And Tom! Dear, dearest Tom, who had insisted that she wear white: You are my bride! He had almost raised his voice, and so she had worn Tom's mother's gown, and carried lily of the valley and white roses. He was so adorable and precious when he fumbled, all hot and red, with the ring, a simple gold band that looked so beautiful next to the huge engagement ring he had given her, a band that she had promised herself that she would never, never take off, no matter what, they could kill her! Inside, and so small that you almost needed a magnifying glass to read it, Tom had the date engraved in Roman numerals and - just like the yacht - "Tomarie," because, he explained, it means we are joined forever, we are one flesh. How she had blushed at the word! She would always remember how his breath caught as he whispered it, as she picked rice out of his silky and shining waves. But the most darling thing were the beautiful words also inside the ring, "One Alone To Be My Own." And even now she thrilled as she thought of those words pressed against her flesh.
It was their secret and in the months of joy that followed it was to be a secret that they shared everywhere. In crowded parties, amidst the hullabaloo of restaurant dinners after board meetings, on weekends in Long Island where they went to hunt grouses and pheasant, even crowded together with the hoi polloi and riffraff when they went, for a lark, into the streets full of the common people to search for dear little bargains that it was such fun to buy. They would look into each other's eyes and Tom's would get all crinkled and silently they knew that they were thinking, together, "One Alone To By Own." They started to call it the secret of the ring, and then just the secret, and drove everyone who knew them just crazy. And it was true, "one alone," and would be forever and ever!
[Aberration of Starlight, Sorrentino, G.]
Friday, 30 January 2015
...of excorcising
What was the single most awesome and terrible thing about his grandmother?
Her corset. The first time he saw it on a chair in his grandparent's bedroom, he did not know that it was a garment. It seemed, rather, a mysterious object that his grandmother used for some malicious purpose secret to herself. Seeing it for the third or fourth time, he realised that it was something his grandmother wore, hidden, for some strange reason, beneath her clothes. The vast expanse of white cloth, tinged yellow with age, the enormous elastic straps with their cruel-looking metal clips, the bony stiffness that permitted it to lie so rigidly on the chair - all these things together frightened him. That she should place this horrible thing on her body: perhaps it was the magic that made her so mean.
What further thoughts did these reflections give rise to?
He thought of his grandmother removing the corset, standing naked. He felt slightly sick and light-headed when this idea came to him. He wondered if she made his grandfather watch. He then wondered if his mother wore such a thing, and at this felt absolutely dizzy and sat down. Each time this latter thought subsequently came to him he exorcised it thus: He bit the flesh inside his mouth on the left side and said, silently, "one, two, three." Then he bit the flesh inside his mouth on the right side and said, silently, "four, five, six." Then he pressed his lips tightly together and said, still silently, "seven." He then concluded by whispering, "that's all, no more."
[Aberration of Starlight, Sorrentino, G.]
Her corset. The first time he saw it on a chair in his grandparent's bedroom, he did not know that it was a garment. It seemed, rather, a mysterious object that his grandmother used for some malicious purpose secret to herself. Seeing it for the third or fourth time, he realised that it was something his grandmother wore, hidden, for some strange reason, beneath her clothes. The vast expanse of white cloth, tinged yellow with age, the enormous elastic straps with their cruel-looking metal clips, the bony stiffness that permitted it to lie so rigidly on the chair - all these things together frightened him. That she should place this horrible thing on her body: perhaps it was the magic that made her so mean.
What further thoughts did these reflections give rise to?
He thought of his grandmother removing the corset, standing naked. He felt slightly sick and light-headed when this idea came to him. He wondered if she made his grandfather watch. He then wondered if his mother wore such a thing, and at this felt absolutely dizzy and sat down. Each time this latter thought subsequently came to him he exorcised it thus: He bit the flesh inside his mouth on the left side and said, silently, "one, two, three." Then he bit the flesh inside his mouth on the right side and said, silently, "four, five, six." Then he pressed his lips tightly together and said, still silently, "seven." He then concluded by whispering, "that's all, no more."
[Aberration of Starlight, Sorrentino, G.]
...of a video
105. During the shooting of a film, a video is made consisting of a sequence of scenes of silent and immobile people, posed for actions that never commence. Seated around a dining table; standing around on a film set; preparing the machines, cables and lighting for a scene; huddled around a coffee machine; everyone looking in the same direction off-screen ... These scenes are captured during periods when the sound engineer demands total silence in order to record ambient sounds. The actors and technical crew stop speaking or making noisy movements and remain in their positions up until the signal for the noise to recommence. The video doesn't show what comes before or after these silent moments, which resemble silent sculptures more than scenes from a film.
[Works, Leve, E.]
[Works, Leve, E.]
...of a composition
70. A part-time musician is recorded playing on a digital piano with the audible volume set to zero: he doesn't hear the sound of the keys he touches. He doesn't attempt to play something he already knows or to compose something beautiful. He plays at random, and only discovers the result upon listening to the recording. A disc is released.
[Works, Leve, E.]
[Works, Leve, E.]
...of the cell
"All right. Get in there!" Kadagv's self-assurance brought out Tirin's satirical, play-acting vein. "You're a prisoner. You don't talk back. Understand? Turn around. Put your hands on your head."
"What for?"
"You want to quit?"
Kadagv faced him sullenly.
"You can't ask why. Because if you do we can beat you, and you have to just take it, and nobody will help you. Because we can kick you in the balls and you can't kick back. Because you are not free. Now, do you want to go through with it?"
"Sure. Hit me."
