Author Description

There Is No Conquest That Has Only One Story To It. It Is Made Up Of At Least Two--one Narrated By The Conquerors And The Other By The Conquered. Foil To The Story Of That Steamship Sailing Into Darkness, There Is Another Being Told Beyond The Point Where The Civilization Of Hunters, Traders, Explorers, And Colonizers Stops And The Jungle Begins. We Have No Clue To Its Content. The Most A Narratology Of The Civilized Can Do, Using All The Sophistication Of Its Craft, Is To Acknowledge It By A Rhetoric Of Incomprehension: Eyes Which Glow In The Bush As Evidence Of A Numerous But Unseen Presence; The Gathering And Dispersal Of Shadows There After The Logic Of Some Mysterious Movement; Voices Which Drone Like Chants, Rise Like Cries, And Die Back Into Silence Signifying Nothing; And The Drums: At Night Sometimes The Roll Of Distant Drums Behind The Curtain Of Trees Would Run Up The River And Remain Sustained Faintly, As If Hovering In The Air High Over Our Heads, Till The First Break Of Day. Whether It Meant War, Peace Or Prayer We Could Not Tell (hod, 68; My Emphasis)-- Provided By Publisher.