Mary, this one rends me into a useless pile of nothingness….just pure feeling. The brutal longing, the absence of color, the light and its inevitable death. I need to read this one again right now!
The inimitable Jean-Louis Trintignant... The '70s were when I regularly watched French movies. I think the one I remember most vividly was "Jean, François et les Autres" by Claude Sautet. It had an amazing cast including Michel Piccoli, Gerard Depardieu and the great Yves Montand. I should find and watch a copy after all these years.
Such a moving piece! "But his quiet, his calm like the sense of the sea receding with the tide; his angles like my father’s, a Giacometti sculpture in shadow at the edge of sand in fading light." I love this line.
What a gorgeous, evocative picture of the power of memory. The color, feel, smell, sound that is forever there, maybe hiding quietly, maybe rushing forth in the moment. Always presenting the unanswerable question. Brilliant.
Mary, I'm in absolute bits. This goosepimpling chapter - this on-the-button, almost relentless staccato delivery of your story - has such colour, such depth, such brutal humanity.
The deepening reverie of this memoir, the ever-graceful flow to its river of memory calls to be read. It's okay, too, if this is your first installment: you'll see clearly, in a piece by itself, what you're getting. Then you can go to the start with conviction.
'At age 82, my father called me in the middle of the night before he died and in the anguish of aging, asked: “What am I here for?”—a despairing cry that expressed the humility of existence and underscored the imperative of continuing to ask the question even as the darkness moves across us. It is the autobiographical, tautological question that starts and ends where it begins.
'My father took my hand, and said, “There’s an inevitability about the present.”
'I understood the way I’d understood when my mother, four years after her stroke, decided not to eat when the new year came, when she took my hand and said “Yitgadal v’yitkadash”—the first two words of the mourner’s Kaddish. It was five years later when my father took my hand one hot day in June.'
Mary, this one rends me into a useless pile of nothingness….just pure feeling. The brutal longing, the absence of color, the light and its inevitable death. I need to read this one again right now!
The inimitable Jean-Louis Trintignant... The '70s were when I regularly watched French movies. I think the one I remember most vividly was "Jean, François et les Autres" by Claude Sautet. It had an amazing cast including Michel Piccoli, Gerard Depardieu and the great Yves Montand. I should find and watch a copy after all these years.
Such a moving piece! "But his quiet, his calm like the sense of the sea receding with the tide; his angles like my father’s, a Giacometti sculpture in shadow at the edge of sand in fading light." I love this line.
Sensitive.
What a gorgeous, evocative picture of the power of memory. The color, feel, smell, sound that is forever there, maybe hiding quietly, maybe rushing forth in the moment. Always presenting the unanswerable question. Brilliant.
Just gorgeous Mary
Mary, I'm in absolute bits. This goosepimpling chapter - this on-the-button, almost relentless staccato delivery of your story - has such colour, such depth, such brutal humanity.
AWESOME. And extraordinary. 🙌
The deepening reverie of this memoir, the ever-graceful flow to its river of memory calls to be read. It's okay, too, if this is your first installment: you'll see clearly, in a piece by itself, what you're getting. Then you can go to the start with conviction.
'At age 82, my father called me in the middle of the night before he died and in the anguish of aging, asked: “What am I here for?”—a despairing cry that expressed the humility of existence and underscored the imperative of continuing to ask the question even as the darkness moves across us. It is the autobiographical, tautological question that starts and ends where it begins.
'My father took my hand, and said, “There’s an inevitability about the present.”
'I understood the way I’d understood when my mother, four years after her stroke, decided not to eat when the new year came, when she took my hand and said “Yitgadal v’yitkadash”—the first two words of the mourner’s Kaddish. It was five years later when my father took my hand one hot day in June.'
Not a word wasted Mary. Reading this again, is better. I've changed. I see it so clearly and with more feeling now.