cover image The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie

The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie

G. Garfield Crimmins. W. W. Norton & Company, $21.95 (95pp) ISBN 978-0-393-04633-5

Whimsy augmented by lush illustrations and pullout surprises a la Griffin and Sabine may make this contemporary fairy tale an ideal gift book for the New Age aficionado or the nonsensically inclined. Somewhere south of Bermuda, ""between the Sea of Clouds and the Sea of the Unseen,"" lies the Republic des Reves, where the narrator arrives in 1936--either through a Dadaist dream or mistaken identity--guided by the sensually surrealistic spirit of Nadja La Claire. The republic, whose motto is liberty, love and poetry, is a tropical haven for the unconventional at heart; its streets are named Avenue of Soft Winds and Boulevard of Splendid Food and Wine. Crimmins, who begins his adventure with a letter to the reader announcing that he is abandoning an academic career to assume the Reverian identity of Victor La Nuage, embarks on an oneiric travel account chock-full of such artifacts as doctored-up old postcards, advertisements, even an enormous foldout map and detachable telegrams from Dr. Prometheus, the head of the society whose aim is to foil the subversive plots of the detested League of Common Sense (LCS). While the presentation is somewhat higgledy-piggledy, there are plenty of competent Duchamp knockoffs and enough photographs of topless women (""When visitors encounter young citizens in a state of undress, they should delight in the aesthetic experience"") to provide good escape reading. BOMC and QPB featured alternates; French rights to Editions du Seuil. (Oct.)