A History of the Imagination [Paperback]

Norman Lock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2004

A History of the Imagination is a postmodern tale of adventure that reshapes the parameters of time and space, thought and action. In a metaphorical Africa, replete with nostalgia (but no dimensions), anything can happen and usually does. The narrator defends his magical departures, saying his is a history of possibilities, where fiction is "no less real for [it's] being so." But when Darwin's corpse begins to lust after Colette and the African porters go on strike because the author hasn't acknowledged the important role they play, we are left to wonder: just how far is reality from dreams?

Norman Lock juxtaposes remote times and places, historical facts and literary fictions, to create an absurdist collage reminiscent of Guy Davenport and Donald Barthelme. In this world it is not impossible to sail from Mombasa to Cinncinati, or to set out from the City of Radiant Objects, where "things are free of the obligation to signify," or to go hunting icebergs in a quest to avenge the Titanic at last. Borne aloft by Wilbur Wright, Jules Verne, Ziegfield, and Houdini, we find ourselves lost again in a "seam in the world...between History and Imagination."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Norman Lock:

"Lock's weapon is words and he uses them well ... like a nightmare that wakes you up shaking, forcing you to reassess your life." --LA Life

"Lock's genius is how he plays the edge for uneasy laughs." --Outlook

About the Author

Norman Lock has published fiction in a number of journals, including Pangolin Papers (which awarded him its fiction prize for 2001) and The Paris Review (which awarded him the Aga Kahn Prize in 1979). His play, The House of Correction, was voted one of the year's best by the Los Angeles Times in 1988. Lock has taught literature and creative writing in a federal prison since 1990 and he is also a senior writer for an advertising agency in southern New Jersey. He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Syracuse University, New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Fiction Collective 2; 1 edition (August 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573661155
• ISBN-13: 978-1573661157
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,643,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must Read, November 15, 2004

By 

Daniel Wieczorek "Dan Wieczorek" (The Great U S of A) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of the Imagination (Paperback)

Wow, I could not put this book down. Not since Kurt Vonnegut has an author provoked such imaginative thought out of me. Beautifully done, cant say enough good things about A History of the Imagination. Cant wait to indulge in his next work.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance!, September 16, 2004

By 

Andrew Comi "Andy C" (Akureyri, Iceland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of the Imagination (Paperback)

Lock does it again. This is his best work since "The House of Corrections!" I simply could not put this book down. Every line is a masterpiece, it's pure poetry in a novel form.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Standard Post-Modern stuff, November 2, 2005

By 

Earl Lee (Pittsburg, KS United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of the Imagination (Paperback)

This "postmodern tale of adventure" is set in Africa, presumably of the 1920s. Norman Lock is a gifted writer, but this collection of vignettes is ultimately unsatisfying. The opening chapter, staring Prince Kong (later to become King Kong) is fairly typical. It is not so much a story as a bedroom farce, with the narrator competing with Prince Kong (and with Lenin) for the affections of Mrs. Willoughby. As a comedy the book is sometimes mildly amusing, but-like giant bucket of popcorn-ultimately too repetitive in style.
The writing is fairly typical of the kind of "postmodern" stuff coming out of Creative Writing programs these days. This book is a collection of brief vignettes populated by famous people-or at least their names are attached to a series of flat, empty characters. One gets the feeling that the book was composed by using those magnetic words that you can stick to a refrigerator in order to make weird sentences. Or perhaps the author clipped sentences out of a 1920s novel and then inserted the appropriately "postmodern" cliché. The characters are stick figures who are, themselves, generally the butt of the satire. I would say this book is "satiric" rather than "humorous" because there is very little humor in the story. Instead, this reader tends to cringe at each new episode. Ultimately you have to wonder what the point of this "postmodern" exercise is supposed to be. The stories are ultimately very forgettable. As much as you might admire the author's technical proficiency, the book has no heart.
It's worth comparing this novel with Tom Sharpe's Riotous Assembly (1971) a political satire set in Africa. Sharpe's novel is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. Unlike A History of the Imagination, Sharpe's novel has an agenda: mocking the white regime in South Africa. Tom Sharpe's characters have an idea about what constitutes Right and Wrong, a necessary element in creating humorous scenes. The characters are usually mistaken in their moral views, at least from the point of view of most readers, and this is where the satire comes in. Norman Lock's characters, on the other hand, never rise above the level of trying to figure out whether or not it is appropriate to have sex with an unconscious woman. For this reason, his attempts at satire seem pointless and redundant.