We like lists because we don’t want to die
Back, book, casualty, honors, naughty and nice, shopping, spelling, top-ten, and all the rest – how we love our lists and cataloging, inventorying, ordering, and sorting our lives with lists.
The list is the origin of culture, and lists exist to make infinity comprehensible.
And those bold statements are from the SPIEGEL Interview with Umberto Eco (see left) occasioned by his curation of a new art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris. And if you enjoy lists, – making them, reading them – you will enjoy it. Hat tip to Melissa Clark of the NYTimes who put the link in her cooking newsletter last week (December 14).
So I started to make a list of my favorite lists from literature (ordered alphabetically by author). This is what I have so far. Of course, it will change because – as Eco says – if nothing changes you’re an idiot!
What would you add to this list?
The Bible (stuffed with lists starting with those interminable begattings through to the Ten Commandments to the Sermon on the Mount and probably beyond.)
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Joe Brainard, I Remember
I remember eating tunnels and cities out of watermelon.
I remember one brick wall and three white walls.
I remember drawing pictures in church on pledge envelopes and programs.
I remember Christmas cards arriving from people my parents forgot to send Christmas cards to.
I remember little cream jars in restaurants.
I remember going grocery shopping with Pat Padgett (Pat Mitchell then) and slipping a steak into her coat pocket when she wasn’t looking.
Charles Dickens, Bleak House
The fog for starters and also Miss Flite’s ridiculous collection of birds:
Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Gatsby’s self-improvement list of course, but also this list of party guests. Imagine the fun of making this list.
From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie’s wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all.
Clarence Endive was from East Egg, as I remember. He came only once, in white knickerbockers, and had a fight with a bum named Etty in the garden. From farther out on the Island came the Cheadles and the O. R. P. Schraeders, and the Stonewall Jackson Abrams of Georgia, and the Fishguards and the Ripley Snells. Snell was there three days before he went to the penitentiary, so drunk out on the gravel drive that Mrs. Ulysses Swett’s automobile ran over his right hand. The Dancies came, too, and S. B. Whitebait, who was well over sixty, and Maurice A. Flink, and the Hammerheads, and Beluga the tobacco importer, and Beluga’s girls.
….All these people came to Gatsby’s house in the summer.
Ivor Gurney, Laventie
Of Maconachie, Paxton, Tickler, and Gloucester’s Stephens;Fray Bentos, Spiller and Baker, odds and evensOf trench food, but the everlasting clean cravingFor bread, the pure thing, blessed beyond saving.Canteen disappointments, and the keen boy bravingBullets or such for grouse roused surprisingly through (Halfway) Stand-to.And the shell nearly blunted my razor at shaving;Tilleloy, Pauquissart, Neuve Chapelle, and mud like glue.But Laventie, most of all, I think is to soldiersThe Town itself with plane trees, and small-spa air;And vin, rouge-blanc, chocolat, citron, grenadine:One might buy in small delectable cafés there.The broken church, and vegetable fields bare;
James Joyce, Ulysses (many examples)
Here he parodies traditional literary lists with one of wedding guests renamed as trees:
The fashionable international world attended en masse this afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence.
Gretchen Legner, Things That Appear Ugly or Troubling But Upon Closer Inspection are Beautiful.
A river in winter with ice floes jammed violently against one another; you can see dark water in between the white and gray floes, sparkling in the sunshine.
Abandoned barns, their huge roofs sagging like the backs of tired horses.
The slick, black body of a baby goat, stillborn, lying in the hay between its confused mother’s hooves.
Neat little white-topped piles of green chicken shit–food for fragrant pink phlox and Brussels sprouts.
A limp newly hatched baby bird that has fallen onto the grass from a nest in the pine tree and has died with part of its bright blue eggshell still attached to its damp feathers.
The angry red fists of rhubarb when they first appear in the dark soil of the spring garden
Michael Longley, The Ice-cream Man
Rum and raisin, vanilla, butter-scotch, walnut, peach:
You would rhyme off the flavours. That was before
They murdered the ice-cream man on the Lisburn Road
And you bought carnations to lay outside his shop.
I named for you all the wild flowers of the Burren
I had seen in one day: thyme, valerian, loosestrife,
Meadowsweet, tway blade, crowfoot, ling, angelica,
Herb robert, marjoram, cow parsley, sundew, vetch,
Mountain avens, wood sage, ragged robin, stitchwort,
Yarrow, lady’s bedstraw, bindweed, bog pimpernel.