Tirin, Shevek, and the prisoner stood facing one another in a strange, stiff group around the lantern, in the darkness, among the heavy foundation-walls of the building.
Tirin smiled arrogantly, luxuriously. "Don't tell me what to do, you profiteer. Shut up and get in that cell!" And as Kadagv turned to obey, Tirin pushed him straight-arm in the back so that he fell sprawling. He gave a sharp grunt of surprise or pain, and sat up nursing a finger that had been scraped or sprained against the back wall of the cell. Shevek and Tirin did not speak. They stood motionless, their faces without expression, in their role as guards. They were not playing the role now, it was playing them. The younger boys returned with some holum bread, a melon, and a bottle of water; they were talking as they came, but the curious silence at the cell got them at once. The food and water was shoved in, the door raised and braced. Kadagv was alone in the dark. The others gathered around the lantern. Gibesh whispered, "Where'll he piss?"
[The Dispossessed, Le Guin, U.]
"What for?"
"You want to quit?"
Kadagv faced him sullenly.
"You can't ask why. Because if you do we can beat you, and you have to just take it, and nobody will help you. Because we can kick you in the balls and you can't kick back. Because you are not free. Now, do you want to go through with it?"
"Sure. Hit me."
Tirin, Shevek, and the prisoner stood facing one another in a strange, stiff group around the lantern, in the darkness, among the heavy foundation-walls of the building.
Tirin smiled arrogantly, luxuriously. "Don't tell me what to do, you profiteer. Shut up and get in that cell!" And as Kadagv turned to obey, Tirin pushed him straight-arm in the back so that he fell sprawling. He gave a sharp grunt of surprise or pain, and sat up nursing a finger that had been scraped or sprained against the back wall of the cell. Shevek and Tirin did not speak. They stood motionless, their faces without expression, in their role as guards. They were not playing the role now, it was playing them. The younger boys returned with some holum bread, a melon, and a bottle of water; they were talking as they came, but the curious silence at the cell got them at once. The food and water was shoved in, the door raised and braced. Kadagv was alone in the dark. The others gathered around the lantern. Gibesh whispered, "Where'll he piss?"
[The Dispossessed, Le Guin, U.]
...of timelessness
Shevek automatically shook his head. With the grace of a prestidigitator the doctor slid the needle into his right arm. Shevek submitted to this and other injections in silence. He had no right to suspicion or protest. He had yielded himself up to these people; he had given up his birthright of decision. It was gone, fallen away from him along with his world, the world of the Promise, the barren stone.
The doctor spoke again, but he did not listen.
For hours or days he existed in a vacancy, a dry and wretched void without past or future. The walls stood tight about him. Outside them was the silence. His arms and buttocks ached from injections; he ran a fever that never quite heightened to delirium but left him in a limbo between reason and unreason, no man's land. Time did not pass. There was no time. He was time: he only. He was the river, the arrow, the stone. But he did not move. The thrown rock hung still at mid-point. There was no day or night. Sometimes the doctor switched the light off, or on. There was a clock set in the wall by the bed; it's pointer moved from one to another of the twenty figures of the dial, meaningless.
[The Dispossessed, Le Guin, U.]
The doctor spoke again, but he did not listen.
For hours or days he existed in a vacancy, a dry and wretched void without past or future. The walls stood tight about him. Outside them was the silence. His arms and buttocks ached from injections; he ran a fever that never quite heightened to delirium but left him in a limbo between reason and unreason, no man's land. Time did not pass. There was no time. He was time: he only. He was the river, the arrow, the stone. But he did not move. The thrown rock hung still at mid-point. There was no day or night. Sometimes the doctor switched the light off, or on. There was a clock set in the wall by the bed; it's pointer moved from one to another of the twenty figures of the dial, meaningless.
[The Dispossessed, Le Guin, U.]
Sunday, 18 January 2015
...of adultery
It was half past four in the afternoon when Amaranta Ursula came out of her bath. Aureliano saw her go by his room with a robe of soft folds and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. He followed her almost on tiptoes, stumbling from drunkenness, and he went into the nuptial bedroom just as she opened the robe and closed it again in fright. He made a silent signal toward the next room, where the door was half open and where Aureliano knew that Gaston was beginning to write a letter.
"Go away," she said voicelessly.
Aureliano smiled, picked her up by the waist with both hands like a pot of begonias, and dropped her on her back on the bed. With a brutal tug he pulled off her bathrobe before she had time to resist and he loomed over an abyss of newly washed nudity whose skin colour, lines of fuzz, and hidden moles had all been imagined in the shadows of the other rooms. Amaranta Ursula defended herself sincerely with the astuteness of a wise woman, weaselling her slippery, flexible, and fragrant weasel's body as she tried to knee him in the kidneys and scorpion his face with her nails, but without either of them giving a gasp that might not have been taken for the breathing of a person watching the meagre April sunset through the open window. It was a fierce fight, a battle to the death, but it seemed to be without violence because it consisted of distorted attacks and ghostly evasions, slow, cautious, solemn, so that during it all there was time for the petunias to bloom and for Gaston to forget about his aviator's dreams in the next room, as if they were two enemy lovers seeking reconciliation at the bottom of an aquarium. In the heat of that savage and ceremonious struggle, Amaranta Ursula understood that her meticulous silence was so irrational that it could awaken the suspicion of her nearby husband much more than the sound of warfare that they were trying to avoid. Then she began to laugh with her lips tight together, without giving up the fight, but defending herself with false bites and deweaseling her body little by little until they were both conscious of being adversaries and accomplices at the same time and the affray degenerated into a conventional gambol and the attacks became caresses. Suddenly, almost playfully, like one more bit of mischief, Amaranta Ursula dropped her defence, and when she tried to recover, frightened by what she herself made possible, it was too late. A great commotion immobilised her in her centre of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive will was demolished by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange whistles and the invisible globes on the other side of death were like. She barely had time to reach out her hand and grope for the towel to put a gag between her teeth so that she would not let out the cat howls that were already tearing at her insides.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
"Go away," she said voicelessly.
