linc and madeline and all the rest
ah! i found it, on my site. um, i corresponded with seamus d and mentioned a passage in roth's sabbath's theater, from one of my favorite parts actually...his phrasing "the sadder but wiser school girl for me" reminded me this. and. i love it. and i miss it.
mickey sabbath the puppeteer is at a hospital because of his emotionally estranged alcoholic wife roseanna. he meets an incredible girl named madeline.
Her laugh was very sly now, a delightful surprise. A delightful person, suffused by a light soulfulness that wasn't at all juvenile, however juvenile she happened to look. An adventurous mind with an intuitive treasure that her suffering hadn't shut down, Madeline displayed the bright sadder-but-wiser outlook of an alert first-grader who'd discovered the alphabet in a school where Ecclesiastes is the primer--life is futility, a deeply terrible experience, but the really serious thing is reading.
/
and just, another passage i loved, because i'm a dork.
Linc's little grandchild named Laurie. A
tiny, energetic girl with large, dark, sensual
eyes who raced up to Sabbath on the
pavement after the service and said, "Santa,
Santa, I'm three! They put Grandpa in a box!"
The box that never failed to impress.
Whatever your age, the sight of that box
never lost its power. One of us takes up
no more room than that. You can store us
like shoes or ship us like lettuce. The
simpleton who invented the coffin was a
poetic genius and a great wit.
both from Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
mickey sabbath the puppeteer is at a hospital because of his emotionally estranged alcoholic wife roseanna. he meets an incredible girl named madeline.
Her laugh was very sly now, a delightful surprise. A delightful person, suffused by a light soulfulness that wasn't at all juvenile, however juvenile she happened to look. An adventurous mind with an intuitive treasure that her suffering hadn't shut down, Madeline displayed the bright sadder-but-wiser outlook of an alert first-grader who'd discovered the alphabet in a school where Ecclesiastes is the primer--life is futility, a deeply terrible experience, but the really serious thing is reading.
/
and just, another passage i loved, because i'm a dork.
Linc's little grandchild named Laurie. A
tiny, energetic girl with large, dark, sensual
eyes who raced up to Sabbath on the
pavement after the service and said, "Santa,
Santa, I'm three! They put Grandpa in a box!"
The box that never failed to impress.
Whatever your age, the sight of that box
never lost its power. One of us takes up
no more room than that. You can store us
like shoes or ship us like lettuce. The
simpleton who invented the coffin was a
poetic genius and a great wit.
both from Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth