T.C. Boyle: Worlds End (Apocalyptic History)

For those who enjoy aging, woods-dwelling mycologistic retired history professors exhibiting signs of hyper-intelligence coupled with excessively talented storytelling and liberally doused with 100 proof perception, even when they have given up the ghosts and moved to sunny southern california, you could do no worse than T. Coraghessan Boyle. Time and time again he has ploughed the deep waters halfway between the left bank of the 1960s and the right of the 1660s and come up with at least a few small shad to reuse for bait. Enough with the platitudes. The story, an old one, is worth revisiting, especially for its softly fictionalized examinations of the mid hudson valley, rank with old mansions and estates, and in part, because of the expanding conurban habitation migration which, in endlessly circular time, is playing out the old operas once again. As booming young wealthyites move up to nestle amongst the glitterati deep in the cicadia laden forests, and the younger among them find themselves ploughed off to cheap ramshackle rentals out of which it is impossible to move anywhere with the slightest incline, its a pertinent moment to fall back and reexamine the ancient roots which led through many small insurrections, including the renters wars, in which Hudson, afraid of a few warpainted instigators, called for the help of Albany and its troops: and upon whose arrival, after the troops had decimated the town and the rebels snickered back into the deep woods across the river, they later called upon Albany to save them from... and even more. Either way, Worlds End, having won a slew of its own prizes, needs no further mention here, except for a good rereading.

- vanBrunt [Aug 10 2007 08:15 AM]