Doleful to Dreadful

Hello Gentle Reader

Always in the late winter, when the snow retreats, and the mud seeps; do we see the blight of autumn’s fires, now charred ashen remnants. The grass is brown or beige depending on light and perception. Doleful, as one co-worker called it; which immediately brought to mind the images of a doe: skittish, flappable, and ever so weak and helpless on the food chain. The transition from winter to spring is always dreadful more than doleful.

Whenever the world loses a writer of substantial literary merit, it’s a tragic loss. Two-thousand and twelve, saw two great writers depart from the earthly realm: The Polish Nobel Laureate Wislwa Szymborska Mozart of Poetry, and the Italian writer, Antonio Tabucchi, heir of the great Italian writer Italo Calvino, and student of the Portuguese mystical poet Fernando Pessoa. 

Now in two-thousand and sixteen, still fresh in our mind, the world has lost two other writers: Umberto Eco, and Harper Lee.

Umberto Eco, preferred to think of himself as an intellectual rather than a writer. Many other writes, have also included such thoughts when discussing their own work. Such as fellow Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi considering himself a professor (teacher) and scholar before he was a writer, or Claude Simon (Nobel Laureate 1985) referred to grape farming as his occupation before writing, Franz Kafka was an insurance clerk before a writer; and the list goes on. But Umberto Eco was an intellectual before he took pen to paper. With regards to Umberto Eco’s intellectual pursuits, semiotics was his greatest philosophical interest; often penning numerous essays in regards to the study of signs and symbols, and the meaning that they create. Though for Eco it was his narrative work that often found him fame, starting with his nineteen-eighty novels: “The Name of the Rose.” “The Name of the Rose,” is a medieval detective novel set in an Italian abbey with a Brother (monk) investigating suspicious deaths within it. After witch Eco had published numerous other novels, which would solidify himself as a giant of international literature, and an Italian master of prose. Umberto Eco, was a continual contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature, but may have been overlooked to so speculation, because of his grander presence on the world literary stage. Now at the age of eighty-four, Umberto Eco has passed away from complications with cancer. May you rest in peace Umberto Eco, rest in peace.

Harper Lee was one of America’s literary darlings. Her most famous novel “Too Kill a Mockingbird,” was met with controversy at first, being banned by some schools and school boards, for its depiction of racism; and yet Harper Lee herself had created one of the greatest fictional heroes of all time: Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends a accused black man of raping a young white girl. The novel published in the nineteen-sixties was a huge success and controversial one. It dealt with the South’s racial tensions and the racial divide of America at the time (which still persists to this day, by the news reports). With publishing “Too Kill a Mockingbird,” Lee created a folk legal hero in Atticus Finch, with legal journals reviewing Atticus Finch and the novel more, then literary magazines. Yet in two-thousand and fifteen, Harper Lee would release her second and last novel: “Go Set a Watchman,” which would destroy Atticus Finch’s character, with revelations of his own racist past, and inclinations. “Go Set a Watchman,” would be met with controversy, and many wondering if the newly released novel had spoiled Harper Lee’s literary legacy. It’s a damper comment on her recent death, at the age of eighty-nine. “Too Kill a Mockingbird,” would most likely remain her masterpiece, and her tour de force, of her dual literary output. With a Pulitzer and a novel, about the Southern racial tensions, Harper Lee solidifies herself as one of America’s greatest writers of the last twentieth century; but also a silent giantess of literature, with a very small literary output, and some would consider it a one hit wonder.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

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M. Mary