by Helen Dewitt
Mr. Konigsberg did not talk about this much, and when his children said they wanted to be musicians he did not even touch on it lightly, but he said you can never tell what will happen. He said being an accountant was not the end of the world. He said being a secretary was not so terrible.
It seemed as though the things he did not say were so terrible they could not be said, and of course it’s not so terrible to be a secretary or an accountant. But Linda had seen four before her do something that was not so terrible. Now it turned out that it had absolutely nothing to do with whether McCarthyism was anti-Semitism dressed up as an attack on the Communists or with their chances of resettling in Canada or Brazil should the need arise. What it really was was that their father couldn’t stand to be around people who were practicing to the standard set by the finest conservatory in the country. Well, if you want to ruin people’s lives, fine. You want to reenact the Goddamned Sound of Music in the home, fine. But you don’t have to blame it on Hitler.
Then Buddy and the atheist came back and the atheist said they could just buy a piano for the motel and Linda could practice there. Linda said wouldn’t it bother the guests and the atheist explained that the guests would arrive in the evening after a long day’s driving and be on their way first thing the next morning, that was the beauty of a motel. He said grinning that what’s more he would take her to Helene’s and teach her to play pool so that she would always have something to fall back on.
Sometimes my mother did practice but one thing led to another and sometimes she did not. The advice of the homely man was something of a curse. She would not practice at all if she could not practice right so that gradually she played less and less and sometimes not at all.
I used to think that things might have been different. Gieseking never played a scale and Glenn Gould hardly practiced at all, they would just look at the score and think and think and think. If the homely man had said to go away and think this would have been every bit as revolutionary a concept for a Konigsberg. Perhaps he even thought that you had to think. But you can’t show someone how to think in an hour; you can give someone an exercise to take away. My grandfather would not have been troubled by silent thought; he would not have kindly commanded my mother to enjoy her music & so driven her out of the house; and everything might have been different.
ii
—A real samurai would never get so drunk. If he’s as good as you say he’ll parry the blow.
Samurai leader as an impostor
tries to join the band of six
It is not surprising that Seven Samurai was remade by Hollywood because it is already close to the Western in its use of an elite body of brave warriors.
David Thomson,
A Biographical Dictionary of Film
1
We Never Get Off at Sloane Square for Nebraska Fried Chicken
We’ve just pulled into the Motel Del Mar, a.k.a. Aldgate: we are taking the Circle Line in a counterclockwise direction. The pillars are covered in pale turquoise tiles, with lilac diamonds on a single band of cream—it’s a colour scheme I associate with paper-wrapped soaplets & tiny towels with embroidered anchors. What kind of childhood is this for a child? He’s never even been to Daytona.
I’ve been taking him every day to ride the Circle Line to stay out of the cold: I can type at night when he goes to bed, but we can’t have the fire on 20 hours a day. He hates it because I won’t let him bring Cunliffe. Too bad.
I remember once about 10 years ago, or rather 8, reading Nicomachean Ethics Book X in a Circle Line train that had stopped at Baker Street. That lovely soft-grained sepia light filtered down; it was about 11:00 and very quiet. I thought: Yes, to live the life of the mind is the truest form of happiness. Reading Aristotle was not even then my idea of intellectual felicity, but after all it is possible to lead the life of the mind without reading Aristotle. If I could read anything I wanted I would read The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap.
This is absolutely not possible today, with L interrupting every minute or so to ask a word. He is in a bad mood because he hates having to ask; I think he thinks if he asks enough I will let him bring the Homeric dictionary tomorrow. James Mill wrote an entire history of India in the intervals of providing lexical assistance to little John—but he did not have to load a twin pushchair with a small library, a small child, Repulsive, Junior Birdman & Bit—and with all the advantages of a wife, servants & a fire in the room he was still impatient and short-tempered. Repulsive is a three-foot stuffed gorilla; the Birdman is a two-foot fighting turtle misnamed Donatello by its maker; & Bit is a one-inch rubber mouse designed to be lost 30 or 40 times a day.
Even when he is not interrupting people keep coming up. Sometimes they scold him playfully for colouring in a book, and sometimes they stare goggle-eyed when they realise he is reading it. They don’t seem to realise how bad this is for him. Today a man came up and said playfully: You shouldn’t colour in a book.
L: Why not?
Playful: It’s not nice if somebody wants to read it.
L: But I am reading it.
Idiot, winking idiotically at me: Oh really? What’s it about then?
L: I’m at the bit where they go to the land of the dead and this is the bit where she changes them into pigs and this is the bit where they go to the king of the winds and this is the bit where they sharpen a stick in the fire and gouge out the eye of the Cyclops because it only had one eye so if they gouged it out it couldn’t see.
Brain left school at six while body did time: Well that wasn’t very nice now was it?
L: If someone’s about to eat you you don’t have to be nice. It’s acceptable to kill in self-defence.
Slow on the uptake (goggle-eyed): Blimey.
