Invitation to a Beheading

The kisses I spied. Yours and his kisses, which most resembled some sort of feeding, intent, untidy, and noisy. Or when you, with eyes closed tight, devoured a spurting peach and then, having finished, but still swallowing, with your mouth full, you cannibal, your glazed eyes wandered, your fingers were spread, your inflamed lips were all glossy, your chin trembled, all covered with drops of the cloudy juice, which trickled down on to your bared bosom, while the

The kisses I spied. Yours and his kisses, which most resembled some sort of feeding, intent, untidy, and noisy. Or when you, with eyes closed tight, devoured a spurting peach and then, having finished, but still swallowing, with your mouth full, you cannibal, your glazed eyes wandered, your fingers were spread, your inflamed lips were all glossy, your chin trembled, all covered with drops of the cloudy juice, which trickled down on to your bared bosom, while the Priapus who had nourished you suddenly, with a convulsive oath, turned his bent back to me, who had entered the room at the wrong moment. 'All kinds of fruit are good for Marthe,' you would say with a certain sweet-slushy moistness in your throat, all gathering into into one damp, sweet, accursed little fold. (p.120)

'What a misunderstanding,' said Cincinnatus and suddenly burst out laughing. He stood up and took off the dressing gown, the skullcap, the slippers. He took off the trousers and shirt. He took off his head like a toupee, took off his collarbones like shoulder straps, took off his rib cage like a hauberk. He took off his hips and his legs, he took off his arms like gauntlets and threw them in a corner. What was left of him gradually dissolved, hardly colouring the air. At first Cincinnatus simply revelled in the coolness; then, fully immersed in his secret medium, he began freely and happily to...

The iron Thunderclap of the bolt resounded, and Cincinnatus instantly grew all that he had cast off, the skullcap included. (p.29)

The novel was the famous 'Quercus', and Cincinnatus had already read a good third of it, or about a thousand pages. It's protagonist was an oak. The novel was a biography of that oak. At the place where Cincinnatus had stopped the oak was just starting on its third century; a simple calculation suggested that by the end of the book it would reach the age of six hundred at least.

The idea of the novel was considered to be the acme of modern thought. Employing the gradual development of the tree (growing lone and mighty at the edge of a canyon at whose bottom the waters never ceased to din), the author unfolded all the historic events - or shadows of events - of which the oak could have been a witness ; now it was a dialogue between two warriors dismounted from their steeds - one dappled, the other dun - so as to rest under the cool ceil of its noble foliage; now highwaymen stopped by and the song of a wild-haired fugitive damsel; now, beneath the storm's blue zigzag, the hasty passage of a lord escaping from royal wrath; now, upon a spread cloak a corpse, still quivering with the throb of the leafy shadows; now a brief drama in the life of some villagers, There was a paragraph a page and a half long in which all the words began with 'p'.

It seemed as though the author were sitting with his camera somewhere among the topmost branches of the Quercus, spying out and catching his prey. Various images of life would come and go, pausing among the green macules of light. The normal periods of inaction were filled with scientific descriptions of the oak itself, from the viewpoints of dendrology, ornithology, coleopterology, mythology - or popular descriptions, with touches of folk humour. Among other things there was a detailed list of all the initials carved in the bark with their interpretations. And, finally, no little attention was devoted to the music of waters, the palette of sunsets, and the behaviour of the weather.

Cincinnatus read for a while and laid it aside. This work was unquestionably the best that his age had produced. (p. 104-105)

to put it more simply, in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatinglu majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life. But then I have long since grown accustomed to the thought that what we call dreams is semi-reality, the promise of reality, a foreglimpse and a whiff of it; that is, they contain, in a very vague, diluted state, more genuine reality than our vaunted waking life which, in its turn, is semi-sleep, an evil drowsiness into which penetrate in grotesque disguise the sounds and sights of the real world, flowing beyond the periphery of the mind - as when you hear during sleep a dreadful insidious tale because a branch is scraping on the pane, or see yourself sinking into snow because your blanket is sliding off. But how I fear awakening! How I fear that second, or rather split-second, already cut short then, when, with a lumber-jack's grunt -
But what is there to fear? Will it not be for me simply the shadow of an axe, and shall I not hear the downward vigorous grunt with the ear of a different world? Still I am afraid? One cannot write off so easily. Neither is it good that my thoughts keep getting sucked into the cavity of the future - I want to think about something ele, clarify other things... but I write obscurely and limply, like Pushkin's lyrical duelist. (p.78)

My advice to a budding literary critic would be as follows.

My advice to a budding literary critic would be as follows. Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocrity thrives on "ideas." Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol you have detected is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the "how" above the "what" but do not let it be confused with the "so what." Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs. Do not drag in Freud at this point. All the rest depends on personal talent.