CoL49 group reading _The Greek Way_ / Oedipa stares into the void

[Michael Bailey]

No nightclub by that name, afaict, but a well-known book offering a
“straight” historical study drawing parallels between Ancient Greece and
modern (1930) ways:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129494.The_Greek_Way


This is tangentially topical if we consider all the parallels suggested in
the book between modern society and Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, and the
Civil War



In The Greek Way, the IA member’s posthorn insignia catches her eye:

She sought to bug him: “If it’s a homosexual sign or something, that
doesn’t bother me.” Eyes showing nothing: “I don’t swing that way,” he
said. “Yours either.”

- then a few lines later,

“She met his eyes’ void for a second after all, and shrugged.”


It’s like at first she looks for any signs of human affection in his eyes
(reminding me of that passage in VL where the narrator laments the
breakdown of a “network of loving friends” under stress from all the
snitching going on) and accepts that there’s nothing there.

Then after telling him all about her experiences with the muted posthorn,
she looks at him again and really takes in the nothingness.