Shame by Grant Maierhofer

Author:Grant Maierhofer
Format: epub

IN THE TIME

OF DEATH

Don’t worry you’ll get over it You’ll grow up, you’ll calm down Another youth, another fashion You’ll get over it, you’ll calm down

“No,” Subhumans

50.

There’s a picture of Flann O’Brien I keep on my computer. There aren’t many photos of him available so it’s relatively easy to find and is I think the most circulated photo of Flann O’Brien. His teeth don’t look that well, and he’s bald, and the hair that remains on the sides of his head looks greasy. I saved it because to me the picture held a sort of beauty, I guess when considering the context of his works. I told this to someone, a translator, and he said that O’Brien looked pretty torn up by alcoholism. He’s wearing a tie. I think it’s true that he does look torn up by alcoholism. I still feel a lot of beauty when I look at the image, though. He looks like he lived the life his work defined. His work didn’t define his life, though maybe it did. He looked like he was involved in everything he did, perhaps to an unhealthy degree, and maybe he needs some coffee and a shower, some weeks of rest, but I see a powerful beauty there, not even knowing much about the man. I wish I did. Maybe someday I will. I’ve got to finish some work before I’ll have the time. I’m always putting things off. My sense is that he was deeply immersed in his work, and that it was strange, Joycean work, but there was also some restraint with him, perhaps like Beckett, and drinking, and life, and misery, and all of it consumed him as it consumed the work, but the work remained, and even he remained for as long as he could, and you can sort of read that from the image, glean this understanding. Sometimes having a picture of someone like that, before taking in the whole of their work, before fully understanding what they did, can take you farther into what they accomplished than the other way around. I find it’s far more educational to attempt and take in certain artists’ physicality, and the picture moves me still.

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