DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Pegasus, v. 2, issue 1, Summer 1943

Transcribe
Translate

Pegasus, v. 2, issue 1, Summer 1943

Page 16

"ULTIMO" book review

-- "Ultimo", text by Ruth Vassos, projections by John Vassos, E. P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1930. 43 pp.

Future historians take note: seers, unshroud your crystals. Here is a prophecy sounded in an authoritative tone, which will give you much to ponder and consider, whether you agree or dispute; and between whiles you may read it out of curiosity. It is promised that you will not lay down the book because of disinterest.

Countless millenia hence a shivering human race hugs the earth's equator and builds huge insulation bubbles under which to exist. The sun, a dully staring orb of tarnished red, drifts sluggishly across the heavens which once it spanned in twelve hours and its vitiated rays but scarcely illuminate the snows which it used to melt in a twinkling. and, winter by stark winter, the snows have heaped up until it is always winter.

The soaring structures of the proud elites have been buried, and the last ocean craft was inextricably frozen amid the bergs, generations and generations ago. Daring men, protected by insulation and heaters against the claws of the cold, used to venture out upon the naked wastes of ice; but it is always the same out there, and now men crouch in their bubbles, waiting for the accumulators to run down.

But the engineers of that time have not lost their daring. Into the earth they sink mighty shafts; and far below, in the warmth of the terrestrial core, the caverns are made in which the race flourishes again.

The result is an Utopia beyond dreams, an underground paradise where man expands and applies his heritage of reason with purpose to eradicate his own flaws. He becomes a thoroughly social being, and the paths of his being run smoothly.

The tale is told by a young man of that golden-age period. Life is in the main good, but terrifyingly monotonous, and he must escape. The drama of his life and escape is not the concern of the book; but it does cast a flicker of color across the pages of the text.

For the lovers of imaginative work, however, it is not the text at all but the illustrations, that will capture interest. Let it be said here that John Vassos is a psychologist of repute, and his "projections", besides being pictures as such, are media for the conveying of entirely subjective nuances of meaning. Besides the accustomed contents of a picture -- that is, such things as form, tonal values, masses -- these contain much also of that subtle, elusive quality called atmosphere. In many of them the atmosphere is little short of unearthly, with the misty diaphanous texture of a Debussy Impression.

Saving...

"ULTIMO" book review -- "Ultimo", text by Ruth Vassos, projections by John Vassos, E. P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1930. 43 pp. Future historians take note: seers, unshroud your crystals. Here is a prophecy sounded in an authoritative tone, which will give you much to ponder and consider, whether you agree or dispute; and between whiles you may read it out of curiosity. It is promised that you will not lay down the book because of disinterest. Countless millenia hence a shivering human race hugs the earth's equator and builds huge insulation bubbles under which to exist. The sun, a dully staring orb of tarnished red, drifts sluggishly across the heavens which once it spanned in twelve hours and its vitiated rays but scarcely illuminate the snows which it used to melt in a twinkling. and, winter by stark winter, the snows have heaped up until it is always winter. The soaring structures of the proud elites have been buried, and the last ocean craft was inextricably frozen amid the bergs, generations and generations ago. Daring men, protected by insulation and heaters against the claws of the cold, used to venture out upon the naked wastes of ice; but it is always the same out there, and now men crouch in their bubbles, waiting for the accumulators to run down. But the engineers of that time have not lost their daring. Into the earth they sink mighty shafts; and far below, in the warmth of the terrestrial core, the caverns are made in which the race flourishes again. The result is an Utopia beyond dreams, an underground paradise where man expands and applies his heritage of reason with purpose to eradicate his own flaws. He becomes a thoroughly social being, and the paths of his being run smoothly. The tale is told by a young man of that golden-age period. Life is in the main good, but terrifyingly monotonous, and he must escape. The drama of his life and escape is not the concern of the book; but it does cast a flicker of color across the pages of the text. For the lovers of imaginative work, however, it is not the text at all but the illustrations, that will capture interest. Let it be said here that John Vassos is a psychologist of repute, and his "projections", besides being pictures as such, are media for the conveying of entirely subjective nuances of meaning. Besides the accustomed contents of a picture -- that is, such things as form, tonal values, masses -- these contain much also of that subtle, elusive quality called atmosphere. In many of them the atmosphere is little short of unearthly, with the misty diaphanous texture of a Debussy Impression.