“Another Small Adventure”
Book 1, chapter 17; Book 2, chapter 20

Characters

1.17 Woman, her husband, “writer bastard” (all unnamed)

2.20 woman (Jenny), her boss (Ms. Neumiller), “Poppa” (her father? a man who scares her?) Jenny’s boyfriend (Warren)

General Subject/ Plot

1.17: A woman, who had been slipped a drug and raped, is found by her husband.

2.20: A woman drinks herself senseless when she gets home from work.

Motifs

1.17 tiled bathroom floor, white and black, hat and scarf, no underwear, writer, vomiting

2.20 vomiting, clothes (dark suit, white blouse, floral pin), “spray” [1st brothers], figurine of lioness with lamb, alcohol, cigarette, wet clothes, soiling oneself,

Notes

All four of the small adventures have women as their protagonists and all four have something dingy about them: in SA1 a married woman feels drawn to be with strange men (seems to want to be soiled?); in SA2 a divorced woman in a kind of glum affair with a married man (the towel); in ASA1 a married woman who has been drugged and raped; in ASA2 a single woman in a dire situation (literally soiling herself.)

The idea that “soiled-ness” (being, feeling dirty) occurs near areas of cleanliness — the tiles in the bathroom in ASA1 are clean, the rather composed atmosphere of the woman who’s soiled herself in ASA2,–the building that is so run down in such a nice part of town (SA1).]

In ASA1, a complex look at the mindset of the victimized woman: yes, she did have it as a thought to get back at her husband by being with another man, but it would have remained a thought if she hadn’t been drugged –and her first thought, on coming out of it, is fear that her husband will find out.

(Reminds of the woman being “drugged” –smoking hash– in the first “On the Roof”. On that occasion, the drug consumption had been consensual but not the sex. In this case the drug made her “consensual” (unable to resist.))

SA1 and SA2 seem to center on “sluttishness”: in the first, the woman seems to take it upon herself, to make herself available to men who are not her husband and are not clean; in the second the woman, having an affair with a married man, recoils from the idea that she has become a slut, which is to be like the woman who broke up her own family.

In SA1 and SA2 and first “On the Roof” sexual entry from rear…. On my first reading of tghe second “Another Small Adventure” I assumed “Poppa” to be a nefarious, maybe pimp-like character. I am now more of the view that he is Jenny’s actual father and that he is responsible for her black lacquered table and bronze figuring and maybe office job.

“A Small Adventure”
Book 1, chapter 16; Book 2, chapter 9

Characters

1.16 Married Woman (unnamed), Young black man (unnamed), man with red hair

2.9 A mother (dottie) her boy (unnamed) her ex-husband (Al) the woman he ran off with (estelle) the man daughter had an affair and his wife (unnamed)

General Subject/ Plot

1.16: married woman, apparently thrill seeking, has sex with two iffy guys.

2.9: a single mother, whose husband ran off with another woman, has a grim affair with another man’s husband.

Motifs

1.16 elevator, red hair, black guy, clothing (suit, skirt), dirtiness, binder (writing?), party

2.9 cigarettes, mother, alcohol, infidelity, towel, linoleum, unhappy

Notes

See “Another Small Adventure.”

“Brothers”
Book 1, chapter 15; Book 2, chapter 24

Characters

1.15 Two brothers (Ray and Warren, Warren the eldest), Warren’s beautiful daughter (name “forgotten”), Ray’s Daughter, Ray’s Son (Warren), their wives (unnamed).

2.24 two brothers (Ray and Warren) and their wives (unnamed).

General Subject/ Plot

1.15: Two brothers share everything but their relationship sours and they grow apart. It’s never stated what goes wrong with their relationship.

2.24: two brothers conduct affairs with each other’s wives.

Motifs

1.15 Ray, Warren, beautiful girl, girl dead at 23 (here a car crash), homburg, lucky strikes, dentist, movies (Cagney et al.) credit investigator,

2.24 Rockefeller Center, cigarettes, infidelity, alcohol, “Prisoner of Love”, three deuces, purple tie, jesus, happy, party

Notes

The first “Brothers” strongly correlated with the second “A Familiar Woman” — Strawberry Blond, dentistry, Oldsmar Florida. It deals with two brothers gradually growing apart. They both have Claire-like daughters, one having died at twenty-three, the other notable for her beauty and premature death. Something dark also hangs over one of these Claire-like daughters, which causes the separation. One guesses it is incest.

