What a Man Can See: Russell Edson Fables, Ray Johnson Drawings

Abstract

The key to my understanding of this book is that it is in the same Jargon series in which one finds Kenneth Patchen's Fables and Other Little Tales (1953). I understand the works in both books about equally--that is, very little. These works are all in prose, and most of them are one page in length. A few of them of which I start to get a sense are Something to Tell People, A Man with a Tree on his Head, Mrs Pinch & a Bad Mister Man, The Fall, Mr and Mrs Mildred Pump, and If I Remember. There seems to be a good deal of interrelation in the works: items and phrases from earlier works recur in later ones. The modality of this work seems to be dream and dreamlike association. I do not get a sense of the relation of the visual art to the literature here. I am also unsure in what sense fable applies to this collection.