The thirty year epic story of Horatio, an idealist who struggles to take his place in a conformist society and still retain his personal identity. "If we conformed to the mad society, we became mad," Paul Goodman writes in Empire City , "but if we did not conform to the only society that there is, we became mad." That theme prevades much of this novel that the Review of Contemporary Fiction , among others, praised as "a remarkable achievement." This comic-picaresque epic is about the coming-of-age of Horatio, a sane ...
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The thirty year epic story of Horatio, an idealist who struggles to take his place in a conformist society and still retain his personal identity. "If we conformed to the mad society, we became mad," Paul Goodman writes in Empire City , "but if we did not conform to the only society that there is, we became mad." That theme prevades much of this novel that the Review of Contemporary Fiction , among others, praised as "a remarkable achievement." This comic-picaresque epic is about the coming-of-age of Horatio, a sane man in an absurd world. Our endearingly optimistic hero resists his compulsory mis-education, does battle with the System, and scours post-World War II Manhattan for an elective family of fellow-thinkers and, more important, fellow-feelers. It's a big book, but Horatio's is a big world, and his question the biggest a man can ask: "How does one live the right life?" As Goodman once said, "I might seem to have a number of divergent interests--community planning, psychotherapy, education, politics--but they are all one concern: how to make it possible to grow up as a human being into a culture without losing nature. I simply refuse to acknowledge that a sensible and honorable community does not exist."
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Seller's Description:
New. Book Red cloth spine w/ label, photo gray bds. In publisher's original mylar protector. No. 47 of the 100 Deluxe copies. Designer: Barbara Martin. Preface: Taylor Stoehr. Unread collectible copy. 28282 shelf.
