SPRING 2016 A PETIT LITERARY JOURNAL VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1

A WORD FROM THE EDITOR John Fowles in Focus

John Fowles was truly a Renaissance man, one whose interests ran from a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of horticulture to collecting fossils and “All human beings should behave as if they coffee cups as well as writing fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We had a minor correspondence dating back to 19xx, but we never met until 1996 while I are mysteries to themselves.” was on a Leverhulme Fellowship to the University of East Anglia. We met at JOHN FOWLES in Interview with SUSANA ONEGA, Zaragoza* his Belmont home in Lyme Regis at which point I asked him if I could use his name as part of a literary series I wanted to organize. Fowles’s answer was to the point: “Anything for students.” And so, in 1997, I organized the first John Fowles Literary Series under the auspices of the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing. Nineteen years later, I have started an online literary journal titled Mantissa, named after one of his favorite novels. It is especially important since most critics didn’t like the novel, but given Fowles’s somewhat irascible nature, that probably suited him. One of the definitions of Mantissa is a “minor addition to a text” and, in some ways, the aim of the journal is to be an addition to some of the undercurrents in the novel which deal with a panoply of themes from the writer-Muse relationship based on the Muses in Greek mythology to the subtheme dealing with Structuralist and post-Structuralist literary theory that states art is self- enclosed and self-referential and Fowles’s Mantissa is a novel about its own writing which makes constant reference to other writers and their work. Perhaps, that is why he liked the novel and most critics didn’t. I recall him saying to me once that it was his job to write and a reader’s to read so it’s clear he wouldn’t have been much concerned about what critics thought. It’s with that thought in mind that I decided to create a literary journal devoted to many things Fowlesian: fiction, philosophy, literary criticism, French studies. I hope that such a journal will endeavor to do justice not only to Fowles’s work, but to his myriad interests. his interview took place Susana Onega (S.O.): Ton Saturday 17th February Before coming here to interview 2001, in Belmont House, Lyme you, I read the twenty-two Regis, where John and Sarah interviews recently collected by Fowles had kindly invited Dianne Vipond in Conversations Mark Axelrod me to spend the weekend. I with John Fowles (1999). Her Editor-in-Chief, Mantissa am most grateful to them selection ranges from Roy Director, John Fowles Center for Creative Writing for their warm welcome and Newquist’s interview, published in patient cooperation and, in 1964, until the one conducted by the case of Sarah, for her Vipond herself in 1999. Reading readiness to participate in them in chronological order, I the interview. My thanks are realized how patient you have also due to my colleague, Tim been all these years, answering Bozman, who transcribed the all kinds of questions about your three tapes then recorded. work and about yourself (often the same questions again and again). * Susana Onega is Professor The further I read, the more I of English Literature at the wondered at your forbearance University of Zaragoza, Spain. with all of us—critics, journalists and postgraduate students— continued on page 3 Contents

POETRY FICTION Giuseppe Conte...... 13 Mark Axelrod...... 11 Whitman (Whitman, It.) Nikolai Gogol, Abner Doubleday and All the Wonder of the World the Russian Literary Origins of Whitman American Baseball Tutta La Meraviglia Del Mondo Steve Katz...... 15 Jerome Rothenberg...... 20 Meloon

A Further Witness Claudio Magris ...... 19 Names of Friends We Share

Inside My Mind And Yours To Have Been Charles Bernstein...... 30 Dacia Maraini...... 21

Recap For Vincent Broqua’s In the Footsteps of Maupassant BIOGRAPHIES INTRO Recuperer Martin Nakell...... 23 The Blind Man Sees Into About the Writers...... 32 MARK AXELROD...... 1 the Horizon Why Mantissa: Sort of an Introduction Giorgio Pressburger...... 25 “The Pursuit” (Excerpt from Snow & Guilt) Luisa Valenzuela...... 27 ESSAYS Breakfast Susana Onega Jaen...... 1 William Barnstone...... 28

Interview with John Fowles Tragedy on a Bench W.S. Merwin...... 9 The Dachau Show Child Light

Acknowledgements Look for Volume 1, Issue 2 I would like to acknowledge those who have helped make the publication of MANTISSA in the Fall of 2016 possible: Chancellor Daniele Struppa, Dean Patrick Fuery of Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Dr. Joanna Levin, Department of English Chair, and Eric Chimenti, Associate Dean of Wilkinson, Director of the Ideation Lab.

This Issue was created by Chapman University’s Ideation Lab. Special thanks to Renee Bulda BFA Graphic Design ‘18, Erin Hiromoto BFA Graphic Design ‘17, and Sammy Swenor BFA Graphic Design ‘17. essay continued from page 1 writing their dissertations on that abstract figure you call with a self-directed irony “Fowles, the writer.” And I also realized how difficult it would be for me to ask you anything new. So, I suppose the first question has to be, how do you feel about being interviewed at present? Do you do it out of sheer kindness, or do you find being interviewed interesting in any way? John Fowles (J.F.):Well, I think first of all, I feel that I’m something historical. I belong to the last century and that is slightly embarrassing because I once compared this experience to medicine: that is when a doctor strips a skeleton down to nothing and that leaves you feeling half dead. And I don’t like that. On the other hand, I always I regret everything that has J.F.: Years ago I was Head Boy of S.O.: Are you saying that the wish people knew more about happened for the last several a school and they planted in Puritan revolution was me, but that’s a kind of vanity: hundred years. Man in fact me a very strong belief in the positive in a sense? you must be known. But this is is just about to enter on a morality which my father totally new phase of his also gave me. So ever since in J.F.: Yes, I am. It quite literal- really what I am getting at in ly made this country. that statement. I do want to be existence, I think, and I do a sense you always feel you really known. It is important for not like people who I feel are have had to sacrifice too much S.O.: You have often said that me to remember that I am not. blocking the way through. to— I hate to use the word, novelists need a particular We have to accept that the but to what I would say was kind of wife. How would S.O.: But do you know yourself? world is vastly changed just convention. You know a you characterize the per- in the last ten years with thing is supposed to be bad fect wife for a writer? J.F.: Good question. I think all these discoveries about and you believe it is bad, but I do, but I really am so the genome. Practically, we on the other hand you must J.F.: I would say they should much happier not with don’t talk about it very much, allow the devil into your allow you to have room, to interviewers but with a although it is very important. life. In other words you must have space, to discover what typewriter in front of me. I And so it is harmful that we be tempted even though the you are. So, in a way that is can express myself through don’t talk enough about it. temptation will bring you very productive, and that, strip myself bare into a bad situation, but I am something that most women better than any anatomist. S.O.: In “The Ebony Tower” David a great believer in tempta- don’t like the idea of is that Williams has to choose S.O.: Have your tastes changed tion, in the being tempted. they must keep quiet, they between being faithful to must shut up. But in a way I in recent years—in art, in his wife Beth and yielding S.O.:But you are not tempted literature, in women, in would say that sensitivity is to his passion for Diana… really, you are much more very important in the women nature, in politics, in the conventional than you allow things you have always J.F.: The word “passion” is a very that I know and most of the people to really see, I think. women I have got rid of in found important? Spanish word. The English Strangely enough, I think, are not passionate. Such my life have not been sensi- J.F.: I don’t think they have really. you are much more tive. Normally, that’s why we feelings have to be of a Puritan than you But the typical question in dragged out of them. have split, why we changed. the past has always been: let people realize. S.O.: Henry Breasley, the mature which writers do you like? S.O.: O. K., I’ll say “love,” then. J.F.: I probably am, yes. I would I cannot answer that. I like In “The Ebony Tower” artist in “The Ebony Tower,” accept that. You see, in tried to convince David some writers some of the David Williams has to English history the period I time but not all always. In choose between being Williams to move from most enjoy is the seventeenth abstraction back to politics, I remain very much faithful to his wife Beth and century, which, as you of the left. Women continue yielding to his love for Diana. representational art. perhaps know, is when the However, Breasley was much to intrigue me and I cannot The second option would Puritan movement started and imagine life without women. allow him to develop his more innovative and a better so on, and I adore the endless artist than Williams. artistic potential in a way he confusion and the messiness S.O.: Do you have any regrets: cannot while he remains a Looking at The Moon Hunt, things you haven’t done of the Civil War. And then one of Henry Breasley’s dutiful husband. Clearly, the suddenly at the end of the or experienced and think message seems to be that art masterpieces, Williams you should have done? Or century a new king appears, realizes that the old master is immoral and has its own William of Orange, you know, maybe things you have done rules. But then, does it also had tried to absorb and and now wish you hadn’t? from the Netherlands. And recast the whole western mean that the truly creative that is why I have always artist must sacrifice tradition of painting by J.F.: This world is very large and collected books about the standing in a parodic so there are countless places everything: family ties, Civil War because I think this conventional morality, even relationship to it, as I wish I had been to, but I was the crisis period in Williams says, combining recently went to Saudi Arabia the possibility of being this country. This is in fact fashionable, to his or her art? “both a homage and a kind and I am afraid I disliked when this country grew old of thumbed nose to a very very intensely the Muslim What have you sacrificed and adult, during the to your art? old tradition.” Is parody the or Mohammedan religion seventeenth century. basic way in which the and I think very much that contemporary writer can

3 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University essay

hope to come to terms with J.F.: All writers must feel some mother. I know with shame S.O.: Can I add to that? That is the tradition he or she anxiety. We must have some that I always laughed at her quite a common rumour in stems from? notion “I am not writing well as a boy. She was a stupid, Cornish stock, that they have or not well enough, I am not rather lumpish woman who a lot of Spanish ancestors J.F.: Well, very important in all saying exactly what I mean.” did not really understand. who go back to the Armada. my writing has been humour. All this went ahead in fifth She used to laugh at Picasso, I really do not respect other century BC Athens and above for instance and all the other J.F.: I’m afraid it’s very common novelists who are not all in Socrates. I am a great artists or writers I came to and I really regard this now humourous. I have greatly believer in Socrates. Yes, admire, she never really just as a load of folk nonsense. admired Evelyn Waugh, for Socrates has a sense of understood. She just thought This sort of image is not instance, in Britain. I quite humour. And so in a way we they were funny, funny in a actually very true. like novelists like the elder have to realize that humour bad, funny in a peculiar sense. Amis, Kingsley Amis. And I S.O.: But I think we quite is a deeply important aspect like the idea. really do believe the great of all writing. Even though S.O.: But then you didn’t have this secret to life is being when I say that, I know that I childhood trauma at all? J.F.: I like it too. humourous about it. am no good at the humourous J.F.: Well, I’m lucky, all through S.O.: We use it. S.O.: So, do you think that humour novel. Many years ago when my life I had been going is more important I was a teacher I told my through that trauma, in J.F.: I am very fond of than parody? students to read above all other words, being able to Cornwall, the very end of Evelyn Waugh. For me he is see myself and to see that England. The Scilly Islands J.F.: Parody has a definite aim and a perfection in a perfect state I had behaved wrongly and all that, and I write that is trying to convince of the comic novel. there, I’d behaved badly. quite a lot about them. people that they are deeply S.O.: Thackeray too... I never really understood wrong and they’re fools...there her, but she was a very good S.O.: In the same essay you say is a French movement called J.F.: Yes, but he is very dry mother in her own way. that the child is “a magician pataphysique for which I had when he wants to be. I am guilty, yes, of not with a wand.” Your words the greatest admiration understanding my bring to mind William and that gave rise in this S.O.: Do you like Dickens? own mother. Wordsworth’s poem, country to the Goon Show, “Intimations of Immortality,” the great comic programme. I J.F.: Oddly enough, not terribly, S.O.: But no child ever does. and also William Blake’s would definitely call myself a no. I admire him for his contention that only pataphysicien, as they would enormous skill as a writer. J.F.: I think this is partly true. Or children “know.” Now, say in French. The movement Specially you feel that in some go too much the other taking into account the began in France in the 1890s the very first novels. One way. They love their mothers fact that, in your fiction, and has taken a long time to exception with Dickens is too much and so become the maturation process of rise to the top. I have a Great Expectations. I love homosexual, something the male protagonists always magazine on it but I can’t Great Expectations.It says like that. involves their transfor so much about the English. give it to you I am afraid. S.O.: One of the things you like mation from “collectors” to “creators/magi,” are we S.O.: What are the main S.O.: In “Hardy and the Hag” about your mother is the fact (1977) you say that creative that she came of Cornish — to conclude that, in order characteristics of for us to mature, we the movement? writers have been children or Celtic stock. What is it who “retain a particularly that the Celts have that the have to recover the J.F.: It partly works on the idea of rich memory of the passage Anglo-Saxons do not? simplicity of a child? opposition. The most famous from extreme infancy, when J.F.: Well, I wrote about that in J.F.: Well, this is Freudian. I do play in it is Ubu roi (King the identity of the baby is believe the earliest years Ubu). It really needs very merged with that of the one of my books...but really, you have to admit that in new of your life — all your lives careful direction on the mother, to the arrival of the — are vastly important. stage, it is a difficult play. first awareness of separate blood is a lot of story telling, a But then, I am definitely identity. They are, therefore, kind of fictional power. And S.O.: That is why I was asking a pataphysicien. I have deeply marked by the that’s why I am very fond of you about your mother. But been so for years. passage from a unified an early French writer called you have often said that you magical world to a discrete Marie de France. She is a had a happy childhood. S.O.: One of the myths about John ‘realist’ one.” If I have mysterious figure really. in England, let’s say, and understood this rightly, I actually remember at J.F.: I had a happy childhood but certainly in America, I think, the implication is that your Oxford having to read Marie I disregarded my mother. is that people don’t realize memory of your relationship de France and thinking it I ought to have seen much his humour. He is one of the with your mother must be was a bore; why are these rather more who she was and funniest men I have ever met. very strong. However, you medieval French writers so what she was trying to do. My very boring, and so on. But father, you see, was a military J.F.: The thing is that I am very bad do not often talk about her. We know much more about since then I have realized it person, basically. He came at imitating accents. I can’t has an extraordinary lot of back from the First World do that, that is an important your father, for example, from what you say about profound interest to any War and he was suddenly in part of the pataphysique, that modern writer of fiction. the 1920s told that he had to you can make fun of people by him in The Tree. Would you mind speaking about the look after his own father’s imitating their voice. But I like S.O.: I read somewhere that your family. And so I grew up as a all that: the introducing of the memories you keep of your mother also possibly came pre-Oedipal stage? How did boy surrounded by relatives idea of humour into existence, of Spanish stock. Is is true? all of whom were my father’s into the novel and everything you develop the sense of lack that, according to your own J.F.: Well, I had a Cornish uncle. responsibility and who else. The classic former worried his life enormously. example of it is Cervantes. views, triggers off the The myth associated with writer’s need to re-create him is that someone from the S.O.: You also have a S.O.: Have you ever felt what magical worlds as an Spanish Armada had been younger sister, don’t you? Harold Bloom calls “the alternative to the washed ashore in Cornwall. anxiety of influence,” the world that is? He had extraordinarily dark J.F.: Well, I regard the giving of her, pressure exerted on your skin, so he really looked Hazel, really as a kind of J.F.: I should say that I am deeply writing by the work of the Moorish or something like eternal recompense from God. ashamed of the poorness of great masters in the that—definitely not English. I am afraid I don’t believe in my relationship with my own Western canon? God, so I should be careful, but 4 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I essay

