Hosting a Friend

 

This week I’m hosting a long-term friend of mine, Norma Levinson-Sedler, who is a talented writer and gifted rhymester. She has written the ‘ditty’ below, which is called ‘The Aftermath of the Ten Plagues.’ Enjoy!

Moses Crossy

Also Bossy

We don’t Likey

This long Hikey

Sun is Bakey

Feet are achey

Air is scaldy

O, Vivaldi!

Nasty Wavey

Not so Bravey

Bloody Muddy

Mumble Grumble

Manna Crummy

Dicey Tummy

Forty Yeary

Weary Dreary

Somewhere

Up there

Moses goeses

Days are Forty

People Naughty

Dancy Prancy

Taking Chancy

Pretty Calfy

Made of Goldy

Moses Scoldy

Splutter stutter

Loses raggy

Chucks from Craggy

Smashy Bashy

Wordy Lordy.

God Almighty

What a frighty.

Forty lines

Is in this story

Getting borey

God in Heaven

Thanks for Leaven

Nessun Dorma

Good night. Norma

 

 

On Becoming an Old Curmudgeon

One Friday night, when my grandchildren tried to tell me a joke (in Hebrew) and my sole response was to point out the linguistic fallacy involved, it dawned on me that I had become an old curmudgeon. And a bilingual one at that.

What riled me in that particular instance was the omission of the ‘h’ at the beginning of a word (and was the crux of that particular joke), which has become endemic in Hebrew in recent years. In English it is a sign of lack of education or a specific dialect, but is not common in received pronunciation. It is typical of the Cockney form of speech that characterises less-educated Londoners. It is also a built-in feature of current French pronunciation (though I gather that in mediaeval France it was pronounced, which is how I heard it sung by an ensemble performing the songs of French troubadours).

Be that as it may, in Hebrew the absence of the aspirated consonant at the beginning of a word can give rise to great confusion, and even dismay, as happened in my case. I hate the idea of becoming a stickler for proper language use (popularly known as a grammar-Nazi), but if we let our standards slide we will lose the ability to communicate in a meaningful and intelligent way.

There are other expressions that have come into common usage in Hebrew that irk my purist ear, and I see that I am not alone in this. Whenever someone who is being interviewed on TV uses the expression ‘zot-hi’ (omitting the ‘h’ to boot) instead of ‘zot’ the Hebrew transcription at the bottom of the screen contains only ‘zot,’ indicating that the language editor has rejected the jargon term. When I heard that a new restaurant called ‘Zotti’ had opened near us I knew that I would never set foot in that particular institution.

Another bugbear is the over-use of ‘ke-ilu’ which is the Hebrew equivalent of ‘like’ as used originally, meaninglessly and extensively in teenage speak but which has now entered into common usage. I hear politicians who should know better using all the terms I have denigrated above, and although I have no great love for Benjamin Netanyahu I have to give him credit for his correct usage of Hebrew (as well as English).

Sadly, the situation with regard to contemporary English is also in the process of sending my blood-pressure soaring. From where did the ugly expression ‘I/he/she was sat/stood’ come from? Has the average English person decided to abandon the present continuous tense? I continue to be horrified by this expression whenever I encounter it, but I’m sorry to say I have heard it used even by announcers who should certainly know better.

And of course, the endemic ‘like,’ as in ‘I was…like…’ instead of ‘I said…,’ not forgetting ‘she felt like she was drowning’ instead of ‘as if’ is also anathema to my ears, and to my eyes when I see it on the printed page. But it seems to stem from America, that land of linguistic mystery, where language usage is different, and almost every verb has to be embellished with a preposition, as in ‘head up’ instead of ‘head,’ ‘talk with’ instead of ‘talk to’ and goodness only knows how they manage to twist the simple term ‘visit’ to mean a simple telephone conversation, or ‘school’ to mean college or even university. But American usage is a world unto itself, and it is not for me to criticize the language used by our cousins across the ocean, merely to bewail its insidious entry into standard British usage.

