he’s got a degree in Physics, but has no clue what the Doppler effect is all about?
From the moment he had glued himself in front of the computer screen at daybreak, he must have read that same paragraph about fifty times and it still wasn’t up to scratch. He had been struggling with it for a month now. He had sweated blood to set it on the right path but it was all in vain. It persistently resisted his every attempt to humanize it a little, even if he accommodated its every whim. Frowned at a noun? He’d serve it with another. Not impressed with such and such adjective? He’d sacrifice it there and then without a second thought. Fussy about this verb or that? He’d turn it into a gerund or switch from present perfect to past perfect in seconds. Pouted at this phrase or that? He’d beat the daylights out of it. And the trouble writing it in the first place? Indescribable. The importance he had given it, especially when his novel was nothing but mere paragraphs, was completely disproportionate to its actual size. Not, however, to its position. It was, you see, right at the forefront, and therefore capable of jeopardizing the rest of the paragraphs, depriving them, and by what right, of their right to exist. Perhaps for that reason – realising the burden of its responsibility – it carried to the nth degree every demand and caprice the others had. That’s why it was required being as squeaky-clean as a shop owner keeps his window display. And rightfully so, because the publisher, briefly glancing over his debut novel, would not hesitate one bit to throw it in the bin if it was “full of holes” from the very first paragraph. Yet, on the contrary, especially if the paragraph got a “look at that!” out of him, it would so sweeten him that he wouldn’t be able to resist reading the rest of it immediately. The aim, in other words, was to grab the publisher’s attention, in the same way that someone might, thanks to a pickup line, attract that of the snooty stranger he had a crush on. And not because, in the crucial moment of addressing it to her, as inventive as it may be, she’s stunned by his repulsive breath. A very thorough combing of the first paragraph, and a bit of brushing and gargling with a mouthwash solution were therefore essential before he sent his novel out into the world. It wasn’t, however, as if it was destined to be the first one up. That it happened to be so was due to the violent ousting of its predecessor, which was deemed incorrigible and to have bitten the biscuit. Not only did that one carry with it like a scourge the stigma, the adolescent acne and complexes of a newly fledged writer, but, as it was written to lead the dance, it also carried the stage fright from all eyes turned on it. Or maybe at the ringside? – Yeah, right. As if the publisher doesn’t have better things to do than read whatever rubbish people send. He/she is probably going to pass it over to one of the junior employees. – Well, all right. It’s not being sent to Patakis Publishers though, is it? – What if it’s in pdf format? – Metaphorically speaking, give me a break. “Already carrying the stage fright from all the not yet turned on it eyes,” more accurately. “Of a still fledgling writer” you mean to say. Time for it to bugger off. For the story’s sake, here’s what that paragraph was: “Lila had just shut behind her with a lot of commotion – on purpose? by accident? he would never know – his heavy house door. Immediately, the click clacks of her heels echoed as she stepped down the stairs, until the sound faded. Why hadn’t she taken the lift? Was it busy? He was never going to learn the reason why either. What followed was the thud of the entrance door of the building closing – perfectly audible, with the apartment being on the first floor. He drew the curtain aside slightly and saw her emerge onto the sidewalk, pulling along her equipped-with-wheels bag. She was probably already heading for the subway station when a police car zipped down the road at great speed, its siren blaring, something that, under normal circumstances, Babis would have ignored. But in this particular conjuncture, he was reminded of an example from Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (the difference in that case being that it was about an ambulance), which he had recently read, about the Doppler effect. Whether or not he was 100 % aware of what the writer claimed, that supposedly the piercing sound of a siren became more condensed as the vehicle got closer and more sparse the farther it went and despite not completely comprehending why in physics something like that was defined as a “change in the frequency and the wavelength of the moving object in relation to the observer”, he nonetheless had more than enough confidence in Hawking to accept that example as proof that the universe is not static, but – just like a balloon that inflates – it expands, resulting in, for example, two galaxies, distancing themselves from each other with a speed of approximately seventy kilometres per second. As quickly, that is, as it roughly took this godsend thought to bring him – reminding him how irrelevant and meaningless everything was in comparison to the universe’s infinity – back to his senses. He wiped the two or three tears that had rolled down his cheeks with his sleeve, when, only minutes before, he had been about to lose Lila from his line of sight possibly forever. It was in moments such as these, when astronomy stood by him in its own way no matter what blows fate had in store for him, that he kicked himself for not having studied it.” Reading the paragraph over again, he couldn’t help but to admit, it was so bad, that its successor, regardless of its shortcomings, was clearly, if not better, certainly less irritating. If nothing else, it didn’t, from the very beginning, tire the reader with Doppler effects and other such crap, while at the same time ushering him/her smoothly into the novel with its IKEA-style minimalism. It was inheriting of course – since disclaiming your inheritance in that case was not foreseen by law – all of the disadvantages that came with its now new position, yet, all the same, it also maintained whichever Thud? Are you sure? Get your ass over to the ground floor to check, right now! 1) It’s called a wheeled bag and 2) it can’t be that a) she’s pulling the bag down the stairs, and you can hear the click clack (?) of her heels, and b) whether she dumped him or not, why doesn’t he carry it down for her? – How’s it possible that, as you say further down, he’s got a degree in Physics, but has no clue what the Doppler effect is all about? – Is that the problem, now? I’ll just have him be a Greek Lit major. – No way. I want him to be a Lover of Science. Delete that now. Says Coelho from a mile away. It’s not so bad after all! Maybe reconsider? advantages came with the stress-free act of not being written as the very first. That had to count for something. With his morale somewhat high, he continued to read the text, commenting on it every now and again in the margins. He was on the verge of sending his novel to a publishing house.