At the Meeting of Three Faculties

Lorne Pierce An Editor's Creed
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1960)

In the fourth and last section "Respect for the decencies, the individual, the intangibles" appears an anecdote who's theme is considerably enlarged:

At the reception following Convocation at one of our universities, a small cluster gathered. They represented the Arts, Science and Divinity faculties. One of the Science professors asked me what one word stood out in all my reading, I replied that, if I had to choose one word, and not a phrase or a sentence, I would choose the word wonder. Does not wonder lie at the core of the arts and letters, of science and invention, and even of philosophy and religion? It is compounded of reverence and imagination, and every man must find the essence of it for himself. When found he will know it, for, confronted with it, he will instinctively uncover the head and bow the knee. It is the one great thing, beyond price and worthy of all honour.

It seems to me that this is where the publisher most truly joins hands with the university and with religion, for all three hope to set a lighted candle in the window of the world agains darkness and despair. A passionate interest in the world and insatiable curiosity about it — this the Greeks called wonder. Wonder is the threshold to fundamental feelings and ideas about ourselves, about the world around us, and about our destiny as individuals and as a race. It is the one sure way by which our sensibilities may be extended and enlarged.

Wonder remains a key operative word and concept.

The extension of reverence may take on less the trappings of veneration and yet remain a pause inflected by awe.

To inquire about the source of this awe, it is worthwhile to return to the beginning of the creed. To organize his talk, Pierce recalls setting down what Egerton Ryerson stood for

He hoped to build a covered bridge between East and West; between French and English; between Catholic and Protestant; between the learned and the unlearned.

He insisted upon respect for the decencies — all of them; respect for the value and dignity of the individual, and a man's right to be heard; respect for the intangibles — the things that money cannot buy.

Today we would for Protestant-Catholic think of Christian-Muslim, for French-English think of Indigenous-settler reconciliation, for East-West the sea-to-sea-to-sea invocation that reminds us of Arctic sovereignty threatened by climate change.

Still the word "decency" is fitting to cover the altered bridgings.

Respect: to look back at. With a regard of reverence. With a sense of wonder.

And so for day 2341
11.05.2013

Pranaam

In this collection of short stories it is the short anecdote that leaves an impression — a little jolt of satire. The narrator pretending to be an intern at Vogue wittily reports that Anna Wintour has had a skylight installed above her office so that she can wear sunglasses all the time. We know this is a fabrication but it is the stuff of urban myth; shared as gossip and liable to spread notwithstanding our unreliable narrator. Rahul Mehta our author has in one of the stories a set piece that warns in postmodern fashion that the author and the narrator are not the same person and that this distinction is all the more evident when the narrator reports being a writer.

The earlier stories in the collection read like realist tales told of course in the first person. The first is about a tense relation between grandson and grandfather, an incident with an outburst, and the traditional marks of respect.

When I go downstairs, my father asks if I did pranaam, and I say yes.

We readers know this to be a lie. Just prior to the question and response we are given a description from the perspective of the I-narrator.

Now, I don't approach my grandfather. I don't know whether he is crying under the covers. I stand in the doorway another minute, watching him, and then I leave.

Pranaam involves touching the feet of the person. There is no feet touching. Is there another form of pranaam? Is there some kind of respect? It is a question that haunts the whole collection: who and what is worth respect if the narrator cannot respect himself? An answer comes in the last story where the narrator decides to address his parents in a moment of truth telling but the moment is off-stage so to speak. It is announced but not related. It is yet to come. So we have in one story a lie to a father, in the other an opening up to the parents. These are of course different narrators and different stories. However, it is a persistent theme — respect tied to communication — one of the middle stories reports on this move by one member of a couple having a tough time:

Taped to the fridge is a note: "You'll probably be asleep by the time I get home," it says. "We should talk soon."

And like many of the other stories in Quarantine the outcome is left in suspension. Pranaam for the reader is left incomplete. Readers are constructed as untouchable or quarantined. Uncontaminated by the fictions of truth.

And so for day 1060
07.11.2009