For the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches from the World of the Blind
Page 28
“Oh. I do not know what to say. Oh, thank you very much. I am twenty-four years old today. Yes, I am twenty-four years old now. And, you know, I do not know what to say. I don’t know. Because I have never before celebrated my birthday. Because my mother did not have the money to celebrate for all four of her children or to buy a cake. So, this is the first time ever in my life anyone celebrates my birthday. This is my first birthday cake.”
Pynhoi was beside herself. And again she began to cry. She raised the hand that held the big cake knife to the side of her mouth, and she kept it there awkwardly as she continued to talk. “I am so happy here. Oh. You have been very generous to me. This morning I did not know it was the seventeenth. Jayne, she come to me and said, ‘Pynhoi, it is something special day today.’ I had to look at the calendar to see that it is really my birthday.” With her free hand, Pynhoi wiped her tears, which were now furiously falling. “And so, everybody, my friends, I will call my mother on the telephone and tell her that you have really given me a cake and your love and goodwill will go all over the world and spread to other people.”
Pynhoi was so overcome, she bent over to hide her face for a moment. Then she straightened, said, “I am so lucky,” and turned toward the cake to begin cutting it. I got up and explained to her that it was a tradition that she make a wish and then blow out the candle on the cake. She seemed not to understand it. “Wish for something, Pynhoi. Then lean over and blow the candle out with your breath and the wish will come true.”
She laughed, thought, then blew with all her might. The candle went out, and for a couple of seconds, we found ourselves bathed in beautiful darkness.
1As Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Author’s Note
In researching this book, I spent a great deal of time with many students at Braille Without Borders, in Lhasa, in 2005, and at the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs, in Trivandrum, Kerala, in 2009. This book is based on my extensive notes on my experiences and, in some cases, on recorded classes and formal interviews. To protect individuals’ privacy, I have changed some of the names here.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg for welcoming me so warmly at Braille Without Borders in Lhasa and at the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs, now known as Kanthari, in Kerala. Over the past eight years I have learned a great deal from these two gifted, spirited people. I am also fortunate to have worked with their colleagues Nora Hartenstein, Isabel Torres Cruzado, Arky Rekesh Ambati, and Amjad Prawej. I am further indebted to all the blind and partially sighted children and adults I worked with in Lhasa and Kerala. Their good humor, empathy, resilience, and dynamism make them superb teachers.
I would like to thank John Barnett, the brilliant book designer, for his innovative ideas; Madeleine Stein for her early reading; Tracy Roe for her excellent copyediting; Barbara Kennedy Roney for her generosity and her serene and forbearing ear; Kate Wodehouse at the Providence Athenaeum for helping me find the von Senden book; Pat Towers for sending me to Tibet for O, The Oprah Magazine; the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for their financial support; and Aias Dimaratos Tchacos for his paramythia and other Greek diversions.
I cannot acknowledge enough my literary agent, Betsy Lerner, for her twenty-seven years of friendship, sound literary advice, and moral support; or my editor, Pat Strachan, for her faithful encouragement, her keen editorial logic, and her patience with what must for a couple of years have seemed a project without end.
Bibliography
The following is a list of some of the books and essays that I found useful in my research for this project. Three books that were of invaluable help and interest to me were Zina Weygand’s history The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille, Elisabeth Gitter’s biography The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl, and Robert Kurson’s Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See. I owe these three authors an especial debt of gratitude.
Barasch, Moshe. Blindness: The History of a Mental Image in Western Thought. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Clark, Eleanor. Eyes, Etc.: A Memoir. New York: Pantheon, 1977.
Derrida, Jacques. Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011.
Diderot, Denis. Early Philosophical Works. Edited and translated by Margaret Jourdain. London: Open Court, 1916.
Freeburg, Ernest. The Education of Laura Bridgman: First Deaf and Blind Person to Learn Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
French, Richard S. From Homer to Helen Keller. New York: American Foundation for the Blind, 1932.
Gitter, Elisabeth. The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Gregory, R. L. Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing. Fifth Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
______. “Recovery from Early Blindness: A Case Study,” in Concepts and Mechanisms of Perception. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.
Haüy, Valentin. An Essay on the Education of the Blind. Edinburgh: Alexander Chapman, 1793.
Herrmann, Dorothy. Helen Keller: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
Howe, Samuel Gridley. Annual Reports of the Trustees of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind. Disability History Museum Online Library. http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=2295.
______. Education of the Blind. London: Samson Lowe, Marston. Digitizing sponsor: National Federation of the Blind.
Hull, John M. Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life. Edited by Roger Shattuck with Dorothy Herrmann. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
_____. The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2009.
Kleege, Georgina. Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2006.
______. Sight Unseen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
Kurson, Robert. Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See. New York: Random House, 2007.
Kuusisto, Stephen. Planet of the Blind: A Memoir. New York: Delta, 1999.
Lusseyran, Jacques. And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran, Blind Hero of the French Resistance. Translated by Elizabeth R. Cameron. New York: Parabola Books, 1998.
Mehta, Ved. Vedi. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Meltzer, Milton. A Light in the Dark: The Life of Samuel Gridley Howe. Cleveland: Modern Curriculum Press, 1964.
Sacks, Oliver. An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
______. The Mind’s Eye. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
Sanford, E. C. The Writings of Laura Bridgman. San Francisco: Overland Monthly, 1887.