The second “Brothers” tells a reverse story of two brothers growing closer together through cheating on each other’s wives, and somewhat invokes the second “Pair of Deuces” both through the mention of “Three Deuces” and the similar situation of two married couples changing partners.

The first is movie-related while the second is song/ music related…. (On the roof, holiday season, three deuces, purple tie, jesus, happy, twenty-five years ago, Rockefeller Center, “Charms“?)… Is there any reason to believe these are not the same Ray and Warren in the two chapters? [There are a couple details that make it unlikely: that the brothers of the first married late, that the given occupations of the two sets of brothers don’t correspond)… What to make of the fact, in the first, that (1) both Ray and Warren have “Claire-like” daughters (one for being exceptionally beautiful and the other for having died at age twenty-three) and that Ray’s son is named Warren? There almost seems a kind of ratio at work… Haven’t seen Strawberry Blond but a look at the plot summary suggests a parallel with these chapters.

“Rockefeller Center”
Book 1, chapter 14; Book 2, chapter 19

Characters

1.14 a young man (unnamed) and his date (also unnamed), a wife mentioned who is also unnamed.

2.19 older man (unnamed), older woman (unnamed), narrator (unnamed)

General Subject/ Plot

1.14: A young man, in the throes of an indefinite romantic sentiment, histrionically pledges to meet the girl he’s with at Rockefeller center in five years. (He keeps this pledge but of course she doesn’t.)

2.19: the narrator (the same narrator?) gives numerous accounts of a story about a man he knows losing his hat and encountering or thinking he has encountered a woman he carried a torch for for many years.

Motifs

1.14 movie, alcohol, boring party, “on the roof” , Saroyan (literature) (*), clothing (black velour dress), new year’s, rockefeller center.

2.19 grey homburg, rockefeller center, fifth avenue, sixth avenue, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, clothing (camel’s hair polo coat), husband leaving wife for secretary, false high blown language/ Reader’s Digest, person aged seventeen (like in 1.14) “five years ago” like in (1.14)

Notes

William Saroyan… grosgrain edge.. I think Sorrentino himself would have been 19 in Jan 1949….

In the first episode a young man, despite knowing how stupid it is and how it doesn’t work like this, wants his love to be like love in the movies. This occurs at Rockefeller center.

In the second, Rockefeller Center is allegedly the location of another romantic movie-like episode: a old man’s hat blown off his head lands at the feet of a woman who might be the same woman he loved as a youth.

In the second, the old man thinks he’s seventeen again which is the age of the woman in the first.

In the second, the old woman’s husband left her five years ago, which is the time, in the first, after which the young man and woman are to reunite.

If, in the second “Rockefeller Center” the woman is now 55 (“55 or so years”) and they knew each other thirty-five years ago, then she was nineteen at that time, and the man seventeen; so there is an inversion at work the first “Rockefeller Center” where the man was nineteen and the woman seventeen.

The first is a third person omniscient account, the second is a first person account of something he himself had been told, maybe repeatedly, maybe a couple of these.

The “boring party” of the first bringing the second “on the roof” to mind.

The “camel-haired coat” of the woman of the second suggesting a real prosperity as opposed to the assumed one suggested by the homburg of the man in the second.

“Claire”
Book 1, chapter 13; Book 2, chapter 2

Characters

1.13 Male narrator (unnamed), his first wife (only mentioned, unnamed), a friend of hers (maybe named Claire but probably not), Claire’s Uncle Ray.

2.2 Claire (apparently having a dream?), her doctor (Doctor Napoleon), her entertainment coordinator (a young black man, Ferlon Gervette)

General Subject/ Plot

1.13: narrator reflects on a woman named Claire he’d had somewhat to do with a long while ago: she was very beautiful; died young of Ovarian cancer; and at the age of twelve had had “romances” with her father and father’s brother.

2.2: A woman has a surreal encounter at her doctor’s office… has to be a dream but is not identified as such.

Motifs

1.13 Helen of Troy, “magic”, Claire, disease, brothers, Irene Dunne, Sunset Park, abortion, World Telegram, incest, numbers 12 & 23,

2.2 Memoires, Writer, Napoleon, Claire, Myeloma, nurses, Los Angeles, slip,

Notes

Mention of Helen in the first Claire points us to the first “Lovers” (where Marlowe’s description of her in Doctor Faustus is mentioned) but this proves to be a misdirection, as the lover of Claire/ Clara in the first “Lovers” is still married; the narrator of the first “Claire” is divorced.

