The Divine Comedy E-Book

Craig Raine

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The Divine Comedy is a fugue and a black comedy. In delicious and bawdy detail, an unnamed narrator offers snapshots into the lives and loves of an astonishing cast of philanderers and fuckups while along the way, the evidence amasses for a comic, cosmic conspiracy. Craig Raine's second novel, The Divine Comedy, is a voyeuristic meditation on sex and insecurity, God and the nature of the human body - its capacity for pleasure and pain, its desires, disappointments, and its many mortifying betrayals.

Leseprobe

THE DIVINE

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Craig Raine, 2012

The moral right of Craig Raine to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The extract taken from ‘The Wasteland’ by T. S. Eliot © The Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

The extract taken from ‘Sneezles’ by A. A. Milne © The Estate of A. A. Milne and reprinted by permission of Egmont Ltd.

The extract taken from ‘Us Two’ by A. A. Milne © The Estate of A. A. Milne and reprinted by permission of Egmont Ltd.

The extract taken from ‘Circe’ by Gavin Ewart © The Estate of Gavin Ewart and reprinted by permission of Hutchinson, a division of Random House.

The extract taken from ‘Being a Wife’ by Selima Hill © Selima Hill and reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

The extract taken from ‘Asgwrn Cefn y Beic’ by Oliver Reynolds © and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 9781848872837 eISBN: 9780857897220

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House

– Hypocrite lecteur, – mon semblable, – mon frère!

– Baudelaire, ‘Au lecteur’

After two minutes that felt like six minutes, Rysieks electric toothbrush a present from an English friend had its brief but unmistakable orgasm. Normally, he never cleaned his teeth after lunch, but today he was going to see his dentist. Rysiek Harlan. You will be hearing more about him.

After two minutes that felt like six minutes.

The theme of subjectivity.

Its brief but unmistakable orgasm.

Precision. And, by contrast, the idea of human unreliability.

The machine, then, and the human being the machine with God in the machine.

The dentist is important, too.

Adam came before Eve. Eve came after Adam. If this were not the case, the human race would die out. Imagine a world in which the woman turns away from her toiling partner because she has already come and she is feeling sleepy and far too tired to wait for her mate to achieve his elusive orgasm. Eve has to come after Adam.

Once upon a time, there were three brothers (and a sister) who were Jewish. In fact, they were the children of the mohel. All three boys were circumcised, therefore. But the mohel was experienced and he knew from experience that, although circumcision was a religious and hygienic requirement, it could nevertheless entail certain disadvantages the main one being the skins loss of play along the shaft of the penis. Erect, the penis was solid, inflexible. Lose the prepuce in its entirety and you had a trombone without a slide. Masturbation was impossible without a lubricant. Well, not impossible, just rather awkward. Good. The mohel disapproved of the solitary vice.

Mutual heterosexual masturbation was also awkward. Not good. The wifes pleasuring of the husband prior to full intercourse held (the ) two possibilities. The first was unlubricated manhandling. With the hope, perhaps, that, were the wife naturally inventive or sexually savvy, saliva might stimulate the secretion of prostatic fluid (known in German as , the drop of longing).