67 jaar !..... Tunc et Nunc
"Tunc" and "Nunquam": Lawrence Durrell
The titles of the two novels which together are known as "The Revolt of Aphrodite" are taken from a Latin quotation familiar in translation - "It was then, or never". This fact is one which either you know or which you find out when you read the second, an action which generally makes Tunc rather clearer.
The first seventy pages or so of Tunc are extremely difficult to read and through their concentration on words as words rather than as constituent parts of a narrative serve as a reminder that their author first made his literary name as a poet. The novel settles down a bit after this, though it is still possible to discern the influence of James Joyce and the techniques of stream of consciousness writing.
4 opmerkingen:
"There was still a lot I didn't fully understand about The Revolt of Aphrodite (for three reasons: some things are deliberately left obscure; others will become clear only on a second or third reading; and others require background I do not have, particularly of Spengler's Decline of the West on which the novels are a commentary in fictional form). Nevertheless, Tunc and Nunquam have both had a deep effect on me, and are going to remain with me for a long time."
“Society is happily creating a slave class of analphabets, “les visuels”, who have forgotten to read and who depend on a set of Pavlovian signals for their daily bread and other psychic needs.” (from “Nunquam”….1970 !)
In "Tunc" (1970) is created a fabulous memory-machine, named Abel. The result is astonishing: a robot that can talk, flirt, fornicate, and philosophize.
“I imagine, therefore I belong and am free.”
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