MDMD St. Helena

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/07/2001 7:43:55 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:


> A very small town clings to the edge of an interior that must be reckoned  
> part of the Other World. No change here is gradual,-- events arrive 
> suddenly. All distances are vast. The Wind, brutal and pure, is there for 
> its own reason,  and human life, any life, counts for close to naught. The 
> town has begun to climb into  the Ravine behind it, and thus, averaged 
> overall, to tilt toward the sea. After Rain-Storms the water rushes 
> downhill, in Eagres, and Rifles  and Cataracts, thro' the town, rooftop to 
> rooftop, in and out of Windows, leaving behind a shiv'ring Dog from uphill, 
> taking Coffee Pots, till leaving it in its turn somewhere else, for a 
> Foot-Stool,-- thus
>  

Pynchon appears to have done his homework on the subject of St. Helena well.  
I recently finished reading The Black Room at Longwood, Napoleon's Exile on 
St. Helena by Jean-Paul Kauffmann.

Kauffman himself, formerly a correspondent for Le Figaro, was taken hostage 
in the 1980s for three years by fundamentalist Shiite Muslims, and his 
insights inform this introspective book, which is part history, part 
travelogue, part brevary. The narrative shifts between the present and the 
past, between St. Helena island and the Napoleonic memorials of Europe, all 
visited by Kauffman in his search for the spirit of place and of the enigma 
that was Napoleon.

A lot of the time he was on St. Helena (which now has automobiles, no 
television but lots of VCRs) it rained.  It seems the rains are a constant 
problem for the people who live there.  The house Napoleon lived in from 1815 
to 1821 has been restored several times & is now owned by the French 
government, which tries to keep it from rotting away.  The damp was a 
constant source of misery for the former emperor.  The Book has a photograph 
of Jamestown taken from an inland height, showing the town squeezed into a 
large ravine.  It probably hasn't changed much in appearance since the days 
of M&D.  
    
http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/05/reviews/990905.05dipiert.html


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