Life

The Indian, Thai, Japanese and Chinese are not the only Asian cultures that MM describes. In Northeast Asia he also writes about Korea; in Southeast Asia, about Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. To pieces about Southeast Asia and Western Europe Life adds descriptions of Africa, Central Europe, China and the USA, all regions that Morrison has recently visited and written about. These pieces will appear in a collection that serves as the final book of the Sentence but also its first (in the retrograde reading). Just as Sleep evolves into the Sentence, so the Sentence devolves into Life. Given its position some may regard the epic’s last book as the end, but by turning the epic around, MM implies, death can be averted, as the starting point of the oeuvre is reconceived. Now we may move through the Sentence backwards and forwards, endlessly. Among other possible ways of reading it are: (a) forwards from Sleep to Engendering and backwards from Life to Her; (b) forwards and backwards simultaneously, by pairs of books; (c) backwards and/or forwards from any given point; and (d) along vertical lines such as SOL to R to H (giving us the Solar sequence Sleep, O, Light, Realization, Happening). Hence a freedom of movement is bestowed on the reader and with it the opportunity to explore the full variety in Sentence of the Gods.

The cosmic force Madison Morrison strikes again. — Bob Arnold

I'm not quite sure how to describe Sunnyvale. It's a fascinating journey of discovery that draws you along. Indeed it's very like a series of "blocks" on Tennessee Williams' Camino Real and has that same kind of feel to it. It's rather like tickling trout, you're sure you've grasped the meaning but then it slips from your grasp. All in all fascinating reading. — Keith Walker

(Sunnyvale / California, the USA and the Universe, coming next season)