Thornton Wilder – Being Alone
The Stage Manager delivers an opening monologue in which he explains, matter-of-factly, that “the dead don’t stay interested in us living people for very long. … They get weaned away from the earth–that’s the way I put it, weaned away. Yes, they stay here while the earth-part of ‘em burns away, burns out, and all that time they slowly get indifferent to what’s goin’ on in Grover’s Corners.”
In a sensitive and thoughtful piece of writing Natalie Shapero in The Kenyon Review looks at Penelope Niven’s biography of Thornton Wilder.
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Beautiful piece of writing. I do enjoy your work very much but never comment. Perhaps it is something I should do more of. I was born indifferent and I can associate with the plight of the dead. For only when we are dead are we truly free.
I read it and liked it because it was indeed thoughtful – besides, I (we) do seem to be more interested in dead poets, writers.