Okay, the old guy says, so what kind of tree is that? The kid doesn't know. The kid tells him he wants to be a writer. The old man asks the kid what he wants to be when he grows up. He takes pity on Babel's character, who has no aptitude for swimming either, and engages him in conversation. The kid has no aptitude and commences to play hooky, hanging around the harbor with some other boys.Īn old man, a sort of ad hoc youth worker and swim coach teaches the boys and inculcates moral values. The story goes like this: In old Odessa a kid's family sends him for fiddle lessons, hoping he will turn out to be a prodigy and get them all clear of poverty and disaster, both of which are snapping at their heels. The reason I mention it now is that a curious insight arises from the only change in the text the film maker made (aside from naming the central character Gustav Mahler). The story is no doubt public domain and not that widely known, and nobody cares what the movie maker does with it anyway. Babel has no one to protect him - Stalin caused him to disappear in the late '30s. Scrutinizing the credits, I saw no mention of Isaac Babel. I also recognized it as a short story by Isaac Babel called "The Awakening." The film maker had lifted the story intact and almost verbatim. It was a stinker, more or less, except for the beginning. A FEW YEARS ago I saw a TV movie about the life of Gustav Mahler.
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