posted
The Never-Ending Road to Calvary The old man sat at the café across from the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, counting his hours in the cigarette butts that lay scattered on the cobblestones by his feet. His mornings were a series of espresso shots, his evenings a robust red wine. He was there as the café opened leisurely at eight, sitting, watching the world over the edge of La Reupubblica: the children, laughing in their groups as they walk to school. A tall boy with the rosette pinned to his shirt, top of his class, walking with the self-confidence of unchallenged naďveté. At noon, the old man luncheoned with tourists, housewives and other old men, the only others out at midday. Ten, he reflected, was a young man’s hour, when lovers sensually embrace under the youthful artificiality of electric lights. At midnight, the piazza is halfheartedly swept by men who cannot divert their eyes from the Baroque grandeur of the fountain to pick up the transient and earthly cigarette wrappers, and Signor Giordana wandered through semi-coherent alleys to a dark apartment. *** Sicily was lunar to the young Florentine, for here there were no interlocking patterns of black and white marble climbing cathedral walls in yet another Neoplatonist attempt to impose order onto chaotic existence. Here dark lava fields embraced towns like wolves surrounding a sled, inching closer to human habitation each time the ancient gods or modern saints expressed their displeasure with mounting flames, whereas the churches shone a reflective white, as if some forgotten Bishop had ordered them bleached of sin and impurity. But the ash-grey houses stood as a reminder that sin always returned to humanity, and humanity to it. It was a nightmare assignment for a youth who had never been south Naples before; his blue uniform felt suffocating in the heat. For this reason, perhaps, his mind began to drift. It had been less than a year since his family had seen him off in the overwhelming and oppressive grime of the Stazione Santa Maria Novella. He watched the hills of Tuscany pass him by. He changed trains at the Stazione Termini, confirming his suspicion that all train stations were alike in their subjugation of human beings to machines and time tables. It gave him some comfort to know that, in Italy at least, humans were not surrendering to these dreary modern concepts —his train was two hours late. It is 700 kilometers from Rome to Reggio Di Calabria, but the two cities are separated by much more, reflected Guglielmo as he read a paperback with the title Comma 22 un libro di Joseph Heller scrawled across the cover. There is a movement for the independence of Southern Italy, or Mezzogiorno, which curiously consists almost entirely of Northern Italians, who view the south as wild and uncontrollable, a third -world country more akin to N'Djamena than Milan. And Sicily, reflected Guglielmo Giordana, was the worst of it all. His only encounter with the island was what he had learned in history class and watching the news: the island was a battleground and had been for millennia. Greeks, Carthegians, Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans; the youth of so many nations had died here, was he to join them? *** The Maresciallo knocked, and he arose immediately and reached for the gun on his bedside table, his hands grasping for the cold comfort of steel, but received none. He had been dreaming again, the Maresciallo had been but another fata morgana, an increasingly and disturbingly common reminder of his days in Sicily, and yet he couldn’t sleep: the fear of being called out was too great, absurd though it was. No, it was something else that he feared, he feared the dreams that grow in darkness, he feared the memory of that day. How vividly it came back to him, more vividly than any other memory, the one he wanted most to forget. The clock said it was six and, indeed, dawn was creeping through the bare window. *** The Church smelled of incense and beeswax, the votive candles flickering precariously beside the alters of the the saints and martyrs as the Archdeacon patrolled the colonnaded aisles of bent-kneed rosary-sayers, with his most ecclesiastical countenance seeming to warn that all was vanity. *** In his apartment, Guglielmo read, or attempted to read, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, but found his attention wander as it now so often did and, in a vain attempt to concentrate and turning on the portable stereo in the corner of the crumbling plaster room, allowed the words and chords to reverberate in the confined space. And you read your emily dickinson And I my robert frost... “‘I conclude that all is well,’ says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted....” We are verses out of rhythm, Couplets out of rhyme “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Lifting the glass, a fragile chalice of waxed paper, he drank of the baptismal water, and his thirst was, perhaps, for that moment alone, quenched, as he swallowed his pills. And how the room is softly faded You’re a stranger now unto me.... *** There was a brief obituary in Corriere della Sera, stating only that one Guglielmo Giordana had died, presumably having lived first, and a longer one in La Repubblica. "Guglielmo Giordana was professor of philosophy. Born in Firenze in 1942 to a middle-class family, he served in the Carabinieri in 1962 and 1963, seeing action against the Mafia in Sicily. In 1964 entered the Unversita della Sapienza, receiving a degree in 1967, a doctorate in 1971 and summarily a teaching position, which he held until his retirement in 2005. Cause of death undisclosed. "
Folding my paper at the café where he ate, I wondered to myself how the life of one man could be so condensed: how could the life of a man who breathed as I do, thought as I do, lived as I do, be expressed in sixty-four, or even a thousand, words?
