A joyful ode�in a single soaring, crazy sentence�to the interconnectedness of great (and mad) minds Spadework for a Palace bears the subtitle �Entering the Madness of Others� and offers an epigraph: �Reality is no obstacle.� Indeed. This high-octane obsessive rant vaults over all obstacles, fueled by the id�es fixe of a �gray little librarian� with fallen arches whose name�mr herman melvill�is merely one of the coincidences binding him to his lodestar Herman Melville (�I too resided on East 26th Street . . . I, too, had worked for a while at the Customs Office�), which itself is just one aspect of his also being �constantly conscious of his connectedness� to Lebbeus Woods, to the rock that is Manhattan, to the �drunkard Lowry� and his Lunar Caustic, to Bartok. And with this consciousness of connection he is not only gaining true knowledge of Melville, but also tracing the paths to �a Serene Paradise of Knowledge.� Driven to save that Palace (a higher library he also serves), he loses his job and his wife leaves him, but �people must be told the truth: there is no dualism in existence.� And his dream will be �realized, for I am not giving up: I am merely a day-laborer, a spade-worker on this dream, a herman melvill, a librarian from the lending desk, currently an inmate at Bellevue, but at the same time�may I say this?�actually a Keeper of the Palace."
(less)A joyful ode�in a single soaring, crazy sentence�to the interconnectedness of great (and mad) minds Spadework for a Palace bears the subtitle �Entering the Madness of Others� and offers an epigraph: �Reality is no obstacle.� Indeed.
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Spadework for a Palace (Storybook ND Series) | 
