After I finished Lynn Freed's Leaving Home, I returned very briefly to Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends. I'd intended to finish it, in fits and starts, in between reading other books, but I find that I can't make myself care about what happens to the Seekers. Right now, I'm reading Entering Ephesus, by Daphne Athas, an author I'd never heard of before I found this book. Entering Ephesus is a novel about three sisters whose family loses its fortune during the Great Depression and is forced to move from an unnamed New England beach town to Ephesus, a fictional southern college town. Apparently, the novel is somewhat autobiographical, and Ephesus is loosely based on Chapel Hill.
I'm almost finished with Entering Ephesus, and I don't know what to make of it. The racist language on almost every page is shocking, even considering the context of 1971, when it was published; and 1939, when the story begins. And the characters are mostly unsympathetic and unlikable; even borderline evil. On the other hand, it's hard to completely hate a book that includes passages like this:
"The linoleum rugs could not be taken up because the house was riddled with termites. In the middle of the night they could hear tiny, intermittent chain-saw noises as the termites worked, laborious as Communists digging the Moscow subway." This is part of a description of the broken-down house that the family rents when they arrive in Ephesus, having finally lost their beautiful 15-room mansion overlooking the sea.
In a later scene, the girls have entered the local school, where the youngest is instantly the most popular child in her class. Asked by the teacher to comment on an oral report presented by the poorest, least fortunate child in the class, she praises the boy sincerely and winningly, causing his classmates to see him with new respect: "Even Miss Bogue felt a lump in her throat. There was a victorious feeling in the depths of her being, that feeling that arises when it is manifest that the underdog has won."
So I don't completely hate it. But I don't love it either, and I won't be sorry to finish it. I can overlook the racism, given the historical context. And unsympathetic or evil characters can make great novels, even if they win in the end. But I have an old-fashioned need for redeeming value in a novel; evil characters must be evil for a reason and must more importantly be opposed by good characters. And that's the deepest textual analysis and most insightful literary criticism you'll get around here. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 5, and three of those five points are conferred on the linoleum passage.
*****
Now it's 8:10 PM on Monday night, and I'm taking a break from work to write about work. I work too much. And that's all I have to say about that. Actually, I'm not really writing about work, but about something that happened where I work. Melania Trump visited HHS today to speak at a summit on cyberbullying. And if you think that I'm going to snark it up about the wife of the mother of all cyberbullies speaking out about cyberbullying, then you're wrong. Because I like Melania. I think that she means well, and that she's trying her best to make something positive of her situation. And her spokeswoman is savage AF, as the kids say. She'll probably lose her security clearance.
*****
Tuesday. Once again, it's 8 PM; and once again, I still have work to do. And once again, I'm writing about it rather than doing it. It's a pattern.
I took a break for 30 minutes, to swim in a pool that was a tropical haven of rest yesterday and an icy Norwegian fjord today. OK, so I'm exaggerating. But it was cold. And it occurred to me, as I swam one chilly lap after another, with the sky gray and lowering, that yesterday might have been the turning point. It might have been the last day of warm-water swimming for 2018. Two weeks from today, the pool will be closed. I kept swimming as a few raindrops fell.
If you have ever worked on a huge proposal, then you know that some proposal tasks are worse than others. If a proposal is an aircraft carrier, then resumes and letters of commitment are KP. Do they have that in the Navy? Whatever the kitchen duty is called. I guess on a ship, it's a galley. But it could be worse. I could be writing a compliance matrix. That's latrine duty.
I turned on some music a little while ago, because I needed an energy boost.
- "Mr. Blue Sky," Electric Light Orchestra. It's not possible to sustain a bad mood through this song.
- "Cheap Thrills," Sia. This song appeared on at least five "Worst Songs of 2016 According to Snotty Hipster Critics" lists. Morons. This is one of the greatest songs ever.
- "Forever," Chris Brown. Yeah, I know. Me too. But no one can be all bad who can make people so happy with just one song.
- "Party in the USA," Miley Cyrus. Shut up.
- "(Lay Down) Candles in the Wind," Melanie. My mom had the album, and we played it all the time. I could listen to this song a hundred times and never tire of it. I sing along like a six-year-old holding her mother's hairbrush like a microphone.
*****
It's Wednesday now, and I have work to do, so of course I need to write about having work to do before I can actually do the work. The whole house of cards might be about to come down now, but I can't worry about history in the making. I have a proposal to write.
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