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The story of my teeth: a recollection in six installments

The first story is one my mother used to tell, and which I listened to with more attention than to other family stories because in this one I was the main character. It seems that when I was about three, there was a gathering at our home to honour my father's great aunt who was celebrating her ninetieth birthday. One of the relatives brought along a tape recorder to record the old lady's reminiscences but she refused to speak into the 'machine'. The relative then decided to interview the youngest member of the family in the hope of encouraging the oldest.
"Where did you get your lovely teeth?" was the first question.
"Mammy bought them in Thambers" was the answer which caused everyone to laugh, including my great aunt, not only at the mispronunciation of the name of our local shop but because that shop was the only one in the village and almost everything we had came from there. It was a grocer shop, a newsagent, a clothing shop, a seed merchant and a fuel provider. It also offered taxi, undertaking and auctioneering services. About the only thing it didn't deal in was teeth!
There is a lot of buying and selling of teeth in Valeria Luiselli's book, and much of it happens at auctions.

Second story

When I was five, my mother took me to visit her sister who lived in a large town with many shops including one that sold delicious ice-cream. Each day while I was there, my aunt bought me a giant ice-cream. After a few days of eating ice-cream and other sweet treats, I had a sore tummy and was taken to the doctor. Oddly, it was my teeth the doctor was most concerned about. He told my mother that I was the only child in that town with such a perfect set of teeth and that she should take me back to our remote village as soon as possible. And so she did. Soon after that, our undertaker-grocer-auctioneer got an ice-cream machine but my mother never forgot the doctor's advice. No ice cream was bought for her children although I eventually got a cavity in spite of her care, and had to have a tooth filled.
There is no ice-cream mentioned in Luiselli's stories but there are cavities and fillings aplenty.

Third story

I was a child who believed everything I was told, so when I started to lose my baby teeth, I became very curious about the tooth fairy. If she could turn up at our house every time I lost a tooth, I presumed she must live nearby. I became convinced that the hollow in the old chestnut tree in the garden was her home. That hollow was a little too high for me to see into and so it had always seemed a tantalizingly dark and mysterious space. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that if only I could peer into it, I would see the tooth fairy. So I dragged an old chair out of the garden shed and placed a fruit crate on top of it and climbed up. Just as I came level with the hollow, the fruit crate collapsed and I fell off my perch. But before I fell, I had a split-second view of the inside of the hollow, and I saw the fairy. The image I registered, and which I can still see in my mind's eye, was of a tiny figure in a pale pink dress. She seemed to be sleeping—she lay on a carpet of dark mulch and I could see slim white legs beneath her dress. I told no one about my fairy, just held the image close to my heart for a long time. Of course later I realised she must have been a fragment of chestnut blossom left behind by the wind.
There are no chestnut blossoms in Luiselli's book but many, many old chairs and even some fruit crates.
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Fourth story

When I was about the age of Saint Apollonia, whose teeth were wrenched from her mouth with hammers and pliers in the second century, I had four of my teeth removed in the space of an hour. Unlike poor Apollonia, I was anaesthetised while the teeth were being extracted but when I woke up, it felt as if someone had smashed my jaw with a hammer.
Those were my wisdom teeth, by the way, and that was the year I got married.
Saint Apollonia has a role in Luiselli's story, and this painting by Andy Warhol is mentioned.
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Fifth story

Since I cut my reviewing teeth here on goodreads ten years ago, there has been one author who seems to find his way into the most unlikely of reviews, a little the way a piece of spinach will always get trapped between your teeth. He's not everyone's favourite author so those of you whose teeth are set on edge by the very mention of his name need to grit you teeth now, because, not to put a tooth in it, I'm about to mention Marcel Proust. Marcel lived beneath a dentist's consulting rooms and although he was a peaceful person in general, he was often reduced to gnashing his teeth at the sound of the dentist's drill coming from overhead—in spite of his bedroom's cork-lined ceiling and walls. The problem was exacerbated by Marcel being a night owl and sleeping during the day. Marcel wrote many letters of complaint, not to the dentist but to his wife who lived above the dental practice. He'd always start the letters discussing literature, music or art, but he invariably finished with a plea to reduce the noise. Those letters of complaint were published in a limited edition some years ago though I'm guessing they are as scarce as hen's teeth now—but if you do get a chance to read them, you'll see that they are remarkably restrained considering the delicate state of Marcel's neurasthenic-inclined nerves.
Incidentally, neurasthenia as well as Marcel's sleep habits are mentioned in Luiselli's book.
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Sixth story

Although my nerves are not as ultra sensitive as Marcel's, my teeth have been very sensitive for the last couple of months. The dentist said there was nothing to be done and that the sensitivity would lessen with time. I was patient for a while but then went back for a second opinion. It seems my teeth are not sensitive at all—a fissure had developed in a very old filling allowing hot and cold drinks to upset the nerve. A root canal treatment was decided on, and I've had the first stage of that treatment. But the root canal expert only visits my dental practice every second Friday and I was due to have part two of the procedure tomorrow. Yes, you've probably guessed it, the treatment won't be happening. The expert comes all the way from Madrid, and with the present Covid 19 lockdown, she won't be traveling. My dentist feels I'll be ok with stage one for a while. We'll see.
No root canal treatments were mentioned in Luiselli's book but there was a quote about a fissure: As Quintilian says, a hyperbolic is simply “a fissure in the relationship between style and reality.��
The fifth episode of the story of my teeth probably has a deep fissure in the relationship between style and reality—in the form of some unfortunate stylistic exaggerations and clichés. Mea culpa, as Quintilian might say.