The Descent of Alette

The book is divided into four books, each of which describe narratively a stage of a journey. In the first book we join our narrator in the subway/underworld, reminiscent of Dante's purgatory or that episode of Dr. Who where everyone is trapped in a tunnel driving around eternally. I absolutely loved the first book - the mythopoetic language, the eerie, atmospheric terror of it, the obviously signified Tyrant (representing war, logic, masculinity, & capitalism, a sort of Orwellian figure of oppression). Like Odysseus in the underworld there are many voices, at first all longing to ascend. There are many small tragedies, but they are dulled beneath the weight of the larger communal tragedy of being trapped by a system that repeats its show more oppression.

"..." "There are animals" "in the subway" "But they"
"are mute & sad" ...

(4)

The struggle to escape, to ascend to the naturally-lit world above consumes some, who are forced to sell everything, not just the things of value, to the Tyrant to escape. "he wants your things," "your small things," (5) Even then, no one is permitted to leave. Gradually it becomes clear that the very idea of ascension toward the light is false:

"..." "That's when I knew,' she said," "light
meant lie" "That's when I knew that" "the light" "was a lie,"
"& that" "I would never" "seek light" "I will never" "seek light,'"

(22)

This was the part of the work that I was most engaged with - the surreal horror of the subway world, the details of individual people, a glowing woman and her baby, a subway car full of animals in suits, a subway car of disappearing walls and floor that becomes its own skeleton, a subway car of silent sleepers, each one surprising and astonishingly described. Here is where the effect of the broken, breathy lines really suits the world it's building, where the strangeness of the rhythms serves the content.

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Alice Notley writes:

"Remember me here,"
"when you can, when" "you want to laugh" "Humor" "is closer" "to the
divine than" "you might think" "The trouble is" "when you're laughing"
"you don't always" "bother with" "anything" "else," "like thinking,"

"like helping"