*** The umbrellas snapped closed and I shook from my waking sleep, my coffee now half-fineshed, the face of the bartender, locking away his precious vials of liquor, clearly saying that I should go now, it was time. Wandering reluctantly toward the smokey green light like a boat against the current, I wondered as to time. What time have we, but drops in oceans, insects that buzz briefly with great energy before lapsing into lethargy and death, and then, It is finished.
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posted
I think that your writing in incisive, impressively so, especially your nouns. I worry that you are speaking clearly about nothing, and I don't want to read about nothing.
quote:The Church smelled of incense and beeswax, the votive candles flickering precariously beside the alters of the the saints and martyrs as the Archdeacon patrolled the colonnaded aisles of bent-kneed rosary-sayers, with his most ecclesiastical countenance seeming to warn that all was vanity.
I'm worried that it is all kind of setting and snark. Setting and snark, detailed and but not very interesting because, in my opinion, the plot is too hand wavy.
quote:In his apartment, Guglielmo read, or attempted to read, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, but found his attention wander as it now so often did and, in a vain attempt to concentrate and turning on the portable stereo in the corner of the crumbling plaster room, allowed the words and chords to reverberate in the confined space.
A lot of words, but is any of this worth saying?
I like characters who do things, interesting things, or at least, seriously consider doing something, an interesting something. What you have here are people looking, listening, and thinking, and the one guy who may be preparing to do something goes off ruminating on the virtues of his stereo.
posted
Is this meant to be a single story? Or are you providing us with a selection of scenes from various pieces you are writing? If this is one story, it's sort of like a series of snapshots. That can work well if you're going to start tieing it all together pretty soon, but don't go on for much longer this way or I think most readers will just not be able to keep all these ideas in their heads.
There's not enough here to generate much comment or discussion. I get a sense of mood and sometimes of place, but there's no character development or action to work with.
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posted
Pel, it's beautiful writing -- but empty. And I suspect that's because it's too short; the one insight you really have the time to give us is one that we've all already had (and probably internalized). I needs to be considerably longer; we need to get more of a sense of Mr. Giordana's life, so that the details we get out of his obituary are unnecessary. You've given us a few paragraphs about his time in the service, and alluded to a dark day -- but unless you're trying to maintain a certain detachment, we need to see these things, or else (and this is key) the bits you show us of his life are actually no more illuminating than the obituary; they're just prettier.
Detachment is an issue throughout. Why bother with the framing story? Why resolve the piece with the appearance of a younger narrator? And even as a philosophy professor, is Guglielmo so reliant on text that -- like any character in an Umberto Eco book, or like any number of characters in the latest "literary" work -- he does half his thinking in the form of allusion? There are some rare books in which that kind of constant literary reference actually works -- books about books, or the people who love them; books about people who have sought solace or meaning in words and not physical reality; books that are half about wordplay, and only incidentally about plot or character. But if Guglielmo's one of this sort, why is he?
But, again, that strays into Eco territory; it was practically the plot of his last novel, and the one before that. It'll be a few years before that's really fertile ground again, I'm afraid.
So cut out the allusion. Make the guy erudite, but not obsessive. And let us see him do things, unless there's a point you're trying to make by only giving us his thoughts.
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quote: The old man sat at the café across from the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, counting his hours in the cigarette butts that lay scattered on the cobblestones by his feet.
