24 March 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 1

His Vipers, He Writes

by CHARLES FREELAND

We've come to expect disillusion and madness where before there had been simply chiffon. That material you might remember from the early novels of Auchincloss. But enough of the ad hominem attacks! We've become so devoted to them, the sailors themselves run the other way at our approach. And I suspect there are days when we so thoroughly lose that sense of being someone in particular that if you were to quiz us, we'd pass, but only by chewing on the paper. By reworking the questions in the meantime to reflect the slant of the other people in the room. Thereby enabling our escape through the kitchen. Through the back passages ordinarily reserved for tornado drills. But not the real thing. Does this mean we are somehow less than we were this morning? When the ceiling fan seemed strangely geometrical, part of the problem? When the coupons were still good through May? Probably. But that doesn't make for a pleasant denouement, by any means. There is the requirement still of fumbling. Of packing away the figurines and the mortar and pestle handed down by your grandmother. And then, that nearly unconquerable longing for people we do not know.