The Last Samurai

by Helen DeWitt

I should not have frittered away my time at Oxford infiltrating classes on Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Hittite, Pali, Sanskrit and Dialects of the Yemen (not to mention advanced papyrology and intermediate hieroglyphics) instead of advancing the frontiers of human knowledge. The problem is that if you have grown up in the type of place that is excited to be getting its first motel, the type of place that is only dimly (if, indeed, at all) aware of the very existence of the Yemen, you want to study dialects of the Yemen if you can because you think you may well not get another chance.

An American in Britain has sources of solace available nowhere else on earth. One of the marvellous things about the country is the multitudes of fried chicken franchises selling fried chicken from states not known for fried chicken on the other side of the Atlantic. If you’re feeling a little depressed you can turn to Tennessee Fried Chicken, if you’re in black despair an Iowa Fried Chicken will put things in perspective, if life seems worthless and death out of reach you can see if somewhere on the island an Alaska Fried Chicken is frying chicken according to a recipe passed down by the Inuit from time immemorial.

Then I thought, there must be some other way not to listen to all this, and of course there was a way. Surely Liberace had brought me back here to pick me up. It would be rude to put a hand over his mouth, but if I were to put my mouth on his mouth this would stop him talking just as well without being rude.

I got home and I thought I should stop leading so aimless an existence. It is harder than you might think to stop leading an existence, & if you can’t do that the only thing you can do is try to introduce an element of purposefulness.

There is a strange taboo in our society against ending something merely because it is not pleasant—life, love, a conversation, you name it, the etiquette is that you must begin in ignorance & persevere in the face of knowledge, & though I naturally believe that this is profoundly wrong it’s not nice to go around constantly offending people.

he had some idea of what he was taking on; sometimes he thought he could do it, and sometimes he knew that he knew the form his death would take.

HC would never back down. He was a linguist, and therefore he had pushed the bounds of obstinacy well beyond anything that is conceivable to other men.

Sometimes I thought the problem wasn’t really money but then I remembered that someone had saved Sib’s life because it wasn’t worth killing yourself over money.

She’s beautiful. When she’s excited. When she’s bored she looks like someone who’s got two weeks to live. Someone who’s got two weeks to live & is going to spend it begging the doctor for a mercy killing.

When you’ve seen things, or things have been done to you, this badness gets inside you and comes back with you, and then people who’ve never been near a war, people who’ve never struck an animal never mind tortured anyone—people who are completely innocent—get hurt too.

Jonathan Glover is a modern Utilitarian, and the author of Causing Death and Saving Lives. He says before committing suicide you should change your job, leave your wife, leave the country.

I’ve some letters to write. I didn’t think I’d be able to because I think the important thing is to say I love them and I find it quite hard to say that because I’ve really only felt anything for the dog since I got back.