The Incantatory Power of Authors’ Names

John Leonard, Reading for My Life :

In 1947, a young American and a middle-aged Japanese climbed a tower in Tokyo to look at the bombed temple and the burned-out plain of the Asakusa. The 23-year-old American was the critic Donald Richie. The 48-year-old Japanese, wearing a kimono and a fedora, was the novelist Kawabata. Kawabata spoke no English; Richie, no Japanese, and their interpreter stayed home, sick in bed with a cold. And so they talked writers. That is, Richie said, “Andre Gide.” Kawabata thought about it, then replied, “Thomas Mann.” They both grinned. And they’d go on grinning the rest of the afternoon, trading names like Flaubert, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stefan Zweig; Colette and Proust.

Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man :

An Indian soldier in a Gurkha regiment of the British army had been taken prisoner and wounded in both legs. Only amputation of one of the legs could save the soldier’s life—and the chief surgeon wanted the man’s consent or at least some sign of trust. But neither the Indian soldier nor the German medical officers had much command of English; and the soldier of course spoke no German. The more they tried to talk to him, the more anxious and scared he became—he had probably heard frightful stories about enemy treatment of prisoners. At last, the chief surgeon thought of the only Indian words he knew. Bending down to the sweating soldier he whispered: Rabindranath Tagore! Rabindranath Tagore! Rabindranath Tagore! After he had said it three times the Indian seemed to understand. His face relaxed, a shy little smile came into his eyes, then he closed them, his fear was gone, and he nodded weakly his consent and confidence to the enemy doctors.