38 pages • 1 hour read
Daniel TammetBorn on a Blue Day
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Ticket to Kaunas”
Tammet decided that he wanted to explore working opportunities after secondary school rather than attend university. After a series of interviews, a British volunteer organization selected him to teach English in Kaunas, Lithuania. The prospect of such a major change was daunting for Tammet and his family, but he felt strongly that he needed to learn to be more independent and pursue individual goals.
Tammet moved into a large apartment and began work at a Lithuanian organization for women who wanted language training. Everyone was positive and friendly, including the students, staff, and fellow volunteers and instructors.
The experience was extremely positive and beneficial. Tammet established new routines and made friends with whom he could practice Lithuanian (his newest linguistic pursuit), explore the city, eat, and discuss personal matters. A significant change in his personal and social life came when he connected with a group for gay people in Lithuania. He says the decision to call them was “one of the biggest decisions of my life and one of the most important too” (129). He befriended a man named Vytautas and his partner Žygintas. Lithuania was very cold in the winter and had a very different culture than England, but the author enjoyed his new experiences and found joy and solace in nighttime walks in the snow and conversations with a diverse group of contacts and friends. He supported his students by offering extra classes for free.
When it became time for Tammet to return to England, he reflected on his year in Lithuania, saying, “it was not only my day-to-day life that had changed with the decision to come and live in Lithuania; I myself had changed and been somehow renewed” (138). The successful adventure gave the author a better sense of himself and much more confidence and optimism.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Falling in Love”
Though he was sad to say goodbye to his “home away from home” in Lithuania, Tammet also had the sense “that it was time to move on” to more professional and personal goals (139). He moved into his parents’ new house and contended with the changes of forfeiting total independence for life back in a crowded home. The author was by this point more equipped to tackle new challenges and changes, having “come to terms with my ‘differentness’ by illustrating the fact that it needn’t be a negative thing” (141-42). He had a sense of optimism and curiosity for his future in England.
Tammet received a grant from the volunteer organization, with which he purchased his first computer, which ended up being a major breakthrough in his social life because of the ease of online communication like “message boards and chat rooms” (142). In this setting, he met and fell in love with a man named Neil who worked as a software programmer and reciprocated Tammet’s feelings. For the first time, the author opened up to his parents about his sexuality, and they were supportive and encouraging and remained this way as Tammet’s relationship with Neil evolved.
His relationship with Neil developed into a happy partnership. They shared a history of bullying and a propensity to stay at home instead of going out in noisy crowds or public spaces. Tammet moved into Neil’s home in Kent, and the two navigated sharing more time and space and supporting themselves in one home on a single salary. Tammet explains that he had the “commonplace” experience of struggling to find a job as a person with high-functioning autism. He ended up creating an online educational platform for language learning with Neil’s help, and it became successful. Tammet “felt proud and excited about” earning his own money and contributing financially to his household (151).
Through more experiences and time together—like the death of their cat, developing patterns of intimacy, and establishing workable routines—the author and his partner fell deeply in love. The author says, “Neil is a part of my world, part of what makes me ‘me,’ and I could not for one moment imagine my life without him” (158). Such an interpersonal connection would not have seemed possible in the author’s younger life.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Gift of Tongues”
In this relatively short chapter, the author discusses his own fascination with language as well as particularly interesting tidbits of language science. Tammet started learning more and more languages once settled at his new home with Neil and working on his online language learning platform. After learning Lithuanian abroad, he began practicing Spanish, Romanian, and Welsh. He explains that “the relationship I have with a language is quite an aesthetic one, with certain words and combinations of words being particularly beautiful and stimulating” (160-61). His deep interest motivates him to learn while his multisensory experience of any given language makes it easier to learn. Even so, he says that there are aspects of language that are much more challenging for him to learn than others, like abstract words, which are difficult to envision.
The author then discusses more universal language science. He says that everyone might use some degree of synesthesia to understand languages, formulate mental pictures, and invent metaphors. Phrases like feeling up or down intrinsically relate to a person’s body language while experiencing the feelings, even though up and down are not words designed to convey emotions literally (164). It is possible, Tammet says, that language developed with synesthetic qualities, where inventors of words sculpted their hard or soft sounds to fit the object they described. Language scientists have undertaken studies that prove that most people will assign an invented word with hard consonant sounds to an object with hard angles, whereas a word constructed of more vowel sounds seems to intrinsically draw to mind images of rounder edges (166).
The chapter ends with the author’s description of his own invented language, Mänti. He says that “playing with language” is satisfying and fulfilling (170), and developing his own language gave him the opportunity to create an entire vocabulary and grammatical structure that reflect his own patterns of perception and make his inner world tangible and communicable (171).
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Young adulthood was pivotal in the author’s life. The decision to work abroad and the fulfilling experience in Lithuania ushered in a new sense of self and confidence for him. Relocating and establishing new routines still came with anxiety, sometimes nearly debilitating. Travel in planes, on crowded trolleys, or along unfamiliar routes, for example, could be unsettling and difficult to cope with. However, Tammet, by the time of his big trip, had developed coping mechanisms and a determination to persevere through difficult circumstances.
Once back in England, his life changed again for the better when he met his partner, Neil. Tammet credits falling in love with “making me more open to others and more aware of the world around me” (158). His relationship bolstered his confidence, capacity for growth, and desire to progress as well (158). The author shares details of their relationship that demonstrate the care and sensitivity that he required from a partner, as well as the give-and-take and negotiations that are part of any romantic union. For example, the author likes holding hands but not smaller, gentle touches, and he had to explain those preferences to Neil (158). Though supportive and encouraging, Neil was occasionally frustrated with Tammet’s inability to comprehend information that he received auditorily, like through conversation. They learned to approach these situations with patience and strategies to signal successful communication or a lapse of communication (156-57).
Though Tammet moves on from his parents’ household in this section, they remain important and present in his life. They worry about him going abroad but support him and keep in touch regularly. They also support his relationship and respond with kindness and encouragement when the author tells them that he is gay. As his world expands, the foundation of his support network contributes to his confidence and success.
As a whole, this section of the book depicts the author’s conscious and successful undertakings to understand and express himself. He steadily moves away from self-doubt and towards confidence. In the world around him, he moves away from bewilderment and estrangement to meaningful comprehension and engagement. Many of these triumphs are emotional and personal, but some, like earning income and inventing a language, are material accomplishments that influence his impact on the world around him: His income contributes to his household with Neil, and beyond being self-fulfilling, Mänti has been of interest to language researchers. By the end of the section, Tammet has embraced his uniqueness and come to understand it much better. He has established the sort of fulfilling and productive life that his parents always wanted for him and that he came to want for himself.