You establish an academic tone your very first sentence out. It's not a person we're seeing here-- it's an 'old man.' He's an object, not a being. He continues to be an object throughout the whole piece, even after we know his name. If this is what you're shooting for, you've done a good job. If you actually want people to relate or bond with your character, not so good.
quote: Sicily was lunar to the young Florentine,
While Tom and Irami seem to admire your penchant for imagery, I find it clunky, absurd, and pointless. (Although Tom and Irami mentioned the pointless bit...) Stuffing so much imagery in the form of narration further distances the character from the audience. It screams, "I, the author, write BEAUTIFULLY!" If that's what you're going for, good job. I dislike it, though. It's interferring, pretensious, and detracts from the story.
You want to read someone who does a GREAT job at weaving imagery, allusion, and character? You can't do any better than Zora Neal Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' The novel is powerful because although Hurston uses imagery to great effect, she does it simply and smoothly, from within the character (and voice) of simple people. So instead of being distanced from the story by description (a problem which has been commented on in your selection) we're drawn into it further because we're seeing what the character sees, not just what the author wants to describe.
quote: The umbrellas snapped closed and I shook from my waking sleep, my coffee now half-fineshed, the face of the bartender, locking away his precious vials of liquor, clearly saying that I should go now, it was time.
See now, you've got a richness of scene here, but you squish everything into one sentence. This kind of messes up the scene. For example, on reading 'The umbrellas snapped closed,' I immediately thought of hand-held umbrellas and assumed he was reading in the rain, and the wind had blown the umbrella closed. But what I think you intended was to point out that the cafe owner was trying to get rid of the guy.
Take things more slowly, both in terms of relaying your character, and relaying the scene.
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quote:clearly saying that I should go now, it was time.
"Hurry up please, it's time." Did you mean to make your sentence apparantly allude to this phrase, or is it just a coincidence?
quote:Ten, he reflected, was a
quote: At midnight, the piazza is halfheartedly
Your tenses are wonky. That second "is" should be a "was", as you have it right now. You could do it in the present, in fact I almost prefer it like that, because it sounds a lot more immediate:
"The old man sits... His mornings are..."
But you have to be consistant. You flip flop your tenses around a lot. This could be done, but it has to be done with intention, so it makes sense.
quote: Sicily was lunar to the young Florentine
I don't really understand what you mean. Obviously my grasp of this area's history is less that you're assuming your readers would have. The architecture comments that follow this seem to begin to explain this but then start talking about lava. Is this literal lava? All your description, if it is important to the story, needs to be clearer.
Your story then seems to amble further on until this old man's death. I found myself reading bits again, trying to put the various pieces together to create some kind of cohesive meaning- but in the end I was unable to. I would repeat the comment that whatever you were trying to communicate became lost in empty (or perhaps too full?) prose.
You keep hinting at meaning:
quote:attempt to impose order onto chaotic existence.
quote: the fear of being called out* was too great, absurd though it was.
(*What do you mean by "called out"?)
quote:the island was a battleground and had been for millennia. Greeks, Carthegians, Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans; the youth of so many nations had died here, was he to join them?
quote:with his most ecclesiastical countenance seeming to warn that all was vanity.
quote:his thirst was, perhaps, for that moment alone, quenched
quote:I wondered to myself how the life of one man could be so condensed
quote:What time have we, but drops in oceans, insects that buzz briefly with great energy before lapsing into lethargy and death, and then, It is finished.
Having so many kind-of-related-but-not statements of meaning results in the rest of the story signifying nothing ( ). My advice to add to that of the very esteemed people who have already commented, would be to focus more on whatever you want to say, and to make every section of the story communicate that for you.
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quote: And I suspect that's because it's too short
I am sure it is, and I think it shall grow (how much I have no idea, the story now is nothing like what I thought it would be when I wrote the first paragraph half a year ago.)
quote: You establish an academic tone your very first sentence out.
Thank you. I know you did not necessarily mean this as praise, but a brief explanation of my motives may help to explain why I should wish to seem like an academic observer.
quote: "Hurry up please, it's time." Did you mean to make your sentence apparently allude to this phrase, or is it just a coincidence?
Entirely intentional. The story owes so much to Eliot's work, especially to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufolck" but also to "The Wasteland," that a reference to him seemed the minimum of courtesy.
quote: don't really understand what you mean. Obviously my grasp of this area's history is less that you're assuming your readers would have. The architecture comments that follow this seem to begin to explain this but then start talking about lava. Is this literal lava?
The embarrassing thing is, I don't actually know that much about post-Roman Sicily. The island is, however, volcanic.
quote: Detachment is an issue throughout.