L (for the five-hundredth time that day): What does that mean?
Slow: It means that’s absolutely amazing. (To me) Aren’t you worried about what will happen when he goes to school?
I: Desperately.
Only trying to be helpful: There’s no need to be sarcastic.
L: It’s not a particularly difficult language. The alphabet is a precursor to the one in which English is written, and very similar to it.
Now Only is amazed and goggle-eyed not only at the Homerolexic infant; he is goggling as only a man can goggle who has applied Occam’s razor to syllables all his life. He looks at me and asks if he can sit down.
The train pulls into Embankment. I shout ‘No Exit!’ and dart onto the platform, manhandling the pushchair.
L does the same, then dashes down the stairs marked No Exit. I follow my child, a mother following her child. We lurk behind a corner until the train pulls out, then return to the platform and buy a couple of bags of peanuts.
Of course L has not been reading the Odyssey the whole time. The pushchair is also loaded with White Fang, VIKING!, Tar-Kutu: Dog of the Frozen North, Marduk: Dog of the Mongolian Steppes, Pete: Black Dog of the Dakota, THE CARNIVORES, THE PREDATORS, THE BIG CATS and The House at Pooh Corner. For the past few days he has also been reading White Fang for the third time. Sometimes we get off the train and he runs up and down the platform. Sometimes he counts up to 100 or so in one or more languages while eyes glaze up and down the car. Still he has been reading the Odyssey enough for a straw poll of Circle Line opinion on the subject of small children & Greek.
Amazing: 7
Far too young: 10
Only pretending to read it: 6
Excellent idea as etymology so helpful for spelling: 19
Excellent idea as inflected languages so helpful for computer programming: 8
Excellent idea as classics indispensable for understanding of English literature: 7
Excellent idea as Greek so helpful for reading New Testament, camel through eye of needle for example mistranslation of very similar word for rope: 3
Terrible idea as study of classical languages embedded in educational system productive of divisive society: 5
Terrible idea as overemphasis on study o
f dead languages directly responsible for neglect of sciences and industrial decline and uncompetitiveness of Britain: 10
Stupid idea as he should be playing football: 1
Stupid idea as he should be studying Hebrew & learning about his Jewish heritage: 1
Marvellous idea as spelling and grammar not taught in schools: 24
(Respondents: 35; Abstentions: 1,000?)
Oh, & almost forgot:
Marvellous idea as Homer so marvellous in Greek: 0
Marvellous idea as Greek such a marvellous language: 0
Oh & also:
Marvellous idea but how did you teach it to a child that young: 8
I once read somewhere that Sean Connery left school at the age of 13 and later went on to read Proust and Finnegans Wake and I keep expecting to meet an enthusiastic school leaver on the train, the type of person who only ever reads something because it is marvellous (and so hated school). Unfortunately the enthusiastic school leavers are all minding their own business.
Faced with officious advice feel almost overwhelming temptation to say:
You know, I’ve been in a terrible quandary over this, I’ve been racking my brains for weeks trying to decide whether I was doing the right thing, finally this morning I thought—I know, I’ll take the Tube, somebody on the Tube will be able to advise me, & sure enough you were able to tell me just what to do. Thank you so much, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along—
So far have been able to resist temptation 34 times out of 35. Pas mal.
When able to resist temptation I say (which is perfectly true) that I never meant this to happen.
TEMPLE EMBANKMENT WESTMINSTER ST. JAMES’S PARK
Etymology so helpful for spelling 2
How did you teach so young a child 1
VICTORIA SLOANE SQUARE SOUTH KENSINGTON
Etymology so helpful for spelling
GLOUCESTER ROAD HIGH STREET KENSINGTON NOTTING HILL GATE
Wonderful
Wonderful
Wonderful
Etymology so helpful
PADDINGTON EDGWARE ROAD BAKER STREET and around and around and around
A man got on the train at Great Portland Street & expressed surprise & approval.
He said his youngest was about that age but of course no genius—
I said I thought small children had an aptitude for languages
He said Was it very hard to teach him
& I said No not very
& he said Well hats off to you both it’s bound to be a big help to him think of all those words heavy weather for the average boy all in a day’s work for this little chap. Hydrophobia! Haemophilia!
The train stopped at Euston Square but no stopping Hats Off— Microscopic! Macrobiotic! Palaeontological ornithological anthropological archaeological!
[King’s Cross but no]
Hats: Photography! Telepathy! [OK] Psychopath! Polygraph! [OK OK] Democracy! Hypocrisy! Ecstasy! Epitome! [OK OK OK] Trilogy Tetralogy Pentalogy! [OH NO] Pentagon! Hexagon! [STOP] Octagon Octopus [STOP]
Enapus
What’ll He Think Of Next [chuckling]:That’s a new one on me
Dekapus
What’ll [still chuckling]: This is my stop. [Gets off at Farringdon—how like a man]
Hendekapus
[NO]
Dodekapus
[NO]
Treiskaidekapus
[Oh well]
Tessareskaidekapus
[You win some you lose some]
pentekaidekapus hekkaidekapus heptakaidekapus OKTOKAIDEKAPUS enneakaidekapus eikosapus
I never meant this to happen.
