The first few pages of John O'Hara's novel put me in mind of winters in small-town Massachusetts, where I grew up.
I don't recall it being that snowy, usually, at Christmas, so I wondered how typical that could have been in 1930, a hundred miles outside Philadelphia.
But I remembered how quiet it was the morning after a heavy snow and the muffled sound of chains on early passing cars, just as he described it.
And I looked out my bedroom window about 7:30, Saturday morning, and saw a golden snowfall of early November leaves from the giant maples behind the house, not five miles as the crow flies from downtown Pittsburgh.
Suddenly, the doleful measures of Autumn Leaves started up inside my head, and I hurried to turn off that unwanted song.
Because it wasn't sad, no more than that morning snow and that sound of muffled chains.
And it was just as beautiful.
O'Hara's prose, by the way, is very fine.
Update, Sunday, November 10th.
Just finished, maybe 26 or 27 hours after starting.
That is one fast book.
One heck of a story, wonderfully written.
Update, Tuesday, 11/12.
This morning I brushed two inches of snow off the car, and scraped off the ice underneath it.
So much for that beautiful golden snow of maple leaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment