The Yellow Wallpaper

After finishing the story "The Yellow Wallpaper", I was left with a taste in my mouth -- yes, I know the saying is "a bad taste in my mouth", but that's not what I mean. I was left with a lingering aftertaste, like mouthwash, except that it doesn't make your eyes water -- or maybe it does but not in an unpleasant way. The story sat with me.

Like most of my blog posts from the last five years, the idea for this post came to me months ago and then sat in my drafts folder. When I returned to the draft, it was only one and a half cryptic paragraphs and I couldn't quite remember what My Point had been. (If you are a regular reader or you read far enough back in my blog, you'll know that having A Point - or not having one - is an important part of my writing process.)

So, I decided to read the short story again and blog my thoughts, and see if I could conjure up the sequence of ideas that comprised the planned draft. Someone once told me that my instant messages were like stream of consciousness -- I hit enter at the end of every thought rather than at the end of every sentence or paragraph. I suppose this is a bit like that.

The very first line, which is also the first paragraph of the short story, suggests that the writer is some kind of impostor or that she is out of place. She describes her and her husband as "mere ordinary people", and because this is the late 1800s, she means economically = class = lineage. 

She describes their rental home as "secure ancestral halls", which seems rather pompous now, but I suppose was accurate then. Perhaps I am simply misreading her pride and pleasure in living in a beautiful place. I tend to be a spendthrift and "A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate" sounds like unnecessary expense for two people.

The other thing the first line does is introduce their home "for the summer" as a presence in "The Yellow Wallpaper". I was tempted to describe the building as a 'character', but that suggests some kind of permanence (not the fixed concrete kind, but more the flowing cement kind), because identity, especially when you're writing a character, requires a common thread, something holding the conflicting parts of a character together. (There are so many holes in that statement, but I am going to leave it be for now.) 

As you'll see (or as I'll argue), the building is more a reflection of the narrator's character than a character on its own.

The best thing about the short story is the sense of unease that stalks every line and makes the reader wince. It's like hunting a mythological creature from the sea -- a giant squid, maybe -- that, you'll discover at the last moment, is really hunting you. This unease first appears like a darting dark shadow and accompanying ripples in an otherwise calm sea that rears its head like that of a sea-beast eyeing its prey at the end of the first page.

The narrator notes there is "something queer" about the house because it is being rented out "so cheaply" and because it was empty for so long. (She also describes her assertion as "proud", which is the very last thing I would call the woman in the pages that follow.) The scales of the sea-beast's spine breach the surface as she notes that her husband "laughs" at her justified concerns, "but one expects that in marriage".

I'm not married, but "laughing at your partner" is not part of the marriage vows.

Like women have done throughout history, the narrator justifies her husband's 'micro-aggression' (I believe that's the 'it' term) saying that he "is practical in the extreme" and believes only in things that can be "put down in numbers". You see, Johnnie boy is a doctor and one of "good standing". I struggle to reconcile the two as medical data is qualitative as well as quantitative, but okay.

The narrator then makes a crack about voicing her concerns on "dead paper".

Further proving that she is rational, the narrator writes that her doctor-husband might be the reason she is not recovering (note: this is the first time we time she confides in us about her sickness): "You see," she says, "he does not believe I am sick!" Instead, Dr Husband minimises her illness by diagnosing it as "temporary nervous depression, -- a slight hysterical tendency".

Ah right. Here we have The History of Women's Mental Health in the Western World aka There's Nothing to See Here and Women Be Tripping.

Instead of getting angry, Mrs Doctor shrugs and says "what can one do?" Twice. At first, I was angry at her compliance, but then she writes that her brother is a doctor, too, and he agrees with her husband. Well, obviously, she's the problem then. Darn these women and their emotions.

So she complies with their treatments (for a disease that they say does not exist). And here we come upon my favourite line in the short story: part of her treatment is that she is "absolutely forbidden to 'work' until [she] is well again". I did some research and as the narrator suggests, many doctors believed that "women's problems" were the result of them thinking. (That's it -- the full stop's in the right place.) Women were just not psychologically strong enough to have thoughts. So the treatment was often to "not think". It was called "the rest cure".

I wish I were making this up but I'm not that creative.

Once again, the narrator disagrees with her husband and her brother. She thinks that the best treatment would be work and change (I would argue for purpose and a routine), but "what is one to do?" Indeed.

She does rebel by writing (what she is writing is not clear) and concedes that it is exhausting -- not the act of writing but of rebellion.

She tires of the topic so she changes the topic to -- can you guess? The house. The first thing she says is that it is "beautiful" and the second is that it is "quite alone", surrounded by "hedges and walls and gates that lock". Well, if that isn't a metaphor for something, I'll burn my English literature degree. She goes on about the gardens for a paragraph and mentions how the house stood empty for years ...

And then she says, "there is something strange about the house -- I can feel it". Isn't this kind of intuition part of what got you into this situation, Mrs Doc? Best keep that close to your chest. Oh no, too late. Mrs Doc tells her husband about her feeling and he tells her it's a "draught". I, too, struggle to differentiate between strangeness and a breeze -- it's an easy mistake to make.

Finally! She gets angry with her husband for thinking she's an imbecile and I am with her for all of two seconds before I notice the adverb "unreasonably". Now she attributes her entirely justified emotion of anger to a disease of the emotions that she doesn't really think she has. If she has a condition, it's in that tangled mess.

He won't even let her have the room she wants! She wants one on the ground floor because it opens onto the patio and the windows are bordered by flowers, but no. The fun police insist that they use a bedroom upstairs and again she justifies his iron rule, saying he's so "careful and loving". Those are not two adjectives I would usually put together and, to be honest, I'm willing Mrs Doc to run as if this were a horror movie and they had just discovered that the phone no longer worked.

Her husband is treating her like a child, which is perfect, because she reveals that the room they end up taking (the one he chooses) is -- wait for it -- the nursery. Next level of the metaphor locked and loaded.

Mrs Doc describes how "big" and "airy" the room is, with "air and sunshine galore", but I have watched enough horror movies and read enough ghost stories to know that bad things happen in broad daylight too. And the fact that the "windows are barred" is definitely not alarming, even though she immediately notes that they are barred as a safety precaution for "little children". Is that a thing? Do children often hurl themselves out of windows?

She then notes that the wallpaper is ripped -- but it's ripped above her bed to as far as she can reach, contradicting her little children theory. So she says it looks "as if a boys' school had used it". Again, is this a thing? Do boys at school rip the wallpaper from the walls?

The narrator rambles on for a minute about the artistic quality of the wallpaper and then chucks the 'S' word at you like a practical joke that isn't funny. Still describing the wallpaper, she writes that it's made up of "lame, uncertain curves" that "suddenly commit suicide -- plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-off contradictions". Obviously the narrator has death on the brain if that's the first metaphor she thinks of for wallpaper patterns.

There's some more description of the "repellant" yellow-orange wallpaper, before Mrs Doc hurriedly notes that she must stop writing because Mr Doc is coming and "he hates to have me write a word". Luckily for her, for the next page or so she doesn't feel like writing, even though her husband is away day and even night -- say what? Apparently he's tending to "serious" cases. Oh, I'm sure he is.

The contradictions now pick up the pace: the narrator says, in one breath, that her case is not serious, and in the next, that "John does not know how much I really suffer".

Then comes a line that I highlighted on first reading: "He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him". I beg to differ, but that's another post.

Here we have the first mention of the baby -- her baby. But she doesn't talk about the child himself. She describes how "Mary is so good with him" and how she can't be with him because of her nervousness. At this point, my bet is on post-partum depression, which sounds like a darn good reason "to suffer" to me.

