A Voyage Round My Father by John Mortimer

A Voyage Round My Father by John Mortimer

Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:

"All education is useless, but it fills in the time"

This is just one of the controversial, at times outlandish pronouncements of the father.

He is the hero of the narrative, albeit the son resembles the father more and more, as he grows up and then old.

I listened earlier to an adaptation for the BBC.

There is also a film based on John Mortimer's work.

Laurence Olivier plays the father and Alan Bates the son.

The father is a rather unusual, eccentric character and not just because he is blind.

He was not born blind, but when he tried to work up on a ladder, he fell from a tree in his garden.

The result was ghastly, with the eyes out of their sockets.

Nevertheless, the challenged man does not like to mention the blindness.

His son is the storyteller and I understand has much in common with John Mortimer, this being an autobiographical account.

The narrator is flabbergasted by the fact that father does not get mad at his misfortune, but instead gets worked up for a...running egg.

There are many humorous scenes, with the father being quite funny ...sometimes.

He can also be annoying, or have his humor verge towards the absurd.

Trying to explain this son the disappointment of sex, love life he says

- Sex is overrated

Then a story with a husband, a lover and a wife that is appalled when her husband and lover seem to communicate well, instead of fighting over her.

- What was the point?

- Well, I don't know...

The son meets, as he is a young man now, with two women who may, or may not be lesbians.

One of them is called Bill and seemed to me rather militaristic.

In school, there is a headmaster who says that he is known as...Noah.

And then he goes on to give all the nicknames of staff and teachers.

After some mild adventures, the son encounters a woman that he likes.

A lot.

The meeting with this difficult, outre, special blind man is feared.

It is a challenge since he means only half of what he says.

One will be puzzled and wonder which half he mean, says Elizabeth.

Elizabeth has children, but she is willing to marry the son.

In her, we find another atypical personage, that is more than outspoken, she may indeed come across as a bit rude.

She asks her would be father-in-law:

- Why do you worry so much about this garden?

- You do not see the flowers anyway...

- Elizabeth...

- What? He is blind, isn't he?

This is a very interesting and entertaining play.

Ataraxia