A Fucking Basket of Coal

Some people, as they approach the end of their lives, wither, some burn more brightly. Roger Ebert is going out with a bang. He can no longer speak or eat, but his writing is clear, passionate and copious.  He inspires awe. Esquire Magazine has paid tribute to Ebert with an interview entitled “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man”. The picture of Ebert says it all. The normally macho, image-oriented Esquire gives high praise to a man who has been crippled by disease and who is horrifying to look at, but whose spirit is unbent.

The quote that inspired me the most was:

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

If you are interested, Ebert also has a blog. He’s been posting away, and he regularly responds to comments. I’ve been particularly pleased to note that Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, a great American novel and one of my favorites, has provided Ebert comfort these past months.  See also here.

Here is Ebert on Suttree:

"I have read all of McCarthy's fiction, and for my money this is his best novel, but ("therefore," I want to add) appears to be his least-mentioned. Just read this:

It is little more than dawn when the general comes down Front Street slumped in the front of his coalwagon, the horse named Golgotha hung between the trees and stumbling along in the cold with his doublejointed knees and his feet clopping and the bright worn quoits winking feebly among the clattering spokes. (...)

It was six degrees above zero. Suttree crawled from his bed, pulled on his coat and got his trousers and climbed up onto the bed so cold the floor was. He squatted and fished his socks out from beneath the cot and shook out the dust and pulled them on and stepped into his shoes and went to the door. Mist swirled about him. The old black coalpedlar sat his cart, the horse sidled and stamped.

Couldn't you just leave a basket and go on?

I see you ain't froze, said the general, climbing down.

The novel is written entirely with that attention. You haven't even started it until you've started it the second time. After weeks of depression, hopelessness and regret, realizing the operation had failed and I would probably not speak again, after murky medications and no interest in movies, television, books or even the morning paper, it was the bleak, sad Suttree that started me to life again. Spare me happy books that will cheer me up. I was fighting it out with Suttree. I didn't want a condo in Florida. I wanted a fucking basket of coal."