THE SMALL PRESS / Memory And Desire ALL EDITIONS

Deepening the mood of mystery are the novel's numerous allusions to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," which was first published in October 1922, toward the beginning of the Bywaters-Thompson trial. Quotations in [Edie Thompson]'s letters and streams-of- consciousness suggest th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNewsday
Main Author Celia Wren. Celia Wren is the managing editor at American Theater
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Long Island, N.Y Newsday LLC 30.09.2001
EditionCombined editions
Subjects
Dawson, Jill
Thompson, Edie
Thompson, Edith
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Summary:Deepening the mood of mystery are the novel's numerous allusions to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," which was first published in October 1922, toward the beginning of the Bywaters-Thompson trial. Quotations in [Edie Thompson]'s letters and streams-of- consciousness suggest that Eliot's masterpiece, with its portrait of spiritual desolation in the aftermath of World War I, has struck a chord in the imprisoned woman. But [Jill Dawson] mines the seminal modernist poem for more than characterization: Edie's feverish obsession with hyacinths and the cameo appearance of Madame Sosostris, Famous Clairvoyant - both borrowings from Eliot - help give "Fred & Edie" a phantasmagoric atmosphere reminiscent of "The Waste Land." Certainly, Edie seems to be moving through that work's "heap of broken images" when she staggers out of a back- alley abortion clinic onto the banks of a fog- shrouded Thames, where discarded fetuses bob in brown bags.