Another Mr. Em?
I've just finished reading Robert Meadley's short story, "Meeting Dr. Malthusian," which takes up the first 24 pages of Emanations 2 + 2 = 5. I enjoyed the tale, and not only because the devil-figure-and-spirit-guide - Dr. Malthusian himself - signs off on the final line of the final page as his initial, "M." I also found these lines on page 14 eerily appropriate to our times:
In a dismal suburb, we met a man killing prostitutes.Truly? Directly? God's rules? "Ich bin so groß als Gott, er ist als ich so klein" (I am as Large as God, He is as small as I). The Islamic State, writ small?
Why are you doing that, I asked in a spirit of scientific enquiry.
Because God told me to, he said.
Labels: God
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 5:54 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The new volume of Emanations gives evidence that Orwellian dystopia is no longer a phenomenon that is bound exclusively to modernity. Moreover, in the postmodern condition, dystopia has gained not only medieval but even ancient Egyptian and Sumerian characteristics. Can prehistoric levels of misery be far behind?
Good question. David Mitchell seems headed in that direction - and in several other directions as well, in his stories, I mean.
Jeffery Hodges
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