Word: junking
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Vagueness and insubstantiality are the qualities at hand when Antonio Parr wakes up in the morning. Parr is a man in his 30s who has a small private income and has worked without delight as a teacher, a failed novelist and a junk sculptor. "I resorted as little as possible to welding," explains the hero of Frederick Buechner's ruefully funny new novel, "but used balance wherever I could or the natural capacity of one odd shape to fit somehow into or on top of or through another-entirely autobiographical, in other words-the idea being to leave...
...matter where Antoine goes he is haunted by the brie-a-brace and human beings that form the junk-heap of his society. As in 400 Blows, there are garbage cans and arguing couples at every turn. As in Stolen Kisses. he constantly meets up with the dead and the lonely harbingers of his own doom. In this case there is a recluse in his apartment building who is watching TV until the distant day when "Marshal Petain is buried in Verdun"; an old school chum (who appeared briefly in the earlier movie) wandering the streets in zombie-fashion...
...reading prose that is straightforward, factual, and dull, which tells a story in the fewest possible words and doesn't bore them with details. The result, of course, has been that English prose style has gone straight to Hell. The Erich Segals of this world are cleaning up on junk that shouldn't get them a passing grade in English...
...dead in a whirlpool bath several years ago (S, I think) she left no will. The rents on her dilapidated buildings were frozen, and some people, like Bill Turtle, had some good luck. Bill, as you know, makes a pile of money by selling "antiques" to rich folk and junk to poor folk. This is fine and good, and he has prospered. Naturally, when Wasserman bought up the whole estate, normal rents began to come back. You thank your luck for the eight cheap years, you don't damn Wasserman for playing the regular game. Taxes haven't been frozen...
...Griffin beat him with that junk-type game, and I think I can too." MeAdoo said...