Encyclopedia Satyrica Vol 33: Tragedy to Travesty

Just figured this one out: When people talk of a tragedy, what they actually mean is that things did not go as they expected; or, more strongly, what happened was completely unexpected. Sounds more like the definition of a surprise or a mishap, but I guess the difference is one of degree and what we are ready to condone as a minor mishap is but the seed of what could have been a modern Rape of the Lock. What is good about my definition of a tragedy is that it is neat and carries all the way from the minor tragedies in the life mundane - as when the neighbour's cat frolics all over the patterned India tablecloth minutes before the guests arrive - to the more elaborate ones involving Denmark and something rotting in it.

No tragedy is expected except by the front-seat bore, who was force-fed Shakespeare while his brothers were out painting the town red, and takes it out on his bored-and-snoring neighbour with all the vengeance of an enthusiastic pedant. Nor is any forgiven for the inconvenience it causes mice and men whose plans go all awry. The only sensible difference is in perception of, and reaction to them. The simple tragedies are almost all similar and involve, in their resolution, merely the shaking of the head and muttered disbelief; the complex ones, like unhappy families, are each tragedies in their own special way. Would have been much better had it been the other way - then every tsunami or earthquake would be handled professionally by men in white aprons and yellow batons.

Nothing can quite rubbish the amount of feeling that spouts out of the lachrymal glands of stone-faced men and powdered women when the earth quakes and indulges in postprandial eruptions - indeed they are all minor miracles, what with all the lack of exercise, in decades, of the delicate muscles that have atrophied past their expiry date - but is man so much the centre of his small microcosm that he is all that matters. Silly question that. Of course man is all that matters and whatever happens without man's consent is unacceptable. We will train ourselves to expect certain things like rain in the first week of Wimbledon and a quake every year in the Japanese archipelago but that does not mean we are fine with finding the neighbour's laundry in our basket or water bodies rising at will against our express instructions. We will label them all tragedies and file them in our drawers, wet ourselves in the right places according to the magnitude of the tragedy, console oursleves and others involved directly and indirectly, enquire after the families of friends who might have been forced to take part in the unfolding, take stock of market movements and our weatherbeaten lives, shrug, pray, perform, converse, and act, and so acting, add to our stock of life.