| This is one of three independent but interlocking novels technically the first volume of a trilogy but, to my mind, more like the left panel of a triptych, since each of the three is complete in itself, since they need not be considered in the order of their publication, and since The Prince 11972t and Mandragon ll979} are of a size. while The Dissertation f1975), which they flank in time. is one and two-thirds nines larger. The work entire depmts marginary people and imaginary events in the imaginary Republic of Tinieblas. There are some glances back and lbrth toward past and lilture, but the temporal locus is mainly the seventh decade of our utterly unreal century. The same themes play m vananon through all tltree books. Major characters li-om this book appear as minor characters in tire other two and vice versa. One character. Alejandro Sancudo. has intermediate status in all three. There are sorties in all directions Into actual localities, but the main setting is Tinieblas. A good case may be made for its being the main character. When i began fiddling with this book ,on an Olivetti 44 which had already composed one novel and a great deal of wire-service journalism, which per- formed loyally and brilliantly throughout this book and into the first chapters of The Dissertation. and which has now come out of an honorable semi-retirement to attend Yale College with my sore. 1 was unaware that it was part of a larger work. or that it was a book at all. I fiddled with it between chapters of a comic novel done somewhat in the manner of Evelyn Waugh. 1 recall spending five weeks on the first two pages Iwhich eventually became the second and third paragraph of Chapter 3) I did them over and over while waiting to see if 1 would learn more about Kiki Sancudo. It happened that I did. The confic novel, which[ |
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