Fake Recommendation Letter #1

By François Rabelais

Court of Seigneur de Langey

Turin, Italy

From Minor Sketches and Reveries

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One night in Turin, a young man named Alberto Balengo asked to be admitted into court chambers. It was not a convenient time; my dear Panurge and I had been imbibing wine and drawing up plans for the Grand Palazzo of Codpieces, an exhibition of codpieces from beloved tyrants in history. I told the visitor to come later, but he claimed to be a student of the late Erasmus and presented a letter from Cabeza de Vaca urging me to provide this visitor with the greatest hospitality because he had recently returned from the Spanish colonies.

I opened the door, invited him inside, offered a flask of our best slosh and asked him to describe life in New Spain.

The young man spoke softly, awestruck by the splendor around him. Panurge offered him a chicken leg, and Friar John closed his breviary to give the guest his full attention.

New Spain, he said, was a wondrous place, especially in a settlement along the Gulf of Mexico. The natives spoke in slow thick drawls. Although residents had two healthy feet, instead of walking to places, they preferred traveling inside the bellies of mechanical contraptions they kept as pets. Whenever they went walking, their eyes looked down at small shiny objects they held in their hands. New Spain did have churches, but many people worshiped once a week before a small talking box named Seinfeld. Many New Spaniards in this settlement paid good money for memberships to “health clubs” in which they enjoyed the luxury of being able to lift heavy objects and run exhaustively in a circle at any hour they desired.

“What strange customs!” Panurge exclaimed. “In Turin you can lift all the heavy objects you want and never have to pay a florin!”

“And what about the educational institutions?” I asked.

Settlements in New Spain, Alberto explained, were still new, but already several schools had been established. Quite a number enrolled students who could not read or write. These students did remarkably well and kept advancing to higher grades until they gained sufficient experience selling pills to go into business on their own. He personally had attended a school run by the Jesuits. Traditional subjects of science, rhetoric and theology were taught at these Jesuit schools, but students learned purely by daydreaming. For the first hour students dreamt about bisecting hexagons and polyhedrons; for the next they imagined themselves walking around Galilee with Jesus Christ; they learned agriculture by imagining themselves in a field uprooting hypothetical turnips.

“Jesuits again!” said Friar John, throwing up his hands. “Is there any continent these brigands haven’t infiltrated?”

Certainly, Alberto replied. That was just one school, and this settlement had many. Indeed, now he was seeking enrollment at a special school for people wishing to be writers.

“A school for writers?” I exclaimed.

Not for WRITERS, Alberto corrected, but people WISHING to be writers. The real writers were sensible enough to stay away; the students were people who had never written any books but merely dreamed of doing so.

“My goodness,” I said. “Is daydreaming the only activity people do in those lands? What could a writing school possibly teach?”

On that question, Alberto was unclear, knowing simply that because it was a school for future writers and because he desired to write books, therefore, he needed to enroll in it.

“What evidence exists to show that these schools actually help writers?” I asked further.

On that question, Alberto also was unclear, saying that because people disagreed as to what constituted good writing, no one knew if enrollees wrote better after graduating. However, there was no denying the benefits to those teaching at the school, many of whom enjoyed steady employment and a nice salary.

“This school for writers is not as preposterous an idea as I had been led to believe,” Panurge admitted.

“Indeed,” I agreed. “Panurge and I were already in the process of opening up our own school – The Boethius Famous Writers’ School. You can enroll as our first student. Our school, unlike other writing schools, won’t bother covering versification or rhetoric but focus on more practical subjects.”

“Starting at 9:00 AM,” announced Panurge, “the first class will be Literary Allusions. Students will be taught how to decorate putrid prose with quotations from Plato and Seneca.”

“At 10:00 AM, students will read Letters of Obscure Men to help figure out if anything you have written deserves to be burned.

“The next class –”

“– Assuming that the student has passed the first two classes – ” added Friar John.

“– Will be Retractions and Recantations. Students will learn the art of denying responsibility and avoiding accusations of blasphemy. Topics include Plausible Denial (insisting that one never realized it was blasphemous, and therefore could not have done so willfully), Role Reversal (claiming that heretical lines were uttered by evil characters solely to warn readers), Journalistic (insisting that one was merely recording overheard words, not inventing them on one’s own), and Misinterpretations (finding spurious passages throughout the book to contradict the blasphemy, thus proving that the original blasphemy could not have been written by the same writer).

“After lunch, we will cover Literary Boasting – the art of puffing up accomplishments by mentioning unfamiliar but important-sounding accolades. You will learn proven methods of praising patrons wise enough to bankroll literary projects so grand that only the most pedantic intellectuals can decipher them.

“In the afternoon,” Panurge went on, “we will cover Literary Fawning. For this seminar, student writers will be taught the art of writing blurbs for books they never read, composing encomiums for poets at public readings and complimenting editors who chop paragraphs out of their stories.

