#383 Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart- Rebecca Makkai
Peter suffered through a performers worst nightmare. In the
middle of a performance of Richard III, he forgot how to act. The words came
out, but they were only his own. He never recovered his talent.
He looked to his childhood friend and first love for support.
But even he couldn’t help, all he could see was this great actor and the parts
he once played: “I wonder how that colored our friendship, that I saw him
simultaneously as both Peter and Hamlet. If nothing, it made me more tolerant
of his ramblings.”
As Peter failed in his final attempt at a comeback, he mused on the his futility and rationalized his leaving the art world by belittling
art itself:
“We’re living in this terrible world with wars and broken
hearts and starvation, but some of us are compelled to make art, like that’s
supposed to help anything.”
Perhaps we do take the arts too seriously. In this
collection we are surrounded by tales of horror and death, see the utter
destruction war has on the physical and spiritual endeavors of the human race.
But then I am reminded that the first story in this collection, the one that
set the tone for all of these tales that place art as the pinnacle of hope, something to
risk our lives to save. Art endures, or does it?
“Something used to be here, something beautiful and towering
that overshadowed us all, and it seemed so important at the time. And now look:
I cant even remember its name.”
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