Word: lovelies
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Judy shows. The original comedia were performed by troupes of players --who traveled from town to town with their entertainment. Their plays were never the same, however. What were constant were the roles that each member of the troupe played and a few basic plots and themes: true love thwarted by a preposterous and often evil father, cunning servants who devise ingenious tricks and ruses, the soldier and the harlequin, etc. Each night, before the performance, the leader of the troupe would give his actors the plot twists for that night--with a few variations on character and theme...
...others. Why then were the campesinos of Morelos willing to give up their lives to secure tiny fields for their children? I get from Womack's book the same feeling I have gotten from watching campesinos in other parts of Mexico talk about land. It is not something you love or hate, it is a part of you, and as you would fight to stay alive, so you would fight to protect you land from dismemberment. Only such strong feelings can serve to explain how Zapata and his followers could have made the terrible, ruinous journey they made. Their revolution...
...there is a key to the system's inner logic, it is in the environment's response to changes of mood. When Colin feels ready to fall in love, doors begin to close "with the sound of a kiss on a bare shoulder," and the air turns sultry. This environmental adaptability is all very well in the first half of the book, when Colin's main preoccupations are his love for Chloe, for Duke Ellington's music, and for the gastronomical delights concocted by his cook. But when Chloe falls fatally ill the atmosphere of light and luxury changes...
...love story itself is simple to the point of banality, but set in this strange, poetic universe it becomes unforgettable. Vian's language evokes both sensuality and a kind of fragile tenderness; Chloe's skin is "amber-colored and as appetizing as marzipan," but she coughs "like a piece of silk tearing." This delicacy is poignant in the second half of the novel, as Chloe and Colin become the innocent victims of an inexplicable determinism for which no one will take responsibility. At Chloe's grotesque, horrifying funeral, Colin cross-examines Jesus...
Vian is not accusing religion of indifference so much as pointing out its irrelevance. What is relevant and important then? In his forward, Vian declares, "There are only two things: love, all sorts of live, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duck Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. . . ." This is a flippantly stated philosophy, but the hedonistic note it sound accords well with Vian's own life-style. A cardiac case from childhood, Vian decided to ignore his illness with a vengeance. He was a jazz musician, a composer, an engineer...