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| More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost |
Nov 19, 2019
Nov 17, 2019
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Nov 11, 2019
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Oct 24, 2019
Rilke's Ghost -- "A word journey unlike anything you have ever done."
Another review is in, and it's by the fabled review-veteran Amos Lassen:
I always look forward to something new from Michael Ampersant because he not only entertains but he provokes us to think. That is what good literature is all about as far as I am concerned. Even in this ghost story, I spent more time thinking about it than I did reading it. In just 23 pages Ampersant opens a whole new world for us.
I fell in love with the wit of the prose and the attempts to answer whether this really happened. More than that I can’t say except that we are taken a word journey unlike anything you have ever done. More than that I cannot say without ruining the reading experience. Find a half an hour and lose yourself in this delightful read.
"Click"
I always look forward to something new from Michael Ampersant because he not only entertains but he provokes us to think. That is what good literature is all about as far as I am concerned. Even in this ghost story, I spent more time thinking about it than I did reading it. In just 23 pages Ampersant opens a whole new world for us.
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| Amos Lassen |
I fell in love with the wit of the prose and the attempts to answer whether this really happened. More than that I can’t say except that we are taken a word journey unlike anything you have ever done. More than that I cannot say without ruining the reading experience. Find a half an hour and lose yourself in this delightful read.
Judge yourself:
"Click"
Oct 23, 2019
Oct 20, 2019
Rilke's Ghost -- "Chang has to feed the hungry FaceBook beast"
We've started working on an ad campaign for our new novella, Rilke's Ghost, fashioned along the lines of our previous campaigns, adding quotes from the text to an odd picture. Here's one preliminary result:
And here's the corresponding fragment. Having fled Duino, where we stirred Rilke's ghost with a Google-translation of his poems, we now summer in Bürchen, in the Swiss Valais region, only a stone throw away from the grave of the poet:
The village of Bürchen is wonderful, 1,600 meters up on the Alp, and so much cooler than the muggy summer-Riviera (the road up to Bürchen was finished in 1934—-the preceding thousand years the villagers were left to their own devices). There is only one problem: Rainer Maria is buried nearby, yes, Rilke, in Raron, a small, historic town right beneath Bürchen down in the valley. We’ve given Raron a wide berth so far, but Chang is playing the social networks and has to feed the hungry Facebook beast. His Korean followers can’t get enough of snow-topped mountains and geranium-studded chalets, and the 24-hour cycle dictates daily posting. We’ve ravaged the entire region already—-natives of many cultures believe that you steal their image when you take their picture—-along those lines we’ve grabbed photons until nothing seems to be left of the Valais—from the Matterhorn via the James-Bond-historic-marker up on the Furka pass to the longest glaciers and highest vineyards of Europe—-save Raron.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Chang asks. Of course, we don’t. And it’s a sunny, wonderful day, and Rilke is interred in a vault on the southern side of the Burgkirche, which itself is built on a rock hundred meters above the floor of the valley. The views would be fantastic, and a light breeze would play with the pages of the tourist guide which tells about the local Rilke-wine and the XIIth-century town hall next to the church. A Rilke Pfad leads up there. Half-way there’s a bench. “Remember the bench?” I ask. We sit down. And now I have a really bad idea. I google for “Rilke translations,” and the first entry connects to a learned article by a certain Marjorie Perloff...
"Click"
And here's the corresponding fragment. Having fled Duino, where we stirred Rilke's ghost with a Google-translation of his poems, we now summer in Bürchen, in the Swiss Valais region, only a stone throw away from the grave of the poet:
The village of Bürchen is wonderful, 1,600 meters up on the Alp, and so much cooler than the muggy summer-Riviera (the road up to Bürchen was finished in 1934—-the preceding thousand years the villagers were left to their own devices). There is only one problem: Rainer Maria is buried nearby, yes, Rilke, in Raron, a small, historic town right beneath Bürchen down in the valley. We’ve given Raron a wide berth so far, but Chang is playing the social networks and has to feed the hungry Facebook beast. His Korean followers can’t get enough of snow-topped mountains and geranium-studded chalets, and the 24-hour cycle dictates daily posting. We’ve ravaged the entire region already—-natives of many cultures believe that you steal their image when you take their picture—-along those lines we’ve grabbed photons until nothing seems to be left of the Valais—from the Matterhorn via the James-Bond-historic-marker up on the Furka pass to the longest glaciers and highest vineyards of Europe—-save Raron.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Chang asks. Of course, we don’t. And it’s a sunny, wonderful day, and Rilke is interred in a vault on the southern side of the Burgkirche, which itself is built on a rock hundred meters above the floor of the valley. The views would be fantastic, and a light breeze would play with the pages of the tourist guide which tells about the local Rilke-wine and the XIIth-century town hall next to the church. A Rilke Pfad leads up there. Half-way there’s a bench. “Remember the bench?” I ask. We sit down. And now I have a really bad idea. I google for “Rilke translations,” and the first entry connects to a learned article by a certain Marjorie Perloff...
