Matin Edmond
Auteur van Isinglass
Werken van Matin Edmond
Tagged
Algemene kennis
Er zijn nog geen Algemene Kennis-gegevens over deze auteur. Je kunt helpen.
Leden
Besprekingen
Statistieken
- Werken
- 1
- Leden
- 3
- Populariteit
- #1,791,150
- Waardering
- 4.0
- Besprekingen
- 1
- ISBNs
- 3
The reader is on familiar ground in the very brief first part, 'Dark Point': it recounts the arrival of the unknown man referred to in the blurb (see above):
The second part titled 'Thursday' is more enigmatic. The narrator, in first person, is a journalist. He tells the story of his meeting with C, a former lover, not seen for many years. She brings Thursday to this man's attention, and she subsequently wangles a visit to the detention centre where she facilitates the painting of the mural by the silent man. C cares about Thursday, whereas for the narrator, the situation is more abstract, and in the course of this chapter, there are what appear to be digressions into theories which are difficult to grasp, and even more difficult to contextualise in terms of the novel's intent. Or so it seems, until it all falls into place as the novel progresses.
Part III is the story of Isinglass, narrated by Thursday and by good luck I have stumbled on part of this chapter at Martin Edmond's blog. Even if you never read the novel, I recommend you read this excerpt because it captures so perfectly the dilemma that all refugees face when they must choose whether to leave or stay. This chapter traces the journey of Thursday's people and the cities they subsequently build, all of which fail because it is human nature to create conflict out of religious beliefs, or the pursuit of power and possessions, or good old Mother Nature creating the chaos that enables cruelty and divisiveness to fester.
Thursday tells his story because he is a Rememberer, and it is in his description of hearing voices from the past that the 'digressions' from Part 2 begin to make sense. At C's urging, the narrator in Part 2 had bought a copy of a work called Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness, by Julian Jaynes. At the time of reading I did not know that Julian Jaynes was a real person, and that his book (which you can still buy) was influential in the development of the idea of a divided self and a 'bicameral mind'. The theory is explained in Isinglass and confirmed as authentic by Wikipedia:
Thursday's experience is an exemplar of this theory...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/04/05/isinglass-by-martin-edmond/… (meer)