My dear readers,
Wake up! Listen.
Eric Larsen, writer of the award-winning An American Memory, the novels I Am Zoe Handke and The End of the 19th Century; as well as books of social, political and literary criticism, such as A Nation Gone Blind and The Skull of Yorick, among others.
He is the founder and executive editor of Oliver Arts and Open Press.
Submitted for your “approval” is a piece by Larsen titled Decline and Fall. It is a piece of — rather apocalyptic — literature. By “literature” I don’t mean whatever’s hot on the NY Times (“all the few deem fit to print”) best-seller lists, but that it requires some concentration on the reader’s part. It is “long,” relative to the two-sentence Internet norm, but not “infinite” and surely no “Jest.” About 30 pages of sometimes “difficult” but ultimately rewarding prose.
Those who read it (ones who have, as you digerati say, “the mojo”) will come away enlightened, amused, and scared shit-less.
Such is this Phantom’s opinion. As always, I leave it to you — those who still retain a “you” to refer to that has not been subsumed and digested thoroughly by the “them” — to decide.
As Ever (and ever and ever and ever)
The Phantom
(Link to PDF below. Have or download an e-reader or capable browser.
You know the routine…)