LPPM MMV "Like Some Kurtz"

[Dave Monroe]

"It occurred to him now that Lupescu's parting comment
had been no drunken witticism; but that the man really
had, like some Kurtz, been possessed by the heart of a
darkness in which no ivory was ever sent out from the
interior, but instead hoarded jealously by each of its
gatherers to build painfully, fragment by fragment,
temples to the glory of some imago or obsession, and
decorated inside with the art work of dream and
nightmare, and locked finally against a hostile
forest, each "agent" in his own ivory tower, having no
windows to look out of, turning further and further
inward and cherishing a small flame behind the altar.
And Kurtz too had been in his way a father confessor."
(MMV, p. 11)


"Lupescu's parting comment"

"Ten seconds later the door opened again and Lupescu
stuck his head in and winked. 'Mistah Kurtz--he dead,'
he announced owlishly and disappeared." (MMV, p. 3)


"like some Kurtz"

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)

   "Anything approaching the change that came over his
features I have never seen before, and hope never to
see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It
was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that
ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless
power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless
despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of
desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme
moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at
some image, at some vision,--he cried out twice, a cry
that was no more than a breath-- 
  "'The horror! The horror!' 
  "I blew the candle out and left the cabin. The
pilgrims were dining in the mess-room, and I took my
place opposite the manager, who lifted his eyes to
give me a questioning glance, which I successfully
ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar
smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his
meanness. A continuous shower of small flies streamed
upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and
faces. Suddenly the manager's boy put his insolent
black head in the doorway, and said in a tone of
scathing contempt-- 
  "'Mistah Kurtz--he dead.'"

http://www.classic-novels.com/author/joseph_conrad/heart_of_darkness/heart021.htm

http://www.classic-novels.com/author/joseph_conrad/heart_of_darkness/heartarchive.htm

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.online-literature.com/conrad/heart_of_darkness/

http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:8086/perl/toccer-new?id=ConDark.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" (1925)

MISTAH KURTZ--HE DEAD.
A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.  Alas! ...

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem74.html

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/hollow.htm

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0408&msg=92430


"the glory of some imago"

Main Entry: ima·go  
Pronunciation: i-'mä-(")gO, -'mA-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural imagoes or ima·gi·nes 
/-'mA-g&-"nEz, -'mä-; -'mA-j&-, -'ma-/
Etymology: New Latin, from Latin, image
1 : an insect in its final, adult, sexually mature,
and typically winged state
2 : an idealized mental image of another person or the
self 

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=imago


"each 'agent' in his own ivory tower"

Main Entry: ivory tower
Function: noun
Etymology: translation of French tour d'ivoire
1 : an impractical often escapist attitude marked by
aloof lack of concern with or interest in practical
matters or urgent problems
2 : a secluded place that affords the means of
treating practical issues with an impractical often
escapist attitude; especially : a place of learning

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=ivory+tower

Why are academics chided as being in an ivory tower?
What does an ivory tower have to do with seclusion or
separation from the world?

The inspiration is the Bible. The Song of Solomon 7:4
(KJV) reads:

Thy neck is as a tower of ivory
In 1837, the French poet Charles-Augustin Saint-Beuve
wrote a poem titled Pensés d’Août (Thoughts of August)
that contained the line:

Et Vigny, plus secret,
Comme en sa tour d'ivoire, avant midi rentrait.
(and Vigny, more discreet,
As if in his ivory tower, retired before noon.
This figurative sense of ivory tower was first used in
English in 1911 and in 1916 Henry James penned a novel
with that title, cementing the term in English
vocabulary.

http://www.wordorigins.org/wordori.htm

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