Richard Makin's St Leonards is finished
What was it like being dead?
Well, he says, the best thing was that language stopped. (from XXXI)
So the mordant humour - a real scream, yes, almost a scream - carries on. A month or two back, the long-awaited (in every sense) final chapter (XXXIII) of St Leonards emerged on GreatWorks. Soon, I hope, the whole enormous work - now retitled Dwelling - will be published by Reality Street Editions. In the mean time go and check out a chapter or two. The final one, battered aficionados won't be surprised to learn, is among much else a series of increasingly hollow-laughter jokes at the expense of those who have been hanging on for it.
Much earlier in this amazing book's serialisation, I tried to say a bit more about it. Now I just want to hold the book in my hand, and start being dazzled by it in a different way.
Oh, you only want to read the last page? I can't bear to spoil it for you, but this is what it's like as it hurtles towards that silence:
Will there be music during the night. This is fate surely. They have framed us pretty well. This is that fateful empire. This is a true echo of what I was going through during time. I am now watertight. She bends the tongue of influence at court. I am a landmark work. She admits love. We are benighted. We have dipped our bodies into the old night of our names. I unbolt the word and a folding takes place: a cento and rhapsody of uncircumferenced motion. By the way, at the moment I'm hanging dead from the light flitting—a garble of patchwork, a studious incorporation of tense lines.
Suffice to say she's preaching a new demigod, a recent carnation of the heroic. Go in, enter the story in detail. We're not approaching overkill—we're now in overkill. I dream there's a fire and the things and the people have to be removed, forever. (from XXXIII)
MP
Well, he says, the best thing was that language stopped. (from XXXI)
So the mordant humour - a real scream, yes, almost a scream - carries on. A month or two back, the long-awaited (in every sense) final chapter (XXXIII) of St Leonards emerged on GreatWorks. Soon, I hope, the whole enormous work - now retitled Dwelling - will be published by Reality Street Editions. In the mean time go and check out a chapter or two. The final one, battered aficionados won't be surprised to learn, is among much else a series of increasingly hollow-laughter jokes at the expense of those who have been hanging on for it.
Much earlier in this amazing book's serialisation, I tried to say a bit more about it. Now I just want to hold the book in my hand, and start being dazzled by it in a different way.
Oh, you only want to read the last page? I can't bear to spoil it for you, but this is what it's like as it hurtles towards that silence:
Will there be music during the night. This is fate surely. They have framed us pretty well. This is that fateful empire. This is a true echo of what I was going through during time. I am now watertight. She bends the tongue of influence at court. I am a landmark work. She admits love. We are benighted. We have dipped our bodies into the old night of our names. I unbolt the word and a folding takes place: a cento and rhapsody of uncircumferenced motion. By the way, at the moment I'm hanging dead from the light flitting—a garble of patchwork, a studious incorporation of tense lines.
Suffice to say she's preaching a new demigod, a recent carnation of the heroic. Go in, enter the story in detail. We're not approaching overkill—we're now in overkill. I dream there's a fire and the things and the people have to be removed, forever. (from XXXIII)
MP
