The Aspirational Dottiness of Old Age

Here’s a treat for those who relish fiction with off-the-wall cognitive mayhem – The Hearing Trumpet

Suddenly it seemed as if everyone in my online book world had read it (see here and here for here examples). 

It’s a short novel by Leonora Carrington, better known for her wildly idiosyncratic art. It was written in 1950, first published in 1974, and recently reissued by the NYRB. I thought it was about time I caught up. And so I did via the Open Library here.

And what a delight! In the words of ‘Professor’ Stanley Unwin: Deep joy!

The Hearing Trumpet is a frequent laugh-out-loud eruption of refreshing insanity as a 92-year-old Marian Leatherby takes on the challenge of hearing what her family thinks about her and then being warehoused by those relatives in an insane residence for senile old women.

Bearded and toothless, Marian is a vegetarian because:

I think it is wrong to deprive animals of their life when they are so difficult to chew anyway.

The maid, Rosina, is an Indian woman with a morose character and seems generally opposed to the rest of humanity. I do not believe that she puts me in a human category so our relationship is not disagreeable

Marian enjoys the freedom that age brings:

With age one becomes rather less sensitive to the idiosyncrasies of others; for instance at the age of forty I would have hesitated to eat oranges in a crowded tram or bus, today I would not only eat oranges with impunity but I would take an entire meal unblushingly in any public vehicle and wash it down with a glass of port which I take now and again as a special treat.

Marian and her friend take the aspirational dottiness of Jenny Jacobs’ poem “When I grow old I shall wear purple” (see poem below) to a whole new level. They reach the point where – in that vulgar modern phrase – they are all out of fucks.

The hearing trumpet is a gift from Carmella who wears a red wig in a “queenly gesture to her long lost hair” and smokes cigars between sucking on violet lozenges.

“This magnificent trumpet is going to change your life,” she says. And so it does. 

“You never know,” said Carmella. “People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats. You can’t be too careful. Besides, think of the exhilarating power of listening to others talk when they think you cannot.”

Carmella has a hobby:

“…her real pleasure in life is writing letters. Carmella writes letters all over the world to people she has never met and signs them with all sorts of romantic names, never her own. Carmella despises anonymous letters, and of course they would be impractical as who could answer a letter with no name at all signed at the end? These wonderful letters fly off, in a celestial way, by airmail, in Carmella*s delicate handwriting. No one ever replies. This is the really incomprehensible side of humanity, people never have time for anything.

And now – with the help of the trumpet – they can have conversational spats like this:

“You will also be able to listen to my last letter which I haven’t sent yet as I was waiting to read it to you. Ever since I stole the Paris telephone directory from the consulate I have increased my output. You have no ideas of the beautiful names in Paris. This letter is addressed to Monsieur Belvedere Oise Noisis, rue de la Rechte Potin, Paris He. You could hardly invent anything more sonorous even if you tried. I see him as a rather frail old gentleman, still elegant, with a passion for tropical mushrooms which he grows in an Empire wardrobe. He wears embroidered waistcoats and travels with purple luggage .”

“You know Carmella I sometimes think that you might get a reply if you didn’t impose your imagination on people you have never seen. Monsieur Belvedere Oise Noisis is undoubtedly a very nice name, but suppose he is fat and collects wicker baskets? Suppose he never travels and has no luggage, suppose he is a young man with a nautical yearning? You must be more realistic I think.”

“You are sometimes very negative minded Marian, although I know you have a kind heart, that is no reason that poor Monsieur Belvedere Oise Noisis should do anything so trivial as collecting wicker baskets. He is fragile but intrepid, I intend to send him some mushroom spore to enrich the species which he had sent from the Himalayas.” There was no more to be said so Carmella read the letter. She was pretending to be a famous Peruvian alpinist who had lost an arm trying to save the life of a grisly bear cub trapped on the edge of a precipice. The mother bear had unkindly bitten off her arm. She went on to give all sorts of information about high altitude fungus and offered to send samples. It seemed to me that she took too much for granted.

With her wild and paranoid imagination, Carmella imagines the institution as a prison fortress guarded by police dogs. Marian’s family however see a rosier picture 

“what a fine time you are going to have making lots of friends and taking healthy exercise” 

“What do you mean ‘healthy exercise?'” I asked, prey to an awful premonition that they might have a hockey team; one never knows with modern therapy. “I get plenty of exercise here.”

The Benefits of a Convent Education

And so Marian prepares to leave:

One has to be very careful what one takes when one goes away forever, something seemingly useless might become essential under specific circumstances. I decided to pack as if I were going to Lapland. There was a screw driver, hammer, nails, birdseed, a lot of ropes that I had woven myself, some strips of leather, part of an alarm clock, needles and thread, a bag of sugar, matches, coloured beads, sea shells and so on. Finally I put in a few clothes to prevent things rattling about inside the trunk.

Of course I knew I was not going to bribe the Eskimos, but I put everything in as if I were. Institutions like the far north are also cut off from civilisation and you never know what people might want. I was not educated in a convent school for nothing.

Payback

Revenge (getting your own back for ill-treatment or seeing justice fairly served) is as satisfying in fiction as it is in life  And this novel provides a delicious serving, well chilled.  Along the way, it takes up a spinning array of topics from alchemy to the holy grail, the perversities of nuns and monks, to murder, a transvestite, a new ice age, and the difficulties of getting wolves and goats to live together.

Having demented main characters allows the novelist the luxury of all manner of bizarre and hilarious riffs, chop logic, and flights of fancy. Surrealism set free. It all makes good sense. 

The Gambits

The residence is a set of bizarre nightmarish dwellings like something from the architectural imaginings of Rudolf Steiner –  a boot, a cuckoo clock, a red toadstool with yellow spots, a Swiss chalet, an Egyptian mummy,  a lookout. It’s all very absurd, oppressively impractical, and infantilizing.

It is managed by the hypocritical and moralizing Dr.and Mrs. Gambit who impose a limited diet, daily exercises, and a cultish religiosity.  All very Steineresque. 

Dr.Gambit summons Marian for personal admonition:

“There are certain things that you must neither expect nor try to understand at the present,” replied the doctor mysteriously. “Live your daily tasks with attention and Effort. Do not try to interpret Higher Planes and their mysteries before you can extricate yourself from Automatic Habit. Vice and Habit mean the same thing. As long as we are victims of Habit we are slaves to Vice. I advise you to begin by giving up cauliflower. I notice you have an inordinate appetite for this vegetable, your reigning passion, in fact, Greed.” Mrs. Gambit must have seen me steal a small branch of boiled cauliflower during the morning tasks in the kitchen. I must be more careful, I thought, nodding my head.

When one of the inmates finally talks back it is a delight! 

And so the story spins on.

 I never had any pretensions to a glorious death, but ending up as a meat broth had never entered my calculations.

Who needs OuLiPo with fiction like this? It’s a refreshing breath of sanity in a world gone mad.  I’m with Luis Buñuel “Reading the Hearing Trumpet liberates us from the miserable reality of our days.”

And now, that Warning from Jenny Jacobs. Seems quite tame really.