Last week I picked up an erratically highlighted version of The Loved Ones by Evelyn Waugh. Touted as "a dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide" I read it more as a misguided love story surrounded by death. Funny but somewhat surreal, the book was lent an additional layer by the fluorescent streaks the anonymous previous reader provided.
"I always think how much better not to have anything to atone for, eh?"
So let me know your highlighter color and let's discuss some of the bigger, badder, vocab words of your choice.
"The best will be good enough." but I know that "Even among the best you find a few rotters."
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/mis/6311638102.html
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This post was at the suggestion of T. He saw my book and thought it might be fun to write up the highlighted words to see if there was any secret meaning. I found the exercise somewhat soothing actually: http://lennisblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-loved-ones-ode-tofrom-evelyn-waugh.html
After reading it and not divining any underlying message, T thought it might be a good Missed Connections so I ran with that idea as well.
The responses were varied but may lead to our next adventure:
Craigslist Reply 1633 wrote: "I have limited vocabulary...but come up with some killer one liners." He also attached six pictures. I'm not in the public shaming game -- and I don't have time for a 6,000 word tome -- so you'll have to do with a bulleted list.
1. a car selfie in which he is wearing a tank top, a cowboy hat and sunglasses.
2. standing atop a tree. (The arborist in me is worried about how he's tied in.)
3. wearing a missing persons milk carton on his head.
4. feeding a white horse a carrot
5. an unsolicited dick pick...of Richard Nixon
6. him flexing with a spinach can a la Popeye
Jess F wrote: "check out the indivisibility exhibit at the Addison Art Gallery at PA in Andover." A quick google search reveals that he was referring to Invisible Citings: Elaine Reichek and Jeanne Silverthorne a collaborative project at the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy that "celebrates writing as material and medium and looks to the printed page to consider invisibility. Compiling and reading diverse texts and then painstakingly translating them into compelling works of art, the artists address themes such as the legible and obscured, word and image, illumination and luminescence, archiving and discarding." Sounds good!
