Skip to content

Reflections of a working writer and reader

 

 

Thornton Wilder – Being Alone

john baker, January 23rd, 2013. 2 comments. Filed under literature, quotations, reviews.

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.

Share

2 Responses to “Thornton Wilder – Being Alone”

  1. John Jones says:
    31st January 2013 at 4:24 pm

    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.

  2. paisley says:
    6th February 2013 at 1:39 pm

    I read it and liked it because it was indeed thoughtful – besides, I (we) do seem to be more interested in dead poets, writers.