She quickly changes the subject back to the wallpaper. Hubby won't replace the paper because apparently the worst thing you can do for a depressive is "give way to such fancies". He convinces her that this is her idea, that the room a moment ago she was calling "atrocious" is now "airy and comfortable", by hugging her and calling her his "blessed little goose". I genuinely want to throw up.

She likes the room, she now says, but not the "horrid wallpaper". 

Mrs Doc describes how this room gives her a view of the garden and the bay and a "shaded lane" that runs from a dock to the house. She thinks she can see people walking along the lane, which doesn't sound unreasonable, but of course hubby gaslights her by advising her not to "give way to fancy" (again) because a "nervous weakness" like hers will lead to all sorts of ... well, more fancies. Fancies, being bad, I gather.

"So I try," she writes.

She thinks that writing might relieve some of the "press of ideas" she feels, but she's too exhausted -- that's definitely not a symptom of depression. I mean, it's not a symptom, it's one of the primary symptoms of depression, but I'm not a doctor.

I don't know much about abusive relationships, but to recap, we have a lot of gaslighting and some isolation. I have a feeling there's some love-bombing ("blessed little goose") and now she tells us that she can only see her family when she gets well, because "he would as soon put fireworks in my pillowcase as to let have those stimulating people about now".

And we're only 30% of the way through to this ode to wallpaper.

At this point, it occurs to me that I should separate this post into several shorter posts, but for now, I'm going to keep going. I may insert headings as signposts for the lazy (I mean, you're reading this 'summary', rather than the real thing, so ...).

Of course, it's the wallpaper's fault that she can't see her family -- its "vicious influence", "impertinence" and "everlastingness", represented in an area where the pieces of wallpaper don't align and one part of the pattern is higher than the other. As an editor, I can appreciate how frustrating it is when things are not done perfectly, so I'm with her, but I don't usually blame misused semicolons for my emotional (in)stability. 

But then she gets caught up childhood memories, describing how mini her would lie awake at night, afraid of "blank walls and plain furniture". OK, she doesn't say 'afraid'. She says she would get both "entertainment and terror", which tracks with what we already know about her and, quite honestly, describes her relationship with her husband.

She talks about the furniture for a bit and then we're back at the 'torn' wallpaper. It has a companion in the "scratched and gouged and splintered" floor. What were these boys up to?! "But," she says, "I don't mind a bit -- only the paper."

I'm not buying the excuse that this used to be a children's nursery or a boys' school dormitory. Unless they were feral children who had been captured and imprisoned in the house and had somehow gotten hold of weapons. I can't think of a more logical excuse for the state of the bedroom, but whatever it is, it's not unarmed children.

Luckily, a perfect example of femininity appears to compare our heroine against: the doctor's sister. "She is a perfect, an enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession." I love her already.

Mrs Doc has spied the approach of her sister-in-law through the window, so there's time to wax on about the wallpaper for only another two paragraphs: there's a second pattern that you can only see in certain light, one that's "strange, provoking, formless" and "seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design". That definitely does not describe our heroine -- the sense that there is something else happening beneath the front she presents to her husband and others. I'm reading too much into it, right?

There's a break, during which the Fourth of July takes place, and Mrs Doc sees her family, and she says she's exhausted even though Jennie (the sister-in-law) saw to everything. That'll happen when you're depressed. Hubby seems to be getting frustrated because he threatens to send his wife away for treatment and while Hubby is bad, another doctor is bound to be even worse.

"I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.

"Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone."

But there is a silver lining: Doc is away most of the time now, so Mrs Doc gets to spend time walking in the garden and sitting on the porch alone, rather than sitting in the house staring at wallpaper. But of course it's never far from her mind!

I'm getting tired of describing wallpaper -- I don't know how the author kept it up -- so I'm considering  a placeholder: [WALLPAPER]. I feel like I'm betraying your trust in me but this is also my blog and I can do what I want so [WALLPAPER].

Nah, I can't handle the sense of betrayal, so I came back just to fill this in. Mrs Doc tries to follow the pattern to "some sort of a conclusion" but finds it's not repeated by "any laws of radiation, or alteration, or repetition, or symmetry", but that it is repeated "by the breadths", you know, as wallpaper is. As a result the "sprawling outlines" create "slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase". Rarely do I meet a metaphor that fully obscures meaning, but this one is a contender. I have absolutely no idea what seaweed chasing more seaweed looks like.

Then Mrs Doc takes a nap (in a bed that is bolted down to the floor) because she is exhausted from describing the pattern of the wallpaper so indescribably. 

Our heroine's fatigue is getting worse. She feels a pressure to express herself and a relief when she does, but she says, "the effort is getting to be greater than the relief". Doc's response is "tonics and things", along with "ale and wine and rare meat". That is why doctors get a bad rap: bad doctors.

Perkins published this short story in 1892. Western psychology was only a few decades old and Freud was still obsessed with, well, his nethers, but she knew that the notion of hysteria was ridiculous and that the conventional treatments of the time were counterintuitive. However, it would be many more decades before doctors would come around to her way of thinking -- and how many lives were contaminated in the meantime?

According to one source, "hysterical neurosis" was only removed from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980. But most doctors were no longer diagnosing "hysteria", in favour of more refined and appropriate descriptions of mental illness by then, right? Wrong. As late as the 1970s, two doctors misdiagnosed an outbreak of myalgic encephalomyelitis as hysteria. That's 80 years later.

Anyway, Mrs Doc tries to have a reasonable conversation with her husband about her options (granted she ends up crying) but he treats her like a child, picking her up, putting her to bed and reading to her until she falls asleep.

Then comes a gem: that she is simply not trying hard enough. "He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let my silly fancies run away with me."

At least the baby is safe from the wallpaper! That's not my thought, but hers: At least "the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wallpaper". "What a fortunate escape!" She seems to suggest that she is accepting a kind of punishment so that her child doesn't have to -- and this is the saddest part of the short story so far.

But she's only distracted from the wallpaper for a few moments, because only Mrs Doc can see the meaning in the wallpaper, which is becoming clearer every day. "It is only the same shape" despite have no pattern except breadth; "it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern". She forgets her mission here, which is to protect her son from being exposed to this ugliness, and thinks "I wish John would take me away from here".

I am getting whiplash.

Our heroine tries to discuss leaving with her husband, because "he is so wise, and ... loves me so." So she waits for him to fall asleep and then broaches the subject. Well, first, she waits for the moonlight (which she hates sometimes) to make the wallpaper creepier than normal, until "The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern" in its desire to get out, so much so that she had to get up and touch it to see if it was moving, and then she asks him if they can leave.

When she wakes him up, he asks her "What is it, little girl?"

I'm leaving a bit of a gap here for my blood pressure to go back to normal. Because if someone asked me that ... middle of the night or no ... even if I was touching the wallpaper to check if there was a woman trying to get out ... well, there would be problems.

Anyway, she asks and he says no, because she is really better, whether she realises it or not. Trust him, because he's a doctor, yadda yadda. She must be getting better because she argues with him.

To which he responds: "Bless her little heart ... she shall be as sick as she pleases!"

She leaves that without touching it and merely asks that he not leave her alone again before the lease on the house ends, which is only another three weeks. He assures her, and once more tries to convince her "Really, dear, you are better!" I'm proud of her as she starts to disagree with him, but then he gives her a "stern, reproachful look" like a father chiding a teenager. He gaslights her for a bit because he's "a physician" and she has "a temperament like yours" and then they sleep. 

