Saturday, August 27, 2016

Not Really a Repetition

Some night this week, I opened up The Moviegoer, and found the eponymous character's mother describing how she had fed his father when the father was not eating, apparently because of an existential malaise:
I had my breakfast early and I made his and brought it to him right there in his bed. I got his book. I remember it--it was a book called The Green Murder Case. Everybody in the family read it. I began to read and he began to listen, and while I read, I fed him. I told him, I said, you can eat, and I fed him.
 On Friday when I went to drop off a book at Carpe Librum, a woman came to the counter to buy three books, the top one The Greene Murder Case by S.S. Van Dyne. I knew the author's name somehow, but don't think I had encountered the title outside of The Moviegoer.

Readers of The Moviegoer will remember that the narrator, John Bickerson (Binx) Bolling is very interested in rotations--the experiencing of the new beyond expectation--and repetitions--encounters bridging years in a way that lets the time between be felt. This counts as neither. Perhaps if I had seen The Greene Murder Case on the family shelves, it would; yet though there may have been a Van Dyne mystery there, I can't say that it was that one.

2 comments:

  1. It is an exciting coincidence in my view, & when those happen you should pay attention, as something or someone is trying to tell you something. Dismiss it and they will simply try and try again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, but what is the message? To read S.S. Van Dyne? Perhaps it is to switch my bedtime reading and see what will turn up next.

      Delete