THE MOST INSPIRING LETTER

A FUNNY SHOE STORE 

So here I am - an apprentice. I am the "boy" in a "stylish footwear" shop on the main street of the town.

My master is a round little creature with a bleary face, greenish teeth, and bilge-water eyes.

"What was your job at home?" asks the master.

When I tell him, he shakes his bullet head, all pasted over with grey hair, and says hurtfully:

"Scavengering - that's worse than begging, worse than stealing."

"I stole too," I announce, not without pride.

At that he leans on his palms like a cat on its paws, fixes me with vacuous, starting eyes, and hisses over the counter:

"Wh-a-a-t! You say you stole?"

I explain how and what.

"Well, we'll let that pass. But if you go stealing my boots or my money, I'll have you in jail before you ever come of age."

He says this very calmly, but I am frightened, and dislike him all the more.

Besides the master, there are two assistants in the shop: my cousin Sasha (son of Yakov), and the senior assistant, a slick, slimy, ruddy fellow.

Whenever a lady entered the shop, the master would take his hand out of his pocket, lightly touch his moustaches, and glue on a saccharine smile. 

The assistant always spread his fingers in an amazing manner when kneeling before a lady to try on shoes. His hands would be all aquiver, and he would touch the leg as if afraid of breaking it, although it was usually a fat leg, resembling a droop-shouldered bottle turned upside down.

Once one of the ladies squirmed and kicked out her toe, saying:

"Oh dear! How you do tickle!"

"That's just out of politeness, ma'am," was the assistant's quick rejoinder.

It was comical to see him hovering about the ladies and I had to turn away to keep from laughing. But I could never resist the temptation to turn back, so ludicrous were the shop assistant's devices. And it seemed to me that never in my life could I make my fingers stick out so politely, or fit shoes so deftly.

Often the master would retire to a little room at the back of the shop and call Sasha, leaving the senior assistant alone with a customer. I remember his once touching the instep of a large blonde and then drawing his finger tips together and kissing them.

"Oh, what a naughty fellow you are!" giggled the woman.

"Ah-h-h-h!" said he, smacking his lips.

I laughed so hard that I grabbed the doorknob to keep from falling; the door opened, my head banged against the glass, and the glass fell out. The assistant stamped his foot at me and my master rapped me over the head with his heavy gold signet ring. Sasha tried to tweak my ears, and that evening as we were going home he warned me severely: 

"You'll get the sack if you behave like that. What was so funny anyhow?" 

Then he explained that the more enchanting the ladies found the shop assistant, the better for business. 

"Even if a lady doesn't need shoes, she'll buy herself an extra pair just to get another look at a nice man. Can't you understand that? There's no teaching you anything!" 

His words offended me. No one in the shop had ever tried to teach me anything, least of all Sasha. 

Every morning the cook, an ailing cantankerous woman, would wake me up an hour earlier than my cousin. I would heat the samovar, bring in wood for all the stoves, scour the dinner pots, and brush the clothes and clean the boots of my master, the senior assistant, and Sasha. At the shop I swept, dusted, made tea, delivered packages, and then went home to fetch the dinner. While I was busy with these chores, Sasha had to take my place at the door, and finding this beneath his dignity, he would shout at me:

"You lout! Me having to do your work for you!" 

I found my present existence boring and irksome. I missed Granny and my friends, I had no one to talk to, and I was chafed by the false, seamy side of life as I now saw it.

Frequently the ladies would leave the shop without buying a thing, and then my master and his two assistants would become indignant. 

"Kashirin, put away the shoes!" the master would command, pocketing his saccharine smile.

"Had to poke her snout in here, the pig! Got tired of sitting home, so the old fool decided to do the shops! Oho, if she was my wife, wouldn't I show her a thing or two though!"

Often, after seeing out a lady with polite bows and gracious remarks, the master and his assistants would say filthy, shameful things about her, making me want to run out into the street, catch up with her, and tell her what they had said. 

Naturally I knew that people were inclined to say nasty things behind your back, but it was particularly exasperating to hear these three speak about everybody as though they themselves were the finest people on earth and had been appointed to pass judgment on all others. They envied most people, praised no one, and knew some unsavoury bit of gossip about everyone. 

Into the shop one day came a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked young woman wearing a velvet cloak with a black fur collar. Her face surmounted the fur like an amazing flower. She became even prettier when she had thrown her cloak over Sasha's arm; diamond drops glittered in her ears and her graceful figure was shown off to advantage by a tight-fitting, blue-grey gown. She reminded me of Vasilissa the Beautiful, and I was sure that she must be at least the wife of the Governor. They received her with particular deference, bowing before her like fire worshippers and muttering honeyed words. All three of them rushed madly about the shop, their reflections flashing in the glass of the showcases, and it seemed as if everything were flaming and fusing and would presently assume new forms and contours. 

When she left, after having quickly selected an expensive pair of shoes, the master clicked his tongue and hissed:

"The hussy!" 

"In a word - an actress," murmured the shop assistant superciliously.

And they went on to tell each other about the lady's lovers and the gay life she led.

(From "MY APPRENTICESHIP", the second volume in Maxim Gorky's humane entertaining autobiography in three volumes: (1) "CHILDHOOD", (2) "MY APPRENTICESHIP", (3) "MY UNIVERSITIES", all translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Progress Publishers, Moscow.)

Kishalay Sinha [G]

WHY ARE BOOKS SO BORING?

