Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje [102]
Lucien pushes the boat free of the mud shelf and strides beside it through the cloudy water and climbs in. He turns his back to the far shore and rows towards it. He can in this way travel away from, yet still see, his house. Water laps up between the boards, and he feels he is riding a floating skeleton. He is able to distinguish the shape of his small home in the quickening dusk. He wants to stand, to see everything clearly, and at the very moment of his thinking this, a board cracks below him, like the one crucial bone in the body that holds sanity, that protects the road out to the future. His gaze holds on to this last, porous light. Some birds in the almost-dark are flying as close to their reflections as possible.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks most of all to Susie Schlesinger as well as to Jean-Hubert Gailliot and France David for the help they gave me during the writing of this book. Thank you also to Bill and Sakurako Fisher of San Francisco and San Anselmo; to Theresa Salazar, Anthony Bliss, and David Duer at the Bancroft Library at Berkeley, California; to Alfredo Vea of Oakland; to David Ben, with his magical talents, in Toronto; to Glen Garrod and Ruth Winningham, Dave Walden, and Janis Arch in Nevada City, Lake Tahoe, and San Francisco. To Sandra Compain of Quincy; Rick Simon at Coach House Press, Toronto; Madeleine Duffort and Paulette Latarget of Barran; Guy Bodéan in Dému; and Oliver Maack in Petaluma. To Caroline Richardson and Susie Schlesinger for horse lore. To Robert Creeley and Roy Kiyooka. To E. F. C. Ludowyck, many years ago. To Karen Newman, Lucy Jacobs, Agnes Montenay, David Warrell, Alexandra Rockingham, Mary Lawlor, and Julie Mancini; the architect Jon Fernandez, video-installation artist Douglas Gordon, David Young and Anthony Minghella, and Baltic Avenue. As well as Graham Swift—for his care of a river. Also Le Daroles bar in Auch and Jet Fuel in Toronto.
Thank you to Katherine Hourigan, Diana Coglianese, Lydia Buechler, and Anthea Lingeman at Knopf. To Anna Jardine. To Ellen Levine and Steven Barclay. To Donya Peroff and Tulin Valeri. Thanks to Quintin for her research, and Griffin and Esta and Linda for their comments during the last stages of the book. To Sonny Mehta and Liz Calder, Louise Dennys and Olivier Cohen. And, once again, a special thank you to Ellen Seligman, my editor, at McClelland & Stewart in Toronto.
The lyrics Cooper sings to himself at the card table are from the song ‘Johnny Too Bad,’ originally recorded by The Slickers in 1970 and written by Derrick Crooks, Roy Beckford, Winston Bailey, and either Delroy Wilson or his brother Trevor Wilson, depending on the source. The line of song quoted on page 118 is by Tom Waits, another line by The Lovin’ Spoonful appears on page 46. The song ‘In Delaware, When I Was Younger’ is by Loudon Wain wright. The song ‘Um Favor’ (partially described on page 73) by Lupicinio Rodrigues in essence began this book.
The passage on page 273 about ‘the father at twilight’ appears in Le paradis perdu/Paradise Lost by Marc Trivier (Yves Gervaert Editeur, Bruxelles, 2001, © 2001 Marc Trivier), used by permission. Nietzsche’s original line is ‘Wir haben die Kunst, damit wir nicht an der Wahrheit zugrunde gehen.’ J. M. Coetzee’s slightly different translation of it in his speech when accepting the Jerusalem Prize led me to it. Two lines of a poem by Lisa Robertson from her book Rousseau’s Boat (Nomados, Vancouver, 2004), used by permission, appear on page 143. The comment about ‘archives being an utopia’ is also by her. The phrase ‘sweeping the translator’s house’ appears in Brenda Hillman’s book of poems Cascadia (Wesleyan University Press, 2001). The sentences from Alexandre Dumas