destiny or fate, if you like. I’m to name and classify things. preponderance of rational which all your work may very fond of Hazel, and Dan, According to this, it is discourse in one and be said to stand? You try who is now her husband. In a language itself that intuitive discourse in the to reflect reality but on way I feel I was given all the alienates human beings other? Are there notable the other hand you are luck in life. I really passed from nature, by imposing an differences, for example, always trying to find the care of looking after my anthropomorphic pattern on in rhythm, imagery, new ways of describing it. mother on to her and have felt it. Your suggestion is that we symbolism, etc.? guilty about that ever since. should abandon the logical J.F.: Yes, I’d agree with I never had the good fortune language of science for the J.F.: Yes, they are very different, that completely. but on the other hand, of children, but very synthetic, intuitive language S.O.: But which is more much enjoy hers, three of the individual, that we personally, I wish I had been a scientist. If I have a longing important: the description of nephews and a niece. give up logic and rationality reality or the experimental for “right feeling,” or what in life it is this. And I have S.O.: You believe in God. You are to blame myself because if side, pinning down reality or Daniel Martin calls “whole- formal experimentation? not an atheist. You are sight.” Could your novels you want to be a scientist you an agnostic. be described as exercises in have to work and to think, J.F.: I think formal intuitive language aimed at and I must confess that I experimentation when you J.F.: Yes I’m really an agnostic. am not like that. Being a I often talk like a militant reaching “right feeling” feel that you are describing or “whole-sight” as writer is more or less a more accurately — this is atheist but, as my wife matter of feeling or sensing. Sarah has pointed out, Daniel Martin says? what obsessed poor old But here (and not for the Flaubert. He was thinking: I am not really so. This is J.F.: Yes, very much so. I am a first time) language fails us. her use to me, she blows up “How can I best describe this?” great believer in feeling, the He wrote some bad novels all the little myths about intuitively sensing of what S.O.: Indeed, to describe feeling yourself that you inherit is much more difficult. — such as his novel about life is about. It is simple, North Africa, Salammbô. all through life. L’enfer sont having theories les autres, as Sartre said. J.F.: That is the problem with about what life is. being a writer, really. You S.O.: Your concept of reality is very complex. For example, S.O.: In The Aristos (1964) you S.O.: Is this what you are write the whole time, you try draw an implicit opposition to find the words to express you always draw a clear striving to achieve in distinction between the between self and world when all your fictions? what life is like and then you you refer to “the otherness of don’t find them. I am a great attempt to pin down things.” Nearly thirty years J.F.: Yes, I think I am. But I would admirer of the French writer, reality and realism, for later, you continue to speak use the word “feeling.” It is Flaubert. I have the deepest you they are not the same in similar terms in The no good just having theories admiration for him. And thing, reality and realism. Nature of Nature (1995) about what life is; you have he was continually worried J.F.: Well, I’d say that I like when you warn the reader to sense that it is about finding the exact word. realism in most writers I read. that the “world is not just worthwhile living. I am still very interested stranger than we think; it in the exact way to picture S.O.: Yes, but you are not a may be stranger than we S.O.: What other differences are life. It’s very, very difficult. realist. You are much can think.” And in The Tree there between the language more complex than that. (1979), you suggest that the of the scientist and the S.O.: In “Golding and ‘Golding’” “otherness” of nature is a language of the individual (1986) you say that there are J.F.: I hope, more complicated. result of the human need writer apart from the two types of English writer, those who show an “eager S.O.: Yes. There is a sentence and complaisant willingness from Alain Fournier you to obey the conventions of like quoting which the genre,” like Richardson, summarizes this Jane Austen, Elizabeth distinction: “I like the Taylor and Barbara Pym. marvelous only when it And those who are always is enveloped in reality.” trying to break away from J.F.: I am a great admirer of dear the conventions, like old Fournier. Defoe, Sterne, Joyce and D. H. Lawrence. There is no doubt S.O.: How are we to interpret that your own work belongs his sentence? Would it be to the second, experimental right to say that, in fiction, side: in every novel you reality is best explored attempt something new, by having recourse to both formally and the marvelous, or thematically, even to the rather, to myth? point of going against your instinctive preferences. J.F.: Well, I am an admirer of For example, in A Maggot people like Márquez, and I you force yourself to write greatly admire Borges, as within the straitjacket of the you know. Borges for me is jargon appropriate to legal probably the best novelist we deposition, instead of have, or have had recently. enjoying the freedom of I think Márquez has been an external narrator, which extremely useful in telling is what you really like. At everybody that there are the same time, you insist different ways of writing that writing should be firmly about something, not only based on the real. Are these the strictly realistic. two elements, the constant S.O.: Are you thinking of attempt to renew the novel magic realism? form while keeping its capacity to pin down reality, the two legs on 5 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University essay

their creation of “the Robin J.F.: I am also very interested in Hood myth, or that part of the old myth of Robin Hood. it which suggests life under I think we have not really the greenwood tree can sufficiently acknowledged be pleasant.” Is this its importance in the English nature- liking attitude psyche: it is what being to nature the key to an English means. I have just understanding of the had a very good new book tmeaning of human about the Green Man by life on earth? William Addison. William Addison is a poet, J.F.: I think it is really very and recently,someone I important that all mankind know quite well near here, should become natural sent to me a copy. I do like historians. I’m a great it very much. Do you have a believer in natural history. Green Man myth in Spain? Probably the American I most admire is Edward Wilson. S.O.: Oh, yes. For example, in Zaragoza there is a S.O.: Why is it so important Renaissance palace with for you? a design showing a Green J.F.: Well, first of all because it Man on the window sill. tells you about what this According to a recent article world is, and what everything in The Guardian, there is in it is, or in some cases ought a new “Little Englanders” to be. At the moment we have movement developing side a tremendous debate here by side with the new surge in Britain over hunting and in Scottish and Welsh shooting, and I am totally nationalism. How does opposed to anyone who this new development defends hunting. But it splits affect your thoughts England in half, you know; about “being English”? half believe in it, half don’t. J.F.: One of our best poets of And I’m afraid I am totally, if this century called Larkin you like, on the side of the fox. was a New Englander. I’m S.O.: In an article entitled sure that British common “On Being English But Not sense will see it is rubbish. British” (1964), you say S.O.: But you define yourself as that there is a “split in the English, not as British, so English mind between the you think being English Green England and the red- is important? white-and-blue Britain”... J.F.: I do have a deep, if sometimes J.F.: In other words, between skeptical, love of certain Imperialistic and fascistic aspects of England, yes, as Britain and the green kind. opposed to being French You must remember that or German, for instance. we’ve been through a sort of Franco period here in S.O.: Susana has asked you Britain—in effect of because you don’t toying with fascism. That describe yourself in way only one end results: that marvelous essay as fascism in all its countless being British, you describe forms. In one word: hell. yourself as being English. S.O.: You also say that the most J.F.: Another way of describing J.F.: Magic realism, yes, it’s been S.O.: In The Tree, you explain potent archetypal concept myself would be by saying an enormous contribution how your father’s perfectly lying beneath “the English I am neither British nor towards improving the state trimmed and ordered apple mania for justice is the English, I am European. of the novel. orchard betrayed his legend of Robin Hood, the Years ago I read a famous neoclassical “hatred of Just Outlaw, [....] the man essay by, was it Schubert, S.O.: That reminds me of A natural disorder,” and how who always, when faced or someone like that? That Maggot; it got some bad this type of garden, the best with taking to the forest essay said we must make reviews because the critics example of which would be or accepting injustice, runs a unified Europe, which did not understand that. Carl Linnaeus’ little garden for the trees.” Mature male of course we are arguing Some American reviewers in Uppsala, reflects the same characters in your fiction about at the moment. thought, for example, that fear of the wilderness that is such as G. P., Henry Breasley, the novel did not make any expressed in the “nature- Conchis or Dick Thurlow, S.O.: At the end of Daniel Martin, sense because it did not have fearing” paintings of the deaf-mute servant in A the reader is surprised to a closed ending. Antonio Pisanello and Maggot, share basic traits discover that Daniel Martin has not written his J.F.: The critics do at times get a other medieval artists. in common with the Green You also trace “The first Man. Apart from autobiographical novel yet. bit wild, at points...but then Also disturbing is the I think it is legitimate to hints of a rebellious and anti-establishment irreligious swing from rebelliousness and love of reader’s realization that use wildness because really Dan’s pseudonym, “Simon you are saying the novel is a nature-fearing to nature- justice, what other values do liking” back to the these characters stand for? Wolf,” can be rearranged strange thing. Above all, it to form the name FOWLES is always changing nature. Elizabethan period and 6 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I essay

(Simon WOLFE), and that was “generally rather a sad going, it protects the house to say something about Lyme, Dan’s unwritten last and failed one.” Looking and it also gives the use for how much I loved it myself. I sentence “Whole-sight, or at the second half of the young writers. So, we are think somewhere I called it a all the rest is desolation,” twentieth century in keeping our fingers crossed. debt. I feel I owe it to Lyme. I is in fact the first sentence retrospect, is there any knew my wife was very good in your novel, Daniel Martin. reason to think that the J.F.: Well, it’s like everything on typography and the kind Were you suggesting that, for new generations are else in life. It’s like buns. of type used. She very kindly all his attempts to change happier and better? It depends on which side it agreed to do it, so in a way it the course of his life, is going to fall. I don’t mind is our book, it is by both of us. Daniel Martin is in fact J.F.: No, I think humanity is that. That for me is humanity. a failure. Humanity at the S.F.: It’s a bit of a folly really. just a literary character, S.O.: Hazard. He likes hazard. trapped in your novel and moment is poised. Maybe it is doing right, maybe it is doing But we’ll make it work, J.F.: It’s a good work for a folly. therefore incapable of I know we will. exerting his free will? wrong. But that is the nature S.F.: I call it John’s folly. of human life, we don’t quite J.F.: I hope so. The Landmark J.F.: I think in a way, yes, he know which side we ought Trust is an excellent S.O.: Who owns the original is somebody trapped in a to be on. I’m quite certain do-gooding. portraits of the “Lyme novel, and really doesn’t know one ought to be on the side Worthies” and where where he’s going, as we all are. of the protection of Nature. S.O.: Another project you have are they? And similarly, in politics mentioned sometimes S.O.: And why is it that the one ought to be on the left. is the publication of J.F.: We have had trouble over that pseudonym can be read your diaries. Are you because the boy downtown as Fowles? S.O.: In the last few years you revising them with who did it was very upset have been thinking of this view in mind? because he thought we were J.F.: That’s a game I am playing transforming Belmont making money out of it and with readers. I’m a great and House into a residence for J.F.: Something strange has we weren’t. We didn’t think deep believer in taquinerie. young writers. How is the happened. Since I got the it would sell very well and Taquiner, to tease. I believe project at the moment? publishers talking about it hasn’t. an important task for the publishing and so on I every novelist is to tease J.F.: I had a letter today about it. have lost all interest in it. S.O.: Gavin Bird is his name? So his readers. There are Most people like the idea of the originals belong to him? various ways of doing that. it becoming a college of some S.O.: Why have you lost interest? kind. But I’m afraid the one J.F.: Yes, he has the originals and S.O.: Likewise, in A Maggot, Mr B., thing that is missing is J.F.: First of all because they are the copyright. We have who is an endless the money. too long. They are enormous, given good copies of them story-teller, had hired the although people are kindly to the Philpot Museum. We other travelers to perform a S.O.: Hold on, hold on there, interested in them, wanted to give any profit that series of roles while keeping because it’s a chance for I realize that. is made (which would be quite them in the dark about the us to get this put over right, honestly rather little) because real aim of the journey. In properly now, John, I think. S.F.: They are wonderful. He we didn’t print many, we this sense, we might say that He is giving the place away, will, he’s going to. only printed a thousand... he, like Daniel Martin and with the vast garden. For two S.O.: How is your authorized Extra money if any is made also like Miles Green in reasons. First of all he wants biography progressing? will go to the Museum. Mantissa, is consciously to protect it as Mrs Coade’s trying to control his life, house, the woman whose J.F.: Well, that’s another problem. S.O.: But can the copies be seen at to write the script of his marine villa it once was, I do not know. I’ve lost all the Museum? own existence for the and of course, as his own interest in that too. J.F.: I’m not sure. Yes, I think so, comoedia vitae. However, house. And above all to but Gavin Bird has them. as the Richardsonian echoes protect the garden from S.O.: But why? of his name suggests, Mr B. becoming a ghastly housing J.F.: As a writer one tends to be S.O.: There is no reading of a is only a fictional character, estate, or an old people’s at the mercy of one’s critics. work that is not also a trapped in a novel entitled home or whatever normally You know they don’t read “re-writing.” How are A Maggot. Could we then happens to houses this carefully enough, they young readers re-writing say that Mr B.’s final size. And we have got a don’t think about what your work at present? disappearance is proof remarkable organization they read. And so they Is there a difference that he — unlike Martin who is keen to do it, but they can misunderstand between the way in which and Green — has managed do want John to endow it. what they read. your novels were received at to step out of the novel, thus their time of publication and J.F.: But I can’t, you see. As a lover liberating himself from “the S.O.: Last November you published the way in which they are of myths, you have to live prison-house of language” Lyme Worthies, a beautiful read now by young people? with myths, and the myth is and becoming, like John book reproducing the Has this reading been that you are enormously rich. Marcus Fielding, in portraits of some Lyme affected by the fact that Everybody in Lyme thinks “The Enigma,” the Deus Regis personalities... you have been “canonized”? absconditus, the God that I must be terribly well who went missing? off but I just haven’t got the J.F.: I wouldn’t say it’s beautiful. J.F.: I think in a way what I money to endow, you see. An amusing small book call the reality of me is J.F.: Well, I leave it open. He may I’d call it. beginning to reach across. S.O.: But there are other ways of have disappeared or he may But I would not say fast. raising the money and this not. Really the important S.O.: You have already written You know this whole age is charitable organization thing was that the hero of several books on Lyme Regis celebrity mad. We’re just called the Landmark Trust “The Enigma” had fallen in history that show your imitating America there, is prepared to take the love with the girl. Really attachment to it. But this I’m afraid. I have no time house on, we hope, and let it is a declaration of love. new book is about your for celebrity or celebrities. universities, colleges use contemporaries. What was S.O.: Talking about Daniel Martin it for 3 or 4 months a year your aim in publishing it? S.O.: You often speak of great you said in an interview that which is a wonderful idea writers who are followed your generation, the because it keeps the house J.F.: I was curator of the museum by “an endless swarm of middle-class Oxford here for many years and I inauthentic scribblers generation of the 1940s, suddenly felt one day I ought 7 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University essay

trading on a fad.” Who are J.F.: No. But I must tell you that the scribblers who have been Martin Amis was editor of J.F.: I think I ought to say as they J.F.: No, no. I’m still a mystery trying to imitate you in The Spectator which I wrote say in law: “I need notice to myself. But I think that the last two decades? for and he nearly always of that question.” If I’m is probably good. All human turned me down when honest — What’s his great beings should be mysteries. J.F.: Well, it is true that I have I wrote anything. But novel? Shame, isn’t it? Well, they are, anyway. They made quite a lot of money actually he’s just not my should behave as if they are from books, and I think it sort of writer. He writes S.O.: Yes, and Midnight’s mysteries to themselves. is quite normal that other too much, in my view. writers should say “Well, I’ll Children. He writes try that, I’ll try that.” That’s S.O.: And Julian Barnes? Could magic realism. That’s why S.O.: “Behave,” what do you mean how I managed to write he be an imitator of yours? I’m asking you. A kind of by “behave”? myself in the beginning: Indian magic realism. by suddenly thinking of J.F.: Yes, I wouldn’t have said J.F.: They should act. They should very much so. But yes, a famous author; he could J.F.: I have a phrase I use in act as if they do not know write.... I would regard my I admire Barnes. He has certain attractive short restaurants: “They’re trying.” themselves. Before every life immediate line of English there is a great question mark. writers as beginning with stories about France and S.O.: You can’t say that about I’m sure all life is the same. D. H. Lawrence and then about poujadism. And there’s it goes to Golding next. Flaubert’s Parrot. Flaubert’s Rushdie. Please don’t. Well, We just do not know Parrot is probably the best yes, of course you can. or understand. S.O.: Joyce? novel of the last century. J.F.: No, I admire Joyce, because he S.O.: I also have here J.F.: Well, what I think, I’d say the S.O.: So when you write a novel is diabolically clever... Peter Ackroyd. politics on Rushdie is out at do you write it with the hope but I feel he is too far the moment. The politics is of understanding yourself from the main old line of J.F.: Peter Ackroyd wrote a rather out, meaning it’s for the jury a bit better? the English novel. I admire poor novel about Lyme Regis to decide. A very clever writer I’d certainly say first of all called First Light. In a but I don’t like all his books. J.F.: Yes, partly, partly. You write sense I cannot forgive D. H. Lawrence — and then I think he must be read with novels to know who you are. Golding nowadays. And I also writers for writing bad novels. Kipling. That means with a admire Conrad. What’s that pinch of salt... I would “push” S.O.: And to understand the great novel about Africa? S.O.: Not even one out of ten? above all others today a very world better too? S.O.: Heart of Darkness. J.F.: Well, of course you can gifted young novelist and poet called Adam Thorpe. (Read J.F.: I don’t think I’m too worried J.F.: Heart of Darkness. That for always find some charitable Ulverton). I might also name about knowing the world me is the great novel of way of wriggling out, as the last century. in football. Every writer Edward Carey. He wrote the better because I think is allowed one bad novel best novel I saw last year, humanity is taking a huge S.O.: And then you come after and all that sort of thing. Observatory Mansions. My step towards precisely that, Conrad and Golding: Fowles. apologies if this begins to mainly through science. And after Fowles what? S.O.: What do you think of Angela Carter? sound as if I’m on a race This is the great step forward J.F.: No, I don’t think I can say I course. But this is it. It is that all humanity is taking come next. J.F.: I quite enjoy her work but very much luck and gamble. at the moment: it is towards I don’t know it very well. knowing yourself S.O.: Well, I can say that. S.O.: And Jeanette Winterson? S.O.: My last question is: scientifically, or rationally. J.F.: I might be in the general line, What is the question I suppose. J.F.: I do not like. She is well interviewers have always S.O.: Talking about the discovery known on the English failed to ask you that you of the genome: do you think S.O.: Since you, and since your literary scene as being a would have liked to be asked? it will help us to know — I have to say your great — bit of a bitch. And I don’t success, who do you like the sound of her. ourselves better? think has been influenced J.F.: I think something impossible. by you, John? What novelist S.F.: But you didn’t like her novel A possibility, if I could know J.F.: I don’t know about knowing have you read that you The Passion..., you know, the answer, would be: Who ourselves better but I think might see yourself.... about Napoleon.... are you? And this was it will make our moral Socrates. The thing he was decisions, or lack of them, J.F.: Do you know? I can’t answer J.F.: Yes. I’m trying to think of one always on about was certain clearer. A good deal clearer. that. I do occasionally read a new book thinking, oh well, I really did like. What was knowledge: know yourself. I I must have influenced him. the one about her childhood? am a great admirer of Socrates. S.O.: I have just read that we have But normally I don’t twice as many genomes as a think it’s for me to say: S.O.: Ah yes. Oranges Are not the S.O.: And if Susana had asked flea, or a fly. Does it make I have influenced you, you Only Fruit. It is very funny, you this question “John a difference? have been influenced by me. hilarious. Another writer I Fowles, who are you?” S.O.: I have a list of young have here on my list is What would you say? J.F.: You might like to know about writers here; let me tell Kazuo Ishiguro. Miriam. Miriam Rothchild you their names and J.F.: I don’t know. So I’m afraid is a learned scientist we you might tell me... J.F.: He’s very clever, like it’s a kind of impasse all greatly admire in this all the Japanese. situation one’s at: country. She has written J.F.: I’ll say “Yes” or “No.” I can’t answer. several books about S.O.: O. K. For example, what S.O.: The last one on my list is butterflies and most famously do you think about Salman Rushdie. S.O.: But do you know yourself a marvelous history of the Martin Amis? better now than before? flea...a very intelligent lady and I think much loved by everyone in England...in the

8 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I essay

world of science...because she has worked, we use a naughty racist expression in this country, “like a negro,” which means she’s worked very hard.

