Word: sugars
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...dental experience happened in 1964. Hamburg club managers had introduced the Beatles to uppers, and Bob Dylan had turned them on to marijuana. Now, at a dinner party at George's dentist's house in London, the host slipped sugar cubes laced with LSD into the after-dinner coffee of George and Patti, John and his wife Cynthia. Within months, all the Beatles were experimenting with acid, and eventually Paul was into cocaine, John into heroin and George a fan of hashish (for which he would be busted in March 1969). The music they continued to make in the studio...
...clear standouts emerge from the collection, “The Other Man” and “Sugar Peas.” All of Schlink’s stories are effective in their portrayal of a specific kind of love; his goal is to show the depths and complexity of love, and how it motivates us beyond rational action. These two stories in particular approach the topic with a bubbling uniqueness. Instead of the more straightforward and realistic parables on the foibles of love, these stories have a quirky sensibility that makes them drastically more entertaining...
...Sugar Peas,” the true standout of the collection, is a funny and simultaneously tragic diatribe on one man’s emotional polygamy. Thomas is married with children to Jutta. He becomes entangled in an extremely serious affair with Veronika, who wants a larger commitment from him, and after years of his double-life, she gives birth to his child. At this point, Schlink begins setting up Thomas’ ultimate flaw: obliviousness...
...explicit reason, except that he is simply too weak to knock off a couple corners of his triangle. This is most certainly the crux of the story’s charm. Schlink takes incredible joy in keeping Thomas’ motivations unclear. Though this makes “Sugar Peas” far less believable than the other pieces, it also makes it infinitely more fascinating. Schlink asks the reader to come up with the answer in “Sugar Peas,” a refreshing change from his tendency to beat his readers over the head with...
Inevitably, Thomas falls. The weight of his triple-life becomes unbearable, and rather than facing the situation, he drops everything and travels the world for a year, with hilarious results. But eventually, his vacation ends; Schlink’s conclusion to “Sugar Peas” is appropriately surreal and viciously funny. Here Schlink adds a layer of sarcasm and thick irony that is missing from the other stories. The result is sublimely wicked; Schlink takes a very subtle, yet decisive revenge on Thomas, creating a more biting and much less thematically obvious tale than some...