I love the last couple of pages, not least because of their implication of the future in which we will one day look back at that time. I think his perception of the 'beautiful' in the last line is sincere; unsure if that implies 'seeing through' other things.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 4 June 2023 19:52 (ten months ago) link
Nick wasn’t a boring monster imo he was a hypocrite and a parasite, just as Gerald accused him— the AIDS test was (I felt) deliberately placed there as a maguffin, that the prospect of losing his life to AIDS was less painful that his social expulsion.
goon otm
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 4 June 2023 19:55 (ten months ago) link
Imagine being called a hypocrite and a parasite by that oleaginous cretin and him being *right*.
And that closing passage: it's probably more a kind of hyper-sensitivity brought on by the trauma of his betrayal but something about that 'there was a street corner at all' - like the aesthete was finally, however briefly, forced to see to the heart of things, literally and metaphorically.
― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Sunday, 4 June 2023 20:03 (ten months ago) link
Gerald, ftr, not fgti.
― Stars of the Lidl (Chinaski), Sunday, 4 June 2023 20:04 (ten months ago) link