Distant Light by Richard Dixon

Abstract

Vague memories of a Congo that he never really had enough time to explore lurk in the background of the narrator’s mind while he endures police beatings in his jail cell. He imagines his ancestors standing in front of him expressing emotions of shame and anger because of his crime and arrest. A nostalgic fondness for his native land lingers more out of a romantic sense of escape from his current situation than any real memories: “We had all been nursed at the breast of protective wild cats, whose gaze was earnest and gentle, and been caressed by their deadly velvet paws. It was that period that marked the beginning of the history of our country, the Kingdom of Kongo.” It is no surprise that N’Sondé has been recognized with prestigious literary awards including the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie. His lyrical and descriptive prose is worthy of the attention of a wider English-speaking audience. Melissa Beck Woodstock Academy, Connecticut Antonio Moresco. Distant Light. Trans. Richard Dixon. Brooklyn. Archipelago Books. 2016. 153 pages. The unnamed narrator of Antonio Moresco ’s Distant Light is uncommonly attuned to the natural world. Fleeing from his past for reasons that are never fully explained, he settles in an abandoned village and embarks on a monastic existence. He spends his days wandering through the woods, carrying on one-sided conversations with badgers, wasps, and toads. After dinner, he sits outside and watches “the first stars come out.” Gazing across a valley one evening, he sees a light emerge from a seemingly uninhabited hillside. Certain that he’s the only person within miles, he resolves to find its source. Moresco’s fiction has won prizes in his native Italy and abroad. His most celebrated work is L’increato, a trilogy of long novels. In this ethereal novella, ably translated by Richard Dixon, Moresco demonstrates a talent for succinct scene-setting. It takes him just a few pages to sketch the contours of his main character’s circumscribed existence, and within this context, his humble quest comes to feel like an epic undertaking. After a comic detour involving a farmer who believes the light is from a UFO that abducted his goats, the protagonist discovers a neglected path leading to a stone hovel. The building, Moresco writes, is “little more than a ruin that had perhaps once been an animal stall.” Inside is a young boy. Polite but somber, the child is dressed like a World Literature in Review 76 WLT JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2017 preteen from another era and has a vaguely spooky mien. He’s an orphan, he tells the narrator, and he lives alone. The light is his; he leaves it on all night because he’s scared of the dark. Over a series of subsequent visits, the two develop a rapport based on their shared sense of isolation. The narrator , we learn, may be recovering from a romantic mishap: he wonders if animals also “have that short, cruel dream that has been called love.” If this detail is telling, those that emerge about the child’s past are nothing short of astonishing. At times, Distant Light reads like a straightforward fable, an elegant rumination on the mysteries of the soul. But there are a number of grave and surprising subplots in this story, each of which Moresco explores with great care. Brief but often quite moving , this enigmatic tale of solitude and companionship abounds with humanity. Kevin Canfield New York, New York Martin Seay. The Mirror Thief. Brooklyn. Melville House. 2016. 582 pages. As if on an unseasonable night, reading a Calvino novel, the reader is addressed in the first chapter. He or she is pictured in a fully furnished hotel room in Venice, clothes laid out, expecting the arrival of someone who poses a threat. The second chapter switches to a different story. The reader puts the first chapter on mental hold, assuming a later retrieval, wondering whether his or her presence is needed. Only at the end does “you” return, waiting for a personal demon to find you and end your life as a character. But you are encouraged to think you can continue on the other...