At age 14 I was confused between The Legend of the Fisher King (the way
in which the Terry Gilliam movie is titled in Italy) and The Legend of the Holy Drinker. So I watched both movies (the
latter directed by Ermanno Olmi and with a masterful Rutger Hauer) and read
Roth’s novella over the span of a few days – stealing it from my aunt’s
bookshelf, although she had probably stolen it from ours years before.
I am unsure whether this book can be considered
a masterpiece only because of its diminutive size, but it’s surely a work of
absolute beauty and, surprisingly, not one of despair like I was expecting. I
immediately came to care quite a lot about Andreas’s fortunes, but the way in
which these develops – both at their highs and their lows – is pure poetry.
I can’t remember whether it’s the movie or the
book (or actually, probably both) that ends with the line “May God grant us all, all of us
drinkers, such a good and easy death!” but it’s probably one of the most
remarkably memorable closing lines in the 20th century.
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