Aureliano smiled, picked her up by the waist with both hands like a pot of begonias, and dropped her on her back on the bed. With a brutal tug he pulled off her bathrobe before she had time to resist and he loomed over an abyss of newly washed nudity whose skin colour, lines of fuzz, and hidden moles had all been imagined in the shadows of the other rooms. Amaranta Ursula defended herself sincerely with the astuteness of a wise woman, weaselling her slippery, flexible, and fragrant weasel's body as she tried to knee him in the kidneys and scorpion his face with her nails, but without either of them giving a gasp that might not have been taken for the breathing of a person watching the meagre April sunset through the open window. It was a fierce fight, a battle to the death, but it seemed to be without violence because it consisted of distorted attacks and ghostly evasions, slow, cautious, solemn, so that during it all there was time for the petunias to bloom and for Gaston to forget about his aviator's dreams in the next room, as if they were two enemy lovers seeking reconciliation at the bottom of an aquarium. In the heat of that savage and ceremonious struggle, Amaranta Ursula understood that her meticulous silence was so irrational that it could awaken the suspicion of her nearby husband much more than the sound of warfare that they were trying to avoid. Then she began to laugh with her lips tight together, without giving up the fight, but defending herself with false bites and deweaseling her body little by little until they were both conscious of being adversaries and accomplices at the same time and the affray degenerated into a conventional gambol and the attacks became caresses. Suddenly, almost playfully, like one more bit of mischief, Amaranta Ursula dropped her defence, and when she tried to recover, frightened by what she herself made possible, it was too late. A great commotion immobilised her in her centre of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive will was demolished by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange whistles and the invisible globes on the other side of death were like. She barely had time to reach out her hand and grope for the towel to put a gag between her teeth so that she would not let out the cat howls that were already tearing at her insides.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
...of collapse
"Let's go, Renata," she told her.
She gave no explanation. Meme, for her part, did not expect or want any. She not only did not know where they were going, but it would have been the same to her if they had been taking her to the slaughterhouse. She had not spoken again nor would she do so for the rest of her life from the time she heard the shot in the backyard ant the simultaneous cry of pain from Mauricio Babilonia. When her mother ordered her out of the bedroom she did not comb her hair or wash her face and she got into the train as if she were walking in her sleep, not even noticing the yellow butterflies that were still accompanying her. Fernanda never found out, nor did she take the trouble to, whether that stony silence was a determination of her will or whether she had become mute because of the impact of the tragedy. Meme barely took notice of the journey through the formerly enchanted region. She did not see the shady, endless banana groves on both sides of the tracks. She did not see the white houses of the gringos or their gardens, dried out by dust and heat, or the women in shorts and blue-striped shirts playing cards on the terraces. She did not see the oxcarts on the dusty roads loaded down with bunches of bananas. She did not see the girls diving into the transparent rivers like tarpons, leaving the passengers on the train with the bitterness of their splendid breasts, or the miserable huts of the workers all huddled together where Mauricio Babilonia's yellow butterflies fluttered about, and in the doorways of which there were green and squalid children sitting on their pots, and pregnant women who shouted insults at the train. That fleeting vision, which had been a celebration for her when she came home from school, passed through Meme's heart without a quiver. She did not look out of the window, not even when the burning dampness of the groves ended and the train went through a poppy-laden plain where the carbonised skeleton of the Spanish galleon still sat and then came out into the clear air alongside the frothy, dirty sea where almost a century before Jose Arcadio Buendia's illusions had met defeat.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
She gave no explanation. Meme, for her part, did not expect or want any. She not only did not know where they were going, but it would have been the same to her if they had been taking her to the slaughterhouse. She had not spoken again nor would she do so for the rest of her life from the time she heard the shot in the backyard ant the simultaneous cry of pain from Mauricio Babilonia. When her mother ordered her out of the bedroom she did not comb her hair or wash her face and she got into the train as if she were walking in her sleep, not even noticing the yellow butterflies that were still accompanying her. Fernanda never found out, nor did she take the trouble to, whether that stony silence was a determination of her will or whether she had become mute because of the impact of the tragedy. Meme barely took notice of the journey through the formerly enchanted region. She did not see the shady, endless banana groves on both sides of the tracks. She did not see the white houses of the gringos or their gardens, dried out by dust and heat, or the women in shorts and blue-striped shirts playing cards on the terraces. She did not see the oxcarts on the dusty roads loaded down with bunches of bananas. She did not see the girls diving into the transparent rivers like tarpons, leaving the passengers on the train with the bitterness of their splendid breasts, or the miserable huts of the workers all huddled together where Mauricio Babilonia's yellow butterflies fluttered about, and in the doorways of which there were green and squalid children sitting on their pots, and pregnant women who shouted insults at the train. That fleeting vision, which had been a celebration for her when she came home from school, passed through Meme's heart without a quiver. She did not look out of the window, not even when the burning dampness of the groves ended and the train went through a poppy-laden plain where the carbonised skeleton of the Spanish galleon still sat and then came out into the clear air alongside the frothy, dirty sea where almost a century before Jose Arcadio Buendia's illusions had met defeat.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
...of courtship
Remedios the Beauty was proclaimed queen. Ursula, who shuddered at the disquieting beauty of her great-granddaughter, could not prevent the choice. Until then she had succeeded in keeping her off the streets unless it was to go to mass with Amaranta, but she made her cover her face with a black shawl. The most impious men, those who would disguise themselves as priests to say sacrilegious masses in Catarino's store, would go to church with an aim to see, if only for an instant, the face of Remedios the Beauty, whose legendary good looks were spoken of with alarming excitement throughout the swamp. It was a long time before they were able to do so, and it would have been better for them if they never had, because most of them never recovered their peaceful habits of sleep. The man who made it possible, a foreigner, lost his serenity forever, became involved in the sloughs of abjection and misery, and years later was cut to pieces by a train after he had fallen asleep on the tracks. From the moment he was seen in the church, wearing a green velvet suit and an embroidered vest, no one doubted that he came from far away, perhaps from some distant city outside of the country, attracted by the magical fascination of Remedios the Beauty. He was so handsome, so elegant and dignified, with such presence, that Pietro Crespi would have been a mere fop beside him, and many women whispered with spiteful smiles that he was the only one who really should have worn the shawl. He did not speak to anyone in Macondo. He appeared at dawn on Sunday like a prince in a fairy tale, riding a horse with silver stirrups and a velvet blanket, and he left town after mass.