Roger McGough, The Sound Collector
A stranger called this morning
Dressed all in black and grey
Put every sound into a bag
And carried them awayThe whistling of the kettle
The turning of the lock
The purring of the kitten
The ticking of the clockThe popping of the toaster
The crunching of the flakes
When you spread the marmalade
The scraping noise it makesThe hissing of the frying pan
The ticking of the grill
The bubbling of the bathtub
As it starts to fillThe drumming of the raindrops
On the windowpane
When you do the washing-up
The gurgle of the drainThe crying of the baby
The squeaking of the chair
The swishing of the curtain
The creaking of the stairA stranger called this morning
He didn’t leave his name
Left us only silence
Life will never be the same
Christopher Morley, Smells
WHY is it that the poet tells
So little of the sense of smell?
These are the odors I love well:The smell of coffee freshly ground;
Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;
Or onions fried and deeply browned.The fragrance of a fumy pipe;
The smell of apples, newly ripe;
And printer’s ink on leaden type.Woods by moonlight in September
Breathe most sweet, and I remember
Many a smoky camp-fire ember.Camphor, turpentine, and tea,
The balsam of a Christmas tree,
These are whiffs of gramarye. . .
A ship smells best of all to me!
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water. Together, these items weighed between 15 and 20 pounds, depending upon a man’s habits or rate of metabolism. Henry Dobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations; he was especially fond of canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound cake. Dave Jensen, who practiced field hygiene, carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and several hotel-sized bars of soap he’d stolen on R&R in Sydney, Australia. Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April. By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 pounds including the liner and camouflage cover. They carried the standard fatigue jackets and trousers. Very few carried underwear. On their feet they carried jungle boots—2.1 pounds—and Dave Jensen carried three pairs of socks and a can of Dr. Scholl’s foot powder as a precaution against trench foot. Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried 6 or 7 ounces of premium dope, which for him was a necessity. Mitchell Sanders, the RTO, carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary. Rat Kiley carried comic books. Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father, who taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As a hedge against bad times, however, Kiowa also carried his grandmother’s distrust of the white man, his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet. Necessity dictated. Because the land was mined and booby-trapped, it was SOP for each man to carry a steel-centered, nylon-covered flak jacket, which weighed 6.7 pounds, but which on hot days seemed much heavier. Because you could die so quickly, each man carried at least one large compress bandage, usually in the helmet band for easy access. Because the nights were cold, and because the monsoons were wet, each carried a green plastic poncho that could be used as a raincoat or groundsheet or makeshift tent. With its quilted liner, the poncho weighed almost 2 pounds, but it was worth every ounce. In April, for instance, when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him up, then to carry him across the paddy, then to lift him into the chopper that took him away
George Orwell, Inside the Whale
Orwell’s essays are packed with examples. it’s how he writes. Here he is on Paris, Henry Miller and Tropic of Cancer
During the boom years, when dollars were plentiful and the exchange-value of the franc was low, Paris was invaded by such a swarm of artists, writers, students, dilettanti, sight-seers, debauchees, and plain idlers as the world has probably never seen. In some quarters of the town the so-called artists must actually have outnumbered the working population—indeed, it has been reckoned that in the late twenties there were as many as 30,000 painters in Paris, most of them impostors……..
The neglected genii, the paranoiacs who are always ‘going to’ write the novel that will knock Proust into a cocked hat, are there, but they are only genii in the rather rare moments when they are not scouting about for the next meal. For the most part it is a story of bug-ridden rooms in working-men’s hotels, of fights, drinking bouts, cheap brothels, Russian refugees, cadging, swindling, and temporary jobs. And the whole atmosphere of the poor quarters of Paris as a foreigner sees them—the cobbled alleys, the sour reek of refuse, the bistros with their greasy zinc counters and worn brick floors, the green waters of the Seine, the blue cloaks of the Republican Guard, the crumbling iron urinals, the peculiar sweetish smell of the Metro stations, the cigarettes that come to pieces, the pigeons in the Luxembourg Gardens—it is all there, or at any rate the feeling of it is there.
Linda Pastan, Lists
I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list.
I made a list of items of need:
love and water on one side,
on the other the small flowers
that bloom without scent,
and it is like the grocery lists
my grandmother used to make:
milk and butter-dairy
on one side, meat on the other
as if they shouldn’t mingle
even on the page.