A similar “misdirection” occurs at the end of the first “Claire”: all that we have heard about the beauty of Claire and the incestuous relationship she was coerced into and which produced a baby that she drowned in the sink in fact involved someone with a different name.

Both chapters involve the mortality of Claire as was seen in the first “Success.” In the first “Claire” (the woman initially identified as such) dies very young of ovarian cancer. In the second “Claire”, she has multiple myeloma and is chided by her doctor for smoking.

The second “Claire” could easily be an account of a dream of the Claire of the first “Success” — the dream of one jilted by a memoirist who moves to Los Angeles after she’s become terminally ill, maybe from chainsmoking.)

The first seems to be a man recounting a memory, the second seems to be the dream of a woman….

The second Claire suggests a Highschool romance like the first “In Dreams.” (In that chapter, a man has a dream of his wife, who may actually be a girl he knew in highschool.)

The first “In Dreams” is also like the first “Claire” in its ambiguity about names (the dreamer, named Charles probably, gives his name as Claire.)

The first Claire’s mention of “magic”… (like the magical dress of the second “Diner”).

“Happy Days”
Book 1, chapter 12; Book 2, chapter 1

Characters

1.12 a writer (unnamed), the guys on the corner by the candy store (unnamed)

2.1 Maureen, her boss and lover Blackie (aka Pierre), Blackie’s wife Janet, their daughter, Clara.

General Subject/ Plot

1.12: the biography of a writer, who seeks to downplay his privilege and accentuate his independence and wildness.

2.1: Long contemplated, Man finally leaves wife to be with mistress, after altercation involving book of matches and scarf.

Motifs

1.12 Idiom, film/ movies, candy store, Napoleon, guys on the corner, alcohol, writer, John Cusack

2.1 Infidelity, Jesus, Saturday, silk scarf, B. Altman’s (NYC), “Parisian Casino”/ Pierre, coffee,

Notes

The first “Happy Days” strongly corresponds to the second “Movies”, both being stories of a writer’s success.

In the former, the story is the sort that Horatio Alger tale which could occur only in movies; the latter involves a writer distorting the image of himself to make it more marketable — to make it seem more Horatio Alger-like.

He seems to want to make his life something movie-like, something made to appear in the movies.

Like some other chapters, the first “Happy Days” is concerned with its language (“in the parlance of…” “another quaint locution”), its mention of incest suggests the second “Born Again”, its mention of the Times, suggests the Daily News of the first “In the Diner”.

In the second “Happy Days” more of the story of the hat and scarf is filled out: the hat (probably a homburg) indicate the man’s pretension about his worth, which he can’t bear to have insulted or laughed at; the scarf indicates the presence of “another woman.”

Don’t have much of an idea as to why either of these is called Happy Days [Happy Days disambiguation]. What resonates with me most is the TV show by that name, which I recall having featured a Diner — “Al’s” –and a red-head “Ralph the Malph”. Various chapters mention happiness or unhappiness, for instance in the first “In the Bedroom” –“happy as a clam.”

Ad endum, Second Happy Days. — Pierre was such a good sport about everyone calling him Blackie, but why would have minded this? Was he black (another Napoleon type figure)? Was there something else black about him?

–The silk scarf Pierre can’t find strongly suggests the first In the bedroom in which the unnamed cheated on wife has accidentally found her husband’s scarf tucked among her underware (plausible that a silk scarf would be tucked among a woman’s silk or silk like undergarments, and doubly suggestive of offensive the scarf might be to her.

–Related to that, it’s interesting that the discussion, between Pierre and Maureen, about the location of his scarf, comes up as he’s reaching at her underpants (which, however, she’s wearing — which are not in her drawer). It’s these sorts of contrasts (underwear being reach for by a lover, underwear being searched through in a drawer) that I believe Sorrentinno wants to focus on, and not questions like the one raised in the following note, the essence of which is, is a single, coherent narrative told in this book?

–Is the Janet of the second Happy Days the unnamed cheated on wife of the first In The Bedroom? One can neither confirm or deny it. There are discrepancies certainly: in Happy Days (2) the man leaves the woman in In The Bedroom (1) the woman leaves the man. Still, the subjective third person narration always makes us wonder if two characters may have had conflicting interpretations of the same experience.

