English, which would now seem to be your chosen tongue.
And I send this letter to Ireland, your elective country of exile, to which, driven by grief and anger, you have retreated. I use the word “retreat” with the care for language that befits the son of a respected lexicographer. I also note, with some satisfaction, a certain genetic imperative in your own missive, indeed in all your work. I accede, Thomas, to your wish to have access to my notes on the subject of Ireland. I have, after all, abandoned the subject.
The title of my book on Ireland was to have been “The Weapons of the Country.” I have collated my notes under three headings: Language; Love; Memory. They have been forwarded to you separately by parcel post. We are an efficient nation. It is our secondary characteristic, perhaps. Secondary characteristics when applied with concentrated power to a cause, whatever the nature of that cause, have played a greater part in history than is ever allowed. The secondary characteristic of the Irish? I leave that to you, Thomas. The Irish mind was formed in the ancient language of the Celt. Its roots, as you are aware, are Sino-Indian. Perhaps, therefore, the Irish mind is partly an occidental mind? Mr. Yeats has something to say on the subject. The English language, however, a gift foolishly handed to them by the British, but on the point of a sword, has been wielded by the Irish with exquisite ferocity against their old enemy. Remember, it is their first weapon.
I now accept that, as you intimated in your letter, I have always been rather wary of writing this book. Perhaps I felt a certain sensitivity in acknowledging that I first visited Dublin in 1939–40 for the purpose of a (comparatively modest) undertaking in espionage. Which failed. It is true we were outmanoeuvred, thwarted by those who, in understanding the nature and the language of treachery even better than we did, quietly and effectively subverted our plan to subvert the IRA to our own cause. Hitler’s decision, driven by geography, made strategic sense. The outcome, however, is often determined by a nation’s historical memory. In the case of Ireland the symphonic note of their national dirge creates a tinnitus of the soul. They were deaf to all else.
Finally, in relation to this book may I challenge you as to the purity of your own timing? What has happened to your planned second book on Gottfried Benn? Why desert Benn? You have much to say on the subject of the divided self, and Benn’s autobiography Doppelleben is of historical as well as literary importance. So why do you dedicate yourself to a book on Ireland? It is less than five years since Heinrich Böll published Irisches Tagebuch , his partly enchanted impression of his many visits to Galway’s Achill Island, a work I regard as more provocative than its rather anaemic title would suggest. However, it is the teller not the tale. Why now? Could it be that you desire to become further lost in the history of another country? You should remember that Paul Celan, whom you admire and who remains my obsession, kept faith with language and the German language “through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech.” That he should honour this belief in its power though both parents perished in the labour camps compels me to examine unceasingly the shattered silence of his work.
To family matters—briefly. You enquire as to my health. You were always courteous. My death is not imminent. It is, however, a discernible shape on the horizon. We need not be more dramatic. To Heinrich. He has again separated from Carlotta. Perhaps you are already aware of this? It is possible he sees himself as an Houdini of the heart, endlessly tying and untying himself. He returns, I believe, because in the taming of Carlotta’s wildness he is as close to virtue as he will ever come. Vice may bind but its shackles rust. “Does one bring up sons to have them ruined by a woman?”—your mother’s cry after the
And I send this letter to Ireland, your elective country of exile, to which, driven by grief and anger, you have retreated. I use the word “retreat” with the care for language that befits the son of a respected lexicographer. I also note, with some satisfaction, a certain genetic imperative in your own missive, indeed in all your work. I accede, Thomas, to your wish to have access to my notes on the subject of Ireland. I have, after all, abandoned the subject.
The title of my book on Ireland was to have been “The Weapons of the Country.” I have collated my notes under three headings: Language; Love; Memory. They have been forwarded to you separately by parcel post. We are an efficient nation. It is our secondary characteristic, perhaps. Secondary characteristics when applied with concentrated power to a cause, whatever the nature of that cause, have played a greater part in history than is ever allowed. The secondary characteristic of the Irish? I leave that to you, Thomas. The Irish mind was formed in the ancient language of the Celt. Its roots, as you are aware, are Sino-Indian. Perhaps, therefore, the Irish mind is partly an occidental mind? Mr. Yeats has something to say on the subject. The English language, however, a gift foolishly handed to them by the British, but on the point of a sword, has been wielded by the Irish with exquisite ferocity against their old enemy. Remember, it is their first weapon.
I now accept that, as you intimated in your letter, I have always been rather wary of writing this book. Perhaps I felt a certain sensitivity in acknowledging that I first visited Dublin in 1939–40 for the purpose of a (comparatively modest) undertaking in espionage. Which failed. It is true we were outmanoeuvred, thwarted by those who, in understanding the nature and the language of treachery even better than we did, quietly and effectively subverted our plan to subvert the IRA to our own cause. Hitler’s decision, driven by geography, made strategic sense. The outcome, however, is often determined by a nation’s historical memory. In the case of Ireland the symphonic note of their national dirge creates a tinnitus of the soul. They were deaf to all else.
Finally, in relation to this book may I challenge you as to the purity of your own timing? What has happened to your planned second book on Gottfried Benn? Why desert Benn? You have much to say on the subject of the divided self, and Benn’s autobiography Doppelleben is of historical as well as literary importance. So why do you dedicate yourself to a book on Ireland? It is less than five years since Heinrich Böll published Irisches Tagebuch , his partly enchanted impression of his many visits to Galway’s Achill Island, a work I regard as more provocative than its rather anaemic title would suggest. However, it is the teller not the tale. Why now? Could it be that you desire to become further lost in the history of another country? You should remember that Paul Celan, whom you admire and who remains my obsession, kept faith with language and the German language “through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech.” That he should honour this belief in its power though both parents perished in the labour camps compels me to examine unceasingly the shattered silence of his work.
To family matters—briefly. You enquire as to my health. You were always courteous. My death is not imminent. It is, however, a discernible shape on the horizon. We need not be more dramatic. To Heinrich. He has again separated from Carlotta. Perhaps you are already aware of this? It is possible he sees himself as an Houdini of the heart, endlessly tying and untying himself. He returns, I believe, because in the taming of Carlotta’s wildness he is as close to virtue as he will ever come. Vice may bind but its shackles rust. “Does one bring up sons to have them ruined by a woman?”—your mother’s cry after the
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