So she is always watching, always seeking out out everything that's most distressing and most wicked, in a world which is surprisingly wicked, and full of distress. "Because of it she is cursed to wander the earth without home or respite, until Christ comes again. In Perry's story, Melmoth was one of the women who went to Jesus' tomb and found that it was empty, and that Christ had risen. Melmoth centers on the idea of witnesses, as indicated by that crucial first word - Look! - which tolls through the novel like a bell. Soon, he disappears, and Helen begins seeing traces of a dark figure following her. She is hurrying through Prague at night when she is stopped by Karel, a friend who appears disheveled and erratic, like Coleridge's mad speaker in Kubla Khan, about whom watchers say, "Beware! Beware! / His flashing eyes, his floating hair!" He shows her a collection of papers concerning the existence of a creature called Melmoth the Witness. of self-punishment, of self-hatred, carried out quietly and diligently and with a minimum of fuss." Sarah Perry's new novel, Melmoth, opens with an imperative: " Look!" The object of our gazes is Helen Franklin, 42, "small, insignificant, having about her an air. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Melmoth Author Sarah Perry
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