DA VINCI'S BICYCLE

by Guy Davenport ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 1979

Further erudite bits and pieces from the author of Tatlin! (1974)--again attempting to create a mosaic of the past, its history and its art. Leonardo's prototype invention. Richard Nixon in China. Gertrude Stein touring Italy with Alice B. Toklas. The ashes of a Roman emperor turned God--""C. Musonius Rufus""--which now speak to us across the ages. A mechanical wooden dove that flies ""into the eye of the wind. . . lollop and bob as it butted rimples and funnels of air until it struck a balance and rode the void with a brave address. We all cried with delight."" Victor Hugo investigating a hanging on the Isle of Guernsey. Picasso. The Wright Brothers. Davenport's cubist compositions stitch all these together in delightfully allusive, admittedly difficult patterns. ""Au Tombeau de Charles Fournier,"" a long centerpiece story, packs its paragraphs as if they were stanzas: ""You cannot forage until you can trust your loup, shimmer of red on the top, shake of green on the down, with wood to chew on every bough, and a pear gone wine beyond the briars, and a liquor of roses sweet as wives drenching all, a head wind and light combing."" Far more straightforward is ""Ithaka""--a very real visit to Ezra Pound, whose style and stance and influence are apparent throughout Davenport's work: the aestheticism, the artist-idolatry, the freshness of its leaps, the wide-flung knowledge. But, though enjoyable in small draughts, Davenport's energies (as in Tatlin!) are always directed toward nothing much more than the reproduction of previous art. Impressive--sometimes very impressive--but hairlessly smooth, more trick mimicry than flesh.

Pub Date: May 16, 1979

ISBN: 0811213501

Page Count: -

Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION