Saturday night we spent several hours in the minivan in a high school parking lot in Santa Monica, waiting for it to be time for No. 3's honor choir concert (parking was bad, and we like each other, even if four hours in a minivan does test the bounds of our relationship a bit).
I had with me William Saroyan's Letters from 74 rue Taitbout; or, Don't go, but if you must, say hello to everybody (I also had a volume of Shakespeare's tragedies and at least two other things -- I left in a hurry not sure what sounded good to read).
I like Saroyan a lot.
Letters is depressing, because he takes it as given that life is messed up, so messed up things happen and people keep doing them and there's really nothing to be done, since it's this messed up life that forced them into doing the messed up things.
He's right, as far as human power is concerned. There is only one Way out of the sin cycle, and it's not by human means.
Saroyan's insights into human nature are startlingly accurate and poignant. But it's like he's missing the key that explains everything. And he knows it (for any Saroyan-literate: "there are no cookies, raisins in").
So, that to say that I think I'll go on buying $.50 copies of The Human Comedy when I run into them at the library bookstore. I'm at two and counting . . .
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