A Paler Shade of Red: Memoirs of a Radical. W. E. Gutman

      Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       Cover

       Other books by W. E. Gutman

       Foreword by Alan Riding

       Prologue

       This I Believe

       Part One – The Source: The seminal years

       Part Two – Midstream: Against the current

       Part Three – The Estuary: Muddy waters

       Part Four – The Open Sea: In hindsight

       Part Five – Treading Water: Onward to the past

       Postscript – The Name of the Game: Learn your lines

       Acknowledgements

       Back cover

      A Paler

      Shade of

      Red

      Memoirs of a Radical

      W. E. GUTMAN

      CCB Publishing

      British Columbia, Canada

      A Paler Shade of Red: Memoirs of a Radical

      Copyright ©2012 by W. E. Gutman

      ISBN-13 978-1-927360-97-2

      First Edition

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Gutman, W. E., 1937-

      A paler shade of red [electronic resource] : memoirs of a radical / written by W. E. Gutman.

      Electronic monograph issued in PDF format.

      ISBN 978-1-927360-97-2

      Also available in print format.

      Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

      Cover design by the author.

      Photograph on the front cover is in the public domain.

      Extreme care has been taken to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. The publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed by the publisher for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the author.

      Publisher:

      CCB Publishing

      British Columbia, Canada

       www.ccbpublishing.com

      IN MEMORY OF IONEL

       Also by W. E. Gutman

      JOURNEY TO XIBALBA:

      The Subversion of Human Rights in Central America

      Reporter’s Notebook, ã 2000 (Out of print)

      NOCTURNES -- Tales from the Dreamtime

      Fiction, ã 2006

      FLIGHT FROM EIN SOF

      Fiction, ã 2009

      THE INVENTOR

      Historical fiction, ã 2009

      ONE NIGHT IN COPÁN -- Chronicles of Madness Foretold

      Short stories, ã 2012

      ONE LAST DREAM

      Screenplay (Registered with the American Writers’ Guild), ã 2012

      UN DERNIER RÊVE

      Screenplay (French-language version), ã 2012.

      WHEN THERE’S DOUBT THERE’S HOPE

      DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING UNTIL ITS’ BEEN OFFICIALLY DENIED

      John Pilger

       FOREWORD

      By Alan Riding, author of

      And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris

      W. E. Gutman’s life has been so crammed with twists-and-turns -- some unwelcome, many unexpected, a few stubbornly pursued -- that his moving and lyrical memoir has the punch of an epic novel, both fast-paced and reflective. Driven successively by a need to survive occupied France, by an intense curiosity, by an instinct for rebellion and a taste for adventure, Gutman has collided all too often with the shortcomings of humanity. But in A Paler Shade of Red, he finds solace in the power of words, free at last to display the idealism that explains his simmering fury with the world.

       PROLOGUE

      Say what you will but not all rivers run to the sea. Only those whose beds are deep and wide, whose waters swell with winter snows and summer rains will ever stream unhindered into Mother Sea’s embrace. Nor do the fountainheads from which they spring share common beginnings. Some come to life in silent majesty where ice-encrusted granite reaches for the sky. Others dribble out of a mossy cleft or scatter from a rocky crevice like strands of quicksilver. Brook, rivulet and creek merge at random. Tributaries join the headlong race and carve mighty waterways. They will all return to the source one day, transmuted by nature’s alchemy, ready for yet another cycle of endless self-renewal.

      Some would-be rivers are stunted at birth. Their channels lack depth or vigor. Others bubble and billow for a while then vanish, never to be seen again. Exhausted, disheartened, others yet die of thirst along the way on some arid plain. A few meander without cause. They don’t seem to know where they’re headed, or why. They just obey their own life force, rushing heedlessly toward an estuary and surrendering at last to the rapture of the deep.

      *

      You are about to embark on a journey brimming with reminiscences. Reflected in its paces is the deepest dimension of self. Revelation is the fruit of foreknowledge. It entails a sense of déjà vu. It also evokes an anticipatory awareness of life’s looming exactions. Yet,