ciâ cheva - 'understanding eggs'

The wind howled like the blind dog my mother strangled back in ’64. It was the night (as Daddy put it) that the ‘owl embraced the day’. Or as another wag had it: ‘when that ol’ bitch got what was coming to her’. A trite pun that second one, but not without some truth. Not without some truth indeed. And far be it from me to poke a fat finger into the whole thing by reminding you all that Myopius was male. Far be it. After all, this isn’t about the dog, is it? Nor about my mother (who, not that it matters, I never forgave and have seeking to replace for more than forty years now). No. This is about the wind. The howling wind. Or else the trees, which one might suppose had facilitated, enabled or assisted the striking soundscape. The trees and the wind. The trees and the wind and the rain. Nature’s gloriously messy orchestra. Like pre-school kids on percussion. Like tone-deaf teenagers taking out their frustration though the medium of melody. Harmless, disconcerting.

    All of which got me thinking. Yes - it happens. And it happened to me, as I stumbled through the rain, listening to the wind, remembering the dog, my mother and… well, you know the score. So, I was thinking…. And this is what I was thinking.

    Rain. Water descending in droplets from dark clouds. Precipitation and all that. Drizzle. I mean, what’s all the fuss about? What is all the fuss about? If I seem to be varnishing myself in a coat or two of self-righteousness, let me let you into a little secret. I used to be just as bothered about rain as the next person. I opened umbrellas incessantly. I ran as if chased through puddles, little thinking that walking would have kept me calmer, if not (ironically) drier. Yes: I indulged in negative thinking. I let rain trouble me. Oh dear me yes. I let it trouble me.

    What were those lines by Jan Zbigwurt? ‘Depressed by depression, I started to experiment with positive thinking. I started to smile at pylons’. Nice lines those, taken from his novel, called (would you believe it?) - Smiling at Pylons. But he might just as well have called it Grinning at Modernist Architecture, Brushing off Dejection or Giggling at Raindrops. Whatever you choose to call it, you get the idea. Incidentally, Leo Barnard (that poor excuse for a philosopher) once called it ‘a poor excuse for a philosophy’. Oh Leo – when will you ever learn? If you let it bother you, maybe it won’t. I suppose you could say that it works way too well to be a philosophy. Having said that, the idea that something so simple might have to be learnt seems faintly ridiculous. Aren’t Zbigwurt and company wasting their time telling the world what it already knows? Maybe so, but I will never go so far as to begrudge a person for stating the obvious every now and again. What is more, I would contend that the thought of smiling at pylons had not occurred to me when I was younger. It was something I had to learn. But I did not learn it from Zbigwurt. No. I learnt it from ciâ cheva.

My mother went away one weekend when I was twelve. I don’t know where she went – not at the time, anyway. It didn’t seem to matter all that much to me. It was only a weekend. Dad was out as well, for half a day at least. I think he offered to take me to a football match. I declined, of course. He wouldn’t have asked if he knew I wouldn’t.

    All of which gave me a chance to explore the house on my own. On my own terms, in my own time. What was there to explore? Not much, as it turned out. Not much at all. I thought my parents’ bedroom – rather more out of bounds than those of my friends’ parents – might yield secrets richer than anything imagined on heaven and earth. It didn’t. I think I wasn’t allowed in all that much simply because they were both naturally messy and didn’t want to be seen to be hypocrites. Or forced to be ashamed, more likely, for I am the tidy sort (something which only caused problems later on, when…. but this isn’t about my mother is it?)

    I was intrigued, all the same, by a small green book that I found on the bedside table on my mother’s side of the bed. I had hoped it might be a racy book. It seemed that it wasn’t. But it wasn’t any poorer for not being so. Not at all. In fact, it read incredibly well to a twelve year old. It might almost have been written for me. There was, it seems, a simplicity to the style – and to the storyline – which I would not have expected from a book of that sort. The cover, after all, promised something a little less digestible. The title of the book – understanding eggs - was ambiguous at most. The name of the author, meanwhile, was European – Hungarian as it turned out – and I was vaguely aware at that age that art of a ‘European’ nature would either be racy or merely obscure. This, however, was neither.

