Foto dell'autore

Sull'Autore

Comprende il nome: Paul W. DePasquale

Opere di Paul Depasquale

Opere correlate

Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water (2011) — Collaboratore — 15 copie

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Nome canonico
Depasquale, Paul
Nome legale
Depasquale, Paul W.

Utenti

Recensioni

In Tenebris

I

Her weird unearthly screaming fills the room with wailing to the ceiling, as Joe! she screams, Joe! Joe! Joe! Whereas I, calm in this strange and unaccustomed extremity, see him bent over almost double coming up the long track towards the house, with a hoe upon his back, as timid as a mouse, and she spitting acid in contempt saying Joe! She used to mutter Joe! Joe! Joe! You are old, Joe! Old! There is a place for the old!

II

By God! there is a place for the old of which I had never been told, for nobody had ever talked of caskets before, though now his open box lies gaping on the floor. Tranquil he is, tranquil as in sleep – but, peace! he has found more than the peace of sleep, being in death’s keep, for there is no motion in this sleep, no gentle heaving of the slumbering breast, no whistle of breath through the nostrils, no suggestion of a snore; I have often seen you sleeping, father, and know that you shall sleep no more.

III

The dead man lives in a world where he is master for Joe! she screams, Joe! Joe! Joe! and still he does not answer who in his flush of manhood even (let alone when older) never could refuse her; tranquil does he lie, or triumphant? Joe! she screams, but I see him as I knew him drinking wine in a moment of happiness, see him in my mind’s eye thus and know that he has escaped us, for now, I reckon, he’s neither yours nor mine – but whose? I see him drinking wine in self-defence and wonder who his new master is, look at the corpse and see no difference from an hour ago and wonder whether he really (perhaps?) has escaped, but Joe! she screams again, and I feel sorry for him, weary for him, and remember vaguely that he lives in me.

IV

The faces in this darkened room reflect this one man’s lonely doom in the murky doubtful candle gloom; in a such a light Macbeth no doubt cut Duncan’s throat; such fear as these watching faces show Macbeth felt when he heard that dreadful shout: Sleep no more! Sleep no more: all fathers lie in boxes on the floor, therefore quietly shut the squeaky door and neither speak nor sleep no more. The night is hellish though the candles burn – or wish, rather, to fill the room with light but fail, flickering in anguish as they strive to vanquish blackness, strive but fail. Like Macbeth we know there is no sleep but death.

V

He lives in me but it is she who screams who misses him most; old contempt is dead now, too, so that she is left the loving self he knew, the other half of his own flesh, the life he hoped to live lives now in her, not me; I cannot see that he is I; if he is at all, he is she, but she knows him no longer: to her he is a stranger or else she would not scream.

VI

Sorrow is on these faces but not for him: a man looks upon a dead man with a sense of sorrow for man. A birth is a private affair of no special significance to the general, while a death is a preachment to the people, a declaration of fact to which there can be no denial, a summons to which can be opposed no refusal. They do not mourn you, man in box, they grieve for themselves without being selfish. This you would have understood.

VII

A special candle at the head of the casket stands like a sentry at the gate of hell beckoning souls to the abyss below where there are people but no life, as he below the candle is dead though he is there, O he is there for I have kissed him and he is there full of cold and stiffness but unembarrassed; now hell is real, no figment of the fearful imagination, real, cold, stiff, lifeless hell where people are but do not live even as a silly corpse under a winding stair cannot be found but is known to be there.

VIII

His troubles are all over. Profit and loss will no longer be of significance to him; this is the bitter end of materialism which is not whispered of in ledgers and books of accounts – deny a man breath and his substance matters little in the realms of death. Those are left who will struggle to achieve what he has done – which is to die, upon the floor in a box to lie and count money no more behind the arras or the squeaky door. No man is missed because grief is brief: we who shudder now will soon be smiling with relief – when the corpse is no longer seen all this grieving will never have been and commerce will claim us as the earth claimed him.

IX

I see no angel hovering above, but sense a presence hanging in the air like the scent of freesias at the farthest end of the garden – the burden of this solemn gathering has been lifted for a moment: is it he who hovers above us like the memory of a dream? Is it he who touches my heart with a sense of joy? Can he be here and see us now? The moment is past: I see again the box wherein he lies and know that no man alive or dead can answer the question that perplexes me. Each man must find (himself, alone, unaided by prayer or deed or faith) what lives beyond.

X

It is a preachment which the people do not heed. I am my brother’s keeper because we are both dying not because he must be the means of my salvation. While there is life there is death; to think otherwise would be, considering the contents of this box, to be unrealistic: Let it be heard plainly again – we who live are dying. Do those who die live?