— Friday night and Saturday morning. For Blackie/ Pierre, the former indicates a moment of finality and decision, the latter, that a mistake may have been made. (We are elsewhere to think of Saturdays as being child visitation days for divorced fathers.)

“In the Diner”
Book 1, chapter 11; Book 2, chapter 23

Characters

1.11 three hip young men (two unnamed, one “Ray”), a 53-year old waitress (unnamed)

2.23 a man remembering/ imagining (unnamed), an unnamed mother, father and child.

General Subject/ Plot

1.11: three young men treat someone of lower social standing insultingly, after which one of them is suddenly shot.

2.23: A man at a diner doesn’t know whether he’s remembering or imagining this: a child’s desolation at the unraveling of his parent’s marriage (?).

Motifs

1.11 Daily News, Jesus/ Jesus Christ, diner, pink polyester uniform, white shoes, death by shooting.

2.23 Snow, “magical dress”, cheese danish (versus cheese cake of second In Dreams), navy blue overcoat, white scarf with polka dots, grey fedora, Worcestershire sauce, baloney sandwich.

Notes

We’re told, in a previous chapter, that Claire’s brother was shot outside a diner.

In the second “In Dreams”, where a diner is dreamt of, all three of the toughs are shot, not just the one.

In the second “In Dreams” one of the deadbeats displays a ketchup bottle through his pants. There is a ketchup bottle beside the Worcestershire sauce in the second “In the Diner”.

The second “In The Diner” involves questions of identity, as for instance, occurs in the first “Movies” (A person trying to establish something about the past becomes lost in selves, versions of selves.)

The magic dress in the second “In the Diner” brings to mind the one we just read, the first “A Familiar Woman”, a key to what is meant there perhaps.

The question arises, while reading A Strange Commonplace, to what extent is this autobiographical; it will seem that the second “In The Diner” also sort of asks that?

Maybe to be wondered about, how the two “In The Diners” relate to the second “In Dreams”. (For one thing, “In Dreams” seems an extreme version of the first in the diner: instead of a waitress being insulted she is raped and sodomized, and instead of one of those who insulted her getting killed, all three of them are.)

In the last few sentences of the second “In the Diner” the existence of the protagonist seems to toggle between that of a boy in the kitchen and that of a man in the diner –the familiar comforting personal space (boyhood, the mother, the kitchen, the past) with the hard impersonal space of the present, the diner, the father.

“A Familiar Woman”
Book 1, chapter 10; Book 2, chapter 15

Characters

1.10 a man and his wife or girlfriend, both unnamed.

2.15 Dentist/ Rapist (Ralph Greenleaf) his first patient victim (Claire Page) his second (another Claire, no last name), his wife (Inez) her lover (Marty)

General Subject/ Plot

1.10: a man confronts likenesses of the significant lady of his life outside of their shared home.

2.15: a dentist gets caught taking advantage of a patient under sedation, years later he finds himself in the same situation with a very similar woman.

Motifs

1.10 Clothing (gabardine, velvet, suede, shorts, flowered dress), alcohol, a literary work (Pierre in another one, the first In Dreams?).

2.15 Claire (two of them both widows both in “forties”), Greenleaf, rape, a nurse, widow, strawberry blond, infidelity, unhappy, murderous thoughts (like the first On the Roof)

Notes

The Sacred Fount. “Coincidence, as life proves over and over again, is so routine as to beggar comment.” (A statement from the 2nd…. Although it doesn’t go with the opening Williams quote, is there a sense in which coincidence, of which the book is replete of instances, is the “strange commonplace” referred to in the the book’s title? Also: are we to look on the fact that both Ralph the dentist and Bill the salesperson of the year have the last name Greenleaf as a coincidence or something else? In what sense is it a coincidence, if it is a coincidence? Would it be coicidental if a book had several character sharing the same name, and having similar life experience, which in fact had nothing to do with each other?)

The first of these is especially puzzling. Does the man have one vision of his lady when he’s in her physical presence and another when he’s outside of it? What does the woman’s clothing have to do with this vision? (It does seem that in a Strange Commonplace identity can be closely wrapped up in what one wears. One can be vulnerable, in undergarments, or invulnerable, in a suit, for instance. To change clothes is to change who one is.)

In the second, it’s notable that there are actually two sets of familiar women, the two Claire’s as well as the two nurses. Should maybe be considered how these mirror each other.

