“a story about a death postponed by life”
Once upon a time, there was a young German man called Paul Wolfskehl. Spurned in love by his beautiful intended, he determined to kill himself.
On a particular date.
At midnight.
Once he had written his final letters to loved ones, and amended his will.
In a display of efficiency - which most are too polite to call "ruthlessly German" - Wolfskehl finished all of his pre-suicide correspondence admin long before midnight on the allotted day. And so went to his library for diversion.
Scanning through the mathematical publications, he happened to read a paper by Kummer on why two major efforts to prove Fermat's Last Theorem* had failed. Though only an amateur mathematician, he became absorbed by the paper and found an error in it. Stayed awake till dawn to remedy the flaw in Kummer's proof. Found he was too proud of himself, and the work just achieved, to want to go through with the suicide.
When he did eventually die, he bequeathed 100,000 marks (worth about £1 million today) to the first person to prove the Theorem. Huzzah for maths.
In Daniel Kitson's 2009 Edinburgh show, The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, the story sparks from his discovery of the 18,000 letters which one man sent (and the 11,000 he received). All retained by someone tidy-minded enough to send out fifty seven letters, to all who need telling something, before he was to kill himself.
He sent one letter to Isabelle, who he always wrote to without hope of a reply, though it never seemed like a chore. One to the Inland Revenue, and one to his local team. Lillian Greaves the bank manager as well, to complain at her insincerity, and how she always seemed to be following a script in her dealings with him. The local paper, with news of his intentions. The gardener in the village with a particularly admirable rose bush. Mr Caan of Caan’s Hardware, who sold him the length of rope and should not feel guilty about it... or the joke he had told as Gregory was leaving the shop, about using it hang oneself. The 56th letter is to a boy at the bus stop, Benjamin McCrae, who Gregory has seen reading a book and being bullied for it, when reading is one of the purest endeavours a human can try for: the first being supporting Huddersfield, which the boy’s scarf suggests he does.
Gregory does not finish all of the letters, only getting through 18 or so in that first day. He gets through another batch on the second day. Then he gets a letter back from Woodrow Arnold of the local newspaper, complaining of Gregory’s appalling punctuation and noting the paper does not print gruesome goodbyes. He replies to that. Finishes his other letters. Finds there are more replies at the Post Office when he takes those in to be posted. Gradually sticks with it. And stays very much alive because of his epistolary contact, with a “dangling loop” perpetually above the writing desk, as a permanent reminder of what he did not go through with in late June 1983.
He didn't bequeath any more than theatrical beauty, by being caught up in that way**. But I really like the just-discovered parallels between the two men's lives.
* No three positive integers - x, y, and z - can satisfy the equation x(n) + y(n) = z(n) for any integer value of n greater than two.
** If, that is, the show is TRUE true, not just 'Fargo' true.
On a particular date.
At midnight.
Once he had written his final letters to loved ones, and amended his will.
In a display of efficiency - which most are too polite to call "ruthlessly German" - Wolfskehl finished all of his pre-suicide correspondence admin long before midnight on the allotted day. And so went to his library for diversion.
Scanning through the mathematical publications, he happened to read a paper by Kummer on why two major efforts to prove Fermat's Last Theorem* had failed. Though only an amateur mathematician, he became absorbed by the paper and found an error in it. Stayed awake till dawn to remedy the flaw in Kummer's proof. Found he was too proud of himself, and the work just achieved, to want to go through with the suicide.
When he did eventually die, he bequeathed 100,000 marks (worth about £1 million today) to the first person to prove the Theorem. Huzzah for maths.
In Daniel Kitson's 2009 Edinburgh show, The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, the story sparks from his discovery of the 18,000 letters which one man sent (and the 11,000 he received). All retained by someone tidy-minded enough to send out fifty seven letters, to all who need telling something, before he was to kill himself.
He sent one letter to Isabelle, who he always wrote to without hope of a reply, though it never seemed like a chore. One to the Inland Revenue, and one to his local team. Lillian Greaves the bank manager as well, to complain at her insincerity, and how she always seemed to be following a script in her dealings with him. The local paper, with news of his intentions. The gardener in the village with a particularly admirable rose bush. Mr Caan of Caan’s Hardware, who sold him the length of rope and should not feel guilty about it... or the joke he had told as Gregory was leaving the shop, about using it hang oneself. The 56th letter is to a boy at the bus stop, Benjamin McCrae, who Gregory has seen reading a book and being bullied for it, when reading is one of the purest endeavours a human can try for: the first being supporting Huddersfield, which the boy’s scarf suggests he does.
Gregory does not finish all of the letters, only getting through 18 or so in that first day. He gets through another batch on the second day. Then he gets a letter back from Woodrow Arnold of the local newspaper, complaining of Gregory’s appalling punctuation and noting the paper does not print gruesome goodbyes. He replies to that. Finishes his other letters. Finds there are more replies at the Post Office when he takes those in to be posted. Gradually sticks with it. And stays very much alive because of his epistolary contact, with a “dangling loop” perpetually above the writing desk, as a permanent reminder of what he did not go through with in late June 1983.
He didn't bequeath any more than theatrical beauty, by being caught up in that way**. But I really like the just-discovered parallels between the two men's lives.
* No three positive integers - x, y, and z - can satisfy the equation x(n) + y(n) = z(n) for any integer value of n greater than two.
** If, that is, the show is TRUE true, not just 'Fargo' true.