When visiting a gallery in his hometown of Melbourne, the young doctor discovered a painting titled “Self-portrait in the Cafe Royal” by an artist named Horace Brodzky. This picture was not painted as if Brodzky understood the principles of the human retina. Rather it was a series of exaggerations. No retina ever visualised it. The figures were naive and the background was contrived by using a deliberately foreshortened two-dimensional perspective. But nevertheless the young doctor really liked this painting. And when he discovered that Horace, like himself, was born in Melbourne, a descendent of eastern European Jews, he began to develop an interest in Horace the person, as well as Horace the painter.
He completed his training in ophthalmology and became a fully trained eye surgeon. But this did not fully satisfy him; he wanted to see and learn more. He wanted to see how eye surgeons worked and lived in other countries, not only Australia. He wanted to see Europe wherefrom his roots had emanated, but from where a branch rather than a family tree had survived the Nazi holocaust. When he was granted a job as Senior Registrar in Ophthalmology at the Leeds General Infirmary, in England, he grabbed it with open arms. In Leeds he soon discovered the whereabouts of the Leeds City Art Gallery and promptly visited it. As he walked into that building the first thing he noticed was a magnificent sculpture: a head of the artist Horace Brodzky by Henri Gaudier Breszka. This was the same Horace Brodzky he had discovered in Melbourne. A metaphysical bond between himself and Horace Brodzky was established.
The young doctor grew slightly older and then one day he wrote a book about Horace Brodzky and the book, although privately published in a modest form, was quite successful. It was featured on television and discussed in newspapers across the length and breadth of the nation. And people who read the book, read about Horace’s father, they read about me, Maurice Brodzky. And a newspaperman named John Weyland wrote an article in the West Australian. It appeared on page fourteen in the Saturday issue for April 30th 1988. And it said that a full-scale book on Maurice Brodzky would be a winner as far as John Weyland was concerned. And this stimulated the doctor to study me some more. He conducted an investigation into my life and discovered some forgotten autobiographical material that I had written.
My biographer unearthed twelve chapters of an unfinished autobiography covering the first twenty years of my life. This had been serialised in a monthly Melbourne publication, the Australian Journal, from September 1878 to January 1879. The first three instalments were anonymous. Only the fourth and fifth supplements carried my name.
My autobiography was titled “Ben Israel.” Ben in Hebrew means ‘son of.’ As I was the son of Israel Brodzky, “Ben Israel” was my Hebrew name. But Ben Israel can mean more than that. It is a title that one can confer on every Jew. Every Jew can describe himself as a son of the House of Israel as Ben Israel. I chose my title to emphasise to my readers how much a part of me my Jewish identity was.
I started my autobiography with a proem in which I conducted a dialogue with my alter ego. I informed my ego that it was in the presence of a pathfinder, a breaker of new ground, who was about to write a totally original form of autobiography, the likes of which had never been attempted before. I would have the moral courage to publish for my public all my deeds and secrets. There would be no attempt to cover my pill with a coating of sugar. It would be told my way, for art’s sake and with no lies.
I started with my earliest memory, the anger I felt on the occasion of my circumcision when only eight days old. This of course was a lie. No Jew remembers his eighth day. I had deviated from my promise not to tell a lie at the very beginning. I mentioned this ritual to emphasise, once again, the importance with which I held my Jewish identity. My biographer did not quite see it that way. He reasoned that autobiographers only tell their readers what they want to. They never divulge it warts and all, the whole truth. They never intend to. Instead it is left to a conscientious biographer to fully analyse such writing in the light of known facts, and to draw conclusions using those points that best fit the jigsaw puzzle.
The doctor then undertook to become my conscientious biographer. He made plans to write my biography but his teenage son discouraged him. The lad said, “Don’t write it as a biography, write it as an autobiography! Give him the path-finding autobiography that he was looking for, the one that breaks new ground, that has the moral courage to reveal his deeds and secrets, the one that has never been previously attempted, a new autobiography written eighty years after his death? The doctor reflected on his son’s suggestion, decided he liked it and wrote it.
To write such an autobiography you have to be a skilful communicator for the living scribe has to communicate with his dead raconteur. This can be done and maybe in a number of ways. The most common medium by which the living can communicate with the dead is through the written word. By reading “The Republic” you can communicate with Plato, by reading “The Prince” you can communicate with Macchiavelli, by reading “Utopia” you can communicate with Sir Thomas More, and by reading me you can communicate with Maurice Brodzky. But there are also other available media. There are spiritual mediums who conduct seances so that the living can communicate with the dead. Are such people genuine or are they frauds? Are clairvoyants genuine or are they frauds? Does mental telepathy exist or is it a fraud? I can’t give you the answer to these questions just because I have passed on. The mysteries of life and death are much more complex than that.
But let us not be totally dismissive. Rather let me draw your attention to some theoretical possibilities. Let me tell you of an article I once wrote concerning Marconi. I announced at the time that Marconi was making wonderful progress with his work of wireless telegraphy. I reported that he had become so engrossed in it that he had postponed marrying his American fiancee until he could converse with her, perhaps even propose to her again, by wireless telegraph. I even mentioned that with respect to Marconi telegraphing across the Swiss Alps, Lord Kelvin thought that the message had gone through the mountain rather than over it. And when Marconi established radio communication between 34 France and England in 1899 and between England and Newfoundland, two thousand miles away across the Atlantic, in 1901, certain facts became clear. Electromagnetic waves could be transmitted and received over large distances. If the human brain has a facility to transmit its thoughts as electromagnetic waves, and if other brains can tap in and receive them, even many years later, then we might well be able to explain spiritual mediumship and mental telepathy. If my biographer has the ability to receive electromagnetic waves that my thoughts have transmitted, then he has a special means of communicating with me. Two-way communication between us by this means cannot occur, as my brain, my receiver, was dead, before his was even born. The only way that two-way communication between us is possible is if we invoke the concept of reincarnation - particularly if we are each other’s reincarnation - if we are a common spirit.
Now let’s discuss some similarities between Maurice Brodzky and his biographer. Both were descended of Eastern European Jewry. Both have similar strong Jewish identities based on historical and nationalistic considerations more than religious ones. Both studied medicine and both liked to write. Both liked the paintings of Horace Brodzky. In my case it is only natural for a father to like his son’s paintings. But believe me, given enough space, I could point out many other similarities. If you know my biographer, these may become apparent to you throughout the course of this book.
My biographer thinks he discovered Maurice Brodzky by accident. It may have been a coincidence but I can assure you it was no accident.
My biographer when researching his book on my son Horace was given access to certain family documents. These state that I was born on November 30th 1850, at Marggrabowa, in the Gumbinnen district of East Prussia and that my parents were Israel Brodzky and Bella Czerwynkowsky. My paternal grandfather is identified as Meyer Schor of Brody who later settled in Odessa and became known as Mark Brodzky, the word Brodzky meaning “from Brody.”
Marggrabowa nowadays is not even on the map. It is situated in north-eastern Poland, the nearest town being Olecko, which in Prussian times was known as Treuburg.