The Ghostwriter
Dear Guy,
Let’s stay actual once more. I will not use
that raw, challenging, unfriendly language from my previous letter. It was only
meant for a temporary physical exertion of your, or my, feelings at that
particular moment. We always agreed that these letters are made for our mutual
eternity. When friends told you to write down your life you always answered
that you would need a ghostwriter for that. With these letters we found that
ghostwriter in yourself.
Last week we have seen a fantastic interview
with Howard Jacobson, a British Jewish writer who figured twice on the long-list
of the Man Booker Prize and who won that prize with ‘The Finkler Question’ (http://dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl/media/335431). One of his assertions that
intrigued you the most was how he said that outside of a book an author should
not express his thoughts, opinions etc. Outside the novel the author should not
exist, he/she should not be there talking to an audience. How much you also endorse
this, you have the irresistible urge to justify yourself beyond what you write,
say and think. More and more you are using the word while you still prefer the
movement because a body can express so much more than words; those cursed words
captured forever on paper, always restrained by language barriers and hostile
opinions.
I want these letter being part of a landscape: ‘A
house with a red roof and a white substructure. You can only see the top of the
doorframe therefor you can’t see a window as most of the house is hidden by
trees along a perfect tight lined empty road. A forgotten piece of paper with
words from the past, thrown against a tree by a Flemish gust of wind, waits for
its total impermanence..’ You would have liked Hopper still to be alive to
commission this as an oil on canvas.
A different image is that of a frozen movement
of a dancer as you were always wondering why dancers love to move as soon they
hear the first note. You ceaselessly try to explain to dancers that they should
wait a bit longer, that it’s them who decide when they start to move not the
composer who finished his job once he created the composition. Those composers;
they should be happy that we use their creations and they should not wish to be
involved in what is done with those afterwards. They should realize that performers
are giving their work a second life.
Did I hardened my tone?
Guy, I just want to keep that image of a
theatre curtain that opens; a soundtrack that starts and dancers and audience
giving each other the time to get used to each other. No moves, we are watching
that landscape like a visitor exploring a painting or a photograph in a museum
or on a wall in someone’s house; dreaming away, and now, let the dancers dance.
‘You should dance with the thing you hate and
fear’… was another statement of Howard Jacobson and that inspired your dreams
that night. It gave you that idea that your body is the thing you hate the most
now you are aging and the fear for further decay.
That body, your each day friend your always
being there enemy.
That body, old yes, but still sending the right
messages about its condition. The message it delivered after you came back from
Rwanda was straight to the point. Within a few hours after your arrival you
knew something was wrong. You had neglected the messages you got while you were
in Africa, but now you couldn’t escape anymore. Even if you had fully enjoyed
the weeks in Kigali you had to confess it was not something you could label as
holidays. So be it. You are still recovering and I hope you will acknowledge
that 59 + is really sixty.
Do I sound patronizing?
Let’s dream about listening to Bach’s violin
Chaconne from Partita No.2 in a small, sunny desolated street in August in
Gent. Dancers are entering and leaving the houses and no they didn’t move at
the first string motion.
They got the message!
Did you got mine?
Yours, most dedicated,
Guy.
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I got yours.
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