Intentionally, but perhaps overly done.
quote: Why resolve the piece with the appearance of a younger narrator?
Probably out of fear on my part, the fear that I was straying too far from my own territory to be able to write. But I also think that, as time is a major theme in the story, the cross-generational aspect works well.
quote: Make the guy erudite, but not obsessive. And let us see him do things, unless there's a point you're trying to make by only giving us his thoughts.
I suppose the point is that he is a very lonely old man.
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quote:Entirely intentional. The story owes so much to Eliot's work, especially to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" but also to "The Wasteland," that a reference to him seemed the minimum of courtesy.
I see where you're going with this allusion, but at the moment that phrase seems odd, combining the laid-back mediterranean elegance and opulence of a Scilian cafe and all your flowery description with the sordid British pub and the urgency of the poem. It clashes. You're alluding in meaning, but clashing in images- do you see?
I don't think you need to allude. Don't feel the need to rely so heavily on famous people to tell your story. Tell your story, not someone else's.
quote:The embarrassing thing is, I don't actually know that much about post-Roman Sicily. The island is, however, volcanic.
Find out, don't describe it or describe in a more straight forward manner. Or set it somewhere you do know.
quote:I suppose the point is that he is a very lonely old man.
You should know that there is no sense of loneliness in the writing. I never knew he was lonely, only that he was living out the last days of his life.
Secondly, this, to me, seems like the premise for a poem or a piece of prose poetry- not a story. If that's what you're going for, cool, but if you want it to be more of what I would call a story you might want to add a little bit more to the point.
For example (and in the most cliche way) your narrator could see him every day, want to talk to him and decide not to only to later find that he's died, leaving only a list of achievements. That would be more of a story.
quote:Wandering reluctantly toward the smokey green light
Is this another allusion? Isn't it The Great Gatsby with the green light?
I'm sorry, but this kind of serious over-use of allusions really repulses me. My reaction to even this being a "perhaps" allusion was a loud "EEEEEEEWWW..."
Not very elegant, but there you have it.
I can't find another green light in the rest of the story, so it's likely to be an allusion- but, Pelegius, it doesn't fit anywhere in the story. There is no green light anywhere! Using a green light as a symbol is all fine and dandy, but you can't just toss it in there like a sack of potatoes. Without recognising it (I'm not sure exactly what it is) it's a random green light with no apparant connection to anything.
Also, if it is supposed to be the Great Gatsby, it's like a jerky rollercoaster ride of allusions. Zip! a sordid pub. Zip! Gatsby's American mansion. Zip! Zip!
Write your own story, Pel. Yes, it's fun to make a tangly story that draws on a bunch of other people's work, but if its not a great story on its own first, it ends up being a clumsy string of allusions. It's not your story. Have confidence in yourself to come up with something new and interesting.
I'd restrict yourself to one literary allusion per story, if you absolutely must. Especially one this short.
quote:What time have we, but drops in oceans, insects that buzz briefly with great energy before lapsing into lethargy and death, and then, It is finished.
First of all, the time in this story has no sense of speed or brevity. In fact, it's quite the opposite- it's slow and languid. I suppose that's what you mean by "lethargy" but mentioning the fact that humans live for a cosmically relatively small period of time has no place in this story.
Secondly, you use two metaphors here. One, the drops in oceans and two, the insects. I don't think really using two metaphors in a row like this is a good idea. It's a bit like the allusions. It's like "what am I supposed to be seeing here? oceans or insects?" There's a lot to be said for clarity.
Thirdly, this sentence has something missing. "What time have we," you say "but drops in oceans."
Huh?
What you are saying is:
quote: What time have we? [We are] but drops in oceans...
I would punctuate the phrase like that, for clarity. Right now the "huh" throws me off my horse and into the ditch. I don't like that to happen when I'm reading.
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European Squares are often lit with many neon lights, which are usually green.
"Thirdly, this sentence has something missing. "What time have we," you say "but drops in oceans.""
I would like to answer this two ways, first in my normal voice, and then in a silly high-pitched wine. Sorry, wrong occasion.
