Fine
clay, the finest clay ever made, the finest clay imaginable, that's
what some people could be said to be made of. Thomas Mann's Felix
Krull declares
he is, yet circumstances make him a lift-boy, a waiter, a thief and a
fraudster. A charmer. A likeable conman. Women love him; gentlemen
want him to attend to their every need and enjoy his company. Because
to Felix being made of finer clay means deserving riches: all the
riches that the world of wealth offers, the world he was cruelly
denied after his father's business went belly-up, and the family,
after his father's suicide or accidental death as it was claimed, was
broken apart.
Felix
was born into this life, or an imitation of it built on illusion and
credit, and he will find his way back to that life again. He will
play off and up to his youth, his good looks and personality. And he
will take the paths that are beneath him but for the shortest time,
because in that time he will be noticed. And yet in his Confessions,
as he gives them, you're lured into thinking it was all circumstance.
It was good fortune, coincidence rather than calculation or
premeditation; affairs that in other words he had no control over. Is
he charming us with his Confessions?
I think he is, rather.
Those
that fall from the heights of the upper-class will rise again and
will have less or no scruples about how they do so, although he's not
as a young man of twenty as conniving as another man of twenty might
have been. No, he's much more subtle. People don't like to think or
admit they've been hoodwinked do they? And if a situation benefits
both – the deceiver and the deceived – well, then, there's no
cause for complaint, is there?
But
am I only saying this because like Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Mr.
Ripley, I like Felix?
Could
be. Could be.
Or
is just that humans manipulate each other all the time, even when we
don't think we are, and I'm happier acknowledging this than denying
it, though I might deny all knowledge of my own manipulation -
engineered or semi-conscious? You can't say that thought isn't
interesting...
We
all have our own agendas, the by-paths we wish and don't wish to
follow, the paths we wish to create and bring about by whatever means
which sometimes necessitates influencing others in their decisions
and actions. I know I've done it even in minor affairs because the
outcome I want becomes more important. And I would opine that
everyone has at some point done that with a clear head though maybe
with a less clear conscience, particularly if the result they wanted
won out but had been achieved through sly agency.
Slippery.
Trickery. Like that said of Odysseus.
Whatever
you think about it, it is a talent. Though only if recognised and
used, developed to an art. Most of us wouldn't; we just make use of
it occasionally or in trivial point-scoring. Those in full possession
of it possess it, it doesn't possess them. It's a tool they've
mastered. And as is so often the case it rewards them: with
popularity, with wealth, with high-ranking positions, with situations
(or persons) they can take advantage of.
A
voice in an important ear. A person of influence. A person of power.
To have people come at your beck and call. To live in the lap of
luxury. To be offered the finest things and sometimes, in spite of
noted riches, not have to pay. This is what those who think they're
made of finer clay are after. That's their goal. And most of them
will probably make it too, if they're not already there, or back
there if they've taken an unexpected fall.
Assuming
different identities, different roles comes all too naturally: the
style of addresses, the flourishes of signature and penmanship, when
to have a deferential manner or carry a noble bearing, when to
flatter and when to inspire confidence, and most important of all the
clothes that make the man, which the mirror assures them they were
born to wear.
Such
men are like sponges, in that they soak up knowledge then sprout it
as if it were their own, whilst the clay they're made from seals out
the moisture and oxygen that would in the average person lead them to
question their audacity and keeps their delusions intact.
Picture credit: Sistine Chapel Ceiling Creation of Adam, 1510, Michelangelo.
This post was penned in 2019.
