Slashy geezers in literature
Jul. 3rd, 2002 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Having done most of my reading on-line for the past 6 months, I just thought I'd share my reborn delight in published literature.
Slashy geezers in literature
Note: Coleman is 71, the 'I' character (Nathan) is 65.
Extract from Philip Roth, The Human Stain, 2000
He stopped reading when he heard, coming from the radio, the first bars of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" being sung by Sinatra. "I've got to dance," Coleman said. "Want to dance?"
I laughed. No, this was not the savage, embittered, embattled avenger of Spooks, estranged from life and maddened by it -- this was not even another man. This was another soul. A boyish soul at that. I got a strong picture then, both from Steena's letter and from Coleman, shirtless, as he was reading it, of what Coleman Silk had once been like. Before becoming a revolutionary dean, before becoming a serious classics professor -- and long before becoming Athena's pariah -- he had been not only a studious boy but a charming and seductive boy as well. Excited. Mischievous. A bit demonic even, a snub-nosed, goat-footed Pan. Once upon a time, before the serious things took over completely.
"After I hear the rest of the letter," I replied to the invitation to dance.
[...]
"Well," I said, "that is 1948 for you."
"Come. Let's dance."
"But you mustn't sing into my ear."
"Come on. Get up."
What the hell, I thought, we'll both be dead soon enough, and so I got up, and there on the porch Coleman Silk and I began to dance the fox trot together. He led, and, as best I could, I followed. I remembered that day he'd burst into my studio after making burial arrangements for Iris and, out of his mind with grief and rage, told me that I had to write for him the book about all the unbelievable absurdities of his case, culminating in the murder of his wife. One would have thought that never again would this man have a taste for the foolishness of life, that all that was playful in him and light-hearted had been destroyed and lost, right along with the career, the reputation, and the formidable wife. Maybe why it didn't even cross my mind to laugh and let him, if he wanted to, dance around the porch by himself, just laugh and enjoy myself watching him -- maybe why I gave him my hand and let him place his arm around my back and push me dreamily around that old bluestone floor was because I had been there that day when her corpse was still warm and seen what he'd looked like.
"I hope nobody from the volunteer fire department drives by," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "We don't want anybody tapping me on the shoulder and asking, 'May I cut in?'"
On we danced. There was nothing overtly carnal in it, but because Coleman was wearing only his denim shorts and my hand rested easily on his warm back as if it were the back of a dog or a horse, it wasn't entirely a mocking act. There was a semi-serious sincerity in his guiding me about on the stone floor, not to mention a thoughtless delight in just being alive, accidentally and clownishly and for no reason alive -- the kind of delight you take as a child when you first learn to play a tune with a comb and toilet paper.
It was when we sat down that Coleman told me about the woman. "I'm having an affair, Nathan. I'm having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old woman. I can't tell you what it's done to me."
"We just finished dancing -- you don't have to."
[...]
I thought, He's found somebody he can talk with... and then I thought, So have I. The moment a man starts to tell you about sex, he's telling you something about the two of you. Ninety percent of the time it doesn't happen, and probably it's as well it doesn't, though if you can't get a level of candor on sex and you choose to behave instead as if this isn't ever on your mind, the male friendship is incomplete. Most men never find such a friend. It's not common. But when it does happen, when two men find themselves in agreement about this essential part of being a man, unafraid of being judged, shamed, envied, or outdone, confident of not having the confidence betrayed, their human connection can be very strong and an unexpected intimacy results. [...]
I don't know how it ends; I'm only ten pages past this extract which appears in chapter one. :-)
Slashy geezers in literature
Note: Coleman is 71, the 'I' character (Nathan) is 65.
Extract from Philip Roth, The Human Stain, 2000
He stopped reading when he heard, coming from the radio, the first bars of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" being sung by Sinatra. "I've got to dance," Coleman said. "Want to dance?"
I laughed. No, this was not the savage, embittered, embattled avenger of Spooks, estranged from life and maddened by it -- this was not even another man. This was another soul. A boyish soul at that. I got a strong picture then, both from Steena's letter and from Coleman, shirtless, as he was reading it, of what Coleman Silk had once been like. Before becoming a revolutionary dean, before becoming a serious classics professor -- and long before becoming Athena's pariah -- he had been not only a studious boy but a charming and seductive boy as well. Excited. Mischievous. A bit demonic even, a snub-nosed, goat-footed Pan. Once upon a time, before the serious things took over completely.
"After I hear the rest of the letter," I replied to the invitation to dance.
[...]
"Well," I said, "that is 1948 for you."
"Come. Let's dance."
"But you mustn't sing into my ear."
"Come on. Get up."
What the hell, I thought, we'll both be dead soon enough, and so I got up, and there on the porch Coleman Silk and I began to dance the fox trot together. He led, and, as best I could, I followed. I remembered that day he'd burst into my studio after making burial arrangements for Iris and, out of his mind with grief and rage, told me that I had to write for him the book about all the unbelievable absurdities of his case, culminating in the murder of his wife. One would have thought that never again would this man have a taste for the foolishness of life, that all that was playful in him and light-hearted had been destroyed and lost, right along with the career, the reputation, and the formidable wife. Maybe why it didn't even cross my mind to laugh and let him, if he wanted to, dance around the porch by himself, just laugh and enjoy myself watching him -- maybe why I gave him my hand and let him place his arm around my back and push me dreamily around that old bluestone floor was because I had been there that day when her corpse was still warm and seen what he'd looked like.
"I hope nobody from the volunteer fire department drives by," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "We don't want anybody tapping me on the shoulder and asking, 'May I cut in?'"
On we danced. There was nothing overtly carnal in it, but because Coleman was wearing only his denim shorts and my hand rested easily on his warm back as if it were the back of a dog or a horse, it wasn't entirely a mocking act. There was a semi-serious sincerity in his guiding me about on the stone floor, not to mention a thoughtless delight in just being alive, accidentally and clownishly and for no reason alive -- the kind of delight you take as a child when you first learn to play a tune with a comb and toilet paper.
It was when we sat down that Coleman told me about the woman. "I'm having an affair, Nathan. I'm having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old woman. I can't tell you what it's done to me."
"We just finished dancing -- you don't have to."
[...]
I thought, He's found somebody he can talk with... and then I thought, So have I. The moment a man starts to tell you about sex, he's telling you something about the two of you. Ninety percent of the time it doesn't happen, and probably it's as well it doesn't, though if you can't get a level of candor on sex and you choose to behave instead as if this isn't ever on your mind, the male friendship is incomplete. Most men never find such a friend. It's not common. But when it does happen, when two men find themselves in agreement about this essential part of being a man, unafraid of being judged, shamed, envied, or outdone, confident of not having the confidence betrayed, their human connection can be very strong and an unexpected intimacy results. [...]
I don't know how it ends; I'm only ten pages past this extract which appears in chapter one. :-)