BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): Jessica wakes

[Monte Davis]

No question that P has a Young Girl thing -- but this time through GR I'm
noticing more that's indicative of Jessica's greater maturity (per above,
Roger is often framed vis-a-vis her as a little boy). Ditto for
ghost-Rebekah, Dally, Yashmeen, Maxine...

And never forget this cock- (or cockiness-) shriveling passage, Esther at a
party in V.:

At the window she gazed out toward the river, seeing nothing but fog. A
hand touched her spine, exactly in that spot every man she ever knew had
been able to find, sooner or later. She straightened up, squeezing her
shoulderblades together, moving her breasts taut and suddenly visible
toward the window. She could see his reflection watching their reflection.
She turned. He was blushing. Crew cut, suit, Harris tweed. “Say, you are
new,” she smiled. “I am Esther.”

   He blushed and was cute. “Brad,” he said. “I’m sorry I made you jump.”

   She knew instinctively: he will be fine as the fraternity boy just out
of an Ivy League school who knows he will never stop being a fraternity boy
as long as he lives. But who still feels he is missing something, and so
hangs at the edges of the Whole Sick Crew. If he is going into management,
he writes. If he is an engineer or architect why he paints or sculpts. He
will straddle the line, aware up to the point of knowing he is getting the
worst of both worlds, but never stopping to wonder why there should ever
have been a line, or even if there is a line at all. He will learn how to
be a twinned man and will go on at the game, straddling until he splits up
the crotch and in half from the prolonged tension, and then he will be
destroyed.
She assumed ballet fourth position, moved her breasts at a 45° angle to his
line-of-sight, pointed her nose at his heart, looked up at him through her
eyelashes.

   “How long have you been in New York?”


OK, two male-gaze looks at her breasts -- but that's strikingly clear-eyed
for an Ivy League grad in his early twenties. I know that when I read it as
an Ivy League undergrad at 18, dating in and around NYC and sometimes even
at parties like that, it made a powerful and lasting impression on me. Can
there be any question that Esther is smarter, wiser, and better at the game
than Brad will ever be?
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