Rosencrantz & Guildenstern (Re: M&D Review in Sunday Times)

[still lookin 4 the face i had b4 the world was made]

A comment on my earlier comment:

On Wed, 7 May 1997, still lookin 4 the face i had b4 the world was made wrote:

> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> (Spoilers ahead for material up to p. 545)
> 
> mysterious larger drama.  Anyway, in the passage on p. 545, Captain Zhang
> seems to position himself as Hamlet to M & D's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
                               ^^^^^^
Or Claudius?

> (not that this identification is somehow authoritative or representative of
> TRP's absolutely "correct" view): 
> 
>   "Fret not,-- my business is with the Jesuit..  _We_ happen to be the
> principal Personae here, not you two!  Nor has your Line any primacy in
> this, being rather a Stage-Setting, dark and fearful as the Battlements of
> Elsinore, for the struggle Zarpazo and I must enact upon the very mortal
> Edge of this great Torrent of _Sha_,-- which at any moment either of us
> might slip, fall into, and be borne away by, Westward, into the
> Vanishing-Point and gone."

This may also be a passing reference to Holmes and Moriarty, wrestling on
the edge of Reichenbach Falls...  :)

Max

 M a x i m u s  D a v i d  C l a r k e | The bagpipes....There is a wail
          http://www.afn.org/~traveler | in their merriment, a cruelty
                 "Surrealist-At-Large" | in their triumph.
                      traveler at afn.org | --Hugh MacDiarmid