[lit-ideas] Re: Carry On
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:41:45 -0700
I have just started Julian Barnes' "The Sense of an Ending." Since it won the
Booker prize, there's a good chance you will have read it and go, "How slow is
he!" But I crack it and what do I find? The narrator's girlfriend lives on
the Orpington line, in the place where I grew up. And what book have I just
finished? Alan Bennet's two short pieces, "The Clothes They Stood Up In" and
"The Lady in the Van." The second of the two stories concerns a lady who
thinks that the devil may be in her Reliant's motor and it is he who drains the
battery. The more the tale went on, the more I thought, "Garden Guy!" So what
to conclude? That famous authors are circling my life, like angels or demons,
and all that separates them from me is about forty works of literature.
So close.
The news here is that the Yakima Bears may be moving to Hillsboro, which oddly
spelled place is near Portland. Since we replaced our own lowly baseball team
with a professional soccer team--and I stumble a little over the adjective
"professional"--baseball in Hillsboro will be a draw for those who feel the
lack. The team's current general manager is K.L. Wombacher.
We are also to get a store called "Tory Burch." One of the works I saw this
summer in Ian Hamilton Finlay's garden was a tree titled, "Bring Back the
Birch." It's possible those who don't recall British Conservatives being
"appalled" by pretty much everything and envying Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore,
won't find this amusing.
Proof that the Scots and the Welsh get along just fine is to be found in
today's obits. Gwendolyn MacPherson died. As did DeWayne King Clement, June
Rae Asbahr Pihl, Peter Dietzel and Susan Hemphill Wigert. I read these notes
with a smile, still remembering Phyllis line about her mythically stupid
husband, "Isn't it strange that all these people die in alphabetical order?"
Carry on.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
