Adagio for Joseph
I somehow did not know that David Lynch, who died in January, directed The Elephant Man. Learning this recently led me to go back and watch the film again for the first time in more than forty years. I first saw it as a teenager, on HBO a year or so after it was released. It broke my young heart then, and it had exactly the same effect on me this time. (You can see the film for free on archive.org, should you be interested.)
Ashley Montagu, in his book on the case of Joseph Merrick (1862–1890), the subject of the movie, begins thus:
What is a human life? A pulse in the heartbeat of eternity? A cry that begins with birth and ends with death? A brief and tempestuous sojourn on an inhospitable shore, where there is really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain? Or is it, is it, something more?
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Alexander T. Riley is a senior fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars.
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