Reposted by Hobby Jones
A selection of pieces from Granta 176: American Berserk are free to read throughout October.
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Granta 176: American Berserk | Granta
America was a country dreamed up by religious fanatics and realized through violence. Philip Roth...
![I am all at a loose end since you left; I feel as if I haven't seen you for ten years. Every conversation that I have with my mother is about you. Everyone here loves you dearly.
Under what constellation were you born then, to be blessed with such qualities, so diverse and so rare?
I do not know the name of the feeling that I have for you. But it is a special tenderness, something I have never felt until now, not for anyone. We got on well together, didn't we? It was very agreeable.
It was so good that I do not want to share the pleasure with anyone else. If you happen to use Croisset in one of your books, do disguise it so that nobody recognizes it. I would appreciate it. The memory of your visit is just for the two of us, for me. That is how selfish I am.
I particularly missed you last night, at ten o'clock. There was a fire, over at my wood-merchant's. The sky was pink and the Seine was the colour of red-currant syrup. I worked at the pumps for three hours and I came home as weary as the Turk with the giraffe? [...]
One of the Rouen newspapers (Le Nouvelliste) reported your visit to Rouen, so that on Saturday after I had left you I met several bourgeois in a state of indignation over the fact that I had not put you on display. A former magistrate took the prize: 'If we had known that she was here... we would have... we would have ..? - five-minute pause, he's looking for the word - We would have... smiled at her.' That would have been rather meagre, don't you think?
[...]
To love you 'more' is difficult for me. But I do embrace you most tenderly.
Your letter this morning, so melancholy, stirred me. We parted company just at the moment when all kinds of things were about to find their way into words. All of the doors between the two of us are not yet open. You inspire a great respect in me and I do not have the courage to ask you questions, Farewell, I kiss your sweet and lovely countenance, and I am
Your
Gve Flaubert](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2cadvbwpkxtuvmv2gpy5laml/bafkreicdbsmvqvjh7yrnhf4gmbf76b5thd2qdbekaniwqnwyedktpizko4)
