Yesterday, I went to the dentist. I like my new dentist, but he doesn’t like me. What I mean is that his technician, who cleans the teeth, tells me that I have very poor teeth-brushing habits. The dentist himself added, “You probably breathe through your mouth when you sleep?” This was all very unpleasant. It is true that, as my back ossified over the years, it became more and more awkward to manipulate a toothbrush, even an electric one. Also, I don’t like to brush my teeth after eating: it spoils the aftertaste of the meal. As for mouthbreathing (heavens!), my nostrils have never worked properly. Actually, only one works at a time. Is that normal? It’s late in the day for such questions. I’m becoming an old man of dubious personal hygiene! The upshot, so far as dentistry is concerned, is more frequent visits, id est monthly, instead of semi-annually.

And today, it’s the “full body scan.” The dermatologist looks me over — all over. I’ve gotten used to it, sort of. But I have become a very modest old man.

On the bright side, it’s nine in the morning but I don’t hear a thing. In addition to the subway-station project directly out the front door, Con Edison is doing something in front of Fairway, something involving jackhammers. And First Avenue is being repaved. This time with asphalt, it appears. Over thirty years ago, they poured a concrete roadway with steel reinforcements. It ought to have lasted longer, but First Avenue is the northbound lane of I 999, an unofficial Interstate Highway that would dry up in an instant if they would only toll the East and Harlem River Bridges. Second Avenue is the southbound lane. The particulate-matter emissions of heavy trucks is not regulated. I can tell, every time I wipe down the tables on the balcony.

But, for the moment, however inexplicably, no noise.

***

Instead of yammering on about They Were Counted — but I must say that Book Three of the novel is the most densely-packed piece of literary fabulousness ever, with a declaration-of-love-scene that flies off the page and into a waltz — I’ve found a couple of blog posts about the book, one from the Neglected Books Page, written a few years ago, before Everyman got into the act, and one from the Chicago Reader.

At the end of his Introduction to the Everyman edition, Hugh Thomas thanks Antonia Fraser for recommending the book to him. At the Neglected Books Page, it’s reported that Jan Morris named They Were Counted the book of the year for 2000. (The English translation first appeared in 1999.) That’s the sort of swell that’s going to carry Míklos Bánffy’s masterpiece into the library of every well-read person. Caroline Moor (also reported at Neglected Books) writes,

Banffy vies with Tolstoy for sweep, Pasternak for romance and Turgenev for evocation of nature; his fiction is packed with irresistible social detail and crammed with superb characters: it is gloriously, addictively, compulsively readable.

I hasten to add that, at least in the English translation, it is extremely well-written. And also very funny at times, with a finer-grained sense of the ridiculous than one finds among the Russians, and more generous good humor than one encounters among the French. It is, in short, miraculously humane.

The spell of sticky weather came to an end late yesterday, and I slept well for the first time in over a week. I woke up every ninety minutes or so, took a big sip of icewater (mouthbreathing!), toddled off to the bathroom, and then slid back into odd but entertaining dreams. Some of the details were unmistakably lifted from Bánffy.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 4th, 2013 at 10:03 am.