Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize winner for playwright’s standards, stole a book from Bermondsey library 59 years ago. It was entitled Murphy, written by Samuel Beckett, published in 1938 after 42 rejections, and was his third novel. It contains one of the great chess scenes in which, rather than attacking one another, Murphy and a mental patient simply try to rearrange their pieces symmetrically on the board.
His library of 5,000 volumes was bought by a private collector, and as Mags Bros. prepared an inventory catalogue, they discovered the book. The ink stamp inside the flyleaf showed that it had not been read since the date of borrowing. No matter how sincere Pinter’s action was as an act of homage to his Beckett collection, it was still an act of theft, and presented a quandary for the booksellers.
Pinter had no intention of returning the book. He made it public knowledge, and said he ‘never regretted’ its prolonged absence! In a public speech in 1971 when opening the Reading Beckett exhibition, he openly admitted to stealing it. However, the antiquarian bookseller who sold Pinter’s library returned the book to Southwark Council, successor to Bermondsey, and bought it back for £2,000 to return it to the rest of the collection. The money will go towards funding Sandra Agard, who teaches creative writing at the Council.
Compared to other acts of theft this was no big deal, but it was still theft, and in principle if one soldier defies the no-cross zone or one million, it is still an act of war. We have a convenient tendency to compartmentalize our minds when dealing with delinquent action; excusing and justifying ourselves with impunity. There is no little or large when it comes to theft. A pound or a penny it matters not, it is still a violation.
Theft can cover several issues, for instance someone can steal your identity and others can steal your reputation. Lying can be viewed as theft for it steals trust. It can sever friendships and create a host of antagonistic ripples that uncovers disparate issues. Lying simply treats people as a means to an end, which is inexcusable, for deception warrants censure.
If a man can lie about his infidelity he can steal from his employer. The two defects are Siamese twins holding hands and are almost inseparable. Truth stands as an absolute value; the glue which binds the rulebook. “When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened,” says St. Augustine “all things will remain doubtful.” You can forgive a liar but you can’t have confidence in them for they have stolen reliability.
When Jacob stole the birthright from Esau, he lied to his father impersonating his brother. After Jacob fled for his life his father-in-law deceived him and gave him Leah not Rachel to marry. Thus he stole the heart of Jacob by supplanting Rachel, his first love, with her sister. Eventually he wedded Rachel but it caused him to lose fourteen years of his life; seven for each bride. What you sow you reap! It eventually comes around.
The New Testament church was shocked into holiness by the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold land and withheld part of the sum they supposedly bequeathed to God, but deceived the congregation with a false witness, and God struck them both dead. He hates anything connected with deceit which includes stealing and lying. “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD.” [Prov 12:22].
Modern culture, cultivated by the governing class, seems to excel at both stealing and lying as witnessed by the expenses scandal that has rocked the populace with its reeking self-indulgence. I expect it all started with small things like a library book but escalated into obscene greed. We must be careful lest that spirit spreads into our church life and our own character. It is easy to criticise others for their faults and failings but so much easier to copy others, which seems to give it justification. Their fame appears to give the aberrant action authenticity.
Circumspection is necessary in all walks of life, and particular in our own, for it is human to veer downwards into sin, for age often proliferates compromise; it takes so little effort to do and we become weary at fighting minute sin with magnificent rectitude.