George Perec, Notes on the Objects to Be Found on My Desk
A lamp, a cigarette-case, a bud-vase, a stone for striking matches, a cardboard box containing small filing cards of different colors, a large papier-mâché penholder with seashell inlays, a glass pencil-holder, several stones, three turned-wood boxes, an alarm clock, a push-button calendar, a lump of lead, a big cigar-box full of knick-knacks (no cigars), a steel spiral device in which you can put pending mail, a polished stone dagger handle, ledgers, exercise books, loose leaves, various writing instruments and accessories, a big blotting stamp, several books, a glass full of pencils, a little gilded-wood box.
Jack Prelutsky, Bleezers Ice Cream
I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER’S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI and etc,
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
This casket India’s glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,
Transform’d to combs, the speckled and the white.
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.
Sei Shonagen, The Pillow Book
Things That Arouse a Fond Memory of the Past
Dried hollyhock. To find a piece of deep violet or grape-coloured material that has been pressed between the pages of a notebook.
It is a rainy day and one is feeling bored. To pass the time, one starts looking through some old papers. And then one comes across the letters of a man one used to love.
Last year’s paper fan.
A night with a clear moon.
Christopher Smartt, from Jubilate Agno
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry….For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.For every family had one cat at least in the bag.For the English Cats are the best in Europe.For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.For he is tenacious of his point.For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.For he knows that God is his Saviour.
Edmund Spenser, The Faery Queen
Much can they praise the trees so straight and high
The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall,
The builder oak, sole king of forests all,
The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral,
The laurel, mead of mighty conquerors
And poets sage, the fir that weepest still,
They yew obedient to the bender’s will,
The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill,
The myrrh sweet bleeding in the bitter wound,
The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill,
The fruitful olive, and the platane round,
The carver holm, the maple seldom sound
Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
A PETTICOAT.
A light white, a disgrace, an ink spot, a rosy charm.A SHAWL.
A shawl is a hat and hurt and a red balloon and an under coat and a sizer a sizer of talks.
A shawl is a wedding, a piece of wax a little build. A shawl.FOOD
ROASTBEEF; MUTTON; BREAKFAST; SUGAR; CRANBERRIES; MILK; EGGS; APPLE; TAILS; LUNCH; CUPS; RHUBARB; SINGLE; FISH; CAKE; CUSTARD; POTATOES; ASPARAGUS; BUTTER; END OF SUMMER; SAUSAGES; CELERY; VEAL; VEGETABLE; COOKING; CHICKEN; PASTRY; CREAM; CUCUMBER; DINNER; DINING; EATING; SALAD; SAUCE; SALMON; ORANGE; COCOA; AND CLEAR SOUP AND ORANGES AND OATMEAL; SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE; A CENTRE IN A TABLE.
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Why Mrs. Dalloway loves London:
Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can’t be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.
Ok – so that’s enough for now!
As Umberto Eco and Melissa Clark pointed out, menus and recipes are lists too.
Here’s a list of ingredients not to put in a Christmas pudding and then the real thing from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management from 1861. She suggests making several of them as they are so useful to have on hand.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Don’t like that one? There are several more including a fruitarian version with no suet.
Happy seasonal puddings and Christmas and holidays and Chinese dinners and healthy time off to one and all.
And girls – here are your principal household duty for the month:
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This is the most wonderful list of lists. Some old friends, others new friends in the making.
Thank you.
Gwen.
Impressive. And such an interesting take on lists. Thankfully, I have none worthy of celebration!
Happy New Year1
a happy face, a contended mind and a full larder? I must get on!
Thanks for a brilliant post, those lists in Ulysses are just absolutely fantastic, you're reading along and suddenly start laughing because you realise you're reading a wonderful list! Brilliant!
We all love to list
But many things can never be listed
Make a list of them
I love Sei Shonagan's lists. I think she had about sixteen categories. It is a great approach if you want to write poetry that doesn't sound kitsch. Her Hateful Things are rather good...
One is in a hurry to leave, but one's visitor keeps chattering...
A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discuss all sorts of subjects at random as though he knew everything
A man with whom one is having an affair keeps singing the praises of some woman he used to know...
The sound of dogs when they bark for a long time in cborus is ominous and hateful.
