Dear Cyndy, Thank you for your letter. Things are quiet in Belmont. Distractions of one sort or another continue to prevent my getting started on any of my more ambitious projects. Today I saw three patients, all of them very friendly and well-disposed, drove my sister into Belmont Center and Margaret to the library. When I finish this letter, I'll try to work on chapter 39 of my novel. Maybe that's not what I should be doing, but it's what I _want_ to do. My sister seems to be recovering slowly. I think she intends to return to her previous independent, itinerant life-style as soon as she is able. She hasn't discussed her plans with me, and I intend to proceed day by day, "as way opens." What else could I do? To address your question which books I liked as an adolescent, I needed first to ascertain the age limits entailed in that somewhat ambiguous term. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta would have adolescence extend from age 10 to age 24. Others (the Virginia Department of Public Health) define it as extending from age 11 to age 19 or age 21, depending whom you ask. As for my favorite literature, early on it was surely the text of the Bach St. Matthew Passion, - co-authored by Martin Luther, - or if you prefer by God, - and one Christian Friederich Henrici, whose pen name was Picander. Also the texts of Bach's Christmas Oratorio and of the Schubert songs, especially Die Winterreise written by Wilhelm Mueller. I knew all these texts by heart. Then there was Schiller's Wilhelm Tell which made much impression on me, as well as some of his ballads, specifically a poem called "Der Ring des Polykrates", based on a story related by Herodotus about a king of Samos whose exceedingly good luck got him in trouble with the gods. I also liked very much Lessing's "Nathan der Weise". I learned by heart various of Rilke's early poems, from his Stundenbuch (Book of Hours), Buch der Bilder and Neue Gedichte. I was also much impressed by Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra, even though it disconcerted my father, who thought there was something wrong with my enthusiasm for it. Of American authors, I read Emerson, and thought I should like his essays, but couldn't get excited about them, - still can't. Longfellow, whose poems I read, didn't inspire me either. Aged 15, in 12th grade at Germantown Friends School, I had an enthusiastic English teacher, Harry Domincovich, with whom the class read Macbeth and Milton's Lycidas. Harvard was a literary feast. I discovered myself a Platonist. I was enthusiastic about everything I read, though in varying degrees. The only book I remember not liking was James Joyce's Ulysses, which to this day, I can do without. It's been a long life, and I'm just as glad not to have to do it over. Here's some entertainment for you: A synopsis of part of Chapter 38 of the novel with which I'm presently trying to make progress. I wrote it some weeks ago, and I don't think I sent it to you. If I did, I apologize for the repetition. By way of introduction, I should explain the obvious, that all the characters whom I describe are either facets of myself or reflections of persons by whom I have been (deeply) impressed. That having been said, I'll begin to tell the story, which has now bloated to 670 pages of 400 words each. It's like a soap opera, one scene devolving from the preceeding. I don't know that it will ever end, except with my own life. Admittedly before ending it may degenerate into senile babble, if it hasn't already. I make no presumption of impressing onto my novel any form, - other than that which is imparted by the language itself, nor any structure, so that whatever structure comes to light is the structure of life itself. My protagonists, Jonathan Mengs and Joachim Magus are on the Island, It's their third visit. On their first trip five years ago - or so - I don't pretend to be a chronologist - they encountered an eccentric character whom I named Maximilian Katenus, a man wealthy in valuable island real estate, but poor in friends, who attempted to barter land for friendship with disastrous results, in that the objects of his generosity, though they accepted his gifts, were deeply embarrassed, because their jealous neighbors to whom such generosity was otherwise incomprehensible, accused the donees of accepting Katenus' gifts as payment for sexual favors. Then, to rid themselves of that opprobium the donees welcomed and amplified a rumor that Katenus was in fact involved in an illicit domestic relationship with his housekeeper, Elly (no last name yet); and since such informal relationships nowadays are the rule rather than the exception, the gossip had been spiced to make it telling, namely with the accusation that on Katenus' part that relationship was forcible and violent, an accusation denied by Elly but disturbingly corroborated by two or three of her friends who have settled on an account very damaging to Katenus, to which they will swear that Elly confided it to them. Thus the stage is set for a moral and legal catastrophe. In a preliminary telephone conversation Katenus had pleaded with Mengs to come. "Rettet mich, rettet mich," he had implored him, and Mengs, at a loss for an explanation of Katenus' desperation had agreed to come, bringing along as on previous visits, his junior faculty member Joachim Magus. They had come the day before; then in the course of a lengthy after-dinner conversation Katenus had spelled out his predicament. It turned out that Mengs and Magus had arrived on the weekend preceding the initial hearing in Katenus' case. Of course they would stay. By now they have spent the first night in Katenus' Main Street mansion as his guests. Katenus has lent them one of his automobiles to explore the Island. I now have Mengs and Magus walking on the beach at a village I've christened Schacksett, a contraction of its legal name Schiacksetzingen. (On Nantucket it's "Sconset" as opposed to "Siasconset".) The