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Belles Lettres
by
Harry Buschman
belles-lettres (bel'let're) n.pl. Literature
having aesthetic appeal, rather
than didactic or informational value; poetry, drama, fiction, etc. [< F. fine
letters]
My mother's nickname was "Belle." Now, isn't that a fine name
for the third daughter in a five daughter family.? (It wasn't the final bell,
there were two more to come!) Her father was a member of the D'Oyly Carte opera
company which came over here to present Gilbert and Sullivan to America's tone
deaf masses. The company had limited success in the states, which in show
business, means it was a flop. After a short stay, the troupe abandoned its
effort to enlighten their pagan brothers in the new world and sailed back to
England.
My grandfather decided to stay, and with his new bride he raised a family of
five girls, the oldest of whom was less than five years older than the youngest.
My mother's only inheritance was a love of the English language. I said love,
but it would be more accurate to call it a blind passion. Some people are like
that. She was not a well educated woman. The girl's of my mother's day were
content with a grammar school diploma, and those who had one were destined for a
career in letters, (usually dictated) regardless of their other qualifications.
She fell in love with every word she read regardless of what it meant so long as
it was long enough and written in a fine flowing hand. On the sending side, with
nothing vital to say, she wrote letters to everyone. I'm sure people to whom she
wrote opened them with high expectations and marveled at the penmanship, then
read them with growing annoyance, then scratched their heads wondering just what
the hell she was talking about.
She wrote many letters to the Daily News filled with childish ideas for making
the world a better place to live in. Occasionally the Pastor's Sunday homily
would inspire her to write to the editor of a newspaper and suggest to him that
sex and violence were not fit subjects to appear in print. None of her letters
were ever acknowledged even though each of them was enclosed with a sprig of
mint or lily-of-the-valley.
She loved the sound of words and if 'opulence' might fit the meaning of what she
had to say, she might substitute 'flatulence', if it fit the visual flow of her
prose -- a flowing and decorated "f" appeared so much better than an "O." My
father, on the other hand, never wrote anything at all -- and rarely read. His
writing was confined to signing my report card.
My mother took up the pen for the two of them and wrote letters to his friends
and relatives which he signed. He signed them without looking, and so far as I
know never read one. By this copout he condemned his own family and friends to
suffer the inarticulate literary onslaught of a woman infatuated with the look
and sound of words regardless of what they meant.
To me they shall always be called "Belles lettres" -- that is, literature that
has little or no content, conveys no information, and like Chinese food is
quickly digested and expelled. She wrote letters for the joy of writing to
people, who in turn took little joy in reading them. She dotted her "i's" with
little circles, her g's had double curlicues at the bottom, and her "wyes"
looked like ice patterns traced by an Olympic figure skater. She included a
sprig of lilies-of-the-valley in every envelop, and God only knows what people
thought of my father when they got a letter from him.
I often wonder how the word processor and my mother would have gotten along
together. How her fingers would have danced on the keys! She would have spent
long hours with fonts and styles in every conceivable color, underlining and
italics would be everywhere; her belles-lettres would have been as difficult to
decipher as the dead sea scrolls. I'm sure supper would have burned on the stove
and my father would have spent more time than he did at the corner tavern.
©1996 Harry Buschman
(670)
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