The power of his presence was such that from the first time he was seen in the church everybody took it for granted that a silent and tense duel had been established between him and Remedios the Beauty, a secret pact, an irrevocable challenge that would end not only in love but also in death. On the sixth Sunday the gentleman appeared with a yellow rose in his hand. He heard mass standing, as he always did, and at the end he stepped in front of Remedios the Beauty and offered her the solitary rose. She took it with a natural gesture, as if she had been prepared for that homage, and then she uncovered her face and gave her thanks with a smile. That was all she did. Not only for the gentleman, but for all the men who had the unfortunate privilege of seeing her, that was an eternal instant.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
The power of his presence was such that from the first time he was seen in the church everybody took it for granted that a silent and tense duel had been established between him and Remedios the Beauty, a secret pact, an irrevocable challenge that would end not only in love but also in death. On the sixth Sunday the gentleman appeared with a yellow rose in his hand. He heard mass standing, as he always did, and at the end he stepped in front of Remedios the Beauty and offered her the solitary rose. She took it with a natural gesture, as if she had been prepared for that homage, and then she uncovered her face and gave her thanks with a smile. That was all she did. Not only for the gentleman, but for all the men who had the unfortunate privilege of seeing her, that was an eternal instant.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
...of surrender
The ceremony lasted only the time necessary to sign the documents. Around the rustic table placed in the centre of a patched circus tent where the delegates sat were the last officers who were faithful to Colonel Aureliano Buendia. Before taking the signatures, the personal delegate of the president of the republic tried to read the act of surrender aloud, but Colonel Aureliano Buendia was against it. "Let's not waste time on formalities," he said and prepared to sign the papers without reading them. One of his officers then broke the soporific silence of the tent.
"Colonel," he said, "please do us the favour of not being the first to sign."
Colonel Aureliano Buendia acceded. When the documents went all round the table, in the midst of a silence that was so pure that one could have deciphered the signatures from the scratching of the pen on the paper, the first line was still blank. Colonel Aureliano Buendia prepared to fill it.
"Colonel," another of his officers said, "there's still time for everything to come out right."
Without changing his expression, Colonel Aureliano Buendia signed the first copy. He had not finished signing the last one when a rebel colonel appeared in the doorway leading a mule carrying two chests. In spite of his extreme youth he had a dry look and a patient expression. He was the treasurer of the revolution in the Macondo region. He had made a difficult journey of six days, pulling along the mule, who was dying of hunger, in order to arrive at the armistice on time. With an exasperating parsimony he took down the chests, opened them, and placed on the table, one by one, seventy-two gold bricks. Everyone had forgotten about the existence of that fortune. In the disorder of the past year, when the central command fell apart and the revolution degenerated into a bloody rivalry of leaders, it was impossible to determine any responsibility. The gold of the revolution, melted into blocks that were covered with baked clay, was beyond all control. Colonel Aureliano Buendia had the seventy-two gold bricks included in the inventory of surrender and closed the ceremony without any speeches. The filthy adolescent stood opposite him, looking into his eyes with his own calm, syrup-coloured eyes.
"Something else?" Colonel Aureliano Buendia asked him.
"The young colonel tightened his mouth.
"The receipt," he said.
Colonel Aureliano Buendia wrote it out in his own hand. Then he had a glass of lemonade and a piece of biscuit that the novices were passing around and retired to a field tent which had been prepared for him in case he wished to rest. There he took off his shirt, sat on the edge of the cot, and at three-fifteen in the afternoon took his pistol and shot himself in the iodine circle that his personal physician had painted on his chest. At that moment in Macondo Ursula took the cover off the pot of milk on the stove, wondering why it was taking so long to boil, and found it full of worms.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
"Colonel," he said, "please do us the favour of not being the first to sign."
Colonel Aureliano Buendia acceded. When the documents went all round the table, in the midst of a silence that was so pure that one could have deciphered the signatures from the scratching of the pen on the paper, the first line was still blank. Colonel Aureliano Buendia prepared to fill it.
"Colonel," another of his officers said, "there's still time for everything to come out right."
