Letter from my terrace in Palma 15 Rises and Falls.

                                                                                  7  September

Rises and Falls

Here on my terrace in Palma it is still too hot to sit on the terrace during the day.  When the evening comes and brings some shade, then we can finally venture out.  Some years ago we could count on cooler days in September but now September is another summer month.  It is often as hot as July or August.  Still, there it is. ‘Què hem de fer?’ as they say here in resignation.  ‘What can we do about it?’  Well, we can cool down in October!

And so to rises and falls. The words remind me of memorizing intonation patterns in those far-off days when I studied phonetics. Everything we say can be classified according to patterns of rises and falls in the pitch of our voice. These patterns are used at different moments according to what we say and how we feel when we say it.   But intonation is a tricky subject and like clouds, it resists classification.

Now, apparently, stories have also been classified into patterns of rises and falls but these are the ups and downs in the fortunes of the hero and heroine. I have a feeling that stories, like clouds and intonation, will also prove to have a mind of their own and that attempts to classify them will prove unhelpful.

Many years ago my English teacher at school said, ‘There are only five stories in the world and one of them is Cinderella’. His comment has stuck in my mind ever since.  It is strange how certain moments stay with you for always.  Out of the hours and hours of classes that I had at school, these memories are what remain. Later, as I have read stories over the years, I realize that my English teacher was right.

Now the Computational Story Lab at the University of Vermont has put 1700 novels through extensive computer analysis and has concluded that there are six (not five) stories in the world.  They have various names but I am pleased to see that one of them is still Cinderella. Others include ‘Icarus’.  This is Rise then Fall.  ‘What a fall was there my countrymen!’  Right out of the sky into the sea with the wax that was holding his feathered wings together melting fast. Read Auden’s poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ and see what he has to say about Icarus.

"About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters."

Another type is the ‘Man in a hole’.  This is Fall then Rise as the man digs himself out. And what about women? Cinderella is labelled Rise, Fall, Rise.  The last Rise is the moment the glass slipper is seen to fit her foot perfectly. I am not sure what the first Rise refers to.

I prefer my teacher’s brief comment.  He made his point without fussing with rises and falls, and what he said has stayed with me ever since.

This work has kept researchers and their computers busy for some time.  But what really matters here? These people have spent hours on stating, elaborating and supporting their theory but have they really added to the sum of human happiness?

One butterfly that flies through the sunshine on a summer’s morning and sits for a few seconds on the buddleia by the wall is worth 1700 butterflies that are pinned to a board in classified order under a glass case.

More than research results, we need stories.  We need another tale that ‘keeps children from play and old men from the chimney corner’, in the words of Sir Philip Sidney, and he knew what he was talking about.