Talk:The Oldest Confession

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 Definition:  The first of many novels by the American satirist and thriller writer Richard Condon, it concerns a gang of thieves who steal Old Master paintings in 1950s Spain. [d] [e]
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 Workgroup category:  Literature [Editors asked to check categories]
 Talk Archive:  none  English language variant:  American English

strange, meaningless sentence to put into the article eventually

page 29, discussing "criminality" and what it needs (or means) in terms of the artist: "It is agreed with a social sense removed because what is there to be taken must be taken by the criminal consistent with his inner resources, eliminating envy, a much smaller sin." Gibberish. Maybe some words are missing from this edition. Paperback, A Four Square Book, London, 1965, paperback. First published in HB by Longmans, Green & Company, Ltd, London, 1959. Hayford Peirce 02:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

May I say, with admiration, that the heading of this section, with minor tweaking, deserves some form of literary immortality? Not many phrases evoke, simultaneously, images of Finnegans Wake and Superman. :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 03:18, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Hehe. Which Superman? The Neitchian version, or the DC Comics one? Hayford Peirce 04:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Ummm..the fifties TV version..."Strange visitor from another planet, with powers and abilities..."
As far as Nietzsche, you may not know that I was born, apropos of things that do not destroy us, in Newark, New Jersey. That may have something to do with my experience living in Washington DC during the more intense protests, where I learned to love the smell of tear gas in the morning; it cleared the sinuses. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Merde! an edit conflict wiped me out!! I was saying, however, that we didn't get TV in Bangah, Maine, until around 1952-3, so I never saw any of the TV shows, because we then began moving around the country. There were a couple of horrible movies, however. And yes, I imagine that being a Newarkian can prepare anyone for anything! Hayford Peirce 04:25, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

notes for things to put into article

  • "I am you and you are me and what can we do for the salvation of each other?" etc, page #106 -- also in Keener's Manual in Man. Candidate and maybe, if I recall correctly, from other Condon works.
  • Quotes from book reviews: NYT, Time, maybe Newsweek are available, maybe others

time mag footnote format

<xref>Time magazine, "South Pacific is Back on Broadway... Finally", April 3, 2008, at [1] </ref>

Condon cult?

1. This is different than cargo cult?

I think he makes a passing reference to them in one of his 1970s books.

2. If so, is it headed by the Queen of Diamonds? Howard C. Berkowitz 00:11, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Given Condon's love for good food, Diamond Jim Brady, I would say. (I meant to write him up for this month's Writarama but did something else instead. Maybe for Feb.) Hayford Peirce 01:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

NYT stuff to put in article

Review in daily Times by Charles Poore, May 1, 1958. Mostly about the plot. Marqués de Villabra. Dos de Mayo, Second of May. "There is a murderous sort of zaniness to Mr. Condon's plot." Finally got a link to it at http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F60610FE3C59107B93C3A9178ED85F4C8585F9 Hayford Peirce 23:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC) "With a technique that requires all surprises and revelations to be undermined by fresh surprises and revelations, Mr. Condon spins everyone deeper and deeper into the plot." Hayford Peirce 17:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Very strange -- missing last four paragraphs from the first edition hardback

The Appleton hardback, first edition, has the epigraph missing from the British paperback on its title page, BUT, incredibly, does not have the very final four paragraphs of the book. Here they are:

She [Eve] left in the [Duchess's] Daimler at two o'clock the following morning. They arrived at Irún at ten minutes after eight. As the seeress had predicted, her passport was stamped with quite some deference and they rolled across the bridge into France.

She had breakfast in Bayonne. While she ate a croissant and drank a café au lait she read that Jean Marie had hanged himself in his cell. She could only remember the words to the Lord's Prayer and since she knew no other she sat with her head in her hands and said the Lord's Prayer once, twice, then three times.

She spent the night in Vendome. She reached Paris quite early the next morning. She had been drinking steadily all the way, but she was not drunk.

The apartment she and Bourne had lived in seemed alien and changed. She needed a brandy. The decanter was empty. She crossed the living room, then the kitchen. She opened the cellar door. A stench assailed her. She looked down. Chern's dead hand reached. His ruined face stared. She screamed. She screamed again. She could not stop screaming.

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