ok finished

 8 pm  Bela finishing her book also.  Just finished my book.  Eddy and Matt Chin reunite.  Mattachin society.  clever clever clever  allegory after all, all of it   allegorical history memoir by imagination

"under the weight of so much shock and sorrow."  final words  opening "So this boy just walks in smelling of Lip Smacker . . . "

have to sleep on it and say more tomorrow  

Sat morning

Ayad Akhtar, new American writer to me.  Noticed also a new Spanish one; Carlos Maleno. Who shall I read next?  Akhtar would be new---first Am pakistani I would have read.  Highly praised, eight years older than David.  No, I did read that Afghan-Am writer some years ago,  Hoseini?  Kites?  

What to say about James?  Our Jamaican Dickens.  Choral director: huge cast of characters, wide screen opera, multiple voices, queer compendium to answer H Ellis, etc etc.  Gives us a big menu from which to choose.  Bothered? by the ending---are we to imagine that Eddy and Matt live together happily ever after?  If not, why the "full circle" effect; survivors meeting at last, come circle of history making for a satisfying if not conclusion then at least "circle"? of affection, attraction, interest? trauma history meaning?  they "see" one another, at least.  Knowing rather than unknowing.  

Evasive because as much admiration I miss the personal, warmth, voice, presence, companionship of Aciman or Handke, all my fave sorts of wandering observers. James as director is way too sure of himself, in total control, queen over it all.  May he reign supreme.  (gee, no kings marches everywhere again today) could it be charged with being a queer fascist survivor tale in some twisted way?  Titus the kingly director of the play that calls forth the demonic destructions, the horrors of british-jamaican other hatred.  Queers not Jews as scapegoats for supreme order.  Oh, Zelensky yesterday on tv gave a sublime chuckle response to journo question if he is Tp's scapegoat.  

I want to read Zadie Smith's review of the novel.  Or Pete Buttegeig's.  Has there been a LRVB piece already?  

Mars-Jones  : "Mars-Jones praises the raw, polyphonic energy, violent visceral impact, and distinct character perspectives throughout the novel.  He criticizes the Oxford-set framing letter section as unconvincing. He notes that the introduction of the fictional reggae star Streggeh Don functions as an unexamined caricature of pure evil, which slightly compromises the novel's overall realistic truthfulness." 

would agree with all three nits  ---  sure to be others from other readers.  Has anyone done a theory of the unreliable reader who dances with the unreliable narrators in post-modernist lit experiences?  I think of myself here---how I willfully focus in on and pull out from the text any sub-text I wish to find there no matter what the text-director says are the only words on the page.  The author does not control how I may mis-read as I wish.   Sure, plenty of critics have done that.  Bloom even?  Sontag.  others I've forgotten about.  

he's not even close to being as good as Patrick White or Peter Handke or Michael Lentz!  The Oxford stuff was as clichéd as possible, and boring.  Same for many passages throughout, one's interest went up and down, in and out.  Ok, I got all of the subtext I was hoping for; it is a compendium fully educational in that sense.  Will it help any younger people down the road?  Doubt it, really.  The fears and frights still seem local and personal, no matter how fully re-imagined and spread out into many characters.  His ear for voices and dialects is incredible and masterful.  Especially in the mob scene, especially in most of the ostensible interviews.  

I wanted to be up on the latest, biggest nyc book buzz and now I am.  Was it worth the slog?  I'll let Dennis guide me on that one, but in many ways I think not.  I am not saying omg I must go forward and read every single thing he has published.  Perhaps I will go back and do that with Patrick White, but no, I've read his best and one at least of his worst.  

Bela has created a social for tomorrow, cookies and visits.  

note from Phil  --  

I was having lunch with an old (79 years old)  lady-friend when she said she thought she was having a stroke.  Then she “froze” for a minute and could not respond.  I immediately paid our bill and got her back into my car and drove her home to her house in Va.  I then struggled to get her back in her house, then called 911.  An ambulance came in about ten minutes and took her to a nearby hospital, where she remains because whatever happened to her has totally destroyed her short term memory.   Five minutes after a conversation she has no memory of having that conversation.  Doctors are trying to figure out what happened to her and what can be done about it.

 

Which scares me because my memory is declining (although nothing like what just happened to my lady-friend), and I have no nearby family…..The  80s aint fun.

 

Hope you guys are okay…………I was having lunch with an old (79 years old)  lady-friend when she said she thought she was having a stroke.  Then she “froze” for a minute and could not respond.  I immediately paid our bill and got her back into my car and drove her home to her house in Va.  I then struggled to get her back in her house, then called 911.  An ambulance came in about ten minutes and took her to a nearby hospital, where she remains because whatever happened to her has totally destroyed her short term memory.   Five minutes after a conversation she has no memory of having that conversation.  Doctors are trying to figure out what happened to her and what can be done about it.

 

Which scares me because my memory is declining (although nothing like what just happened to my lady-friend), and I have no nearby family…..The  80s aint fun.

 

Hope you guys are okay…………