The Vast Grey Sleep
I’ve really fallen for James Baldwin. Yes, yes, you already know all about him. Revisiting his work has been popular since 2016, but I’m always a few years behind.
Here’s a passage from one of his novels, Another Country, that is nicely Escapological:
There were no standards for him except for those he could make for himself. There were no standards for him because he could not accept the definitions, the hideously mechanical jargon of the age. He saw no one around him worth his envy, did not believe in the vast grey sleep which was called security, did not believe in the cures, panaceas, and slogans which afflicted the world he knew; and this meant that he had to create his standards and make up his definitions as he went along.
Who among us has not known that “vast grey sleep” when sitting at an office desk or in a traffic jam or while traipsing around a shopping mall in search of some annoying future kipple like replacement paper clips or a new travel adapter? Who here has not questioned those “cures, panaceas and slogans”? Improvisation (and the character being described is a jazz musician) and wit and referring only to our own standards are no bad alternative. Perfect, perfect.
Iconoclast Baldwin:
Seeking alternatives to the vast grey sleep of security? Try my books, I’m Out and The Good Life for Wage Slaves.
About Robert Wringham
Robert Wringham is the editor of New Escapologist. He also writes books and articles. Read more at wringham.co.uk
“vast grey sleep” reminds me of a line from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s memoir, “Wind, Sand and Stars”, when he catches the bus to the airfield for his first ever mail run as a pilot (which was very risky and glamorous at the time)
“Finally I saw the old-fashioned vehicle come round the corner and heard its tinny rattle. Like those who had gone before me, I squeezed in between a sleepy customs guard and a few glum government clerks. The bus smelled musty, smelled of the dust of government offices into which the life of a man sinks as into a quicksand.”
I see now that I had misremembered it. He’s comparing the office dust to quicksand. I had the phrase remembered as “one of those government jobs into which the life of a man sinks as into a quicksand” which certainly feels like the people I know who got a job in the public service with every intention of getting out in a year or two. I mean he’s saying the exact same thing, just sticking closer to his metaphor.
I now have this sudden fear that I first came across the line in Escape Everything and it’s what prompted me to read Wind Sand Stars in the first place, the timing is about right. Regardless!
That’s a nice quote and not one from Escape Everything. The most similar thing I can remember quoting is this moment from J. M. Coetzee memoir. Reckon I’ll post your Saint-Exupéry quote to the main blog.