In paradise
Sir: For the last 25 years I have lived in this paradise which Taki so admires (High life, 1 April).
It is true: it is hard to fault the Swiss. They do most things extremely well. They are, too, the most reasonable and pragma- tic people on earth, and are becomingly modest about their great flair for organisa- tion. Above all they cherish their inde- pendence and neutrality, which are seen as historic virtues with a direct bearing on their present well-being. For out of a small, unpromising, largely mountainous terri- tory with no natural resources, the Swiss have created a thriving, peaceful, four- language, two-religion, democratic repub- lic with a 700-year-old tradition. It is a formidable achievement and hardly sur- prising that, even at the heavy cost of maintaining a large and highly efficient army of non-professional soldiers, they are prepared to defend their creation to the last man.
Already Machiavelli, writing in his Dis- courses in the early 16th century, com- pared their solid republican achievement with that of the Romans.
What is it like, however, to live in such a paragon of a place? Boring. This is the price one must pay for perfection, it seems. Everything swept and garnished, but strangely lacking in any élan or brilliance. Most Swiss get up early to work hard and efficiently, and then at the week-ends they often go on long, bracing hikes along clearly marked paths with red benches sited at reasonable intervals on the way, for their further aesthetic and physical comfort. A strangely muted kind of exist- ence, I find it.
Even the quality newspapers, like the Neue Ziircher Zeitung, which is stringently objective, informative and well written, is curously earnest and dull. All its articles, even the editorial, are discreetly signed only with initials (like PSG, CH or MR). There is a key stowed away in the middle of the paper, but it is a fearful chore to work it all out, and since the style of all the articles is rigorously impersonal, it hardly matters who has written what. I doubt if Taki would be employed by this paper. He is far too irreverent and frivolous — qualities deeply mistrusted by the earnest, clever Swiss.
For my part, I have to escape from time to time from 'God's own country' to a Tuscan hide-out. The onus of living in paradise can become too heavy. Luckily too, I had a sudden, excellent inspiriation in Gatwick before a homeward flight to Zurich about a year ago. I decided to subscribe to The Spectator. It has provided me with an enormous amount of pleasure ever since, and the tedium of living in the perfect state has been delightfully miti- gated.
Rosalind Bucher
Blatten, 9043 Trogen, Switzerland.
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