On the Identity of Thieves

"The proposal was this: if Liebard would help him clear the overgrown fields beside the house and clarify the lawns under the full-branched chestnut trees, then he and his family were welcome to stay on that land for as long as they desired. Lucien would sign any formal document if Liebard wished, but Liebard waived that possibility. He disapproved of putting pen to paper - that and excessive dialogue had always got him into trouble in the past. And while they were talking, in a footnote to the conversation, Liebard announced that he was relinquishing the name he'd been using, and was now taking the name Astolphe.

Within an hour the boy, who was used to these changes, was calling his father Astolphe. Lucien realized the man used names like passwords, all of them within a brief life span. But this time the thief wished that he had owned the name earlier in his life. He spent the first day imagining moments from his past when he could have been "Astolphe," when he might have behaved and participated with more ease and subtlety just for having the epaulette of such a name...The thief liked the sound of the name, its aftereffect, its airiness, with a hint of an echo. With such a name it would almost be possible for this thickset man to turn into a three-ounce bird or a subtle grammatical form.

...The name Astolphe appeared in the sixteenth-century Orlando Furioso. How had this man come across it? Would he have stolen such a book in the past -- did thieves even steal books? How did he gather such things into his pockets?"

Michael Ondaatje,  Divisadero

Comments

[elizabeth]

I adore Michael Ondaatje -- and practically swooned when I heard him read and speak a couple of times in New York and Los Angeles...

[dale]

(o)

[leslee]

Started reading Divisidero while on the trip to visit my father, but... it's now awaiting some summer time off when I can absorb myself in it.

[beth]

Thanks, Elizabeth and Dale.

Hi Leslee - yes, several people have told me they had trouble sticking with it, and I did too until the third part which was the best, I thought. When you finish, please let me know what you thought of it.

[Bill]

In a Blur

Sneak-shooter,
camera low at your side,
you shoplift while your children scatter
and you flutter wounded duck
down the aisle.

[language hat]

Wonderful book; I recognized it from the first sentence. And now I want to reread it.

[elizabeth]

This book will be one of my treats for this summer (it was supposed to be last year's, but other things interfered; Ondaatje is always worth the wait).

also, I'm tickled to think that the words 'Los Angeles' aside, the other elizabeth's comment could just as easily have been mine.