The art of forgetting the unpleasant

by John Cowper Powys

« La vie n''a pas de vérité intrinsèque. Pas plus qu''elle n''a de vérité extrinsèque. Elle n''a pas de vérité, un point c''est tout. Combien de fois le désir sensuel qui frémit dans nos nerfs tremblants n''est-il qu''une atroce soif de repos, de paix, d''oubli ? S''échapper vers l''obscurité, vers l''eau qui coule à flots, vers des villes étrangères et lointaines, au long de grandes routes mystérieuses. S''échapper vers des cathédrales médiévales, vers des, bibliothèques byzantines, vers des cloîtres du Haut Moyen Age. S''échapper vers n''importe quel royaume des elfes, un pays de vapeur et de brume où le soleil est moins puissant et la lune plus puissante que chez nous, un pays où les voix humaines parlent comme dans une transe, un pays où le rivage étouffe le murmure des flots. » Devant la douleur, Powys préconise le détachement, avec des accents qui rappellent Schopenhauer et les messages orientaux : immergeons-nous dans une sorte d''amnésie en comprenant que le monde solide, opaque n''existe pas. L''art de vivre, pour Powys, est une éducation de l''oubli. Toute sa vie, il fut torturé par des images de violence, des obsessions sadiques, que sa conscience morale rejetait et que, par bonheur, il a léguées à ses personnages, collectionneurs de livres interdits, érudits en proie aux puissances du Mal, simples d''esprit, géants poursuivis par le désir du meurtre... Tous pourtant, à un moment ou l''autre de leur vie, sont soulevés par la révélation de l''amour, par cette exaltation qui les relie au monde animal, minéral ou végétal. Francine de Martinoir, La Croix.

Genres: Nonfiction

64 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar. His mother was descended from the poet William Cowper, hence his middle name. His two younger brothers, Llewelyn Powys and Theodore Francis Powys, also became well-known writers. Other brothers and sisters also became prominent in the arts.

John studied at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a teacher and lecturer; as lecturer, he worked first in England, then in continental Europe and finally in the USA, where he lived in the years 1904-1934. While in the United States, his work was championed by author Theodore Dreiser. He engaged in public debate with Bertrand Russell and the philosopher and historian Will Durant: he was called for the defence in the first obscenity trial for the James Joyce novel, Ulysses, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman.

He made his name as a poet and essayist, moving on to produce a series of acclaimed novels distinguished by their uniquely detailed and intensely sensual recreation of time, place and character. They also describe heightened states of awareness resulting from mystic revelation, or from the experience of extreme pleasure or pain. The best known of these distinctive novels are A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent. He also wrote some works of philosophy and literary criticism, including a pioneering tribute to Dorothy Richardson.

Having returned to the UK, he lived in England for a brief time, then moved to Corwen in Wales, where he wrote historical romances (including two set in Wales) and magical fantasies. He later moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where he remained until his death in 1963.

Reviews

[Rupert Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

More of an essay than a book, but so astute in its reasoning that Powys has managed to condense what could have been waffled about for much longer into seventeen pages. Reading this praise of the beatific makes it easy to see why Powys influenced so many other writers, in this pamphlet he has taken the subject of our uncomfortable memories and embellished the problem with reasoning to allow us to begin "forgetting", this small segment of prose could be considered part of a greater 'art of living', and the correlation Powys makes with art in the sense of creativity is a background theme to the piece. It's an interesting subject matter, examining those memories we have that cause us anguish, that are sour and bitter when we redress them in our mind, and what approach we can use to defuse them. He also ties in much about the acts of thinking and existing within this dilemma, and concludes his prose deftly with the nepenthe of sleep, and thus possibly trailing his thoughts on the matter to the remarkable qualities of imagination and dreams - which is speculation on my part but how I have interpreted the final paragraph.

In summary, this pamphlet is a cathartic read, and must be read again and again until it sinks in like a soothing salve to the spirit of being.