After the second, the next three stories in the second book all deal with rape (though in “The Jungle” it’s more a suggestion.) Notable — the first “On The Roof” precedes the first “A Familiar Woman” while the second “On The Roof” preceds the second “A Familiar Woman.”

“On the Roof”
Book 1, chapter 9; Book 2, chapter 16

Characters

1.9 Male Protagonist, senior credit investigator (unnamed), his wife (Estelle), her deadbeat friends (unnamed), but one of them a redhead.

2.16 Female protagonist (Janet), her husband (Al), black guy and red-headed who rape Janet (unnamed)

General Subject/ Plot

1.9: a professional man comes home to find his wife hanging out with her loathesome childhood friends on the roof.

2.16: a woman joins some men on a roof to smoke hash and they rape her.

Motifs

1.9 deadbeats, redhead, oxford grey suit and homburg (for which he’s laughed at, like first in the bedroom), other clothing, Jesus, alcohol, infidelity –the woman’s)

2.16 redhead, black professional, alcohol, rape, women’s undergarments (the bra in first ‘in dreams’), “Just for a Thrill,” Jesus, rain, apartment

Notes

In the first, a husabnd exits the cupola of the roof to find his wife in a compromising situation –in which she is complicit– with her deadbeat friends; in the second, a different husband exits the cupola on the roof soon to find his wife has been brutally raped and sodomized (not complicit).

This follows a pattern established by the preceding “In Dreams”: in the first “In Dreams” the wife’s promiscuousness exposes the husband to some awkardness and uncertainty; in the second “In Dreams”, a woman is brutally sodomized and raped.

[To state it otherwise: The first and second “On the Roof” repeat a pattern of the first and second “In Dreams” — in the first of each the woman is presented as a sort of liability to the man/ husband, because of her sexual availability; in the second of each, the woman is presented as sexually vulnerable, a victim.]

In the first “On The Roof” the wife seems to enjoy a party, which gets her in trouble with the husband. In the second, she doesn’t enjoy at all the party that her husband is so into himself, and this is what gets her in trouble.

In the first “On The Roof” like the second “In The Bedroom”, the wife laughs at the pretensions implied by the husband donning a homburg.

Each features a redhead, each refers to the banking industry, each has a husband stepping through the door of the cupola…

In general, it’s notable how much these short vignettes suggest about the life histories of their characters, and how the suggested life histories of one chapter will mingle with and refer to the suggested life histories of another.

“In Dreams”
Book 1, chapter 8; Book 2, chapter 11

Characters

1.8 Man (whose dream this is) (Charles? Claire?), woman who could be his wife, and a boy. Young black professional. Three jewish men in store, one a red head. Prostitute that looks like Meryl Streep.

2.11 Man (whose dream this is), a waitress of a diner and three wild youths (eating there), an old man (eating there), other staff of the diner, two policemen.

General Subject/ Plot

1.8: A man’s dream in which is suggested an uneasiness about minorities, money, the fidelity of his wife, maybe gentrification. It involves leaving his “borrowed or leased” apartment and getting separated from his wife and child in the process of going to Manhattan to eat.

2.11: Man dreams an experience at a diner, where three wild youths sexually assault an employee before getting killed themselves.

Motifs

1.8 Claire, Meryl Streep, Bomba the Jungle Boy, Pierre, grey suede gloves, clothing, young black professional (like “Napoleon”), redhead, apartment, infidelity, abortion? (“kid disappeared”)

2.11 diner, Jesus, rape, pale blue silk suit, abortion, nurse, deadbeats

Notes

The first “In Dreams” could be the article talked about in the second “Success”: “a dream in which a woman, the wife of the man who was dreaming, turned into Meryl Streep.”

A third person singular narrator in the first, a first person singular narrator in the second. In the first, the narrator seems highly agitated; in the second, the protagonist seems impassive, detached. The first involves masculine uncertainty about female sexuality, the second involves female victimization from a group of males. The second with a suggestion of metafiction (“‘I have expelled all illusion from this place.'”) the first with a suggestion of the literary (my book, Pierre). Both involve food (the diner, going out to eat), both contain the idea of hypnosis; in both, the antagonists to the dreamer, or the villains of the piece, are three men (old Jewish guys in the first, wild youths in the second). The second “In Dreams” corresponds strongly to the first “In the Diner” (echoed in particular is the disdain of the youths for the working person) — bottle of ketchup from the second “In the Diner”; another appearance of the television, another glimpse of contemporary religion in the diner of the dream; the first doesn’t appear to correspond as closely to other chapters of the book but features many familiar characters: the red head, the young black man, Meryl Streep, Bomba, the apartment, the philco radio, etc…

The re-occurrence of the number “25” is noted — the waitress of the second “In Dreams” seems to have aged by twenty-five years, “5625 Parkcrest West” is the address of the dreamer in the first “In Dreams” — Monica of the second “Movies” is 25 years old — etc.

