Stillpoint (a novel)
I apologize for this bit of self-promotion, but my excellent publishers at Fomite--Marc Estrin and Donna Bister--are among the many small literary presses that lack the resources of the corporate and amalgamated publishers. They are Bosque Brewery (my local favorite) to MillerCoors--so I have to do a little advertising for myself.
This is my first published novel--not the first I've written, but the first that felt finished enough and decent enough to publish. Is it any good? Honestly, I have no idea.
Like my collaborator Peter Nash, I prefer a certain type of book, one out of the mainstream of plot-driven, irony-riven, arch and hip books that largely comprise today's literary scene. In general, just as a matter of taste, I am more likely to be spending my reading time with Gerald Murnane, Juan Jose Saer, Italo Sveno, Thomas Bernhard, Kenzaburo Oe, and Fernando Pessoa (all recent reads) than with Times bestsellers.
I say this so that, should you try my novel, you won't be too disappointed. It's a quiet little book that examines a single day in the life of a widowed woman in her seventies as she goes about doing the work she loves--translating the poetry of Leopardi--remembering her past, dealing with solitude, reflecting on a life well-lived.
Here's a bit of it, and thanks for your patience:
“I
am unyielding,” Elle spoke to the ravens mingled with crows that were coaxing sunflower
seeds from the feeder she’d put up for the finches. Fra poco in me quell’ultimo/Dolore anco fu spento. Elle smiles at this idea. No, the pain never
dies, but dolore is so lovely, dolorosa, she can’t resist jotting this on
the paper as well. The thought of Simon offering to carry the cross made her
weep even now. Can you imagine it? No one holds a chair for you any longer, but
this man took the cross. She had stood once in the courtyard of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, walked the Via Dolorosa, imagined the procession to
Golgotha, or tried to—at certain times the mind simply shuts down, focuses on
the trivial rather than on what is, in truth, too momentous to imagine. At
Auschwitz it was the same thing; standing in Birkenau she had closed her eyes with
the secular reverence required—no tears would come, though she had wanted, upon
entering beneath the notorious gate—“Arbeit
macht frei”—to summon tears, to faint under the weight of history’s cruelty,
instead she couldn’t shake the chilling lines from Dante, “Through me you pass
into the City of woe/Through me you pass into eternal pain,” nor could she
resist imagining the Florentine poet and his guide crossing to Dis, even while
silently reciting the verses to herself, intoning them like a prayer. Elle felt
guilty and somehow unhinged—how could she let herself be so distracted? Must
she be dithering with poems even here? And then, within the walls of the crematorium,
she offered a prayer for the dead, Kaddish, but it was no good, the images of gas
and fire, the smell of death, the cries of the dying, all leaked away in the
dusty light that struck the floor, the odor of dirt and cement, the weight of
her living body on a blazing hot day. Sufficient reverence, Elle thought, was
impossible. All she had at her disposal were gestures. She crossed herself—when
had she last done that—and hoped that would suffice. Dolorosa.
George Ovitt (12/16/2018)
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