Macbush.

BYLINE: Harold Bloom

Preface

There can be little doubt of the historical existence of the King-Emperor Dubya the Great, who is thought to have reigned from 2001 to 2009, and to have presided over the transition from the American Plutocracy to the Oceanic Empire, which appears to have taken place in November 2004, 20 years after the date set by the prophet Orwellius.

Unfortunately, only a few fragments of the manuscript of Dubya the Great (also known as Macbush) have been recovered. They were found during the Time of Troubles, which followed the fall of the Oceanic Empire. The Great Bank Crisis preceded the Rebellion of the Serfs, and the Second Civil War resulted in extensive carnage and looting. After the sacking of the Wyoming estates of the descendants of Richard Duke of Helliburton (protagonist and hero-villain of Dubya the Great), various bits of the text were discovered as wrappings on spare brandy snifters, some two dozen in number.

In editing these foul papers, rent by broken glass, I have been compelled to undertake the dubious labor of conjectural emendation, which rarely evokes universal scholarly assent. However, I have been aided by my shrewd surmise that the dramatist who composed Dubya the Great was Richard Wharfinger, author of The Courier's Tragedy, preserved for us in a full plot summary, with extracts, by T. Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49, pp. 64-75.

Much of the fragmentary Dubya the Great seems to be plagiarized from Shakespeare, particularly from the high tragedy of Macbeth. Wharfinger, as was his wont, also pilfered from Shakespeare's forerunner Christopher Marlowe. The character of Richard Duke of Helliburton is indebted to Barabas, hero-villain of…