S.O.: How do you feel about being the subject of courses at the University — the fact that students at University study, let’s say, a doctoral course on John Fowles?

J.F.: I think on the whole I like it. Because you write books and you hope they’ll be understood and appreciated. The whole university and academic process advances that.

S.O.: Well, let us hope this interview contributes to this purpose of helping your readers understand and appreciate your work better. Many thanks for your time and forbearance.

J.F.: And many thanks to you also, Susana.Now, if I may, I’m going to plunge into an old book I bought only yesterday. It makes merciless fun of all politicians and our Royal family, so must be good.

From Anglistik. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Anglistenverbandes 13.1 (Spring 2002): 46–62.

9 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University essay The Dachau Shoe by W.S. Merwin

My cousin Gene (he’s really only a second cousin) has a shoe he picked up at Dachau. It’s a pretty worn-out shoe. It wasn’t top quality in the first place, he explained. The sole is cracked clear across and has pulled loose from the upper on both sides, and the upper is split at the ball of the foot. There’s no lace and there’s no heel. He explained he didn’t steal it because it must have belonged to a Jew who was dead. He explained that he wanted some little thing. He explained that the Russians looted everything. They just took anything. He explained that it wasn’t top quality to begin with. He explained that the guards or the kapos would have taken it if it had been any good. He explained that he was lucky to have got anything. He explained that it wasn’t wrong because the Germans were defeated. He explained that everybody was picking up something. A lot of guys wanted flags or daggers or medals or things like that, but that kind of thing didn’t appeal to him so much. He kept it on the mantelpiece for a while but he explained that it wasn’t a trophy. He explained that it’s no use being vindictive. He explained that he wasn’t. Nobody’s perfect. Actually we share a German grandfather. But he explained that this was the reason why we had to fight that war. What happened at Dachau was a crime that could not be allowed to pass. But he explained that we could not really do anything to stop it while the war was going on because we had to win the war first. He explained that we couldn’t always do just what we would have liked to do. He explained that the Russians killed a lot of Jews too; after a couple of years he put the shoe away in a drawer. He explained that the dust collected in it. Now he has it down in the cellar in a box. He explains that the central heating makes it crack worse. He’ll show it to you, though, any time you ask. He explains how it looks. He explains how it’s hard to take it in even for him. He explains how it was raining, and there weren’t many things left when he got there. He explains how there wasn’t anything of value and you didn’t want to get caught taking anything of that kind, even if there had been. He explains how everything inside smelled. He explains how it was just lying out in the mud, probably right where it had come off. He explains that he ought to keep it. A thing like that. You really ought to go and see it. He’ll show it to you. All you have to do is ask. It’s not that it’s really a very interesting shoe when you come right down to it but you learn a lot from his explanations.

10 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I essay Child Light by W.S. Merwin

On through the darkening of the seeds and the bronze equinox I remember the brightness of days in summer too many years ago now to be counted the cotton-white glare floating over the leaves I see that it was only the dust in one sunbeam but I was a child at the time I hear our feet crossing the porch and then the glass door opening before we are conducted through the empty rooms of the house where we are to live that was on a day before I was nine before the lake and the water sloshing in the boat and what we heard about refugees and before Billy Green explained to me about sex and I saw my first strip mine and before the war and before the sound of the train wheels under me when the leaves were still green before the word for autumn that was before Ching and Gypsy and the sun on the kitchen table with the window open before the deaths by bombing and by sickness and age and by fire and by gas and by torture and before the scratched varnish of the study hall and before the camps and coming to Conrad and Tolstoy it was before the deaths of schoolchildren whom I had known and whom I heard of and before looking out into the trees after dark from the window of the splintery unlit chemistry lab into the scent of the first fallen leaves

11 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction NIKOLAI GOGOL, from the original Russian) is the once met him at a party in Ebetsya ‘No harm, Gruvin same one that stimulated Brucklyana, but you must admit Alexandrovitch,’ said Mikhaylo ABNER DOUBLEDAY Doubleday’s imagination. for the melody of his line play Mantlovich, smiling. and his ability to cover all meters & THE RUSSIAN “It was a quiet summer afternoon. equally, no one can measure up ‘Luckily I swung at the right The sun had reached its peak and to Vassily Maysov.’ time and did not miss.’ LITERARY ORIGINS was making its slow and gentle descent to the horizon. Komiskiya ‘Come, come Mikhaylo ‘Yes, it was quite athletic of you,’ OF AMERICAN Meadow was fresh with the scent Mantlovich, no one?’ Gruvin said Gruvin Alexandrovitch, of dogwoods and nasturtiums and Alexandrovitch asked with a ‘quite brave too.’And after BASEBALL the sounds of cardinals and smile. dusting themselves off, the two orioles mixed in a profusion boys laughed heartily at the by Mark Axelrod of harmonies that came from a ‘No one,’ answered Mikhaylo episode, walked down to the Mantlovich. ‘No one is as water’s edge and watched the It is a little known fact in the nearby copse. In the Komiskiya Meadow, by the edge of the Lake consistent in his play.’ ripples from the lake splash annals of baseball history, and languidly against the bedrock.” one which most American Mishygun, two young men walked. ‘Not even Petyr Rusinoff or sportswriters from Grantland Mikhaylo Mantlovich and Gruvin Tifory Kobuleshov?’ Rice to Red Smith, have Alexandrovitch, each twenty years ‘They are completely different The passage had an enormous intentionally dismissed, that old, were both dressed in khaki poets!’ screamed Mikhaylo impact on the young Doubleday Abner Doubleday owed the origins knickerbockers, ruffled at the Mantlovich, banging his cane who recognized in those brief of modern baseball not to the bottom, and blousy white shirts, to the ground. ‘It would be like lines the seeds of what was to English game of “rounders” or the sleeves of which were puffed comparing Buby Gybsonovitch become the game of baseball. But to “One Old Cat,” which most at the elbows and narrowed at the with Teodor Vyliyamssov!’ he needed more. So in an attempt everyone has assumed, but wrists. Mikhaylo Mantlovich wore white sox; Gruvin Alexandrovitch, to find out whether Gogol himself to a short story written by Angered by Mikhaylo red sox which he called ‘redlegs.’ had any ideas about what he had one of the grand masters of Mantlovich’s comment about They often came to Komiskiya to written or whether the passage Russian prose, Nikolai Gogol. Buby Gybsonovitch and Teodor discuss things like German was merely serendipitous, Vyliyamssov, the former of which As fate would have it, Doubleday, philosophy or Russian literature Doubleday began a was a comrade of his, Gruvin whose interest in sport was only or the political rhetoric of Herzen correspondence with the Russian Alexandrovitch, who was walking surpassed by his interest in and Belinsky or the romance writer. At the time Doubleday ahead of Mikhaylo Mantlovich, engineering and letters, was of traveling to far-off Yankee was a lad of nineteen while Gogol turned and hurled one of the extremely fond of Russian lands. Komiskiya Meadow was a was twenty-eight and had already stones straight at Mikhaylo writers, and it was a fondness peaceful place, one that lent itself written such stories as Mirgorod, Mantlovich. Instinctively, that bordered on adulation. Not to intimate conversation, and the The Old-World Landowners, Viy, Mikhaylo Mantlovich stepped into only had he read many of the good two young men, often called Taras Bulba and Arabesques not to the speeding stone and swung at it Russian poets like Derzhavin “the twins” because of their mention his satirical comedy The in an attempt to protect himself. and Zhukovsky, not to mention intellectual similarities, found Inspector General. But Doubleday the genius of Pushkin, but much the meadow a respite from the The stone cracked against the oak had a hunch that Gogol knew more admired some of the early prose agitation that was St. Petersburg. walking stick and flew straight than he was letting on and in a works of Krylov and Turgenev. back at Gruvin Alexandrovitch series of letters that continued As they talked, Mikhaylo But the author who fascinated who dodged the hurtling stone until Gogol’s death in 1852, Mantlovich would swipe at Doubleday the most was Gogol and slid headfirst to the meadow Doubleday and Gogol actually dandelions with a walking cane and the story that proved to as the rock sailed over his head collaborated on the rules and he fashioned from a branch of a be the impulse for the game and across the lake, finally regulations of the game of nearby oak tree while Gruvin was Huyóvina. landing in a thicket surrounded baseball as we know it now. Alexandrovitch would toss by a herd of grazing phillies. While a cadet at Army in 1838, smooth-faced stones into the The most important of their Gruvin Alexandrovitch slowly Doubleday discovered Huyóvina nearby lake. On this particular baseball letters were written raised his head and looked up at (trans. Foul Play, 1826), while occasion, though, their usual between 1838- and 1842 but none Mikhaylo Mantlovich who, perusing the library shelves congenial dialogue became of the correspondence is extant standing like a giant, appeared at West Point. Huyóvina was a rather heated. Usually as since Doubleday’s letters were to be as shocked by the incident as sprightly short story written in docile as new-born cubs, the two burned along with Gogol’s Gruvin Alexandrovitch himself. Gogol’s early “realistic” period became veritable tigers when the manuscript of Dead Souls, and although it lacked the acerbic subject of poetry was broached. ‘Are you okay?’ asked Mikhaylo Part II and Gogol’s letters were, fabulousness of Gogol’s more Mantlovich, concerned. at Doubleday’s request, buried mature works it exhibited the ‘That’s absolute nonsense!’ said with him. However, what does kind of literary efficacy that Mikhaylo Mantlovich. ‘Vassily ‘Fine. And you?’ asked Gruvin remain, thanks to a brilliant study inspired writers like Turgenev, Maysov’s poetry is beyond that Alexandrovitch, wiping dirt of Gogol’s notebooks researched by Goncharov and Dostoevsky. cheap sentimentalism of Lvov or stains off his face that made him Johann Arschkriecher, Professor Though the story deals with a day Emin or Neledinsky-Metetsky. As look like a pirate. of Eclectic Literature at Indiana lyricists go he must certainly rank University--French Lick, and in the life of two youthful friends, Mikhaylo Mantlovich nodded. with Pushkin.’ published in his work Doubleday it was a particular passage in the ‘That was a close call,’ he said, his to Gogol to Chance: The Literary tale that had the greatest impact ‘Pushkin!’ screamed Gruvin face reddened as an Indian. on Doubleday. Originally Alexandrovitch. ‘Only Sandoy Origins of Baseball (1996), we translated from Russian into Kufaksynov could possibly rank ‘I did not mean to brush you now know what contributions French (by Turgenev), the language with Pushkin.’ back like that,’ said Gruvin Gogol actually made to the game in which Doubleday had first read Alexandrovitch. ‘I do not know and why Doubleday probably it, none of the story’s content ‘I have nothing but the greatest what got into me.’ wanted Gogol’s letters buried was lost in translation and the respect for Sandoye Kufaksynov,’ with him. What we know is that following excerpt (my translation said Mikhaylo Mantlovich, ‘I even Doubleday began writing Gogol 12 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

in January, 1838 specifically his eccentricity eventually difference, which lends more than asking him about the “stick and yielding to hallucinations and a bit of credence to the position The last mention Gogol makes of stone” episode in Foul Play. Gogol madness by the time of his death that Doubleday did not select the baseball was in an 1842 entry responded by writing that the idea at the age of forty-three. It was distance just for the sake of at which time he noted a was not new in Russia and that the in that vein of eccentricity that paying tribute to his favorite writ- recommendation to Doubleday Ukrainian peasant boys played a Gogol made numerous suggestions er, but because it made him appear that he try to organize a game game called “zasrát` glazá,” the many of which Doubleday to be a better engineer than he between two teams “of equal object of which was to hit a categorically discarded. Among might have otherwise appeared. strength and skill.” In fact such thrown, oven-baked chicken those was the suggestion that a game did not transpire until turd with a short paddle, run to a pitchers be allowed to spit on the Likewise, the choice of ninety-feet four years later when the Gotham “pizd’ósh,” or “base,” and run back ball or use various articles like between bases and nine men on a Knickerbockers lost to the New again before the paddleman could emery boards to scar the surface team and nine innings in a game York Nine 23-1. Unfortunately, be hit by someone throwing the of the ball to, in Gogol’s words, was not merely serendipitous. after June, 1842 their turd. Gogol said he merely “allow the ball to seek its own The reason for Gogol’s belief in the correspondence dropped modified the game feeling projection.” But Doubleday felt diamond has been mentioned, but off dramatically due primarily his reading audience might be those suggestions were not in the allegiance to numbers like to the fact that after Doubleday offended if he used, as he wrote, keeping with the American nine and three and four is a graduated in 1842 he fought in “something as coarse as a shit-ball” ideal of “fair play” and refused to rather fascinating bit of arcana. the Mexican War and Gogol was instead of a stone. Most scholars incorporate them into the rules. becoming increasingly consumed believed Gogol was merely About the time Gogol and by his masterpiece, Dead Souls, being ironic with the youthful But other ideas abound as well. Doubleday began their and his withdrawal from society Doubleday, but the game of “zasrát` References in Gogol’s Confessions correspondence, Gogol was to devote himself to religious glazá” actually did exist and was of an Author (1847) indicate that becoming increasingly attracted meditation. According to played, just as Gogol indicated, the shape of the field and number to metaphysics, to spiritual Dr. Arschkriecher, the last letter by Ukrainian peasants as of bases were probably the most zealotry, and was already written by Gogol to Doubleday early as 1728. disagreed-upon subjects. For exhibiting the early signs of a was sent on 4 February 1852 only example, as to the shape of the religious madness that would two weeks before Gogol died. With that in mind, Doubleday field, Doubleday had insisted on drive him insane some few years In it, Gogol asked Doubleday for a suggested that the two of them a rectangular playing field with later. In his Confessions, Gogol “pizdabrátiya” (which in today’s collaborate on creating a “new” numerous bases at irregular wrote that on the evening he English would translate to game which Doubleday called distances, but Gogol was received a letter from Doubleday “franchise”), if, in fact, the game “baseball.” Always one for the adamant about using a diamond he had a vision, a mystical vision, became popular. Though there’s challenge of curiosities, Gogol with equidistant pizd’ósh. in which the spirit of God visited no letter to record Doubleday’s consented. In subsequent One would think that with him in the shape of the number response to Gogol’s request, a note letters both Gogol and Doubleday an engineering background nine. As Gogol wrote, “the spirit in Gogol’s notebook dated 21 attempted to formulate rules Doubleday would have recognized came upon me and whispered in February 1852, the last day of about the game though, according the elegance in Gogol’s choice of a desultory way that all things in Gogol’s life, had Doubleday’s to Arschkriecher’s work, there shapes, a selection that was not life aspire toward perfection, that initials and the Russian phrase were many disagreements. Gogol, arbitrary, but, according to Gogol, ultimate perfection resides within “zalúpa kónskaya,” (which, simply as most scholars of his life and religious. as were the number of the curve and stem of the number translated, means “jerk”), work know, was a bit eccentric, bases. Doubleday suggested six or nine the all-but-complete, all-but- scribbled in the margins. seven bases and, of course, a perfect, number nine.” Such a Apparently Doubleday denied his rectangular field, but Gogol statement would, of course, master’s request for reasons that recommended four bases because account for the plenitude of nines still remain a mystery today. four “represents the macrocosm in the game which Gogol once which the microcosm naturally deemed was “invested with the When Doubleday died in reproduces” and a diamond spirit of the Lord.” Out of that 1893 there was no mention instead of a rectangle since the “vision” Gogol convinced the whatsoever of Gogol’s diamond “is a symbol of light impressionable Doubleday that contribution to the game, which and brilliance, of moral and establishing nines would make may account for the fact that intellectual knowledge.” Actually, the game “sacred,” thereby Gogol’s letters went to Doubleday had not even thought “sanctifying the glory of His name.” Doubleday’s grave. Nor has about the practical applications of As for the number of strikes and anyone ever really given Gogol the such a layout, tied as he was into balls, Gogol said three was the full measure of credit he deserved its purely theoretical applications. ideal number for it represented for contributing, in an enormous But Gogol insisted that a the “number of the deity” while way, to the creation of the great rectangular field with different four represented the “temporal American sport as we know it. distances between bases did not and mundane.” The total, seven, As a matter of fact the only lend itself very well to the implied, for Gogol, like St. acknowledgment ever accorded “physics of running.” This Augustine, a totality which Gogol for the contribution he disagreement lasted for several seemed to embody the “perfection made to baseball is a tiny plaque months before Gogol finally of man” and, therefore, the located at a country hostel in the convinced Doubleday to try “perfection of the game.” Russian village of Dikanka. The running around a rectangle Doubleday, a religious fellow sign reads in Russian: “Here is with seven bases. After Doubleday himself, found Gogol’s where Nikolai Gogol perfected tried running around his irregular suggestion blessed with a pizd’ósh a game which became rectangular field, then tried Christian virtuosity that could America’s pastime.” Perhaps running around Gogol’s diamond not be ignored and felt compelled nothing more could have made of four bases ninety-feet apart, he to implement the him prouder. was positively amazed to see the master’s suggestion.

