Published: October 2008
Readers who selected this book also read:
The Imbecility Manual, by the same writer.
Anyone who loved The Imbecility Manual, a book of original aphorisms that remains at the top of the bestseller list several months after its publication, will enjoy in We Ourselves (first edition, 2003) some essays that sketch the complete range of contemporary Greek society’s madness in the author’s inimitable manner. From the Zeibekiko dance and Kazantzidis to the stock market and television, from the Feng Shui bug and spaghetti westerns to unemployment and football, from the fake glitter of the nouveau riche and call girls to the true heroes next door, Charitopoulos doesn’t kowtow to anyone. With his inexhaustible, often dark humor and proven ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, the writer offers a merciless parody of modern life. It’s a book of essays that reads like a novel about contemporary Greece.
Sample aphorisms include:
The Zeibekiko dance is like ‘Lord’s Prayer’; You’ve said it all in a word.
Mechanisms for dulling minds always precede consumption mechanisms.
Career is the latter-day valley of tears.
Greeks listened to Theodorakis and Hadjidakis but sang Kazantzidis.
Excerpts from the book:
A sample text from the chapter about the Left:
Today the Left is languishing in the margins. There are just few of leftists left; most have fled. This is open to interpretation. Left means selflessness – a word that has been all but exiled from dictionaries, never mind our lives. And being a leftist is a lifestyle that’s cohesive and has consequences; it’s not some specialization or skill obtained while young that one can cash out later in life. As someone said, “just because the Berlin Wall collapsed, that doesn’t mean I’ll become a bastard.”
A sample text from the chapter about football:
There’s no such thing as a fan who buys a ticket. We’re all fans. No one goes to the game with a cold eye. There’s no match without passion. The emotional mobilization is intense. The team is an extension of yourself; it may disappoint you, it may exasperate you but you will never betray it. Nothing else matters as long as the team is ok.
A sample text from the chapter about unemployment:
Of all the faults a man can have, there’s none worse than going home empty-handed. How many women have put up with worthless husbands who are violent or unfaithful for the sole reason that they brought home the bacon? Extended unemployment traumatizes the man’s soul; it negates him as an active human being. This debasement is not just financial; he sinks into a state where he underestimates himself and feels inferior to other men. He feels as if he has sunk in the eyes of his wife and children. He becomes a stranger in his own home. Words of consolation merely deepen this feeling of inferiority – man needs respect not pity.
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