De Britse schrijver Alan Hollinghurst werd geboren op 26 mei 1954 in Stoud, Gloucestershire. Zie ook alle tags voor Alan Hollinghurst op dit blog.

 

Uit: The Line of Beauty

 

“He had a blind date at eight that evening, and the hot August day was a shimmer of nerves, with little breezy interludes of lustful dreaming. The date wasn’t totally blind – ‘just very short-sighted”, Catherine Fedden said, when Nick showed her the photograph and the letter. She seemed to like the look of the man, who was called Leo, and who she said was so much her type; but his handwriting made her jumpy. It was both elaborate and impetuous. Catherine had a paperback called Graphology: The Mind in the Hand, which gave her all sorts of warnings about people’s tendencies and repressions (“Artist or Madman?” “Pet or Brute?”). “It’s those enormous ascenders, darling,” she said: “I see a lot of ego.” They had pursed their lips again over the little square of cheap blue writing paper. “You’re sure that doesn’t just mean a very strong sex drive?” Nick asked. But she seemed to think not. He had been excited, and even rather moved, to get this letter from a stranger; but it was true the text itself raised few expectations. “Nick – OK! Ref your letter, am in Personnel (London Borough of Brent). We can meet up, discuss Interests and Ambitions. Say When. Say Where” – and then the enormous rampant L of Leo going halfway down the page.

 

 

 

Don Gilet (Leo) en Dan Stevens (Nick) in de tv-serie „The Line of Beauty“ uit 2006.

 

Nick had moved into the Feddens’ big white Notting Hill house a few weeks before. His room was up in the roof; still clearly the children’s zone, with its lingering mood of teenage secrets and rebellions. Toby’s orderly den was at the top of the stairs, Nick’s room just along the skylit landing, and Catherine’s at the far end; Nick had no brothers or sisters but he was able to think of himself here as a lost middle child. It was Toby who had brought him here, in earlier vacations, for his London “seasons”, long thrilling escapes from his own far less glamorous family; and Toby whose half-dressed presence still haunted the attic passage. Toby himself had never perhaps known why he and Nick were friends, but had amiably accepted the evidence that they were. In these months after Oxford he was rarely there, and Nick had been passed on as a friend to his little sister and to their hospitable parents. He was a friend of the family; and there was something about him they trusted, a gravity, a certain shy polish, something not quite apparent to Nick himself; which had helped the family agree that he should become their lodger.”

 

 

Alan Hollinghurst (Stoud, 26 mei 1954)

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De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Maxwell Bodenheim werd geboren op 26 mei 1892 in Hermanville, Mississippi. Zie ook alle tags voor Maxwell Bodenheim op dit blog.

 

Advice To a Blue-Bird

 

Who can make a delicate adventure

Of walking on the ground?

Who can make grass-blades

Arcades for pertly careless straying?

You alone, who skim against these leaves,

Turning all desire into light whips

Moulded by your deep blue wing-tips,

You who shrill your unconcern

Into the sternly antique sky.

You to whom all things

Hold an equal kiss of touch.

 

Mincing, wanton blue-bird,

Grimace at the hoofs of passing men.

You alone can lose yourself

Within a sky, and rob it of its blue!

 

 

 

The Child Meditates

 

The oak-tree in front of my house

Smells different every morning.

Sometimes it smells fresh and wise

Like my mother’s hair.

Sometimes it stands ashamed

Because it doesn’t own the smell

It borrowed from our flower-garden.

Sometimes it has a windy smell,

As though it had come back from a long walk.

The oak-tree in front of my house

Has different smells, like grown up people.

 

My doll hides behind her pink cheeks,

So that you can’t see when she moves,

But it doesn’t matter because

She always moves when no one is looking,

And that is why people think she is still.

People laugh when I say that my doll is alive,

But if she were dead, my fingers

Wouldn’t know that they were touching her.

She lives inside a little house.

And laughs because I cannot find the door.

 

The colours in my room

Meet each other and hesitate.

Is that what people call shape?

Nobody seems to think so,

But I believe that lines are dead shapes

Unless they fall against each other

And look surprised, like the colours in my room!

 

 

 

Maxwell Bodenheim (26 mei 1892 – 6 februari 1954)

 

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