From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com   
      
   "Martha Bridegam"  wrote in message   
   news:fbjWh.5170$2v1.2538@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...   
   > "...'Eliot -- said Charley with mounting anxiety, 'did you hear what I   
   > just said?'   
   > 'Yes,' said Eliot.   
   > 'What did I just say?'   
   > 'I forget.'   
   > 'You just said you heard me.'   
   > Noyes Finnerty spoke up. 'All he hears is the big click.' He came forward   
   > for a closer examination of Eliot. His approach was not sympathetic. It   
   > was clinical. Eliot's response was clinical, too, as though a nice doctor   
   > were shining a bright light in his eyes, looking for something. 'He heard   
   > that *click*, man. Man, did he ever hear that *click*.'   
   > 'What the hell are you talking about?' Charley asked him.   
   > 'It's a thing you learn to listen for in prison.'   
   > 'We're not in prison now.'   
   > 'It ain't a thing that happens just in prison. In prison, though, you get   
   > to listening for things more and more. You stay there long enough, you go   
   > blind, you're all ears. The click is one thing you listen for. You two --   
   > you think you're mighty close? If you were really close --   
   > and that don't mean you have to like him, just know him -- you would have   
   > heard that *click* of his a mile away. You get to know a man, and down   
   > deep there's something bothering him bad, and maybe you never find out   
   > what it is, but it's what makes him do like he does, it's what makes him   
   > look like he's got secrets in his eyes. And you tell him, 'Calm down, calm   
   > down, take it easy now.' Or you ask him, 'How come you keep doing the same   
   > crazy things over and over again, when you know they're just going to get   
   > you in trouble again?' Only you know there's no sense arguing with him, on   
   > account of it's the thing inside that's making him go. It says, 'Jump,' he   
   > jumps. It says, 'Steal,' he steals. It says, 'Cry,' he cries. Unless he   
   > dies young, though, or unless he gets everything all his way and nothing   
   > big goes wrong, that thing inside of him is going to run down like a   
   > wind-up toy. You're working in the prison laundry next to this man. You've   
   > known him twenty years. You're working along, and all of a sudden you hear   
   > this *click* from him. You turn to look at him. He's stopped working. He's   
   > all calmed down. He looks real dumb. He looks real sweet. You look in his   
   > eyes, and the secrets are gone. He can't even tell you his own name right   
   > then. He goes back to work, but he'll never be the same. That thing that   
   > bothered him so will never click on again. It's dead, it's *dead*. And   
   > that part of that ma's life where he had to be a certain crazy way, that's   
   > *done*!'   
   > Noyes, who had begun with such a massive lack of passion, was now rigid   
   > and perspiring. Both of his hands were white, choking the broomhandle in a   
   > deathgrip. And while the natural design of his story suggested that he   
   > calm down, to illustrate how nicely the man next to him in the laundry had   
   > calmed down, it was impossible for him to simulate peace. The wrenching   
   > work his hands did on the broomhandle became obscene, and the passion that   
   > would not die made him nearly inarticulate. 'Done! Done!' he insisted. It   
   > was the broomhandle that enraged him most now. He tried to snap it across   
   > his thigh, snarled at Charley, the owner of the broom.'The son of a bitch   
   > won't break! Won't break!   
   > 'You lucky bastard,' he said to Eliot, still trying to break the broom,   
   > 'you've had yours!' He showered Eliot with obscenities.   
   > He flung the broom away. 'Motherfucker won't break!' he cried, and he   
   > stormed out the door."   
   >   
   >   
   > (This and the previous from Vonnegut's *God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater*.)   
   >   
   >   
   > Martha Bridegam wrote:   
   >> "...'Give -- give my love to everyone.'   
   >> 'I will, I will.'   
   >> 'Tell them I dream about them all the time.'   
   >> 'That will make them proud.'   
   >> 'Congratulate Mary Moody on her twins.'   
   >> 'I will. I'll be baptizing them tomorrow.'   
   >> 'Baptizing?' This was something new.   
   >> Mushari rolled his eyes.   
   >> 'I - I didn't know you - you did things like that,' said Sylvia   
   >> carefully.   
   >> Mushari was gratified to hear the anxiety in her voice. It meant to him   
   >> that Eliot's lunacy was not stabilized, but was about to make the great   
   >> leap forward into religion.   
   >> 'I couldn't get out of it,' said Eliot. 'She insisted on it, and nobody   
   >> else would do it.'   
   >> 'Oh.' Sylvia relaxed.   
   >> Mushari did not register disappointment. The baptism would hold up very   
   >> well in court as evidence that Eliot thought of himself as a Messiah.   
   >> 'I told her,' said Eliot, and Mushari's mind, which was equipped with   
   >> ratchets, declined to accept this evidence, 'that I wasn't a religious   
   >> person by any stretch of the imagination. I told her nothing I did would   
   >> count in Heaven, but she insisted just the same.'   
   >> 'What will you say? What will you do?'   
   >> 'Oh -- I don't know.' Eliot's sorrow and exhaustion dropped away for a   
   >> moment as he became enchanted by the problem. A birdy little smile played   
   >> over his lips. 'Go over to her shack, I guess. Sprinkle some water on the   
   >> babies, say, 'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and   
   >> cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside,   
   >> babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that   
   >> I know of, babies --:   
   >> ''God damn it, you've got to be kind.''..."   
   >>   
   >> P.S.Burton wrote:   
   >>> I tried two or three of his books that I dug out of the 25p bin in my   
   >>> local hospice shop. I thought they were utter shyte. "cold satirical   
   >>> swagger" indeed. cack handed, unfunny and uninteresting.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> On 13 Apr, 02:35, Martha Bridegam  wrote:   
   >>>> georgeorw...@email.com wrote:   
   >>>>> ...   
   >>>>> These are nice excerpts, very amusing. I see in the bbc article, he   
   >>>>> tried to commit suicide in 1984. I wonder how much depression affected   
   >>>>> his work. I've really only read a bit of his writing. I find him to be   
   >>>>> too much of a smartass for my taste, though he does seem to have many   
   >>>>> good qualities.   
   >>>>> B.   
   >>>> Out of curiosity, who among contemporary writers is just about enough   
   >>>> of   
   >>>> a smartass for you, then?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> /M   
   >>>   
   >>>   
      
   Good job the whole thing is suited to your political outlook otherwise you   
   wouldn't give a squirt for it. Orwell being right in his aesthetic/politics   
   thing in your case. Funny thing was, when I read Slaughterhouse House five   
      
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