Word: hoban
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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PILGERMANN by Russell Hoban; Summit; 240 pages...
Such, except for the unsexed hero, is the stuff of rousing historical fiction. Pilgermann is that and several other things as well. In Riddley Walker (1981), his fourth novel, Russell Hoban proved himself a master of the unexpected viewpoint. He imagined life several millenniums after a nuclear holocaust and then invented the debased, fragmented language that survivors might use to rebuild their civilization. This time, Hoban's English is normal, but his speaker-protagonist is not. He introduces himself. "Pilgermann here. I call myself Pilgermann, it's a convenience. What my name was when I was walking around...
This disembodied voice is speaking in the present tense, now, late in the 20th century, a contemporary witness to old deeds. Hoban invents a spokesman for an entire epoch, one who has not only suffered the mutilation and death of his body but has consciously endured some of the awful burdens of history since those events: "I am a microscopic chip in that vast circuitry in which are recorded all of the variations and permutations thus far. Not all of my experience is available for recall by my Pilgermann identity, only that in which the energy of the input...
...through the security check. They also want to put unsightly security equipment under one roof and conceal it as much as possible. The only practical alternative to the planned new gatehouse was to enclose the portico or porte-cochere. But that seemed aesthetically incompatible with the work of James Hoban, the original White House architect, and McKim, Mead and White, the renovators of the historic building...
...Hoban, an Irish-born architect who practiced in Charleston, S.C. and planned the South Carolina statehouse, was the winner of the 1792 design competition for the proposed new White House. One of those he triumphed over was Thomas Jefferson, who had submitted his entry anonymously. Hoban's vision of the President's house was influenced by one of the finest examples of the English Palladian style, the famous Dublin mansion of the Duke of Leinster...