DeLillo is so offhand and distant from his writing that I cannot put the effort into this. Perhaps later, when I’m feeling more post-modern.
Month: April 2003
Tea Time: The Compass Rose
Turned away from the King George Hotel, Michelle & I wandered back to Union Square and into the palatial St. Francis Hotel. I was dead set on relaxing with a cup of tea, especially since I was a week into a month-long detox with no alcohol.
The God of Nightmares
Hooray for Paula! Once again her words leave me feeling light and happy.
Shortly after news of her father’s death, Helen escapes the confines of her early life. She leaves her mother and upstate NY and travels to New Orelans to bring her aunt Lulu back to NY to help her mother run the cabin business. In New Orleans, Helen falls into a trance of soft humid Southerness, where she meets her future husband Len, and her close friend Nina. Also Claude, the gentleman who prefered boys, who ends up dead beneath the Dueling Oaks. And Gerald and Catherine, the couple with whom Helen boards. Gerald a poet who was beaten by his Cajun neighbors for exposing their way of life to the world. Lulu’s drunkenness and divorce from Sam Bridges, with whom Nina has an affair. Nina describing her life as ‘floating by’, and drinking from the “Colored” fountain out of mild defiance. Part 1 is full of violence and chaos, yet leaves no blood on your mind.
Part 2 fast-forwards 20+ years to the 1960s when Helen and Len are living in NYC and renovating her mother’s old house after her death. Helen runs into Nina in the city, then mentions it later to Len, who acts strangely and admits to having been involved with Nina back in the day. Ends very sweetly with Helen waiting for Len to wake up from a long sleep.
Consider the Oyster
mouth watering prose about the joys of oysters. I have an undeniable craving to make an oyster loaf… M thinks I’ve lost it. Oyster stew anyone? She tempts me with her descriptions of the tastes. I’ve been reading this one on the bus every day this week and have caught myself licking my chops as I read.
Update: now finished with this lovely short glimpse into the head of a gourmand. I don’t even like the taste of oysters, yet MFK has me dreaming of gulping down raw bodies along with their liquid. I will be reading every book I can find that MFK has written: it is too much of a treat to my soul to pass up.
The Art of Deception
social engineering and the art of the con. examples of how to talk your way into industrial secrets and getting around the security mechanisms in place by using the people who have access to the information and manipulating them into giving you what you’re asking for. semi-interesting.