Without changing his expression, Colonel Aureliano Buendia signed the first copy. He had not finished signing the last one when a rebel colonel appeared in the doorway leading a mule carrying two chests. In spite of his extreme youth he had a dry look and a patient expression. He was the treasurer of the revolution in the Macondo region. He had made a difficult journey of six days, pulling along the mule, who was dying of hunger, in order to arrive at the armistice on time. With an exasperating parsimony he took down the chests, opened them, and placed on the table, one by one, seventy-two gold bricks. Everyone had forgotten about the existence of that fortune. In the disorder of the past year, when the central command fell apart and the revolution degenerated into a bloody rivalry of leaders, it was impossible to determine any responsibility. The gold of the revolution, melted into blocks that were covered with baked clay, was beyond all control. Colonel Aureliano Buendia had the seventy-two gold bricks included in the inventory of surrender and closed the ceremony without any speeches. The filthy adolescent stood opposite him, looking into his eyes with his own calm, syrup-coloured eyes.
"Something else?" Colonel Aureliano Buendia asked him.
"The young colonel tightened his mouth.
"The receipt," he said.
Colonel Aureliano Buendia wrote it out in his own hand. Then he had a glass of lemonade and a piece of biscuit that the novices were passing around and retired to a field tent which had been prepared for him in case he wished to rest. There he took off his shirt, sat on the edge of the cot, and at three-fifteen in the afternoon took his pistol and shot himself in the iodine circle that his personal physician had painted on his chest. At that moment in Macondo Ursula took the cover off the pot of milk on the stove, wondering why it was taking so long to boil, and found it full of worms.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
...of occupation
"War's broken out!"
War, in fact, had broken out three months before. Martial law was in effect in the whole country. The only one who knew it immediately was Don Apolinar Moscote, but he did not give the news even to his wife while the army platoon that was to occupy the town by surprise was on its way. They entered noiselessly before dawn, with two pieces of light artillery drawn by mules, and they set up they headquarters in the school. A 6 P.M. curfew was established. A more drastic search than the previous one was undertaken house by house, and this time they even took farm implements. They dragged out Dr. Noguera, tied him to a tree and shot him without any due process of law. Father Nicanor tried to impress the military authorities with the miracle of levitation and had his head split open by the butt of a soldier's rifle. The Liberal exaltation had been extinguished into a silent terror. Aureliano, pale, mysterious, continued playing dominoes with his father-in-law. He understood that in spite of his present title of civil and military leader of the town, Don Apolinar Moscote was once more a figurehead. The decisions were made by the army captain, who each morning collected an extraordinary levy for the defence of public order. Four soldiers under his command snatched a woman who had been bitten by a mad dog from her family and killed her with rifle butts. One Sunday, two weeks after the occupation, Aureliano entered Gerineldo Marquez's house and with his usual terseness asked for a mug of coffee without sugar. When the two of them were alone in the kitchen, Aureliano gave his voice an authority that had never been heard before. "Get the boys ready," he said. "We're going to war." Gerineldo Marquez did not believe him.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
War, in fact, had broken out three months before. Martial law was in effect in the whole country. The only one who knew it immediately was Don Apolinar Moscote, but he did not give the news even to his wife while the army platoon that was to occupy the town by surprise was on its way. They entered noiselessly before dawn, with two pieces of light artillery drawn by mules, and they set up they headquarters in the school. A 6 P.M. curfew was established. A more drastic search than the previous one was undertaken house by house, and this time they even took farm implements. They dragged out Dr. Noguera, tied him to a tree and shot him without any due process of law. Father Nicanor tried to impress the military authorities with the miracle of levitation and had his head split open by the butt of a soldier's rifle. The Liberal exaltation had been extinguished into a silent terror. Aureliano, pale, mysterious, continued playing dominoes with his father-in-law. He understood that in spite of his present title of civil and military leader of the town, Don Apolinar Moscote was once more a figurehead. The decisions were made by the army captain, who each morning collected an extraordinary levy for the defence of public order. Four soldiers under his command snatched a woman who had been bitten by a mad dog from her family and killed her with rifle butts. One Sunday, two weeks after the occupation, Aureliano entered Gerineldo Marquez's house and with his usual terseness asked for a mug of coffee without sugar. When the two of them were alone in the kitchen, Aureliano gave his voice an authority that had never been heard before. "Get the boys ready," he said. "We're going to war." Gerineldo Marquez did not believe him.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
...of indignation
From then on, concerned about his own faith, the priest did not come back to visit him and dedicated himself to hurrying along the building of the church. Rebeca felt her hopes being reborn. Her future was predicated on the completion of the work, for one Sunday when Father Nicanor was lunching at the house and the whole family sitting at table spoke of the solemnity and splendour that religious ceremonies would acquire when the church was built, Amaranta said: "The luckiest one will be Rebeca." And since Rebeca did not understand what she meant, she explained it to her with an innocent smile:
"You're going to be the one who will inaugurate the church with your wedding."
Rebeca tried to forestall any comments. The way the construction was going the church would not be built for another ten years. Father Nicanor did not agree: the growing generosity of the faithful permitted him to make more optimistic calculations. To the mute indignation of Rebeca, who could not finish her lunch, Ursula celebrated Amaranta's idea and contributed a considerable sum for the work to move faster. Father Nicanor felt that with another contribution like that the church would be ready within three years. From then on Rebeca did not say another word to Amaranta, convinced that her initiative had not the innocence that she attempted to give it. "That was the least serious thing I could have done," Amaranta answered her during the violent argument that they had that night. "In that way I won't have to kill you for three years." Rebeca accepted the challenge.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
"You're going to be the one who will inaugurate the church with your wedding."
