Apr. 25, 2003 - 2:13 p.m.
Dear Meghan:
Officially, welcome back. I trust you were, as always, an avid mental photographer; I look forward to the new mind pictures.
In the pause of our dialogue, I dislodged myself from evening ritual and chose to tear into and finish “The Lovely Bones”, which I succeeded at around 1:30am Friday morning. Since the events of the last half of the book are the most fresh in my mind, let me begin by giving you my impression of that part: my interest in the story, the family and the events mirrored that of Susie herself – as time began to accelerate and contact with Earth got more fleeting, so did my interest in the characters of the book. I found myself skipping the occasional paragraph, returning, like Susie, just to see what was going on a little bit later.
At first, I enjoyed the time acceleration, as I thought it was Susie’s own maturation in heaven (which I thought was ultimately going to lead to her re-birth) which inspired it. Then I got a gnawing feeling that the author – Alice Sebold, not Susie – was getting a little fatigued with the book and had made a shortlist of ends to tie up before she could rightfully stop writing.
Three things in particular appalled me: the sinkhole episode, the Ruth/Susie switch, and George Harvey’s demise. The sinkhole disappointed me as I don’t recall much – if any – mention of it early on; Harvey’s demise was told in an oh-by-the-way, very detached, voice, and the Ruth/Susie switch was just too ‘Freaky Friday’ and out of left field for me (and wasn’t Ray basically making love to a 12-year-old in the shower…..think about it). As my mental automobile kept hitting these speed bumps, I kept hoping that a re-birth was in the offing. A birth did appear, as you remember, but it wasn’t Susie reincarnated. But I retained hope that some postscript bit would appear in which Susie began to lose her memory or her heaven would change shape and her ability to speak would diminish and the next thing she would remember would be a hospital. There’s a lot of ‘and’s in that sentence; I’m afraid the book simply left me with wanting, like a kid who is allowed one jelly bean but no more.
Having spewed bile like there’s no tomorrow, I can and should declare without reservation that the first two-thirds of the book were as spellbinding as anything I have ever, ever written. As I’ve mentioned to you before, reading the book heightened all of my senses. I became very self-aware during my “Bones” sessions at the local coffee house. Though, as I’ve also mentioned, some of the dialogue seems a bit too poetic at times, it is forgivable as one could reasonably postulate that the events on Earth are being told through Susie’s point of view as well as her vocabulary, which itself is highly poetic.
There was a Clowns meeting on Tuesday night, designed to work on some bits that weren’t quite working and to also discuss the future. I must confess I felt a bit like a woman obsessed with marriage, as the future is always in my mind with respect to the Clowns (I should be so focused in real life, but I tend to favor random chance in that realm). When I posed the options as I saw them – do another show and maintain the status quo, do a tour of bars and clubs throughout the metropolitan region, do both and do neither – the response was prototypical Clownfare: a lot of pauses, a few randomly fired ideas, nothing concrete. Robert had a good idea of hosting our own open mic in a bar on a Sunday. A perk: “Not all of us would have to be there.” Though I heard the idea out, I am so opposed to partial cast performances, I cannot tell you. For me, rehearsals, shows and working on both are mandatory – and that’s why I do it with such fervor. If given a ‘you don’t have to be there’ option, I tend to lean toward not being there. In my head, I figured that each Clown is worth approximately 17% of the group – and should one person fail to show, it would be a drastic reduction in power and strength. Who wants to see 83% of their favorite band together (presuming a six-person band with one person missing)? Fleetwood Mac no longer has Christine McVie and, though I love the Mac, I am far less than anxious about buying their new disc. I won’t buy the new Who album. I wouldn’t see a Monty Python film without all six of them. In my mind, it wouldn’t be Fleetwood Mac, the Who or Monty Python. I see a performance by 5/6th – or worse – of the Clowns in the same light.
I have a silent game I play with myself when it comes to the Clowns discussions. I time how long it takes between suggestions being made and excuses coming to the surface on how we can’t do something. Last Tuesday was a record, with 2 minutes elapsing before ‘I can’t commit to that’ showed up the first time.
The bottom line is that it doesn’t look especially good for the Clowns. I know I’ve considered ending it anyway, but watching the sheer apathy of the group is still heart-breaking.
I had lunch with Jennie today, who told me how silly I was to be thinking in such pessimistic terms – options are there, she said, if you want them to be. I’m sure I will want them to be, as soon as my self-pity treatment concludes.
With a spectacular double take,
Vincent
what they said - what they will say
