Sagittarius buddy, we were talking fishing, then books, next he suggested an earlier novel, some author, so I went looking.
The River Why from my 2003 notes. Then I found this one. Strange premise and set-up. Early on, though, it’s that lyrical prose. In a single take?
“FOR HER FIRST eighteen years, Risa was an unusually bright but otherwise typical American child of TV, rock and roll, A.P. English and math classes; child of FM radio love songs inseparable from clogged Portland malls and sprawls and hi-speed girl chatter; child of parents whose dysfunctional marriage led to a divorce that simply chopped the dysfunction in two, bequeathing Risa two untenable homes instead of one; child increasingly aware, therefore, of the deep bewilderment of her parents’ generation and the binge consumption, binge investment, binge drinking, eating, sex, religiosity, to which bewilderment led; child who, from the age of thirteen or so, was virtually self-raised amid a circle of smart, irony-addicted peers desperate to at least make black comedy out of their nation-state’s willingness to sacrifice life, including children’s lives, in the name of global markets, global shopping, tumorous growth, global golf.” Page 24.
One long breath, breathless, in a form, and I’ve done it before in horoscopes, but not the same, really, but there’s an almost poetic flavor. Satire? Real irony? Encapsulates a generation, raised on MTV, so to speak.
When I connected the author’s name to a previous book, and then even in the opening passages, there’s a was style I recalled, a feeling imparted by the way words wee strung together, an inimitable eloquences, of sorts.
“Politics is high school with guns and more money. —Frank Zappa” page 52.
Like the quote.
In my mind, deep college recollection, and probably faulty, it was Hemingway who suggested, “Get some characters together, put them in a room, see what happens.”
“Here’s the very very hard thing. Whoever life harms, she heals. But almost never in ways we get to see.” Page 344.
It bounces back and forth.
“Or is there a tipping point where litanies of horror shove our empathy and creativity where the sun doesn’t shine?” Page 278.
Perfectly acceptable modern question.
Reminded me of
The Starship and the Canoe.
Please support public libraries.
#shakespeare
#horoscope
