Porch decking going down / New Jersey / July 2008
“Hemon, by contrast, tore through his development in the new language with hyperthyroidal speed.”
~ James Wood reviewing a book by Aleksandar Hemon in the New Yorker describing how Mr. Hemon arrived in the U.S. from Bosnia with only a basic command of English and within eight years was writing with “polish, lustre, and sardonic control of register.”
After suffering from the effects of hyperthyroidism for many years (I remember a doctor telling me it was like my body was on a “toxic high”), I was delighted to see the word used to describe how quickly someone mastered a new language rather than a debilitating medical condition. I'd much prefer to learn a new language with hyperthyroidal speed than to chart the results of my T3 and T4 tests.
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