Simmons' ENDYMION begins with an account of a hunting party: our hero
as the guide with all the appropriate skills, a group of fat,
arrogant, ignorant business men who refuse to listen to the guide's
admonitions. One of the slobs kills Endymion's dog; Endymion, trying
his best, accidentally kills one of the business men, for which the
authorities condemn him to death. Other Hemingway imitators have done
it better. The hero is named for the city on Hyperion, not for the
title-charactor of the poem. The poem, if you remember, is a kind of
loathly lady story. That is, Endymion. who had thought he could never
love any earthly woman, and whom Diana has rejected, finally comes to
realize, and to admit, that he loves his mistress despite her
earthiness; she thereupon reveals that she is the goddess. The novel
could, in several ways, have worked the same theme, but it does not.
It is all about fighting and killing and the hero protecting the
innocence of a young girl.--R.D. Mullen <[log in to unmask]>
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