Peter Bromhead: The grown-up's table

Cartoon / Peter Bromhead

When the reader's report arrived from Britain, reviewing my latest work about a Polish philosopher, I could hardly keep tears of joy from overwhelming me at the breakfast table.

I passed the review over to the caregiver, who read the contents in puzzled silence before sympathetically responding, "Oh dear! They clearly think you're some sort of turgid academic tosser."

"Isn't it wonderful," I beamed. "At long last, this means I can leave the children's table" - recalling Woody Allen's rueful comment that "if you pursue a career based on being humorous, it means you're never allowed to sit at the grown-ups' table".

"I can't wait to be taken seriously as a grown-up," I said, "I've waited 80 years for this!"

"I don't think you quite understand what this reviewer is suggesting," replied the caregiver gently, quoting from the scathing report: "What reader is seriously going to read an essay that dissects the metaphysics of the oxymoron to its very marrow?

"Or who cares in today's world about creating many forms of anacoluthon, such as beginning a sentence in one way and continuing or ending it in another way?

"Or even more mystifying, reversing the apex of the pyramidal structure, so that potential readers remain hopelessly bewildered when attempting to understand the gestalt philosophical purpose behind your work?"

"I was being droll," I responded stiffly, noting that the caregiver, probably like the reviewer, is of Scottish ancestry. It seems the subtleties of the absurd might have been lost on those resident north of Hadrian's Wall, simply because they have consumed too much porridge over the centuries.

"Ah! So you were still trying to be funny, in a long-winded academic sort of way?" replied the caregiver triumphantly. "You haven't really left the children's table, have you?"

Having exposed the fact that my so-called philosophical work is really satire flying at an altitude beyond comprehension, there was little more to say, so I continued to slurp down the caregiver's oats in silence.

"I think it's back to the drawing board for you," she continued. "What's your latest manuscript all about?"

"It's about the Chester Medieval Mystery Plays and the 1475 Corpus Christi script on the trial and flagellation of Christ," I grumpily replied.

"Let's trust the drollness behind that heavy-duty drama doesn't get lost in translation, as well," she replied dryly.