Well, no, he sleeps and she tries to figure out where the pattern in the wallpaper (which doesn't exist) begins and ends.

And we're at 60%.

When morning comes, Mrs Doc is still trying to figure out the pattern. Except that, "by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law" that is "torturing". Essentially, you try to follow it and it evades you, slapping you in the face and trampling all over you. The outside pattern, in particular, is like "a fungus" -- "a toadstool in joints", whatever that means.

She confides in us that the pattern changes with the light -- but she is the only one who seems to notice, which is "why I watch it always". That's definitely why. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are struggling with mental illness and the only therapeutic advice you are getting is to eat well and spend all your time alone, away from family, doing nothing and this external factor gives you something to fixate on and obsess over.

Luckily, Mrs Doc is being a good girl. She is sleeping a lot -- no, wait, she pretends to sleep. Why would you do that?

She writes, "I am getting a little afraid of John" and his sister, too, because they ... seem to be colluding with the wallpaper. Paranoia? Not our "little girl"!

On the bright side, ensuring that no one knows the secret of the wallpaper (i.e. the woman trapped inside trying to get out) gives our heroine something to focus on. It gives her a purpose. So she eats well and says little and sleeps a lot (or at least, seems to) and laughs at her husband's unfunny jokes, and her doctor-husband is thrilled. 

But in reality, she is watching the wallpaper: "There are always new shoots on the fungus and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count ..."

After a week of fog and rain, the wallpaper unleashes another weapon: its smell, which "creeps all over the house". "I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs." Luckily, she doesn't consider any drastic action as part of her final battle against the wallpaper. "I thought seriously of burning the house," she says. 

But then she gets used to the smell, so her focus shifts back to the colour of the wallpaper. Because she's noticed a new mark behind the furniture that goes around the room: "round and round and round -- it makes me dizzy!"

Then our heroine makes a horrifying discovery: there are many women trying to escape the wallpaper, but "the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!" The discovery wouldn't be so bad, she says, "If those heads were covered or taken off". That's practical, I guess.

But no wait, that's not all. It gets worse: "that woman gets out in the daytime!" Our heroine knows this because she has seen her. She knows it's the same woman because she creeps and "most woman do not creep by daylight". She hasn't seen her in the house, but in the lane she can see from the bedroom window -- the one which her husband said no one used. She understands exactly why the woman creeps and hides, she tells us. "It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight."

And in an instant, we know the creeping woman is her, our heroine. "I always lock the door when I creep by daylight," she tells us. And "I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself."

After that revelation, our heroine goes back to feigning ignorance. Now her obsession is removing the wallpaper. But she doesn't mean to simply pull it from the wall: she means to dissect it, pulling the patterns apart. And there's more to her plan, but her paranoia has now obliterated all sense and she doesn't dare "trust people too much".

She was being a good girl, but her hubby is onto her now and (I hate to be on his side but) she sees him as the enemy now. When he asks questions about her behaviour, where once she have seen that as evidence he loved her, now she states, "As if I couldn't see through him!" 

Because obviously the wallpaper has corrupted him.

I almost feel guilty that I've maligned the doctor's character so much to this point. Almost.

The husband and his wife are due to move back home the next day, with the room empty of everything except the bed (bolted to the floor, remember?) so Mrs Doc begins to pull the wallpaper down with the help of the woman inside: "I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled".

Her sister-in-law is a bit disconcerted, but ultimately doesn't protest when Mrs Doc says she wants to spend the night in the empty room.

That night, she strikes, locking the door to the bedroom and throwing the key out of the window. She has a rope, which she justifies saying that she will use it to tie up the creeping woman. If you think she has any rational thought left, that leaves when she bites a piece of the bed frame off in frustration because she cannot move it. Then she peels off the remaining wallpaper she can reach ... "and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!"

She is, however, rational enough to know she shouldn't jump out the window because "a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued". At least she still has her priorities straight.

The last few pages are hard to read.

Now she merges with the woman/women in the wallpaper. She sees the women from the window and she wonders, "I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper, as I did?" She fastens the rope around her (though it's not clear if it's by her waist or neck) and circles the room, her shoulder pressed up against the wall, so that no one can take her outside. "I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes at night, and that is hard!" she says.

Her husband finally finds the key and opens the door, but, ironically, faints as soon as he sees her -- so she has to step over him as she continues to pace the circumference of the room, over and over again. The last thing she says to him is, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane! And I've pulled off most of the wallpaper, so you can't put me back!"

So our heroine wins, in a sense, by defying her husband, but at what expense? What other outcome was there in a society that denied her agency? She could either take that agency and be mad, or she could be "well" and live under her husband's thumb. But we know that, beyond the story, she's most likely going to institutionalised because of her behaviour, so even this choice is none at all.

Here we have the literal "madwoman in the attic" (coined in 1979 with Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gunbar's book, which you can access here for free) -- an unnamed woman suffering post-partum depression, treated with isolation and a lack of stimulation. That's where the taste in my mouth was coming from.

As I said at the beginning, the title might as well be The History of Women's Mental Health in the Western World aka There's Nothing to See Here and Women Be Tripping, but it's a lot less snappy than "The Yellow Wallpaper".

Disclaimer: I know that I have been glib about a very unglib topic, but that's my blog and it signifies my extreme frustration with the lack of sensitivity with which people still view depression  today. If you experience depression, please tell me how many times people have told you that you just need to exercise more?! I call it the Virgin Active Cure. If I had to blog my serious reactions, this post would be about two lines long and say pretty much this.

The Somerton Man

I'm breaking the mold (my mold, which admittedly was already fractured and worn) here by blogging about something that is not literary or related to publishing or my frustrations with publishing or about the discord between the world of my imagination and reality or - you get the point. For those of you already familiar with the Somerton Man, you can probably jump ahead or just skip this post entirely. I have nothing new to add. All this information has ben analysed and debated over and over and over. But if you're still reading, let's go.

First: I love mysteries. You may have realised this when I blogged about Marquez' Chronicle of a Death Foretold. But it has to be the right mystery. My criteria are vague. I'm not much for supernatural theories - magic is just science we haven't figured out yet, so nothing 'mystic'. I enjoy true crime, but not all true crime. I'm interested in crimes affecting women (I can make a sarcastic comment here but I won't), and not interested in crimes involving children. I'm interested in why people break the social contract, but I don't believe in making excuses for deviant behaviour either. (Life's hard, but it's not a character in your story and so it also doesn't owe you anything.) I particularly like frustrating mysteries, where there is a set of clues and the "truth", but the only way to link one to the other is to have been there and witnessed it.

Cue: the mystery of the Somerton Man. I referred to this offhand in a recent (time is relative) post, but let me explain why I'm writing about it now: the mystery was recently solved, except that it wasn't. We now know who he is, but not why he died or - well, you'll see.

On 1 December 1948, on a beach in Somerton Park, Adelaide, Australia, two horse-riders stumbled across a man in a suit. At first, they thought he was doing what people do at a beach (particularly, I would imagine, in a post-world war society): sitting on the sand, watching the waves and contemplating the choices he had made, but as they rode back home, they realised something was wrong. There was no obvious cause of death, and witnesses reported they had seen the man in the same position the previous evening from about 7 p.m.

He was dressed formally: in a shirt and tie, brown trousers and shoes, and a tailored double-breasted jacket, but he was not wearing a hat (remember: it's 1948). He did not have a wallet and there was no other form of identification in any of his pockets. In fact, the labels had all been carefully cut from his clothes. Police immediately suspected suicide, or perhaps a stroke (but that was not quite as racy).

