past

History And Europe And Estey : Redux

Looking myself up on the Internet (as one is sometimes wont to do), I came across this. I posted this nearly ten years ago, and have/had totally forgotten it. So, it’s a possibility others have forgotten it also. I find it quite interesting.

History And Europe And Estey

Isabella d’Este, Giovanni Cristoforo Romano, 1500.

There is a tradition in “my” branch of the Estey family that we descend from the d’Este of Italy. The d’Este clan were rich and powerful and influential. They married well which – yes – brought the infamous Lucrezia Borgia into the family when she wed Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.

My father had a reproduction of Alfonso’s sister, Isabella, readily at hand. Isabel was a name for at least one daughter in every generation of Esteys. Lucrezia attempted to befriend Isabella, but to no avail.

The town of Este is in Northern Italy, in the Veneto region, about a two hour car ride from Venice. It’s most recent population figure of two years ago was around 17,000. I have a special fondness for this part of Italy and have sprinkled references to it in some of my novels. Indeed, my whole historical onion trilogy is centred around a town in this area.

So, Este was certainly a destination when I travelled through Europe. And the surrounding area. Este was suitably medieval in tone, with its ruined Este castle and wonderful flower beds and bowers and stone bridge over river and walled town and as happily historic as all get out.

I looked to see how many Estes were in the phone book (a respectable number) but I didn’t phone anyone. I would be more thorough and stay longer on another trip. I doubt there is any way to fix up that castle.

I enjoyed all of Italy that I visited (and the rest of Europe held no less enthusiasm from me). But to stick, as it were, around the old homestead, the most enjoyable places were Venice and Florence. I was most surprised to see cruise ships looming from the Venetian waterfront.

I sighed on The Bridge of Sighs – from such beauty to such terror those prisoners were lead. A stunning memory was boating on the Grand Canal at dusk and seeing rooms in a passing mansion ablaze with chandeliers.

Florence was my favourite. It is, of course, awash in museums and galleries and art art Art. To chose the one which stunned me most was Botechelli’s Birth of Venus – and that’s saying a lot, considering. The Ponte Vecchio over the Arno lives up to all its billing. Alas, I bought no gold.

Also, a memory is walking along certain streets and assuming I was near riding stables because of the permeating smell. However, I was in the leather good quarter. There was also the ancient, wire mesh and gated elevator,the type I had only seen in movies, wheezing me aloft to my lodgings. And the lady who left her room key on my table after breakfast. And don’t get me started on the markets and the food. Don’t.

However, there is one golden memory which consists of neither history nor ancient art. This happened in Verona. I was walking along a busy street and looked into the interior of a news vendor. The building also had an array of paperback books. And there, looking back out at me, was my own novel, L’INGANNO BONNER, recently produced in an Italian translation. That was a most pleasant delight indeed.

(image)http://www.isabelladeste.org/_/rsrc/1467897567813/isabella-deste/0a.PNG

05/30/2025 0

The Paris Olympics Will Have More Extreme Weather Than I Encountered In Europe

Solely because of the current, hellish weather in Europe, I hauled out my old travel diaries to take a look at what I was doing so many decades ago.

I do remember some very hot days (though nothing like this week). I also remember the morning a month later, when I was walking through a long driveway, down from a mountain castle where the youth hostel was situated, and noted that Autumn weather had begun.

I obviously had time on my hands, for this day fills three hand-written pages. But since – oddly – it starts with a weather report, I’ll just record part of the first page.

July 17

A beautiful day erupted across the sky this morning blue clear sky and a budding sun sliding with a sultry manner into the waiting arms of the passionate heavens. It was, in other words, a nice day. And I took advantage of the whole majestic harrang** by leaving for the heart of the city around nine o’clock.

First business gotten out of the way was to buy a train ticket to Nurinberg**. It was interesting to return to Hanover Station , for in a way that’s where it all began, isn’t it? The fateful Sunday so long ago where the train was caught for Hamburg and on to the farm. It was much more pleasant being there the second time around, and I even succumed** and bought some plums in the small fruit store. They were the worst plums it has been my mis-fortune** to lay my taste buds on, and I threw half of them away.

