{"product_id":"2940013691643","title":"Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest","description":"JOHN AND THE AUTHOR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWHEN I told John that I intended to write his biography, he laughed.\u003cbr\u003e\"My dear _man!_\" he said, \"But of course it was inevitable.\" The word\u003cbr\u003e\"man\" on John's lips was often equivalent to \"fool.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well,\" I protested, \"a cat may look at a king.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe replied, \"Yes, but can it really _see_ the king? Can you, puss,\u003cbr\u003ereally see me?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis from a queer child to a full-grown man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn was right. Though I had known him since he was a baby, and was in\u003cbr\u003ea sense intimate with him, I knew almost nothing of the inner, the\u003cbr\u003ereal John. To this day I know little but the amazing facts of his\u003cbr\u003ecareer. I know that he never walked till he was six, that before he\u003cbr\u003ewas ten he committed several burglaries and killed a policeman, that\u003cbr\u003eat eighteen, when he still looked a young boy, he founded his\u003cbr\u003epreposterous colony in the South Seas, and that at twenty-three, in\u003cbr\u003eappearance but little altered, he outwitted the six warships that six\u003cbr\u003eGreat Powers had sent to seize him. I know also how John and all his\u003cbr\u003efollowers died.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch facts I know; and even at the risk of destruction by one or other\u003cbr\u003eof the six Great Powers, I shall tell the world all that I can\u003cbr\u003eremember.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomething else I know, which will be very difficult to explain. In a\u003cbr\u003econfused way I know why he founded his colony. I know too that\u003cbr\u003ealthough he gave his whole energy to this task, he never seriously\u003cbr\u003eexpected to succeed. He was convinced that sooner or later the world\u003cbr\u003ewould find him out and destroy his work. \"Our chance,\" he once said,\u003cbr\u003e\"is not as much as one in a million.\" And then he laughed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn's laugh was strangely disturbing. It was a low, rapid, crisp\u003cbr\u003echuckle. It reminded me of that whispered crackling prelude which\u003cbr\u003esometimes precedes a really great crash of thunder. But no thunder\u003cbr\u003efollowed it, only a moment's silence; and for his hearers an odd\u003cbr\u003etingling of the scalp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI believe that this inhuman, this ruthless but never malicious laugh\u003cbr\u003eof John's contained the key to all that baffles me in his character.\u003cbr\u003eAgain and again I asked myself _why_ he laughed just then, what\u003cbr\u003eprecisely was he laughing _at_, what did his laughter really mean, was\u003cbr\u003ethat strange noise really laughter at all, or some emotional reaction\u003cbr\u003eincomprehensible to my kind? Why, for instance, did the infant John\u003cbr\u003elaugh through his tears when he had upset a kettle and was badly\u003cbr\u003escalded? I was not present at his death, but I feel sure that, when\u003cbr\u003ehis end came, his last breath spent itself in zestful laughter. Why?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn failing to answer these questions, I fail to understand the\u003cbr\u003eessential John. His laughter, I am convinced, sprang from some aspect\u003cbr\u003eof his experience entirely beyond my vision. I am therefore, of\u003cbr\u003ecourse, as John affirmed, a very incompetent biographer. But if I keep\u003cbr\u003esilence, the facts of his unique career will be lost for ever. In\u003cbr\u003espite of my incompetence, I must record all that I can, in the hope\u003cbr\u003ethat, if these pages fall into the hands of some being of John's own\u003cbr\u003estature, he may imaginatively see through them to the strange but\u003cbr\u003eglorious spirit of John himself.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083147854064,"sku":"2940013691643","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013691643_p0.jpg?v=1763584044","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013691643","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}