But then the autopsy found his stomach, intestines, kidneys, liver and spleen all to be "deeply congested" while his heart was perfectly normal. The Somerton Man had been poisoned, but there was no trace of any poison in his blood or in any of the affected organs. The only conclusion the coroner could make was that his death was "not natural" and probably "not accidental".

(I'm going to condense time and mix details like this with the findings of the police's investigation because, well, I can. Also, I am going to leave out dead ends, like people incorrectly identifying the body to police, because you can read all that online but not here. The Wikipedia entry is a very detailed account.)

The coroner noted that the man's shoes were clean and had been recently polished, suggesting he had not been wandering the shore and considering the many ironies of existence. The sand around the body was not disturbed and there was no evidence of spit or vomit, which one would expect from a man dying of poison. Later, a witness would claim that he had seen one man carrying another in the vicinity on the night the Somerton Man died.

Found in various places on the man's person were: an unlit cigarette, a box of cigarettes (which contained several cigarettes of a different brand), an unused rail ticket to Henley Beach, a possibly used bus ticket, a comb, chewing gum and a half-empty box of matches.

The police were unable to identify the man using his dental records. Two newspapers ran the story, but all the tips flooded in in response to the publicity led to dead ends. So, the police made a plaster cast of the man's head and shoulders, the coroner embalmed the body and it was buried.

I know what you're thinking. It was my first thought, too. It's 1948 and the man has no identification, not even the labels on his clothes. Obviously, he was a spy, because the movies have taught me that every vaguely suspicious person in the 1940s was a spy. Apparently Adelaide was Spy City because there was a military research facility nearby and Australia's espionage (I mean, intelligence) organisations were going through some "changes", so they had a surplus. We'll make this The Theory to Beat.

The next "break" in the case (check out the lingo) was a piece of paper that was sewn into one of the man's trouser pockets, which was discovered several months after the body came to be just a body. (Note also that there was evidence he had tailored other spots on his own suit, which will be relevant shortly.) It was rolled up and on it was the phrase "Tamám shud", in a "foreign" script. The phrase comes from the final page of a book of poetry titled Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam, translated from Persian to English in 1849, and it means "it is ended". The poems are all about living life with no regrets and, so, dying without any baggage (excuse the pun). It looked like the paper had literally torn from a copy of the book, rather than copied by hand.

Actual photo of the script, via Wikimedia Commons

That book turned up in the backseat of someone's car, which was parked near the beach and had its windows open because it was a different time. The final phrase had been torn out from the back of the book, so it cannot be coincidence. The car owner gave the book to police once he realised it was relevant to the case, but he said he did not know the dead man. Some reports say that the book appeared in the man's car a full week or two before the Somerton Man died, suggesting he was staying in the area and that he visited the beach at least once before his death.

The book contained two pieces of information. The first was a series of capital letters, written by hand at the back of the book, that were assumed to be a code:

Police scan of the handwritten code, via Wikimedia Commons

However, cryptologists have never been able to break the code and at least one professional organisation asserts that it cannot be a code. So far, this is very spy-like behaviour - except for the fact that this book landed in the police's hands at all - supporting The Theory to Beat. 

The second piece of information was a telephone number, also written at the back of the book. This phone number belonged to Jessica Ellen "Jo" Thompson, who claimed she did not know the dead man. However, police noted that she was being "evasive" (I am curious what exactly this entailed) and that when she was shown the plaster case, she looked like she was "about to faint" (you know, as women do). She then asked that her name and other details be removed from the case files (and the police complied). 

Jo died in 2007 and in 2014, her daughter Kate said she believed her mother did know the man but for some reason refused to acknowledge him. There were also details about her mother that Kate couldn't reconcile, like the fact that Jo spoke Russian but refused to say where or when she had learnt the language and she was interested in communism (which of course means she must have been depraved). The only clue her mother left her daughter with was the offhand comment that the Somerton Man was known "at a higher level than the police force". What are the chances that they were both spies? I've already covered the "surplus" of "agents" both in the area and after the war, so I'd say pretty decent.

The only information Jo would give the police is that she had owned a copy of the Rubaiyat during the war but she had given it to a soldier named Alf Boxall, and so for a while, police believed that Boxall was the Somerton Man. But in 1949, Boxall was found to be alive and in Sydney (with the wonders of social media, I imagine they would have found him sooner). He still had the book and the final page was intact (although technically, that doesn't prove that this book was the same one Jo had given him - apparently, it was not that rare a book).

In January 1949 (roughly two months after the Somerton Man's death), staff at the Adelaide railway station (remember the train ticket) reported that a suitcase had been checked in on the day of his death (30 November) and had not been claimed. The outer label had been removed. Inside were some of the normal things you'd expect to find: pyjamas, slippers, a dressing gown, a pair of trousers (although, interestingly, the cuffs of the trousers contained sand), underwear and shaving items (but no socks). But then there were some unusual things: a screwdriver, a well-worn table knife, a pair of scissors, a square of zinc and a stencilling brush (used on merchant ships).

Also in the suitcase was a spool of orange thread, which matched the thread that had been used to sew the scrap of paper into the Somerton Man's pocket.

A police photo of the discovery of the suitcase, via Wikimedia Commons

The labels on these clothes had been removed too, but the Somerton Man had not been as careful here: some of the clothes had different spellings of the name "Keane" stamped on them and there was a laundry bag with the same name. The clothes could have been second-hand (today we'd say "vintage"), but what are the chances that all of his clothes came from the same source? This was another dead end as the police could not find a missing person with the surname "Keane" or "Kean", not only in Australia, but in other countries too.

As I mentioned, leads continued to trickle in but none of them stuck.

Let's take a massive leap forward now, not only in terms of time but technology. Jo had also had a son, named Robin. In 2013, Robin's widow and his son gave an interview claiming that the Somerton Man was Jo's lover and Robin's father. The proof: the shape of their ears was the same (I kid you not). The police decided to re-open the case and exhume the body to try to extract some DNA evidence. That proved futile, as the body had decomposed too badly, but several strands of hair were found embedded in the plaster cast, which turned out to be viable.

There were a lot of "cooks" in the kitchen by now (most as unqualified as me), but a physicist and electronic engineer named David Abbott and a forensic genealogist named Colleen Fitzpatrick were on the trail with the hairs from the cast. They used the DNA they were able to extract and ran it through a "genealogy research database" (the home page of which claims that "Anyone can upload their DNA profile, analyze the results, and compare DNA shared with others"). They found a distant cousin of the Somerton Man and used that information to construct a family tree of a couple of thousand people (which, still, was the best lead anyone had had in 60-odd years). 

With a bit of sleuthing, Abbott and Fitzpatrick found their man: Carl Webb, an electrical engineer from Victoria, Australia, who had disappeared in 1947. (I do have to point out that this investigation was private and did not take place with police assistance, and that it still needs to be verified by sources other than the media, but I'm going to go with the DNA evidence and the woman whose entire career is dedicated to this kind of thing (i.e. Fitzpatrick) over the organisation that did not find the identity of the Somerton Man in - let me calculate this again - 74 years.)

The information on Webb is pretty scant. He was apparently born in Melbourne in 1905 and then married in 1941. He was "an instrument-maker" and his wife was a "21-year-old foot specialist", according to an interesting article in Smithsonian Magazine. Webb left his wife in 1947 and she started divorce proceedings (in  his absence) in late 1951, being apparently one of the only people who was not aware of the tantalising mystery brewing across the whole second half-century of the 1900s. He liked to read and write poetry, as well as bet on the ponies (those in the know now speculate that the "code" at the back of the book was a shorthand record of the horses he had bet on). Oh, and to nail this coffin shut, his sister was married to a man named ... Thomas Keane.

