A Distant View of Everything by Smith Alexander McCall

Author:Smith, Alexander McCall [Smith, Alexander McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Philosophy, Contemporary, Adult
ISBN: 9780345808677
Amazon: 0345808673
Goodreads: 32814641
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2017-03-23T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

ISABEL ARRIVED at the Café St. Honoré earlier than she had anticipated. She had with her a copy of that morning’s Scotsman newspaper, and while she waited for Rob, she busied herself with her two favourite features, the letters column and the crossword. The letters column, which occupied a double-page spread in the newspaper, was the spiritual home of the combative and the contrary, those who would write letters on the topics of the day, disagreeing with one another, challenging received opinions and generally provoking debate. Certain themes formed a constant refrain: Scottish independence, or otherwise; the hypocrisy of politicians; national debt; and in the background a long-running argument between secularists and theologians. Certain names cropped up with great regularity, and these correspondents, writing from familiar suburban addresses, had built up a following almost as large as that of the paper’s regular columnists.

One of these—a favourite of Isabel’s—had written that day on the subject of statues in public places and of the need for more statues of people whom the public actually recognised. “There are far too many statues of long-forgotten generals and the like,” he wrote. “These should be melted down and the metal used to cast statues of people who mean something to us today. For example, the current manager of the Scottish football team has no statue erected to him…”

Isabel rolled her eyes. The manager of the Scottish football team was important enough, in his way, but she had no idea who he was. Perhaps a statue of him might help people like her to recognise him, but that was not the point of statues. And there was, she thought, a strong argument against erecting statues of living people; a statue cast a person in metal and was intended to be a permanent monument—but what would happen if the person in question were to fall into disgrace, as public figures could do? Would the statue be scrapped, or moved into an obscure position, as had happened to statues of Lenin and others: as the past became hated, so too did its symbols and mementoes, left to the tender mercies of iconoclasts.

But it was not just statues that could fall victim to revisionism: street names, portraits and even personal names could all become unpopular because of the changes in attitude. Isabel remembered her friend Neville Chamberlain, who had stuck to his name in spite of its association with appeasement—his parents had believed the earlier Neville Chamberlain had done his best to avert war. But if there were few Adolfs in post-war Germany or Benitos in Italy, then that was understandable; it was safer, by far, to avoid giving children names that had an association with public figures.

She had moved on to a letter about education and the threat to the teaching of cursive script. There were schools where children were no longer being taught to write—and this, the correspondent said, should not be allowed to happen in Scotland. Isabel agreed; she wondered how people would be able

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