13 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University poetry Poems By Giuseppe Conte ALL THE WONDER OF THE WORLD WHITMAN It’s as you say, I should leave again. No one listens to the voice of poets any more. Poetry has betrayed. I’ve never been happy in a house. Now it no longer sings, and the bellows of the wind are silent I’ve never been happy in a family. among the star-trees and the blood-rivers and the fields of I’ve never felt homesick when I was flowers and snow. alone and far away. For me, all the wonder Hey, Walt Whitman, Captain! Groping, neither blind nor prophet, of the world was on the promenade we go down to the shadows. Walt Whitman, they have betrayed by the sea, when, school books in my satchel, you, you know? I walked fast and breathed in wind the color of salt and agave. American democracy, the great one, with the totem silence that is I pretended to have my hand Manhattan seen from the Staten Island ferry as it approaches in a girl’s hand : the wonder, the strong race with the woods of giant firs, with the giant-violet bushes around of dreams, the books, the movies, the road of the Adirondacks, light blue toward the evening when the long train rides, the deer go down to its edge the long crossing of the soul, but the walls of a house, never. the great democracy, with the desert of red thorn-rocks and mesas shaped like cones cut by a knife of asters, altars of purplish blue ash as far as the Rio Grande flowing between high and steep walls, open like an isthmus cut by a lightening from skies more powerful than these as far as the Pacific, to the glare of the sun streaming , sown, grain by grain, by the light toward the clear ports of Asia the democracy you sung, the sea attracting moon, the sky-running sun the democracy of your word, of your ardor, of your bodies that rotate gravitating around one body, like satellites around their planets the only democracy, made of love and trees, of desire, joys, rivers, companions, journeys, what is now?

14 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I poetry

WHITMAN TUTTA LA MERAVIGLIA DEL MONDO Nessuno ascolta più la voce dei poeti. La poesia ha E’ come dici tu, dovrei ripartire. tradito.Ora non canta più e del vento i mantici tra Non sono mai stato felice in una casa. le stelle –alberi e i fiumi-sangue e i campi di fiori e di Non sono mia stati felice in famiglia. neve tacciono. Non ho mai avuto nostalgia, quando ero solo e lontano. Tutta la meraviglia Ehi Walt, Walt Whitman, Capitano! Brancolando, né del mondo per me era la passeggiata ciechi né profeti, scendiamo alle ombre, e parliamo alta sul mare quando, i libri di scuola con le ombre. Walt Whitman, ti hanno tradito, lo sai? in una cartella, a passo veloce La democrazia americana, la grande, dal silenzio di andavo , e inspiravo il vento totem che è Manhattan vista dal battello di Staten colore del salino e delle agavi Island mentre si avvicina e fingevo di avere una ragazza per mano:la meraviglia, la razza dai boschi di abeti giganti, di cespugli viola-giganti forte dei sogni i libri, il cinema, intorno alla strada degli Adirondacks, azzurro i lunghi viaggi in treno, chia-ra verso sera quando scendono sui suoi bordi i daini le lunghe traversate dell’anima la grande, dal deserto di rocce-spine rosse e di altopia-ni ma mai i muri di una casa, mai. tagliati da un coltello a cono, di astri, altari di cenere turchino-porpora

sin dove scorre il Rio Grande tra pareti strette e altis-sime, aperte a istmo da un fulmine di cieli più pos-senti di questi

sino al Pacifico, al barbaglio del sole grondato e semi- nato grano a grano di luce verso i chiari porti del-l’Asia

la democrazia che hai cantato, la luna attrai-mare. Il sole percorri-cielo

quella della tua parola, del tuo ardore, dei tuoi corpi che ruotano gravitando attorno a un corpo, come satelliti intorno al loro pianeta

la sola democraia, fatta di amore e di alberi, di desideri, di gioie, di fiumi, di compagni, di viaggi,

che cos’è ora?

15 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction

They call his nail polish We should go somewhere, Meloon That would be unacceptable. I’ll Blood Ruby. fool around. Get high. an anti allegory leave forever. I’ll run to Kabul and hide Afghanistan? by Steve Katz Heaven’s been dancing at a club I don’t get high any more, called Buttermilk. Asia always Heaven. I’ve got too much to do. Or Detroit the same. They warns me to stay away from him. Something drips onto my face and mix the hash with the O. He is not a nice person, likes to You don’t have anything to do, wakes me up. Eyes fly open as it Tenderness. But it’s sad to hear. splashes into my mouth. I snap up Have you tried it? hurt people, physically, in bed. These are my only clothes, emotionally, financially. As they leave the toads tug all the Tenderness, I’m drug free and I have no pajamas, so I wear Heaven sets his iced mocha down blue out of the room. Heaven eats forever. I never liked drugs these to sleep. I don’t want to soil and sits at my table. He drops a my two pills. I suddenly want the anyway, I just took ‘em. them. Some day soon I’ll go to a couple of pills onto my saucer. dose back, but what can I do now, laundromat and undress, but not I ask her to call me Ten, but she You good? swallow Heaven? I stand up to now. This stuff drips from a rusty likes to say my full name. It’s follow him. It’s risky. Asia stops stain widening on the ceiling, the okay. My name has a sweaty He has never before inquired me at the corner of the counter. color of anyone’s fluids, like blood ring to it. And this is about my condition, nor have I She has a damp rag in one hand for instance. The stain spreads something I love about Asia. ever heard him inquire about and a long knife in the other. She slowly pink then thickens to red Something vague and gorgeous. anyone else. I suddenly recall that blocks me with her knife arm concentrating into a viscous red his girlfriend Mandy lives in the pressed against my chest and drop that spot after spot falls at If I go I want you to come with me. apartment just above where I was wipes my face with the rag. an interval of forty-three seconds Of course. sitting house. Could it be that...? give or take. Maybe something Heaven is poison. Be careful Ten. terrible has happened above me. I also love this about Asia, she’s I’m terrific, and how are you, and how is Mandolin, your Her bloodshot eyes take on the pushy, but gentle. And she flint of compassion. In a loud The bowl I set on the bed is glazed wants me. excellent girlfriend, and with flowers and sketched with very intelligent too? whisper she says, Think first, rabbits. Slowly the drips will fill Great! But before we go anywhere Tenderness. Go home. Talk to this bowl. Life is tedious, one I need to walk around here a little. Perhaps I always say one thing your Mom and Dad. Find job. thing I know. too much. Even here we have an opening. Walk, Tenderness, but don’t forget your mocha. I made it with a I killed her. He grins like a chimp. I can’t go home again. I house sit here for my friend, Slit her throat is what I did. Melancholy (call me Mel). Not special plump thing in it, Search within the seeds of exactly a friend, but a strong just for you. That information crawls up my your contemplation. This acquaintance, strong enough so I Here’s the predicament. I need spine and lies on my shoulders is my life, we say, though it can house sit for him. He says he someone to watch over me. We all like a seventy pound backpack. could be another’s world. won’t ever come back from New have this need. And I’m willing Heaven, really. Heaven? Did you Don’t be stupid. This could Zealand. Not unless, Mandolin to assume my watch over another. stay with her, at her place, be your last chance. (call me Mandy), his ex,wants him But I know I will frequently resent last night? back. He still loves her but can’t anyone spooking my particulars. The knife slips from her hand and let go of his anger. She left him I was staying with uncle Dibs sinks into the boards between for Professor Crandall (call me Asia, your eyes are deep (they call me Mr. Dibs) down in her feet. Prof or call me Cran) a green today, oceany and Hudder Hollow. I go once a year to mutual friend. I feel emotionally beautiful, but why so bloodshot? help him gig for frogs. At Xmas he What does she mean by last chance, vacant Mel says as he prepares and what do I mean by my life? It’s coming on Xmas. likes the legs breaded and sautéed. to leave for New Zealand. He’s an amateur Frenchman. Asia stabs me gently in my mind, a I admire that about Asia, her Mandolin’s roommate, Meniscus soft penetration. I run after Vacant is better than empty, I tell answers oblique and relevant. (Emma, really), is back from Heaven, having thoughts. I don’t Mel. New Zealand might be a good Guyana. You should eat those I sit at my favorite table. want to be a barista, not ever, not place to enjoy some suffering. I am pills, Tenderness. Great to be rid even in the afterlife. Perhaps I lucky to have no such girlfriend. Massacre steps out of the door of her. She chain smokes and insulted her with my attitude, swinging an invisible scythe and vomits cliches. These pills unspoken but always apparent. I walk down to Big Cheeks the thus he sings:Ich höre Engel will make you feel great. Running through the red haze coffee house at the bottom of the schreien Ihre flugel stinken nach around the traffic lights I need hill, on the southwest corner. Big Cheeks crowds with well BenzinIhr Blut wir Regenfällt groomed business men cut loose several blocks to catch up Everyone out here murmurs about with Heaven. Massacre (call me Massa, call me Vom Narbenhimmel auf mein from jobs, and women stuck Cur, I don’t give a fuck.) Diversity Gesicht Heaven comes into without offices. They settle in to We sit on a benchstone near the (call me Dave), the manager, nods Big Cheeks followed by the wireless nest. And students sandspit that stretches into the at me as I enter, and Asia, (call me imaginary blue toads. The here research for papers with their river. He hands me two pills Asia) my favorite barista, bounces air fills with real warts. phones and tablets. They play which I gulp down. I know he is over sexy in her tight jeans, her games. Some read online about thinking about Massacre. I don’t black sweater, her soft burgundy Massacre. Wifi flows like the Tao need to think. scarf wound around a slender around these guys and gals. They neck. She lays my nonfat mocha work to make Xmas dreary, and These are river pills. Hanukah communally blank. on the counter even before I order. Thank you, Heaven. Perhaps Without wifi, a friendlier world. River Pills will be the end of me. What if I want something else Heaven chugs his mocha. Blue Not likely. Relax here. Now this time, like a cappuccino? toads stretch and yawn in the I’ll tell you my story. mind. Their wish is to fly.

16 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

Setting sun drips a dim orange on one of their inspections, ancient catfish, the legend of Big glow onto the icy water. The few so we tidied up and arranged Celery Pond a halfmile from the leaves rattle in the wind through our life to look neat as falls, that catfish often seen, never the willows. Chiclets in the package. hooked, eats everything, huge Pokah Springs was where I did fine like this for more than and dangerous. The fish grabs Delicious (call me Delia), my Mom, a year, until my mom died of a hold. With one twist of tail and moved after the separation, where smash to the skull with a full spine, snap, dad’s arm goodbye. she tried to cozy in with her dark quart bottle of canola oil, and Did this fish cross the quarter boyfriend, Pontifex (call me Pons). an OD on one of her happy drugs. mile of swamp grass overland That didn’t work for her. She was Back then Canola Oil came in to claim my dad’s left arm? She is a street acquaintance, not alcoholic, a friendly sappy drunk, glass bottles. Today the bottles for business. Sometimes I wonder a freebaser, occasional you know are plastic, softer, might nothave Maybe it was Massacre, what I’m doing in this story. I’ve what, call it smack maybe though killed her so much. The blow herself. She likes to practice. never been to her lair before. It is she never was that kind of was never investigated. I mean, not what I expected, but scrubbed junkie. Delia was a simple spirit who would want to kill my poor That arm was just a nibble for down clean, everything in its in a cloud of demons. Integrity devastated Delicious mom? Henry, damned catfish scavenger. place, great African masks and (call me Grits), my dad, had votive carvings. I forget she custody, but we frequently “I fed them from the How gory this world can be, escaped from Rwanda. Is she visited mom. She was always Hutu or Tutsi. I can’t tell, and loving, affectionate, though sad. cans. He never touched Heaven... I’m too timid to ask. When she She looked like she’d been sucked me, however. Blood is was thirteen she decided to walk through a woodchipper. She blood, I heard him say.” Heaven rises. Easy world, away from Africa and head north enjoyed to gift me underwear easeful death, not over yet. into Spain. She was alone and and I wear some occasionally now, raped pregnant. She got some tattered but nostalgically correct. Dad was more attached to her than He pulls me to my feet, a rides but did plenty on foot.Lost he admitted. We buried Delia in salamandrine smile on his face. the baby rowing to Gibraltar, Asia and the others warn me the pauper’s cemetery in Pokah His lips almost brush mine and for then hitchhiked from Gibraltar away from Heaven. Why? He Springs and went back to Horsetail a moment I think Heaven is going through Spain to stow away on seems mild by comparison to where Integrity sank into a long to kiss me, but no. He turns away a ferry to Dover. How did she themselves. Even sane. I don’t funk. I missed her too. For some and steps onto the sandspit. I feel eat? She sometimes mentions a feel threatened. His story has weeks he wouldn’t leave the house. the river’s appetite. The water wealthy and kind Mr. Eloquence some kick and surprise. I had to feed him ravioli from the soaking through his vintage (call me Al). Did he feed her? O He tells it slowly though. can. Then one day he started green Keds seems to drench my Saphronia, where are you now Imagine a story slowly. taking walks, every day longer Hush Puppies. A thought crosses that I tell your story? Could Mr. Grits was a fuck-up himself, and and longer walks, singing songs my mind and I open my mouth Eloquence finally have carried often left me for days to survive of nonsense on the way, like to say something but no words you away to an easier world? on my own. I learned first to open Mairezeedoats and So Long come. He looks back at me. one of the cans that filled the Oolong and Bibbedy Bobbedy Boo. I pause at the door, reluctant to cupboard. Ravioli. I ate it cold, He worried me, so I followed. I Death is a river, Tenderness. smirch her pristine space with and then I learned to boil the liked to hear him sing, but he was my blemishing presence. When I whole can, and then I splashed it only a small man mumbling down I have just one pair of enter and cross the living room to onto a skillet with some powdered a long road with nonsense spilling shoes. Help me, Heaven. join her in the kitchen for tea, her onion or garlic, and then I baked it from his mouth. One time, the parakeet blocks my entrance, tiny right in the can. Each tastes a little last time, he seemed very jolly, These are the last words. A whip chest thrust out as if he were a different. That is my recipes. My and turned because he sensed I of current tumbles him into the bouncer in a strip club. I can crush mouth waters when I think about was there, and he motioned me muscled turbulence that instantly him with the sole of my shoe. those days. Himself, he liked to catch up with him. He threw carries him away. I watch him go to drink, and scavenged among an arm around my shoulder and under once...twice...He doesn’t Wait a minute, the budgie young boys homeless on the sang “If the words sound queer, try to swim...a third time and says. Wait just a minute. streets. He was my father. Grits and funny to your ear...etc.” He Heaven is gone. There must be often brought one back to feed it. tugged me down to this very spot something someone can do. Wee critter talks. Orphans, runaways. Some he let by the river and let go of my hand. live withus for a while. I fed them He walked out onto the sand still On my way back to the apartment It flies up to land on my nose. This from the cans. He never touched singing... “A little bit jumbled and I see Saphronia (call me Sappho), bird can blind a man, extract an me, however. Blood is blood, I jivy...” I called out to him, “Dad vending her body on the street. eye as if it were a nut in its shell. heard him say. Thicker than boy ...Dad,” That was when a whip This is our so-called Street Of juice. And he always knew a few of current tumbled him into the Emanations. She’s come from I am the grim reaper, says the days before Family Services came muscled turbulence that instantly Philadelphia to escape an tiny bird. carried him away. I watched him abusive pimp. She waves at go under once ... twice... didn’t me, and stumbles a little in The bird has trouble with r’s, try to swim ... a third time under her six inch spikes. makes them sound like w’s. and Integrity was gone. There Gwim weaper. must have been something a man Hey Tenderskins, I’m about to could have done. To this day I feel close up shop. You want to come An image flashes for a guilty. They found his body later, home with me? Cup of tea? moment of Heaven a couple of days, at the Blesswater, Business poor. Too much life playing chess with a budgie. a few yards from Pewter Falls. His with kids. Johns be tired. right arm had been snapped off, Mr. Do-You-Wrong people imagined, by Henry, the shrinks in the socket.

