" I could not believe death / had undone so many," Dante says.
(You may even be reminded of a line from "The Waste Land": "I had not thought that death had undone so many").
Think of Eliot's commuters in "The Waste Land": "Unreal City / Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, / A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, / I had not thought death had undone so many".
"I had not thought death had undone so many", we read of those London rush-hour commuters in The Waste Land (words that Eliot cribbed from Canto III of the Inferno).
In the 1920's, in "The Waste Land," T. S. Eliot painted a spectral picture of commuters entering the city: "A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many".
A short walk later, past crowds of stones – so many, I had not thought death had undone so many – we caught the first echo of the Albion: an enormous anchor commemorating the tragic accident of 1898.
In "The Waste Land," Eliot saw crowds of people like Soares flowing over London Bridge and considered them as already dead: "I had not thought death had undone so many".
The title of David Lodge's latest novel, "Deaf Sentence," is, of course, a play on words, and there are many others scattered throughout these pages: "Deaf and the maiden," "Deaf Row," "I had not thought deaf had undone so many".
TS Eliot in the early 20th century looked at the commuters crossing London Bridge and was reminded of the swirling hordes of the damned in Dante's Inferno: A crowd flowed over London bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many.
If the ax falls and I find myself joining the laid-off throngs--I did not know that downsizing had undone so many--will I look at that alpine range of piled-up volumes next to my bed and wince, thinking of all the money I could have saved?
