Saturday, October 15, 2005
The Final Battle
Rules for Old Men Waiting by Peter Pouncey is like a series of windows on scenes from a lifetime's intensity, exquisitely enacted by the fictitious narrator's use of real and imagined warriors in his family's three Anglo-American crusades, interspersed with vital memories of testimonies from the protagonist's novel research. Each layer of unreality simultaneously reveals more about a generational perspective on the confusions of war and family than I suspect any single memoir could accomplish. A remarkable literary achievement.
