the member of the wedding

[fflo]

when i was something like 16 starnes told me, on the side and in response to my query, how it was she could tell that i 'got' the novel more than the other students. i'd liked the idea, of course, but i'd assumed it was bullshit. what could she mean by that; how could she know, based on my few mutterings about it (written or spoken, i recall not, now).

she said it was the thing about the thumb.

i suppose now i don't think any work boils down to one thing---not a good work, anyway---and i'm also suspicious that her conspiratorial thing might've had intentions beyond the scope of that discussion of the book. potentially kind or even wise ones, but, well, still, i undercut it on that level, too.

but the thing about the thumb, and that the thing about the thumb is significant, has stayed with me. and it is a theme i know inside and out. whether that was true before the taking aside, i can only guess, but i suppose there's a good chance it was. i'd picked it out for comment, apparently.

carson mccullers had a rough life.

not that that's here or there. but 'strue.

Comments

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Love that book so much.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Apparently my memory has failed me. What is the thing about the thumb?

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Now, Gayle Cynthia, I'm not gonna spoil your re-reading of it (which you may well undertake someday) with a lousy synopsizing here...

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

But I read my university library's copy of it, and therefore I do not have one around to reread!