Injury Time - D.J. Enright - A Recommended Read

I have just finished an intriguing book, Injury Time by D.J. Enright. It is a difficult book to categorize. Enright called it a memoir. Robert Conquest says it is, “Enright at his best in the most arresting and commonplace book for years. His gentle manner makes his occasional sharp judgements all the more devastating.”

He covers many topics - morals, manners, people and especially the English language. It is a witty, acerbic, moving and poignant piece, written while being treated for terminal cancer from which he died at the age of 82, shortly after he completed the book.

Through Enright I was introduced to the literary adjective, ben trovato, meaning "characteristic or appropriate even if untrue". Among his favourite examples was the computer spell check program that refused to accept the opening line of Moby Dick (Call me Ishmael) and offered up in its place – Call me Fishmeal! Another was the advertisement in the West Briton for: “Competent chef required by quality restaurant…No time wasters or pre-Madonnas.”

A poet himself, Enright weaves numerous verses of his work and that of other poets into his meandering look at life and death, including my favourite, a verse by Fergus Allen from his

poem, To Be Read Before Being Born:

No time is allowed for practice or rehearsal
There are no retakes and there isn’t a prompter.
There’s only moving water, dimpled by turbulence
And no clambering out on to the bank
To think things over, as there is no bank.

The book is filled with witty quotes. Enright quotes Thomas Nagel in Mortal Questions, “I should not really object to dying if it were not followed by death”. To this Enright adds his own mordant observation by saying, “others might not really object to death if it were not preceded by dying.”

Here is a typical vignette Enright shares with his readers. They combine his love of the English language, and his concern for how it is being lost through ignorant usage.

A reader of the Times, describing himself as being of a generation for whom grass was for cutting, coke was kept in the coal-shed, and a gay person was the life and soul of the party, tells how relieved he was to find in a certificate of insurance issued by Lloyds that some things hadn’t changed. Under the heading “Words with special meanings, came the gloss: ‘Death means loss of life’

The book is not preoccupied with death, but it is a major theme and Enright’s ability to find humour in almost every facet of his journey is remarkable. He follows the advice of Ulrich in Robert Musil’s, The Man Without Qualities who warned that “you cannot be angry with your own time without harming yourself”. He takes on most of the major issues concerning the demise of our culture, but he does not rail nor rage.

There is a sweetness and gentleness in him as well, illustrated by his description of the cab ride home from hospital following one of his treatments, accompanied by his wife who herself had just undergone an endoscopy. Imagine the mood of these two octogenarians as they enter the cab, yet Enright describes the scene thus:

“Then something happened that almost made it, some of it, worthwhile. The young black cabbie allocated to us was sweet-natured and kind-hearted, above and beyond the call of duty or of any conceivable tip. (He didn’t want one). Every cloud has its silver lining? But this was an avatar, as if some aspect of deity had chosen that moment and place to descend among us. And this would be a good note to end on. On the brink of sudden and happy tears.”

Injury Time, a book to make you laugh and cry.