The Enormous Room

Born in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1894 Edward Estlin Cummings rebelledagainst the prevailing values of his Harvard and Unitarianismsteeped milieu.His relentles... » 

Born in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1894 Edward Estlin Cummings rebelledagainst the prevailing values of his Harvard and Unitarianismsteeped milieu.His relentless search for personal freedom led him to Greenwich Village inearly 1917 where he established himself as a Modernist composing his suigeneris poems and abstract paintings. Later that year he impulsively joinedthe war serving in a Red Cross ambulance unit on the Western Front. His freespirited combative ways however soon got him tagged as a possible enemy ofLa Patrie and he was summarily tossed into a French concentration camp at LaFerteMace in Normandy.Unexpectedly under the vilest conditions Cummingsfound fulfillment of his everelusive quest for freedom. The Enormous Room1922 the fictional account of his fourmonth confinement reads like aPilgrims Progress of the spirit a journey into dispossession to a placeamong the most debased and deprived of human creatures. Yet Cummingss hopefultone reflects the essential paradox of his experience to lose everything all comforts all possessions all rights and privileges is to becomefree and so to be saved. Drawing on the diverse voices of his colorfulprisonmates Emile the Bum the Fighting Sheeney OneEyed Dahveed Cummings weaves a crazyquilt of language which makes The Enormous Roomone of the most evocative instances of the Modernist spirit and technique aswell as one of the very best of the warbooks T. E. Lawrence. «