*Wild Child
Wild Child -novella by T.C. Boyle included in McSweeney’s 19, along with “Color Plates” by Adam Golaski and “Prince of the World” by Christopher Howard
Encased in a cigarbox with mock AandH bomb tactical response pamphlets and old travel guides to Iraq, is a wonderful volume of literature. What’s unfortunate about modern popular literature is that our contemporary writers, apologies, have behaviorally evolved to, even while writing the most profound or plangent stories, can’t take their tongues out of their cheeks. And it’s so for both T.C. Boyle and Christopher Howard. Their topics are commendable, their diction honed, their metaphors whetted, but there is an inextricable element of postmodern smirk to them. Or is it ennui. For even the slightest glimmer of ennui is worse than determined depravity. The stories, along with the theme of the cigar box, are savage, frightening, and very pertinent to our post-nuclear, operation freedom world. I feel echoes of McCarthy. Echoes of Revelation. And I believe in God.
A man on the street asked me today, But have you surrendered to surrender? He was drunk, intelligent, Berkeley, talking to us about his thesis in calculus, what is the difference between an idea and a belief and he looked at me and said, John, are you racist? His name was Nick Armstong. And his mother and all of his sisters are very becoming women.
“The city awoke and arose. Fires were lit. Raw dough fell into hot oil, eggs cracked, pike lost their heads, civilization progressed.” from T.C. Boyle
Encased in a cigarbox with mock AandH bomb tactical response pamphlets and old travel guides to Iraq, is a wonderful volume of literature. What’s unfortunate about modern popular literature is that our contemporary writers, apologies, have behaviorally evolved to, even while writing the most profound or plangent stories, can’t take their tongues out of their cheeks. And it’s so for both T.C. Boyle and Christopher Howard. Their topics are commendable, their diction honed, their metaphors whetted, but there is an inextricable element of postmodern smirk to them. Or is it ennui. For even the slightest glimmer of ennui is worse than determined depravity. The stories, along with the theme of the cigar box, are savage, frightening, and very pertinent to our post-nuclear, operation freedom world. I feel echoes of McCarthy. Echoes of Revelation. And I believe in God.
A man on the street asked me today, But have you surrendered to surrender? He was drunk, intelligent, Berkeley, talking to us about his thesis in calculus, what is the difference between an idea and a belief and he looked at me and said, John, are you racist? His name was Nick Armstong. And his mother and all of his sisters are very becoming women.
“The city awoke and arose. Fires were lit. Raw dough fell into hot oil, eggs cracked, pike lost their heads, civilization progressed.” from T.C. Boyle
posted by JohnWashington at 2:20 PM
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