Remembering Robert Stone: Elena Castedo
We thank his brave and brilliant brain
The place for Robert Stone among the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, as it has often been mentioned, is secure. He grilled and roasted the society of his time, and is possibly the writer who most often gave it the third degree.
His place in my own heart, with the incomparable Janice, his wife, as beloved friends for more than thirty years, is secure too. I’m still trying to accept that he died that morning, only days ago, when I was just a few houses away. I have attempted to write something about Bob but find it impossible to do it in prose form. The emotion comes only as a poem.
I see Robert Stone, the probing sailor,
looking out beyond the horizon and under the deeps,
at sea with his sea-blue eyes
pen at the helm,
fishing message bottles,
uncorking vulnerabilities,
specters of our Achilles heel,
dredging up bêtes noires; sharks; the gashed; the innocent risk-takers;
the cruelty spawned from distorted cocoons;
the freaking creatures busy creating their snarled lives,
molding their ill fates;
avoiding or eating each other
Fishing fresh wind,
catching lightning that spreads wondrous colors,
and from the darkened depths, perceptions of a world beyond
Robert Stone, sailing on a language of musical beauty,
Stone, revealing the rock-hard places of our times,
protecting with a stone his wounded inner child.
Stone, a misnomer for his own soft and warm heart
Bob Stone,
conjoined with Janice,
floating in the foam of his mind-boggling erudition,
a quiet ham, a magical raconteur,
a master of foreign accents,
and musical recall
on waves of merry wit
It tried hard, his brave and brilliant brain
And we thank it
Tobias Wolff · Ann Beattie · Annie Dillard · Joyce Carol Oates ·
Bill Barich · Tom Grimes · Phyllis Rose · Joy Williams · Ken Babbs ·
Tom Jenks · Edward Hower · Kem Nunn · Ed McClanahan ·
Robert D. Richardson · Hal Crowther · Carol Edgarian
Elena Castedo
Elena Castedo has published fiction and non-fiction books, a play, articles, short stories, often anthologized and read on National Public Radio, and poetry in numerous publications such as The Afro-Hispanic Review, The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, etc. Her first novel, Paradise, was a finalist for the National Book Award. She was the editor-in-chief of the Inter-American Review of Bibliography, a trilingual scholarly quarterly. She has taught courses, seminars and lectured at more than 54 universities.
