a comment about Absent Friends- looking forward to an answer soon

[Graciela Cristina Mené]

Absent Friends by Alan Ayckbourn

When I read Absent Friend in the year 2007, I thought that every single character were absent from each other, that, in fact, there was a lack of friendship. However, this year my point of view is a little bit different. It is true that all the people in the play are absent, but the most absent is Collin. He is not well aware of the pain and suffering of his friends. He is simply happy. And as I did not feel very confident, I decided to surf the net and I happily found this: “.....Collin, who is seriously happy...............; annoyingly happy in fact” “Collin is largely oblivious to everything......” “....Collin departs, secure in his own memories – leaving all the others isolated and alone.”

http:// absentfriends.alanayckbourn.net//AbsentFriendsHistory.htm
Absent Friends:Synopsis- Simon Murgatroyd

Imagine how contented I am since I’ve found some evidence about my humble appreciation of the play.

In the same page, I found an “Interview with Alan Ayckbourn by Simon Murgatroyd” and there are some words told by the author of the play which I consider relevant to understand the story much better:
“”Absent Friend is shocking in the way it deals with death, how we treat death” “It’s about our attitude to death....” “It’s about our inability to cope, but it’s less about death than of death of love.”

When I read this interview, I had another view: how absence makes the heart grow fonder. How important is Collin’s suffering to Diana that she invites him around to a tea party to console him despite the fact she is also mourning the passing of her love (her husband, her children who are in a boarding school, her ambitions). Marge, on the other hand, is helping Diana with the party in order to comfort Collin. Nevertheless she is grieving for the idea of becoming a mother (she is getting older and cannot have a baby, so she acts like a mother with her husband, Gordon).
The words that Alan Ayckbourn pronounced in that interview opened a new window of curiosities in order to go beyond the tip of my nose and to be able to explore what the author wanted us to know about his play indeed.

[Graciela Cristina Mené]

In the Country of the Last Things by Paul Auster

I am still reading the novel, but I will give my first impressions of it.
As my first comment, I’d like to share the idea that the author, Paul Auster,
dealt with all the female points of view very well: sensations, impressions, sensitivities, sensibilities and even sexual matters. Anna Blume is nineteen when she decides to start the trip looking for her brother William in this unnamed, virtually nonexistent and almost ghostly country. Unnamed, because it is so insignificant that it doesn’t have even a name, virtually nonexisatent because nobody has ever known a country like the one mentioned in this letter, and ghostly country because it terrifies anybody so much.
As Anna is very young and comes from a wealthy family, it turns into a difficult situation to live on the streets and to learn what extreme poverty means indeed. Paul Auster must have worked very much on what a young woman feels in between this terrible transition from having everything she wants to having thouroghly nothing.
My second comment is, as a matter of fact, a question. To be the country of the last things, doesn’t it have a lot of things? And the first and the most impressive is that this virtually nonexistent country has a lot of well-organized groups, such as The Runners, The Last Leap, Eutahnasia Clinics, Assassination Clubs among others. All of them in search of death. Death has become the reason to live. There is a clear evidence on page 15, when Anna writes in her long letter: “Death is no longer an abstraction, but a real possibility that haunts each moment of life.” If death is not abstraction, it means that it is a concrete subject. As a conclusion, they have death. The second thing I consider this country has is shit. On page 30 Anna says that “shit is a serious business” because people, in that country, collect shit to supply them with energy. So, these people have also energy.
Another topic to consider is memory. Memory, like the city, is in constant flux and constant decay. Anna thinks that she loses her memory for good (page 38). She thinks this way because it is the way to survive. And she writes this long long letter in order to keep all her memoir written in a bunch of pages, so when she forgets something, she can read and remember everything.
The last thing I’ll be writing about today is about people’s beliefs. Anna’s new friend, Isabel, believes deeply in God, She thanks the glory of having met Anna. She thinks God introduces Anna to her because Isabel is constantly talking to him. Isabel is seriously thankful of what God gives her. Even in Isabel’s worst moments, she believes in God very much.

I’ll be giving more opinions in short. I hope you agree with what I’ve written up to now.

[Graciela Cristina Mené]

Well, in fact those questions have also arisen in my mind and the figures of Diana and Marge immediately appeared in front of me. Why is Diana mourning? Why do all mothers do? Is it that the only bond that keeps all the family together is the idea of feeling needed? I think there must be a way out from such a sadness to a more peaceful place.
When children leave home for any reason, some mothers feel abandoned; and this sensation of abandonment makes the way to happiness difficult to go through.
In the case of Marge, the emptiness in her inner nest turns her into a mother for everybody, especially for her husband who, as a matter of fact, I think relies on her all the time because it is more comfortable and safer for a weak man like he himself.

[Viviana]

I am very happy to see that you have been able to go deeper into the play and into its themes. It is true that death is present all along. Apparently coping with the death of love is much more difficult than overcoming the fact that a beloved one has passed away.
Diana, as you explain is mourning. Why? Is that something universal? Do all mothers have that feeling when children leave home? How can she turn her situation into a more positive one? Does she feel like doing it? Is it worth?
Many questions that come to my mind and make me reflect on family bonds and relationships.