In all the flurry last month over Tomas Tranströmer beating out Bob Dylan for the Nobel Prize, I didn’t get a mystery passage published. Here it is at last, and I have to say, I am excited to share it with you as it comes from the first page of one of my favorite novels by one of my favorite novelists (I actually have a terrible author-crush on this particular writer. Those of you who know me personally can use this as a clue.)
Reading over this passage in preparation for this post, I was struck by the sentence at the end of the final paragraph: “I’d never thought of it before: I’d been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.” Compare this with the opening sentence of Nabokov’s Speak, Memory: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” A coincidence? Doubtful, in the colloquy among great writers. Is this author paying homage to Nabokov? If so, why, and why with this line? Or is it a simple case of phrase-napping? Thoughts, anyone?
Here is your passage:
I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. Though I drew my last breath long ago and my heart has stopped beating, no one, apart from that vile murderer, knows what’s happened to me. As for that wretch, he felt for my pulse and listened for my breath to be sure I was dead, then kicked me in the midriff, carried me to the edge of the well, raised me up and dropped me below. As I fell, my head, which he’d smashed with a stone, broke apart; my face, my forehead and cheeks, were crushed; my bones shattered, and my mouth filled with blood.
For nearly four days I’ve been missing: My wife and children must be searching for me; my daughter, spent from crying, must be staring fretfully at the courtyard gate. Yes, I know they’re all at the window, hoping for my return.
But, are they truly waiting? I can’t even be sure of that. Maybe they’ve gotten used to my absence — how dismal! For here, on the other side, one gets the feeling that one’s former life persists. Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I’d been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.
Got it? Remember, the object is not so much to guess the author or the work (although, if you know, by all means shout it out), as it is about playing with what you find in the passage. Even if you don’t know the author or the work, or aren’t sure, you can still speculate about what the story may be, what culture it comes from, if it’s modern or from a past era, and a host of other parameters. Questions are welcome. Simple appreciations or criticisms are welcome. Wild guesses are welcome. Enjoy.