As I "hinted" at at the beginning of this post, the mystery is solved but not: we have a name and a bare timeline, but not the details of the tapestry, the meat of the pie (inside joke). Was Webb poisoned by someone else, or did he decide that life was just not worth the hassle? If the former, which I am going to tack to The Theory to Beat as the most likely, what was he poisoned with and why did it not show up in his blood or organs? Who was the man who allegedly carried him to the beach and then staged his body? Why was that scrap of paper sewn into his clothing? Why were all the labels removed from his clothes and from his suitcase? What happened in the year and eight months between when he left his wife and shuffled off this mortal coil without a soul noting his demise, at least in public? And what was his relationship with Jo Thompson?

Shakespeare had the innocent Juliet ponder, "What's in a name?" This story suggests not much, particularly if more than half a century has gone by between a man's death (which seems to be the most interesting thing about his life) and the opportunity to erect a headstone. All of which could be proof that he was a spy and doing a better job of hiding it than Jo Thompson. Alternatively, facing down the bleakness of existence in a really bleak decade, perhaps he thought he would do in death what he couldn't do in life: leave a mark, which is kind of like poetry writ large.

I still back The Theory to Beat, for the record. I'm invested in it now, which is proof of nothing. We have the evidence and there is the truth, but we have no way to link those two things together, except using a narrative (and until someone cracks the code of time travel - but then wouldn't we already see proof of someone already having returned to past and solved the mystery?). So I suppose in the end, this ended up being a literary post, in a sense.

A police photo of the Somerton Man's corpse, via Wikimedia Commons

The Dresden Files: #7 Dead Beat

The internet is not to be trusted. Not just because it is a Cold-War invention designed to decentralise information, a bit like a guerrilla cell, but because anyone can ‘publish’ anything, like a top five list of their favourite sandwich toppings (cheese (which is assumed as a fundamental ingredient in all food), egg, avo, cucumber and mayo, and chocolate spread) and Google might proclaim them expert in the culinary arts. (This blog does not appear on any search engine lists FYI. Perhaps Google doesn’t like my choice of sandwiches. Perhaps because you should visit my blog more often. #justsaying)

Anyway, when I wanted a light read, and had already read five Terry Pratchett’s in a (chronological) row, I typed in ‘top 10 supernatural apocalyptic horror’ to a search engine that has enough publicity already. Some of the lists were weighted by coming-of-age stories that encourage all sorts of abuse, and fantasies of death – you know what I am talking about. Most of the others I had read. I had to be selective and so I jotted down only the titles of books that appeared in the same lists as the The Road; while lists that included Stranger in a Strange Land and excluded Margaret Atwood were dismissed with a click.

One title I had never heard of reappeared, making it a hit by Google standards. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher, part of the Dresden Files. This title is number 7 in the series (I will get to my opinion of series in general, if not now, then in a post built entirely for it). A site devoted to science fiction (obviously this site will have the answers I am looking for, and none of them are sandwiches) called this particular book ‘a kitchen sink book; Butcher manages to cram in werewolves, wizards, vampires, fairies, demons and zombies, without making it feel crowded’. She forgot the T-Rex.

I can hear you, shifting the cursor indecisively toward the cross at the top of the screen. That would have been my reaction. Until the improbable happened: the security post to my suspension of disbelief malfunctioned. Yep, I read a story about the fleshy ghost of a T-Rex ridden by a wizard without a pointy hat and with a staff, and I believed it (as in I believed this could happen in that fantasy Earth, not now, here, in front of me. Just to clarify). That dinosaur was maybe the coolest character in any story I have recently read, except for Commander Vimes of the Nightswatch.

Again, hear me out. Google Analytics also records how long you spend reading my blog, and have I mentioned I am broke-ass writer, whose career may begin or end with your reading? I finished reading Dead Beat in a couple of hours, including some moonlit hours, and then decided to read the series in order. (I am on Book 3.) Because it was an erudite essay on human nature? Because it made me examine my sacred cows (hock included. I love that word. Hock)? Because it used the supernatural to comment on the ordinary? Kinda, kinda and kinda.

This is not a great book, but it is a very good book. So are books 1 and 2. And not because in number 4 a T-Rex that cuts a swathe of carnage through San Francisco, but because Book 2 includes four different types of werewolf (‘werewolf’ being an ambiguous term, as Mr Butcher shows us), also cutting a swathe of carnage. The most terrifying and rabid of the four is the loup-garou, a man whose family was cursed to turn on full moon. Sounds ordinary but no. This creature is, again, terrifying. It is huge and filled with a blood lust that shreds the man’s conscience when he wakes up.

You may have notice there are no Native Americans pacing in denim shorts. Jim Butcher obviously does a wealth of research, drawing deeply on various myths before painting them with his imagination. When he describes a T-Rex romping down a boulevard, he has contemplated the dimensions of beast and environment, and how one would go about riding it (see, a T-Rex leans forward when moving and leans back but not entirely vertical when standing, so he places the wizard near the neck of the creature, which is also far from the teeth).

The book earns its ‘very’ because it is two tsp detective novel to one tsp supernatural thriller, just without the make-up plastered, body-hugging dress wearing, purring femme fatale. In fact his range of female characters is more balanced than is usual in fantasy literature, which is not to say that he and his wizard don’t like a beautiful woman, because they do. They definitely do. The books are formulaic but in the way that Stephen King’s writing is good. It works. Because they are not predictable. Which seems obvious when the cast includes four type of werewolf, an energy vampire and a dinosaur. But it isn’t. Trust me, I’m an editor.

Harry Dresden is our private investigator and wizard, like in the pointy hat sense but without the pointy hat. (He does however possess a staff covered in runes, a talking skull and a cat.) He investigates the paranormal; he has a legitimate ad in the yellow pages that says ‘wizard’ although most people think he is a charlatan – including to some extent himself. He is employed by a branch of the police department, which thinks he is a charlatan too as well as a scape goat.

Can you focus, please? In Book 7 (I can hear you bleating about reading the books in order, but then please explain Star Wars), three sets of warlocks (or something) want to call on the brutish but sinister Elfking to chomp his way through the human race, making them kings and queens (or something). Of course, this can only happen at a specific time and place, because otherwise it would be difficult to get everyone together and string a plot across between them. Have I mentioned the zombies yet?

If you have reached this point and are thinking, ‘I don’t like science fiction’, I do not know why you are still reading. Either peg your disbelief over a clothesline or go away. You are breaking my train of thought.

Dresden is a more likeable Sherlock Holmes, with the wit of the Holmes (Robert Downey Jnr (who, FYI, I disliked in that role very much)) of the modern retellings. The wizard surprises even himself when he says something that isn’t sarcastic – some comments making me laugh loudly enough to frighten myself, the cats and my bunny. Like any good likeable hero, he tends to trip face-down into dangerous situations, stopping mid-step to (sometimes accidentally) smite someone.

But essentially our guy is ordinary. Apart from his magical powers – that make electrical items of any sort explode – a staff and a cat. But otherwise ordinary – except for the regular appearance of demons, fairies, vampires and zombies. Dresden is the good guy that we can all relate to. The guy trying to make a difference. Trying to live his life, without being impaled, scalped or set on fire over a misunderstanding.  

