The Many Change and Pass
By R.P. Burnham
()
About this ebook
“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.” This passage from the funeral service in The Book of Common Prayer is justly famous because it a beautiful expression, in stately Elizabethan prose, of the human condition. Given these limitations, how we spend our time on earth becomes the choice confronting every human being. Most people, like the Kimball family in this novel, are too preoccupied with daily survival to give much thought to larger issues and the common good. Others, like Ned Ridlon, are too self-absorbed in the pursuit of money and power to care. But there are always people like Myron Seavey and Chris Andrews who do fulfill Hamlet’s description of a human being as one who has “such large discourse/Looking before and after,” people who are fully conscious of their human duty to try to make the earth and the life it sustains, both human and nonhuman, better than they found it. The contrast between these two men is one of the central focuses of the novel. Myron Seavey, the inheritor of a Quaker-Unitarian activist background, is open-minded enough to fall in love with a conservative Republican woman. Chris Andrews, in contrast, is single-mindedly and overweeningly a green activist who does not believe in compromise with those whose selfishness would destroy the earth for quick profit. The action, which takes place in a small town in Maine and in Portland, begins with the mercury poisoning of a little boy and entails a wide canvas of other characters, including Adam Kaminski, who in the manner of the French eccentric Facteur Chevel builds a strange hybrid temple; Patti Ryan, a decent, progressive woman who loves Chris Andrews; Donna McClellen, who at first lives with a rock musician and who tries to convince her friend Virgie that her troubles would be lessened if she helped others at a soup kitchen; and Rev. John Covington, who is visited by doubts after a stark pastoral conversation with the sick Adam Kaminski. Finally, Shelley’s line from Adonis (whence comes the title of the novel), “The One remains, the many change and pass,” gives rise to a further question that the novel explores: who or what is the One that remains?
R.P. Burnham
R.P. Burnham edits The Long Story literary magazine and is a writer. He has published fiction and essays in many literary magazines. He has published six novels with The Wessex Collective—On a Darkling Plain, Envious Shadows, The Many Change and Pass, A Robin Redbreast in a Cage, The Two Paths and Jonathan Willing's Travels to Pangea. The Guy in 3-C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables was published as a chapbook in 2000.Most of his fiction is set in Maine, where he was born and raised and has deep root; thematically his fiction explores the boundaries of the self and addresses the question of what our duties and responsibilities are to others. The Least Shadow of Public Thought, a book of his essays that introduce each issue of The Long Story, was published in 1996 by Juniper Press as part of its Voyages Series. He was educated at the University of Southern Maine (undergraduate) and The University of Wisconsin–Madison (graduate). He is married to Kathleen A. FitzPatrick, an associate professor of Health Science at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA.
Read more from R.P. Burnham
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Guy in 3C and Other Tales, Satires and Fables Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJonathan Willing's Travels to Pangea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnvious Shadows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Two Paths Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn a Darkling Plain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Many Change and Pass
Related ebooks
Call Me Rhys Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA King by Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories Worth Rereading Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Wells' Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Marriage Made in Reading: and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fifth World: An eShort Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Blindfold Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cancelled in Red Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Only Great Changes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBook of Creation Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Road Seven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lecturer's Tale: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of Godlike Power Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLast Conflict: Classic Science Fiction Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhite Butterfly: An Easy Rawlins Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Going-Out-Of-Religion Sale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Shot Lewis Vance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night's Master Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5... Old, and Full of Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Orchid: A Thriller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStriketeam Book Two: Focus of the Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case of the Murdered Madame Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women Crime Writers Volume Two: You Have a Very Soft Voice, Susan; Daddy's Little Secret; My Son, The Killer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tremble in the Air Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Genius and the Goddess: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Terminal List: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Many Change and Pass
0 ratings0 reviews