There are other terms that rile me. Where did ‘so fun’ spring from? What’s wrong with ‘such fun’ or ‘so much fun’? And I also find that turning the word ‘concern’ into an adjective, as in ‘a concerning development’ is tremendously annoying. There are plenty of synonyms for the term, and it seems to me to be an insult to proper English usage to twist the meaning of a word to suit someone’s limited vocabulary (shades of ‘Alice in Wonderland’).

I have the feeling that I’m the only person left in the English-speaking world who cares where the word ‘only’ is placed in a sentence, as even learned books by university professors, not to mention newspaper articles, novels and of course everyday speech, almost invariably misplace it when using it to modify an expression. Thus, in a rather serious book by an Oxford don the sentence ‘archival evidence for them only surfaces during the Third Crusade’ is wrong, in my opinion, as the term referred to here is ‘during’ not ‘surfaces.’ A couple of pages later I came across, ‘Bernard of Clairvaux could only preach in French.’ Obviously the ‘only’ should qualify ‘in French’ rather than ‘preach.’ There are many more such examples, but nobody seems to care about that sort of thing these days, namely, precise and correct usage of the wonderful tool that is the English language.

I fear that I will have to remain mired in my antiquated attachment to the correct English of my youth, and continue to be adamant in my refusal to move with the times. And so, I will continue to constitute the solitary rearguard action against allowing the (mis)use of language to take over the treasure which is English.

You can see my novel, ‘The Balancing Game; a Child Between Two Worlds, A Society Approaching War,’ at: https://www.amazon.com/BALANCING-Between-Worlds-Society-Approaching-ebook/dp/B00PQKHVG0/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=The+Balancing+Game&qid=1551802061&s=digital-text&sr=1-3

‘Small World’ by Martin Suter

It seems strange for a book written in German to have a title in English, but this book was recommended to me by the teacher of the German class I have been taking for the past few years, so I felt honour bound to accept the challenge.

My hard-earned command of the German language has taken me on a journey from almost complete ignorance to sufficient proficiency to be able to read and understand texts, albeit with the help of a dictionary (or rather Google Translate, whose voice-activated feature I have only recently discovered). I feel a sense of achievement at having been able to read a book in a foreign language, and also regard it as my insurance against the deterioration of my mental faculties. And mental deterioration is precisely the subject of this book.

On the first page we encounter the following startling statement: “When Konrad Lang returned, everything was ablaze, except the wood in the fireplace.” We soon learn that Konrad Lang is a man in his sixties who is the rather careless caretaker and sole inhabitant of his employer’s luxurious, recently-redecorated vacation home on the Greek island of Corfu, and that he is somewhat partial to alcohol.

So far, so bad. We continue reading to find that throughout his life Konrad has grown up together with Thomas Koch, the playboy son of his wealthy employers, industrialists based in Switzerland. Throughout their joint childhood and youth, he has been Thomas’s companion and friend. Together they attended an expensive boarding school, learned to ski, play the piano, sailed, swam and travelled to the usual watering-holes of wealthy Europeans. Apart from a brief statement that the blonde girl he met on one of their holidays became Thomas’s second wife, we do not learn much about the relations between the two.

After the conflagration Elvira Senn, Thomas’s mother and the owner of the Koch conglomerate, instructs her lawyer to provide Konrad with accommodation in town, allocates him a monthly stipend, and hopes never to hear from him again. Konrad is told to take his meals at a designated restaurant and embarks quite happily on his new life. While he is eating lunch there one day an elegant lady joins him at his table, they establish a relationship, and he eventually moves in with her. Rosemarie is a wealthy widow, she and Konrad are happy together and plan to get married. She encourages Konrad to cut his ties with the Koch family, and promises to support him financially.

After a year or two Konrad starts to become forgetful. He mislays things or forgets how to get home from the supermarket. He writes himself little notes to help  his memory, but eventually the doctor diagnoses incipient dementia, possibly even Alzheimer’s. Rosemarie does her best to look after him, even employing someone to help her in this task, but eventually she is persuaded by her doctor to place Konrad in a care home. The conditions in the home are comfortable, but most of the other inhabitants are further down the line with regard to dementia, and Konrad begins to decline more rapidly, despite Rosemarie’s daily efforts to spend time with him.

