Food,coitus and toiletpaper

Last but not least, another excerpt from the book Identity by Milan Kundera. This by far is the most interesting piece and I find it hilarious and thought provoking at the same time. In this scene, Leroy, a refined lady(not named) and Chantal converse while travelling from Paris to London in a train. Chantal mostly thinks and I am going to ignore those parts, the main character in this conversation is Leroy who in Chantal’s mind talks ‘not as a giver of lessons but as a provocateur’. The beauty of this conversation is how it starts and where it ends.



In a pugnacious tone of voice, Chantal said: ‘But how did a Trotskyite turn religious? Where’s the logic?’
(Leroy:)’My dear friend, you know Marx’s famous line: change the world.’

‘Of course’

‘Well, our century has made one enormous thing clear: man is not capable of changing the world and will never change it. That is the fundamental conclusion of my experience as a revolutionary. A conclusion that is, incidentally, tacitly accepted by everybody. But there is another one, which goes further. This one is theological, and it says: man has no right to change what God has created. We have to follow that injunction all the way.’

Chantal Answered: ‘All right, I agree that all change is noxious. Therefore, it would be our duty to protect the world against change. Alas, the world is incapable of stopping the insane rush of its transformations…..’

‘….of which man is, however, a mere instrument,’ Leroy interrupted: ‘The invention of the locomotive contains the seed of the airplane’s design, which leads ineluctably to the space rocket. That logic is contained in the things themselves, in other words, it is a part of the divine project. You can turn in the whole human race for a different one, and still the evolution that leads from the bicycle to the rocket will just be the same. Man is only an operator, not the author of that evolution. And a paltry operator at that, since he doesn’t know the meaning of what he’s operating. That meaning doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to God Alone, and we are here only to obey Him so that He can do what He wants.’
A soft slightly quavering voice rises up across from Chantal: ‘But in that case, why are we here below? Why are we living?’

‘Why are we living? To provide God with human flesh. Because the Bible, my dear lady, does not ask us to seek the meaning of life. It asks us to procreate. Love one another and procreate. Understand this: the meaning of that ‘love one another’ is determined by that “procreate”. That “love one another” carries absolutely no implication of charitable love, of compassionate, spiritual or passionate love, it only means very simply “make love!” “copulate!” “fuck!”. That and that alone, constitutes the meaning of human life. All the rest is bullshit.’

They enter the undersea tunnel(I don’t know if that really exists or not, anyways,)

‘We are going deeper and deeper,’ said the lady anxiously.

‘To where the truth lies,’ said Chantal

‘To where,’ added Leroy, ‘lies the answer to your question: why are we living. What is essential in life? The essential in life is to perpetuate life: it is childbirth, and what precedes it is coitus, and what precedes coitus, seduction, that is to say kisses, hair floating in the wind, well-cut brassieres, and everything else that makes people ready for coitus, for instance good food – not fine cuisine, a superfluous thing no one appreciates anymore, but the food everyone buys – and along with food defecation, because you know, my dear lady, my beautiful adored lady, you know what a huge position the praise of toilet paper and nappies occupies in our profession.(they are all advertisers by profession). Toilet paper, nappies, detergents, food. That is a man’s sacred circle, and our mission is not only to discover it, seize it and map to, but to make it beautiful, to transform it into a song. Thanks to our influence, toilet paper is almost exclusively pink, and that is a highly edifying fact, which, my dear lady, I would recommend that you contemplate seriously’

‘But that’s desolation, desolation!’ said the lady, ‘It’s just desolation with make-up on! We put make-up on desolation!’

‘Yes precisely,’ said Leroy.

‘But then where is the grandeur of life? If we’re condemned to food and coitus and toilet paper, who are we? And if that’s all we are capable of, what pride can take in the fact that we are, as they tell us,free beings?’

‘Freedom? As you live out your desolation, you can either be happy or unhappy. Having that choice is what comprises your freedom. You are free to melt your own individuality into the cauldron of the multitude either with a feeling of defeat or euphoria. Our choice, my dear lady, is euphoria.’

…………………………..end…………………………..



What’s your choice?