See Coffin Disapproves.
"Wolfe stretched out an arm to the nearest bookshelf, chose a volume, and lit a fresh cigar. 'I don't imagine I'll ever understand Dylan Thomas,' he said, 'but I like the words and anyhow I doubt if he intended to be understood.'
"Coffin sat straight and looked at the wall." (p. 115)
Literature is one. One reference to Dylan Thomas takes us to Thomas' works and elsewhere. I prefer the attitude to death in "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" (see here) as against that in "Do not go gentle into that good night..." (see here)
James Blish's They Shall Have Stars begins by quoting the opening five lines of "And Death Shall Have No Dominion," thus ending with:
"They shall have stars at elbow and foot..."
A clever sestina ends:
"Rage, rage, against the dying of delight!"
-Lawrence Schimel, "Endless Sestina" IN Neil Gaiman and Ed Kramer, Editors, The Sandman: Book Of Dreams (London, 1996), pp. 169-171 AT p. 171.
That line names two of the seven Endless: Death and Delight who became Delirium.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One line from "Death Shall Have No Dominion" strikes me as odd: "Under the windings of the sea." I would have thought CURRENTS or WAVES in place of "windings" more natural. Unless Dylan Thomas felt compelled for technical reasons to choose "windings."
I really should read more poetry myself, such as the verses of Rudyard Kipling, Francis Thompson, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Sean
Sean,
Now we see what Wolfe meant.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm not exactly sure what Wolfe meant. I've not gotten that far in the book.
Sean
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