http://www.edrants.com/roundtable-discussion-eric-krafts-flying/ a cultural website in ever-shifting standing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:01:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.edrants.com/roundtable-discussion-eric-krafts-flying/comment-page-1/#comment-251034 Kathleen Maher Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:44:28 +0000 http://www.edrants.com/?p=10440#comment-251034 Having read only the trilogy, "Taking Off," "On the Wing," and "Flying Home," beautifully published as one book in "Flying," I can speak only to the question of personal memory vs. what really happened. Everyone's perspective of "what really happened" necessarily involves his or her personality as it invokes memory. Even if you ask people what really happened directly after an event, their impressions will vary--often wildly. Peter Leroy's memory soars past prismatic confusion. His story is so consistent and funny; his personality so ebullient and engaging; and his wife so lovely and wry as his faithful alter-ego invested in helping him discover the truth or at least strike a balance that's "plausible" that this fiction works on a higher plane than ordinary "reality," let alone real life. The novels offer us nothing less than the essential and the transcendent. Having read only the trilogy, “Taking Off,” “On the Wing,” and “Flying Home,” beautifully published as one book in “Flying,” I can speak only to the question of personal memory vs. what really happened.
Everyone’s perspective of “what really happened” necessarily involves his or her personality as it invokes memory. Even if you ask people what really happened directly after an event, their impressions will vary–often wildly.
Peter Leroy’s memory soars past prismatic confusion. His story is so consistent and funny; his personality so ebullient and engaging; and his wife so lovely and wry as his faithful alter-ego invested in helping him discover the truth or at least strike a balance that’s “plausible” that this fiction works on a higher plane than ordinary “reality,” let alone real life.
The novels offer us nothing less than the essential and the transcendent.

]]> http://www.edrants.com/roundtable-discussion-eric-krafts-flying/comment-page-1/#comment-250990 ss Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:45:41 +0000 http://www.edrants.com/?p=10440#comment-250990 so thrilled you're doing this! I too have read every single on of Eric's books and have been breathlessly awaiting Flying Home. The weirdest thing is that his world becomes so enveloping that sometimes in reading the account of one of the "historic events" in the memoirs, you [or at least I] find yourself thinking "now that's not how it happened" because you remember it differently from how it was told in another of the books . . . . Like the various later egos in Passionate Spectator or Peter and Eric staring at each other in Small's Hotel, or Peter in Herb n Lorna, you no longer know who is creating whom and realize that we're all authors of the prism reflecting events real or imagined. so thrilled you’re doing this! I too have read every single on of Eric’s books and have been breathlessly awaiting Flying Home. The weirdest thing is that his world becomes so enveloping that sometimes in reading the account of one of the “historic events” in the memoirs, you [or at least I] find yourself thinking “now that’s not how it happened” because you remember it differently from how it was told in another of the books . . . . Like the various later egos in Passionate Spectator or Peter and Eric staring at each other in Small’s Hotel, or Peter in Herb n Lorna, you no longer know who is creating whom and realize that we’re all authors of the prism reflecting events real or imagined.

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