9780415317856_the_routledge_creative_writing_coursebook

www.ATIBOOK.irThe routledge creative writing coursebook 38Not for her own pleasure, but because the world would not forgivespontaneity, the world was mean. I must make that clearer She didn’tbelieve life was mean—it was generous—but she had learnt from her ownchildhood that survival was hard. She was the opposite of quixotic—forshe was not born a knight and her father was a warehouse foreman inLambeth. She pursed her lips together; knitted her brows, as shecalculated and thought things out and carried on with an unspokendetermina-tion. She never asked favours of anyone. Nothing shocked herFrom whatever she saw, she just drew the necessary conclu-sions so as tosurvive and to be dependent on nobody.When I was in my thirties, she told me for the first time that ever sinceI was born she had hoped I would be a writer…. a writer was a personfamiliar with the secrets. Perhaps in the end she didn’t read my books sothat they should remain more secret.If her hopes of my becoming a writer—and she said they began on thenight after I was delivered—were eventually realised, it was not becausethere were many books in our house (there were few) but because therewas so much that was unsaid, so much that I had to discover the existenceof on my own at an early age: death, poverty pain (in others), sexuality…These things were there to be discovered within the house or from itswindows—until I left for good, more or less prepared for the outsideworld, at the age of eight My mother never spoke of these things. Shedidn’t hide the fact that she was aware of them. For her, however; theywere wrapped secrets, to be lived with but never to be mentioned oropened. Superficially, this was a question of gentility, but profoundly, of arespect, a secret loyalty to the enigmatic. My rough and ready preparationfor the world did not include a single explanation—it simply consisted ofthe principle that events carried more weight than the self.Thus, she taught me very little—at least in the usual sense of the term;she a teacher about life, I a learner By imitating her gestures I learnt howto roast meat in the oven, how to clean celery, how to cook rice, how tochoose vegetables in a market. As a young woman she had been avegetarian. Then she gave it up because she did not want to influence uschildren. Why were you a vegetarian? I once asked her, eating my Sundayroast, much later when I was first working as a journalist Because I’magainst killing. She would say no more. Either I understood or I didn’tThere was nothing more to be said.(Ibid., 47–9)Mixed in with Berger’s conversational tone is another note: ‘don’t expect me to tell youeverything’, which seems to have been learned from his mother, and, like her, he has noexplanation for this natural reserve. The word ‘secret’ occurs at least nine times in thewhole memoir. It’s a matter of temperament. He is asking serious questions of himselfabout the role of writer, his chosen profession, just as he is of autobiography itself: ‘asense of being alone’. But if that’s where it starts, it does not end there but with contacts,openings: ‘the moments—which if I relate them well enough—will join countless others