A TALE OF LOSS

 

I have just finished William Maxwell’s probably forgotten So Long, See You Tomorrow.  It is one of those novels which leave you feeling forlorn, bereft, forsaken when you get to the end.  These are bits of the human experience beautifully dealt with by this author who lost his own mother when a child. 

In fact, this terrain is so familiar to him that he can even convincingly limn the emotions of an abused farm dog tied to a rope by his indifferent departing master to await the new tenant who expects the dog as just another fixture.  She eventually runs off to town and manages to find her old master.  For this she is beaten and returned.  When she turns back up, she is put down. 

The humans don’t fare much better in this tale of boyhoods left exposed, as I suppose all are, to the whims, passions, and mistakes of their adult caretakers.  Sometimes it is only the occasional small kindness that saves a life from total wreck. It is from reading this kind of tender prose that you realize how tenuously we are tethered to lives of happiness.  It’s a wonder many of us have them. 

NOT SO DAILY

OK, I’ve forsaken DHC for a few days.  The life of a father is unaccompanied by a lot of free time.

In the time since I’ve written, I finished Garp.  I’m glad I had saved it for myself.  Irving is one of those writers who can draw the reader in on an emotional level without compromising his art.  Now reading James Salter’s “The Hunters”.  I have stated several times since I discovered JS that he is now my favorite writer.  I only wish he were more prolific.  The stories in “Last Night” have those electric moments; a single word or image employed at exactly the right moment hits you like the live end of a severed wire.  He is very careful and I am rewarded for his care.

JOHN IRVING

Here’s a link– I think my readers may be linked to death before it’s said and done– to an interview on Powell’s with Mr. John Irving that I enjoyed a while back.  He makes some funny and interesting comments about James Joyce and George Bush.  What company!

http://www.powells.com/authors/irving.html

I loved Owen Meany which I read a long time ago.  I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to read another one of his books.  They’re like the best bites on my plate which I’ve raked to the outer edge with my fork to save for last.