…standing naked mid-winter under jet streams of hot clean water
Filed under: Create by Jeremy on Wednesday, 4th November 2009 at 11:33 am
I came across this small excerpt from Ian McEwan’s Saturday in, oddly enough, George Monbiot’s Heat. Henry Perowne is getting into the shower as he ponders:
When this civilization fails, when the Romans, whoever they are this time round, have finally left and the new dark ages begin, this will be one of the first luxuries to go. The old folk crouching by their peat fires will tell their disbelieving grandchildren of standing naked mid-winter under jet streams of hot clean water, of lozenges of scented soaps and of viscous amber and vermilion liquids they rubbed into their hair to make it glossy and more voluminous than it actually was, and of thick white towels as big as togas, waiting on warming racks.
It made me appreciate my morning shower a little more than usual. Though, I’m not sure where he’s getting his vermilion liquids.
All throughout Saturday, Ian McEwan provokes quite the appreciation for little, mundane things, but not in a cheesy ‘wake-up-and-smell-the-roses’ kind of way. He just… brings little things sharply into focus, making me feel like I sleepwalk through my life and miss out on all these moments of illumination. Although, I’ve got to say, it must be pretty tiring to live your life perpetually alert to and contemplative of all your surroundings. I’m fairly certain our senses aren’t set up to be so taxed.
Anyway, this is my favourite quote: sweeping statements about the world based on observations about his kettle…
“What simple accretions have brought the humble kettle to this peak of refinement: jug-shaped for efficiency, plastic for safety, wide spout for ease of filling, and clunky little platform to pick up the power. He never complained about the old style – the sticking tin lid, the thick black feminine socket waiting to electrocute wet hands seemed in the nature of things. But someone had thought about this carefully, and now there’s no going back. The world should take note: not everything is getting worse.”
– Ian McEwan, Saturday
I’m a fan. Of the passage, post and Saturday. What was the context in Heat?
It’s right at the beginning when he was realizing that proposing the kind of greenhouse gas emissions he was might mean reverting back to the stone age, as McEwan’s passage describes. Monbiot, of course goes on to write a book about how that’s not actually true.