Третья часть Сезонного цикла.
Что объединяет Кэтрин Мэнсфилд, Чарли Чаплина, Шекспира, Бетховена, Рильке, прошлое, север, юг, запад, восток, мужчину, жалеющего о прошлом, и женщину, запертую в настоящем?
Весна, великий соединитель.
Во времена стен и границ Смит открывает двери. Во времена, зацикленные на прошлом, Смит рассказывает историю настоящего. Во времена обесценивания искусства Смит создает роман-метакомментарий об искусстве.
Sometimes, he says, we don’t know why people do what they do. But we can only do our best, the best we can do, in response, and try to be as good-humoured as possible while we do it.
With a bit of help and a bit of luck, we get to be more than the one thing or the nothing that history’d have us be. We’re only here by the grace and the work of others. I am anyway. Here’s to those others who helped, that’s my prayer when I go to my bed, and may I be such an other to a good many myself.
You’ll never die, Paddy, he says.Oh yes I will, she says.Oh no you won’t, he says.Grow up, she says, it’s no pantomime, we all will, it’s a modern fantasy and malaise that we won’t, don’t fall for it, and right now it’s my turn for the boat with the hole in it, not yours, so back off.We’re all in that same boat, Pad, Richard says.
Working title? Paddy says.
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Same as the novel, he says. To persuade people it’s an adaptation of something a lot of people bought so it must be good.