428
PARTISAN REVIEW
The Russian word for
dream-is son.
The word for
son
is-
sin.
The Father's fear is every fear. His dread of his Son is a dread
of his old age, his defeat, death and dissolution. To him, Buckley
stands for Change. He is his Anxiety. He is all Uncertainty. He is
Tomorrow.
In a similar fashion, Buckley's guilt is every guilt. The Father
is the Yesterday. He is all Authority. He is Law and Precedent. Any
time that these are breached, Buckley shoots the General.
On p. 334, when the picture is described, some of the phrases
parody Tennyson's
The Light Brigade.
The horses and the men also
echo
Humpty Dumpty.
In other words, the tale of Buckley- the tale
of the Light Brigade-is the story of a Fall. Humpty Dumpty is the
Egg. He must fall and burst for the future to emerge.
There are the rhythms, too, of
John Peel.
A hunter's song. We
hear a shout of
Tallaght Hoe.
Tally-ho. A cry of life. - But Tallaght
was the old Irish place of burial.
It is thus a cry of death.
The Father is a sacrifice.
He's the host: the communion, the bread, the staff of life. The
phallic staff.
He's the totem. The communal father. He dies-so his sons may
live. On p. 7, his sons devour his flowerwhite body-his
flour–
white body.
The word
host
means
sacrifice.
He is the biological host. He carries in him the organism that
is going to destroy him.
As for the Russian general, his name is de Todleben.
De
Tod,
Leben.
From Death-Life.
The Artist is the Host. He dispenses the spmts, the water of
life. On p. 44, a man whose name is Hosty sings the Archetypical
Song.
He is the Host. The sacrifice. He suffers so that he may sing.
The painful thorn is at
his
breast.