    Well, not entirely. There was some obscurity in there. Some rather obvious obscurity (if such a thing is possible). This was the fact that there wasn’t a single capital letter in the book. Not one. Not even half of one. This was the sort of obscure detail that more than appealed to a twelve-year old. I didn’t care whether there was any reasoning behind it. It was enough in itself. A book published without a capital letters: now that was a slap in the face of my English teacher, make no mistake about it. A big thwacking slap. You could almost hear the echo.

    mmmmm… lowercase letters. Nothing but lowercase letters: object of my first inanimate love affair. The simplest orthographic rebellions are often the best. Or should I say, the smallest rebellions don’t seem small to someone who isn’t used to rebellions at all? Derivative it may all have been, but then I hadn’t yet heard of E. E. Cummings (who had, it so happened, died only months before). Abandoning capital letters was all new to me. Soon I was writing everything lowercase. I thought it was fun; nothing more.

    I am not a fast reader at the best of times, but this book I read in less than a day. Start to finish, skipping only the thickest, most impenetrable paragraphs. In no time at all the book was back where it belonged and my parents were none the wiser. Would they have cared? There was nothing in the content of the novel, I thought, about which they could complain. On the other hand, I had taken it without asking. Ultimately, it wasn’t worth the risk, so the book went back.

    That didn’t stop me, however, from mentioning it first to friends and then, full to the brim with the airy froth of enthusiasm, from reviewing it to the school magazine. Here I was on safe ground:  I knew full well my mother never read the school magazine. She never had; she only flicked through it, putting on the pretence of reading. And why shouldn't she? Looking back, I realise that it was the dullest production ever; twenty or more pages of poor student poetry, sad little book reviews and painfully slow-moving stories. I pity the parents who did read it, though I sometimes wish my mother did, or at any rate didn’t pretend she did. But I forgot - this isn’t about my mother, is it?

    None of the teachers had heard of the book (this wasn't the sort of school where you found eccentric English teacherswith obsessions for East European literature) and hardly any of my fellow pupils cared to hear, so there was little trouble in getting my literary ego-boost accepted. I said it was a book for teenagers and I was believed. It could have been – and what did they know? What did it matter? It amuses me (and maybe you) to think that I got away with it. But why shouldn’t I have done? Despite my desperately clever (or so it seemed to me) exploitation of cheva’s lowercase letter love-in, no more a few eyes scanned the lines which I now reprint, with shame, embarrassment and much blushing, for purely educational purposes:

 ‘this nicely designed novel with its apple green coloured cover has many qualities. though it is basically about the redemptive power of life it is not too soppy at all. actually sometimes it reveals the harsh reality of life which is not always easy especiâlly if you live in the country as this shows. the two main characters however though they talk a lot about the philosophy of life mostly work very hard to succeed in their free range chicken farm. there is a lot of information therefore about chickens but it is not all bad some of it is quite interesting actually. oh and did i mention that it is all written without capital letters or commas I don’t why that’s just how it is which is great i think why have a reason for everything? the moral of the story anyway is that you mustn’t let things bother you if you put your head down and get on with things sometimes it is better than crying over spilt milk.’

    As you may be able to gauge from the mess above, I was ‘much enamoured’ of this book. Much much enamoured. I soon procured a copy of my own (at the cost of a crisp ten pound note and a curious expression on the bookseller’s face – I suppose he wasn’t used to twelve year olds saving up pocket money to buy Hungarian fiction). This copy I treasured as if it were a spiritual text: a guide for life. Indeed, in some senses, it was just this. Short of setting up my own chicken farm, I modelled my life on the main characters; first Xanthi, then Hilda – and back round again. I dressed as I thought they would; spoke as they spoke.

    As for ciâ cheva, the hallowed author, I wrote as she wrote. Almost everything I wrote was from henceforth free of capitals. I convinced at least one friend to do the same (until she turned against me that is, but then this isn’t about her, is it?). I even dared to complete an English exam in this fashion, only to be failed – which turned out to be a little less fun than I had imagined it would be. I feared my parents would be called into school and my mother would understand the link. But they weren’t – and she didn’t. In fact, my mother didn’t notice much of what I did at this time. I might have read the book in front of her and I doubt she would have noticed. But then this isn’t about…

    So, anyway: you have now read the very first review I gave of ciâ cheva, from all of forty years ago. And yet here I am (and here you are) in the middle of a second review. A much needed second review. A more than much needed second review. A mightily much needed second review. Those who have not read understanding eggs for themselves – or heard of its reputation – may ask why there is so much need for second review (putting aside the fact that the first one was written by an ostentatious teenager). I will now tell you. But first, allow me to anticipate the editor of this very journal in reminding all readers that the process of reviewing, re-reviewing and even (dare I say it) re-re-reviewing, should not really be something that needs explaining. It should, I suppose, be a very common thing. People and ideas change. Some things can only be seen properly from a distance. Many things are lost in the haze of the proverbial horizon. It is not so much re-reading as re-understanding. For believe me when I say, I re-read understanding eggs many times. Oh yes indeed. I read it over and over – and then over again. The problem is, I wasn’t gaining as much from these re-readings as I might have. Every time I started to read the book again, I approached it from the same angle. The wrong angle.