Rebeca tried to forestall any comments. The way the construction was going the church would not be built for another ten years. Father Nicanor did not agree: the growing generosity of the faithful permitted him to make more optimistic calculations. To the mute indignation of Rebeca, who could not finish her lunch, Ursula celebrated Amaranta's idea and contributed a considerable sum for the work to move faster. Father Nicanor felt that with another contribution like that the church would be ready within three years. From then on Rebeca did not say another word to Amaranta, convinced that her initiative had not the innocence that she attempted to give it. "That was the least serious thing I could have done," Amaranta answered her during the violent argument that they had that night. "In that way I won't have to kill you for three years." Rebeca accepted the challenge.
[One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez, G. G.]
Tuesday, 13 January 2015
...of fatigue
At this moment someone Rita can't see shakes the ladder and Kien comes tumbling down like a blown scarecrow, flattened out as a dead seascroll over the shoulders of the crowd immediately below him. Jack Knowles also falls, but from lower down, a mere stumble that makes him disappear down among the bodies of the crowd. Kien is carried like a corpse by six warriors in various garbs from coat of mail to leopard skin to a green hussar's uniform to camouflage battledress to the white armour of the non-existent knight. So he's back, goodoh, thinks Rita irrelevantly. A passage opens in the crowd to let them pass, slowly, as if to a ceremonious funeral march, towards the big glass doors of the hotel. Outside the escort can be seen throwing their thin burden onto the street like so much waste paper. It is picked up by the cops outside and bundled into a paddy wagon, which drives off in a flashing blue light and a giggle of siren.
Dale Kohler, observing the silence, is about to resume his speech, but the silence is not a listening one. It is a fatigued silence, Rita notes. The Gay crowd, by nature the most tolerant of aberration, has merely parted the colourful sea to let it out, but seems also cowed into shame as its own quiet exclusion of it. The innumerable others too, from all ages and areas, are suddenly tired of listening, tired of asserting their existence and being treated as dead matter, crushed into politeness. The police don't even have to push and clamp. Slowly the mass percolates through the various exits, towards the elevators, back into Beverly and Kennedy, up their rooms, back to their panel-sessions, out of the gallery-doors marked NO EXIT, round the gallery towards other elevators, through to the backstairs, into the bar, out into the streets by the front and rear entrances. In fifteen minutes of quiet, murmuring at most, the lobby is empty again.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
Dale Kohler, observing the silence, is about to resume his speech, but the silence is not a listening one. It is a fatigued silence, Rita notes. The Gay crowd, by nature the most tolerant of aberration, has merely parted the colourful sea to let it out, but seems also cowed into shame as its own quiet exclusion of it. The innumerable others too, from all ages and areas, are suddenly tired of listening, tired of asserting their existence and being treated as dead matter, crushed into politeness. The police don't even have to push and clamp. Slowly the mass percolates through the various exits, towards the elevators, back into Beverly and Kennedy, up their rooms, back to their panel-sessions, out of the gallery-doors marked NO EXIT, round the gallery towards other elevators, through to the backstairs, into the bar, out into the streets by the front and rear entrances. In fifteen minutes of quiet, murmuring at most, the lobby is empty again.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
...of telepathy
At first he is unnoticed. The first hush comes from his immediate surroundings, and slowly reaches to the whole gallery, slightly lowering the decibels. The struggling groups below start looking up and stop struggling. The rhythmic roars quieten only gradually, the silence spreading like a contagion. Even the police cease their activities and stare.
He stretches out his hands. He starts speaking. In Russian, in Hebrew, in German, in Yiddish, in French. But everyone seems to hear him in English, as if he were dubbed, his lip-movements not quite corresponding to the words. Are there words? Rita can't hear any with her ears. But she absorbs immense and silent well-constructed phrases, interspersed with short sharp apostrophes, exclamations of love, proverbs, maxims, cliches of wisdom, brief prayers, blessings. Perhaps he is only pretending to speak, everyone hearing what they will. The effect is nevertheless electrical.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
He stretches out his hands. He starts speaking. In Russian, in Hebrew, in German, in Yiddish, in French. But everyone seems to hear him in English, as if he were dubbed, his lip-movements not quite corresponding to the words. Are there words? Rita can't hear any with her ears. But she absorbs immense and silent well-constructed phrases, interspersed with short sharp apostrophes, exclamations of love, proverbs, maxims, cliches of wisdom, brief prayers, blessings. Perhaps he is only pretending to speak, everyone hearing what they will. The effect is nevertheless electrical.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
...of the narrator
If she can't go on, I suppose I'll have to. I am not Mira of course, though many readers think I am. For one thing I have little Latin and less Greek. Curious how one can invent knowledgeable people without possessing their knowledge. One cheats, quite simply.
I didn't attend that I-narrator's little meeting - well, I wasn't even on the roll-call, any more than she was - because so far I haven't said I. As eye-narrator I've kept pretty quiet, effaced as they say, not a narrator at all, not fully-fledged, participating, not a character in my own right, a part entire, an expression which, as a child, I always heard as a parent tires, a phrase that would mean, if it existed, 'with a third-party parent', and that too could have its ring of truth in this context. But then, as a child, I was perpetually mishearing what I was taught. I would sing 'Le belge sortant du tombeau', a line in the Belgian national anthem, as 'Le belge sortant tambour'. A Protestant hymn learnt in Geneva went 'Avec allegresse, montons vers le ciel, Et chantons sans cesse notre Emmannuel'. But I sang 'Avec le negresse, montons vers le ciel'. Those were joyful visions. Clearly I do have that much in common with Mira, except she does it on purpose.
