Scenes from Provincial Life

Начало книги

The three parts of Scenes from Provincial Life have appeared before as Boyhood (1997), Youth (2002), and Summertime (2009). They have been revised for republication.

I would like to express my thanks to Marilia Bandeira for assistance with Brazilian Portuguese, and to the estate of Samuel Beckett for permission to quote (in fact to misquote) from Waiting for Godot.

They live on a housing estate outside the town of Worcester, between the railway line and the National Road. The streets of the estate have tree-names but no trees yet. Their address is No. 12 Poplar Avenue. All the houses on the estate are new and identical. They are set in large plots of red clay earth where nothing grows, separated by wire fences. In each backyard stands a small block consisting of a room and a lavatory. Though they have no servant, they refer to these as ‘the servant’s room’ and ‘the servant’s lavatory’. They use the servant’s room to store things in: newspapers, empty bottles, a broken chair, an old coir mattress.

Читать дальше →