![]() ![]() At the end of Mavis Gallant's story The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street, no one dies, but it's about the loss of a life just the same. The absence sharpens what once was the presence. The end gives meaning to all that came before. But all great endings have death in them, whether or not someone expires. Okay, it's just so sad, and sadness can be a thin feeling and easily produced, and it's true that I sometimes lapse into sentimentality about fur-bearing animals, but it's also amazing, and as my partner says, it seems to serve McCarthy's intention to write a novel with a hole in it. What's the best death scene in literature?ĭoes everyone say the scenes in Romeo and Juliet or Anna Karenina? I'm partial to the death of the wolf in Part 1 of Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing. ![]() Either they'd surrender their credit card information or they'd the blow up the planet (maybe I'd leave Beckett off). I'd load onto this otherwise not very useful to me object King Lear, Crime and Punishment, The Collected Stories of Chekhov, To the Lighthouse, some Beckett. There's no one book to teach anyone about humanity but if I pretend to misunderstand a straightforward question I might get away with saying I'd hand them an e-reader. If they landed? You've not been paying attention. ![]() If aliens landed on Earth, which book would you give them to teach them about humanity? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |