Eating People is Wrong Read Free Page A

again at Bates. The moment of interest was,
it appeared, all that Bates had been waiting for for the last three-quarters of an hour. ‘Excuse,’ he said, wetting his lips with his tongue.
    Treece stopped, surprised. In a low, insistent, carefully modulated voice, Bates began to talk, taking quick advantage of the lull. ‘What do you mean, precisely, by organic?’ he
demanded, taking up a point Treece had made a few moments before, and when Treece, a trifle disconcerted, did not answer immediately, he went on. ‘Well, it’s really no use our talking
in the way we have been doing if the words we use mean something different to each of us . . . and nothing’, he added with a wet grin, ‘to some of us. It’s all very well using
these coins, as long as we know what their value is, and agree on it. But do we?’
    These near-impertinences drew looks of mingled consternation and amusement from the other two students. Treece looked a trifle uncomfortable, as if he had been invited to the wrong sort of party
and had now been asked to sing. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but is this let’s-define-our-terms academicism really important at this early stage?’
    ‘Well,
I
think it is,’ said Bates, after considering this with a great appearance of sagacity.
    ‘Do you?’ said Treece. Generously, he felt, he granted the fact that Bates was simply trying to state a presence;
I am here
, was what this was all about, and, perhaps,
I
know all about logical positivism
.
    ‘Well, is this ever irrelevant? When Coleridge called any aspect of Shakespeare’s work “organic”, he knew what he meant, and he left enough references elsewhere to make
it clear what he meant when he used the word. We don’t. And in any case the word is debased currency, in my view, and has been ever since Coleridge. I mean, words are all very well, I grant
you, and in the beginning was the word, which is to say that what thought is is articulation. Now it’s true that a play by Shakespeare can be described as “organic”, but if we
consider that in, say, almost any one of the comedies, there is a large body of added matter that is, after all, apparently if not actually irrelevant to the main theme, the word doesn’t mean
all that much until we’ve narrowed it down and clarified it. What are words for? How are words true? I mean, we want to know, don’t we?’
    Of course Bates should have gone to Nottingham, where all the members of the English Department have read Wittgenstein, Treece thought; the truth is, Treece had to admit, that I don’t want
to get mixed up in this kind of thing. He said so. ‘What seems of most value to us all just now is a discussion on a simple level, accepting simple meanings.’
    ‘Well,’ said Bates, ‘let’s see what the others think.’ He looked about him. ‘What do people feel?’ he asked.
    Immediately all was embarrassment. Feet were shuffled, faces reddened, useless notes were consulted diligently. No one spoke; then Bates, who seemed unconcerned by, or completely insensitive to,
the confusion, remarked, ‘Perhaps Mr Sykes will give us his opinion?’ Mr Sykes desperately fastened and unfastened his briefcase. ‘Mr Cocoran, then,’ said Louis.
    Treece heroically took command. ‘The point must, I suppose, be a matter for some concern,’ he said, ‘but let’s save it up for your literary criticism tutorials. Here
it’s rather a diversion than anything else.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Louis Bates.
    Treece looked at him ominously.
    ‘I mean, isn’t it a matter wider than critical?’
    ‘No,’ said Treece. ‘And so, I think, back to Shakespeare.’
    ‘What happens when you cut off my head?’ demanded Bates and Treece wondered for a moment if he had actually threatened this aloud. ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Louis.
‘I die.’
    ‘I grant you,’ said Treece.
    ‘But if you merely cut off my feet,’ went on Bates triumphantly, ‘I live. Yet both are organic to me.’
    ‘That’s enough of that,’