I say not a narrator at all because, when came the fashion for the vanishing author, the silent author, the transparent text (not language at all but window on the world), the critics, always quick to adapt their vocabulary to the latest bandwagon, started calling narrator both the character who narrates and the producer of the text, that is, the author, not of course the real author, who misheard anthems as a child, who had marital troubles or who is undergoing a long and painful dental treatment of implants, but the Author, Implied, Ideal, or whatever, thus losing an important distinction: the character who narrates is limited to what he can know, the producer of the text can move among many knowledges. He used to be called Omniscient. Well, anti-God intellectuals (anti-author-ity) objected to that. Objected to the rigging, the fateful feel of divine providence. The author was out. All authority rested in the text. And later all authority rested in the Reader, Implied, Ideal, or whatever. And so they passed imperceptibly from phrases such as 'the author's intention here is clearly' to 'the text clearly says', and then to 'the reader clearly infers'. But behind this lip-service to fads, what the author intends, what the text says, what the reader infers, is in every case what the one critic interprets. He too is Reader, he too is God.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
I didn't attend that I-narrator's little meeting - well, I wasn't even on the roll-call, any more than she was - because so far I haven't said I. As eye-narrator I've kept pretty quiet, effaced as they say, not a narrator at all, not fully-fledged, participating, not a character in my own right, a part entire, an expression which, as a child, I always heard as a parent tires, a phrase that would mean, if it existed, 'with a third-party parent', and that too could have its ring of truth in this context. But then, as a child, I was perpetually mishearing what I was taught. I would sing 'Le belge sortant du tombeau', a line in the Belgian national anthem, as 'Le belge sortant tambour'. A Protestant hymn learnt in Geneva went 'Avec allegresse, montons vers le ciel, Et chantons sans cesse notre Emmannuel'. But I sang 'Avec le negresse, montons vers le ciel'. Those were joyful visions. Clearly I do have that much in common with Mira, except she does it on purpose.
I say not a narrator at all because, when came the fashion for the vanishing author, the silent author, the transparent text (not language at all but window on the world), the critics, always quick to adapt their vocabulary to the latest bandwagon, started calling narrator both the character who narrates and the producer of the text, that is, the author, not of course the real author, who misheard anthems as a child, who had marital troubles or who is undergoing a long and painful dental treatment of implants, but the Author, Implied, Ideal, or whatever, thus losing an important distinction: the character who narrates is limited to what he can know, the producer of the text can move among many knowledges. He used to be called Omniscient. Well, anti-God intellectuals (anti-author-ity) objected to that. Objected to the rigging, the fateful feel of divine providence. The author was out. All authority rested in the text. And later all authority rested in the Reader, Implied, Ideal, or whatever. And so they passed imperceptibly from phrases such as 'the author's intention here is clearly' to 'the text clearly says', and then to 'the reader clearly infers'. But behind this lip-service to fads, what the author intends, what the text says, what the reader infers, is in every case what the one critic interprets. He too is Reader, he too is God.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
...of literary inundation
Well, as I was saying just now, it was Rita's fault. There was tremendous pressure from minority groups, who are now so numerous as to constitute a majority, those who want to alter the canon, you know, dig up forgotten works ignored by what they call white male warmongers - a lousy pun on canon-makers, hell - in favour, I guess, of black female peacemongers, Fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm for it, but the canon does change, has changed pretty drastically, in a natural way, and partly thanks to their efforts. We've always rewritten the past. But they're so aggressive. And their position is illogical. They ought to want to abolish the canon altogether, on their premisses that a canon is unconsciously a male preserve, a protection, like a club, a second matrix as Norman O. Brown used to say. So a female canon is a contradiction in terms. And deep down they know this, we can't work without some sort of institutional canon you know, to make some sort of sense, however changing, out of such a huge indiscriminate mass of literary facts. Well we could if we had unlimited resources, but we don't. Maybe with computers that'll come. But think of the chaos. It's already with us. There are far too many books in the world, the idea being I guess, that out of all that quantity some small quality will emerge.
Perhaps its true. Qualantity, qualantiquity, she adds silently to herself and raps herself on imaginary knuckles in her head.
You're dead right its true. I calculated yesterday that if you'd read one book a day from age fourteen to age eighty-four, you'd still only have read about point oh one percent of all that's available, isn't that scary? Just think of Chaucer, who was a learned man, and had forty books in his library. True, most of those are unread today, except by scholars. And if it isn't time that does the abolishing it's space. All those minority languages you know, so-called even when millions speak them, except us, the white West, too damned ignorant and arrogant, so that great works are only known to that one nation, except for those few that are translated, and most of us ignore those too. Not to mention all those states that excercise all their ingenuity to efface all cultural memory of books that don't suit their ideologies. This fortunately often has the opposite effect, so that characters from such books may even survive more vividly. But what are we to do? Still and all, that was a parenthesis. To return to our so-called minority groups, though why women should be called a minority Godalmighty knows, they don't want to do the abolishing, they think its we the white males that do it, their attitude is we bind them, without maybe meaning to, they do give us that. What they want is to replace the existing canon with theirs. So they want power too, and warmongering. But the canon does change, has changed, a deal faster than they'll admit, like I said. They want it to change even faster. It's the old revolution/evolution thing, and look where it's gotten us.
I see, says Mira. She is silent. She has followed this diatribal little lecture attentively, but part of her mind asks, am I abolished? Another part tells her that on the contrary she is inventing all this, and has no idea how to go on. Someone should enter now.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
Perhaps its true. Qualantity, qualantiquity, she adds silently to herself and raps herself on imaginary knuckles in her head.
