Read Online Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Scarlett Thomas
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make any more mistakes, because they sounded very difficult to undo.
While we knitted, Frank read Russian fairy tales aloud to us. He was writing an introduction to a new edition of Aleksandr Afanas’ev’s nineteenth-century collection, and was getting to grips with the translation. On Christmas Eve he finished with a story called ‘The Goat Comes Back’. He cleared his throat, and said to Vi, ‘You’ll like this, my love. Propp has nothing to say about this one.’ Then he began.
Billy goat, billy goat, where have you been?
I was grazing horses .
And where are the horses?
Nikolka led them away .
And where is Nikolka?
He went to the larder .
And where is the larder?
It was flooded with water .
And where is the water?
The oxen drank it .
And where are the oxen?
They went to the mountain .
And where is the mountain?
The worms gnawed it away .
And where are the worms?
The geese ate them all .
And where are the geese?
They went to the junipers .
And where are the junipers?
The maids broke them .
And where are the maids?
They all got married .
And where are their husbands?
They all died .
When he’d finished reading it, we were all laughing.
‘Sounds like one of my authors explaining why their manuscript is late,’ Claudia said, knitting so fast it looked like she had invented a new dance.
Vi smiled and didn’t say anything.
‘Can you read it again, Frank?’ I said. ‘And a few more times. It’s a great rhythm for my knitting.’
By Christmas Day I’d knitted all my red yarn, and I didn’t know what I was going to do next – Claudia suggested starting a new Zeb Ross book. But when I opened my presents from Vi and Frank, I found, as well as a Moleskine notebook and a new translation of Chekhov’s letters, several balls of soft, turquoise yarn and some beautiful rosewood needles. We exchanged the rest of our gifts and then ate a late lunch at the big dining-room table. It wasn’t until early evening when we found out that a TV satellite had come down in the Pacific and caused a tidal wave that had devastated Lot’s Wife, one of theJapanese islands Vi had written about years ago. She’d stayed in a Buddhist monastery there for almost six months. We didn’t have a TV in the cottage, but we listened on the radio. Vi was quiet for a long time after this, and knitted next to me for hours, but by Boxing Day evening she had something to say about it.
‘So many innocent people killed by bottles of oil,’ she said, shaking her head.
Claudia snorted. ‘Come on, V. Surely no one had anything to gain from this. It was just an accident. You can’t come up with a conspiracy theory for everything. The company themselves said it was a huge loss for them as well.’
‘It’s an encore to colonialism,’ Vi said. ‘Yet another encore. Not even the final one. People just keep on clapping.’
‘You’ve even lost me, my love,’ Frank said. ‘It could have crashed anywhere, surely?’
‘Well, maybe. But don’t you think there’s something horribly poetic about a storyless nation being put to death by other people’s “heroic” stories? No one from this island ever did anything to anyone else or went out and conquered anything. But first of all some eighteenth-century explorer turns up and decides to name the island because he thinks it looks like a pillar of salt from a story he’s read, and now this. Killed by soap operas and American drama series.’
‘How can a nation be “storyless”?’ I asked.
Vi sighed. ‘OK. I don’t think in the end a nation can be storyless. Only a story can be storyless. They did have stories on Lot’s Wife. But in recent times mainly Zen stories, which are storyless stories, because they are constructed to help you break away from drama, and hope and desire. Some of them are funny. All of them are unpredictable. They’re not tragedies,comedies or epics. They’re not even Modernist anti-hero stories, or experimental narratives or metafiction. I lost count of the times
While we knitted, Frank read Russian fairy tales aloud to us. He was writing an introduction to a new edition of Aleksandr Afanas’ev’s nineteenth-century collection, and was getting to grips with the translation. On Christmas Eve he finished with a story called ‘The Goat Comes Back’. He cleared his throat, and said to Vi, ‘You’ll like this, my love. Propp has nothing to say about this one.’ Then he began.
Billy goat, billy goat, where have you been?
I was grazing horses .
And where are the horses?
Nikolka led them away .
And where is Nikolka?
He went to the larder .
And where is the larder?
It was flooded with water .
And where is the water?
The oxen drank it .
And where are the oxen?
They went to the mountain .
And where is the mountain?
The worms gnawed it away .
And where are the worms?
The geese ate them all .
And where are the geese?
They went to the junipers .
And where are the junipers?
The maids broke them .
And where are the maids?
They all got married .
And where are their husbands?
They all died .
When he’d finished reading it, we were all laughing.
‘Sounds like one of my authors explaining why their manuscript is late,’ Claudia said, knitting so fast it looked like she had invented a new dance.
Vi smiled and didn’t say anything.
‘Can you read it again, Frank?’ I said. ‘And a few more times. It’s a great rhythm for my knitting.’
By Christmas Day I’d knitted all my red yarn, and I didn’t know what I was going to do next – Claudia suggested starting a new Zeb Ross book. But when I opened my presents from Vi and Frank, I found, as well as a Moleskine notebook and a new translation of Chekhov’s letters, several balls of soft, turquoise yarn and some beautiful rosewood needles. We exchanged the rest of our gifts and then ate a late lunch at the big dining-room table. It wasn’t until early evening when we found out that a TV satellite had come down in the Pacific and caused a tidal wave that had devastated Lot’s Wife, one of theJapanese islands Vi had written about years ago. She’d stayed in a Buddhist monastery there for almost six months. We didn’t have a TV in the cottage, but we listened on the radio. Vi was quiet for a long time after this, and knitted next to me for hours, but by Boxing Day evening she had something to say about it.
‘So many innocent people killed by bottles of oil,’ she said, shaking her head.
Claudia snorted. ‘Come on, V. Surely no one had anything to gain from this. It was just an accident. You can’t come up with a conspiracy theory for everything. The company themselves said it was a huge loss for them as well.’
‘It’s an encore to colonialism,’ Vi said. ‘Yet another encore. Not even the final one. People just keep on clapping.’
‘You’ve even lost me, my love,’ Frank said. ‘It could have crashed anywhere, surely?’
‘Well, maybe. But don’t you think there’s something horribly poetic about a storyless nation being put to death by other people’s “heroic” stories? No one from this island ever did anything to anyone else or went out and conquered anything. But first of all some eighteenth-century explorer turns up and decides to name the island because he thinks it looks like a pillar of salt from a story he’s read, and now this. Killed by soap operas and American drama series.’
‘How can a nation be “storyless”?’ I asked.
Vi sighed. ‘OK. I don’t think in the end a nation can be storyless. Only a story can be storyless. They did have stories on Lot’s Wife. But in recent times mainly Zen stories, which are storyless stories, because they are constructed to help you break away from drama, and hope and desire. Some of them are funny. All of them are unpredictable. They’re not tragedies,comedies or epics. They’re not even Modernist anti-hero stories, or experimental narratives or metafiction. I lost count of the times
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