A History of the Imagination
256 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
Paperback
Release Date:28 Aug 2004
ISBN:9781573661157
A History of the Imagination is a postmodern tale of adventure that reshapes the parameters of time and space, thought and action. In a metaphorical Africa, replete with nostalgia (but no dimensions), anything can happen and usually does. The narrator defends his magical departures, saying his is a history of possibilities, where fiction is "no less real for [it's] being so." But when Darwin's corpse begins to lust after Colette and the African porters go on strike because the author hasn't acknowledged the important role they play, we are left to wonder: just how far is reality from dreams?
Norman Lock juxtaposes remote times and places, historical facts and literary fictions, to create an absurdist collage reminiscent of Guy Davenport and Donald Barthelme. In this world it is not impossible to sail from Mombasa to Cinncinati, or to set out from the City of Radiant Objects, where "things are free of the obligation to signify," or to go hunting icebergs in a quest to avenge the Titanic at last. Borne aloft by Wilbur Wright, Jules Verne, Ziegfield, and Houdini, we find ourselves lost again in a "seam in the world...between History and Imagination."
Norman Lock juxtaposes remote times and places, historical facts and literary fictions, to create an absurdist collage reminiscent of Guy Davenport and Donald Barthelme. In this world it is not impossible to sail from Mombasa to Cinncinati, or to set out from the City of Radiant Objects, where "things are free of the obligation to signify," or to go hunting icebergs in a quest to avenge the Titanic at last. Borne aloft by Wilbur Wright, Jules Verne, Ziegfield, and Houdini, we find ourselves lost again in a "seam in the world...between History and Imagination."
Praise for Norman Lock:
'Lock's weapon is words and he uses them well ... like a nightmare that wakes you up shaking, forcing you to reassess your life.' --LA Life
Lock's genius is how he plays the edge for uneasy laughs.' --Outlook
Norman Lock has published fiction in a number of journals, including Pangolin Papers (which awarded him its fiction prize for 2001) and The Paris Review (which awarded him the Aga Kahn Prize in 1979). His play, The House of Correction, was voted one of the year's best by the Los Angeles Times in 1988. Lock has taught literature and creative writing in a federal prison since 1990 and he is also a senior writer for an advertising agency in southern New Jersey. He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Syracuse University, New York.
