hurling on the beaches / among starfish corks seaweed / the waste of your abyss. (âAnticoâ, English translation by Sonia Raiziss and Alfredo de Palchi, Selected Poems, New Directions, 1975.)]
Antonym recited the poem to himself. Ten years before, it had moved him. Now, it was like repeating a shopping list. Montale was still grand, but he, Antonym, had lost his connection with poetry. Perhaps because poetry, deep down, is a highly personal experience, of which one can only grasp the surface at best. And this surface ended up losing its meaning, like a postcard landscape admired to exhaustion. Antonym stared at the sea, but didnât see anything beyond the vulgar beauty that so charmed tourists. A wry smile spread across his face; attributing transcendence to it all seemed pathetically trite. Maybe Montale was just an idiot, trying to give meaning to that which had none. Maybe there was no depth whatsoever in poetry and it was just surface.
Now he was numb. â Il mare è di tutti quelli che lo stanno ad ascoltare,â âIl mare è di â¦â Whoâd said that? The Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga, perhaps ⦠Yes, it was Verga. Why he had once read Verga he could no longer fathom. Vergaâs Aci Trezza, where Ulysses had visited, seemed so far away ⦠Now Ulysses was a man with somewhere to return to. The world is less threatening when you have somewhere to return to, or was it the opposite? And this question ⦠How many useless questions do we ask ourselves in the course of a lifetime? Was this a measure of our own utter insignificance? Maybe he should staple his fingers, as Hemistich had done, to at least feel pain â in the hope that waiting for the pain to cease would give meaning, even if only ephemeral, to some minuscule fleck of his existence. The meaning of life: how many jokes had been made about such nonsense? But was it really nonsense? Maybe he should have a child (Bernadette was having one, wasnât she?) to resuscitate some kind of emotion. But what woman would want to bear his child? Antonym laughed again. A child ⦠Not even with Bernadette. Heâd been lying when he proposed they have one, and deep down Bernadette knew it. A child who was a failure or who outshone him â either outcome would be unbearable.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe he should kill himself, as Augusto had done. It wasnât the first time heâd considered suicide, but the truth was that heâd never felt his existence was tragic enough to take this path of no return. Not even now, come to think of it. One had to take oneself really seriously, which he was incapable of doing â although, granted, he didnât like the idea of being supplanted or disappointed by a child. Even in his moments of desperation, he often allowed himself to drift into banal thoughts. Was he less human because of it? Or more human? After all, wasnât being human contenting oneself with surface? There was surface again. The problem was that he was unable to be entirely superficial or entirely profound. Augusto hadnât struck him as terribly profound either, although he had left that poem. But if poetry is surface â¦
Augusto ⦠He kept brooding over the story that Kiki had told him the night before, but it was impossible to know for sure in what way Hemistich and Farfarello had been involved in it. Might they have helped Augusto murder his wife, and then killed him? Had they been Augustoâs accomplices, and then watched him commit suicide? Did they simply witness the deaths, without interfering? Even in this last case, they wouldnât be free of guilt; theyâd be accessories. The only way to find out would be to ask Hemistich, but Antonym was less afraid of the answer than of the consequences of doing this. No matter what the answer, it would connect him to the fact and, by extension, to Hemistich.
Antonym gazed at a tree trunk, dirty with tar, that had been
Antonym recited the poem to himself. Ten years before, it had moved him. Now, it was like repeating a shopping list. Montale was still grand, but he, Antonym, had lost his connection with poetry. Perhaps because poetry, deep down, is a highly personal experience, of which one can only grasp the surface at best. And this surface ended up losing its meaning, like a postcard landscape admired to exhaustion. Antonym stared at the sea, but didnât see anything beyond the vulgar beauty that so charmed tourists. A wry smile spread across his face; attributing transcendence to it all seemed pathetically trite. Maybe Montale was just an idiot, trying to give meaning to that which had none. Maybe there was no depth whatsoever in poetry and it was just surface.
Now he was numb. â Il mare è di tutti quelli che lo stanno ad ascoltare,â âIl mare è di â¦â Whoâd said that? The Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga, perhaps ⦠Yes, it was Verga. Why he had once read Verga he could no longer fathom. Vergaâs Aci Trezza, where Ulysses had visited, seemed so far away ⦠Now Ulysses was a man with somewhere to return to. The world is less threatening when you have somewhere to return to, or was it the opposite? And this question ⦠How many useless questions do we ask ourselves in the course of a lifetime? Was this a measure of our own utter insignificance? Maybe he should staple his fingers, as Hemistich had done, to at least feel pain â in the hope that waiting for the pain to cease would give meaning, even if only ephemeral, to some minuscule fleck of his existence. The meaning of life: how many jokes had been made about such nonsense? But was it really nonsense? Maybe he should have a child (Bernadette was having one, wasnât she?) to resuscitate some kind of emotion. But what woman would want to bear his child? Antonym laughed again. A child ⦠Not even with Bernadette. Heâd been lying when he proposed they have one, and deep down Bernadette knew it. A child who was a failure or who outshone him â either outcome would be unbearable.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe he should kill himself, as Augusto had done. It wasnât the first time heâd considered suicide, but the truth was that heâd never felt his existence was tragic enough to take this path of no return. Not even now, come to think of it. One had to take oneself really seriously, which he was incapable of doing â although, granted, he didnât like the idea of being supplanted or disappointed by a child. Even in his moments of desperation, he often allowed himself to drift into banal thoughts. Was he less human because of it? Or more human? After all, wasnât being human contenting oneself with surface? There was surface again. The problem was that he was unable to be entirely superficial or entirely profound. Augusto hadnât struck him as terribly profound either, although he had left that poem. But if poetry is surface â¦
Augusto ⦠He kept brooding over the story that Kiki had told him the night before, but it was impossible to know for sure in what way Hemistich and Farfarello had been involved in it. Might they have helped Augusto murder his wife, and then killed him? Had they been Augustoâs accomplices, and then watched him commit suicide? Did they simply witness the deaths, without interfering? Even in this last case, they wouldnât be free of guilt; theyâd be accessories. The only way to find out would be to ask Hemistich, but Antonym was less afraid of the answer than of the consequences of doing this. No matter what the answer, it would connect him to the fact and, by extension, to Hemistich.
Antonym gazed at a tree trunk, dirty with tar, that had been
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