Voices I Have Heard

[Steelhead]

Alexander Michod is aghast:
>You don't think LIBRA has "voice"?

Uh, not rilly. When I think of Voice (besides Pynchon, who I think is the
Reigning Master) I hear Beckett's chatter in the Unnamable, Faulkner's
whiskey-slowed pallaver in Absalom, Absalom!, Flannery O'Connor's weird
phrasing in Everything that Rise Must Converge, Barry Hannah's
speed-charged rap in Ray, Peter Matthiessen's masterpiece of B. Marley
meets H. Melville in  Far Tortuga, Ishmael Reed's rush of jazz-like
phrasings in Mumbo Jumbo (or the even better Yellow-back Radio Broke Down),
the simple pleasures of Raymond Carver's narration of a story like So Much
Water So Close to Home or The Third Thing that Killed My Father Off, Toni
Morrison's hauntingly lyrical voice in Beloved, or this one of a kind
sentence from (quick...name that writer):

"She pushed 15 and ascended alone to The Light Cavalry Overture as far as
3, where the doors opened silently on youth unbuttoned to the waist
shifting packages to enter and press 5 and stare into the top of her dress
until they opened silently and he ran a hand up 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 before
they closed behind him, to open silently on her alone at 6, and close, and
out, pressed the up button and stood there waiting till, behind her now,
doors opened silently on youth here white buttoned to the throat and black
above it wheeling a cart of interoffice mail back for her entrance, staring
at black backs of hands the bar or two mounting a Spanish rhythm for his
exit at 11, the door closely silently behind him suddenly seized and held
and now, as it closed, she caught her breath and her eyes away from the
glistening chest and buttons flung loosely undone down it for those on the
wall panel orderly numbered but for one reading simply, Doors, another
Alarm, The Peanut Vendor seething through the palm sized screen above, an
idly scratching hand thrust down the front of denims burnished where it
moved hidden as the other, empty, rose behind her gasped against the waist
high rail there for --You like to give head? posed in a tone as vacant as
the face she fled for the lobby length explosion of blacks streaked with
mad reserve on white doors opening silently on a coatless figure askew
there as though he'd just burst free from the painting's restless labyrinth
like a demented Virgil for the amorphous Dante surfacing behind him,
dropping a briefcase of Gladstone bag design square before her in collision
to stare, with apologetic fixity blurred by rimless lenses, into the top of
her dress."

So, no, I don't think LIBRA's got that much voice. Though what the hell do
I know? Steelhead aren't famous for their sense of hearing.

But I do agree that the Pinecones of the World should Unite!

Steely