Seriously though, there are two answers, the first, which you will not like, is literary (the drops in oceans is a direct quote from the last lines of "The Once and Future King") the second, which you may or may not like, is grammatical (verbs of being can be left out in most fluid European languages, particularly those derived wholly or partially from Latin, based on the literary practice, greatly loved by Caesar, of leaving these out in written Latin.)
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posted
Seriously, Pel, I would suggest going through and deleting every line that's a deliberate allusion, just to see what's left. If what's left isn't a coherent piece, you need to take out some allusions.
Like I said earlier, there are some novels that can pull off an absurd density of references like that, but generally they're only able to do so because the density of allusion is itself relevant to the larger point of the novel. If they aren't relevant to the points you're trying to make, they'll wind up distracting readers and annoying people; it's the literary equivalent of shouting "look how well-read I, the author, am!" every few seconds.
The other problem's been alluded to already: when most of the prettiest turns of phrase in your work are lifted from other pieces of writing, you need to find something of your own.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:European Squares are often lit with many neon lights, which are usually green.
Well, dude, you actually have to say that. I haven't been to a European Square for about 15 years and I'd say the majority of your readership would never have. Set the scene for us, don't assume we know what you mean. At the moment, there is no green light.
So it's not an allusion?
quote:the drops in oceans is a direct quote from the last lines of "The Once and Future King"
You have allusionitis. Seriously. Take the pills. It's not doing anything for your writing.
Otherwise, if you want to use the drops in oceans thing, don't use the insects thing.
About the grammatical thing- I realise what you were trying to do.
quote:verbs of being can be left out in most fluid European languages, particularly those derived wholly or partially from Latin, based on the literary practice, greatly loved by Caesar, of leaving these out in written Latin.)
As far as I know, English is not a Latin-based language, it is Germanic. I don't think you can do this with English without sounding like your little sister deleted some of your words. Or like somebody hiccuped. Or like a glitch in the Matrix. A gap in the time-space continuum. A black hole into which your "verbs of being" have been sucked. It is a little spot of Nothing escaped from the void.
It doesn't read like fluid, it reads like your fluid has been sucked down the plug hole.
You might be able to salvage it by breaking the sentence up, comme ca:
quote:What time have we, but drops in oceans, insects blah blah blah. And then, it is finished.
I like that better, because it takes the stress of carrying three verbs off the poor old "is" at the end of the sentence there.
You could also do it like this:
quote:What time have we?- but drops in oceans, but something about insects. And then, it is finished.
This way it's clear you're describing the "we". Again, the "is" is saved.
Both ways, I think, are awkward. If I were your editor, I would tell you to change it. You can still be artsy and academic without losing a bit of the time-space continuum and most of your readership.
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posted
"As far as I know, English is not a Latin-based language"
English shares with Romanian the distinction of being partially Latin-Based. Actually, all Romance Languages are only partially based, but English is not Romance and Romanian Slavic roots clearer than the Gallic or Arabic roots of French, Spanish or Portuguese.
These responses doesn’t, in any way, mean that I don’t value your contribution or that I chant edit based on your suggestions. I do and I shall (for some of them, including all the grammar ones)
Edited to add: I'll post a revised story some time, when I have the time to do all that editing.
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posted
"Seriously, Pel, I would suggest going through and deleting every line that's a deliberate allusion, just to see what's left. If what's left isn't a coherent piece, you need to take out some allusions."
I think it would be coherent, but infinitely more boring.
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posted
Also, why is the title, 'The Never-Ending Road to Calvary?' The title conjures scenes of self sacrifice, suffering, torment, anguish, etc; the story doens't deliver.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I agree with ScottR. You can and will write something great without allusions.
Also, the "never-ending"? The entire story is about the end. Unless you're being deliberately literarily sarcastic (which might be somewhat confusing) it's sort of- backwards.
I don't mind whether there are truly green lights in European Cities at night or not. The point is that you have to say that, in this particular square, there are green lights.
Also, what is the significance of the green light at the end if it's not an allusion. Does it have some symbolic importance? If not, I would make it seem less important.
quote:English shares with Romanian the distinction of being partially Latin-Based. Actually, all Romance Languages are only partially based, but English is not Romance and Romanian Slavic roots clearer than the Gallic or Arabic roots of French, Spanish or Portuguese.
Well, whatever that means, the point is that you can't cut verbs that way and expect people look at you weird.
