![]() ![]() He is shocked, frightened, and embittered suffocated by the petty social rituals of mourning (“the knotted-string dream of other people’s performances of woe”) when his grief seems to him world-ending. The sound barely registers with the young father who skulks inside his suburban house, numbed by the recent death of his wife. The same Crow introduces himself into Max Porter’s debut novel by ringing twice upon the doorbell. ![]() To enter the inchoate world, the eponymous corvid hero of Hughes’ famous suite of poems must pass an “Examination at the Womb-Door,” where he is faced with a riddle: “Who is stronger than death?” “Me, evidently,” Crow replies, and passes into the realm of life to wreak havoc upon it: retching up heads in attempting to pronounce the word “love,” attacking the sun, inexpertly nailing God and Man together, et cetera. ![]() “In the Beginning was Scream”-according to Ted Hughes’ “Lineage”-followed hard upon by Crow. ![]()
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