I loved Mike Wright's lists from school. Took me right back to boarding school days and a nun saying.
'Any girl seen without her hat and gloves faces instant dismissal.'
Mike and I went to the same school the opportunities to break rules being punished were many. Agreed on Sei Shonagen. Mind you - I'm currently inspired by your list of the entertaining cheeses.
Charles Kingsley loved lists too: as a child he listed flora and fauna with their Latin nomenclature almost like religious litanies, and his The Water-Babies is stuffed full of nonsense lists, supposedly in homage to Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel which was likewise distinguished.
Great additions. Thanks. I feel a second list is on the way.
Lists - they are just everywhere. I think Eco is on the something.
Wonderful post - thank you! Particularly love the McGough poem, and of course marvellous Perec - lovely!
Josie, this is brillant, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking. I'm currently re=reading Mrs. Dalloway; so it's full of lists, as you note. How about the lists of all your past lovers? I'd make one up now, but I'm afraid to. xo CAC
So - how about this list of lists:
People I had an affair with (aka a test of memory)
People I wanted to have a love affair with but didn't (list of regrets)
People that I had an affair with that now I regret and pretend I didn't (list of lies and enemies)
People who are still talking to me (short list.)
Oh crikey!
List of all past loves/ affairs/ liaisons!
That would be a guarantee to capsize all current same!
And Mrs Dalloway is just a brilliant book.
See you soon.
Sounds and smells...I like those and I remember well my mother's Mrs Beeton's! I'm not sure she followed the recipe for the pudding but I liked it in those days. Far too sweet for me now. I used to love looking for the sixpenny pieces...the little silver ones, I think. I've got one somewhere. I'm sure I remember that we had lighted candles on our tree too which makes me wonder why we didn't go up in smoke. Our dinner was a roasted chicken which was a great treat. It didn't taste a bit like modern chicken. Not that I have eaten one lately. I've been veg for 30 years. Best wishes to you! Oh...will there be a King's speech?
I do remember the time when many still made their own Christmas cakes (start them in October) and puddings and there was the hidden sixpence. For some - like my mother who had a full time very responsible job - it must have felt like a heavy burden of domestic obligation./ failure.
I am sure there will be a King's speech but as I never listened to the Queen's speech (my family were not , and I am not, into royalty) I won't be listening to it.
Funnily enough though - I DID listen to the QE2 speech about Covid. I found it moving because I knew it spoke to a whole generation of people. Got to give her credit - she knew how to do her duty and her job, and she did it with sincerity.
And my empathy toward the current king is based on the fact that he was forced to endure Gordonstoun and the cherry brandy episode.
SCHOOL SINS FOR BOYS
Wearing outdoor shoes in assembly
Cycling two abreast
Cycling to school without a Cycle Permit
Not wearing the school cap when wearing school uniform outside school
Wearing long trousers in Years 1 and 2.
Getting on the bus outside school before all the other people who arrived later got on
Entering the cloakrooms during lesson time
Not standing up when a teacher came into the classroom
Running in the corridor
Going up and down the stairs on the wrong side
Talking in the corridor during lesson time
Leaving unused space in your General Work book
Kicking a ball against the playground fence
Wearing ANYTHING but boots, socks, shirt and shorts when playing Rugby
Trying to leave the School Choir even though you hated it
Wearing any footwear but white plimsolls or black shoes
Being late back from swimming even if the bus was late
Answering all the questions in an English exam but failing to put a full stop at the end of the one word answers
Trying to stay in at break because it was raining when there want a notice up saying it was WET
Doing homework in the library at lunchtime even if you had no where to do it at home
And finally Not having a Dap bag
This is the best list of all time: The GOAT list of childhood.
OMG Mike - You nailed it with a poem!
(And - have to say - most of those were School Sins for Girls too.)
And not having a dap bag!
The worst of the worst.
At least the boy sinner was not expected to SEW the effing thing for an entire year of needlework in the first year. (Boys had to endure other sex-based indignity/ waste of time elsewhere.)
Thanks, Mike. This is BRILLIANT.
Floreat semper schola.
I love all your posts Josie, not just the school ones. You have a great style and such an interesting commentary on life and this weird world of today.
Floreat semper Rattlebag and Rhubarb.
Thanks Mike!
So - if not Floreat Cricklade Road and Stratton St Margaret and Swindon - then at least Floreat Mike Wright!