Word: whispers
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Indulgent, or candid, or uncommon reader--I've some: a wife, a nun, a ghost or two--If I write for anyone, I wrote for you; So whisper when I die, We was too few; Write over me (if you can write; I hardly knew...
Randall Jarrell wrote this bitter-sweet little obituary for himself more than ten years before he was struck by a car one night as he walked along a country road near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His wife and the nun have returned to whisper his praises in a volume of appreciations published this fall. Mrs. Jarrell recalls her husband's enthusiasms for sports cars, Mahler, and a giant cat named Kitten; Sister M. Bernetta Quinn plods patiently through an exposition of "Metamorphoses in Randall Jarrell...
...days later, in Crete, I go to visit a young girl, an American-educated friend from previous trips. At the travel bureau where she works they tell me she is out of town. On vacation? No, not exactly. She's gone to Chania. When is she expected back? Well (whisper), you see, she is in jail. She took part in a demonstration in support of Papandreou and against the Junta on the day of the coup. The prosecutor demanded six months on parole. The court-martial meted out three years in jail. This is how it always happens these days...
...merriment of a wedding banquet, I propose we sing, "Make Your Bed For Two," last year's hit song. Everybody shudders. No, not that, my young friends whisper, we'll all end up in jail. Don't you know it was written by Theodorakis? It's strictly forbidden. Later on, after we leave the banquet, the same friends roll up the car windows and softly sing the song. Warmed up, they continue with "The Rebel," the centuries-old anthem of the Cretan revolutions against the Turks. That is also forbidden, because of its suggestive language: "When will the stars break...
Author Epstein, whose 1964 book Leah was a controlled whisper of a novel, is one of those rarities in American letters-the completely rounded writer, capable of handling the counterpoint that this theme necessitates. If his method is kitchen realism (down to the whirring refrigerator), his manner is as fine as the tinkle of dining room crystal. He does not try to bomb the reader out of his mind, nor is he out to revolutionize his conscience. Rather, he tells a story with grace and wit, taking the common-or universal-experiences of life as the basis for a work...