Scott, Robert A. The Making of Blind Men. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969.
Tenberken, Sabriye. My Path Leads to Tibet: The Inspiring Story of How One Young Blind Woman Brought Hope to the Blind Children of Tibet. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003.
von Senden, Marius. Space and Sight: The Perception of Space and Shape in the Congenitally Blind Before and After Operation. Translated by Peter Heath. London: Methuen, 1960.
Weygand, Zina. The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille. Translated by Emily-Jane Cohen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.
About the Author
Rosemary Mahoney is the author of Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff, a New York Times Notable Boo
k; Whoredom in Kimmage: The World of Irish Women, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; A Likely Story: One Summer with Lillian Hellman; The Early Arrival of Dreams: A Year in China, a New York Times Notable Book; and The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship. She is a citizen of the Republic of Ireland and the United States. She lives in Rhode Island.
Also by Rosemary Mahoney
Down the Nile
The Singular Pilgrim
A Likely Story
Whoredom in Kimmage
The Early Arrival of Dreams
Praise for Rosemary Mahoney’s
Down the Nile
“This intriguing book encompasses far more than Rosemary Mahoney’s hours on the Nile and a delicious recounting of the river’s history….In a culture so at odds with her own, the author is vexed and perplexed and bemused—all of this rendered in gorgeously vivid prose.”
—Lisa Fugard, New York Times Book Review
“Rosemary Mahoney is a traveler in the intrepid tradition of Gertrude Bell, Isabella Bird, and Florence Nightingale, and she prefers to go it alone….Down the Nile is thus as much about perseverance as it is about crocodiles and currents. It is also a book about respecting different cultures while holding on to your own.”
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Mahoney’s rich, knowing voice conveys an understanding of the fundamental cultural differences between modern Egypt and the modern West and, at the same time, a sense that we are all human, despite the differences that divide us….Surpassing obstacle after obstacle, she makes her way from Aswan to Quna with readers eagerly in tow. Traveling along with her, we almost forget we’re reading.”
—Charles Gershman, Miami Herald
“Riveting….The trip would be no more than a gutsy stunt if Mahoney were not such a beautifully precise writer and such a compassionate observer.”
—Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly
“On the water, Mahoney’s flair for description coaxes reverence and wonder, at once delicate, opalescent miniatures of her surroundings, though with the chew and savoriness of nougat.”
—Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle
“Mahoney confesses that, like any anthropologist, she tried to grasp the sense of ‘being let in on a secret.’ Grasp it she does, and Down the Nile is a first-rate report on her mission.”
—Michelle Green, People
“A loner, adventurer, and avid rower, Whiting Writer’s Award honoree Rosemary Mahoney defied history, tradition, and even death in Egypt by boating in a skiff down the Nile because, she writes, ‘I had never seen a river flowing northward and therefore must not have believed in my heart that it was truly possible.’ Captivated reader—believe!”
—Elle
“In her page-turning memoir, Rosemary Mahoney defies naysayers, Egyptian police, and a fear of crocodiles to row down the Nile alone.”
—Rebecca Barry, More
“A shrewd, funny, and determined adventurer, with a style as lissome as the river itself….Mahoney’s Nile is worthy of awe….The book unfurls a poetry of perception.”
—Karen Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“What is evident throughout Mahoney’s captivating narrative is that we are in the presence of a ferociously independent and restless spirit, someone who cherishes nature and history and travel and adventure, and who bristles at the restrictions placed on women all around the globe.”
—Elaine Margolin, Denver Post
“A travel-minded memoir guaranteed to transport you.”
—Megan O’Grady, Vogue
“The reader is taken on a great trip with an erudite travel companion soaking up scads of history, culture, and literary knowledge, along with the scenery.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“You might call Rosemary Mahoney a writer of travel books.But the label hardly does justice to her remarkable gifts for scene, setting, dialogue, characterization, and thoughtful cultural overview….She makes use of the tools of fiction to sharpen and refine her observations.”
—Dan Cryer, Boston Globe
“Essential to the success of Down the Nile are Mahoney’s quick-silver intelligence, her sharp eyes, and her slightly astringent voice. Yet at the same time she is patient and generous enough to allow people and things to show her their best—and they frequently do….Down the Nile is studded with small, sensitive portraits that reveal much about the land beyond the landscape.”
—Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor
“Mahoney’s determination to pull this off, in a society where women are routinely held back in myriad ways, is the central premise of her sparkling new travelogue….Mahoney writes with a keen understanding of the joys of travel.”
—Mary Houlihan, Chicago Sun-Times
“Mahoney’s challenge as an American woman is persuading one of Egypt’s endearingly sexist, dirt-poor tour-boat operators to sell her a rowboat….Mahoney is such an alluring storyteller and intelligent companion, she makes this a trip worth taking.”
—Jocelyn McClurg, USA Today
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Contents
Cover Image
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Vision
Braille Without Borders
The Blind Leading the Blind
The Neglected Senses
For the Benefit of Those Who See
Navigation
The Blind Leading the Sighted
Perception
Sight Regained
The Definition of Real
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
About the Author
Also by Rosemary Mahoney
Praise for Rosemary Mahoney’s Down the Nile
Newsletters
Table of Contents
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Rosemary Mahoney
Cover design by Kapo Ng
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN: 978-0-316-24870-9
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