12-30-2011, 04:41 AM
I have looked at the comments of others. I see that there has been doubt about the Roman numerals. So-- my take is simply that people use punctuation in all sorts of ways, or not at all, to give some colour of flavour to what they write, and thus Roman must be legitimate, and having been used ,it does achieve something, but it is unsayable, except that it serves to sever one piece from another, thus creating pauses of a special type. I salute this --it is original.
Then we have been exercised about the sniper Hans. I choose to see him either as a real man, the lover, whose name chances to be Hans, who constantly disturbs in one way or another---OR it is more of a dream than fantasy, and somewhere, he is compared with a bona fide German sniper of WW11. There is no way of knowing; and it perhaps does not matter overly. A real German sniper might merge into the lover because of his unpredictable attacks. Alternate readings may produce a kind of synthesis.
It may be a simple statement of what occurred, but my inclination is to see it as dream-like, and I think I have said enough. I liked it, and the fact that it encouraged me to read it over several times, speaks for it. But then, I am a lousy critic...
Then we have been exercised about the sniper Hans. I choose to see him either as a real man, the lover, whose name chances to be Hans, who constantly disturbs in one way or another---OR it is more of a dream than fantasy, and somewhere, he is compared with a bona fide German sniper of WW11. There is no way of knowing; and it perhaps does not matter overly. A real German sniper might merge into the lover because of his unpredictable attacks. Alternate readings may produce a kind of synthesis.
It may be a simple statement of what occurred, but my inclination is to see it as dream-like, and I think I have said enough. I liked it, and the fact that it encouraged me to read it over several times, speaks for it. But then, I am a lousy critic...