RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

15
Parroting karl
Radical Middle | 157
The playwright Samuel Beckett was my father’s cousin,
making him either my second cousin or my first cousin once
removed. I could never work out the difference and have
not greatly bothered, since he was forty years older than me
and slotted in my mind in the mode of uncle. The first time
I met him I had worked out a batch of pseudo-intelligent
adolescent observations regarding Waiting for Godot, which
was his greatest success and also about the last of his books
I could begin to understand. We were walking through Paris
to his regular restaurant an awesome distance from his flat –
he was a fierce walker until his back gave in – and passed an
imposing building. “That is the Men of Letters Society”, he said.
I thought he said “Men of Lesser Society” and was surprised by
such coyness. “Oh”, I said, “you mean a kind of asylum?” I had
already given him cause to wonder what kind of simpletons
were bred in South africa, and at this he knew for sure. To
recover ground I took the next opportunity to sneak in the