I left the station and walked about the Square awhile, looking in the stores and wishing I could buy. But, it was enjoyable just looking around. At eleven o’clock I fulfilled one of the pet dreams which I looked forward to while on the farm. I went to a movie. Why this desire became so strong during these six weeks I do not know, perhaps a movie is a symbol of real civilization. Whatever the reason, I wanted to see one, and I did. It was, naturally, in German, but being a very sexy film, the language barrier did not make a great difference. As it was, I understood a lot more than I thought it would.

[By the by, excuse the writing, but I am on a moving train, and everything wobbles considerably.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** I have edited nothing, and plan also not to edit if I ever do publish these long-ago writings. The “farm” mentioned is where I worked for summer employment.

07/19/2024 0

The New Year Prods Kafka To Think Of His Youth

03 January 1917

I still have fantasies about the Swiss girl – although not the type one might suppose.

(My father says I already have too many fantasies, and that I deal with them “too long, and too often” – he is certainly right.)

I make a mixture of what I shared with the Swiss girl, and what I imagine we would be like today. This is certainly more fantasy than not, for what would being together have done to us? Done to her?

But, in this tiny house – could she not join me?

Be here by the window, as I write this?

But she was so young, and such a girl, where I fear that I was never such a boy.

01/03/2024 0

A House Of Ghosts

It had been a house of dreams, it was now a house of ghosts.

Ghosts tranquil and benign peered through the dusty upper windows, stood in wait behind the boarded doors. The dreams of long ago, which had tumbled down the stairs, and frolicked through the rooms, were now memories in the minds of ghosts.

The ghosts were themselves memories, destined to further fade with each new birth. But there would be no births in this house, as it slid inexorably toward decay. The lackluster brown shingles would be more smudged, the remaining panes of old glass would break, the floors would warp and collapse, the roof would succumb to the years of harsh weather.

Even the `No Trespass’ sign was barely legible. Then where would the ghosts go?

Blaine left his car and walked toward the house.

If he had eyes to see, who would be there to greet him? Would children’s dreams, fair-haired and boisterous, burst through the front door and surround him in games of tag and laughter? Would he get caught by their enthusiasm (would he become a child himself), and race behind the trees, burrow into the hay, hide between the bins of potato and turnip, intent not to be `it’.

Or would he meet the ghosts, quiet and tentative at the top of the steps, moving slowly with their uncertain smiles. Would they greet him with a wave, invite him into their warm-smelling kitchens, offer him fresh tea, and squares right out of the pan? Would he sit in the stream of fall sunlight flowing across the well-oiled floor, and talk about childhood?

Blaine walked part way up the drive before he stopped.

He knew what lay beyond the boarded windows, and the sagging door upon its rusty hinges. Wallpaper would be water-stained, and curling off the plaster walls. There would be lumps of refuse in the corners of the rooms, with one inevitable rusty bed frame lying on its side. There would be gaps in the ceiling, where beams of sunlight shimmered through motes of dust. There would be holes in the baseboards, where earnest rodents made comfortable homes.

There would be musty smells offering a hint of long-ago meals, and something gone bad in the pantry. There would be one upper window (at the back) which still had a tattered lace curtain, half obscuring what had once been totally private. At night he would hear bats.

It was not this house he had come to see, of course. Of course, not this derelict house, which he knew could never be restored, and which was so beyond help even death slept while visiting.

12/29/2023 0

“Zellers” In “The Hudson’s Bay” In Canada

I went for a shopping spree at Zellers

Of course, it has been around forty years since there was an independent Zellers store. I used to go to the one on Queen St. in Fredericton. You could enter on Queen St, and walk a whole block to exit it on to King St. It even had the first escalator in the city. So, being in a Zellers in a Hudson’s Bay store really wasn’t the same. For one thing, there was no cafeteria. I set a whole novel around the cafeteria in Zellers. I guess I won’t be doing that again.

But, I gotta tell you, I swear I was served by a sales associate (clerk) whose last job was in Fredericton.

She was the right age (60 to beyond): the right look (mid-tone frumpy fashionista): and accessorized with plump fake pearls and robustly applied makeup.

She happily took me to the places where I might find the items I could not find (like slippers) and we still didn’t find them.

