cummings, e.e. The Enormous Room. New York: Liveright, 1950. First edition thus. A Near Fine copy with previous owner name in a Fine dust jacket. Cummings served as an ambulance driver during the war. In late August 1917 his friend and colleague, William Slater Brown (known in the book only as B.), was arrested by French authorities as a result of anti-war sentiments B. had expressed in some letters. When questioned, Cummings stood by his friend and was also arrested. Cummings thus spent over four months in the prison. He met a number of interesting characters and had many picaresque adventures, which he compiled into The Enormous Room. The book is written as a mix between Cummings' well-known unconventional grammar and diction and the witty voice of a young Harvard-educated intellectual in an absurd situation. The title of the book refers to the large room where Cummings slept beside thirty or so other prisoners. However, it also serves as an allegory for Cummings' mind and his memories of the prison – such that when he describes the many residents of his shared cell, they still live in the "enormous room" of his mind.

Synopsis

In 1917 young Edward Estlin Cummings went to France as a volunteer with a Red Cross ambulance unit on the western front. But his free-spirited, insubordinate ways soon got him tagged as a possible enemy of La Patrie, and he was summarily tossed into a French concentration camp at La Ferte-Mace in Normandy. Under the vilest conditions, Cummings found fulfillment of his ever elusive quest for freedom. The Enormous Room , his account of his four-month confinement, reads like a latter-day Pilgrim's Progress, a journey into dispossession, to a place among the most debased and deprived of human creatures. Cummings's hopeful tone reflects the essential paradox of his existence: to lose everything is to become free, and so to be saved.

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Details

Bookseller: Gregor Rare Books (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 27651
Title: The Enormous Room.
Author: cummings, e.e
Book Condition: Used
Quantity Available: 1
Edition: First edition thus
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Liveright,
Place of Publication: New York:
Date Published: 1950.
Weight: 0.00 lbs
Keywords: Literature

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Jacket: Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
First Edition: In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
New: A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
Fine: A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...