Konrad has a tendency to wander, and at some stage manages to get into the grounds of the Koch family estate, which was once his home. While hiding in the gardener’s shed he is discovered by Simone, Thomas’s young daughter-in-law, and she undertakes to look after him. Elvira allows her to establish Konrad in the guest chalet near the house and arrange for round-the-clock care for him.

At this point the narrative sometimes describes the world as seen by someone with incipient Alzheimer’s as Konrad (Koni) recedes into childhood memories. Simone tries to help him by showing him photos from his younger days with Thomas (Tomi), and also obtains medical help from physicians doing research into the disease.

At this point the story takes some unexpected twists and turns. Was it the experimental medicine or some other event that helped Konrad’s memory to improve, and is the change real or imagined? Events from the joint childhood of Koni and Tomi come to light, and the book ends with an optimistic if somewhat unconvincing twist.

Nonetheless, in my opinion this book was well worth reading for the insights into different characters as well as times and places with which I was unfamiliar.

 

Books That Have Influenced Me

Anyone who has been reading my blog in the last few months may have noticed that it contains more book reviews than there used to be. For the sake of those of my offspring who find that subject boring I have tried to vary the subject-matter, but they can blame the isolation imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. Books have been my main consolation during this time but I have always been an avid reader, and my idea of purgatory is not having anything to read. In fact, since my childhood books have been my constant (and sometimes my only) companion. I am grateful to the public libraries in London which enabled me to satisfy my need to always have something to read.

And so, when a recent zoom meeting of the only group in which I still participate set as a subject for discussion ‘A Book That Has Influenced Me,’ I had no hesitation in choosing J.G. Frazer’s study of comparative religions, anthropology, history and sociology entitled ‘The Golden Bough; a Study in Magic and Religion.’ The paperback copy I bought in 1962, when I was a university student, numbered almost 1,000 pages and was touted as the ’abridged edition in one volume.’

Abridged or not, what I read was a true eye-opener. The author’s vast knowledge of classical literature and mythology, sheds light upon the similarities between many ancient religions and myths, encompassing the rites and rituals, totems and taboos, analogies and parallels in the beliefs of primeval humankind. The Golden Bough of the title refers to the Priest-King of the Grove of Diana, according to Vergil’s account, awaiting his own murderer under the sacred oaks. The death of the central figure is echoed in many religions, and it does not require much prior knowledge to extend the parallel to other faiths. The breadth and depth of knowledge displayed in this book served to make me stop and think about my own religion, Judaism, and the many parallels between it and other ancient myths and beliefs.

Many other books have influenced me, whether in my youth or more recently. Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus,’ which I also read when I was a student, helped me to see the importance of Israel in the life of every Jew, so that I determined to make it my home. Of course, there were other factors at work to impel me to leave England, but that was indubitably one of them. Uris’s vivid portrayal of the struggle of Jews in post-Holocaust Europe to reach Israel and establish it as a Jewish state gave a voice to the millions of Jews who perished in the gas chambers as well as to the survivors who emerged from the wretchedness of the concentration camps.

Another writer who had an effect on my thinking was Arthur Koestler. I had read his novels ‘Thieves in the Night’ and ‘Darkness at Noon,’ but in 1964 was alerted to his new book ‘The Act of Creation’ by a review of it in the ‘Observer.’ I still have my much-thumbed hardback copy of it. One of the basic premises of the book focuses on the important role played by the subconscious (or unconscious?) in artistic and scientific development. I learned a lot about the history and sociology of science from reading this book, but Koestler’s main talent was in bringing many different threads together into a coherent whole, pointing out the role of humour, language, art, travel, hierarchies and of course society, to name but a few, in the development of human thought.

There have been many other books that I have enjoyed, and I cannot end this effort at summing up my intellectual formation without mentioning the writing of Virginia Woolf, whose lucid prose, whether in her novels or her essays, never fails to fill me with envy and inspiration. And last but not least, I feel I must mention in passing the inimitable P.G.Wodehouse, whose fanciful and well-written accounts of the life of the British upper-classes never fails to have me in fits of laughter. And that is, after all, what we need to lighten our mood in these gloomy times.