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    Beatrice
    Beatrice
    Beatrice
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Beatrice

    By Ralph Lake

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Beatrice is the story of a monster trying to make her way through a confusing and frequently uncaring human world. Beatrice and others of her kind find human behaviour perplexing and full of contradictions. As Beatrice realizes at one point the greatest problem with human beings is that "they can't pull together." She does, however, have a close human friend in Eleanor of 1137 Aquitaine Street. After her painful breakup with Big Guy, Beatrice seeks solace in the quiet and beauty of South-Western France with Eleanor at her side. She discovers that this drifting life is not for her and she returns to British Columbia in the hopes of finding Big Guy and rekindling their romance. Things do not turn out as expected and Beatrice must find a new life and purpose. Adventures follow as does love. Beatrice's life becomes full and complete. There is much we humans can learn from monsters like Beatrice. The secret is to open our minds and hearts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRalph Lake
    Release dateFeb 15, 2020
    ISBN9780463172452
    Beatrice
    Author

    Ralph Lake

    I am a retired Chinese teacher (Douglas College, New Westminster 1988-2015). Since retirement I have taken up old interests in earnest—Chinese-English translation (literary), poetry and the writing of novels for adults and young readers. My interests include Chinese literature and history, British history and classical music. My wife Siew is an artist who grew up in Kuala Lumpur. We lived in China, Taiwan and Malaysia in the 1980s. We currently live in Vancouver, Canada.

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      Book preview

      Beatrice - Ralph Lake

      Beatrice

      Ralph Lake

      Illustrations by Hu Luofu

      Copyright © 2020 Ralph Lake

      All rights reserved.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Ebook formatting by ebooklaunch.com

      For my brother Ron who was my Beatrice at times as I was his.

      A Wee Introduction to a Large Subject

      I guess like many people I have an affection for the unusual while pursuing a rather ordinary life. I have done a few interesting things and I am not terribly disappointed with how the time went by. But I never climbed any very tall mountains nor did I invent a better mouse trap. In fact, I hate mouse traps, though I appreciate the necessity in some circumstances. A mouse, a rat, a grasshopper—each has its raison d’ètre. That goes for monsters too.

      We are thrown into this world and have to make our way through it all with no guidebooks or manuals to help us out. One way is to trim everything down to the bare essentials. That certainly makes things easier. The other way is to open yourself up to everything—to the whole story as it were. The trimmers make better headway and I won’t say there is never a place for trimming. But for me, at least, the best route is the open road. There you will encounter all manner of things—water-filled potholes, willow trees offering you shade from a hot sun, fields of tiny purples flowers, and if you’re lucky and paying close attention, even monsters!

      The Clearing

      So, I went into the mountains

      Skirting the ravine to one side

      Hand over hand in the difficult parts

      Cresting the summit by mid-day.

      Moving down the nether slope

      Gazing at the darkening sky

      I hold a broken branch like a cane

      Reaching the valley floor by night.

      Deep in the ghost filled woods

      Their forms dancing round my living fire

      My eyes on the fixed and moving stars

      My head recumbent on a rock.

      And then day upon day of hills

      Ravines and snaking streams

      Now distant from clanging towns

      And towers of shining glass.

      There in a clearing just ahead

      A great table of welcoming stone.

      (Author’s translation from the German)

      Wilhelm Rudolf See

      Quality Poems Anthology

      Zernitterte Kleidung Verlag

      Berlin 1947

      Contents

      A Wee Introduction to a Large Subject

      The Clearing

      Epigraph

      1. À Propos of Monsters

      2. Two Innocents Abroad

      3. Chacun à son goût

      4. Les Doux Magots

      5. The Jewish Gentlemen and Their Game

      6. Love’s Revenge

      7. Le Retour

      8. The Tale of the Whale

      9. A Near Run Thing

      10. A Search for Times Now Gone

      11. A Roadside Encounter

      12. Une Saison en Enfer

      13. The Coast, the Inlet and a Meeting

      14. Ben Yan

      15. And Eleanor?

      16. La Vita Nuova

      17. Her Story and Everyone’s

      18. The Dream

      "In nature there’s no blemish but the mind

      None can be called deformed but the unkind"

      Twelfth Night Act 3 Scene 4

      À Propos of Monsters

      Before we get into Beatrice’s story, it might be helpful if we review what we know and don’t know about monsters. We know, for example, that they are generally big, that they can be scary and that they can transform themselves into an almost infinite variety of animals and objects. We also know that there is an important limitation to their transformations—they cannot turn themselves into people. If they could, this would save them from a lot of grief.

      Monsters are not monolithic. Although there are some characteristics shared by all monsters—size and weight for example—it is misleading to assume that monsters are all of piece. It is this assumption that most stands in the way of better monster-human relations.

      While most monsters do their best to avoid people, there are many instances of monsters passing their entire lives in human company disguised as the family pet, as Siamese Fighting Fish, as orchids and exotic plants or even as some treasured ornament prominently displayed on a coffee table. In the latter case, family members are sometimes obliged to invent stories such as Oh, that. Bob saw that when we were in Mexico last summer and just had to have it.

      There are various reasons why the majority of monsters pass their lives in seclusion from human society. Some fear censure for just being who they are. This takes the form of How dare they be so large! Can’t they see they’re not welcome in this neighbourhood? As a consequence, they tend to live on the fringes of human society, either deep in the woods or under the sea. Some monsters live completely solitary lives and are never found in human company.

      Others, though, have human friends and exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship with them. In exchange for friendship and

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