The Fan-Maker's Inquisition (18 page)
Read The Fan-Maker's Inquisition Online
Authors: Rikki Ducornet
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #Literary Fiction, #The Fan-Maker's Inquisition
We owe the theater to Shakespeare. Puissant and fecund, his genius was also artless and sublime, without an atom of good taste, without the least understanding of the rules.
“It gives me hope!” Olympe exclaimed. “For I, too, have not an atom of good taste; I, too, know nothing of the rules.”
She would always be a fanciful speller. She imagined that spelling was like pastry-making; one added flavors, raisins, and nuts at will. And how delicious beneath the tongue the phrase
gold is malleable.
“It brings butter melting on apiece of toast to mind!”
We relished words of particular resonance or potency, recalling how when we were children they evoked worlds, mysterious and entire, just as Cook’s ‘Otahiti’ caused us to yearn for his tale, to lean into it as one leans into a fragrant breeze
.
“To read,” I told her, “I confused with ‘to reed.’ That is to say, to float in a little boat with my father among the rushes. Now, as I sit beside you and gaze into this open book, I have the mood of that day, its weather and sweetness before me. As the clouds sail past the sun, the water changes color. And now, as you read the title of this book aloud, dear Olympe—”
“To the Austral Pole and Around the World.”
“—my reverie deepens. Boat, sky, and water dissolve and give way to distant times, and places I have never seen but where I would travel gladly, if sometimes with sadness.”
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All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Portions of this novel were published in
Conjunctions.
Copyright © 1999 Rikki Ducornet
ISBN: 978-1-4532-8779-8
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