__ __ _ | \/ (_) | \ / |_ ___ ___ | |\/| | / __/ __| | | | | \__ \__ \ |_| |_|_|___/___/ __ __ _____ _ _ | \/ | |_ _| | | | | | \ / | __ _ ___ | | _ __ | |_ ___ ___| |__ | |\/| |/ _` |/ __| | | | '_ \| __/ _ \/ __| '_ \ | | | | (_| | (__ _| |_| | | | || (_) \__ \ | | |_ |_| |_|\__,_|\___|_____|_| |_|\__\___/|___/_| |_( ) .................................................|/. __ __ _____ _ _ | \/ | | __ \ | (_) | \ / |_ _ | | | | __ _ _ __| |_ _ __ __ _ | |\/| | | | | | | | |/ _` | '__| | | '_ \ / _` | | | | | |_| | | |__| | (_| | | | | | | | | (_| | |_| |_|\__, | |_____/ \__,_|_| |_|_|_| |_|\__, | .........__/ |...............................__/ | ........|___/...............................|___/. __ __ _ _ | \/ |__ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ ___ _ _(_) |_ ___ | |\/| / _` | '_/ _` | || / -_) '_| | _/ -_) |_| |_\__,_|_| \__, |\_,_\___|_| |_|\__\___| ................|___/........................ ........__ __ ........\ \ / /__ _ _ _ _ __ _ .........\ V / _ \ || | ' \/ _` | ..........|_|\___/\_,_|_||_\__, | ...........................|___/. ________________________+----------------+ ________________________|Chapter Outlines| ________________________+----------------+ CH 1 :: pgs 1- 10 : The Bus Ride, The Journey, Miss MacIntosh We start on a bus ride, through southern Indiana, presumably at night, in the spring "but it might have been winter still, another planet, the face of the dead moon." Grey Goose Bus, drunken bus driver (Moses Hunnecker), a married couple (Madge and Homer Edwards) and Vera Cartwheel, our protagonist (probably). The reader is exposed to a single page of standard prose before turning and witnessing the first of Young's many circular and unending poetic descriptions, this first one about the married woman's dress which contains, more or less but probably more than every conceivable outdoor sport, bird, beetles. The whole page is a single block of text like a fixated Roberto Bolaño instead of a rambling one. It is, as O'Gieblyn puts it, "hard not to feel that something has gone wrong. The record is skipping; whoever was manning the controls has stepped out for a cigarette — or a very potent joint."(Paris Review, 2018) (It should be noted, Young never partook in mind expanding drugs, as far as I know) Its dark, misty, the sourthern Indiana roads lonely. They pass a child perched on a man's shoulders "a double-headed man, staring at nothingness or beyond it." (4) Anyway. Characters on the bus, and then it goes into a sort of meditative rumination on travelling, movement, circles, etc until it gets metahysical and distant from the bus itself. Describing Miss MacIntosh lightly, Vera Cartwheel's search for her, and doubt about the possible success for the search, i.e. Miss MacIntosh might already be dead. Might already have been dead for a while. Miss MacIntosh had a broken nose. CH 2 :: pgs 11- 37 : The Mother, Mr. Spitzer Vera's Mother (Catherine Helena), believes she is already dead, that the reality around her is all in her head, and it is revealed that others, primarily Mr. Spitzer, but also the servants and workers within Ms Cartwheel's house, are enabling her opium fueled delusions. She spends all her time in her bed, initially because of an invisible birthmark she's convinced has made her ugly beyond belief (I think?) She thinks her foot will go and walk without her if she leaves it uncovered on the bed (or something like that....?) She holds meetings with past authors of great acclaim. She thinks Mr. Spitzer is his dead twin brother and has actually almost convinced Mr. Spitzer of this same fact, an odd kind of infection of delusion that spreads throughout the house. She also exhibits knowledge of things she shouldn't know, e.g. the matters of the house, comings and goings, etc, particularly about Mr. Spitzer, spooking him somewhat. She claims there is an Egyptian in the house, which Mr. Spitzer investigates, and finds out to be true, oddly. Its a very surreal moment. At the end theres the story about the canary (pgs 36-7), her one faithful companion, living much longer than canaries should live. She always gave the bird a different name, or switched it up, but it was always the same bird. Actually, Mr. Spitzer had been replacing the bird whenever it died, and believes Ms. Cartwheel had never noticed. Actually again, Ms. Carthweel had seen the bird fly out the window during a storm, and disappear into the night, only to be back the next day. So, really, everybody is having a hard time in that house. CH 3 :: pgs 38- 68 : Miss MacIntosh Described as a simple woman, with little to no historical background (Mr. Spitzer, who hired her, had not done a background check, for....reasons.) Miss MacIntosh and Vera always took walks along the beach, Miss MacIntosh with her umbrella and such. She was born in What Cheer, Iowa, and believed in the Midwest. she disappeared one day, mysteriously, except