Frances and Nick

I am fascinated by the BBC’s current drama Conversations with Friends.  I know of few works that shed so revealing a light on contemporary society. The lead characters, Frances and Nick, are self-absorbed, unhappy and bored.  They never seem to ask themselves profound questions like were the great tragedians right in thinking that there is a universal ironic justice?  What are we to make of all these billions of galaxies Brian Cox is always telling us about?  Is nature not just an exploitable background to our trivial daily lives –

Got up. Cornflakes. Put the cat out.                                                                     Caught bus to work, news in paper sad.                                                                    Julian had egg on his tie. How we laughed
Bus home. Tesco ready meal not bad.                                                                       Fed cat. TV. Put out rubbish. Bed.                                                                           Woke up to find I was still dead –

but GM Hopkins’ temple of wonder and glory –

‘ ecstasy all through mothering earth’ ‘A  dearest freshness deep down things ‘ –

or should we be doing more to avert the horror that is awaiting our kids that the climate scientists say we should – how, unlike Frances and Nick, would you not worry yourself sick about something like that? –  but Frances and Nick don’t seem too bothered.  If you felt like them would you too not want an affair to relieve the tedium?  Is this what the author meant to portray? Or are we meant to feel how lovely just sitting round drinking wine in a beautiful villa in Croatia wish I could?

Jesus it makes me want to hasten back to the awful Catholic Church – the bishops have just said the obligation to attend Mass is restored now Covid is over you’ll be pleased to hear, you don’t want to go to hell do you? just the kind of thing Jesus preached about the tyrant God is alive and well – where at least they ask you to believe unbelievable things.  But science does that too.

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