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''The Keener's Manual'' is an imaginary book created by the 20th-century American political novelist Richard Condon. From it Condon used quotations or epigraphs, generally in verse, to either illustrate the theme of his novels, or, in a large number of cases, as the source of the title, in particular six of his first seven books: ''The Oldest Confession'', ''Some Angry Angel'', ''A Talent for Loving'', ''An Infinity of Mirrors'', and ''Any God Will Do''. Only his second, and most famous novel, ''The Manchurian Candidate'', derived its title elsewhere.〔For a website about "The Keener's Manual", see http://tegularius.org/keener.html〕 A number of his later books also reference it for epigraphs, without, however, using any of its verse as a source for titles. A "keen" is a "lamentation for the dead uttered in a loud wailing voice or sometimes in a wordless cry" 〔''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition'', Merriam-Webster, Inc., Springfield, Massachusetts, 2004, ISBN 0-87779-807-9〕 and a "keener" is a professional mourner, usually a woman in Ireland, who "utters the keen... at a wake or funeral." 〔''Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged'', G. & C. Merriam Co., Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1943〕 ==''The Oldest Confession''== The epigraph to Condon's first novel, which appears on the title page of the first American hardback edition, reads in its entirety:〔''The Oldest Confession'', Richard Condon, first American hardback, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, 1958 Library of Congress Card Number 58-8662. A 1965 British paperback edition (''The Oldest Confession,'' Richard Condon, paperback edition, Four Square, London, 1965), which includes four paragraphs of text on the final page that are not in the American hardback edition, does not quote this epigraph anywhere, thereby making the title meaningless to the reader.〕 The Oldest Confession Later we encounter the first use of a phrase that is more widely known as the epigraph to ''The Manchurian Candidate'' than it is associated with this book; it has also appeared in other works by Condon. On page 142 the protagonist, James Bourne, is at his grandiloquent worst as he once again tries to justify his criminality to his mistress: "I am you and you are me and what can we do for the salvation of each other?"〔''Ibid.'' pages 142〕 Two hundred pages later, as the book comes to its tragic conclusion, one broken woman tries to console another with an equally long-winded speech that ends with, "I am you and you are me and what have we done to each other?"〔''Ibid.'' pages 142〕 A year later, with the publication of the book that was to make Condon famous, we find, on a frontis page of ''The Manchurian Candidate'', two separate epigraphs, one supposedly from the ''Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend,'' and the other, shorter one, from ''The Keener's Manual'': "I am you and you are me and what have we done to each other?"〔''The Manchurian Candidate'', Richard Condon, American paperback edition, N.A.L. Signet Books, New York, fifth printing, November, 1962, frontis page〕 In Condon's next book, ''Some Angry Angel'' a charismatic but homeless "rumdumb", orates to his fellow bums, "If this world is a legacy of Jesus Christ, then I am you and you are me and each flock to its own fold." Apparently, to Condon, this phrase denotes the inter-connectedness of all human beings to each other, particularly those who are committed lovers. "I am you and you are me and what can we do for the salvation of each other?" 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Keener's Manual」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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