According to the head honchos of wizards and a chorus of supernatural beings, Dresden’s fatal flaw is his attachment to humanity. An attachment to people being and (this part’s important) staying alive. An attachment so strong he is always shielding people from supernatural crazies. He is always trying to keep carnage down a minimum, but that means the rules have to bend to his will. Terrible, just terrible, right? No. His real flaw is giving other people benefit of the doubt that he often doesn’t give himself. He is strong, in most ways except physically, but not impervious to pain (Book 2 was a close one).  

Another site devoted to the fans of science fiction says, ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and Butcher has had half a dozen books to figure out his formula is working for him. Yet he's deft enough to avoid repeating himself. He allows each volume to add a little something to the mythology that's been built up.’ You needn’t have read my waffle because this sums all My Point in a paragraph. Still, read it anyway.

In conclusion, this is a list of and recipes to make myfavourite sandwiches. *Psych* for those who skipped to the end – I even heaped on a trite introductory phrase for you. Do you still need a reason to read The Dresden Files? Here’s one for dorks like me: the books are also available as comics and audio books read by – wait for it – James Marsters aka Spike of Buffy and Spike. Indeed, fellow dorks. Indeed. 

History and fiction - and dinosaurs

When I was pre-teen, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I would have been content curating a museum, because long excavations without access to proper showers wearing clothes chosen because they showed the dirt the least and brushing dirt away from a metatarsal would have tested my love even for custard croissants. Then a teacher - as they do - crushed my hopes by pointing out I wasn't very good at, like, school. Jokes on her because I then vaulted the scholarly alphabet, but sans my dreams.

What they fail to tell you in school - among many things - is that a job title hides many variations of task. Even though I lacked fundamental logical skills, as it turns out, I could have risen through the corporate landscape, perhaps in funding, by bemoaning the inadequacies of the previous job-holder and then revising everything because Steve Jobs did it (in a competitive and innovative technological environment that is completely different to most companies).

I especially love dinosaurs. Now, I understand that this discipline is a bit of a joke because it requires ignoring the amazing range of animals we have now. But, they are giant reptile-like creatures, people. And this is also a treasure hunt. We don't even really know what they look like or sound like, just where they died, really. We don't have complete skeletons, people. We're throwing a party if we find an intact femur. And like with Pluto, we're notching creatures off roll call all the time.

When I was still living in the clouds like scarecrow looking for my brain, I had collections of magazines, trading cards and posters of my favorite dinos. I drew a cartoon of a dinosaur family that I realise now was improbable because different species can't breed, and I'm pretty sure a T-Rex and brontosaurus do not a stegosaurus make. Most kids grow out of this and into, I dunno, cars and making dinner like adults.

Did you know there is actually an internet discussion about who would win: T-Rex or Allosaurus? Your answer? It's a trick question. They lived in different eras. But should time and space collapse, my money's on the Allosaurus. The T-Rex is bulky and wins mostly by rushing at its prey, and Allosauris is lithe and fights like a boxer. Another anticipated show-down is Allosaurus versus Stegosaurus. I leave that to your imagination.

A stegosaurus staring down an Allosaurus.

There is a type of dinosaur that would beat them both. A saurupod (four-legged herbivore) so big nothing could kill an adult, except maybe worms, gangrene and flu. Oh, and humans. First they were known as gigantosaurs (yes, I know, I would have called it Bowbeforemedwarves-aurus) and then titanosaurs (I call it Fiveminutesoffame-saurus). A single femur is about one and a half times the height of a person.

A herbivore at the centre of the food chain.

According to reputable sources, a velociraptor was captured last year alive in Congo. There are some people who take this seriously because some fossils of extinct dinosaurs that were not wiped out in the mass extinction have been found in the area. Unfortunately space and time has not collapsed, and a few million years is a long time for anything to hibernate. Also, if they were real, I would be there reenacting the scene in Jurassic Park where the kids are hiding in the kitchen.

Some of my favourites have always been (until they check it off roll call) a species of duck-billed dinosaurs, which is a description not a nickname. They grazed in the same way as cattle, with their lips. Do I need to state the obvious? That their lips looked like bills. Well now I have. They ate on four legs but ran away on two, smart buggers.

Bird beak rather than bill, maybe.

This was not where My Point was meant to be (this never happens. Never). I was actually going to write about a popular science book I am reading that I am sceptical about. (The author claims he wrote a paper that founded string theory. Which is interesting given that the theory predates his birth.) But, you know, then dinosaurs. Perhaps I like history because if it were going to affect us, it already has. Like a  novel, you can close the book or skip the chapter on mass sacrifice or how that fossil came to be dead in the first place. You squint at your mortality, shift your head so that it looks like immortality and leave to get lunch.

I would be good at curating a museum. Far away from other people. With only the past and fiction for company. (I meant or: past or fiction. Definitely.) Can someone translate Bowbeforemedwarves-aurus into Latin?

PS. I realise a person who hunts dinosaurs is a paleontologist. But I was 12.

Trying to be Nietzsche

For those lucky enough to be my friends on Facebook (which is a whole new level of friendship discovered only in the last ten years), you may know I am in a slump. A book slump. That right there is shame. I am not slumped beneath the pile of books I am reading or will read. Not slumped in a fort made of books or with the weight (well, technically mass) of weighty words or against my newest fictional friend or in awe of a conclusion. I am slumped against the altar of books that is my only sense of meaning.

I mean, technically, do I even exist?

That is only half facetious. Those of you who know me via my blog (a new type of acquaintance-ship) and those of you who know me in the real world and some of you who know me via Facebook, know how caught up in my literature my identity is. Oh, I know the difference between characters and real people, although the line between fantasy and reality is (thankfully) more like the boundaries between countries: a line on a piece of paper, a steady stream of stolen cars, firearms, poachers dodging the law and refugees dodging lions, and officers who take the blame from every politician who has never stood in the sun (although they'd be familiar with accepting bribes) but really have no power so they exert what power they convince us they have.

(I speak from limited but very thorough experience. I once presented myself at the South African side of the Lesotho border post. I walked in past what looked like a schooldesk and two women talking. They ignored me, so they could start yelling at me ten seconds later. I have flown to other SADC countries ten times and been interrogated every since time: oh, and my luggage searched. Every time. Another time I was stopped by an officer who had been waiting for me. While I was on the plane, they phoned my place of work to verify I worked there.)

What I am talking about is boundaries, however, not border posts. Although sometimes the line between those two is thin, too. 

I have lived at least hundreds of lives - yes, you non-believer, this saying is true. Holden of Catcher in the Rye: I ran away with him when I was fifteen. Sula of Sula: not my favourite of Toni Morrison's books, but a brutality that doesn't need fists or words. Adam of We are Now Beginning our Descent: I heard the alarms and explosions and quiet senselessness when he broke those glasses against the wall. Nancy Drew, of course (you didn't see that coming): she taught me never to accept answers.

In hundreds of places. In Midnight's Children: India's break from British rule and - instead of the joy of freedom - the conflict that is blithely described as between Muslims and Hindus. In The Road, the bleakness of pure existence that made the fantastically possible world of Oryx and Crake feel like a romantic comedy. The stream of conscious of The Waves that was a sea of voices telling a story of loss. A New York that Audrey Hepburne (however epic) could never embody in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

"It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That's how the world is going to end." That quote is painted across the top of the altar made of all these lives that are to me tangible. Sometimes it reminds me of the stupidity of people, I have to be honest, for the exact same reason that it is startling. We cannot survive alone (although I plan to prove Faulkner wrong when I find some hidey-hole and then pay people to deliver my manuscripts without explanation). Although  the first meaning seems to me to be the blandness of life - a kind of existential determinism (hah! I coined that).

