I continue to be shaken and humbled by each re-reading of this novel. The distortion of personal love by public events, the wrenching claims of family and country placed upon personal identity, the problem of remaining sane while being connected to madness, these are some of the themes addressed by this deeply gifted writer.
I compare this novel, in my pantheon of favorite books, to "The Good Soldier." If the characters of that novel danced a minuet, then Peter Dimock's narrator dances a Sarabande--but according to the original form of that dance, increasing in its variations after a Dionysian plan. The Sarabande was once forbidden in an earlier century. "A Short… Read more
