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Sto caricando le informazioni... The King (1990)di Donald Barthelme
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. De las pocas veces que no he podido terminar un libro a la primera. Al segundo intento pude acabarlo (agradezco su brevedad) pero sigue sin gustarme. ( ) Perhaps one of the most pointless books I've ever read: a short piece of absurdist humour without the humour and with the absurdism being completely inert. Splayed rather than pointed in its motives, Donald Barthelme's The King makes no use of its interesting concept; that of King Arthur and his knights being present in Britain during the Second World War. It's a struggle to determine what the point was of such a move: we must assume the idea came to Barthelme from the old legend that the Once and Future King will return to aid Britain in its hour of gravest need – and could there be any time of need more appropriate than 1940? However, aside from a few token and desultory name drops of Dunkirk and the Blitz, there's no attempt at all to utilise the World War Two potential, and the Arthurian court are about as relevant and essential to their new wartime setting as Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are to the proper functioning of the original Hamlet. Launcelot and Guinevere aren't dead here, however. Just limp. It's hard to pin down what the writer was trying to do, if indeed he was trying to do anything. At one point I thought perhaps the anachronism of having King Arthur in the modern age was meant to be a commentary on the purported anachronism of monarchy in the modern age, but this idea was dropped in the text the instant it was raised. As too was the idea – perhaps Barthelme's only good one – of the quest for the Holy Grail being replaced by the quest to develop the first atomic bomb. These were the only two signposts I could find in the author's inoffensive but empty meander of a book – though not so much signposts as broken twigs indicating that something, who knows what, had passed by. The King is just yet another of those books which seems determined to confirm 'post-modern' as a synonym for 'tedious, self-satisfied noodling'. Sometimes taking a risk on a promising book just doesn't pay off. It happens. Donald Barthelme has been a mystery to me. Heard the name, but couldn't connect it to any specific book title. Had an impression he was difficult (like Pynchon or Joyce). But still I filed a mental note of a book titled [The King], which was enthusiastically endorsed on some list or other. I found a used copy and read it immediately. I'm very glad I did. It is excellent. The King of the title is Arthur, and in Barthelme's novel—his last; it was published after his death in 1989—he still reigns over England, despite it being 1939. Guinevere is still queen, Launcelot is still the knight in shining armor, still cuckolding his king (but he's no longer alone in that). Arthur's longevity is…hmmmm…a mystery.
Despite his exceptional life span, despite heading a government that travels on horseback, despite leading a fighting force of "knights" wearing armor and armed with swords and lances, Arthur is in command of the 20th century's conflicts and problems. When disgruntled railway workers weld a locomotive to the rails on the line between Ipswich and Stowmarket (so nothing can move on that line), Arthur personally accesses the situation with his advisors.
Arthur is capable of unequivocal stands, making them without doubt or indecision.
The discussion turns practical. How long will it take to build? How would it be used? "Perhaps a demonstration…Do Essen or Kiel or one of the smaller cities."
Read the book. It's short, it's fun. I have spoken. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
In The King, a retelling of Le Morte D'Arthur, Donald Barthelme moves the chivalrous Knights of the Round Table to the cruelty of the Second World War. Dunkirk has fallen, Europe is at the breaking point, Ezra Pound and Lord Haw-Haw are poisoning the radio waves, Mordred has fled to Nazi Germany, and King Arthur and his worshipful Knights are deep in the fighting. When the Holy Grail presents itself--which is, in this version, the atomic bomb, "a superweapon if you will, with which we can chastise and thwart the enemy"--they must decide whether to hew to their knightly ways or adopt a modern ruthlessness. Barthelme makes brilliant comic use of anachronism to show that war is center stage in the theater of human absurdity and cruelty. But Arthur, in deciding to decline the power of the Grail, announces his unwillingness to go along: "It's not the way we wage war. The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon." Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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