MY LATE SON

Dear Elfriede Jelinek,

It is my belief that love is inhuman. It is not a technology invented by humans--it's not even for humans--but it is one that humans use. Humans use the technology of audience. Audience is an older technology than love. It is a technology that humans use, even as they are huddled in a cave, their eyes cast down, as the phantasmagoria comes through.

When the phantasmagoria comes through, you need to be certain to keep your eyes down, Elfriede. If you put your eyes up, and if you see the phantasmagoria, then a few things must happen:

1. You die. Overwhelmingly, after all, the universe is not for humans.
2. You lose your eyes. You're left with two burnt out holes.
3. You join the phantasmagoria.

I have it that my grandfather joined it, Elfriede. He joined it young before he died. Then, he joined it late. My great grandfather joined it, too. And so did my tri-great grandfather. That's the man who Jesse James saw. He said my tri-great grandfather was "just some kid."

You have a book. It is Women as Lovers. This is its first sentence in translation:

"one day brigitte decided, that she wanted to be only woman, all woman for a guy, who was called heinz."

There is no better first sentence to anything, Elfriede. That is the first sentence. I'm not sure what it's like in the original, though. What is the original language? German?

Your first sentence.

"one day" acts as an adverbial. It tells us, the readers, when this is all happening. It's all happening "one day"--that is, a day in which I mistook a black dog for a crow in a field.

"one" is an adjective.

"day" is a noun.

"brigitte" is the subject of the sentence. It is a proper noun. It is the noun of a person named brigitte. In the book, this word is not capitalized, which is something that is non-standard. It is a marked way of doing things.

"decided" is the main verb. It is a transitive verb because it requires a direct object.

"that she wanted to be only woman" is the direct object of the transitive verb "decided." It is a noun clauses. (I am not sure why there is a comma before this direct object, this noun clause, Elfriede. Is that something that you did in the original German? Or is this something that Martin Chalmers, your translator, did? Have you met with Martin? Have you met him face-to-face, or has your only interaction with him been via some device?)

"that" is a little unnecessary piece. I'm not sure if it's called an expletive. If we were diagramming this sentence, then I'd put this "that" in the air and under a dotted line.

"she" is the subject of the noun clause that acts as the direct object. This word, "she," is a pronoun that casts back to "brigitte."

"wanted" is the verb of the noun clause. It looks to be a transitive verb because the verb "to want" is almost always transitive. After all, Elfriede, don't we normally want something. It would be abnormal just to want and want and want without wanting something. The more I write about the verb "to want," however, the more I feel that we're stupid to think it should have a direct object. We really don't know what we want. We never know what that something is.

"to be only woman" is the direct object of the verb "wanted," which is in past tense and which is the main verb of the noun clause.

"to be only woman" is an infinitive phrase that functions as a noun.

"to be" is the infinitive. It is the "to be" verb and is not conjugated. The "to be" verb requires a complement.

"only woman" is the subject complement--the predicate nominative--that goes at the end of the "to be" infinitive.

"only" is what here? It's in front of a noun, so is it an adjective? I usually think of "only" as an adverb, though.

"woman" is a noun. It's what brigitte wants to be. I would like her to be that, but I wouldn't want her to worry about it. Or if she did not want to be a woman, then she shouldn't be a woman. Or he shouldn't want to be a woman. Or they should not want to be a woman. It's not always best to want to be a noun. A noun goes only so far. A noun never goes far enough, Elfriede. That's one thing that no one knows on this planet. I might be the only one, and now I've told you. (Don't worry; you don't have to gift me you Nobel Prize.)

"all woman for a guy" looks to be--in my addled mind--an appositive. Doesn't it modify the preceding noun, "woman"? I am no authority on the English language, Elfriede.

"all" is an adjective, I think. Again, it's in front of a noun.

"woman" is a noun. Back to those nouns that never add up, that never go far enough.

"for a guy" is a prepositional phrase that modifies "woman." It modifies the woman that's closest to it--the "woman" that's in the prepositional phrase, not the "woman" that's in the infinitive phrase. Many women. They are all different, even though they are the same word. There is no such thing as a synonym, even when it's a repeated word word.

"for" is the preposition.

"a" is the indefinite article.

"guy" is a noun. A real fucker.

"who was called heinz" is a relative clause--an adjective clause--that modifies "guy."

"who" is the subject of the clause. It is a relative pronoun. It is the subject of a passive clause--a passive construction. The "who" is not passive, but whoever is calling him heinz is.

"was called" is the main verb of the relative clause. It is in a passive construction because we have the past tense form of the "to be" verb followed by the past participle. A dead giveaway. A dead give.

"heinz" is a proper noun--like brigitte.