XI

The crops, he said, wither and die not irregularly but in due season in an established pattern; man, he said, is grass, not essential to the success of the garden, and therefore he is likely to be weeded out at any time, and often at the most improbable time as the Gardener carefully tugs up a weed; the garden can prosper without any particular person … the crops are vital. Man, he said, is grass, and he is destroyed accordingly. Surely he was wrong, surely, surely he
must have been wrong; we should all know if we could question him now.

XII

Surprisingly the screaming starts again: she suffers the torments of indecision in the face of a crisis – the screaming is not so much an expression of grief as an expression of the desire to love again the man whom she has loved, but this picture of that man she cannot love, for, when she looks upon his face she sees herself and does not understand the meaning of his stiffened hand that chills her feverish fingers at the touch. God forgive me, but she screams too much, she screams too much, God forgive us all who with silent curiosity have fingered his velvet pall, his black velvet pall, dear God forgive us all, and ease her pain who screams in anguish to the living in vain.

… (altro)
 
Segnalato
bringbackbooks | Jun 16, 2020 |
How many children have a book written about them, where they are actually in the book, and a book about fairies no less.

I loved this book when I was little - my father wrote it. But it was only recently that I reread it. To my surprise it contained quite a few words that seemed rather adult for a children's book. I commented to my father that I must have had rather a good vocabulary for my age and it reminded him that when it was written he sent it to Penguin who rapidly agreed to publish it under their children's arm, I think called Puffin. They did, however, consider that the vocab here and there was inappropriate for the age group and asked that he revise it accordingly. He refused. That 'This is my work and it cannot be tampered with' sort of attitude one can have as a writer.

Honestly. What twaddle, I thought to myself. You write, you submit, it is no longer yours any more. Remove yourself from it!!

And yet, last year I agreed to write a second edition of a book I wrote in the early nineties. It's commissioned and the person at the head of the organisation paying me suggested I should have an editor. 'An editor?!' was my instant reaction. What an appalling idea. I can't have people tampering like that. I don't know if I partly had this idea because I do a lot of editing myself and feel self-sufficient. But eventually I came around to the idea that it was obviously a good idea.

Moral of the story: if you are a writer, be prepared to release up to others this thing you have created. Don't let your sense of proprietorship be more important than what is practical. Your whole career might depend upon it. My father twice went through this process with publishers when he was young, being difficult to deal with, being principled in some way that was quite wrong. Principles can do that, they aren't necessarily to be relied upon.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
bringbackbooks | 1 altra recensione | Jun 16, 2020 |
How many children have a book written about them, where they are actually in the book, and a book about fairies no less.

I loved this book when I was little - my father wrote it. But it was only recently that I reread it. To my surprise it contained quite a few words that seemed rather adult for a children's book. I commented to my father that I must have had rather a good vocabulary for my age and it reminded him that when it was written he sent it to Penguin who rapidly agreed to publish it under their children's arm, I think called Puffin. They did, however, consider that the vocab here and there was inappropriate for the age group and asked that he revise it accordingly. He refused. That 'This is my work and it cannot be tampered with' sort of attitude one can have as a writer.

Honestly. What twaddle, I thought to myself. You write, you submit, it is no longer yours any more. Remove yourself from it!!

And yet, last year I agreed to write a second edition of a book I wrote in the early nineties. It's commissioned and the person at the head of the organisation paying me suggested I should have an editor. 'An editor?!' was my instant reaction. What an appalling idea. I can't have people tampering like that. I don't know if I partly had this idea because I do a lot of editing myself and feel self-sufficient. But eventually I came around to the idea that it was obviously a good idea.

Moral of the story: if you are a writer, be prepared to release up to others this thing you have created. Don't let your sense of proprietorship be more important than what is practical. Your whole career might depend upon it. My father twice went through this process with publishers when he was young, being difficult to deal with, being principled in some way that was quite wrong. Principles can do that, they aren't necessarily to be relied upon.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
bringbackbooks | 1 altra recensione | Jun 16, 2020 |
This is both a biography of the champion goal kicker and a compilation of material from Farmer’s own extensive collection of scrapbooks. Includes a brief section on Farmers life after football.
 
Segnalato
Readingthegame | Jun 5, 2020 |

Potrebbero anche piacerti

Autori correlati

Statistiche

Opere
18
Opere correlate
1
Utenti
49
Popolarità
#320,875
Voto
½ 4.3
Recensioni
7
ISBN
14