The Finch in My Brain by Martino Sclavi

Author:Martino Sclavi [Sclavi, Martino]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2017-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

After interminable discussions with different and extremely highly qualified doctors, with full control of a medical vocabulary that is (I assume) explicitly designed to exclude normal humans from the conversation, I can confirm that the words ‘unequivocal’ or ‘certain’ are not to be adopted in my personal medical lexicon. There will always be another doctor with a very convincing and opposite theory.

This medical debate has had long and complex repercussions on my relationship with my wife in the past months. When we sit down with these doctors, and before I even say a word, I notice that their eyes focus only on Margarita. They know that she was Ada’s student and so will actually understand their jargon. In our relationship, as it developed from the beginning, I was the one who mediated her battle against the Italian legal system that wanted to kick her out of the country because she was an immigrant. I was the one that continuously fought for her in this extremely masculine culture.

But now the roles have been completely reversed and she is the one that is fluent in their language, and who after every meeting has to translate it to me in a vocabulary that I can understand.1 I love her for trying to teach me the importance of their semantics, but I don’t seem to have the time or patience for it. It feels like those discussions between political parties in parliament. You can talk your way into anything, but at some point, someone has to stand up and say, ‘Are we going to cut these aliens away or not?’

Not for the first time, one of Antonio Gramsci’s quotes saved me: ‘The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned.’

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