If you threw one of these books at my head and did the border officer thing, first I would demonstrate the correct way to handle books (with reverence) and then I would read a few pages and remember about a quarter of what I had read, place it on my nightstand (opposite the stack of bookmarked books on my dresser (which is the same thing as my nightstand, just not next to my bed)), baby bunny would chew the cover and eventually I would  move it to the stack of books I am not slumped under.

Yes, I am being melodramatic (not about the bunny - she chowed two covers and a sticky note with a reminder on). It would not be a first - shush you. But what if I made you watch The Matrix and then led you into a room where Laurence Fishburne is waiting with two colored pills? Your mind would shut down, right? Now reverse that. I have been coughed up into the world made of binary code and I can see it but I'm too tired to read it. Yip, my life without books is exactly like that. Without, you know, all of those characters and settings.

FYI the plot of The Matrix is loosely based on a thought experiment devised by some philosopher as part of the metaphysical and existential debates. There is an amusingly vehement argument between the two camps, mostly because after a thousand years we're still just yelling at each other without concrete evidence either way. He said, what if you are dreaming, right now? One day you wake up and find that every experience, belief, emotion (you get it, and so on) is a fiction. Not one of those people you loved exists. What then? Which life is meaningful? What does that mean? And so on.

Also FYI, the movie was partly based on Neuromancer, which was based on the thought experiment. And also also FYI, there is no way to prove one way or the other. Don't bother. People much smarter than us have tried.

Neo and Morpheus (and that annoying Trinity) just assume one is better than the other and most people would react the same way. But apart from being a traitorous creep, Cypher may have been right about ignorance being bliss. I was very happy living two lives and I am not thrilled about now living my own without any distraction. 

Granted, perhaps it is the material that is the problem. My last read was A Canticle for Leibowitz, which if you have read this blog before, I did not love. It was like going for a blood test. I get anxious, not because of the sting, but because I do not like the thought of intentionally breaching my skin. I don't try to get papercuts, they just happen. (Like, daily. I can get a papercut just holding a book or opening a cereal box.) In other words, because I lost myself, so I think I lost you, it was bad because I struggled to pay attention, which made the rest of it awful, because I knew I was going to finish a book I didn't like and it was going to take a long time.

For now, I am going to continue to read magazine articles a page at a time, flick through books I know I won't finish, listen to podcasts, and do crossword puzzles and Sudoku (I have a timed app - at the moment I veer between less than one star and more than three stars (I award myself these points) - it's fantastic). I will think about the books I have read with longing, like the longing Neo would have felt for his life if he had lived in a lovely apartment like mine with three bizarre animals and shelves of books that are here when I get my life back.

Also also also FYI, while I was trying to be Descartes, Sartre and Nietszche, just without the famous part, I forgot to tell you my next attempt (you should know I never give up). Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie. I read Purple Hibiscus about six years ago and was thrown around in her character's emotions like dead leaves - the pretty yellow kind that kids make terrible and very unimaginative art with. My theory is that if I throw enough emotion at the part of my brain that is slumped over, I may push it right over. Either I'll then leap to my feet, view literature from a different angle, or close my eyes and pretend Morpheus isn't there.

'Et vu' and other translations

Sooner than expected and probably more meandering than I intend, here is my post (not the first, I see, because there is a label in my selection of labels labelled 'translations') on, yes, translations. Translations of books, to clarify, for the semantically minded. Bear in mind that I only have a first language (yes, smarty-pants, English); a smattering of a second language and a smatter of a third language, Zulu. To further convince you of my qualifications, I studied linguistics, briefly. Although I have no interest in learning languages, I am interested the idea of language, like any good graduate with a useless degree.

First, let me explore my credentials. English is my home language. My mother grew up in Durban, which was a British port - before war upon war of someone against an other, which is how rational people and not playground bullies solve their problems - and her mother was some degree of Jane-Eyre Victorian. So, like all good mothers, she insisted we say 'hair' as in 'air' with a silent 'h' and 'r', instead of 'ghe'. A 'kid' was a goat not a child, 'mom' just sounded bad and 'ja' (Afrikaans for 'yes') was not English.

I am an editor with a degree in English (and the slightly less meaningless Media Studies). I have read Chaucer and understood it, have a firm stance on Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe's review (Conrad is always wrong, always) and adore AS Byatt. So, instead of taking time to learn other languages, I have explored the redundantly spelled and bastard language that is English. And, to add another 'so' to this conversation, my knowledge of translations is limited to the, well, translations.

Taal Monument, which is dedicated to the 11 South African languages

My second language (and I use the term so loosely that we should insert spaces between the letters) is Afrikaans. We started studying Afrikaans in Grade 2 and followed it (albeit loosely) to Grade 12. The teachers declared there was no hope for us - one of them ran out crying, but that had more to do with a difference in political opinion (FYI, Mrs Botha, I was on your side: I would divorce myself from my parents if they were top-level management of a mining company. Any level really).

By the end of matric, I could write complex sentences (by which I mean with conjunctions) in very boring paragraphs and when I spoke no one could understand anything beneath my English accent (FYI, if you care, my sister and I bizarrely have British-sounding accents, and I am often asked where I come from). I started waitressing the day after my last exam in an Afrikaans-populated area and then moved up in the world to bookseller.

When people spoke Afrikaans to me, I shook my head but only because I needed to adjust my language setting. Occasionally, I tried to speak to them in Afrikaans, but it took me two minutes to sound out a sentence, with the customer helping. Usually I asked and then pleaded with them to speak Afrikaans because despite my muteness, I understand Afrikaans. The same has been true of friends who say they need to practise English, or some such tripe.

Let me interrupt myself to explain that my dialect of English has an even more dodgy heritage because it has pilfered words and phrases from local languages. There's 'ja' for 'yes', 'skelm' for someone between a 'petty criminal' to 'naughty person (even child)' and you can add '-tjie' to the end of pretty much any noun to create the diminutive. Personally, I pilfered 'dankie tog', which does not actually mean anything, 'jok' instead of 'grap' to mean 'joke.' This is a joke that is only funny in my head, but I think my Afrikaans friends feel sorry for me and do not correct me.

Then there's Zulu. We started studying it as a third language in Grade 8 and could choose to study it from Grade 10. Our teacher was a very enthusiastic white woman whose husband was rich which is why she could afford a BMW while teaching. There are different dialects of Zulu (and in fact it and another language are pretty much the same Nguni language, but the colonialists conquered by setting groups against each other and general bloodshed - but this could get me assassinated, so moving on) and I think we learnt the wrong one because no one understands me.

Zulu is interesting. Most of the languages I have been exposed to (I can also say 'et vu' which is French for 'and you') are European. They developed alongside, over, below and within English, so the sentence forms are similar, even when they are mixed around. English is noun and then verb, for example. The parts of speech are often distinct words with distinct functions. In Zulu, a single word can be sentence. 'Ngiyabona' means I (ngi), ya (you) and bonga (thank). 'Siyabonga' is we thank you.

But - and here is when it sets fire to the linguistic part of your brain - the tense of the sentence is continuous present: I am thanking you. This explains why Nguni-language speakers often use this tense seemingly at random. I, however, do not, because that is as far as my knowledge of the language extends. No, that's not true, I can say 'water', 'it is hot/cold', 'hello' and 'boy'. I also know that 'ama-' indicates the plural. Other than that, our Zulu dictionary was a mostly useless waste of 128 pages with a pastel green cover. I hope the publishers have addressed that, what with Zulu and Xhosa being the most widely spoken languages in South Africa.

