false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172167333m/144896.jpg 144896 18 A rambunctious modern novel by the twentieth century's most inventive poet. <br> <br>Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894, Edward Estlin Cummings rebelled against the prevailing values of his Harvard and Unitarianism-- steeped milieu. His relentless search for personal freedom led him to Greenwich Village in early 1917, where he established himself as a Modernist, composing his sui generis poems and abstract paintings. Later that year, he impulsively joined the war, serving in a Red Cross ambulance unit on the Western Front. His free-spirited, combative ways, however, soon got him tagged as a possible enemy of <i>La Patrie</i>, and he was summarily tossed into a French concentration camp at La Ferte-Mace in Normandy. <br> <br>Unexpectedly, under the vilest conditions, Cummings found fulfillment of his ever-elusive quest for freedom. <i>The Enormous Room</i> (1922), the fictional account of his four-month confinement, reads like a <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i> of the spirit, a journey into dispossession, to a place among the most debased and deprived of human creatures. Yet Cummings's hopeful tone reflects the essential paradox of his experience: to lose everything--all comforts, all possessions, all rights and privileges--is to become free, and so to be saved. Drawing on the diverse voices of his colorful prisonmates--Emile the Bum, the Fighting Sheeney, One-Eyed Dah-veed--Cummings weaves a "crazy-quilt" of language, which makes <i>The Enormous Room</i> one of the most evocative instances of the Modernist spirit and technique, as well as "one of the very best of the war-books" (T. E. Lawrence). 285621 1922 The Enormous Room total:278|5:88|4:107|3:68|2:12|1:3| 278 1099 548 30 4 1 false false Thu Feb 28 14:42:54 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 28 14:43:59 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 08:32:25 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 08:34:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 16 11:26:23 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 18 10:55:41 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Oct 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 16 18:50:13 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 03 06:39:18 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false true Fri Nov 16 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat May 24 14:18:13 -0700 2008 Sat May 24 14:45:17 -0700 2008
The men create a...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Tue Jan 22 12:04:45 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 22 12:04:45 -0800 2008
Cummings became famous for his poetry, but before that he wrote a now obscure novel-cum-memoir about his temporary imprisonment during World War I, The Enormous Room. Modeled loosely after Bunyan's magnum opus, Pilgrim's Progress, Cummings...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Nov 05 15:17:34 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 26 20:06:34 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu May 03 19:48:41 -0700 2007 Sat May 05 14:43:49 -0700 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 16:18:40 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 16:33:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 07 14:10:23 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 11 16:44:32 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Feb 23 09:20:31 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 23 09:21:50 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jan 02 16:54:26 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 16:56:04 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Mon Jun 04 11:56:05 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 04 12:00:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Jun 30 14:37:06 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 14:38:01 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Nov 09 09:25:00 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 09:50:04 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2010 Sun Sep 13 08:58:37 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 09:00:08 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Tue Dec 30 17:15:04 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 17:15:04 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Mon Oct 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 07:05:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 10:41:10 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jul 15 20:48:18 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 18 16:07:01 -0700 2007
The Enormous Room is his accou...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 03 10:09:11 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 25 14:23:58 -0700 2007
The book struck me as a celebration of the human spirit. The men imprisoned in The Enormous Room endure squalor, disease, malnut...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=144896