THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603120421
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY AUDREY KNOTH
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
THE WAY WE ARE
MARGARET VISSER
Faber and Faber. 306 pp. $23.95.
Were ``Visserism'' a word, it would refer to ``the doctrine that all scholarship, e.g., food chemistry, etymology, particle physics, etc., exists to prove that life is rich, funny and meaningful.''
So writes John Fraser in his introduction to The Way We Are, a collection of essays by Margaret Visser. Fraser knows ``Visserism'' well. He edits the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, in which almost all of these pieces first appeared. And Fraser is right. Visser's application of scholarly thought and historical research to aspects of everyday life is so unique, thought-provoking and delightfully accessible, it creates its own ``-ism.''
``Anthropologists have enumerated at least 132 ways of sitting, only about 30 of which involve anything comparable with a chair; and of these many are thought, even now and even for men, to be unbecoming in our own polite society,'' writes Visser in the essay ``Sitting Pretty.'' In this piece, as in the others, the author weaves a tapestry of insights from what seems merely a single strand of observation.
``When people decide to avoid sitting on the ground, and place three- and four-legged supports beneath their buttocks instead, they are choosing to limit and constrain their behavior in important ways.'' In noting that Westerners typically think that sitting on chairs is more comfortable than sitting on the floor, Visser challenges us to reconsider that assumption.
Compare, for instance, the clothes generally worn by people in chairless societies (``flowing and long'') with vestments designed for the Western world. ``The most `liberated' miniskirted woman in nylon stockings is peremptorily forbidden the floor,'' Visser notes. ``Men's pants are quickly ruined and usually become uncomfortable if worn on the floor.''
One comes away from this essay and others in the collection ruminating on the fundamentals of Western life. Have we actually made logical improvements over the practices of other cultures and generations? Or are we simply indulging our own peculiar whimsies?
In writing on the development of bells, Visser explains that Russians have typically ``chimed'' their bells, ``that is, knocked a clapper tied to a rope against the bell's stationary sides. It is said that when, in an early movie, Russians first saw the Western method of ringing bells by agitating the entire bell instead of just the clapper inside, the audience broke up in gales of laughter at what seemed to them our monumentally stupid waste of effort.''
The Way We Are contains more than 50 essays. Each is just a few pages long and bears a simple title (``Beards,'' ``Avocados,'' ``Wearing Blue'') that announces its theme. The book is like a sampler box of candies. It's easy to dip into a topic that intrigues, savor its wit and then select another subject that's very different but equally satisfying.
Visser, a former university classics professor, has published two previous books, Much Depends on Dinner and The Rituals of Dinner. Both won awards and favorable notices. As their titles suggest, they center on food-related topics. While The Way We Are does include some essays on that subject, most focus on other topics - thus displaying the range and relevance of Visserism. MEMO: Audrey Knoth is a free-lance writer and executive director of public
relations at Goldman & Associates in Norfolk. by CNB