kelby_lake
05-06-2008, 03:59 PM
Ever since those bookshelves fell and crushed my stepfather, I've loved books.
I never liked him, not really. He was a 'scholar', an epicurist of literature, and always flaunted the fact that he'd read War and Peace, 5 times, once in Russian. It seemed to be his only real claim to fame but nevertheless it entranced our neighbours and they held him up as a god.
At that time, I never really liked books. I didn't loathe them as such, more of a cruel indifference. School didn't know what to do with me: 'The girl doesn't read!'. My stepfather was famous amongst the teachers; he came into parents evening all dressed up in a suit and started having conversations with my English teacher about Shakespeare and my philosophy teacher about existentialism and my geography teacher about globalisation. They made me their pet then, even though they'd previously ignored me. They still try now to eke out some hidden brilliance. Maybe one day I'll let them find something- as it currently stands, I'll stay quite silent, feign ignorance.
I give you now the brilliant thing that led to the destruction of my stepfather. The bookcase crushing him was really only an amusing ironic formality; it was the alcoholism that led him there.
He'd taken to accompanying his Dostoevsky with a large bottle of red wine. My mother ignored it, after all 'wine is not an alchoholic's alcohol'. They thought that all scholars took wine in moderation to mean guzzling bottles of red. I don't know why he did it; I did ask him once though:
'Sustanance- to keep me living until the pale hands of death shall grab me and drag me with her'
He meant his previous wife. Apparantly she was an alcoholic as well and he threw all her bottles out of the window and she jumped out after them. A guess, though it's probably true.
Anyway, one day, he asks me to bring him some wine whilst he goes into our library and reads a nice bit of Dickens. I told him it was a bad idea but he insisted. Dickens was on the top shelf, after Dante and before Dostoevsky and my stepfather was relatively short. He stood on the stepladder but he was very drunk and toppled. He grabbed at the shelf but then of course it fell on top of him.
So you see, the whole thing really was a learning curve for me and everyone else. Mother and I never touched alcohol again and the teachers stopped using my stepfather as an example of academic brilliance.
And someday, I'll be that example.
I never liked him, not really. He was a 'scholar', an epicurist of literature, and always flaunted the fact that he'd read War and Peace, 5 times, once in Russian. It seemed to be his only real claim to fame but nevertheless it entranced our neighbours and they held him up as a god.
At that time, I never really liked books. I didn't loathe them as such, more of a cruel indifference. School didn't know what to do with me: 'The girl doesn't read!'. My stepfather was famous amongst the teachers; he came into parents evening all dressed up in a suit and started having conversations with my English teacher about Shakespeare and my philosophy teacher about existentialism and my geography teacher about globalisation. They made me their pet then, even though they'd previously ignored me. They still try now to eke out some hidden brilliance. Maybe one day I'll let them find something- as it currently stands, I'll stay quite silent, feign ignorance.
I give you now the brilliant thing that led to the destruction of my stepfather. The bookcase crushing him was really only an amusing ironic formality; it was the alcoholism that led him there.
He'd taken to accompanying his Dostoevsky with a large bottle of red wine. My mother ignored it, after all 'wine is not an alchoholic's alcohol'. They thought that all scholars took wine in moderation to mean guzzling bottles of red. I don't know why he did it; I did ask him once though:
'Sustanance- to keep me living until the pale hands of death shall grab me and drag me with her'
He meant his previous wife. Apparantly she was an alcoholic as well and he threw all her bottles out of the window and she jumped out after them. A guess, though it's probably true.
Anyway, one day, he asks me to bring him some wine whilst he goes into our library and reads a nice bit of Dickens. I told him it was a bad idea but he insisted. Dickens was on the top shelf, after Dante and before Dostoevsky and my stepfather was relatively short. He stood on the stepladder but he was very drunk and toppled. He grabbed at the shelf but then of course it fell on top of him.
So you see, the whole thing really was a learning curve for me and everyone else. Mother and I never touched alcohol again and the teachers stopped using my stepfather as an example of academic brilliance.
And someday, I'll be that example.