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posted
"Pelegius-- I don't remember any green neon in any of the piazze that I frequented in Italy."
Well, the piazza in question is the highly touristy Piazza Navona, location of Sant'Agnese in Agone (this doesn't matter to the story per se, I just happen to know it better than any other piazza.)
"Also, what is the significance of the green light at the end if it's not an allusion."
It is an allusion, sort of. I was aware of the use of Green light in "The Great Gatsby," to make the same point I made, with much the same words, although I am not a big fan of Fitzgerald and would not make an allusion to him unless I was refering to the same condition he was, in this case how the past pulls us back even as we move into a seemingly bright future.
"suffering, torment, anguish, etc; the story doens't deliver." I think there is enough suffering an torment in the story. Why else would he kill himself?
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Seriously, Pelegius, you need to be whole lot clearer in your writing. I have read this story six or seven times now, and it never occured to me that he killed himself, or even that he might have killed himself, or even that he might have been thinking about commiting suicide, or even that he was particularly sad. I thought he just died. In fact, I thought the fact that he just died was an important part of the story.
Am I alone in being clueless?
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posted
As somebody who has lived in Europe, I'd like to point out that the only green lights are traffic lights. Which do not flourish so strongly as they do in American jungles, er, cities. I suspect Pel is generalising from whatever European city he managed to visit for two weeks.
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posted
Suicide? I had the strong impression he died just of old age. Dude, Pel, if you're just stringing words together without bothering to make your meaning clear, why not allude to Jabberwocky so we can at least tell you're being deliberately absurd?
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quote:I think there is enough suffering an torment in the story. Why else would he kill himself?
I don't know. Why would he kill himself? It certainly wasn't justified by the content of the story...
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posted
" I suspect Pel is generalising from whatever European city he managed to visit for two weeks." Rome, where the story is largely set.
" It certainly wasn't justified by the content of the story..."
Okay, I'll elaborate on his loneliness.
" I had the strong impression he died just of old age."
He is described taking pills and then is dead "cause of death undisclosed." I think I did more than hint at suicide, but maybe this will become clearer when I elaborate on his depresion.
Currently, I have been using his surrondings as symbols of his demons, but a more in depth study is needed.
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quote:Currently, I have been using his surrondings as symbols of his demons, but a more in depth study is needed.
Remember what I said about detachment?
What you're doing -- writing all deep and mopey and detached to show that the guy in question is deep and mopey and detached -- is fine, and is a time-honored tradition in mopey literature and student films, but you've got two problems:
1) The piece isn't long enough for us to really get a sense of who he is, why he is, or even (apparently) how depressed he is, based on setting and description alone. Some of your scenes are basically jump-cuts, single sentences that work like flashes of vision in a MTV video; they set a mood, but they don't necessarily convey anything.
2) The use of a different narrator at the end distracts. You'll need to give that narrator a purpose beyond just using him to relate the content of the obit.
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posted
I think you do need more than show symbols of demons and depression. You need to get inside your character and show how he is affected by these thoughts, and why.
At the moment, looks to me like he was just sitting day after day, not too exciting, but not boring enough to commit suicide. He's clearly away from his family, but it wasn't that fact that was emphasized, but the train stations on the journey. He can't concentrate on reading, so he turns on the radio, takes some pills (as many old people do) and goes to bed with a few literary allusions tacked on the end.
I thought he had just come to peace with himself, a fact that coincided with his death. People in stories often die when they have done something they wanted to do.
I get no sense of despair, self-loathing or hopelessness. You'll find that inside the man, and in his actions. At the moment, we don't get what he thinks or (if you don't want to examine his thoughts) actions that are particularly indicative of suicidal feelings.
Symbols are to assist the story, not to tell it. Same as allusions.
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posted
(As a side-note, I have to admit that I have no idea what a "semi-coherent alley," as opposed to a "fully-coherent alley," would be.)
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posted
Here is the first, quickly thrown together edit, a more comprehensive one can follow, but I have a deadline now, and it is tommorow! Talk about not having time.