17 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction

I look to the ceiling at the blotch I understood him. He wasn’t That’s my budgie buddy, says that has coagulated there and really gay, didn’t pursue those Saphronia. Easefuldeath his name, hangs like a rusty chandelier. adventures, no bathhouses, no but you can call him E.D. tough clubs like Sledge or The Melancholy doesn’t look at the Anvil, no Harleys. He enjoyed the When he hears his name the stain. He lifts the cushion of the pretty boy children of diplomats parakeet sings out in a voice that easy chair as if hoping to find his and torturers. He just liked to I could mistake for the great jazz grater between cushions and fondle young male hominids. diva herself, except for the slight brushes out some crumbs. parakeet rasp MY NAME I’ll get you a new one if... Who can blame him? Particularly IS PEACHES! the young, fuzz bearded boys who No need. I’ve lost track of my wanted to bed with Heaven. The We settle down to the tea, a Mandolin. When I use her she cuts young and the curious. Heaven Asia walks right in to the tea brewed from nettles my fingertips. Now I don’t know appreciated their little wickies. apartment. She has never done and chamomile. where she is. As do I. that before, come right in. She is on the marriage trail. She carries You know that Massacre is white? Melancholy turns abruptly and leaves as if propelled. The son falls, not so different a bouquet of asphodel, a greeny She stirs buckwheat honey into from the dad. flower. These are flowers she her tea.Many colors. Buckwheat Melancholy, Melancholy, I brings for me. Honey is too pharmacological whisper. He slams the door. How vast your empathy, Asia. for me. Like the Mexico Gulf. Wow, what a huge melon. It’s I come to rest here and stare at the Saphronia looks hard into my a meloon. wall for a few days, cannot move I sit down at my table. The face and asks, What is it? except for water, water in, Something wrong. beautiful woman perched on a She thumps the enormous fruit. water out. stool behind me talks into her cell So have you thought of a date? I take a deep breath and exhale Two cans of sardines open on the phone. Her long neck curves like softly with my words. counter, small fish complete with the close of a parenthesis. The Date? For what? voice is nasal and unpleasant. I never thought death could eyes. One day I shower them Asia brings my latte, four shots, The date for our wedding. be so tiny. with lemon. and a peanut butter cookie. From that day on everyone calls The door to the apartment is open. Finally I gather energy to go down me Meloon. Hello. My name I never leave it open. Melancholy to Big Cheeks. Asia greets me with Tenderness, don’t you think we is Meloon. sits on the easy chair. I a hug, oneof those clinches. You should get married? I think we immediately organize in my mind feel your molecules entangle. should get married. The door swings open and two my exit from the place. He doesn’t The embrace is as luscious women step in. They wear tight look like he’s going anywhere, not as it is confusing. The words married, marriage, knit dresses, one of them black, etc. lie in my mind like an idling the other teal. The room is green. New Zealand, not Cincinnati. This Did you hear about Heaven? locomotive. Marriage? With Asia? In the center of the room an is his place, not mine. If anyone she asks. has to leave, I do. Everything Though I find her an attractive, enormous melon sits intact on myself fragile as the wings The name pierces, an arrow even sexy woman, and I love her the table. These slim women with of mayflies. through my spleen. What company. But marriage. That long faces stare into the fruit. The about Heaven? locomotive won’t move. The rails one on the right has a blue tear Melancholy, I thought at least are gone. tattooed under her right eye. until the fifteenth. I thought I’d His body washed up at Passwater, The left woman has something, be here. I planned till the just before Pewter Falls. The left If we get married I will take care perhaps a hummingbird, inked fifteenth at least. arm was snapped off they say by of you, you betcha. I’ll wait for behind her left ear. Both of them Henry. You know Henry? are missing their incisors and Please, Mel my name. I’m not back. you to come home from war. Like their eyeteeth, perhaps once, but I can never come back. Of course. I love him; in fact, the wives of yore. I’ll wash your not vampires now. They stand I hate him. That cruel catfish. clothes and keep them neat. I can shoulder to shoulder and look at But are you...? Should I sleep on Could be a hundred years old, and sew, you betcha. And if we are me, four eyes looking at me. the couch? Maybe best I disappear. never even hooked. The creature married I won’t have to work the streets.What streets? What work? Their name is Pebble. - ate a whole John Smith, the curling champion. Are you the person formerly Yes. That... Don’t trouble. I’m leaving. Did known as Tenderness who now - you see my grater, my mandolin has the name of Meloon? Asia, you mean? grater? I can’t find her. Heaven is dead. He drowned. Now I think how sad that I have Asia wiped a tear. His ex’s name is Mandrake, an Sometimes I’m .... totally missed Xmas. Yes I am. unlikely name for a woman (call I know. So sad to lose Heaven. me Mandy). She lives usually in As I often do when I spend too the apartment above. There is a much time realming with Death, little confusion here. hitched to Confusion (and I don’t mean those surfing twins from I don’t think I ever used it, Mel. Pinkney Shoals) I go to the I never grate. farmer’s market and buy a melon. I can’t find her anywhere. Nothing comforts like the giant melon. Heavy as a bomb. Bigger. I’ll replace it. I never bought Bends the tabletop in the a grater before...but I... apartment. This melon will drown my face in its flesh.

18 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

To Have Been told him that he had been one of a way out, protecting you empty but with a lock on it to keep by Claudio Magris the greats of the guitar, and he from the obligation of out bank robbers who might want said that for him it wasn’t enough joining in and losing your skin. to put who knows what inside it. And so Jerry is dead, never mind, to have been. He wanted to be-it Empty, nothing that grabs your that isn’t the problem, neither for didn’t matter what, a musician,a Being hurts, it doesn’t let up. Do heart and bites into your soul, life him nor anyone else, not even for lover, anything, but to be. this, do that, work, struggle, win, is there, already been, secure, safe me who loved him and still love fall in love, be happy, you must from any accident, an out-of- him, because love doesn’t Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in that be happy, living is this duty to be circulation bank note for a conjugate-my God, in that sense, moment I understood what great happy, if you’re not how shameful. hundred old crowns that you of course, what’s next, though love luck it is to be born like me, or to So, you do all you can to obey, to hang on the wall, under glass, has its grammar and doesn’t know have an uncle or grandfather or be as good and clever and happy with no fear of inflation. Even in tenses only verbal moods, in whomever, born in Bratislava or as you ought, but how can you, a novel, the best part, at least for fact, just one, the present Lwòw or Kaloea or in any other things just fall on top of you, the writer, is the epilogue. infinitive, when you love it’s dump in this shabby Central love smacks you on the head like Everything has already forever and the rest doesn’t matter. Europe, which is a hell, a real a chunk of masonry off a roof, a happened, been written, worked Any love, any kind of love. It’s not cesspool. It’s enough to smell that wicked punch or worse. You walk out; the characters live happily true that you get over it, nothing musty odor, that stink which is hugging the walls to avoid those ever after or are dead, it’s all goes away, and this is often the the same from Vienna to crazy cars, but the walls are the same, in any case nothing particular rub, but you carry it Czernowitz, but at least it doesn’t crumbling, sharp rock and glass more can happen. The writer along with you, like life, and force you to be, on the contrary. slicing your skin and making holds the epilogue in his hands, even that is not really such great Yes, if Jerry had understood, when you bleed, you are in bed with rereads it, maybe he changes a luck, except that you get over love his hand didn’t work anymore, his someone and for an instant you comma, but he runs no risk. even less than life. It’s there, like great luck in having been, the understand what real life could starlight, who gives a damn if freedom, the vacation, the great and should be and it is an Every epilogue is happy, because they are alive or dead, they shine privilege of not having to be unbearable pang-picking your it’s an epilogue. You go out on the and that’s that, and though in anymore, of not having to clothes off the floor, getting balcony, a breeze comes through the daytime you can’t see them play anymore, his free pass dressed, getting out and away. the geraniums and the violets but you know they are there. from the barracks of life! Luckily there’s a bar nearby, of thought, a drop of rain slides how good a coffee or a beer tastes. down your face; if it rains harder So we won’t hear that guitar But maybe he couldn’t, since he you like to listen to the drumming anymore, and that’s fine too, you wasn’t born or raised in that of the fat drops on the awning. can learn to get along without stagnant Pannonian air, thick as “So, you do all you can When it stops you go take a little anything. God, how he could play. a blanket, in that smoke-filled stroll, you exchange a few words And when his hand didn’t work tavern where you eat badly and to obey, to be as good with the neighbor you meet on anymore, he pulled down the drink even worse, but are happy the stairs; neither for him nor blinds and kissed it all goodbye. to be there when it’s raining and clever and you does it matter what’s said, it’s To that, I’ve no objection. Sooner outside and the wind is just a pleasure to hesitate there a or later it happens, and it doesn’t howling—and outside, in life, it’s happy as you ought, moment and from the window on matter much how, anyway it has always raining and the wind cuts the landing you can see way down to happen, and who knows how through you. Yes, any grocer in but how can you.” there in the distance a strip of sea many of us here this evening, Nitra or Varaždin could teach all that the sun, now out from behind ladies and gentlemen, will be of Fifth Avenue-except for those Yes, drinking a beer, for instance, the clouds, lights up like a knife alive in a month’s time, certainly maybe who come from Nitra or is a way of having been. You’re blade. Next week we’re going to not everybody, it’s statistically Varaždin or some other place in there, sitting down, you look at Florence, your neighbor says. impossible. Someone who is those parts—the happiness of the foam evaporating, a little 0 yes, it’s nice, I’ve been there. pushing his neighbor or having been. bubble every second, a heartbeat, And in this way you save yourself complaining because the person in one beat less, rest and the promise the fuss of traveling, the lines, the front of him is blocking his view Oh, the modesty, the lightness of of rest for your tired heart; heat, the crowds, looking for a of the stage has already gone to the having been, that uncertain and everything is behind you. restaurant. A stroll in the barber for the last time, but never accommodating space where I remember that my grandmother, evening air fresh with rain, then mind, a year more or less doesn’t everything is as light as a when we went to visit her in back home. You must not wear make much difference, I don’t feather, against the presumption, Szabadka, would cover the sharp yourself out, otherwise you’ll get feel bad for those who kick the the weight, the squalor, the freight corners of the furniture with too excited and sleep won’t come. bucket and I don’t envy those who of being! Please,I’m not talking cloths and put away the iron table, Insomnia, ladies and gentlemen, keep on going, nor do I care much about any kind of past and even so that we children wouldn’t get believe me, is a terrible thing. to know what group I fall into. less about nostalgia, which is hurt when we ran into It crushes you, suffocates you, stupid and hurtful, as the world something racing around the follows at your heels, chases you, Amen for Jerry, and for everybody itself says, nostalgia, the pain of house, and she would even poisons you-yes, insomnia is the and everything. As I said, I can’t returning. The past is horrific, cover the electric plugs. To supreme form of being-insomnia, find fault with his decision, when we are barbaric and evil, but our have been is this, living in this that’s why you have to sleep, someone wants to get off the grandparents and great- space where there are no sharp sleeping is the only antechamber bus, it’s right to get off, and if he grandparents were even fiercer corners; you don’t scrape your of the true having already been, prefers to jump off while it’s still savages. I certainly wouldn’t want knee, you can’t turn on the but meanwhile it’s already moving,before the stop, that’s his to be, to live in their time. No, I’m lamp that hurts your eyes, all something, a sigh of relief… business. Someone can be fed up, saying that I would want to have is quiet, time out, no ambush. tired, unable to take it anymore, always already been, exempt from what do I know. When seeing him the military service of existing. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is down like that because he couldn’t A slight disability is sometimes the heritage that Central Europe play as before, to cheer him up I has left us. A safe-deposit box,

19 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University poetry From “A Further Witness” THE NAMES OF FRIENDS WE SHARE By Jerome Rothenberg the presence of the dead A GOD CONCEALED in every I is corner ego opens now in another into a space tongue of names a swollen & faces that escape sense from time of who the lonely dead he is stare out at us one day they learn to play will fall apart & leave him a game hapless & teach us how to read reading the times his words before on glass & after & air gathered or looking in our minds at the sky a faceless he reads swarm your face of the departed for as far the eyes as we can see like shards the streets of ice of Paris aglow as they were a god before concealed the names his mouth of friends askew we share between us the word on the flight is formidable [form-i-dabley] to Berlin in another other faces tongue with pale substance the words & grey hair (Amirgen White Knee) dance a world down the path of strangers inside my ears fathomless & come to rest across from us recalling they sit how you spoke & stare out & wrote at the frozen remembered sky friends barometers & comrades of change ages gone the living & the dead together take my hand in yours & we will find a passage to a world the mind remembers & the heart can share the resolution that the dead man saves for us absent a face 20 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I poetry

INSIDE MY MIND & YOURS not right or ripe the word emerging on its own he sucks & chews it spits it forth alive surprised to see the blood in droplets on a glass inside my mind & yours this place this planet nothing we have seen except the mind’s eye fires white & black the center iron red my heart calls out to you before you find me the corners opened wide through which the sea will seep a liquid air too hot for comfort still white fire on black fire

black on white

21 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction In the footsteps concludes by describing Sicily as “a strange and divine architectural of Maupassant museum.”Architecture is dead by Dacia Maraini, today, Maupassant states, we have lost the gift of creating beauty Trans. by Adria Frizzi with stones, that “mysterious secret of seducing by means “In France people are convinced of a line, that sense of grace in that the land of Sicily is wild, a monuments.” In the pages of his place that is difficult and even notebook we find scrupulously dangerous to visit,” writes annotated the difference between Maupassant in the chapter the gothic cathedrals of the north, entitled “Sicily”, part of his austere to the point of gloom, and book “La via errante” which Sicilian churches, seductive in was published in 1890. He had their sensuality. made his journey to Sicily in 1885, however, and his writing “I wander slowly back to the Hotel appeared the year after, in the delle Palme, which has one of journal “La nouvelle Revue”. the most beautiful gardens in the Spaniards. While the town criers city, full of huge, strange plants.” in the streets, with their guttural Virgin, pull a coin out of his bag A strong young man of exuberant Where on earth has this sounds, remind him of the East. and insert it into the alms box for vitality, Maupassant had been a wonderful garden gone? Was it the poor, then cross himself with boatman on the river Seine— destroyed in one fell swoop or bit One evening Maupassant visits his ticket still in his hand, praying we can imagine him gazing at the by bit, swallowed up by concrete the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, to the Madonna and setting off paintings of Manet, in one of and the developers’ greed? Who to hear Carmen. Here he discovers with a hopeful look on his face. those open air festivities painted knows when it finally disappeared that Sicilians are like all Italians: with a close attention that into the maw of Palermo’s “they adore music, they have an In another kiosk he sees displayed today we would term devastating process of savage infallible ear, but when they are a photograph of the crypt of the anthropological—amongst the and disordered development. in a crowd they become a kind of Capuchin monastery, the dead trees of a Paris still very close It is Maupassant who tells us quivering beast that feels but in their fine clothes sitting on to the countryside, coloured that Wagner used to stroll about does not reason.” They are benches with their backs against streetlamps lit at dusk, tables set there, Wagner who wrote the capable of clapping furiously at a the walls. What’s all this about? up along the riverbank covered last few notes of Parsifal in beautiful tone, while the slightest The local people he asks try to with glasses and flasks of wine, Palermo. A man “of hint of a fluffed note has them dissuade him from going to girls in their long skirts, their unbearable character, who drumming their heels on the visit “that horror.” But of course hair like lovely baby when he left was remembered as floor and hurling the most he will not listen to them: “I cauliflowers, while curly-haired one of the most unsocial of men.” dreadful insults at the wanted to visit this sinister puppies run amongst the thick- singers on the stage. collection of the dead soled shoes of the ladies out for a The young writer asks if can visit immediately,” he writes walk. Young Guy is one of the men the room Wagner stayed in, in the decisively. And early in the wearing a red and white striped hope of finding “a beloved object, a “Sicilians ‘possess a morning he knocks at the gate shirt, from which emerge two favorite chair, the table he worked of the small convent. A tiny bare and muscled arms. On his at, some sign of his passing.” But gravity in their capuchin monk, almost hidden head he has a straw hat circled all he finds is an average hotel by a brown habit too big for him, by a red ribbon which dangles suite. It seems that there was movements that is opens the door. “Without a word” jauntily down to one shoulder. absolutely nothing left of the great Wagner. But before he he leads the way And yet, when he arrives in Sicily, typical of arabs.’ ” leaves in disappointment, he underground, knowing full this young man is already in the decides to take a look inside the As he walks around Palermo, well what visitors want to see. grip of the syphilis which will mirrored wardrobe at the far end Maupassant listens to ordinary destroy his brain and kill him of the room. A perfume wafts over people singing the arias from He goes along dark corridors and when he is still only 43 years old. him, “delicious and penetrating, Carmen, especially the Toreador, down narrow steps, and “suddenly Despite that he experiences an like the caress of a breeze that has and it is contagious. And to think I see an enormous gallery open overwhelming desire to see, to passed over a rosebush.” The hotel that Bizet died of grief because of out in front of us, wide and high, learn, and like many other men owner explains that Wagner used the massive failure of his Carmen, and its walls are covered with an of his day he convulsively visits to spray his linen with rosewater. destined to become an entire population of skeletons all the tourist sites of the day, international success just a few dressed in the most bizarre and from Segesta to Selinunte, from Maupassant finds much in the short years later. The women grotesque fashion.” He is struck Monreale to Agrigento. Added to Sicilians that reminds him of “wrapped in vivid colors of red, by the cadavers with yellowed which, unusually for a bourgeois Arabs. Unlike the Neapolitans yellow and blue, chat to each other skin, hanging there side by side of the times, he also goes to visit who wave their arms about, who by their front doors and watch along the whitewashed walls. a sulphur mine. “get worked up for no reason”, Sicilians “possess a gravity in you as you go by, their black eyes “Some of the heads are eaten away Despite the weakness and their movements that is typical shining under a forest of dark by disgusting mould which makes shortness of breath induced by of Arabs, although they have the hair,” writes Maupassant. And he the bones and their faces look even his illness, he finds the energy to Italian quickness of mind.” tells of how he stops at a lottery more deformed.” His horrified yet climb up to the Castellaccio up Sicilians are proud, he goes on counter which functions like fascinated gaze rests on the above Monreale, he clambers into to say, they have a great love of some sort of religious service, he hundreds of bodies whose every the tunnels and shafts of the mine titles and their faces often watches a man coming away with pose, every garment he describes in Agrigento, he strides along the remind him of the faces of a lottery ticket in his hand, he sees in detail. He ends by defining road under the midday sun, and him stop in front of a statue of the them as “ridiculous” because the 22 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

