#461 Paper Losses- Lorrie Moore
Here is another story about a failed, loveless marriage,
perhaps even infidelity. At this point of this story-a-day exercise of mine
there are some topics that I just don’t like to read about anymore. This is one
of them. So, I say right away, I know that it’s not Moore’s fault that I am
saturated with this topic. On the other hand, stories that astound the reader
often do so by transcending the topic. Yesterday, the Lahiri story I read,
Sexy, was about infidelity and a failed marriage, but I found interest in it,
because at least it was coming from a different perspective.
Trying to stay somewhat objective, I found the writing here
to be a little uneven. Moore is exceedingly clever and creative in her word
play and ironic observances. However, it seems here that those moments
overshadowed the objective of the piece. If I stop and say—hey, that phrase the
author used is a clever one—then I’m taken out of the narration a bit. I didn’t
believe I was hearing the narrator speaking, I was seeing the writer, writing
clever phrases.
But, some of them were definitely winners, or at least
fodder for bumper stickers:
“Rage had it’s medicinal purposes, but she was not wired to
sustain it, and when it tumbled away, loneliness engulfed her, grief burning at
the center in a cold blue heat.”
“Like a person, a marriage was unrecognizable in death, even
buried in an excellent suit.”
“Marriage stopped being comic when it was suddenly halted,
at which point it became divorce, which time never disrupted, and so the
funniness of which was never-ending.”
“All husbands are space aliens.”
“Hope is never false. Or it is always false. Whatever, it’s
just hope.”
“Divorce she could see, would be like marriage: a power
grab, as in who would be the dog and who would be the owner of the dog.”
No comments:
Post a Comment