Tag Archive: morgues


OPEN DOOR by Iosi Havilio (translated by Beth Fowler – published by & Other Stories)

“I dream of toads, skirts, orgies and horses”.

The unnamed first person narrator of this story is a young woman who has disturbed dreams and finds comfort in the fleeting strangeness of her experiences.

She may or may not have witnessed the suicide of Aida, a woman she has just befriended and moved in with.

She is a woman given to “complicated introspection” and her constant state is one of uncertainty : “I don’t know what I want……I don’t know what to do” .

When someone asks where she is from she replies vaguely “from far away”.

She’s a real nowhere woman. Isn’t she a bit like you and me? Continue reading

DEATH, ITALIAN STYLE

The aunt of my wife died last week. She was 82. As the English are wont to say on these occasions, she had a good innings; glibly equating one person’s life with a creditable batting performance in a cricket match.

Silvana was a woman I met on only a handful of occasions so, while her passing is sad, I can’t pretend it left me distraught. I therefore attended her funeral feeling more like an observer than one of the bona fide mourners.

The experience left me reflecting on some of the contrasts between the way the Italians and the English process their dead.

Continue reading