Blind Man's Bluff
Aidan Higgins
Language: English
Pages: 16
ISBN: 1564787257
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Perversely, but perhaps appropriately, Aidan Higgins—one of the few contemporary writers worthy of comparison with Beckett and Joyce, now celebrating his 85th year-—has chosen to wait until his sight has nearly left him to assemble this collection of visual treats. A commonplace book of anecdotes and cartoons—the latter never before published, though familiar to all of Higgins's correspondents from the margins of his letters and postcards—Blind Man's Bluff is a compendium of tart and comic insights into sight itself, as well as other varied indignities: personal, historical, and literary.
rifle in a wood in British Columbia.” Dr. Madden was taking notes assiduously to Dr. Hannigan’s right. “You might just as well say that Dr. Madden here is the suicide type.” Dr. Madden imparted a secret smile in my direction. “We may come from the same part of the country, but that does not necessarily make us the same sort of person. No, we are all different,” I said. “I belong to that curious category—the non-suicide type—given to making gestures with a blunt knife under an apple tree.
pail. The women scarcely spoke to each other, breakfasting in silence and departing without a word, wrapped up in their troubles, whatever they might be. You must never ask—When can I leave? The Doctors do not like this question; it is for them to decide. What are the saddest words in the language? Punishment, Pleading, Homelessness, leaving aside all manner of illness, and finally, Death! Returning from lunch (Spaghetti Bolognese) one day I spoke to a patient dressed to leave, sitting in
with bi-focal spectacles which instead of improving my eyesight had the opposite effect, as presently became apparent when, replacing my glass of Sancerre but missing the table edge by inches, I smashed the glass on the floor. Towards the end of the meal coffee was served, and I misplaced the table and smashed the coffee cup. I remember my mother saying it was rude to point. I say it is rude to count. Calder the opera enthusiast had attended over three thousand performances of some eight
hundred different operas. He records the details of every single performance in five volumes of opera diaries. “And how many wenches have you had yourself?” For Calder, apparently, counting his conquests was a cure of insomnia. When he couldn’t sleep he made a mental list. Calder the soft-spoken Scots cocksman counted three hundred past lovers, which I have no reason to doubt. He is after all a Scotsman and randy as James Boswell. Pray, recall Boswell’s encounter with two young whores on London
around in a pram, a black hooded contraption shared by my brother who was two years my junior. In this most funereal-looking thing we were pushed about no doubt marveling at the scenery, the cows, the walled estates, the marvels of an unknown world that was ours. A Walk in the Dark Blind men are hard to find, rare as hares, seldom-seen loners. In the twenty years spent in Kinsale I have encountered only two of this species. A hare on a by-road where cars and pedestrians are seldom seen. The