MARK HARMAN
579
me will die right away, since such a figure has no base, no substance, is less
than dust. ...But I myself camlot go on living because I have not lived, I
have remained clay, I have not blown the spark into fire, but only used it
to light up my corpse." To readers of Beckett's novels and plays, Kafka's
anticipation of his final days may also sound eerily familiar: "From now on
I may not go out of Bohemia, next I will be confined to Prague, then to
my room, then to my bed, then to a certain position in bed, then to noth–
ing more."
As for Beckett himself, his rivalry with Kafka persisted until the very
end. In a letter to a friend in 1983 the already ailing Beckett complains of
feeling "inertia and void as never before" and recalls an entry in Kafka's
diary: "Gardening. No hope for the future." But Beckett has a trump card
up his sleeve. Clearly savoring an opportunity
to
outdo Kafka's pessimism,
he adds wryly: "At least he could garden."
F~l~B(oocI
a novel
by
Ma ssachusetts author
Mary Hazzard
Concealed tensions emerge between members of
a seeminglyperfectAmerican family.
And one ofthem is done to death.
ALISON
LURIE:
"A moving and
deeply perceptive novel."
GAIL GODWIN:
"I was completelyinvolved in
the family story and its repercussions–
which is what good fiction is all about."
ISBN
0-918056-10-1 • 233
pages hardcover ·
$21.95
plus
$2.00
s
&
h
ARIADNE PRESS
4817
Tallahassee Ave., Rockville, MD
20853 • (301) 949-2514
