Collected Stories by Saul Bellow. Complete
Prose by Woody Allen. And, since not so long ago, Famous Last Words. Three books that never leave my bedside, my desk,
the field of my vision.
The latter is special.
No one can resist some slight flirtation with death. It’s a book I stole from a
British pub some time ago and it’s a book I can open at any point and on any
page and fish out a couple of lines of perverse inspiration. It’s a constantly reprinted
book that has a very old-fashioned feel about it. It’s divided into sections
like “Gallows Humour”, “The Show Must Go On”, “The End Is Nigh”, etc.
And while you do realise
this is clearly a sham in 95% of cases (at the very least), you tend to purr
with delight at, say, the defiance of Allen Ginsberg and the bitter poetry of
Lord George Byron. So recognizable, so grotesque, yet so in character.
Still, my absolute
favourite famous last words were spoken by Jimmy Hoffa, an American trade union
leader, who died (presumably) in 1975. These words have to be true as they seem
the most naturally tragic of all:
‘Has Tony Giacolone
called?’
