Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. It gives me the impression
that you are not only surviving this spiritually hazardous holiday
season, but perhaps even flourishing, at least to an extent.

Last Sunday I went to Nantucket, just for the day, sixteen hours
of travel for a mere 4 1/2 hours at the house, a somewhat tiring
expedition, but satisfactory and satisfying nonetheless, a trip
into the past, a rediscovery and recapitulation of the remarkable
manner in which I spent the second half of the eighth decade of
my life. Inspection confirmed what the surveillance cameras seemed
to have shown from day to day that the house was intact, the old
broken-down Dodge parked in the driveway, its tires still inflated.
Inside, the floors were littered with small gray rice-sized grains,
almost as if there had been a wedding, - I suppose the debris which
spiders leave behind when they outgrow their nests, but not being
an entomologist, I don't really know. I used the shop vacuum cleaner
to improve appearances, put this and that in better order, and
enjoyed the warmth of the passive solar heating, which made the
house so comfortable that I didn't need to plug in any of the
electric heaters. A large bottle of ginger ale and sandwiches which
I had brought along were all the food I needed. I checked the
surveillance system, adjusted one of the video cameras, and looked at
my e-mail. There was none. The taxi for the 6 mile trip to the wharf
came 15 minutes early. The driver, not only an off-islander, but a
genuine foreigner with an accent that made him almost unintelligble
to my deaf ears promised to put me in touch with a friend who would
repair my car, and pleaded with me to hire him for the finish
carpentry on the house, when the time came, because work on the
Island is now so hard to come by. The crossing was remarkable only
for the low temperature and the cold draft in the lounge. I had a
book along, but there was so much to think about, I didn't get it out. 
The drive from Hyannis to Belmont was easy because the highway had
been newly resurfaced and was brightly marked with white and yellow
lines, obviating the need for anxious identification of the edge of
the pavement. My next trip should be scheduled for the beginning of
February, which seems, as of now, a long time hence.

Nathaniel and Rebekah have been home for the Thanksgiving week.
All four grandchildren seem more attentive and affectionate than
seems warranted considering their grandparents' decrepitude. Rebekah
has stopped scowling at me for my unconventional disposition; my
litigation, my religious abstinence, my medical scepticism had made
her subacutely uncomfortable; but I think she's come to understand
in the past year that there's some method to my madness. Nathaniel
came over and spent about two hours with me, first to listen to the
the first two scenes of die Meistersinger, - he's become interested
in Wagner, and agonized over Wagner's antisemitism. In response
I wrote him a letter summarizing my thoughts; I'll forward a copy
to you. Then he wanted to listen to die Matthaeus Passion with me.
I can't assay the extent of his interest in the music as  distinct
from his interest in making me happy. We listened to about a third
of the work, following my photolithograph of the 1854 edition which
Margaret bought for me many many yaers ago, before we were married.

Then there was Thankdgiving Dinner, a tradition with Klemens' inlaws,
to which until last year, Margaret and I had never been invited,
because it was always held at the houses of relatives who did not
consider us family. Yesterday it was next door. Laura (my daughter-in-law)
sent Leah over with three pies to bake in our oven. The three of us,
my sister, Margrit and I were invited. A  big crowd. 25 people,
few of whom I knew, but very friendly. Laura's parents have been dead
for several years; but her uncle Lionel Perlo, a very successful
medical malpractice defense lawyer, was there. We like to talk to
each other; Lionel's wife has had terrible bilateral retinal detachment.
There was much to discuss, not all of it happy. Nathaniel wanted to try
out some of his newly acquired German. He's less ebullient than he was
at the beginning of the semester. His cousin, Lionel's daughter
who is a successful business woman in the New Haven vicinity has
introduced Nathaniel to Buddhism. He won't let on how seriously he
takes it; but perhaps because ignorance is bliss, I consider it safer
than Roman Catholicism or Jewish orthodoxy. - Please forgive my
prejudices. Benjamin decided he wanted to learn German too, and to
start learning it right then and there. He demanded a German lesson
in the midst of twenty-five chattering turkey eaters. But I rose to
the occasion and we started naming objects, die Wand, die Decke,
das Fenster, der Teppich - was about as far as we got. This morning
he came over for more. We started with an old Berlitz manual. I
told Benjamin he should memorize, I offered him a bilingual edition
of Faust, which he rejected, the translations of Genesis 1 by Luther
and Moses Mendelssohn. Luther's version is more poetic, Mendelssohn's
more scholarly, but Benjamin rejected both. He finally settled on
Schiller's Ode to Joy, which he knows from Beethoven's Ninth,
I downloaded the text from the Internet and started an interlinear
translation for him. I doubt that Benjamin will continue his German
studies for very long, if at all. We'll see.

Guenter Grass, about whom you ask, is known to me in a curious way.
His editor and close literary associate, is my childhood friend Helmut
Frielinghaus who plies me, when he visits every other year, with tidbits
of news about Grass. Helmut has given me copies of two of Grass's novels,
Das Treffen in Teltge and Ein weites Feld, and of Grass's autobiography.
The novels I found interesting but uninspiring. The autobiography was
pre-empted by Klemens and is filed away on some bookshelf next door.
I've never read the book that made Grass famous "Die Blechtrommel",
the Tin Drum.  Helmut, as I may have mentioned to you years ago, read
the manuscript of my first novel, and responded with a very emphatic
rejection, saying that both the style and the content belonged to a
previous century, a judgment which makes me contemplate Guenter Grass,
who I believe is almost exactly my age, as a literary rival with whom
I have been in hopeless competition.

My sister is much improved. She's secretly hatching plans to leave.
I think she understands, but can't contemplate the fact that she's
unable to manage by herself. I suspect that if she survives whatever
is ahead of her, she'll want to come back, and Margaret and I will
be glad to have her here. Time will tell.

Life is full of trials and problems. I hope yours are - and remain
manageable. Please give my best to Ned.

Jochen