Word: dominie
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...religious foundations abound. The national motto, "In God We Trust," is imprinted on all of our currency. We refer to God in our national anthem and in "America." President Reagan has proclaimed a Jewish Heritage Week as well as declaring 1983 the "Year of the Bible." The words "Anno Domini" (translated: "in the year of our Lord") or "A.D." have pervaded our time references, are chiseled into nearly every federal building, and are found in every Presidential document. And the most telling of all, we publicly continue to celebrate the birth and crucifixion of Jesus Christ in our two most...
...Return," which bristle with the odd, awkwardly-placed "nevertheless" and "moreover" and sentences like. "At last Rucker understood that all the sensations of his long experience had this night joined together in a motiveless musical triumph that was almost violent." In such over-intense passages, one conjures up Domini teetering on chair-edge, biting his nails at the typewriter...
...such strained spots fade from importance next to the sensitive insight Domini nurtures in this impossible landscape. The devil narrator's most telling lines hide in throwaways, with the pretended unconsciousness increasing their force. "The one concrete proof of our changed relationship," he offers timidly, "...if indeed it is concrete proof, if indeed it was a changed relationship--is that Miplip and I became lovers." And when the "relationship" turns painful, "every single time I wondered if I could possibly survive (though how I got the idea that there is anything besides survival, I cannot imagine...
These wistful doubtings are Domini at his best...
...other hand. "Astral Projection," the most radical departure from traditional narrative in the volume, fails to forge its avant-garde devices--all-caps subheadings, fragmentation, floating unexplained lines of dialogue interspersed with blocks of "technical" data--into a memorable whole. It would be a shame if Domini's work (the cover says he is finishing a novel) blundered into experimental affectation, when he could follow instead the promising signposts of whimsical intuition or philosophical fantasy that Bedlam suggests. If he takes the right path, he may not be teaching Expos forever...