Nightwood
John Evans
The Lyme Grove Press
Altrincham, Cheshire, England, UK
“Nightwood”, a novel by by Djuna Barnes, was written in 1936 and was praised by T.S.Eliot for the poetry of its
language. It is a rollercoaster of a read, the style owes something to James Joyce whom the author knew in Paris.
With a cast of decadent and somewhat deviant characters I would summarise the plot as: “Les biens et les maux
d’une vie de bohème.” For the text on the bookmark I have taken one sentence from Nightwood, not relevant to the
story, altered the syntax and substituted the word “bookmark” for “paperknife”.
The Lyme Grove Press consists of an 1846 Albion which shares the cellar of our Victorian house with the washing
machine. The one, still elegant with age and undoubtedly male, the other, chubby, efficient, and unquestionably female,
wearing an expression of surprise with her mouth in a perpetual O. What do they talk about when I am not there?
nhoj@snave.freeserve.co.uk
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