and decides to find another source time were abundant and covered flies far away, towards the skeletons have been done up in of information, and checks with almost the entire island. dream.”Which is to say that any their finery to maintain a sense some French friends. They tell relationship between a man and of social hierarchy, sporting him that in fact the brigands have His enthusiasm is roused for the a woman is impossible. Only the family colors, displaying their disappeared. It’s still possible final time as he stands in front of link between man and a dream is dusty family crests. Each of them to find yourself ambushed by the Venus of Selinunte, which worth anything, the rest is chatter, wears around his neck a placard common criminals, but “com- appears to him at the end of a vulgarity, a heavy chain, tedium. on which is written the date pared with the attacks that take corridor, her head and one arm of death: 1590, 1720, 1880. place every day in London or in missing, but despite this “never It is curious, this philosophy has the human form seemed to me which brings us back to Plato and The women seem to him New York, what happens in Sicily more marvelous or more seduc- his shadows, while Maupassant is even more grotesque than the is laughable.” tive.” What he sees there is not the a concrete writer, attentive to the men, he notes, because they Some days later Guy de effigy of a beautiful and idealized things of the everyday. His have been dressed up almost Maupassant sets out in a carriage woman, but the female image “as heroines are not just dreams but coquettishly. “Their heads in the direction of Agrigento, one loves her, as one desires her, as women endowed with body and watch you, stuffed into wigs where he admires the temples: one wishes to embrace her.” spirit. We have learnt that writers’ bedecked with ribbon and lace. “something beautiful like a human Certainly the lack of a head theories often do not correspond There is snowy whiteness around to their writing, which luckily their blackened eyes, putrid, goes beyond all ideologies, corroded by the strange intellectual constructions, and workings of the earth. Their which carries them by force of hands, like chopped off tree observation into the world where roots, stick out of the sleeves of things happen before they can their new dress and the stockings be catalogued or explained. which encase the leg bones seem The chapter on Sicily ends with a empty. Sometimes the dead wom- beautiful description of the an wears only shoes, shoes far too Anapo, which must have been a big for her poor, wide, free-flowing, winding and dried-up feet.” meandering river lined with He finds the young girls even more papyrus, rushes and reeds. “We startling, with their metal crown push away from its shores with on their heads as a sign of their the aid of a long pole. The stream innocence. “They are sixteen, smile/over the cold stones of the presents certain problems. What winds its way through charming eighteen years old yet they temple” he writes, paraphrasing about kisses? In order to kiss you panoramas and flower-filled vistas. seem ancient” so withered and Victor Hugo speaking of Athens. need a mouth, and to have a mouth We come across an island full of toothless are they, with their “It is as if you had Olympus before you need a head. Will this be a love strange bushes. The fragile, sparse hair. And then there are the you, the Olympus of Homer, of without kisses? But Maupassant triangular trunks, nine to twelve children “whose bones are barely Ovid, of Virgil: the Olympus of does not seem perturbed by the feet high, are topped by round formed, who have not withstood statue’s lack of a head. He tells clumps of long, green filaments, the test of time.” And the Parisian “This exploitation of childhood is himself that all the effort and slender as soft as hair. They look writer is moved at the sight of one of the most dreadful things trouble was worth it, just to see like human heads which have these tiny bodies devastated by one can see,” is his distraught this Venus. Here is his reward for turned into plants, tossed into the potassium nitrate, who still bear comment. But he swiftly resigns a year of pilgrimage in Italy and sacred spring water by one of the the traces of maternal care. Those himself to the thought that there in Sicily. A sturdy girl “with full pagan gods who lived there little soldier costumes, those tiny is nothing he can do and sets breasts, powerful hips and rather once upon a time.” They are bibs, the lace which offers about organizing an expedition solid in the leg.” This is how he papyruses, which “quiver, a glimpse of innumerable up to Etna which takes all his describes her, enamored as he is: murmur, bend low, mingle their patient feminine hands at energy and attention. He gets up “The marble is alive and you would furry brows, and seem to speak work over countless years. while it is still dark. He covers the like to take hold of it, sure that it of unknown and distant things.” first thousand meters on a small, will give way under the pressure And he asks himself ironically After this lugubrious visit, “I sure-footed mule. Here and there of your hand, just like flesh.” He if it is not strange that this felt the need to see some flowers” the poor animal plunges into can’t resist making a comparison ineffable bush which has the writes Maupassant. He takes a snow up to his chest but somehow with the Gioconda: “Before her we power to transmit to us the horse and cab to Villa Tasca, manages to get out again and begin feel obsessed by some kind of lure thought of the beloved dead, overflowing with marvelous once more the difficult climb. And towards an enervating and which has stood watch over hman tropical plants. Another of those then the path stops, and they have mystical love. There are living genius, should have at its tip a wonderful gardens hymned by all to leave the mules behind and women whose eyes induce in us large, thick, waving mane, like the travelers of this period which continue on foot. The last three that dream of unrealizable and the heads of poets. then disappeared during the hundred meters have to be done on mysterious tenderness.” The sacking and looting of the Which brings us to wonder if it foot, climbing painfully on a rock Venus of Selinunte, on the other land, shortly after the end is still the case that the heads of face covered with dangerously hand, is “the perfect expression of the Second World War. poets are topped by leonine manes, slippery ash, edging round a of powerful beauty, healthy terrifying crater. even symbolically. The answer The next day our writer decides and simple.” is no. to go as far as Casteld’accia, an Nor does this tenacious pilgrim She is the woman everybody ancient, abandoned castle where forget to visit the Aeolian Islands, wants. Especially, probably, brigands had hidden out before another volcano to climb, because she is harmless, distant being hunted down by General another terrifying sight to view and mute. Indeed, as soon as a Pallavicini. At least that’s what from above, and then the sea, the man “touches the hand of a flesh they tell him but he’s not so sure rivers, the woods which at the and blood woman, his thought 23 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction The Blind Man The blind man sees that at the end of infinite colors of infinitely The blind man sees that the word of silence there is one eye open precious words is empty of everything but rhythm it is his Sees Into the When the blind man sees that his The blind man sees that the world The blind man knows that from burden is the numbers he lets is made of shapes & forms. He sees Horizon the depths of confusion comes them go they fecundate the field that the relationship between by Martin Nakell chaos comes clarity based on the of wheat and the fields of corn and human-made forms – rhomboid, physics of the quantum of change the moments of the open spaces hexagram, triangle, iamb – and The blind man sees into natural form – waterfall, cloud the horizon The blind man sees – through “The blind man sees formation, light and dark – is an the sight-lens of relativity – that The blind man sees into the equation that proves that the energy of time is expressed that there are no heart of stone relationship is irrelevant to vision in a formula of color so that blue boundaries to his The blind man sees that the blind equals twice the radius of yellow The blind man sees – peering man is nothing more than the raised to the seventh power of blindness. No through the sight-lens of science blind man but also that the blind magenta multiplied by the square boundaries to – that the visible and the invisible man is nothing less than the root of the curvature of white. worlds reveal each other that the blind man blindness at all.” stars do not reveal our fates that When the blind man sees that The blind man sees that there are gravity reveals a sense of humor The blind man sees that the world order and chaos are the same it no boundaries to his blindness. about the whole thing and a is made of glass takes his breath away it takes his No boundaries to blindness at all. desire for a universal love of mind away it takes away his heart human beings The blind man sees that the energy it takes his sight away he gives his He panics. Blindness dissolves in of space is expressed by the square sight away it opens his eyes he has blindness. In confusion in chaos, When the blind man sees the root of the origin of consciousness the strength it takes to cross the the blind man declares a holiday, a woman with the broken throat he which is void of content but which darkness with the light celebration. There is music. There speaks for her in her words that is content is drinking and dancing. There become a book she reads aloud The blind man sees that the past is is friendship and reunion. There to him When the blind man sees that his the transparent spirit of a clown is flirtation, licit and illicit. The blindness is empty, he fills it: with balancing a two-step-shuffle Blind Prophet arrives. The energy As the blind man walks beside the meaning with clothing with truth atop a circus ball tamed by the in the room heightens. To a walls of the church, the bells ring. with biochemistry. then he immediate unmediated presence bacchanal. To a fever pitch. To He looks inside himself to find a empties it. then he fills it: with of the abundance of oxygen in the messianic ecstasies. When the hardened metal clapper to express wind with knowledge with world that it must be followed to blind man awakens from the unknown hour and the distances with food. then, he the primary lover in the exhaustion he enters into a known hour empties it. then he empties it tranquil landscape dialogue with the Blind Prophet When the blind man sees that his again. What is the blind man from which there is no exit When the blind man sees himself anger (which is not his anger), his left with? With sun With moon. because this dialogue has no weeping he waits he lays his head rage (which is not his rage), is an With grass. With buildings of conclusion because blindness has in the lap of is in that is is also error (which is not his error), he rough stone. With whole cities. no boundaries even as blindness weeping in the blindness of is sees that his anger, his rage has With villages of silk and of and dialogue revel in the absence toward the isness of is all man taken him where he would have families. With The Empire of Days of boundaries the creation and all woman otherwise never have gone. A made of clay and of animals and of names of human beings and of the place recognizable by his never The blind man sees that only the communion of the unsplit atom The blind man makes a question having been there before. A place word matters until the word with the open doorway with the of his blindness – a question that filled with voices. Filled with all doesn’t matter translucent bodies in embrace comes to torment him. Then he kinds of things to see When the blind man sees that he sees that the answer is to have not The blind man sees – peering The blind man sees that the is dancing he knows that he was asked the question. It is too late through the sight-lens of belief – presence of others awakens born he knows the moment of his for that. Soon he will see that the that the gnostic & the agnostic are each self birth he knows that he is alone further he moves away from the the same and that he is blind and that question into the absurd disorder – The blind man sees that he can let When the blind man sees there is everyone is blind and that he is revealed only by asking the go of his blindness / that now he is no danger in blindness, there is never alone even at the moment question – the closer he might nothing / that now / he is in a silence there is meaning there is of violence and even at the come to forgetting the answer perfect position to see / in a talking there is lostness moment of birth perfect position to act / in a perfect position to speak / he is The blind man sees that the things In his blindness, the blind man, still blind of this world awaken the mind walking, blindly, into the hour, loses, sight / of time The blind man sees that the word The blind man sees that the doesn’t matter word is empty of everything The blind man sees how to but emptiness nurture the mind that the things When the blind man sees his fury of this world awaken he sees it is his blindness When the blind man sees that he is calm he knows that he was a child The blind man sees – through the The blind man looking in a mirror in the lap of fate that he wandered sight-lens of time – that the energy sees – through the sight-lens of the in the field of wheat and the fields of space is expressed by the square doppelganger – his blindness. He of corn blinded by the atomic root of the origin of consciousness calls it eternal. Facing the passions in love with the name of mirror, he walks backwards The blind man sees that each word the queen in love with the into blindness yet he does not is a color that the ever changing exhausted hour how it never ends fall over the edge of trust pairing of word to color is infinite 24 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

The blind man sees his mind that burden of this awareness. Then, it a yearning for sight even though The blind man sees that words are it is a computer yet one prone to an he suffers, blindly, a loss of without sight there would be no empty of everything but meaning unassailable mystery composed of meaning and purpose. Then, blindness and on this unheard of potsherds amulets and but only then, absolute understanding the blind man, In a flash of seeing the blind man other elements of cultures of civil blindness saves him closing his eyes, listens to the sees everything there is to see stipend numbers and symbols external and the indigenous every thing at once then he is and signs even of art even of the When the blind man sees that voices and the voiceless that sing again blind satiated in body and opposite of time and of space even blindness is a concentration of and that desire inside of him mind in past and in future the opposite of gravity resisting divine energy he fears he may have gone mad but believes he When the blind man sees that definition yet filled with the “When the blind the sea is yellow that the man is sufficiency of names has gone human believes he may even have gone blindness man wearies of blue he knows he has arrived The blind man sees the crowd he When the blind man sees the blindness, it rains.” The blind man sees – through the disappears into. The sun warms sight-lens of sight – that sight is his shoulders. He pays the price to thousands of words he has When the blind man sees that his withheld. as protection. he not passive that sight is an active be here. The blind sun. The sun blindness embroils thought he verb, as in: to sight is to live indulges in an orgy of words in thinks of everything including The blind man sees that within a festival of language until he is phosphorus including elephants When the blind man sees his his blindness, there is blindness. cleansed of all the words withheld including friends. When the blind doppelganger he wants to merge And within that blindness there When the blind man wearies of man sees that his blindness he wants to become one with it he is blindness. And within that embroils his thought he thinks wants to become whole – seeing blindness there is blindness. And blindness, it rains. When the blind man wearies of blindness, he again about everything including that fulfillment, he calls it total within that blindness there is an phosphorus including trees blindness. He believes that in urgent call. Which he calls sight drinks from the river of blindness and the blind waters flow through including human beings his total blindness, he is whole with everyone, with everything The blind man sees that blindness him. When the blind man wearies When the blind man sees – is the one equation in all of of blindness he wearies of life. He through the sight-lens of psyche When the blind man sees what he mathematics that wants can hardly go on. When the blind – that he has a double a calls total blindness, he wonders to stay alive that wants to man wearies of blindness, and doppelganger who is not if total blindness, somewhere, achieve no solution with all of the strength left in him, blind, who is sighted, the blind meets total sight. He fears the and taking up pencil and paper, he The blind man sees just man abandons his need to escape answer. Then, it comes to him composes the Song of the Myth of his blindness to struggle against how the word matters. When the blind man sees the Blindness. He becomes the his own body. He sees that his brutality committed every day The blind man, opening the box Troubadour of Blindness. He falls double sees. He knows that he hundreds of times thousands of of blindness, takes out a slightly in love again with blindness. His will never be his double. And yet, times millions of times he doubles smaller box of blindness. He opens blindness has become a bird. It he knows that everyone also is his blindness he triples it it. He takes out a slightly smaller flies. He is left blind. He has faith their own double – he does not quadruples it. He still sees. He box of blindness. He opens it. again, whether it is the faith of know how that comes to be. He wants to hide from the sight of Finally, losing patience, he hurls those in love, blindly, with knows now that he does not own his own tears himself into the waters of The blindness, or the faith of those in his blindness. That he need not love with weariness, he has found Great Lake. He swims across to possess it that it need not possess The blind man sees that words are love. He is invited to sit down at the other shore. There, he walks him. That if he sees at all, he need empty of everything but breath on the beach of blindness. With the table where she has sat, the see only his blindness. He need the stick, he writes in the sand: Queen of Reality, hungry, only to hear the Song of Blindness. When the blind man sees – blindness is not a void, it is waiting for him to arrive, sipping He need only to not stop hearing it through the sight-lens of not an absence, it is not an at the glass of cold water, vision – that life has no context, emptiness. He writes: blindness her sustenance in the The blind man sees that the he tells himself I have entered is blindness is blindness is sand emty interregnum history of poetics drives us not the Land of the Living only toward but into while the Blindness. I see it all And he sees that word is The blind man sees – through the theory of geometry is the clearly now sight-lens of astronomy – that the empty of everything but myth billowing of natural history The blind man sits in the yard of universe is 13.8 billion years old. The blind man sees that his it drives the primordium of his house. Blindness surrounds Blindly, he drinks in the vastness blindness is not an absence of the vegetal world the him. He is immersed in of this awareness. Then, sight nor is it a form of sight nor is uncontrollable the blindly, he despairs in the whirlwind of news blindness. He listens. He hears nothing. Somehow he knows that The blind man sees that the gibbous moon is two-thirds of blindness is not passive that the way across the sky. Somehow blindness is an active he knows that the distant music verb – to blindness, as in: now inaudible will come closer. to blindness is to live Somehow he knows that the person standing on the porch When the blind man discovers watches him. He knows that the orphan shivering in the the nothing he hears is the rain he takes him in he gives nothing that he yearns to the orphan food and drink he hear. That he can hope to hear gives him a warm dry safe bed it so long as he is blind. in the morning he offers the orphan blindness. The orphan accepts. The orphan sees that it is the end of his orphanage

