I am not the one who’s crazy!
Philip Roth, My Life as a Man
A Harvard professor kept badgering
Dylan Thomas about the meaning of symbols.
‘Mr Thomas, on line three you say …’
Thomas finally exploded:
‘Don’t you appreciate that to me
it’s not a symbol, it’s real?’
Dear Reader
The following autobiography is not written by a so-called celebrity, nor is it the record of a person remarkable in any other way. Its narrative is not so much about the individual as an attempt to recapture the events of a curious and comic, remarkable and extraordinary life. Both story and protagonist of this book, then, is life, being, existence. Strictly speaking, the text should not therefore be called an autobiography. Perhaps the term could be replaced with something like ‘auto-fiction’ or ‘bio-novel’. However, unfortunately we habitually perceive fiction as the opposite of reality. What is real cannot be fictional, least of all fictitious. My aim is not to fictionalise the author’s biography but to reveal the fiction of life itself.
Many distinguished writers have made pertinent statements about the nature of biographies, none more perceptive, I think, than Jose Ortega y Gasset when he says: ‘Biography is a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified’. Yet I would go one step further and claim that life creates its own ‘biographical’ fiction. At its most spectacular we’ve adopted the habit of calling it ‘coincidence’. The coexistence of events is not necessarily accidental. It may well be shaped by life forces the way artists are driven to formal compositions of their works. Whatever other meaning fiction may carry, it is always by its very nature the work of imagination. The French novelist Jules Renard writes in his Journals: ‘I have a passion for the truth and for the fictions that it authorises.’ How conceited of us to assume life does not possess the power of imagination! Fiction is not the preserve of humans just because they invented the term. I believe life itself is the most important and powerful author of all, with quirks and foibles, strengths and weaknesses, vice and scruples – and style, its own ‘personality’. Occasionally it even seems to have a sense of humour.
The following narrative attempts to bear witness to the magic, excitement and challenges of life. It is its story I wish to tell. The chronicle’s ‘I’ is the conduit of something much bigger than itself. In the grand scheme of things a tiny individual life seems of little significance.
Yet it is in personal experience that the power and magnificence of existence comes to bear. Despite the inauspicious start to his life, the disappointments and sufferings he shares with many others, the author means to offer his account as witness not for the prosecution but the defence. I have experienced life’s fiction as something more than improbable or unbelievable. For me, it was and remains the very magic of existence. My heart is filled with gratitude to all those who have shared in its magic and contributed to it.
Eggshells
… the fate of my generation, a German fate …
Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
One
I saw it coming. It’s not as though it suddenly happened out of the blue. Nothing like it. Nor did it have anything to do with a mental breakdown, at least not in the usual sense.
For some years, especially the last two, something mysterious and horrific was taking place. It wasn’t the normal process of ageing everybody has to come to terms with. Although not unrelated to growing old, this thing was much more scary. Yet in a strange way I also found it exhilarating, fantastic and almost beautiful, close to what I’ve come to call magic. There are certain events in life, exquisite moments or lengthier developments that can only be described in those terms. That they are often accompanied by suffering and pain does not diminish the mystery or enchantment of the spell.
It began with memory. I remembered the fishnets hanging out to dry down at the small port of my hometown. The bigger trawlers were moored in the harbour, smaller boats dragged to a tiny stretch of sand and turned upside down. The fishing nets were hung across high wooden scaffoldings that looked like crucifixes. On summer days their green buoys caught the light in reflections of momentary starlight flashes giving the impression that the nets had somehow come alive. The image of their swaying in the breeze kept haunting me, usually at incongruous and inopportune moments. Drying nets descended above my head as if I was to be their catch. Was I an acrobat about to fall or was it something more threatening than that? Was it safety or peril?
Sometimes a spider I assumed to be venomous would climb out of the web’s centre trying to pierce my eyes. But its segmented body and long jointed legs merely moved to the outer circle of the network spinning a repair of damaged threads. After a while images of fishnets and cobwebs were replaced by something even more disturbing. There were moments when I felt my whole body turn brittle. I thought I could actually hear my skin rustle as it seemed to turn into a different layer. What was going on? At times it felt as if not only my outside cover was somehow transforming itself. Touching myself I discovered the presence of a strange crisp, starchy texture. When I used my fingers to check the nature of the new tissue its surface folded and creased. I seemed to have lost all physical resistance. In panic I thought of attaching a note to my body: PLEASE DO NOT BEND! Amazingly, people around me did not seem to notice anything different about me. Didn’t they hear me rustle as I approached? There were times when I heard it even in my sleep.
My wife Ulrike didn’t seem to notice her husband was in the process of some kind of metamorphosis. I was unsure whether to be pleased about her failure to realise it or not, and I believed it would be unwise to draw attention to it. How could she have understood my invisible transformation when I myself was unable to make sense of it? Yet there could be no doubt in my mind: I was actually in the process of assuming an altered state.
Could such a dramatic change really remain unnoticeable? Could there be individual mutations imperceptible to others? Was it real or just in my mind, a psychosomatic illusion? Even if it were all in my mind, it would still be real, wouldn’t it? I was more than confused. I was at a loss. What did it all mean?
In view of its apparent invisibility I made strenuous efforts to keep the mysterious conversion to myself. Upsetting my wife, colleagues and friends was the last thing I wanted. I resisted the temptation to consult the local GP, not least because he too was a friend. He would be bound to advise me to take things easy, spend a special weekend with Ulrike by the sea, relax, enjoy good food and indulge in what he liked to refer to as marital exercises. I had already done all of that, with no change in my condition. There was only one prospect that filled me with at least some hope. On the strength of my study on The Fictional I, I had been offered a visiting professorship at the University of Basle. Although Ulrike’s own teaching commitments would not allow her to join me — she was dedicated to her refugee students from overseas — she urged me to accept the invitation and travel alone. If I could just last a few more weeks lecturing my own students at university, I thought, this whole transformation business would most probably resolve itself. Perhaps it would prove no more than what some people call a midlife crisis.
Midlife crisis? Who was I kidding? If I ever had one, it passed unnoticed a long time ago. Surely I was well past midlife now! Yet now was the time when I noticed something was going on in my mind and body.
