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Stuff I'm Reading







 It's nice to bump into a perfect first paragraph.


The start of "In Tongues" involves several fast events. Our narrator, Gordon, gets dumped. He seems to leave his body; in a trance, he steals some cash, sells his car, hitchhikes to a bus station, and makes a choice. He begins a trip from the middle of the country to New York City.

One special part of this passage is the way Gordon "buries the lede." "The night my boyfriend dumped me, I rested on the couch...." "The feeling lingered as I stole some cash...." "It lingered as I hitchhiked...." The ostensibly "interesting" parts of these observations are not the main "thrust." We might not think that the drama is about a lingering feeling, or about resting on a couch. We might say the drama is about getting dumped, stealing, and breaking another law by hitchhiking. But Gordon begs to differ.

Then there is the use of tension. A stranger "smacks" a mop up and down. Another has a mustache, which "trembles with annoyance." A moment of rest is not just a moment of rest; it's a visit to "the couch I called ours, though he'd been the one to pay for it."

I feel I know Gordon right away, and I'm worried for him. I can remember my twenties when I read this book.
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