The man who saved New YorkRay CummingsOmniClassics · Literature
The man who saved New York
Ray CummingsA man's wandering personality gives a fantastic explanation for a mysterious giant off New York.
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About the book
The narrator insists that he knows something the newspapers missed about a Green Giant seen near Sandy Hook, though he prefers to present the account as fiction. It began when Porky Jenks arrived with a disturbing problem: his personality could slip into another person's body while his own remained behind. What seems at first an embarrassing and potentially profitable oddity soon acquires much larger possibilities in a wartime world. Cummings uses a conversational, comic manner to move between the mechanics of the impossible premise and the complications of putting it to use. The narrator's claims about what he might have achieved are part of the humor, not a sober historical explanation. The story turns speculation about identity into an extravagantly scaled urban adventure.
- Identity and embodiment
- Comic invention
- Power and unintended consequences
Why read it
The gap between the narrator's confidence and the absurdity of his predicament keeps the fantastic premise lively.
English story text