    Excuse me. I shouldn’t have said that. Wrong is wrong. The reader makes his or her own reading. You see what you see – and what you don’t see doesn’t bother you. And if all I saw was a book about charming free-range chicken farming, well god bless me for seeing that. I’d be quite happy now if that was all I ever saw. Certainly it was all I ever wanted to see. That was until I was, well, let’s say until I was forced to see the book from a not necessarily ‘right’, but perhaps a more ‘accurate’ or ‘apposite’ angle. And it is that angle which I will now reveal to you.

    Let me take you back to a night in 1964. Again. Actually no – let’s start this journey someplace else. Let’s look at some of the details relating to the origins of this book, understanding eggs. Ready? Here we go...

    ciâ cheva was born in Szombathely in Hungary in 1938, but she mostly grew up in Budapest. Though she started out as a journalist, her ambition to write novels was soon sated, with her first book, all well and good (already featuring her trademark lack of capital letters) appearing in 1961. Unbeknown to me (well, I was quite young at the time - and not Hungarian) she had from the start made clear her reasons for not using capital letters. It was, apparently, a stand against her male oppressors. As such, it was radical symbolic move: a stance which I might call feminist, were I not frightened that other feminists might take offence. For ciâ cheva was not all that interested in sexual equality. She thoroughly disliked men, and avoided their company whenever possible. She preferred to spend her time with her partner, the pretty actress-turned-poetess katerina gluck, whose 1966 collection of odes, The Parrot of Waning Youth is almost as good as understanding eggs, though similarly subject to misinterpretation. Their clandestine relationship, deeply frowned upon by the literary establishment, formed the basis of cheva’s second novel – once described as ‘the lesbian classic to beat all lesbian classics’ . This was, of course, understanding eggs.

    You guessed it. And yet you wonder. How could I have read a whole novel without realising the sex of one of the characters? I can only suggest you find yourself a copy of understanding eggs  and point out to me where in the text Xanthi is ever referred to as ‘she’. Admittedly, she is never referred to as ‘he’ either – but then I was only following tradition in thinking the central relationship a heterosexual one. I’d never heard the name Xanthi (except as the name of a Greek city) and thought it safe to presume that it was a man. I look back at descriptions of Xanthi now and can still believe my error. As witnessed through words, she’d pass as a man in most people's books.

    Is it obvious? Ok, it is when you know, I won’t deny it. And yet I’d like to think that it could still be read as a sweetly told, but rather humdrum tale about a man and a woman raising chickens toegther - as opposed to a ‘violent indictment of masculinity’. Honestly, I wasn’t as foolish as you may think I was. I was not completely ignorant either – not of life, anyway, though perhaps of the way in which life is filtered through fiction. Yes, that’s what I didn’t understand. The cunning metaphors were beyond me. The sneaky details gave me the slip. If it didn’t hit me in the face it didn’t hit me at all. Nuances escaped me, no trouble. I was well sheltered from the fierce rain of reality.

    For a while, anyway. Until one night in 1964. But then, this isn’t about my mother, is it? This is about ciâ cheva and understanding eggs. No - this isn’t about an oppressed woman taking out years of rage on an unsuspecting dog, leaving her husband and then running off with the woman she met at the flower arranging club set up by the local church, is it? Is it? Surely not...

   
    It seems appropriate that I should now own two copies of understanding eggs. She didn’t have time to take it with her; this book which had lain by her bed in all the weeks preceding her departure. Why didn’t Dad suspect anything? I never had the courage to ask him whether he ever picked up cheva’s book, or asked his wife what it was about. I doubt he would have recognised it as the call to arms it clearly was (though maybe he wouldn’t have been as taken as I was with an entirely innocent reading). In any case, I doubt he would have been able to do anything. Funny to think, however, that not only was it there all that time, but that I had seen it, read it and re-read it without ever realising what it meant. What could I have done if I did? Perhaps I could have saved the dog from being strangled. Perhaps I might have taken the news better than I did. That wouldn’t have been difficult. No indeed: if only fiction had edges as sharp as reality. Writers will soften and shape things. And then look at the mess in which we find ourselves. But I mustn’t complain. After all, as a corrupted version (my version) of a ciâ cheva novel once told me – and as Jan Zbigwurt was keen to remind me – the howling wind ain’t half as fierce as it thinks it is. At least, that’s the way I choose to read it…

Perci Hammershoi