What a better place to begin than in a hamlet we know as Winesburg, Ohio. An old man with a white mustache lies in bed there, subject to brooding notions about the beating of his heart. He feels himself to be something like a pregnant woman, thanks to the life that seems stirring within him. Sentiments and notions peculiar to writers and old men. In this bed he has a dream that is not a dream, in which he sees figures passing before his eyes. A procession of them, shadows of people he has known. Of interest to this old man and to ourselves is the impression he has of these figures. Grotesques, he calls them. He sees them all as grotesques.
That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful. . . .
And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them.
It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.
Already have an account? Log in
Join KR for even more to read.