Norbert Wiener begins his
autobiography with the words "I was a child prodigy." What I would have
to say is "I was a monster." Possibly that's a slight exaggeration, but
as a young boy I certainly terrorized those around me. I would agree only
if my father stood on the table and opened and closed an umbrella, or I
might allow myself to be fed only under the table. I don't actually remember
these things; they are beginnings that lie beyond the boundary of memory.
If I was a child prodigy, it could only have been in the eyes of doting
aunts. (...) In my fourth year I learned to write, but had nothing of great
importance to communicate by that means. The first letter I wrote to my
father, from Skole, having gone there with my mother, was a terse account
of how all by myself I defecated in a country outhouse that had a board
with a hole. What I left out of my report was that in addition I threw
into that hole all the keys of our host, who also was a physician...
From the autobiographical Highcastle