It looks like I am running out of time, so I will introduce The Point for the next post now. You express your thoughts in language and so your language reflects some of your cognitive structures, and vice versa. I have a case study here: me. We use 'he' as a general pronoun, right? There is no more meaning than this? Even though when I say 'doctor', you assume he is a he and then are surprised he is a she but you think 'you go, girl' or something equally patronising, and applaud her for, you know, studying.

A while ago, I consciously adopted 'she' as my general pronoun. I am a woman, after all, why should my go-to word not be female? I slipped, often, at first, so my endeavour looked like just that: a liberal attempt at who-cares. After a while, though, it became natural. The other day I caught myself assuming a doctor was a woman and being surprised when he wasn't. And if you don't think that reflects the way you think: when I assume a person or animal is a 'she', people ask me how I know or why. When I explain, they widen their eyes, nod slowly and turn around as I were sprouting green air on my cheek. If they are honest they say 'Do you really believe that?' and then turn away.

Not all of this is the next Point, so you can let out the breath you are holding. I withhold my rants for when you're not expecting them, because then I can remind you that I am the sheriff here. At the least, I am holding the keys. I am not sure what relationship this mishmash of languages has with my brain, except in reflecting it is a mishmash. I suppose you also know that I am not a polyglot, because I would rather study sentence trees than learn how to say something that I can already say in English.

For those of you who enjoyed the hiking trail of my brain, perhaps you want some closure. But if you are looking for the cognitive implications of the tense in Zulu, what do you think I am, a savant?

Show pigeons are walking existential crises, if you think about it

I am suffering a dry streak, my friends. Dry as all those rivers that were dammed to make dams because some committee wanted a dam and be damned the ecosystem. Dry as the absence of vowels in the word. I can't find anything good to read. And I don't mean 'good' as is literature, but I don't mean cult classic either. I have been abandoned by books I actually want to read.

In the not-too-distant past there has been The Passage and Night Film and Mara and Dann. But search back through these archives (maybe you will find something more interesting back there) and see that they are segregated by months. Years, maybe? Possibly. Probably. Perhaps - no, definitely - I am being melodramatic, but see, this is how I count my days, months and years. This is how I catalogue my memories.

A show pigeon

I don't think: "In February last year, I sat outside on a bench and watched a show pigeon trying to be a dove while I wrote." I think "A hardcover Kurt Vonnegut was on the table and I was listening to Ben Howard. It was windy, a cold wind, but I liked being outside." Before this, I had read Fahrenheit 451, which although I don't talk about it much is one of my favourites. It is a lonely book, as any book set in a policed dystopia must be. I had read it sitting on my bed between naps.

Some of my collection of must-I-finishes? includes A Widow for a Year by John Irving, The Luminaries by Elenor Catton and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Even before I finish the first sentence, I am on the tracks of my own stories, the book held in front of me like a disguise - rendered useless by the fact I am alone. Since I am being picky now, the author needs to go big or go home. I want a plot that knocks on my breastbone and yells that he will huff and puff if I don't give him my heart to chow on.

Metaphorically. Of course. Definitely. I mean, who doesn't love the bolschy character who is a bit of a bully but who also has a heart that tells him when to use it?

I had to think for a moment to remember what I am technically theoretically and painfully reading now. A Canticle for Leibowitz. One of the big bloopers in The Passage was that nothing had decayed much 100 years later. The ragtag team ate dented cans of peaches. Electricity grids still ran, albeit failingly. Did you know that the acid in modern paper actually makes it less durable? Books made of paper from the last century or so will crumble sooner.

Did you also know that in 1000 years, men in habits will be finding receipts and to-do lists hoarded in a time capsule where nothing else has survived time? And - oh this is my favourite - that all of human knowledge will disappear into warring factions of Neanderthals, in which women are once again just wet nurses. And that we will be forced to walk with a silly man in a brown habit who we cannot love even as a baby brother who likes to recite poetry he doesn't understand.

It would make sense if you read it. But don't. Let me finish and tell you at length how awful it is. My version will be a better read.

But this is not a dystopian novel and so there is light. A flickering solar light, maybe, or the slow beam of a long-dead star. I borrowed and started reading The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. Not a recommended read, unless you enjoy pirouetting on a pinhead that is an idea with far too many rust spots to be appealing.

You know (yes, you know) that in my roving mind, ideas are important. Critical in fact. Stories of what we might do when the ties of society are loosened are vital, because that is who are, isn't it? How else can we understand ourselves as moral beings? How else can I understand myself? (That is hypothetical, because I don't and I am not sure I believe people who say they do.) Right now, steam is exploding from my nose and ears like a cartoon bull, at the frustration of being and of knowing. These are the kinds of stories I tell myself when I am pretending to read.

Umberto Eco is a true polymath, like Noam Chomsky: he is an expert in so many specialised areas of study that to call him a generalist is also inaccurate. I am in awe and jealous of the man, who by my age had probably already written two books and disproved a host of flawed ideas. I am also embarrassed (as if he were standing in front of me) by how little I have achieved. 

To take another hammer to my street cred, I only read Name of the Rose after my literature degree. Just before this, I had read My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.

Aside, because now I know I must write a post on translations: Pamuk's writing is beautiful and made more beautiful by the strangeness (in the literal sense) of the culture, history and language. In this book, the culture is the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Marat III and a murder mystery than circles the scribes in his employ.  The novel binds itself around notions of representation and art. For example, is it art if it is mimicry? It posits that a piece of work is a form of immortality - but is it? What about those sculptures sitting in museums that we can't identify? Is that a legacy?

Name of the Rose touches on so many of the same themes, extending my experience of both novels so that they seem sort of magical (and you know I am not one to use these words lightly. Except when I am making fun. Which is often, but not now). The novel is set in a monastery in Italy, about 150 years before My Name is Red, there is also a murder mystery and the monks are also scribes. While the Ottoman scribes are also working in service of their faith, they enjoy beauty and their craft for craft's sake. Both sets of works are decadent, but the Italians are more repressed and conflicted. Probably not as repressed as the British.

In Eco's world, art does not exist for art's sake. In Pamuk's world, art for art's sake is still a form of worship. When I think of the latter, I think of rich reds and blues. When I think of the former, I think of cool golds and greens.

This venture off-the-beaten-track was not meant to be The Point, but is somehow still is The Point. (Despite what people tell you, haphazard meetings are usually more useful than laid-out plans.) The Island of the Day Before reminds me why I love to read. Why I am mostly Reader, some Writer and a fraction of other stuff that I lost years ago and am still looking for. (If you find it, keep it - I clearly don't need it.)

Books are my religion. I mean that in a quasi-blasphemy way. Most people believe in the things that they can see and touch, and that they exist, which leads to a comfortable belief that the world exists as a place with meaning. I however am an extra in The Matrix but I am very conscious of all the set pieces. Metaphorically. Where the set pieces form a dangerous a chain of existential corkscrews. Which means the 'I' that is me is usually very confused and a confused animal is an edgy one.

Books are the antidote. A novel is made-up - the story finds a way to exist in a candyland of wirly-girglies without having to touchdown. (That is just how confusing life feels to me.) It is made of words that never promise they are real but can be content in being this in-between thing. Ideas, too, are multi-coloured strands that can be strung out further, tied up and then untied. They make space and time in which to be examined, and don't hassle me to make a decision every time I put a key in my front door to unlock it.

If you are the kind of person who reads the conclusion first, this post is not about a single novel at all. But intention is nine-tenths of meaning, so know that I meant to and then got carried away. By which I mean I meant to do that, but you need not read it. I don't think this post was meant to be read; I just needed to write it.