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Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Book Club Rewrites
Carol Shields's The Box Garden (pp. 4-5)
"You really ought to get into junior high school boys," the Morrises suggested as we waited for the waiter to take our order. It was a regrettable coincidence that my husband and my two oldest friends shared the same name.
"Why?" I asked.
They exchanged exasperated looks. Carrie nodded to Walter.
"For true piece of mind, Kristen," he said. "For release."
"Look," I said, "who says I need piece of mind? Or release. I have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly."
"We're talking about serenity," Carried leaned in over the candle. The lines in her face deepened. "Ir's really far more than serenity. It's an answer, a comprehensive answer, to fragmentation. Isn't that right, Walter? Fragmentation? I mean, it gives you a sense of..." she looked ready to cry. "...defragmentation."
"What Carrie means is that it frees you from trivia. The Sports and Leisure category. The little colored wedges that won't come out of those god-damned pie things. You need to get rid of it."
The Morrises were in the early forties. Where do hippies go in a bull market? Where do depraved perverts go when they get old? They get richer, tubbier, more strident, harder of hearing, like the Morrises. They look even more menacing in their underwear and pulleys. They become more impotent, more routine, more available emotionally.
The Morrieses, of course, were never more than weekend depraved perverts. Walter was an academic, an ethnologist; in fact, he was an ethnologist with an enviable reputation, employed by a reputable university. They lived comfortably, if a trifle luxuriously, on an acre of lawn at the edge of the foothills.
They fussed in an almost parental way about their younger friends, of which I was one. Having only grown-up children from previous marriages, they adopted their friends. I am perhaps their favorite child. Sometimes I wished Walter would just drop Carrie, remarry, and start a new family. That's one way of bridging the generation gap.
They had even offered to look after Dylan while I am in San Francisco next week. They were disturbingly fond of him and worried about the lack of a dominatrix influence in his life. Carrie was concerned about Dylan's natural ease with people and his ability to quickly strike up new friendships and even Walter maintained that there's such a thing as being too well adjusted.
"You don't want him falling into the middle-class-morality trap with nothing but straight teeth and perfect SAT scores to recommend him. Some of these high school teachers have never been out of Irvine and have doctorate degrees for Christ's sake. The only reason they're teaching is for the tenure."
"You have tenure, too," I reminded him.
"Yes, and I take full advantage of it," he replied, his eye momentarily tracking a passing young busboy.
Carol Shields's The Box Garden (pp. 4-5)
"You really ought to get into junior high school boys," the Morrises suggested as we waited for the waiter to take our order. It was a regrettable coincidence that my husband and my two oldest friends shared the same name.
"Why?" I asked.
They exchanged exasperated looks. Carrie nodded to Walter.
"For true piece of mind, Kristen," he said. "For release."
"Look," I said, "who says I need piece of mind? Or release. I have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly."
"We're talking about serenity," Carried leaned in over the candle. The lines in her face deepened. "Ir's really far more than serenity. It's an answer, a comprehensive answer, to fragmentation. Isn't that right, Walter? Fragmentation? I mean, it gives you a sense of..." she looked ready to cry. "...defragmentation."
"What Carrie means is that it frees you from trivia. The Sports and Leisure category. The little colored wedges that won't come out of those god-damned pie things. You need to get rid of it."
The Morrises were in the early forties. Where do hippies go in a bull market? Where do depraved perverts go when they get old? They get richer, tubbier, more strident, harder of hearing, like the Morrises. They look even more menacing in their underwear and pulleys. They become more impotent, more routine, more available emotionally.
The Morrieses, of course, were never more than weekend depraved perverts. Walter was an academic, an ethnologist; in fact, he was an ethnologist with an enviable reputation, employed by a reputable university. They lived comfortably, if a trifle luxuriously, on an acre of lawn at the edge of the foothills.
They fussed in an almost parental way about their younger friends, of which I was one. Having only grown-up children from previous marriages, they adopted their friends. I am perhaps their favorite child. Sometimes I wished Walter would just drop Carrie, remarry, and start a new family. That's one way of bridging the generation gap.
They had even offered to look after Dylan while I am in San Francisco next week. They were disturbingly fond of him and worried about the lack of a dominatrix influence in his life. Carrie was concerned about Dylan's natural ease with people and his ability to quickly strike up new friendships and even Walter maintained that there's such a thing as being too well adjusted.
"You don't want him falling into the middle-class-morality trap with nothing but straight teeth and perfect SAT scores to recommend him. Some of these high school teachers have never been out of Irvine and have doctorate degrees for Christ's sake. The only reason they're teaching is for the tenure."
"You have tenure, too," I reminded him.
"Yes, and I take full advantage of it," he replied, his eye momentarily tracking a passing young busboy.