The Never-Ending Road to Calvary The old man sat at the café across from the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, counting his hours in the cigarette butts that lay scattered on the cobblestones by his feet. His mornings were a series of espresso shots, his evenings a robust red wine. He was there as the café opened leisurely at eight, sitting, watching the world over the edge of La Reupubblica: the children, laughing in their groups as they walk to school. A tall boy with the rosette pinned to his shirt, top of his class, walking with the self-confidence of unchallenged naďveté. At noon, the old man luncheoned with tourists, housewives and other old men, the only others out at midday. Ten, he reflected, was a young man’s hour, when lovers sensually embrace under the youthful artificiality of electric lights. At midnight, the piazza is halfheartedly swept by men who cannot divert their eyes from the Baroque grandeur of the fountain to pick up the transient and earthly cigarette wrappers, and Signor Giordana wandered through semi-coherent alleys to a dark apartment. *** Sicily was lunar to the young Florentine, for here there were no interlocking patterns of black and white marble climbing cathedral walls in yet another Neoplatonist attempt to impose order onto chaotic existence. Here dark lava fields embraced towns like wolves surrounding a sled, inching closer to human habitation each time the ancient gods or modern saints expressed their displeasure with mounting flames, whereas the churches and houses shone a reflective white, as if some forgotten Bishop had ordered them bleached of sin and impurity. It was a nightmare assignment for a youth who had never been south of Naples before; his blue uniform felt suffocating in the heat, like an extremely wet stone python twisted around his torso. For this reason, perhaps, his mind began to drift. It had been less than a year since his family had seen him off in the overwhelming and oppressive grime of the Stazione Santa Maria Novella. He watched the hills of Tuscany pass him by. He changed trains at the Stazione Termini, confirming his suspicion that all train stations were alike in their subjugation of human beings to machines and time tables. It gave him some comfort to know that, in Italy at least, humans were not surrendering to these unnatural modern concepts —his train was two hours late. It is 700 kilometers from Rome to Reggio Di Calabria, but the two cities are separated by much more, reflected Guglielmo as he read a paperback with the title Comma 22 un libro di Joseph Heller scrawled across the cover. There is a movement for the independence of Southern Italy, or Mezzogiorno, which curiously consists almost entirely of Northern Italians, who view the south as wild and uncontrollable, a third -world country more akin to N'Djamena than Milan. And Sicily, reflected Guglielmo Giordana, was the worst of it all. His only encounter with the island was what he had learned in history class and watching the news: the island was a battleground and had been for millennia. Greeks, Carthegians, Romans, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans: all had walked and died and been buried on its beaches , was he now to join them? *** The Maresciallo knocked, and he arose immediately and reached for the gun on his bedside table, his hands grasping for the cold comfort of steel, but received none. He had been dreaming again, the Maresciallo had been but another fata morgana, an increasingly and disturbingly common reminder of his days in Sicily, and yet he couldn’t sleep: the fear of being called to duty was too great, absurd though it was. No, it was something else that he feared, he feared the dreams that grow in darkness, he feared the memory of that day. How vividly it came back to him, more vividly than any other memory, the one he wanted most to forget. The clock said it was six and, indeed, dawn was creeping through the bare window. *** The Church smelled of incense and beeswax, the votive candles flickering precariously beside the alters of the the saints and martyrs as the Archdeacon patrolled the colonnaded aisles of bent-kneed rosary-sayers, with his most ecclesiastical countenance seeming to warn that all was vanity. *** In his apartment, Guglielmo was reading, or attempting to read, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, but found his attention wander as it now so often did and, in a vain attempt to concentrate and turning on the portable stereo in the corner of the crumbling plaster room, allowed the words and chords to reverberate in the confined space. And you read your emily dickinson And I my robert frost... “‘I conclude that all is well,’ says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted....” We are verses out of rhythm, Couplets out of rhyme “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Lifting the glass, a fragile chalice of waxed paper, he drank of the baptismal water, and his thirst was, perhaps, for that moment alone, quenched, as he swallowed his pills. And how the room is softly faded You’re a stranger now unto me.... *** There was a brief obituary in Corriere della Sera, stating only that one Guglielmo Giordana had died, presumably having lived first, and a longer one in La Repubblica. Guglielmo Giordana was professor of philosophy. Born in Firenze in 1942 to a middle-class family, he served in the Carabinieri in 1962 and 1963, seeing action against the Mafia in Sicily. In 1964 entered the Unversita della Sapienza, receiving a degree in 1967, a doctorate in 1971 and summarily a teaching position, which he held until his retirement in 2005. Cause of death undisclosed.