You're dead right its true. I calculated yesterday that if you'd read one book a day from age fourteen to age eighty-four, you'd still only have read about point oh one percent of all that's available, isn't that scary? Just think of Chaucer, who was a learned man, and had forty books in his library. True, most of those are unread today, except by scholars. And if it isn't time that does the abolishing it's space. All those minority languages you know, so-called even when millions speak them, except us, the white West, too damned ignorant and arrogant, so that great works are only known to that one nation, except for those few that are translated, and most of us ignore those too. Not to mention all those states that excercise all their ingenuity to efface all cultural memory of books that don't suit their ideologies. This fortunately often has the opposite effect, so that characters from such books may even survive more vividly. But what are we to do? Still and all, that was a parenthesis. To return to our so-called minority groups, though why women should be called a minority Godalmighty knows, they don't want to do the abolishing, they think its we the white males that do it, their attitude is we bind them, without maybe meaning to, they do give us that. What they want is to replace the existing canon with theirs. So they want power too, and warmongering. But the canon does change, has changed, a deal faster than they'll admit, like I said. They want it to change even faster. It's the old revolution/evolution thing, and look where it's gotten us.
I see, says Mira. She is silent. She has followed this diatribal little lecture attentively, but part of her mind asks, am I abolished? Another part tells her that on the contrary she is inventing all this, and has no idea how to go on. Someone should enter now.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
...of no comment
After the call they walk towards Kennedy.
Hell, the journalists. Always arrive when its all over and there's nothing to film but afters. That's what my wife keeps complaining about, she says the news is always dead, they're never in on a real crash, nor, of course, on a murder. Though that's lucky for me, don't you agree, otherwise I'd be out of a job. Now sir, keep your cool, I'm gonna walk right through them saying no comment. But your picture'll be in the local papers and news. Just smile and keep mum.
Cameras on shoulders, flashes, an armoury of mikes held out like blunted swords, questions, jostlings, scufflings, hustlings. The two policeman at the door try to hold a passage for the inspector and his witness, who are prevented and pushed, push and prevent and reach the door at last as the cop holds the closest four journalists at strong arm's length. Columbo is experienced, opens the door, shoves Jack in, slips in himself and shuts the door. They're in.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
Hell, the journalists. Always arrive when its all over and there's nothing to film but afters. That's what my wife keeps complaining about, she says the news is always dead, they're never in on a real crash, nor, of course, on a murder. Though that's lucky for me, don't you agree, otherwise I'd be out of a job. Now sir, keep your cool, I'm gonna walk right through them saying no comment. But your picture'll be in the local papers and news. Just smile and keep mum.
Cameras on shoulders, flashes, an armoury of mikes held out like blunted swords, questions, jostlings, scufflings, hustlings. The two policeman at the door try to hold a passage for the inspector and his witness, who are prevented and pushed, push and prevent and reach the door at last as the cop holds the closest four journalists at strong arm's length. Columbo is experienced, opens the door, shoves Jack in, slips in himself and shuts the door. They're in.
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
...of ceremony
The din of conversation hushes suddenly as five people enter from a side-door near the platform and step up behind the red-draped table. The first two carry a big red book. One is a dishevelled brown-haired woman in a long white tunic and peplos, the other a slim young man in a black soutane with two narrow rectangular black bibs twice edged in white, whose extreme pallor only enhances his extreme beauty.
Emma catches her breath. It is the young man from the aerobrain. She is sitting in front, in her golden dress and ivory mantle, between Phillip II and the lady in the voluminous peachy skirts, also from the aerobrain. The young man in black and the dishevelled lady in white place the red book carefully upon a lectern on the table, then stand followed by a small, vacillating and very wrinkled old man, dressed in black robes, who has bright eyes and a bald head, except around the temples, and a sparse pointed white beard. He carries nothing. Behind him walks a tall, handsome man with greying hair, in a shabby grey cutaway coat, who precedes a small papal figure in white with a red shoulder-cape edged in white fur and a gold-embroidered green stole crossed over his chest. This last arrival takes his place at the centre of the table, flanked on his left by the pale young man and the dishevelled woman, on his right by the old man and the man in plain clothes.
The small white red and green priest raises his arms in welcome, then lowers them, to Emma's relief, who thought he was going to bless them with a sign of the cross. Felipe Segundo, next to her, is surprised that he does not, and crosses himself. Who are these two men on the left, he asks himself, not Protestants surely! And a woman at the altar! The silence is total now. What will he say? Emma wonders, Dearly Beloved Brethren?
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
Emma catches her breath. It is the young man from the aerobrain. She is sitting in front, in her golden dress and ivory mantle, between Phillip II and the lady in the voluminous peachy skirts, also from the aerobrain. The young man in black and the dishevelled lady in white place the red book carefully upon a lectern on the table, then stand followed by a small, vacillating and very wrinkled old man, dressed in black robes, who has bright eyes and a bald head, except around the temples, and a sparse pointed white beard. He carries nothing. Behind him walks a tall, handsome man with greying hair, in a shabby grey cutaway coat, who precedes a small papal figure in white with a red shoulder-cape edged in white fur and a gold-embroidered green stole crossed over his chest. This last arrival takes his place at the centre of the table, flanked on his left by the pale young man and the dishevelled woman, on his right by the old man and the man in plain clothes.
The small white red and green priest raises his arms in welcome, then lowers them, to Emma's relief, who thought he was going to bless them with a sign of the cross. Felipe Segundo, next to her, is surprised that he does not, and crosses himself. Who are these two men on the left, he asks himself, not Protestants surely! And a woman at the altar! The silence is total now. What will he say? Emma wonders, Dearly Beloved Brethren?
[Textermination, Brooke-Rose, C.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)