A chance encounter leads a man to spend the afternoon with an older woman, now a widow, who escaped him fifteen years earlier. Neither of them doubts that the day will end in disgust, but for one intimate moment each finds a way to overcome mortality.
Written in 1969, before Milan Kundera was known to English-speaking readers, this story renders male and female characters painful equals, and prompted Philip Roth to admire its 'detached Chekhovian tenderness'.
Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.***
He was returning home along the street of a small Bohemian town, where he had been living for several years, reconciled to his not too-exciting life, his backbiting neighbours, and the monotonous rowdiness that surrounded him at work, and he was walking so totally without seeing (as one walks along a path traversed a hundred times) that he almost passed her by. 1
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(@FaberBooks, 15 October 2019, ebook, 31 pages, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I really enjoyed Let the Old Dead Make Room for the Young Dead. There is a lot packed into the scant pages of the story. The story is split into sections which use a third person narrator with each chapter alternating between the man and woman. Their chance meeting prompts memories of their shared past and reflections about their current life and choices. This is a tender and sweet story tinged with sadness and regret. I liked it a lot.