“Pair of Deuces”
Book 1, chapter 7; Book 2, chapter 5

Characters

1.7 Protagonist, an old man (unnamed), his fellow card players and coinhabitants of what is probably a retirement facility (Warren, Ray, Blackie), problematic daughter-n-law (unnamed)

2.5 Jenny, lover of Ralph and husband of Bill; Inez, wife of Ralph and lover of Bill.

General Subject/ Plot

1.7: old man playing poker at senior facility trades in three cards in the hopes of getting a third deuce, with reflections.

2.5: Two couples (a pair of deuces) cheating on each other during the holiday season. A woman buys a christmas present for her husband with her lover, and have sex; her husband and her lover’s wife, who know of their spouse’s betrayal, are in the meantime also having sex.

Motifs

1.7 Borsalino, baseball caps, powder blue worsted suit, white sun dress, Jesus, Gun Hill Road, Ridge Meadow Manor,

2.5 Christ, Christmas, Santa Claus, infidelity, alcohol (scotch and water, gin), blue suede, San Francisco

Notes

The first “Pair of Deuces” resembles the first “Movies” in that in each a man, feeling something akin to nostalgia, realizes it’s something different from a simple desire to return to the past he craves; in this case, it’s oblivion, it’s to have never been born.

I think the first “Pair of Deuces” is the first time we see an old man as protagonist.

The second “Pair of Deuces” suggests the story told in the first “Another Story” — a woman off to get a gift for her boyfriend/ husband winds up in a hotel room with her boyfriend/ husband’s friend. Also like the first “Another Story”, it seems to occur in San Francisco (St. Francis Hotel).

Is the implication of the first “Pair of Deuces” that the old man wanted to improve on his “pair” (a man and wife) with a third of the same type (another woman) and so lost to Ray, who stuck with his low pair (remained faithful, despite the irritation)?

In both “Pair of Deuces”, the continuing theme of the inefficacy/ hippocracy/ commercialization of religion. In the second, the appearance of television (black and white — so this occurs a good bit in the past), which also plays a role in the story that precedes it, the second “Lovers.” — The shows are portrayed as antic and ridiculous.

“Movies”
Book 1, chapter 6; Book 2, chapter 12

Characters

1.6 Man in a somewhat nostalgic mood (unnamed), child of a broken home.

2.12 Hal/ Yossel, a writer; his mother (unnamed); his wife, Peggy; his seducer/ mistress, Monica Cunningham; Charles Cunningham (Monica’s father); (various other figures)

General Subject/ Plot

1.6: A man arrives at a movie theater he hasn’t been to in years and feels both nostalgic and too wise, at this point in his life, to be truly nostalgic.

2.12: a pastiche or parody of a hollywood movie of the life of a writer –a writer becomes rich and famous for his work; falls prey to a seductress and finds he cannot write; is brought together with his former loyal lover through tragedy; achieves a more substantial degree of fame and riches.

Motifs

1.6 The Alpine (?), movie stars, alcohol, broken marriage (doesn’t sort itself out), happy, adult son of broken marriage. Tarzan.

2.12 Alcohol, writing, broken marriage (sorts itself out), child son survives serious physical ailment.

Notes

In the first “Movies”, the character is standing outside the movies in real life, where nothing works out and its not even clear why it didn’t or who was to blame. In the second “Movies” the action is inside the movie: here there are problems but we have a clear sense of what they are and who the villain is and everything gets sorted out. In the first one, the unnamed son is the central figure while in the second it is the father, Hal. (The narrator in the first “Movies” could almost be the grown, real-life version of the son of the second “Movies”, Scotty.) (Could it be that in the second we see what movies are, and in the first, why people need movies to be like that?)

I think (1.6) is I think the 3rd story consecutively dealing with something long in the past (the previous story involved something forty-one years ago, this story involves something “over forty years ago”)…. We also know that the movies are where divorced fathers take their sons on Saturday Afternoons.