“The night class will cover Literary Affairs, the art of using a literary reputation to impress and seduce ingénues. Also discussed will be ways to use writing as an excuse to avoid household chores, social functions and even creditors. Finally the evening will cover Literary Revenge, the art of immortalizing dirty laundry of former spouses, lovers or rivals by including embarrassing details in stories.”

Alberto thanked me for the opportunity, but informed me that his real reason for visiting was not to enroll but to ask for a recommendation letter.

“A recommendation letter!?” I exclaimed. “But I hardly know you!”

That would not be a problem, Alberto assured me. Not knowing a person did not necessarily preclude writing a complimentary letter. All one needed to do was to mention that Alberto was a fantastically talented writer.

“Impossible!” I replied. “I never even read your stuff!”

That would not be as problem, Alberto replied. He had brought some of his stories, but it was hardly necessary to read them. By definition, great writers had already mastered the art of disguising their true opinions in their writings, and because you, Mr. Rabelais, are a great writer, therefore it would not be difficult for you to write such a letter.

Not knowing how to refute the young man’s logic, I looked for other ways to duck out. “Although I am not averse to writing a recommendation,” I began, “my Christian conscience forbids sending anyone on the perilous path of writing without first receiving a supernatural sign confirming your talent.”

At that point, Panurge jumped up and rushed out of the room, returning with an old woman in rags who was reputed to be a sibyl. “If any person can confirm the divine nature of Mr. Balengo’s writing talent, it would have to be this prophetess.”

“Dear prophetess,” I began, “please tell us whether this young man has enough talent to follow the writer’s path.”

“She can’t speak,” Panurge told me. “She answers only with gestures.”

The sibyl frowned at me, sat on her head, slapped her ears several times, belched, whirled about, picked her nose, grabbed a pen from a nearby desk and started poking herself with it until she howled in pain and fell to the ground. Then getting up, the sibyl wriggled her derrière a few times, shrugged her shoulders and pulled at her hair until she removed a large clump. Finally she ran away screaming.

Alberto was elated. The belching, he said, indicates a large reserve of story ideas that would emanate from the mouth until he picked up a pen. The act of pulling out hair signified the desire to release the enormous pressure of literary ideas against his cranial region unless he immediately started writing. And the sibyl’s running away was her recommendation to bypass local publishers in favor of foreign ones.

“Perhaps, ” I said. “But further confirmation would be needed.”

Moments later, Friar John returned with a visiting cleric from University of Paris who was staying across the street.

“What is the probability,” I asked, “that this young man from New Spain would enjoy a successful life of writing?”

The cleric pondered the issue a moment, then replied, “In all likelihood, the matter at hand can be divided into four separate parts: first, whether it is incompatible with the doctrine of transubstantiation and the dual nature of Jesus; second, whether our Eternal Father qui est in caelis might permit the necessary evil of Mr. Balengo’s literary career in this perfect world of God’s creation; third, whether faith alone is sufficient to receive inspiration and sustain a literary reputation, or whether special grace ex Deo would be required to bring such a reputation into existence ex nihilo; and fourth, whether Alberto of his own free will could choose to peruse a destiny at odds with what had been intended by the Creators. Ergo, the answer to the original question is contingent on the answers to the four subsequent questions which in turn could only be answered if Pater Noster had intended us to know the answer in the first place.”

“I need something more conclusive than that,” I said to Alberto.

“I have a better idea,” Panurge said, bringing dice from his pocket. “People say that rolling three dice and finding the corresponding page and verse from a great book yields predictions with uncanny accuracy.”

Agreeing that it was at least worth a shot, I took out a book of Horatian odes, rolled the dice and consulted the appropriate verse. It read:

No poems can please for long or live

that are written by water-drinkers.

Excellent, Alberto cried. This verse suggests that he would fare better in prose than poetry. Also, because he rarely drank water anyway (preferring beer), it portended that his words would please many for a long time.

“Let’s try again.”

“Since our boy is Jesuit-trained,” Friar John said, “wouldn’t it make more sense to use the Holy Book for our prophecies?”

He handed the Bible to me, and I rolled the dice.

A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him? 

Alberto smiled again. This verse reminds us that long books sell better than short ones and that the best way to beat the vicissitudes of the literary market was to write in several genres.

“Let’s try again,” I said, grabbing the dice and throwing them.

“A fool’s mouth is his destruction.”

Alberto grew excited again. This verse, he said, clearly warns not to discuss story ideas before writing them down. That is a lesson he has always followed (well, except for one story idea he recently had about a man’s attempt to track down a thief who stole his screwdriver ….)

“Again,” I said, rolling the dice.

In all labor, there is profit

But the talk of the lips tended only

to penury.

This auspicious verse, Alberto said, assured him that there would be profit for all his labor, even in an unpredictable field like writing.

Not knowing how to get rid of this man, I announced that I would roll the die one last time before making my decision. Alberto nodded eagerly as I rolled the die and consulted the appropriate page. I read:

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.

*****