The Descent of Alette comprises 148 pages structured in four books. It is most readable and proceeds at tremendous pace. The punctuation is brilliant. The extracts below are intended as a taster. Fred Beake has contributed a brief accompanying essay.
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Page 26, from Book 1
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"A beautiful" "gaunt woman, a" "birdlike" "dark woman"
"into black" "We are at" "a large, black-ceilinged"
ceiling" "He will not" "continue" "to rise to" "the sky"
"crumbling, full of holes" "Another landscape" "shows beyond it"
shimmering" "spirits" "close together" "And one" "one
"the tyrant's world's" "new fabrics" "the materials
trapped below" "We can only go" "down" "farther down---"
"Large tall, erect" "in a white dress a" "long robe"
"Head in profile, cowled head" "& she cradles" "a baby"
"dead baby" "Its spirit," "which seems a grown man," "rises"
"station" "Has a baby" "or a man died?" "She cradles"
"a dead baby" "But a man has died, he is rising" "into the air"
"It isn't" "isn't night sky up there, it's a black" "black
"We are confined below" "confined" "He sinks again" "Stands
on the floor" "while his mother, unseeing" "still cradles"
"the baby" "he once was" "They are near a decaying wall"
"Seems to light up" "to appear to us" "A large, unbounded
space" "full of a throng of" "the Recent Dead" "Spirits,
all spirits" "A forest a city" "of white" "transparent
disengages" "Comes toward the man" "Raises thin arms, has an
open" "dark mouth hole, says," "`Welcome" "to you dead man"
"we cannot rise, as we should" "We cannot pass through"
of his world" "He has changed" "the chemical" "composition"
"of everything" "but spirit" "but our souls" "but us---"
"We" "who are nature" "when nothing else is," "we are all
"Down" "is now the only way" "to rise" "Come & wait with us"
"wait with us" "to descend'"
Page 137, from Book 4
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"`You are vulnerable" "somewhere near here,'" "I said to him"
"anywhere'" "His eyes" "tore into mine, but" "there was a glint
"I began to fly" "along the" "bloody river," "corridored river,"
"If there is blood," "all this blood," "if in this river" "flows your
blood,"
"there must be flesh" "somewhere...'" "`It has long since" "turned to
concrete," "to brick & steel,' he said" "`I am not vulnerable"
there,"
"I thought," "of hesi-tancy" "I will find" "that place,' I said &"
"became an" "owl again" "contracting lengthwise," "spreading
widthwise,"
"becoming" "wings & eyes---" "such a lightness---" "I felt hardly
formed"
"looking into" "the darkness" "for any trace of" "fleshy softness,"
"fleshy softness"
Page 138, from Book 4
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"The tyrant" "pursued me, running," "at first" "as I flew" "I began
"& speeded up, he" "fell behind" "Then he disappeared" "entirely"
"distorted, shadowy" "in liquid thickness" "Along the river, here &
fleshed," "peeled-looking," "his facial features" "sketchy-seeming"
"up & down this" "heart river---" "a man," "a tall man," "who would
"upon the platform---" "the river" "itself" "was plain," "unlittered,"
slowly," "searching, looking" "Stopped & hovered sometimes" "He lunged
at me" "once or twice" "as I flew low" "But I was quickness," "speed
of thought," "unhinderable reflex" "As I became" "used to my search"
"I had no mind now" "but flew & looked" "My brother's image" "had
vanished"
"Had vanished" "from my thoughts" "Beneath a lightbulb" "I saw myself"
"on the surface" "of the river:" "unnuanced owl eyes" "amid feathers"
there,"
"people slept" "huddled upright" "or spread out" "on the concrete"
"I saw" "a strangely shaped," "almost potato-" "shaped man," "bald,"
"thick-necked---" "his head was like" "a rounded neck---" "pale,
coarsely
"He stood chanting" "to himself," "`Am I" "the man the father?" "Am I"
"the man the father?'" "And someone else" "in bandages," "someone
wound with" "strips of white gauze---" "like a mummy---" "wandered up
& down,"
scream or weep" "or cry out" "these words or" "a variant:" "`Where is"
"my body," "my sacred" "body?" "Where is my corpus" "sagrada?...'"
"Cardboard," "bottles, faeces," "unnamed dirt blacknesses" "were
strewn"
"glittered redly," "red, black & silver" "beneath the" "occasional
lightbulb"
The Descent of Alette was published by Penguin Books in 1996.
Portions of this work first appeared in Scarlet magazine.
It was published, in its entirety, in
The Scarlet Cabinet: A Compendium of Books by Alice Notley and
Douglas Oliver, Scarlet Editions, 1992.