Folding my paper at the café where he ate, I wondered to myself how the life of one man could be so condensed: how could the life of a man who breathed as I do, thought as I do, lived as I do, be expressed in sixty-four, or even a thousand, words?
*** The café’s snapped closed and I shook from my waking sleep, my coffee now half-finished, the face of the bartender, locking away his precious vials of liquor, clearly saying that I should go now, it was time. Wandering reluctantly toward the smokey green light like a boat against the current, a lonely child of the morning, wandering into the distant night, a pilgrim in search of lost time, and time yet to be lost. What time have we?— our years are but drops in oceans, however much they may sparkle; we are insects that buzz briefly with great and earnest energy before lapsing quickly into lethargy and death. And then, It is finished.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
There's at least one punctuation change in the last paragraph. It wouldn't've been one of my top priorities, but....
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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There are several minor but significant changes in grammar and in the wording of sentances which were found particularly confusing. Like I said, this is not a major overhual but a quick edit designed to remove some of the more glaring specific problems. There is also some slight added material, which I think explains the story somewhat better than previously.
The most major changes still needed— lenght and charecter depth— will take some considerable time, at least a few weeks.
Again, thank you for all your help.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
You have a sentence length and allusion problem. The average reader's comprehension of a sentence starts declining after the sixth word. After the 17th word, comprehension practically stops. I'd probably say that I'm valid proof of that argument; I have make myself concentrate in order to actually understand what the heck you're trying to say. That is not the goal; I should be able to go smoothly from one sentence to the next. Your words should further the story, not get in its way.
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"I'd probably say that I'm valid proof of that argument; I have make myself concentrate in order to actually understand what the heck you're trying to say."
That was either twenty-seven or twenty-nine words, depending on how one counts contractions, and yet I understood it perfectly, although the meaning was rather jeopardized the the self-contradiction.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Never said I didn't suffer from the same problem. But what are editors for, except to point out flaws in other people without their own making a wit of difference.
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
That was a difficult read. I have to honestly say, when I got to the sentence, "For this reason, perhaps, his mind began to drift." I felt like my mind was drifting already.
As Kasie H said, the words should further the story, not get in its way. I felt like the words kept weighing me down, like an extremely wet stone python twisted around my mind.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Well, it sure didn't fail in making me remember that particular image. If that's what you were going for, Hole in one!
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
The best critique groups I've been part of all have this rule in common -- all the writer is allowed to say is "thank you."
If the story doesn't stand up without your explanation you've failed, since most of your readers will not have you there to explain it to them.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Pelegius: "I'd probably say that I'm valid proof of that argument; I have make myself concentrate in order to actually understand what the heck you're trying to say."
That was either twenty-seven or twenty-nine words, depending on how one counts contractions, and yet I understood it perfectly, although the meaning was rather jeopardized the the self-contradiction.
It's also two sentences. A semi-colon essentially starts a new sentence construct in your mind. Further, Kasie ain't no average reader, nor are you likely to find any on Hatrack.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
"A semi-colon essentially starts a new sentence construct in your mind."
I love semi-colons, and what you say may be true, but that doesn't make it one sentences.
'The best critique groups I've been part of all have this rule in common -- all the writer is allowed to say is "thank you."'
Many of the best writers dicussed their works in great detail, I am thinking particularly of the Inklings, but there have always been such groups.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:he best critique groups I've been part of all have this rule in common -- all the writer is allowed to say is "thank you."
There's a poetry workshop board with this rule, and they enforce it rigorously. It also allowed questions to clarify the critique, as long as the questions weren't merely an attempt to argue. It's the only public board on the topic I can stand.
Even bad (as opposed to good negative) critiques (this sucks!) are not allowed to be responded to. The mantra is that "this sucks" told the poet that at least one person had that reaction to the poem.
The mods go after people who do consistently bad crits, but the poets are simply never allowed to.
It does make for some interesting tantrums when a newbie refuses to comprehend this simple rule.
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). My advice to add to that of the very esteemed people who have already commented, would be to focus more on whatever you want to say, and to make every section of the story communicate that for you.
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