“Another Story”
Book 1, chapter 5; Book 2, chapter 3

Characters

1.5 A guy (unnamed), his friend (unnamed), girlfriend of the friend (Jenny)

2.3 Ray (who has been unfaithful to his wife and is seeking to allay a divorce by means of a letter), Clara (his wife), Maureen (their daughter), Katy (whom the letter is sent through), Janet (Ray’s mistress), Ralph (a friend of Ray’s), Anna (another mutual friend) Clara’s mother and father (unnamed), Connie Moran (whom Clara has sought out for legal counsel), Jack Walsh (Janet’s former boss), Bill Greenleaf (“Salesman of the Year” at Ray’s firm), Pastor Ingebretsen (priest Janet’s talk with.)

General Subject/ Plot

1.5: Story-telling. A man calls an old friend and, non-plussed by the way he receives the call, makes something up about their past –not the thing he’d intended to make up- which the man easily believes.

2.3: Infidelity. A man explains in a letter to his wife the reasons they should reconcile — it only happened the once, it was a human mistake committed under the influence, it is no reason to throw away eleven years of marriage.

Motifs

1.5 Jesus, blue suede jacket, Bomba the Jungle Boy, alcoholic friend, relationship from way back like in “lovers” etc., infidelity, Capwell’s, Los Angeles,

2.3 Letter from husband (like first “Another Story” and “Born Again” and “in the Bedroom…) Jesus, Happy as a clam (like first in the bedroom), alcohol, clothing, career advancement, salesman,

Notes

In the first “Another Story” the protagonist spontaneously creates a story of the past that was different from the one he’d intended to tell, the story of why their friendship had ended perhaps (though the caller too gets lost between the real past and his stories of it). In the second “Another Story” a cheating husband tells his wife a version of a story she’s undoubtedly heard before about how he was only unfaithful to her and one time and it didn’t mean very much and so on…. The first is a phone call between to men who’ve “fallen out of touch”, the second is a letter between a separated husband and wife (the friend tries to rattle the friend, the husband tries to calm the wife.) In the first, “Another” means “a different, a second”, in the second it indicates more of a repetition.

The second “Another Story” could almost be the letter of the first “In The Bedroom”: both include the phrase “happy as a clam.” Both mention Ralph, a friend of the husband. Both mention a woman named Janet, though in the first “In The Bedroom” she is the cousin of the wife, while in the second “In The Bedroom” she is the lover of the husband. (It is certainly possible that the lover of the husband in the first “In The Bedroom,” who is unnamed in this story, is also named Janet, but it seems unlikely Sorrentino would have us think so.)

A number of the chapters of A Strange Commonplace have this quality: there is nothing to prevent them from being a part of the same story line, but it seems unlikely. (Some chapters clearly couldn’t be part of the same story, some chapters clearly are, some chapters clearly fall somewhere in between.)

Instead of a story line or plot maybe the idea of a scatter plot graph is helpful. The real story is unknown and none of the chapters quite tell it –they are mere plots on the graph– while the story line is a sort of average of the plotted points, representative of a general drift or trend.

[…”The story was emerging into the eternal present of all stories, an insubstantial present, a chimera” –first Another Story.]

“Lovers”
Book 1, chapter 4; Book 2, chapter 4

Characters

1.4 narrator (unnamed); woman he has had a long relationship with (unnamed); her husband (known as “the lover”); Clara (whom “the lover”/ husband has an affair with); her brother (unnamed, shot outside a diner); Clara’s Uncle Ray (who beats up “the lover”); a young black man in the music business (unnamed)

2.4 Irene Greenleaf (whose had liason with the narrator), the narrator, a friend (unnamed), Bill (the former husband of Irene), Charlotte (the new wife of Bill), the three children of Bill and Charlotte (unnamed), the borther of Irene (unnamed)

General Subject/ Plot

1.4: A woman, while having remained with her husband, retains a bitter memory of his infidelity decades later, a bitter hatred for the other woman.

2.4: A woman, unable to get over the infidelity of her husband, prays years letter for his death and the death of her family and is startled it doesn’t come to pass.

