My summer reading this year has been Oliver Friggieri’s autobiography Fjuri li ma jinxfux (Flowers that don’t wither). To my shame, I haven’t finished it yet because, unfortunately, I cannot read as fast in Maltese as I do in English.

What I have read so far, however, has often given me pause for thought, opening up as it has a window on an almost unrecognisable Malta. Each time I immerse myself in Oliver’s Malta, the Malta he grew up in that he describes with such eloquence, I slip into a soothing reverie as I step back in time. Then I am often rudely and abruptly brought back into the present with the intrusion of today’s Malta by the events which have unfolded this summer, so many of them tragic.

One minute I am reading about a world with barely any traffic and carefree children playing in the streets, and in the next I hear the news of a horrific accident that has claimed three young lives because the driver was in a rush and wanted to overtake other cars.

It was not only the slower pace of that era which makes it so different. It was the general aura of innocence and tranquillity. Children were children – they were treated as such and behaved as such – and it never occurred to anyone that it should be any other way. Authority was respected, whether it came in the form of parents, or policemen or priests or the teacher at school. Discipline was enforced as a matter of course – it was expected and even welcomed – and because everyone around the author was being raised in the same way there was a comfortable sameness about the families that was reassuring and grounding.

Even the overwhelming dominance of the Church is explained in a way that has made me, if not agree with it, at least try to understand it.

The little vignettes Prof. Friggieri draws to illustrate growing up in the 50s are little gems of storytelling. The excitement of when the family first went to Gozo as if they were embarking on some great adventure. How as a child he began to understand the concept of distances both literal and metaphorical. The colourful characters who lived in the poor area known as Balzunetta in Floriana. The natural rhythm in the household as the seasons passed smoothly from summer to autumn to winter to spring, which were in turn marked by the turning out of the mattresses and the changeover of clothing. Even the detailed descriptions of what people wore are more than just passing observations but a sociological study of the distinctions that existed between the genders and between children and adults. A boy who graduated from shorts to long trousers became, in those days, a young man.

And it’s not all about joy and laughter either. We re-live the family’s trauma as seen through the young boy’s eyes when he experiences bereavement for the first time with the death of his baby sister. Beggars were a common sight, and people with disabilities were cruelly mocked by unthinking children who did not know any better.

There is pathos about the description of his childhood, which I found very moving, especially since, as the author often reminds us, that that Malta has disappeared forever.

Above all, it is the simplicity and lack of materialism of that time which has struck the deepest chord within me. It is a theme the author comes back to over and over again. As he comes to the end of the recollection of his childhood years, which coincide with the end of the 50s, Prof. Friggieri reflects on what lay ahead.

“The years of well-being, which would lead everyone to yawning without stopping, were close at hand. But for us children it was still far enough away that we couldn’t even imagine it. It’s true: man’s happiness lies in how much he is capable of not wanting too much. His sorrow lies in this as well. If the whole point of life is happiness, perhaps the recipe of only having a little was not that bad after all. Some time has to pass before you can look back and see which was the best road to take.”

Slow down, you

move too fast

The many deaths we have heard about this summer have been shocking not only because of the way they happened but because they have happened in quick succession. While I do not know any of the people who died personally, I can still feel myself reeling from the impact of hearing of yet another tragedy.

It is easy to mouth platitudes like “life’s too short”, or as we like to say in Maltese, “m’ahna xejn” (“we are nothing”), but we can’t help ourselves: often it is these platitudes that say it best. When we hear about people dying in their prime, it inevitably makes us stop in our tracks and turn philosophical.

We are all in such a frenzy to go, go, go all the time. What on earth for? How much money does one person possibly need? How much faster will we get to our destination if we press the pedal to the metal and drive like maniacs? How much more status or ambition can be achieved by working all hours of the day and night? And what effect is all this madcap activity having on children’s lives?

Maybe it is because I’m reading Oliver Friggieri’s book, but lately it has been brought home to me that parents don’t seem to enjoy raising children anymore. Some people decide to have children and then realise five years down the line that they cannot cope with them after all because they are cramping their style. They have babies because “everyone has them”, but then the reality of this tiny person depending solely on them freaks them out and they wish they could turn back the clock to the days when they were childless, footloose and fancy-free.

Then you have parents who drive their children round the bend by transferring their own dreams and goals on to the child, so that there is never a moment to just stop and breathe. No, the child has to have private lessons in every single subject (what the heck are they attending school for I wonder?) followed by piano, dance class, football, gymnastics and any other activity being offered. Mothers kill themselves ferrying the children round to all these appointments, the children don’t know whether they’re coming or going, and Daddy (and often Mummy as well) are too busy working, working, working to make money to pay for all these activities to actually talk to the children. In fact, the prospect of just simply spending some time together as a family on simple things that don’t cost money (like, you know, a picnic) sounds downright provincial.

We can go around saying that children have never had it so good, but as I go back to reading about times gone by, I wonder whether by “having it all” in reality we have nothing.

[email protected]