I meant to follow the example of Mr. Ma (father of the famous cellist), and I still don’t know where I went wrong. I did say though that if I knew for a fact that even 10 people would like to know how you teach a 4-year-old Greek I would explain it. 11 riders of the Circle Line have now said they would like to know this. I rather wish now that I had said 10 people not including people who think it is a marvellous idea because grammar & spelling not taught in schools, but it was an unconditional offer & if I say I will do a thing I try to do it.
It seems to me that the last time I approached this subject I had explained how I had taken a break from typing in an interview with John Denver & had been interrupted while reading Iliad 6 by L. The last thing I wanted was to be teaching a four-year-old Greek, and now the Alien spoke & its voice was mild as milk.
What is the Alien asks a reader.
The Alien is whatever you want to call the thing that finds specious reasons for cruelty and how do you expect me to finish with these constant interruptions.
And now the Alien spoke & its voice was mild as milk, and it said He’s just a baby.
And J. S. Mill said:
In the course of instruction which I have partially retraced, the point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of childhood, an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of manhood.
And I said: NO NO NO NO NO
And Mr. Mill said:
The result of the experiment shows the ease with which this may be done,
And I said EASE
& he resumed implacably,
and places in a strong light the wretched waste of so many precious years as are spent in acquiring the modicum of Latin and Greek commonly taught to schoolboys; a waste which has led so many educational reformers to entertain the ill-judged proposal of discarding these languages altogether from general education. If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory, or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution.
The Alien said it would be kinder to say no & I longed to believe it, for the ease with which a small child may be introduced to what are commonly considered the higher branches of education is nothing to the ease with which it may not. I thought: Well maybe he’ll just. I thought: Well.
So I gave L a little table for the alphabet & said there’s the alphabet & he looked perplexed. When I learned the language the first thing we were given was a list of words like φιλοσοφíα θεολογíα νθρωπολογíα & so on and we would see the similarity to philosophy theology anthropology and get excited, this type of word tends not to turn up in Hop on Pop & so is not very helpful for teaching a 4-year-old. So I said a lot of the letters were the same and when he still looked perplexed I explained patiently—
There are a lot of Greek letters that are like English letters. See if you can read this, and I wrote on a piece of paper:
ατ
And he said at.
And I wrote down βατ and he said bat.
And I wrote down εατ and he said eat.
ατε. ate. ιτ. it. κιτ. kit. τοε. toe. βοατ. boat. βυτ. but. αβουτ. about.
And I said That’s good.
And I said There are some other letters that are different, and I wrote down γ = g, δ = d, λ = 1, μ = m, ν = n, π = p, ρ = r, & σ = s & I said see if you can read these.
I wrote down γατε and he said Gate!
And I wrote down δατε and he said Date!
And I wrote down λατε and he said Late!
ματε. Mate! ρατε. Rate! λετ Let μετ Met νετ Net πετ Pet σετ Set!!!!!!
The Alien said that that was enough for today.
Mr. Mill said his father had started him on cards with Greek vocables at the age of three and that what he had done could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution.
Mr. Ma said that was far too much for one day & that too much material had been covered in a superficial manner without being thoroughly maste
red.
I said I think that’s enough for one day
& he said NO! NO NO NO NO
So I wrote down ξ = x. ζ = z.
μιξ. Mix! λιξ. Lix—oh Licks! πιξ Picks! στιξ Sticks! ζιπ Zip!
I said Now you know the sound H makes, and he said Huh.
I said Right. I said Now in Greek they don’t use a letter for that sound, but a little hook over the first letter of the word, that looks like this: ‘. It’s called a rough breathing. If a word starts with a vowel & doesn’t have an H sound it gets a smooth breathing, which is a hook facing the other way: ’. So how would you say this:
λπ.
He thought about it for a while & at last he said Help?
I said Good. And this? π
And he said Hop.
τ. Hot! íτ. Hit! τ. It? τ. Hat! τ At! τε Hate! τε Ate!
And I said Brilliant!
And he said This is easy!
And the Alien made a rattling sound in its throat. Coupez la difficulté en quatre, it said, with a ghastly grin.
Mr. Ma said You know my methods.
I thought: Just five more minutes. I can stand five minutes.
I said That’s good, because the next bit is a little harder. There are four letters that stand for sounds that we write with two letters. There’s θ which is th, but it’s not the th of the or thin, it’s more like what you say if you say SPIT HARD. And there’s φ which is ph as in SLAP HARD. And there’s χ which is kh as in WALK HOME. And there’s ψ, which is ps, as in NAPS. Do you want to try or do you want to stop for now? And he said he would try.