Silence

In his review of Sándor Márai’s works, J. M. Coetzee quotes from Márai’s memoir Land! Land!

In literature as in life, only silence is sincere

Márai goes on to elaborate (as quoted by Coetzee)

We not only act, talk, think, dream, we also preserve our silence about something. All our lives, we are silent about who we are, which only we know and about which we can speak to no one. Yet we know that who we are and what we cannot speak of constitutes the ‘truth’. We are that about which we preserve our silence.

Now, consider the following extract from a review of Tony Blair’s recently published memoir, A Journey:

On the six-hundred-and-eightieth page of a six-hundred-and-eighty-two-page book that consists almost entirely of detailed accounts of politics, Blair writes, “I have always been more interested in religion than politics.” It is just about the only mention of religion in the book.
Blair nowhere says what his religious beliefs are, and nowhere discusses how they affect his politics or his decision-making or his daily life.

One may merely speculate as to the reason for Blair’s silence. Perhaps it is the sincere silence that Márai talks about. Or perhaps Blair preserves his silence for A Journey: Part 2.