My beloved History of The English Language professor, Marie Boroff, used to claim that Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake" was 'unreadable'. While that may not be completely true, it does help to have an interpretive concordance at hand as one attempts it. This novel of mine attempts to include the tools for its own understanding. Ben advises Tom, who's trying to read "War And Peace" and keeps getting bogged down, to simply skip long passages about Freemasonry, which is important in restoring Pierre's spirit as he is becoming jaded in attitude, but is frankly more detail than most readers need on the subject. Like the classic review of "Moby Dick" from a schoolgirl (this book tells me more than I want to know about whales), if my characters rail at too great length against Trump and his Maga Corps, just skip ahead. These polemics tie in with the discussion of historians, for example, Thucydides detailing the the Fall of the Athenian Empire, and of novels as a variant of History. In passing, it's worth noting that New Criticism's attempt to uncouple Literature from Time and put it in a glass case, is a bad fit for most fiction except romance and escapism. I position this novel as existing at what may be the end of American democracy, and the beginning of we know not what. The idea that we are transitioning from traditional constitutional democracy to something like what Rome did in going from Republic to Empire, has some currency, though a questionable amount of real support. The American Experiment has released and guided human energies to some of the greatest achievements of human civilization. Herman Melville believed America had created a New Man, with endless possibilities for improvement. This author tends to believe in America as still possessing that capacity for progress in both material and social aspects. Just to look at the advances in the medical field is impressive; maybe if you look at Law, things seem to be going in the other direction, there are a lot of dedicated people in the profession. I tried to make Tom into a caring attorney who helps his friend through his troubled mental affairs, sometimes with advice, sometimes with action as when Ben's transcriptionist experiences an overdose in a motel room and the police arrive after the EMTs take her away. Of course the first author I cited before Melville was Poe, whose vision is much closer to what Ben experiences in his depressive cycle.
