"The Grasshopper King" [.]
Dec. 14th, 2006 08:42 pm[Samuel Beckett:] "Once a certain degree of insight has been reached," said Wylie, "All men speak, when speak they must, the same tripe. "
<The climax: >
__ (The grasshoppers) huddled in the corners and nestled among the artifacts, and at any moment dozens of them were in midleap, so that the room seemed held at a low green simmer.
__ Charlie's legs were kicking jerkily, in a loose frog-style, moving independently in wild ellipses; it was a manner of kicking, I thought distractedly, for which I knew the exact Gravinic verb.
- (She) pulled the covers halfway back over her face, so just her eyes showed - a soldier peering over the edge of a trench.
- an aura of domestic permanence, the aura that marriage has in Victorian novels, or the curses of the gods in Greek plays
- (The basement) was as if the world's forgotten cultures had pooled their meager resources and mounted a garage sale.
- given to discontinuity of feeling
- Precision was vanity's enemy.
- She wasn't shy, but only duty made her really sociable.
- a cheery, vigorous, obligatory lightness
- a little chirp of competence.
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