Eunuchs weeping

I’ve been going to sessions at the Charleston Literary Festival for the last three days, and the result is a glorious muddle in my head. Jung Chang (who wrote ‘Wild Swans’) told us how the Dowager Empress Cixi tried, in the 19th century, to abolish the system of castrating small boys to supply eunuchs to the imperial court. The main opposition to this compassionate reform came from the eunuchs themselves, who initiated a ‘campaign of weeping’, that successfully stymied the reform. Then in another session David Hare startled us by saying he didn’t rate either Beckett’s plays or his glum philosophy. In a rush of liberation I found myself  feeling: yes, he’s right. For all Beckett’s magnificent power as a writer, which I acknowledge and celebrate, his take on the business of living is false to my experience. So for me at least Beckett’s campaign of weeping is over, the era of the eunuchs is at an end, and the sheer fertility of existence can rule the day. True, I write this in hot spring sunshine, as our wildflower meadow prepares to explode in cornflower blue and poppy red. In the long chilly winter evenings I’m sure I’ll return to Beckett’s wry wisdom.