language disparities are obvious reflections of the intellectual/spiritual predicament that persuades me I must write in German even after 70 years in an English-speaking environment. In any case, my protagonists are even now walking on the beach at Schacksett. The tide has gone out, the sand provides them with a firm footing. Each in his own way is overwhelmed by the enormity of Katenus' predicament, they don't know what to make of it, or what to say to each other, I find myself trying to listen to the halting and embarrassed exchanges between them as they watch the low distant breakers on the horizon. ====== Continuing now with the prospective synopsis of Chapter 38, we last saw Jonathan Mengs and Joachim Magus walking on the packed sand at low tide on the Schacksett beach, unable to articulate, even in conversation with each other, their concern and perplexity at the predicament of Maximilian Katenus. Until now the beach has been desolate; Mengs and Joachim seem to have it all to themselves, when they see in the far distance an object they had not noticed before, which, as they approach each other, turns out to be a group of people, in fact a cluster of girls, hopping and skipping, running in circles, playfully advancing with unexpected rapidity. When they are about 50 yards away, the girls link hands to form a cordon extending from the water's edge to the foot of the dunes. Mengs and Joachim are rooted in amazement, and then try to circumvent the human barrier, Mengs by tip-toeing through the shallow outwash, Joachim by stomping through the uncompacted sand of the dune. But the vigilant girls head them off, forming a tight circle in which Mengs and Joachim are trapped. "I have a cell phone," one of them says. "If you touch any one of us, I'll call the police to have you arrested for you know what. You're trapped." And then another one, with a loud clear, trumpet like soprano voice starts singing: "Ein Netz fuer Maenner flechte ich, ich fing sie gross und stark fuer mich, dann sperrte ich sie bei mir ein, und alle Maenner waeren mein." "wenn alle Maenner waeren mein, so kaufte ich brav Whisky ein dem welcher mir am liebsten waer, dem gaeb ich gleich den Whisky her. "und liebte er mich zaertlich dann waer ich sein Weib und er mein Mann; Den anderen schnitt ich klip und klap Mit dieser Scher' die Haare ab." and singing with operatic bravura she twirled a pair of large red scissors around the index finger of her right hand. Before the two men were able to contrive a plan to escape, the chainlink that confined them had changed to a semicircle, its open side abutting the ocean whose tidal flow had now reversed itself and was flooding in. "So now we'll herd you into the sea," declared one of the girls, and the others joined in: "Into the water, into the water with the two of you." When Mengs and Joachim stood their ground, the circle around them closed again. "You're caught, you're prisoners, there's no escape." If only one of you touches one of us, I'll call the police; they'll take you to jail, and there you can hold hands with Max Katenus. They began to chant: Hold hand with Max Katenus, What did Elly tell you? Elly told me just what she told you and you and you and you. Five witnesses against one. Max's goose is cooked, Elly's day is done. The girls had erupted in as frenzy. There seemed no way of stopping them. Finally, when Mengs and Joachim were at their wits' end, they thought they heard the sound of a motor, a jeep perhaps, a beach buggy. The girls' chanting shifted, "The beach patrol, the beach patrol," they shouted, this time addressing not their prisoners but each other, they dropped each others' hands and scurried off separately, each by herself, into the dunes. The two men were once more alone. They were free. There was indeed a beach buggy in sight but off in the distance, approaching them, drawing closer, albeit much more slowly than either of them might have wished. It was the beach patrol, and as it was about to pass, Mengs waved to the patrolman to stop. "Is any thing wrong?" the policeman asked. But before Mengs had time for any complaint, the policeman started to explain and to apologize. "I saw them from the distance, they were at it again. It's shameful, it's disgraceful, but there's nothing can be done about it. It's a gang, a gang of girls, rich and well connected that's why we can't do anything. Half of them have fathers who are captains of industry and finance, worth billions of dollars who fly to the Island in their private jets; the other half are the daughters of our selectmen, of our judges, of our commissioners. They do whatever they wish, no one can stop them, especially since they have an agreement with the Town Clerk to testify to anything the Town wants proved. So Monday they'll be in court to testify against that poor chap Katenus and his housekeeper. It's disgusting, it's nauseating. But there's nothing anyone can do. I would advise you to leave the beach before I'm out of sight, because it seems that they don't like you, and before you know it, you'll be in as much trouble as poor Katenus. Be careful, watch out, take care, and have a good weekend." ====================== So much for fantasy, irony and satire. Admittedly very much like a cartoon, and expressionistic. With what literary qualities, if any, I can imbue this when I render it in German, remains to be seen. The closest literary prototype that immediately comes to mind is the imagination of Heinrich von Kleist, as in Das Kaethchen von Heilbronn, Michael Kohlhass, Amphytrion ... Stylistically, it seems important to minimize the extravagance and to create characters whose viciousness and malice is amalgamated with self-righteousness and spurious virtues. I'll keep working on it, and I apologize for importuning you with such premature presentations. I also apologize for the absence of politically correct feminism. ====================== Stay well and give my best to Ned. Jochen