In a world where no rules of reward and punishment appear to operate, how should we act, and what can we expect life to offer? While this might be a fit punishment for the scientist Joe, the destruction of the dutiful Logan has no such justification.
The story has resemblances to the situation of modern man who tries to 'play God' through scientific inventions, sometimes with disastrous results. The difference is that Lucifer, an angel, was thrown down from heaven as a punishment by God for aspiring to challenge his power. Logan's fall reminds literature lecturer Clarissa of the fall of Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost, 'hurled headlong flaming from th'Ethereal sky'. But Jed's oddness is soon apparent, and the reader is more likely to interpret the incident through the eyes of the rational narrator, Joe: 'I've never seen such a terrible thing as that falling man.' would intervene and bear him up.' After the event, Jed Parry tries to make sense of it by arguing that it was God's way of bringing him and Joe together so that he could convert Joe. Even the rational scientist Joe Rose hopes against hope for some scientific solution: 'I still thought there was a chance that a freak physical law, a furious thermal. Logan's death suggests for Clarissa the godlessness of the universe: 'It had seemed to her that Logan's fall was a challenge no angel could resist, and his death denied their existence'. Left to drift, the young boy brings down the balloon himself. What most disturbs the witnesses of the balloon accident is that the rescuer, a good family man, not only dies, but his sacrifice is pointless. In fairy tales and other stories of courage from the pre-modern era, heroism was rewarded. The structure of his face is shattered by a 'radical Picassoesque violation of perspective'.
Eventually Logan, the only one to persevere with the act of altruism once it becomes dangerous, is destroyed in a manner that undermines his very identity as a human being. Instead their failure to communicate makes the rescue impossible. A unanimous view of the problem would have resulted in everyone gripping a rope and bringing the balloon under control. The event, which preoccupies the main characters for the duration of the story, also serves as a symbol, reflecting both the structure and the moral atmosphere of the postmodern novel.Īs the plight of the ballooners becomes apparent, characters from different backgrounds converge on a single point. Enduring Love begins with one of the most visual and dramatic openings of recent fiction-the abortive attempt to rescue a boy from a hot air balloon.
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