I.
Physically, Echo Spring is nothing more than a nickname for a liquor cabinet, drawn from the brand of bourbon it contains. Symbolically, though, it refers to something quite diferent: perhaps to the attainment of silence, or to the obliteration of troubled thoughts that comes, temporarily at least, with a sufficiency of booze.
II.
He says: «It was in my mind that if you weren´t able to function in action you might at least be able to tell about it, because you felt the same intensity – it was a backdoor way out of facing reality.»
«He» es Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
III.
Hunger was constitutional with him,
wine, cigarettes, liquor, need need need
until he went to pieces.
The pieces sat up & wrote.
John Berryman
IV.
Perhaps he also thought of Robert Jordan, who once said to himself of the things he had done: «But my guess is you will get rid of all that by writing about it… Once you write it down it is all gone.»
Robert Jordan es el protagonista de Por quien doblan las campanas. Está hablando de Hemingway.
V.
that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
I´d take off all my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it out toward the island.
John Berryman
VI.
Pt. admits that he is an alcoholic… Indication of depression, anxiety, immaturity, lack of insight, high aesthetic interests, feelings of alienation, & dependency… Admitted he is full of fear.
Un terapeuta sobre Berryman.
VII.
At some point, you have to set down the past. At some point, you have to accept that everyone was doing their best. At some point, you have to gather yourself up, and go onward into your life.
VIII.
I mean we all carry something inside us that can be rejected; that can look silver in the light. You can deny it, or try and throw it in the garbage, by all means. You can despise it so much you drink yourself halway to death. At the end of the day, though, the only thing to do is to take a hold of yourself, to gather up the broken parts. That´s when recovery begins. That´s when the second life – the good one – starts.