630
PARTISAN REVIEW
woman whose name means Poetry could offer him more than the world
ever could. The result was a plot in which after a certain point the central
character can only turn again and again in the circuits of his one obsession,
circling back on the apartment where Shira is no longer to be found,
revolving in his mind the idea of the tragedy he would write and the
memory of the flesh that cannot be forgotten, which are but obverse sides of
the same lost coin.
There are certain works of literature that are finally stymied by the
bold effort of the writer to pursue a personal vision beyond the limits of
precedent and genre. Stendhal's
Charterhouse
is a memorably case in point;
another, still closer to
Shira
in it actual incompletion, is Kafka's
The Castle .
Confronted with this order of originality, most readers, I think, will
be
content
with the splendid torso, however much they may regret the absence of the
fully sculpted figure. In
Shira
the hero's final way to the place of poetry and
truth, where death hones desire, is indicated rather than fictionally imagined.
But Herbst's descent into an underworld of
eros
and art, enacted against the
background ofJerusalem life in the gathering shadows of a historical cata–
clysm of inconceivable proportions, is so brilliantly rendered that
Shira ,
even
without an ending, deserves a place among the
m~or
modern novels.
EVOLUTION OF THE MIND
by
John
G.
Elliot~
D.A, M.S., M.LS.
New thought-provoking concep–
tions.
Al\Swering often asked
questions; What part of me goes
into the invisible phase of life?
How much of my experience, etc.,
goes with me?
It removes the
occult from this misunderstood
subject.
Purchase this 145 page book
at any book store, using the
ISBN-0918892-08-2.
Or directly
from Gibson-Hiller Co., Publisher,
P.O. Box 991 N Dayton,OH 45414
Enclose $5.95 plus $1 .00 for postage
and handling.