For a long time, I have pondered why most books - textbooks, nonfiction, fiction - are so boring, regardless of any prizes they may have got.

I think most writers start dreaming of becoming a famous writer even at a very young age and start contacting book agents and after heartbreaking rejections finally get publishers who are willing to publish them and then the pathetic writers keep on revising and re-revising their manuscripts and typescripts which go back and forth between the authors and publishers' editors in a funny way, and finally, if the books are eventually published, the poor publishers and sympathetic kind literary reviewers advertise the books as "bestsellers" that have sold "millions of copies". I feel like crying (yes, Crocodile tears).

The main reasons why most books are very boring and sleep-inducing are:

1. The authors have not read good fiction.

2. The authors have not read books on how to write well. Two excellent guides to composition are:

(i) SHEFTER'S GUIDE TO BETTER COMPOSITIONS by Harry Shefter, Professor of English, New York University, published by Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster. (It may be out of print. Contact ALIBRIS and BETTER WORLD BOOKS, sellers of used books, who have millions of used books in stock.)

(ii) Dr. RUDOLF FLESCH: "How to Speak, Think, Write Effectively" (Signet)

Best of luck!

Kishalay Sinha [G]

THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF SCIENCE 

I still have in My personal library three popular science books in THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF SCIENCE "multi-volume series designed for the general reader and spanning the whole range of the natural and physical sciences", edited by SAMUEL RAPPORT and HELEN WRIGHT, which contain fascinating articles such as "The Method of Scientific Investigation" by T. H. Huxley and "How Agassiz Taught Me to See" by Nathaniel Shaler, which every reader will enjoy reading:

1. SCIENCE: Method and Meaning

2. PHYSICS

3. ENGINEERING 

My copies of the above three books,

which were originally published by New York University, are paperback editions published by Washington Square Press/Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, New York.

I bought many excellent Washington Square Press/Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster inexpensive paperbacks from Pocket Books Distributing Co., Calcutta (Kolkata), 30, Chittaranjan Avenue, Kolkata, which was run by Mr. J.D. Tanna, a warm bookseller, when I was a college student many years ago. (J.D. Tanna later handed over his bookshop, renamed TIMELY BOOKS CENTRE, to his equally warm and friendly son, whom I met a few years ago at a Book Fair held in My home town Guwahati, Assam, India.)

By the way, I have about 3000 books in My personal library, bought over many years. I am not trying to show off. I like My modesty to shine.

Thoughts generated as I watch:

Crisis and Opportunity: The Future of Publishing (1:21:18)/The Graduate Center, CUNY (YouTube)

Kishalay Sinha [G] April 7, 2020 

G 

G for Genius, Guwahati etc. etc. not Gigolo God forbid!

Simon & Schuster have published erotic novels as G (Gallery Books) publications, e.g. IF I WERE YOU by Lisa Renee Jones, BEING ME by Lisa Renee Jones, BEAUTIFUL BASTARD by Christina Lauren, BEAUTIFUL STRANGER by Christina Lauren. (I have bought all four paperbacks.)

Kishalay Sinha [G] 

LITERARY AGENTS 

Listening to the sweet depressed female literary agents and male literary agents on YouTube - God knows how the poor sweet guys have managed to survive all these years, constantly having to read and reject trash after trash submitted to them by worthless guys who foolishly imagine themselves to be great best-selling authors in the making - cf. "Literary Agents: Full Uncensored Interview" (58:41)/The Hollywood Reporter (YouTube) - I have a bright idea. Literary agents can contact Me to get My formal permission to allow them to submit any number of My online posts to the many publishers they know. I will give permission at once. I will not take any money. The poor sweet literary agents can get their personal commissions from the publishers. After all, publishers don't go to authors. Literary agents - male and female (!) - go to the Author! May God bless poor sweet literary agents!

Kishalay Sinha [G] April 7, 2020 

THE MOST INSPIRING LETTER 

Many years ago, when I was a college student, I learned about the death of Dr. Wilfred Funk of Reader's Digest from a book on word power by his worthy son Peter Funk, and I wrote the following letter to Peter Funk, New York, USA, from My home town Guwahati, Assam, India:

Dear Sir, 

I will always remember your father Wilfred Funk with gratitude, and associate with his name all that is true and noble in this world. My memory of him will always be sacred.

I would like to read all the books that your father has written. I have two books of them with me: SIX WEEKS TO WORDS OF POWER, and 30 DAYS TO A MORE POWERFUL VOCABULARY written in collaboration with his friend Norman Lewis. I have tried hard to obtain all the books of Wilfred Funk and of Norman Lewis, but I have not succeeded.

I write to ask for help. I can pay for the books - only, I do not know how to get them. In this, Sir, I hope and I pray you would assist me.

Respectfully yours,

Kishalay Sinha 

Peter Funk replied from New York: 

Dear Mr. Sinha:

My father would have been delighted with your letter. He was an outstanding lexicographer. His approach helped people not only to understand the secrets of vocabulary building but also encouraged them to see the beauty of words. His enthusiasm for words was inculcated in thousands of people.

All of my father's books can be had from:

Funk & Wagnalls

New York 

U.S.A.

***

The most inspiring letter I have ever received.

I think Reader's Digest and Simon & Schuster, which are internationally famous publishers of high quality publications, are closely connected publishers of New York.

Kishalay Sinha [G]