In much the same way that James Joyce used Homer’s Odyssey to create a classical stage set for the characters of Ulysses in the dear dirty Dublin in 1904, V. N. Alexander’s new novel uses Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an archetypal structure that casts a shadow over the stereotypes of our new American life of junk food, junk politics, and NSA/Homeland Security.
Like the tight narrative and focused attention of Thomas Pynchon’s shortest novel, The Crying of Lot 49, Locus Amoenus uses hilarity and conspiracy theories to present the tragicomedy of a contemporary America that is beyond belief. Alexander has a good ear for prose rhythms, and the uplifting wave of her prose style picks you up and carries you all the way to her Coda—a coda that reminds us as her story becomes framed in journalistic reporting that American History is a dumpster and not an Akashic Record backing up karmic justice. From Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase that made Manifest Destiny and the American Empire inevitable to Jackson’s Cherokee Trail of Tears to Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus to FDR’s Day of Deceit with Pearl Harbor to Wolfowitz’s and the Neocons’ call for a new Pearl Harbor that became 9/11 to Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act and Arctic Drilling for the oil companies, the United States has always been bad while believing itself to be good.
Alexander is truly humorous in a bittersweet way that never becomes nihilistic. Everyone notices European Evil, whether it is the case of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror or Hitler’s Holocaust, but no one noticed when Obama shredded the Constitution of Madison and Jay in the National Defense Authorization Act, and no one noticed when the One Percent bought out the country in a hostile takeover brokered by Goldman Sachs.
Locus Amoenus is an important contribution to contemporary American fiction, and perhaps it is time now for Alexander to move up from the small arty presses to the major publishing houses in Manhattan. (Farrar Strauss take note.) But, on the other hand, since the large publishing companies now are all owned by the giant corporate conglomerates who produce our junk food for the mind, we should celebrate the contribution of The Permanent Press of Sag Harbor for being, like the Farmers Market in Union Square and the Berkshares local currency of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a healthy alternative to airport fiction.
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William Irwin Thompson
William Irwin Thompson, Columnist, Thinking Otherwise
William Irwin Thompson (born July, 1938) is known primarily as a social philosopher and cultural critic, but he has also been writing and publishing poetry throughout his career and received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He has made significant contributions to cultural history, social criticism, the philosophy of science, and the study of myth. He describes his writing and speaking style as “mind-jazz on ancient texts”. He is an astute reader of science, social science, history, and literature. He is the founder of the Lindisfarne Association.
His book, Still Travels: Three Long Poems was published in 2009 by Wild River Books. To order a copy, click here: STILL TRAVELS.
WEBSITE: http://www.williamirwinthompson.org/
WILLIAM IRWIN THOMPSON IN THIS EDITION:
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE: Avatar – When Technology Displaces Culture
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE: Part 2 – The Shift from an Industrial to Planetary Civilization
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – From Religion to Post-Religious Spirituality: Conclusion
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – Nature and Invisible Environments
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – Of Culture and the Nature of Extinction
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – On Religion – Part One
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – On Religion and Nationalism: Ireland, Israel, and Palestine
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – Television and Social Class
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE – The Digital Economy of W. Brian Arthur
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE: From Religion to Post-Religious Spirituality, Part Three
COLUMN – THINKING OTHERWISE: On Nuclear Power
COLUMN: LINDISFARNE CAFE – MEMOIR – Farewell Address at the Lindisfarne Fellows Conference
CULTURE – MEMOIR – Pilgrimage to Lindisfarne: 1972
CULTURE – MEMOIR – Sex and the Commune
CULTURE – MEMOIR – The Founding of the Lindisfarne Association in New York, 1971-73 – Part I
LINDISARNE CAFE – MEMOIR – Conclusion: The Economic Relevance of Lindisfarne
LINDISFARNE CAFE – MEMOIR: Raising Evan and Hilary: Reflections of a Homeschooling Parent
POETRY – A Lazy Sunday Afternoon
POETRY – After Heart Surgery: Hokusai’s Great Wave
POETRY – On Reading “The Penguin Book of English Verse”: on my iPad and Exercise Bike
THINKING OTHERWISE – Saint Patrick’s Day, 2010: US AND THEM: Identity and the State
WILD RIVER BOOKS/POETRY – NIGHTWATCH and DAYSHIFT: CÉZANNE
» View all articles by William Irwin Thompson
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