Then back to the Cash, where I prepared to pay with $$$ bills. She asked if I might want to sign up for a card or two (or three). I said ‘no’, and that I didn’t want to waste her time. She opined that I wasn’t wasting her time, she was attempting to fill it.

So, I felt encouraged to engage her in conversation – which was really to let her roll on. There were not a lot of customers, and there was a noticeable lack of items. When I asked how Zellers fit in at Hudson’s Bay, she said that it really wasn’t independent, it wasn’t even a department. It was classed as “a Kiosk”.

SIGH

DE UEL

08/05/2023 0

What Would You Title The Chapters Of Your Autobiography? #Bloganuary

What would you title the chapters of your autobiography?

Born and Bored

Looking Around

Who Are These People

School Leaves Much To Be Desired

The Broken Eggs Of The Robin

Girls

Rubbing The Plates

University Engulfs

Working On A Farm In Germany

On The Way To Dachau

Women

First Novel

The Ice House

252 Charlotte

Gov Doc And Mrs Colson

A Lost Tale

01/30/2023 0

Kafka Warms Himself With His Own Manuscripts

My novel. Kafka In The Castle, fills in Kafka’s missing diary entries. This is how I imagine Kafka’s best friend, Max Brod, reacts to one of the many times Kafka burned his own manuscripts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

19 April 1917

Max was horrified when I told him about last night.

“You burned your stories? Are you crazy?”

“I wrote them, so I must be.”

He smiled at that. Max’s anger can be easily deflected, for it is never deep. Max is a very good man, and cares for me more than I do myself.

“And the novel? The Amerika novel?”

I told him that many chapters of that must have been burned. Probably right from the start – they were no doubt the first things I grabbed from the chair. “Anything else?”

“There were a couple of plays. I remember pages of dialogue.”

Max’s voice became hollow. He might no longer be angry, but neither was he happy. “I didn’t know you had written any plays. You have secrets even from me.”

“I keep secrets from myself. Don’t be offended.”

“What else?”

I could picture him writing down an inventory.

“Some diary entries – those were deliberate.”

“And was that the end of your pyromaniac obsession?”

“Of my own work – yes.”

He looked at me questioningly – he didn’t need another secret.

“There were a couple of bundles of letters from Felice. Neatly tied with string. They burned slowly. I have not had such warmth from her for a long time.”

12/04/2022 0

Is it Putin, Is It Trump, Is It Musk Knock Knock Knocking On The Door?

he first claw was so faint upon the door he barely raised an eye from the page.

It could have been the wind – it sounded almost like the wind.

Wind at other times. and in other places, might blow such a sound – but not this night.

As his thoughts returned to what lay before him, the tiny scrabble, hesitant at floor level, moved slightly to the right, aligning itself more closely to the doorknob.

The noise skittered up the wood, making a metallic sound. His head swivelled toward the door. The first thought he had was for the paint.

He could sense, by the sound alone, the movement was groping in the dark It was unsure where it was. He closed the book on his lap, still keeping his place with a finger.

His eyes remained fixed on the door. He thought he saw the light of his lamp glint off something through the keyhole.

The doorknob twitched – a slight movement counterclockwise. Then a brief turn clockwise. He let the book slide down the side of his chair as he put his hand into a pocket. He felt the key between his fingers. He held it tightly.

There was fumbling with the knob, muffled sounds as if a grip was hard to get. The knob turned once more, and then the pressure on the outside was released. He could hear shuffling against the wood. Then he saw, through the keyhole, light reflecting off a muddy iris.

He stared back through the keyhole, only to see the eye blink and move slowly away. He started to rise from his chair, but was stopped by a thump near the floor, as if a clumsy foot had bumped the wood by mistake.

He realised all the sounds he heard seemed uncoordinated. The doorknob was once again twisted, but the motion seemed to lack an ability to grasp.

He was wondering whether to turn out the lamp, when a hesitant, hollow knock came upon the door.

~ DE

11/17/2022 0

Is it Putin, Is It Trump, Is It Musk, Knock Knock Knocking On The Door?

The first claw was so faint upon the door he barely raised an eye from the page.