps us understand the truer terms and conditions on which we live, as our individualism expresses itself in grosser and more selfish ways (what is freedom for if not for that?), we also discover that this individuality, or illusion of individuality, is less than we imagined. We discover, to our surprise, that as Dawkins memorably puts it, we are 'survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.' The paradox is that individualism - the triumph of free-thinking artists and scientists - has led us to a state of self-awareness in which we can now view ourselves as units of genetic obedience."