"Click"
Oct 5, 2019
Rilke's Ghost -- the first review
Cool, folks, we've got the first Amazon review for "Rilke's Ghost", and it's Five Stars:
James Beamon
5.0 out of 5 starsLoads of fun
October 3, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
This is a very enjoyable ghost story, full of charm, wit, great touches of humor and a perpetual meta question of "did this really happen?" and "what's up with this priest?!" Ampersant takes you on a scenic journey, one where I for one learned quite a bit of European history along the way. Definitely worth picking up.
"Click"
James Beamon
5.0 out of 5 starsLoads of fun
October 3, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
This is a very enjoyable ghost story, full of charm, wit, great touches of humor and a perpetual meta question of "did this really happen?" and "what's up with this priest?!" Ampersant takes you on a scenic journey, one where I for one learned quite a bit of European history along the way. Definitely worth picking up.
"Click"
Sep 19, 2019
Rilke's Ghost
We're trying to clear our desk in anticipation of the line-edit of "Dolly" (the play), and so we've finally managed to put our new short story Rilke's Ghost up on Amazon. And it's a real story---at least the beginning is true-true.
The blurb is as follows:
While visiting the lovely town of Duino on the Adriatic Italian coast, Michael provoked the wraith of the legendary German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, by applying Google-translate to the wordsmith's famed "Duineser Elegien" (Elegies from the Castle of Duino). Now Michael spends the summer in Switzerland, in a chalet only three kilometers away from the grave of the poet. Will Michael be stupid enough to challenge Rilke again, thus unleashing the most sophisticated ghost story of modern history, including an exorcism of serendipitous proportions...?
We'll have two or three posts about this; here's the first one, with the story's opening:
I still see myself sitting there as a boy on the greenly-striped couch of my parents in Berlin, Germany, reading Rilke, Rainer Maria (1875-1926), Bohemian poet, best known for his “Duineser Elegien” (Elegies from the castle of Duino). I read only the first two elegies then, but still, I went with the flow and was impressed.
*°*
Chang and I moved to the French Riviera where we rent our house to holiday makers. We got a surprise booking in April and decided to visit Croatia, a new country that isn’t too far away and reasonably cheap. Chang collects countries; he’s never been there. Bonus: on the way we’d have to cross Slovenia, yet another nation missing from his collection. We would drive non-stop the nine hours from Cannes to Croatia but should stay overnight somewhere on the way back, someplace nice. So Chang went on the internet and suggested a town between Venice and Trieste, on the Adriatic coast. A hotel without a view, budget-friendly. “How’s the place called?” I asked.
“Dunno,” he said. “No, not Dunno, Du-i-no.”
Dui-no…Du-i-no…haven’t we heard of Duino before? On the Adriatic coast? “Chang! Rilke! Duineser Elegien! Chang, we must stay there.”
“Rilke?”
“Rilke!”
Duino is off motorway A4. We descended into a villa town and got lost because budget-friendly hotels are hard to find. There is a ludicrous little beach attached to a harbour of a few fishing boats and a pier doubling as boardwalk; three restaurants, the castle (tower, battlements), and a university, ie, a small building labeled Collegio Sapienza Rainer Maria Rilke with lots of kids milling outside speaking American and a concierge inside who knew the directions to our hotel.
It was still a bit early in the afternoon, so we would have a nap in the budget-friendly double bed. We should have had a nap, that is, the room was quiet and reasonably dark, save for a distant wailing, a sound like “Oohh, oohh”--a human voice almost that appeared to come from nowhere--“oohh.” Not a typical hotel sound you’d say. And it wasn’t going away. “Oohh.” Impossible to fall sleep. We should complain. We should get up, descend the noisy stairwell and thwack the bell on the reception desk. And, of course, the moment the manager appeared the wailing was gone.
So we had to explain. “Bizarro,” the receptionist said. “Oohh,” I intoned to give her an idea. “Insolito,” she said and shook her head. “Oohh,” Chang intoned. “Pronto,” she said and answered the telephone.
(To repeat, this really happened; it's true-true)
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Sep 7, 2019
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