Amalgamemnon

by Christine Brooke-Rose

Overview

A woman about to lose her job as a professor of literature and history delivers a passionate, witty, and word-mad monologue.

History and literature seem to be losing ground to the brave new world of electronic media and technology, and battle lines are being drawn between the humanities and technology, the first world and the third world, women and men. Narrator Mira Enketei erases those boundaries in her punning monologue, blurring the texts of Herodotus with the callers to a talk-radio program, and blending contemporary history with ancient: fairy-tale and literal/invented people (the kidnappers of capitalism, a girl-warrior from Somalia, a pop singer, a political writer), connected by an elaborate mock-genealogy stretching back to the Greek gods, move in and out of each other's stories. The narrator sometimes sees herself as Cassandra, condemned by Apollo to prophesize but never to be believed, enslaved by Agamemnon after the fall of Troy. Brooke-Rose amalgamates ancient literature with modern crises to produce a powerful novel about the future of culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564780508
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	07/01/1994
Series:	British Literature
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	5.57(w) x 8.53(h) x 0.43(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Christine Brooke-Rose (1923-2012) was an British writer and literary critic. Her experience working in Bletchley Park translating intercepted German communications during WWII influenced her radical literary experiments, including two autobiographies written without the word "I" and her novel Between, which omitted the verb "to be." Though she struggled for visibility and recognition during her lifetime, she now ranks among the 20th century's greatest experimental women writers.

Editorial Reviews

This sort of metafiction can start like a rocket, then fizzle, but Christine Brooke-Rose’s novel keeps gaining momentum, blazes with wit and regains for fiction some of the territory lost to critics in recent raids. On all counts it deserves the three stars from Orion’s belt.” — The Guardian

“About what it feels like to be a word-addict—worse, a writing addict—in the brave new world of communications technology.” — The Observer

"Amalgamemnon is a brilliant example of its author's thesis, proving the eternal creative flexibility of language and the restorative vitality of one person's cultural memory.” — American Book Review

From the Publisher

[T]otally fascinating. . . . [An] immensely rich book. . . . Amalgamemnon is a brilliant example of its author's thesis, proving the eternal creative flexibility of language and the restorative vitality of one person's cultural memory.”

American Book Review

[Amalgamemnon] will surely feature in the literary histories when Booker contenders have faded away. Only 140 pages, but informed by a delight in language and wordplay that attracts the...more pejorative label 'experimental' (authors should not display too much inventiveness and intelligence or be influenced by French modes if British). An ideal gift for readers who like to keep their wits about them.”

The Bookseller

About what it feels like to be a word-addict—worse, a writing addict—in the brave new world of communications technology.

The Observer

This sort of metafiction can start like a rocket, then fizzle, but Christine Brooke-Rose’s novel keeps gaining momentum, blazes with wit and regains for fiction some of the territory lost to critics in recent raids. On all counts it deserves the three stars from Orion’s belt.

The Guardian

First published in 1984, this experimental novel is the skewed monologue of a history and literature professor about to be dismissed from her job. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly