of Gabriele Ferrero
(unpublished, December 2008)
THINK THEY ARE THE THIRTY DAYS April, but the last ten days of December, the cruelest time of year?
acknowledge the current economic crisis at least the merit of turning off most of the Christmas lights?
Well, then The twelve nightmares of Christmas is the book for you.
Americans John Updike, award-winning author best-seller, and Edward Gorey , illustrator extraordinarily caught, photographed in their drama, some aspects of Christmas, modeled on the ancient pagan cult Christian celebration of the winter solstice, abused and debased by a consumerism that still struggles under the blows of recession. Subjects
hatched from Gorey and Updike are the classic stereotypes of Christmas: Santa Claus, reindeer, the carols and gifts, in short, everything that has transformed this former party in an accumulation of horrors.
Allow me a tip: during the holidays always carry this little book, perhaps in the inside pocket of your coat, at heart. Maybe it will not save you life, stopping the trajectory of a bullet, as sometimes happens in some old western movie, but if the depression would overwhelm Christmas, you could open it and read a nursery rhyme. How, for example, a delicious reindeer " Sockets that cut the roof like / butter knives, trajectory / flight that the most crazy / recall eddies of leaves / dead before the hurricane. / The door leaf infested with ticks / known carriers of disease. "
nightmares of Christmas The twelve (10.5 x 14.7 cm, 32 pp.) Is published by Alet and costs € 8.50.
(image © Edward Gorey)
