Note:
The first epigraph comes from E.M. Forster’s ‘The Longest Journey’ and an undergraduate discussion (based on the ideas on G.E. Moore, whose ‘paradox’ is the second epigraph) about the existence of objects, in this case, cows. Moore’s ‘paradox’ is the second epigraph. These inform the sequence, especially the first section. It is a series of epiphanies (what Virginia Woolf called ‘exceptional moments’) and its centre is Cambridge with all its illusions, mirages and time-warps. It is narrated by a series of revenants (dossers, has-beens, tourists, bright young things); the narratives trace internalised quest myths, often dead ends, but with their own (often compelling) logic. There are speculative excursions into edgelands (Coe Fen, in vi), text itself (Tolstoy, Yeats, for example), and the journey ends with a ritualised rite of passage, a wedding. Many of these are generated by what Lowell termed the ‘mania to return’.
Hanging Around
Maryrose Casey
The Voyage: Edited by Chandani Lokuge & David Morley Page 13
