my books, my lonely life, and an impermeable cold world

I got my books today, Lanark, Stein, and the one anthology on theory and criticism which is superb in its kind.
These days I really did nothing, couldn't read anything, death of Ivan Noble shocked me terribly. Got busy with nothing and nothingness, mostly with Dutch studies and fooling around in sites here and there.
The Line of Beauty is not yet finished, but it was only when I was on page 330 that I started to appreciate it. Apart from the main plot on the secret sleeping around of an Oxford graduate gay guy, Nicholas Guest, the daughter of an MP in Thacher days in 1986 named Catherine, who is a bit of an unballanced girl, forms a sub-plot for herself. She is a taciturn but when she mouths words she really begins to give life to words, for instance while she darts them impertinently towards her father's rich friend:
'You're really very rich, aren't you, Sir Maurice,' she said after a while.
'Yes, I am,' he said, with a snuffle of frankness.
'How much money have you got?'
...
'Say, a hundred and fifty million [£].'

...[The two families have dined out during their holiday in France, then have gone to a church]

'I noticed you gave some money to the appeal at Podier church.' [Catherine remarks]
'Oh, we give to endless churches and appeals,' said Sally. [Sir Maurice's wife]
'How much did you give?'
'I don't recall exactly.'
'you gave five francs,' said Catherine. 'Which is about fifty new pence. But you could have given' _ she raised her glass and swept it across the vista of hills and the far glimps of river _ 'a million francs, without noticing really, and single-handedly saved the Romanesque narthex!'
...
'you simply can't give to everything,' said Sally.
...
'What is all this...?' said Gerald, [the MP, Catherine's father]
'The young lady was giving me some criticism. Apparently I'm rather mean.'
'Not in so many words,' said Catherine.
'I'm afraid the fact is that some people just are very rich,' said Sally.
...
'It's not that,' said Catherine vaguely and irritably. 'I just don't see why, when you have got, say, forty million you absolutely have to turn it into eighty million.'
...
'I mean who needs so much money? It's just like power, isn't it. Why do people want it? I mean, what's the point of having power?'
'The point of having power,' said Gerald, 'is that you can make the world a better place.'
'Quite so,' said Sir Maurice.

But do politicians and religious leaders and the rich, having power, make the world a better place? is the world a better place say, compared to the fin-de-sciècl? Aren't there any African children dying of hunger and disease? Isn't there any preposterous mass murder in Darfur? Are the people of the world leaving superstitions behind when a Tsunami happens? What is the point of having power? To make the world a better place? oh, yeah, thanks for reminding us