twenty-two before 22
i’m reading 22 books before my 22nd birthday—in three monthsArchive for sex
#4 of 22
Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)
by Nathanael West
Novel
58 pages
Beginning:
“The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard,” (1).
Somewhere in the middle:
“The whisky was good and he felt warm and sure. Through the light-blue tobacco smoke, the mahogany bar shone like wet gold. The glasses and bottles, their high lights exploding, rand like a battery of little bells when the bartender touched them together,” (15).
End:
“The cripple turned to escape, but he was too close and Miss Lonelyhearts caught him.
While they were struggling, Betty came in through the street door. She called to them to stop and started up the stairs. The cripple saw her cutting off his escape and tried to get rid of the package. He pulled his hand out. The gun inside the package exploded and Miss Lonelyhearts fell, dragging the cripple with him. They both rolled part of the way down the stairs,” (58).
#1 of 22
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)
by D.H. Lawrence
Novel
321 pages
Beginning:
“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habits, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen,” (3).
Somewhere in the middle:
“It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises grasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, we there is true air. I am convinced that the air we normally breathe is a kind of water, and men and women are a species of fish,” (285).
End:
“But a great deal of us is together, and we can but abide by it, and steer our courses to meet soon. John Thomas says goodnight to lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart,” (324).
