Log24

Natasha’s Dance

It seems, according to Eliot’s criterion, that the late author John Gregory Dunne may be a saint.

Pursuing further information on the modular group, a topic on which I did a web page Dec. 30, 2003, the date of Dunne’s death, I came across a review of Apostol’s work on that subject (i.e., the modular group, not Dunne’s death, although there is a connection).  The review:

“A clean, elegant,
absolutely lovely text…”

Searching further at Amazon for a newer edition of the Apostol text, I entered the search phrase “Apostol modular functions” and got a list that included the following as number four:

Natasha’s Dance:
A Cultural History of Russia,

which, by coincidence, includes all three words of the search.

For a connection — purely subjective and coincidental, of course — with Dunne’s death, see The Dark Lady (Jan. 1, 2004), which concerns another Natasha… the actress Natalie Wood, the subject of an essay (“Star!“) by Dunne in the current issue of the New York Review of Books.

The Review’s archives offer another essay, on science and religion, that includes the following relevant questions:

“Have the gates of death
been opened unto thee?
Or hast thou seen the doors
of the shadow of death?”

From my December 31 entry:

In memory of
John Gregory Dunne,
who died on
Dec. 30, 2003:

For further details, click
on the black monolith.