for a smattering of her clothes on the beach (something much unlike Miss MacIntosh). Vera believed she was dead until she found irvory knitting needle(s?) on the beach, 4(?) years later. A simple woman through and through, she despised signs of wealth, had such a frugal attitude her clothes were ratty and missing buttons. (e.g. pg 57: She would snap open and shut her purse which se wore attached by a rusted chain to her waist. There were neve rmore than two pennies in that scuffed purse of hers, two pennies with which, she used to say, her eyes would be closed when she was dead, for her eyelieds would be trained to settle.) Miss MacIntosh had an odd admirer in a "Bushman" who constantly tried to talk to her and court her, and was constantly rebuffed. Mr. Spitzer can't trust his own memories, but can recall too much about Miss MacIntosh. Also, Miss MacIntosh (Georgia MacIntosh) was hired by Spitzer when Vera was 7, to look after her, until her disappearance, when Vera was 14. The loss of Miss MacIntosh induced an illness in Vera, as if she had lost her true moral compass and it takes her many years to regain a sense of "life that needed no dream of death" (8, and also the MY earthlink website) CH 4 :: pgs 69- 77 : Vera, relationship to mother, lead up This is where we start to encounter the Circular windings, etc. She survived the loss of Miss MacIntosh, and grew up, grew thin, hair is stringy, had a few jobs and college but could not shake her loss, and needed to go searching. So she did. CH 5 :: pgs 78- 91 : The Bus Driver, Moses Hunnecker "How much longer?" I asked, impatiently.(78) --(first line of quoted dialogue) Loud, Drunk, probably lost, probably only halfway there in the first place. Has very long hair because he thinks the barber is a democrat, and he will be dammed if he ever talks to a democrat. Its really a wonder that he keeps missing the potholes. He never answers Vera directly, and it feels like hes been driving forever. CH 6 :: pgs 92- 141 : The Married Couple The woman, crying, married, pregnant. The man, a boy, football player, sleeping. She worked as a telephone operator, and would go out with many a man, use her wits to get things, never committing, and never getting pregnant. She married him simply because he was there, and she is full of dread and regret. She didn't mean to get pregnant, she barely knew him at all. And now they were going to his mothers house, where she will have the baby, and is convinced she will give birth to death. She's fixated on herself as continuously dancing. He is more or less worthless as a man, and moreso as a husband. She paid for the tickets for this bus, she walks in front, she carries suitcases. "He never thought of her but always of that other girl, the girl he had never dreamed of marrying and who, if the rumors could be trusted, was also dying, dying a fast death, having all these unfair advantages over his mortal wife who must take her time, for that other girl was thin as a moonbeam and was not heavy with a stranger's child, and she would never give birth unless to her own image like the ghost of the perfect love and she would never be dead in his eyes. She would never have to endure the test of marraige, the daily friction. She would not have to rub wet wood until it broke into the flame of a star." (107) The first part of this chapter is a weirdly close examination of marriage, specifically of this young girl to her young husband, and the equating of her marraige to her funeral, and the young man as a "father", her father, but not the child's father, and this other woman that he loved but may not have existed ever; and its all weird because this novel shifts without notice between Vera's first person stuff and this insanely close examination of people Vera knows or can see, to the point where Madge (the young girl) claims to know even what her husband is thinking, that is, Vera knows what Madge knows what her husband thinks. This folding, overlapping, self-consuming but unending prose style is supported and supports the content thereof, where Madge (Vera?) is ruminating over and over the merits of marriage and her life and is marriage actually death is she dead already will she die before she grows old, will she be immortal, will birth of this child be the death of her, is it birth to death, and what a beast her husband is, all men are, for never knowing the pain and of birth, losing the "hour-glass form which had not kept the hours" (106) she was already losing. The first part of this chapter is dread and regret, and feeling stuck in time as she is stuck on this bus which is stuck on this road that doesn't seem to end during this moonless honeymoon night which, when it ends, will lead to a honeymoonless marriage, future, anniversaries, family get togthers with no families. # $Id: mmmd,v 1.6 2020/04/15 04:01:21 xvetrd Exp $ # vim:ts=2:sw=2:et:tw=66:fdm=indent