Word: pilgermann
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Dates: during 1983-1983
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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...
...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 was above a certain level." His memory is random access; he is a computer part that has survived everything, including the First Crusade...
Such a cosmic perspective is broadly audacious, and Hoban's Pilgermann enaudacious, and Hoban's Pilgermann enthusiastically embraces the challenge. He tells what happened to him during his physical stay on earth; he also wants to explain why and to speculate on whether he had any choice in the matter. He knows that his troubles began when he entered the upper-floor bedroom window of Sophia, the tax collector's beautiful wife. Deprived of his manhood in consequence, he debates with his Creator: "O God! Why cannot I speak with a pure heart? I have done wrong...
...Pilgermann's theological musings almost always revolve around paradoxes. For example: "If God has not the power to understand everything he is not omniscient, and equally if he has not the power to create something beyond his understanding he is not omnipotent." It is extremely difficult to say anything original about such metaphysical matters, and Pilgermann does not. As a theologian, he tends toward the tedious. But the quality of his ideas is less important than the restless energy of the mind that forms them. He is trying to grasp what cannot be known...