SCHOFFMAN: PAINTER by Currado Malaspina

THE GIFT

The other day I was leafing through an old weather beaten copy of Dolfeto’s classic novella “Besos del Follaje”. I love the chapter where he describes in excruciating detail the luckless pair, Monique and Simon, getting married. Drawn by strong but unwarranted passion, the two of them shuffle nervously at the muddy makeshift alter on Fern Hill. Dolfeto is a master in combining comedy and rage in an elegantly dissonant prose.

I had forgotten that this particular edition (Goulote, 1989) included black and white reproductions from Schoffman’s earlier series “Chorister.” It really was an inspired choice. These moon-blanched images conjure so poetically the atmosphere of irreverent reverence that Dolfeto was so famous for.

I’m embarrassed to confess that my copy of the novella was actually inscribed to me. It reads: “To Malaspina, toward whom I have mixed feelings.”