A Telegram Arrived — And I Had to Choose Between My Head and My Heart. “On Boxing Day, I rang my father and told him my news. He was momentarily silent until his delayed shock was so great that he dropped his favourite coffee cup and I heard it smash.”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
Comments 5
thread
latest
popular
Only now, almost 40 years after her death, do I realise how much she regretted the lack of educational and career opportunities open to her. Only now do I sympathise with her subconscious envy when they were offered to her daughter.
My mother and I recently spoke about how remarkable it was that her parents sent her and her seven sisters to college in 1940s/50s/60s India. I'm grateful to my grandparents because, minus a few bouts of "who is going to look after you after we die," my mom has been so supportive of my unconventional choices to delay marriage, to not have children, live alone, and pursue my curiosities. Now she even mentions how she might have done the same, despite loving Dad and us dearly. I think about this all the time -- it's really about choices, and the regrets and fear that snowballs through generations when you keep doors closed in a woman's life. Great story.
Great story indeed.
I have a different cultural background but a similar experience with deciding not to have children. My mother has been amazingly supportive. It's one of the best things she's ever done for me.
I really liked this piece, but then I thought, huh, Juliet Nicolson, I've heard that name before. If you know who she is, it's interesting how much is left out of this piece. Who her father was, the family she came from, the remarkable women (and men) in her lineage.
Even still they thought she wasn't university material and trained her up to be a wife. That angle -- that she came from a very well educated family of writers and they didn't see her as passing muster -- is missing, but would be interesting.
Also left out: Maybe the UK was different, but in North America she wouldn't even have had to try to get into a top school, she'd have been a "special interest" applicant the moment she applied. So from my perspective in North American admissions, OF COURSE they found a place for her at Oxford. But you'd have to know her life story to get that, and it's not included in the piece.
I love the story, and that her dad did so well in pointing her in the right direction. But it's also disingenuous if you know the family she comes from. She's the grandchild of very famous authors (one, interestingly, born in Iran), and somehow that doesn't come up in the piece? It's lovely to have an insightful father, but how many of us come from erudite families like that?
Wow, her biography really does cast this piece in a much different light. Thank you for pointing that out.
That's very interesting. It would be nice to read an expanded essay on this.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a kottke.org member. Check out your membership options.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!