acknowledgements
return to Kim’s game

… background to Kim’s game …

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus’ (Twenty Ways of Looking at the Infant Jesus) is one of the great works for piano from the twentieth century. I have loosely based the 20 stanzas of Kim’s game on Messiaen’s 20 ‘regards’.

Oliver Messiaen (Wikipedia entry)

I had the great pleasure of meeting Messiaen in 1988. We talked for a few minutes about the relationship between literary works and his music.

The movements/stanzas of the works are entitled:

Regard du Père – Regard of the Father
Regard de L’Étoile – Regard of the star
L’Échange – The exchange
Regard de la Vierge – Regard of the Virgin
Regard du Fils sur le Fils – Regard of the Son towards the Son
Par Lui tout a été fait – By Him everything was made
Regard de la Croix – Regard of the Cross
Regard des Hauteurs – Regard of the heights
Regard du Temps – Regard of time
Regard de l’esprit de Joie – Regard of the Spirit of Joy
Première communion de la Vierge – First communion of the Virgin
La Parole toute-puissante – The all-powerful word
Noël - Noel
Regard des Anges – Regard of the Angels
Le Baiser de L’Enfant-Jésus – The kiss of the Child Jesus
Regard des Prophètes, des Bergers et des Mages – Regard of the prophets, the shepherds and the Wise Men
Regard du Silence – Regard of silence
Regard de l’Onction terrible – Regard of the terrible Unction
Je dors, mais mon coeur veille – I sleep, but my heart is awake
Regard de l’Église d'Amour – Regard of the Church of Love

– translation into English from the notes by Roger Nichols in the booklet that accompanies the Collins recording of Vingt Regards by Joanna MacGregor

Kim’s Game – by G. S. Ripley

’A number of miscellaneous objects are arranged on a table and covered with a cloth. The players are brought to the table in convenient groups and the cloth removed for one minute, by a stop watch. The players must then retire beyond sight of the table and write a careful description of the objects and their arrangement. The man with the best description wins.’ – accessed from http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/games/ripley/stalking/kims_game.htm 30 December 2003

Kim is a character in Peter Jerrim’s early hypertext novel axel-and-alice and in towards earth. In these fictions it is possible that she was sexually abused as a child. It is possible that she dies in a plane crash.

The poem Kim’s game, among other things, attempts the themes of

  1. religion and postmodernity
  2. identity and dissolution
  3. time and memory

PHJ, December 2003