Thursday, February 2, 2012

Tragedy for Laughs



Ed King, David Guterson, Random House. 

This is not Snow Falling on Cedars. It is funny though, and also about the impossibility of escaping destiny. Ed (as in Oedipus) is a star-crossed computer mogul who can’t escape chaos. Marx says all great world-historic facts and personages appear twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Guterson pulls the rug out from Tragedy, sits Freudian Psychiatry on a whoopee cushion.You’ll laugh, but maybe in desperation? Taking the lid off of passion and destiny without putting it back in place is a terrorist act. 

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