Previous - 101. Class and the South
Absalom
p240 "...and there was nothing of vanity, nothing comic in it either Grandfather said, because of that innocence which he [Sutpen] had never lost... just told Grandfather how he had put his first wife aside...." This is a curious statement. I'm not at all sure what is meant by "innocence" here. I suppose you could say they all (people involved in the slave economy) were "innocent" if you mean that they lacked any sense of good and evil.Ove
It might surprise you to learn that I am reading two other books just now. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson -- grumpy but also very funny -- and A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. As I write that, it occurs to me that Ove and Bryson are much alike. And you could throw me into that grumpy group as well. Fortunately, I'm on Bryson's (sarcastic humor) end of the spectrum.Ove and I would get along like a house afire (unfortunate imagery since his house just burned down in the novel), especially as it comes to the uselessness of younger people. Sadly, I suspect we are due for a sort of rebirth for Ove as he learns to reconnect with the irritating people around him, rather than the suicide he is currently having a hard time realizing.
Several chapters ago Ove was incensed by a neighbor who neither had his own Allen wrenches (or keys) nor knew how to properly name them. Remember those chairs at Peet's I was praising some time ago. It seems that when they were assembled the workmen failed to use the adhesive that keeps the screws from unscrewing. Every time I come in I have to test a chair to see to what extent it is falling apart, and almost every time I have to turn it upside down and tighten the screws as much as I can with my fingers. I even brought in my set of Allen wrenches one day, only to discover that the screw requires a special tool.
So today I noticed one of the screws had fallen out and was lying on the floor. I had been considering removing a screw and taking it over to the hardware store (right around the corner) so I could get the proper tool but felt that was going just a little too far. But since it was just sitting on the ground...
The tool only cost eighty cents and now I can at least make the seat I sit in secure. Ove would have been impressed.
What has just surprised me in the novel is a passing mention of paint brushes sitting in jars of mineral spirits. This succeeded in bringing the memory of that particular chemical cocktail to mind, but it's a smell I haven't known for decades as almost all paints here are water based latex, since lead has been forbidden. What kind of paint do they have in Sweden? By a truly freak coincidence, my friend who owns a second home in Sweden is going to be in town in two days and I could ask her, except that I would be shocked if she had a clue about paint either here or there. I could probably find this information on the Internet, but probably in Swedish. It 'tis unfair.
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