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A review by darwin8u
The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings
4.0
It struck me at the time as intensely interesting that, in the case of a certain type of human being, the more cruel are the miseries inflicted upon him the more cruel does he become toward anyone who is so unfortunate as to be weaker or more miserable than himself."
― E.E. Cummings, The Enormous Room
Prison Literature as a genre is fascinating. Like war literature, there is this gap between those who have actually lived in prison and their experiences and those who imagine. Certainly the job of the fiction writer is to explore spaces unknown to most, and perhaps unknown even to the author. Science Fiction is filled with writing that follows that pattern. However, from the several novels I've read by authors who have actually been in prison (like books written by those who have actually fought in war), the experience seems to create an almost surreal or absurd view of things. E.E. Cummings who was incarcerated by the French during WWI because of letters written by his friend, portrays this absurdity of confinement in this novel, and just as Dostoevsky does in [b:Notes from a Dead House|22474925|Notes from a Dead House|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1417983674s/22474925.jpg|320469] or Solzhenitsyn does in [b:One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich|17125|One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1427731744s/17125.jpg|838042]. I could continue the list with works by Paul Bunyan, Cervantes, Marque de Sade, Chester Himes, O. Henry, Jack London, Jean Genet, Oscar Wilde, etc. I could also include the political writing and books by Napoleon, Hitler, Malcom X, Mussolini, etc.
Obviously, the political tracts written in prison (or even the religious tracts too) deserve a lot of attention, but 'The Enormous Room' has more in common with Kafka and the modernists than it does with any protest writing. It is the attempt by the trapped artist to create something from an experience. It is a scratch to explain, a scribble to remember, a set of words meant to make sense of the absurdity of the cell. This isn't a perfect book and I will be the first to admit I prefer E.E. Cummings poetry to his prose. But it is also an important marker. It is a novel that shows just how warped even good systems can get during war, and just how pleasant some captives really are. In many ways Cummings wasn't writing to right some wrong, or to expose some evil. He seemed to treat his experience in France as almost an illness, a temporary convalescence that served as a puparium. It wasn't an obvious transformation. He didn't walk in an innocent and exit an artist, but it seemed to be a vector of growth, an accelerant toward the artist.
As I write this I also think there is a natural pull of artist and prison. Does that seem harsh? Prisons represent the ultimate impulse to control for conformity. It is natural that this impulse seeks out and grabs the artist; the ultimate non-conformist. Society is always trying to keep the artist in check, and when the odd, the aberrant, the avante-garde appears too far ahead, too dangerous for the masses, it is often easier for society to just lock the odd up. I don't think this is likely to ever change. There will always be conflict between Pan and Panopticon.
― E.E. Cummings, The Enormous Room
Prison Literature as a genre is fascinating. Like war literature, there is this gap between those who have actually lived in prison and their experiences and those who imagine. Certainly the job of the fiction writer is to explore spaces unknown to most, and perhaps unknown even to the author. Science Fiction is filled with writing that follows that pattern. However, from the several novels I've read by authors who have actually been in prison (like books written by those who have actually fought in war), the experience seems to create an almost surreal or absurd view of things. E.E. Cummings who was incarcerated by the French during WWI because of letters written by his friend, portrays this absurdity of confinement in this novel, and just as Dostoevsky does in [b:Notes from a Dead House|22474925|Notes from a Dead House|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1417983674s/22474925.jpg|320469] or Solzhenitsyn does in [b:One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich|17125|One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1427731744s/17125.jpg|838042]. I could continue the list with works by Paul Bunyan, Cervantes, Marque de Sade, Chester Himes, O. Henry, Jack London, Jean Genet, Oscar Wilde, etc. I could also include the political writing and books by Napoleon, Hitler, Malcom X, Mussolini, etc.
Obviously, the political tracts written in prison (or even the religious tracts too) deserve a lot of attention, but 'The Enormous Room' has more in common with Kafka and the modernists than it does with any protest writing. It is the attempt by the trapped artist to create something from an experience. It is a scratch to explain, a scribble to remember, a set of words meant to make sense of the absurdity of the cell. This isn't a perfect book and I will be the first to admit I prefer E.E. Cummings poetry to his prose. But it is also an important marker. It is a novel that shows just how warped even good systems can get during war, and just how pleasant some captives really are. In many ways Cummings wasn't writing to right some wrong, or to expose some evil. He seemed to treat his experience in France as almost an illness, a temporary convalescence that served as a puparium. It wasn't an obvious transformation. He didn't walk in an innocent and exit an artist, but it seemed to be a vector of growth, an accelerant toward the artist.
As I write this I also think there is a natural pull of artist and prison. Does that seem harsh? Prisons represent the ultimate impulse to control for conformity. It is natural that this impulse seeks out and grabs the artist; the ultimate non-conformist. Society is always trying to keep the artist in check, and when the odd, the aberrant, the avante-garde appears too far ahead, too dangerous for the masses, it is often easier for society to just lock the odd up. I don't think this is likely to ever change. There will always be conflict between Pan and Panopticon.