DELETED AS NOW TO BE THE TITLE STORY OF A BOOK
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The Real Mucky
- Thread starter Nemonymous
- Start date
Nemonymous
Grimscribe
A passage for TLO especially — from THE GLASTONBURY ROMANCE (1933) by John Cowper Powys. Perhaps he thought the word 'Esplumoir' was not in Malory because he misspelt it as 'Esplumeoir'!
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"As all Merlin's disciples well know, there is a mysterious word used in the Grail Books about his final disappearance. This is the word 'Esplumeoir.' It is inevitable from the context to interpret this as some 'Great Good Place', some mystic Fourth Dimension, or Nirvanic apotheosis, into which the magician deliberately sank, or rose; thus committing a sort of inspired suicide, a mysterious dying in order to live more fully. As he sought for one of his favourite passages -- for 'Esplumeoir' does not appear in Malory -- he kept murmuring that particular invocation under his breath, pondering intently on the occult escape offered by this runic clue from all the pain of the world, an escape so strangely handed down from far-off centuries in these thaumaturgic syllables."
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"As all Merlin's disciples well know, there is a mysterious word used in the Grail Books about his final disappearance. This is the word 'Esplumeoir.' It is inevitable from the context to interpret this as some 'Great Good Place', some mystic Fourth Dimension, or Nirvanic apotheosis, into which the magician deliberately sank, or rose; thus committing a sort of inspired suicide, a mysterious dying in order to live more fully. As he sought for one of his favourite passages -- for 'Esplumeoir' does not appear in Malory -- he kept murmuring that particular invocation under his breath, pondering intently on the occult escape offered by this runic clue from all the pain of the world, an escape so strangely handed down from far-off centuries in these thaumaturgic syllables."
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Nemonymous
Grimscribe
WHICH WAY SHALL I GO?
That was the question on a handwritten note that faced me on the main entrance when I arrived at the next mansion in my tour of duty. I have grown accustomed to such notes left outside places, say, for Amazon delivery drivers a with the words: “Please leave package here, back soon” — or more generally: “No cold callers”, “ No Hawkers or Travellers”, “No Junk Mail” etc. But never “Which way shall I go?” Did the ‘I’ refer to the person who wrote it? Or was it to shed doubt on its reader’s ability to negotiate some treasure trail or quest as a party game — a universal ‘I’ for whoever it was intended? I took it as the latter … until I spotted a distant figure wandering in the large garden as if he or she were lost. Crashing pell mell into runner bean canes, or somehow tripping over the legs of what appeared to be a beehive. Obviously, a honey trap, this place, I thought. And I laughed. But the close encounter with the runner beans seemed to have caused the figure to start running back to the place where it had just been. It seemed to behave, after the beehive, more and more frantically as if suddenly waking to the full importance of the handwritten note it had left on the mansion door. I wondered whether this was a lesson for me to learn. Could this be the very ghost for which I had long hunted inside mansions, now outside in the open air, not existing between the walls of a building. I had ever assumed any ghost must be pent up to exist at all, kept there from whereto it should have gone. This was an eye-opener for me. Indeed, was the world one huge open space for an infinity of ghosts to thrive? I took the note from the door as if it were intended for me to take and return to its perpetrator. I started running to where I last saw the figure had been, somehow knowing it had now taken the responsibility of all the decision-making away from me and thus resolving the anxieties of a lifetime that whatever decision I made I would become lost. I followed each fork and turn, drawing closer and closer to each other. Until the figure turned and smiled. And I returned the smile. We had somehow resolved a problem that had beset us both until now, and I guessed neither of us had known what the problem was in the first place, if there had been a problem at all. A cold calling across the chasm of being.
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“How shall a man find his way unless he lose it?” — Walter de la Mare
Other Fiction Miniatures: Fiction Miniatures | The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews
That was the question on a handwritten note that faced me on the main entrance when I arrived at the next mansion in my tour of duty. I have grown accustomed to such notes left outside places, say, for Amazon delivery drivers a with the words: “Please leave package here, back soon” — or more generally: “No cold callers”, “ No Hawkers or Travellers”, “No Junk Mail” etc. But never “Which way shall I go?” Did the ‘I’ refer to the person who wrote it? Or was it to shed doubt on its reader’s ability to negotiate some treasure trail or quest as a party game — a universal ‘I’ for whoever it was intended? I took it as the latter … until I spotted a distant figure wandering in the large garden as if he or she were lost. Crashing pell mell into runner bean canes, or somehow tripping over the legs of what appeared to be a beehive. Obviously, a honey trap, this place, I thought. And I laughed. But the close encounter with the runner beans seemed to have caused the figure to start running back to the place where it had just been. It seemed to behave, after the beehive, more and more frantically as if suddenly waking to the full importance of the handwritten note it had left on the mansion door. I wondered whether this was a lesson for me to learn. Could this be the very ghost for which I had long hunted inside mansions, now outside in the open air, not existing between the walls of a building. I had ever assumed any ghost must be pent up to exist at all, kept there from whereto it should have gone. This was an eye-opener for me. Indeed, was the world one huge open space for an infinity of ghosts to thrive? I took the note from the door as if it were intended for me to take and return to its perpetrator. I started running to where I last saw the figure had been, somehow knowing it had now taken the responsibility of all the decision-making away from me and thus resolving the anxieties of a lifetime that whatever decision I made I would become lost. I followed each fork and turn, drawing closer and closer to each other. Until the figure turned and smiled. And I returned the smile. We had somehow resolved a problem that had beset us both until now, and I guessed neither of us had known what the problem was in the first place, if there had been a problem at all. A cold calling across the chasm of being.
***
“How shall a man find his way unless he lose it?” — Walter de la Mare
Other Fiction Miniatures: Fiction Miniatures | The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews