Parzifal

Book excerpt: The narrator attempts and fails to retell the story of Parzifal and the Grail, often forgetting who Parzifal is, frequently confusing the character with himself, sometimes heedless of story he is trying to tell. Parzifal is therefore various to the point of hopelessness, an imagined youth, a medieval morality play, a symphony which may never have been written, an apparition on the fringe of memory, imperfectly forgotten. In the end there is no resolution. Perhaps.