IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT

by Nicholas Mosley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1968

Nietzsche, who is one of the constant referrals in this sequential novel/prose/poem, is cited by Mr. Mosley as having said that ""one should act as if events recurred: as if what happened to one once went on happening forever."" So it would seem in this deliberate reprise of characters, situations, and themes which relate to death and the death of God, love and the failure to love, the jagged hostilities between men and women. All takes place within the compression chamber of the psyche and projects inaccessible, irreconcilable, often unendurable relationships dusted over with regret. These are ""voyeurs of the spirit""--losers in the arena of emotions which seems to exist only in memory or in expectation. . . . In the first sequence, a writer plays a frightening ""Family Game"" in the cellar, identifying via his sons with his own shattered life; Mr. and Mrs. Mostyn, ""Intelligent People,"" use the bed as a battleground; a marriage--the marriage--is threatened by phantom suspicions as well as very real betrayals since ""Love is impossible for people in it"": ""Suicide"" and ""Life After Death"" intensify the ""terror (which) is real. That is why no one wants reality."" Mosley is one of England's notable talents and he uses symbols, abstractions, and inferential insights to project the nameless malaisc of modern man. Pinter transferred Mosley's Accident to the screen and made it more accessible to a wider audience than it was as a novel. This is much in the mode of Pinter's plays with its stylized pauses, elliptical conjectures. Mosley's is an equally innovational talent. His book should be read for its effective, startling insights along with its high compressed excitement.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1968

ISBN: 1564784657

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1968

Categories: FICTION