25 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction The Pursuit She was twenty-five and already she said later, with a laugh. married when a1l of a sudden she Because, in all of this she could (excerpt from fell in love. Some of the things I find nothing but a source shall now confide in you I heard of laughter. from the lips of Vittoria herself, Snow and Guilt) Even when she was united in by Giorgio Pressburger some from her acquaintances and old friends. I want you to know matrimony before the civil world, Trans. by Shaun Whiteside everything, you men who have as embodied by the municipal lived but once. She was twenty-five, functionary, she was really l received this story when the I was saying. And although she laughing loud and long in her present volume had already been was a girl, she had studied heart. Her joyfulness conveyed set and was about to go to press. philosophy and theology. The itself to her future father-in-law, The text reached me via fax. It is a long hours spent on her books had a respectable businessman, the piece of writing by my dearest turned her even paler. An orphan witnesses—serious university former classmate, my brother. He - her father had died many years teachers—and all the guests. was a mild-mannered boy, quiet before – she had received thoughts but with a great inner clarity, There was laughter as they signed and suggestions from Plato and an even temper and a good the register; and even while the his heirs, she had examined the disposition towards others which married couple and their guests fate of Boethius and Descartes, I only now fully understand were going down the stairs of the of faded mystics and preachers. and appreciate. Two nights ago l building and pouring into the They had become her fathers. She dreamed about him. And today, street to part shortly afterwards, all kinds of wood. Rather than knew of the world beyond, that in reply, here is this manuscript. a resonant good humour snaked human creations, they seemed world that no hand can touch nor A strange coincidence. The fax its way among them. casually sculpted by fate. Their any eye see, which exists in the comes from Milan. My brother material—wood—had preserved thoughts of a1l of us. I am talking But the laughter was not a sign Nicola has not been with us for its own nature, and the human about ideas, of that state of our of happiness. Vittoria soon twelve years. These pages were figures were superimposed upon it, mental machinery, running from discovered that the union of her found at the bottom of a drawer something pallid and accidental. person to person, which hangs body with that of Giovanni was where they lay in the midst of over, or seems to hang over, our only a cause of pain. She spent other personal objects. I felt that Man and tree, two beings were common fates. Not that she anguished nights beside her the dark stories assembled in united to represent one another; believed in them: the professors, husband wishing him as far away this volume needed some wood stood for man, and man with their arguments of logic and as possible. A few weeks after the concluding lightness. For for wood. history, had not instilled them wedding she began to take that reason I have asked the into her with any conviction. It sleeping tablets and when her publisher to add this A little further along, mannequins was Greek philosophy itself that husband lay down beside her story at the last moment. made by Italian craftsmen some spoke to and seduced her. And Vittoria, almost unconscious, centuries back, an aid for painters She’s a witch, I tell you. She Vittoria had bent her head before turned to face the other way. and designers, showed their the words of the fathers. Closing tangles the fate of men, alive I realize that my words are painted pink cheeks and stared her eyes, she managed to see the and dead. I know l am one of her running ahead of me. l am at various corners of the room. world above and, between that and creations, moulded by her in flesh crossing time and space, In their material, the wood was the palpable real world, she sensed and spirit: I have been sleeping indicating few and inadequate no longer recognizable: they were yet other spaces, other beings, with her for many years. The details. l should be speaking artificial creatures, neither flesh other lives. elements themselves, air and about Giovanni, saying that he nor tree, they sat there earth, sun and water, help her in motionlessly with no precise In the dark university rooms, was remarkably tall, well-off, her work. Otherwise you would reason for their existence. Perhaps where many sunsets surprised her, with coarse manners despite his have to believe in a will capable of Giacomo was seeking the union of behind the shelves of books, above studies. I should bring you into conquering the deadly inertia of two worlds in some of his painted the gaze of her companions, the couple’s house, talk about the matter and bending to its own woods. Or perhaps over time he unknown yet familiar presences furniture, the curtains, the bed, designs space, events, time. had realized that he himself was revealed themselves. their thoughts, their night-time incapable of effecting that union I remember when I first saw her, conversations, their feelings. l Giovanni, the young assistant who whose concept remained with him opening her heavy lids, emerging haven’t time to do that. The married Vittoria as soon as she in the form of an idée fixe. Many of from the void. I met her blue eyes, story of Vittoria’s love is here in had finished her university his pictures were clusters of her little face. I looked at the lines my breast and in my thoughts, it studies, had sensed nothing. knots: pieces of string tied of her slender body, her coloured doesn’t leave so much as a page for But, disagreeable as it might be to together and then cut and then socks, the little shoes - children’s anyone else. It begs for testimony, admit it, her philosophy teacher, tied and cut again. He had spent shoes almost, with buckles and and it does so with each passing the favourite disciple of the months making knots, alone in little straps - her long hair. I moment, with the pulsing of my professor, who was a luminary his studio, among his mannequins. looked at her hands. Her smile, blood, whose very source it is. of phenomenology during those too, was a child’s. Do I think that Vittoria had years in Milan, embodied, more Vittoria had been married for a noticed this anxious quest for than pure thought, “brute real- That’s how I want you to few months when she met a short connections the evening she found ity,” to use the exact phrase. remember her as well: a pale lunar man, thin, with shaggy hair and herself in the artist-dealer’s studio light that love has rendered Lavish dinners with friends, big frightened eyes. Giacomo was along with her friends and clairvoyant and armed with healthy swims in the sea and an art dealer and a painter. The acquaintances? Or perhaps I think extraordinary powers, in pools, a protective paternal works of many hands were this because I now know that she sending it out across the whole presence: that was what the bundled together in his studio. has been on the same quest as long world before finding me, and young professor Giovanni offered African votive statues were as she has lived. However, the bringing me back to life. Vittoria. It seemed like a promise arranged on two tables; they were encounter was a revelation for her. for all eternity. ‘A little Eldorado; of various sizes, carved from ‘In this lift we had our first kiss. 26 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

‘In front of this shop win- already exhausted. The smoke In the evening Giacomo and ‘I’m being like La Traviata,’ he said, dow we kissed once, when he from a tear-gas canister ripped Vittoria met other painters and turning away, every time a cough had to leave for America. through Giacomo’s lungs before other antique dealers. The rose to his throat. He smiled. And ‘I sat on this bench weeping.’ That the terrorists were killed. collection of old and strange when the attack had passed his was what Vittoria would say to objects grew bigger: human limbs eyes were pearly with tears. me each time we crossed the city Another plane brought him in plaster, dolls, figures of animals Now it became tiring for on apparently casual trajectories. back to Italy. His thin body had were added to what was already managed to survive. In hospital there. By day she went in search Giacomo to make knots in his The man didn’t notice her Vittoria spent many days beside of objects to sell and to preserve. pieces of string. ‘Parigi o cara noi immediately. It was the girl this man, sitting close to his bed. lasceremo,’ he sang softly, when who made the first move. Giacomo recovered. But slowly, he had to go back to Milan for treatment. ‘I want to marry you and have a in his lungs, a formless kind of “Vittoria parted from child by you; she said in flesh was beginning to grow, the They decided to marry. Vittoria’s circumstances that I would kind that men call ‘malignant’. her husband without marriage to Giovanni had been describe as exceptional. dissolved very quickly. Dr Issuna Perhaps Giacomo’s body want- hesitation; she went on holiday. He admitted Giacomo replied, with a fixed ed that growth for reasons to Vittoria that he was unable expression: ‘But I am old and ill.’ that his mind could neither watched him to help his friend Giacomo. understand nor control. The Vittoria kissed him. She felt his doctors couldn’t understand weeping like a baby.” ‘If he’s in a lot of pain, here’s frail body, his slack muscles. She or control it either. The flesh an injection to give him; he resolved never to let him go. went on growing inexorably. But now I am becoming aware that said and added in a low voice: I will never manage to tell you ‘It’ll send him to sleep.’ By the time the conversation took It was then that Vittoria and what that love was: the little Before the coughing paralysed place Giacomo’s life was already Giacomo were united. Vittoria everyday details might seem banal, him, Giacomo went for a walk marked; it was after Giacomo’s parted from her husband without commonplace, at best attempts to with Vittoria. They stopped in journey to Africa, his final one. Its hesitation; she watched him extract some cheap emotion from a meadow to pick flowers and purpose was the acquisition of weeping like a baby. ‘Would it the situation. The words they thistles. Giacomo knew the names statuettes, this time without the have been better to lie?’ she asked. exchanged, even if they were of every plant in the meadow. He mediation of international trad- She left him the house and all the quoted faithfully as I have heard taught them all to Vittoria, one ers, who cared nothing for the objects of her father’s inheritance them from Vittoria’s lips, would by one. Then, when he was at souls of those people but a great that she had brought with her: be meaningless to an outsider. home again, he went to bed. A deal for profit; often they would furniture, ornaments, paintings. And how then can one say that few days later, Vittoria could no not refer (perhaps because the two people love each other? longer bear the sight of his pain. statuettes were fakes) to the exact She and Giacomo moved to Paris, She gave him the tranquillizing provenance of the objects. The to a little apartment in What had seemed a torture to injection. The coughing stopped. flight from Rome to the Sudan Saint-Germain-des-Pres. ‘We’ll Vittoria with Giovanni, with was interrupted after three hours live more calmly here,’ he had said. Giacomo became happiness. In ‘Why wait a month, we could get when four her body it was no longer painful married immediately,’ he said one terrorists burst into the pilot’s Vittoria, before she left, spoke thorns that sprouted at the afternoon. A neighbour acted as cabin. They were Arabs. They to a doctor friend. ‘Two to four moment of their union, but sweet wanted money. They wanted the years,’ was the sentence. flowers, and rather than being celebrant, some friends as deaths of the Jews and an absent, she now wanteto be witnesses. The names of enemy Sheik. Nothing happened. Giacomo went perennially in the presence of Vittoria and Giacomo were on knotting pieces of string; the her man. knotted together like two pieces of The aircraft remained motion- mannequins and the African string. Giacomo, for the ceremony, less in a tropical airport. By the statues left their confines in an This happiness was too much for wanted to wear his pyjama time unknown soldiers from a old car, sitting beside Vittoria, as Giacomo’s frail body; or perhaps jacket. Early that evening he went secret police force had climbed though they were alive. In the it was too much in the judicious to sleep. He died, after a year and a up the fuselage and stormed Paris house they were stored eyes of the family doctor. half of life and love with Vittoria. the plane, the passengers were in a room all to themselves. When they put him in the coffin, ‘I have to prescribe him some the girl put beside him an tranquillizers or you will wear imitation ivory hand, from the yourself out,’ said Dr Issuna, when nineteenth century, for him to Vittoria talked to him of her stroke, and two wooden African lover’s inextinguishable ardour. figures: passports on the infinite They embraced and kissed for journeys into other worlds. hours together, several times a day.

The official prohibition on picking those sweet amorous flowers did no damage to relations between Vittoria and Giacomo. They stayed cheerful even when his coughing, at first timid and sporadic, began to be violent and prolonged.

27 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University fiction

Breakfast busied myself sweetening my In my dismay, I plunged into the Tragedy on by Luisa Valenzuela croissants with delicious newspaper within my reach, and a Bench Trans. by David Jacobson home-made jams. like someone slinking out the dining room and its by Willis Barnstone The hotel in Marseilles is Suddenly the man’s voice burst circumstances, got caught up in Moroccan-inspired. A creative way out, correcting his young partner: the news of the nationwide strike, He doesn’t look like the usual to refurbish a big old house several Le beurre, he practically meticulously distancing myself clochard. He sits on the bench stories high with two rooms per shouted. It’s le beurre, just from the couple now so far away, in the small park in front of the story and a steep staircase. as it’s le sang, both take facing the dank, sunken patio. I Bibliothèque Nationale and reads Luckily a boy has taken my the masculine. nearly managed to forget them. or lies half naked sleeping on the suitcase up those steep stairs. Till a movement in the salon sumptuous lawn. He’s about 50, I’m surprised and delighted by He reprimanded her in French, of made the copy of Le Monde I bearded and in good shape. He the spacious room with Moorish course, and I didn’t think of Last was holding quiver, and without exercises in tasteful shorts. When arches repeating in the vast Tango in Paris, or of anything thinking, I looked up. The man he is feeling good, encouraged by a bathroom, as well as the red even faintly lewd connected to whisked by me, returning after passerby professional photographer and yellow lanterns and the butter. I did, though, quickly take having left the room, or maybe who has him pose on curb and Berber rugs. To enjoy this room stock of other foreign languages, coming back from the kitchen, standing by the park wall, he is I spent the following morning, and I felt a kind of kinship with since he was holding a large knife. mad with joy. He dashes against a Sunday, lolling about in bed. the woman. In how many He looked like a butcher now; out the lamppost, hits it with one So that when I finally made it languages is blood feminine, as it of the corner of my eye I could see running shoe (one is blue, one is down to the basement salon should be? Clearly not in French, it was a large knife, yes, and sharp, red), and bends swiftly to touch for breakfast, almost all the nor in Italian, since I suddenly though maybe serrated, like a the ground. Or he dances with other guests had already left. recalled Giovaninetti’s play Il bread-knife. I went back to my a mythical partner or breaks sangue verde. In English, of business, to Obama vetoing into song he directs to the sky. I was startled by the long, narrow course, nouns have no gender, another law, and the paper was dining room in its semi-darkness. and in German the genders seem (again) a true refuge. Every so Everything he owns he has in 8 It must have been the house’s inverted: sun’s feminine and often the man raised his voice. or 9 bags, including a red suitcase. wine cellar, and it led to a sunken moon masculine, so maybe None of my business. I helped These goods he spreads along the inner patio with a blue fountain butter and blood are feminine, myself to another cup of coffee, bench on which he sleeps. He at the end of it. Along the side but I had no way to check at the went on with my peaceful Sunday often sits in the street in late walls of exposed brick were long moment. Thus, I felt a Hispanic breakfast—until I heard a kind afternoon or evening and glares banquettes, in front of which were bond with the woman. For this of gurgle coming out of the directly at us. We’re on the 2nd lined up small tables, each with reason, almost without thinking, woman: she seemed to be sobbing. floor and unlike everyone else we a chair of its own. At the far end from the other end of the room, Or maybe chortling. Mere fiction, keep our French windows open. of the right-hand side was a single that is, from my end of the long, I told myself: the only reality’s Unless we shut all our lights, he fellow breakfaster, seated sullenly long banquette, I managed, quite here, in Le Monde. I forbademyself watches us eat, talk, and notes in front of the glass door that led loudly, to blurt out a question to to look her way; my world was not our states of dress or undress. to the patio. He seemed to answer her: What is your native tongue? – theirs, down at the far end of the my greeting with an almost and felt practically gashed by their long row of small individual tables Le monsieur is a voyeur. I guess we imperceptible nod of his head. now joint, outraged silence. and the long communal banquette. are too by now. There’s no escape. My world was at this end, in the Even when we walk through the I had to sit at the far end of the bread basket, in the little bit of park, our usual path to wherever same banquette, against the “At the far end of butter left, in the jars of jam and we go, his eyes are also on us. wall. It was the one table with the already empty jug—in things He’s never passive. Que faire? everything laid out as if waiting the right hand side like that. for me: the thermos of coffee, the The park has a marvelous fountain, basket of bread and croissants was a single fellow A Moroccan lantern in the dimly La Fontaine Louvois is of all in covered by a napkin, a glass lit dining room was winking at Paris alarmingly beautiful. The filled with orange juice. breakfaster, seated me—or maybe not. I was absorbed centerpiece is four tall ancient in the newspaper the couple at the nymphs in stone, representing I forgot the presence of my sullenly in front of far end of the room had driven me the four great rivers of France. morose fellow guest until his wife to. What business of mine were For years the water system has appeared, much younger than he, the glass door that their affairs, the genders of been broken and it will require beautiful, elegant. She smiled at their nouns? five million euros to repair. But me as she passed by. She sat down led to the patio.” this summer by grace of Anne in the chair facing him, and they Until another gust of wind ruffled Hidalgo, the new mayor of Paris, began to speak in whispers while I the long pages I was still holding the fountain is working. We wake up in my hands like a screen; and to its music. At noon the office on looking up once more I could employees flood the lawn, even make out the woman vanishing cramming up on the second floor through the archway toward the of a children’s playhouse with its stairs. A slimy trickle trailed after slide to eat their lunch in shade. her on the white floor tiles, a thin red line. Two centuries ago there was a royal opera house in this square, built by Tomato juice, I told myself. the Duc de Berry in 1792. There Mozart premiered Don Giovanni in France and Brahms came often. The duke was stabbed to death, and King Louis-Philippe tore 28 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I fiction

down the opera hall and replaced old composers as does the is forbidden to spend the evening but cowed into exile. Will they it with a small park in front of the neighborhood. Up a street lived in the park after the gate is locked. take him away? Or will he outwit Bibliothèque Nationale. The king the famous Baroque composer But in dark night at one in the them once more? Will he on his ordered Louis Visconti (architect François Couperain (1668-1733). morning when no one is around, own disappear? Through the night of the Les Invalides, the tomb of We are surrounded by Rue de he moves all his things back in the he is howling like a wild animal. Napoleon Bonaparte) to construct Rameau, rue Louvois. Below our park, spreads them behind rather a large fountain in homage to window is rue Lulli. named for an than along the bench, and he has I try to end the story here. I the rivers la Seine, la Garonne, la Italian repacked his belongings in neater apologize for my curiosity and Loire, and la Saône. Below the composer called Giovanni Battista black and white sacks. Now he cowardice. Who knows what’s up towering nymphs, each of four Lulli. We know him famously as is sleeping on his wooden slabs next week? Not prison. He will sculptured tritons rides a dolphin Jean Baptiste Lully, collaborator into morning. His raw ankles and not be a suicide. If officials lay from whose mouth water jets. with Molière and leading tennis shoes protrude from off, he will be reading in the sun, innovative composer of his time. his cocoon. talking to passersby, exercising During the war Gestapo big shots like an aging bourgeois, and go on lived above us. Their days they Across from us and running along staring at us at our open window. spent at nearby Vichy-Gestapo the great library is busy rue de “When he is feeling headquarters on Place des Petits Richelieu named after Cardinal de Should I alert a Paris Pères. Between 1942 and 1944 Richelieu (1585-1642), founder of good, encouraged by newspaper? A reader might offer they interrogated and battered the l’Académie Française. The him a room. But this mystery 64,400 French, German, and cardinal was Louis XIII’s Prime a passerby professional figure is a heathen. And it will Polish Jews, including 6000 Minister and also his eminence take an apocalypse to make him children, before sending them rouge. Poetry is not forgotten. photographer who has forsake his days and nights in off to the internment camp at Behind us on rue Saint-Anne is paradise. In the morning when Drancy from which the death the 17th century l’Hotel- him pose on curb and everyone is business, trains to Germany. When these Baudelaire. Charles Baudelaire hurrying to work, the weather groups were liberated by Allied lives in this hotel in years when standing by the park has tempered into light drizzle. forces, 1,542 were alive. he is fleeing creditors. All Parisians pull out an wall, he is mad umbrella at the first drop of rain. The Gestapo officers had a whale of At the corner of Rameau and Our friend is gamely walking a time. Their upscale whores were Chabanais was a 2-century old with joy.” around the park perimeter, below quartered in apartments around bistro that Hemingway made his his own ample colorful umbrella. the corner on rue Chabanais. usual breakfast habit. But new Le bon monsieur pays no attention However, when Résistance soldiers owners replaced it with offices. to a series of officials, each in Last glance. Paris night dumps assassinated a German colonel in However, in September there’ll be different costume and color. They a rainstorm on the monumental the act, the Gestapo shut down an upscale sushi bar a few stores confront him and he and they library, the choice park, and these love centers. In these up on Rameau. Workers are scream. But a few days ago our neighborhood offices, bistros, and same rooms during the Belle laboring weekends to finish. voyeur loses it. He is frightened. rare coin shops. There he appears Époque, glamorous prostitutes They have installed an Now he must stay outside the park outside Square Louvois where the entertained the French elite. illuminated-glass cloudy sky day and night and no after four nymphs are serenely jetting ceiling to compete with Théodore midnight entry. He is in a fury. All their evening music. Below them One of the Gestapo’s final duties Géricault’s romantic skies that his things are bunched on the the fat dolphins float their tritons came directly from Hermann are still changing overhead. narrow sidewalk. He is walking on the water. Will he make it Göring concerning the precious back and forth, and shrieking. through the winter? He is arguing volumes in the great National When the park is almost empty We wonder what next. madly with stars he can’t see in Library. Göring, founder of the and there is no one to stare at, the the rain. With all his goods pro- Gestapo in 1933, was commander good clochard walks to the pool A very long official van arrives. It tected under a large transparent of the Luftwaffe, but when he failed rim of the fountain and studies parks ominously along the street plastic cover, the gentleman is victory in the Battle of Briton, he those naked well-stacked river when he sits and walks. He has no padding up and down the pave- lost favor with Hitler and spent nymphs. He is serious and view. The iron fence, tall ment like a soaked wolfhound. the remaining war years making pleasured by information he shrubbery and lofty chestnut trees a fortune by acquiring art work gathers about their marble hair, are directly behind him and the Locked out, the tramp walks back owned by Jews of the Holocaust. He never out of place, and their van is blocking the view of the and forth on the narrow curb, was, however, the least anti-Semitic daring eyes which even road. By midnight the van is gone. jammed now with more belongings. of the leaders. His godfather, a while being flooded glare at The harried guest sleuths his Like Joseph in his coat of many wealthy highly honored Jewish him relentlessly. He knows these belongings back into the park colors, exiled by his jealous doctor, Ritter Doktor Herm ann demoiselles are grateful for and sleeps until midmorning brothers when about to enter the von Epsteiner, had supported his his attention. on his bench. fertile plains of Pharaonic Egypt, impoverished family during the the furious gentleman clochard first 15 years of his life, granting A few days ago the usual morning By midday he’s back on the lawn, holds up his multicolored them a castle and lands. Now, city gardener has a huge fight asleep half naked as before while umbrella against the storm. following Göring’s orders, these with our bench sleeper. He must mothers wheel their kids and Tall windows of the huge Gestapo commanders seized the move all three meters of his messy look. I don’t think he is a Bibliothèque Nationale clamor. irreplaceable collections of books belongings to the narrow sidewalk self-acclaimed messiah. Again he is the howling beast. and illuminated manuscripts outside the park. from the Bibliothèque Nationale A gang of officials arrives and and sent them back to Germany. The offended dweller in Square again they scream. After they Next to nothing was recovered. Louvois sits outside the gate, next leave he spits in their direction. to his goods, leers steadily at us But he is afraid to enter the park. The streets running into Square or walks up and down the All night he walks back and forth Louvois have names celebrating sidewalk in extreme agitation. He outside the Garden of Eden. Angry 29 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University poetry Recap Finally. Far out! Take a closer look. For Vincent Broqua’s Recuperer Nope. And even then! It never fails. by Charles Bernstein Come on! What a colossal waste of time! Maybe you can! Good God! Far out! It never fails. What’s up? Yeah, yeah. Nope. Not to be believed. You there? Ain’t it the truth? A doozy. Just don’t say Hello? No way. I’m outta here. I never told you so. Say what? You’re killing me! What a colossal waste of time! Are you kidding? You there? Enough already. Later. It never fails. What’s that? Well said. Priceless! Checkmate. Say what? You got it. Outta here. What a sorry slight. I hear you! Perfect. Not for me to say. Without doubt. Surely. You’re killing me! Later. Bingo! You bet. Nothing at all. Outta the park. Unbelievable. Maybe so. Blah, blah, blah! Downer. What a sorry slight. Not now. Okey dokey Not for me to say. Checkmate. You bet. Nothing at all. Jeeze! Not on your life. Maybe so. Goodness gracious. Priceless! I picked it up You there? I hear you! Outta the park. for a song and a dance. Not in the slightest. Blah, blah, blah! Give me a break! Over my dead body. Fine. Surely. Seriously! A song and a dance. Maybe not. Without question. Hits the spot. Over my dead body. Not in the slightest. Certainly. Not for me to say. Not on your life. An abomination. What a business! Give me a break! Not until it rains Rats! Goodness gracious. As bloated as a reindeer in the Mohave Desert. Whatever you say. What the hell! feasting on chocolate bunnies. I should have known better. You wish! Such is life. I never believed it for a second. Not on your life. That’s that. That’s it. It’s a scam. Not until the last soldier Rats! Okey dokey That kills me! leaves the field. Whatever you say. Over and out. As bloated as a reindeer You can say that again! Right on! You’re killing me! feasting on chocolate bunnies. Not until there is no more sand For example! Nada. Give me a break! in the Sahara. Like I said. That’s the silver lining. That really bugs me! As I lived and breathed! For example! In spades. I never believed it for a second. Down for the count. An abomination. Zero. Beautiful! You can say that again! You wish! What a business! Incredible. Down for the count. What a laugh! Zilch. A long drop off a short cliff. As I lived and breathed! Like I said. That’s the silver lining. Really bugs me! Over and out. Not at all. Without question. Not now. Quite a shellacking! Come on! In spades. Hits the spot. See what I mean? That’s a keeper. Bats in the belfry. That kills me! Over and out. What a laugh! Impossible. Incredible. No chance. Come on! Nuts. Icing on the lily. Much to my regret. Not at all. Beats me. Not now. What a shellacking! Like I said. Bats in the belfry. It’s all timing. Summers and smokes. That’s a keeper. Guilty A long drop off a short cliff. Much to my regret. Right on! until proven otherwise Icing on the lily. Best in show. It’s a scream! and even then. Take a closer look. Over before it started. Yeah, yeah. Nuts. You can’t hide from yourself No telling when. Nope. Never can tell. or maybe you can! And how! No way. Until proven otherwise. Just don’t say Instant gratification. It’s a scream! A doozy. I never told you so. And how! Absolutely. Impossible. Are you kidding? No telling when. No way.

30 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I poetry

Summers and smokes. That’s just half of it. all over again. I never believed it. You blew it. More to life Cardboard voice. Paralyzing. No second acts than Mortadella. Sucker punched. Never say never. at the matinee. In the breaks. Those chickens Paralyzing. Gee whiz! One-way ticket. coming home to roost Boring! You have to know Still hurts. and then it turns out You think? when it’s finished. But not much more. they weren’t chickens. I kid you not. No second acts. Mesmerizing. Baloney! Never say never. Overpriced And then some! Count me in. Boring! even for free. Still hurts. The nerve! Couldn’t agree more. That’s just half of it. One-way ticket. I’m floored. Paralyzing. I’m inoculated. Mesmerizing. Plenty more I kid you not. There’s more to life A tin ear where that came from. You got the wrong guy! than Mortadella. and a cardboard voice. Baloney! Just so. All played out. And then some! I’m floored. Couldn’t agree more. Even for free. Count me in. I feel like I was You got the wrong guy! I’m inoculated. Sucker punched. hit in the head with a You think? But not much more. Palukaville sewing machine. Just so.

31 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University authors

About the writers

Mark Axelrod Charles Bernstein Mark Axelrod is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Charles Bernstein is a distinguished American poet, essayist, editor, and John Fowles Center for Creative Writing at Chapman University. He is literary scholar who holds the Donald T. Regan Chair in the Department the author of numerous novels, short stories, literary criticism and of English at the University of Pennsylvania. A prolific writer of poetry screenplays, the latest of which, MALARKEY, will star Malcolm and essays, he is one of the most prominent members of the Language McDowell. He has received numerous awards from the Leverhulme poets (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poets. Among the awards he has won are Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, the Iowa Review and has been the Roy Harvey Pearce/Archive for New Poetry Prize, the Guggenheim awarded multiple awards from the Fulbright Scholar Program and the Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. National Endowment for the Arts. Giuseppe Conte Susanna Onega Jaen Giuseppe Conte is a distinguished Italian poet, novelist, and translator. Susanna Onega Jaén is Professor of English Literature at the Department His debut as a poet came six years later with the publication of La Parola of English and German Studies of Zaragoza University. She has published Innamorata in 1978. His follow-up poetry anthology, La Stagione, was numerous articles and book chapters on literature and narrative theory, published in 1988 and was awarded the Montale Prize. Conte has with special focus on experimentalism, narrativity and the relation of translated many English works into Italian, including that of Shelley, literature and history. She has edited and translated into Spanish, John D.H. Lawrence, Walt Whitman, and William Blake, and has worked as Fowles’ The Collector and has also guest edited a section titled “John both an editor and essayist for several literary publications. In 1997, his Fowles in Focus” in Anglistik. first full-length book of poetry, L’Oceano e il ragazzo, was translated into W.S. Merwin English as The Ocean and the Boy. W.S. Merwin is an American poet, credited with over fifty books of Jerome Rothenberg poetry, translation and prose. One of the most distinguished of poets, Jerome Rothenberg is a distinguished American poet, translator and Merwin has received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (in both 1971 and anthologist, noted for his work in the fields of ethnopoetics and 2009), the National Book Award for Poetry (2005) and the Tanning Prize, performance poetry. Rothenberg has taught at the City College of New as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the York, the State University of New York, Binghamton, and the University Library of Congress named Merwin the seventeenth United States Poet of California, San Diego, where he remains an emeritus professor of Laureate. visual arts and literature. A prolific poet, his numerous awards and hon- ors include grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Martin Nakell Endowment for the Arts and was elected to the World Academy of Poetry in 2001. Martin Nakell is a poet and novelist and a Professor of Creative Writing at Chapman University. Winner of the Gertrude Stein Award in Poetry 1996–1997 and an NEA Interarts Grant, he was also a finalist for the America’s Award in Fiction, 1997 (for The Library of Thomas Rivka), a finalist in the New American Poetry Series as well as a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant.

32 Mantissa Journal Volume I Issue I author

Willis Barnstone Dacia Maraini Willis Barnstone is a distinguished American poet, memoirist, trans- Dacia Maraini is a distinguished Italian playwright, novelist and lator, Hispanist, and comparatist and has published no fewer than 60 screenwriter. A writer of no fewer than two dozen books, she has won books of poetry, religion, memoirs and literary criticism. An emeritus the Formentor Prize; the Premio Fregene; the Premio Campiello and professor from Indiana University, he has been awarded a Guggenheim Book of the Year Award as well as the Premio Strega; the Premio Fellowship, several Fulbrights, National Endowment for the Humanities Mediterraneo among many others. She was both a finalist for the Man and National Endowment for the Arts Grants and has received multiple Booker International Prize and a nominee for the Nobel Prize Pulitzer in Literature (2012). Prize nominations. Giorgio Pressburger Steve Katz Giorgio Pressburger is a gifted Hungarian novelist, playwright and Steve Katz is a distinguished American novelist. He is considered an essayist who has lived in Italy for decades. His several decade-long works early post-modern or avant-garde writer for works such as The Exaggger- in the theatre was recognized in 1962 by a prize awarded by the Italian ations of Peter Prince (1968), and Saw (1972). His collection of stories, Drama Institute, by the Pirandello Prize in 1974, the Flaiano Prize in Creamy & Delicious (1970), was mentioned in Larry McCaffery’s list of 1995 and the Riccione Prize for the Theatre in 2001. Published works the 100 greatest books of the 20th century where it was named “The include the novels Teeth & Spies and The Law of White Spaces; and the most extreme and perfectly executed fictional work to emerge from the short story collection Snow & Guilt. Pop Art scene of the late 60s.” He has written no fewer than 15 novels and has been the Luisa Valenzuela recipient of both National Endowment for the Arts Grants and Luisa Valenzuela is an Argentine novelist and short story writer whose Guggenheim Foundation Grants. experimental, avant-garde works question hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. She is best known for her work written in Claudio Magris response to the dictatorship of the 1970s in Argentina. Works such as Como en la Guerra, Cambio de armas and Cola de lagartija. Her awards Claudio Magris is an extraordinary Italian scholar, translator and include both Guggenheims and Fulbrights as well as the Medal “Macha- novelist. He has written essays on E.T.A. Hoffmann, Henrik Ibsen, Italo do de Assis” of Academia Brasilera de Letras and the Premio Astralba Svevo, Robert Musil, Hermann Hesse, and Jorge Luis Borges. His novels (University of Puerto Rico). In 2011 she was elected Foreign Honorary and theatre productions, include Illazioni su una sciabola (1984), Danu- Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she was bio (1986), Stadelmann (1988), Un altro mare (1991), and Microcosmi nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2014. (1997). His awards include: the Prix Jean Monnet European Literature, the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of Spain, the Austrian Deco- ration for Science and Art, the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages.

33 John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, Chapman University Join us! WILKINSON COLLEGE of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

WILKINSON COLLEGE of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

PROUDLY PRESENTS

WILKINSON COLLEGE of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

The John Fowles Center for Creative Writing promotes and advances the discipline of creative writing in all its aspects: fi ction, poetry, drama, creative non- fi ction and fi lm. The CenterWILKINSON offers students COLLEGE and non-students alike an opportunity to gain a greater appreciationof ArtsPROUDLY, Humanities for the ,PRESENTS and “written Social Sciences word” and those who write it. Each year a distinguished group of national and international writers is invited to Chapman University, making access to those writers available not only to the Chapman community, but to the Orange County and, by extension, the Southern California community as well. WILKINSON COLLEGE Celebrating its 19thof Arts year,, Humanities The, and Social John Sciences Fowles Center for Creative Writing has invited such inter/national writers to Chapman as: Salman Rushdie, Luisa Valenzuela, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gioconda Belli, Maxine Hong Kingston, Steve Katz, John Ashbery, Isabel Allende, Claudio Magris, Charles Bernstein, Fanny Howe, David Antin, Giuseppe Conte, Willis Barnstone and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, just to name a few. Look for the Fowles Center’s new online journal, MANTISSA, which includes writing from internationally known writers.

Argentine Novelist Argentine Novelist Pedro Mairal Hollywood Actor Andrés Neuman March 7th Malcolm McDowell March 28th April 20th 7:00 PM, Waltmar Theatre

Brazilian Film Director Argentine Novelist André Klotzel Ángela Pradelli April 4th April 19th

All Readings begin at 5:00 p.m. in the Henley Reading Room/Leatherby Libraries Admission is FREE and open to the public Cosponsored by

Offi ce of the Chancellor • Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of English • Citrus City Grille

Look for a call for submissions in the second issue of Mantissa, to be released in Fall 2016