BtZ42 pages 116-121 part of whoever he was inside it has kindly remained

[Eileen Pierce]

To me this part really captures that feeling of remembering.

"They’re reassembling . . . it must be outside his memory . . . cool clean interior, girl and woman, independent of his shorthand of stars . . . so many fading-faced girls, windy canalsides, bed-sitters, bus-stop good-byes, how can he be expected to remember? but this room has gone on clarifying: part of whoever he was inside it has kindly remained, stored quiescent these months outside of his head, distributed through the grainy shadows, the grease-hazy jars of herbs, candies, spices, all the Compton Mackenzie novels on the shelf, glassy ambrotypes of her late husband Austin night-dusted inside gilded frames up on the mantel where last time Michaelmas daisies greeted and razzled from a little Sevres vase she and Austin found together on Saturday long ago in a Wardour Street shop . . . "


Eileen Pierce
608-512-6451



-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l