"Desire," Currado wrote to me in a letter dated March 21st, 1993, "is both blind and brief and I'd best vanquish this impulse early and decisively."The graceful dignity in Currado Malaspina's youthful correspondences shows a young man struggling with a tempestuous spirit. Calming what were then unutterable impulses took a heroic and ultimately hopeless discipline of self-denial. He taught himself a soft, perfect pitch in which to frame the daily crucible of his deferred raptures.
Malaspina continues to be a devoted epistolarian and his collected letters are soon to be published by Caillot Press. Clotted with vivid imagery, artful prose and philosophical insight, rarely has such a painful document of moral frailty been such a pleasure to read. Lustily illuminated with casual pen and ink jottings, this new volume will add much to the already rich catalog of Malaspina's oeuvre.
No comments:
Post a Comment