Here and Now: Letters (2008-2011) by Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
Authors: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
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their origin in a form of play in which one man hurls stones at another man, who defends himself with a shield or stick. This play becomes less dangerous when the target is redefined (in cricket) as an object which the man with the stick defends, and further redefined (in baseball) as an abstract torso-sized target more or less behind the man with the stick. What the reformers do with the resulting game is to add a heavy numerical overlay—distance between the two men, size and composition of “ball” (stone), size of “bat” (stick), etc.—and then to superadd a whole new system of abstract numerical rewards for hitting the ball (runs) and penalties for quitting your “at bat” post, etc.
It is only once the primitive contests have been thus reconceived as rule-governed recreations, and victory has been given an abstract, numerical definition, that they are welcomed into modern life.
Boxing is an interesting case. It remains the closest in spirit to the primitive contest. Though the quantifiers have done their best to modernize it (awarding points for blows, for example, at least in the amateur code), it remains only partly tamed, and thus hovers somewhat on the fringes of polite sport.
It further occurs to me that a certain kind of male child is drawn to sports like baseball and cricket because they combine the hero worship common to all sport (“I wish my father were like X!” with the variant “The man who calls himself my father is not my real father; my real father is X”) with the socially sanctioned systems of quantification that allow quick but immature minds to evade difficult questions like, “Are the men who call themselves Team A better than the men who call themselves Team B?” or “Is there a way in which the communal virtue of Team A may exceed the sum of the virtues of its individual members?”
These reflections were sparked by reading the interview you recently gave Kevin Rabalais (it appeared in last weekend’s Australian newspaper), which included a cautionary tale of what can happen to a boy who doesn’t take care to have his pencil ready at all times.
Thanks for your letter of October 23. I can offer no better an answer than you to the question of why artists were important to our lives fifty years ago but are no longer so.
As regards your sense that you are and perhaps have for a while been writing an obituary of your own times and your own life, let me mention that I recently heard about a burgeoning field in terminal care: the dying person is assisted by a professionally trained counselor to record their reflections on their own life—achievements, regrets, reminiscences, the works—which are then tastefully packaged (CD, bound printout) and passed on to the surviving family. It has been shown, said the promoter of the concept, that having a chance to tell their story in this way enables patients to die more peacefully.
All the best,
John
November 13, 2009
Dear John,
The day after sending off my last letter to you, I received the manuscript of the English-language translation of a novel written by a friend of mine—a great mountain of a book, three or four times longer than anything either one of us has ever written. The translator is someone new to him (his previous translator has retired), and because my friend considers this to be his most important book (it is), and because his grasp of English is shaky, I offered some months ago to read the translation and give comments to his American editor. I finished the job yesterday—a slow, painstaking slog through thousands and thousands of sentences, puzzled from beginning to end by the translator’s numerous errors, slowly coming to the conclusion (not yet confirmed) that English is not her first language. The mistakes are mostly small ones—“like” for “as if,” “me and him” for “he and I,” split infinitives, adjectives used as adverbs, and a maddening confusion between transitive and intransitive
It is only once the primitive contests have been thus reconceived as rule-governed recreations, and victory has been given an abstract, numerical definition, that they are welcomed into modern life.
Boxing is an interesting case. It remains the closest in spirit to the primitive contest. Though the quantifiers have done their best to modernize it (awarding points for blows, for example, at least in the amateur code), it remains only partly tamed, and thus hovers somewhat on the fringes of polite sport.
It further occurs to me that a certain kind of male child is drawn to sports like baseball and cricket because they combine the hero worship common to all sport (“I wish my father were like X!” with the variant “The man who calls himself my father is not my real father; my real father is X”) with the socially sanctioned systems of quantification that allow quick but immature minds to evade difficult questions like, “Are the men who call themselves Team A better than the men who call themselves Team B?” or “Is there a way in which the communal virtue of Team A may exceed the sum of the virtues of its individual members?”
These reflections were sparked by reading the interview you recently gave Kevin Rabalais (it appeared in last weekend’s Australian newspaper), which included a cautionary tale of what can happen to a boy who doesn’t take care to have his pencil ready at all times.
Thanks for your letter of October 23. I can offer no better an answer than you to the question of why artists were important to our lives fifty years ago but are no longer so.
As regards your sense that you are and perhaps have for a while been writing an obituary of your own times and your own life, let me mention that I recently heard about a burgeoning field in terminal care: the dying person is assisted by a professionally trained counselor to record their reflections on their own life—achievements, regrets, reminiscences, the works—which are then tastefully packaged (CD, bound printout) and passed on to the surviving family. It has been shown, said the promoter of the concept, that having a chance to tell their story in this way enables patients to die more peacefully.
All the best,
John
November 13, 2009
Dear John,
The day after sending off my last letter to you, I received the manuscript of the English-language translation of a novel written by a friend of mine—a great mountain of a book, three or four times longer than anything either one of us has ever written. The translator is someone new to him (his previous translator has retired), and because my friend considers this to be his most important book (it is), and because his grasp of English is shaky, I offered some months ago to read the translation and give comments to his American editor. I finished the job yesterday—a slow, painstaking slog through thousands and thousands of sentences, puzzled from beginning to end by the translator’s numerous errors, slowly coming to the conclusion (not yet confirmed) that English is not her first language. The mistakes are mostly small ones—“like” for “as if,” “me and him” for “he and I,” split infinitives, adjectives used as adverbs, and a maddening confusion between transitive and intransitive
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