Motifs

1.4 Diner, infidelity, broken marriage, “black man in the music business” (Napoleon of first “Success”), “Clara/ Claire” figures pregnancy doesn’t come to term (like in second “Born Again”) “she had permitted her hatred to ruin, utterly, what was left of her life” (first “Born Again”), Bay Ridge

2.4 “35 years ago” (just like 1.4), alcohol (whiskey sour, margarita), cigarettes/ ash tray, “for christ’s sake”, brother killed outside a place, unhappiness,

Notes

Both stories involve a man who’s known a woman for a long time who continues to dwell on and be made miserable by memories of her past marriage (which is also the case in the first “Born Again”).

A couple differences/ coincidences: in (1.4) the brother of the other woman is randomly shot outside a diner (the first “In The Diner”) while in (2.4) he’s the deadbeat gambler brother of the betrayed wife and killed in a stupid altercation over boxers. In (1.4) the other woman’s pregnancy doesn’t come to term, in (2.4) she has three kids. In (1.4) the husband and wife remain married but estranged and the narrator is thinking of asking the betrayed wife to live with him, in (2.4) the husband and wife have divorced and the narrator rebuffs the efforts of the betrayed wife to have a romantic or sexual attachment […] Perhaps the crucial difference is that in [1.4] the unfaithful husband’s lover dies whereas in [2.4] the couple continues to live and have three children as well … Also, the [2.4] is more revealing of names.

The first “Lovers” is like the second “Born Again” in featuring a beautiful woman name Clara/ Claire who his very beautiful and has a brother and dies young. However, in the second “Born Again” her brother is Ray while in the first “Lovers” her uncle is named Ray. The brother’s name in the first “Lovers” isn’t given but we are told in that story that his death in front of a diner (reminiscent of that told in the first “In the Diner”) is the occasion for her embarking in an affair with a married man. In the first “Born Again” the married man who had gotten Claire/ Clara pregnant accused the brother (who is a “dim bulb”, maybe like Joey in the second “In the Bedroom”) of being the father.

The first “Born Again” features a woman reflecting on events of 20, 25 years ago; the first “Lovers,” which directly follows the first “Born Again”, has a woman obsessed with events of forty years ago. And in the first “Another Story” which directly follows the first “Lovers” the elapsed time span involved is “41 years ago.” In the second “Lovers” the time lapse mentioned is “35 years ago.” In the second “Lovers” the brother figure is a relative of the betrayed wife — not of the husband’s lover– but he also is said to die, having been beaten to death outside “Papa Joe’s.”

The first “Lovers” alludes also to the first “Success”, and I see no reason why the first and second “Lovers”, and the first “Born Again” and first “Success” and “In the Diner” could not be all referring to the same story. At least, no contradictory information is leaping out at me. (Though the second “Born Again” seems to lead us to a different vein of stories.)

Finally —“sexual fling, an expression, I grant you, even more stupid than ‘brief romance'” another one of these style conscious asides, such as occurs in the first “Success” (“as the cant of the day momentarily had it”) and “Another Story” (“As the smartly descriptive phrase has it”). Although I don’t intend to keep track of these they do seem at least as “symbolic” if that’s the word, “resonate”, as the other repetitions of the work. Perhaps they indicate that the narrator of the stories in which they occur (as opposed to the ones in which they do not) is a writer?

“Born Again”
Book 1, chapter 3; Book 2, chapter 13

Characters

1.3 “Claudia” an embittered estranged wife of Warren, an unnamed daughter.

2.13 Ralph (who’s experience a moral rebirth at marriage), Inez (his wife), Claire (an old friend of Inez whom Ralph has an affair with and impregnates), Ray (brother of Claire), Bill (lover of Inez)

General Subject/ Plot

1.3: An embittered woman angrily reflects on how her ex-husband has used Christianity to absolve himself of past crimes.

2.13: Ralph imagines he’s been “born again” morally through marrying Inez, but his behavior soon becomes very shabby and selfish.

Motifs

1.3 Lingerie and dresser (first “in the bedroom”), white chemise, Jesus, a letter, Bomba (the jungle boy)

2.13 a dim bulb, Jesus, pregnancy/ still birth, rape (second “in the bedroom”), black and white tiles of bathroom floor, San Francisco, Clothes, Groucho Marx, Land of Heart’s Desire

Notes

“somewhat fragmentary couple, perhaps sketchy is a better descriptive.” … Warren, born again, excuses himself for his moral failings in a past marriage but is “the fake recipient of a fake grace.” Ralph feels morally born again by marriage, but it’s an illusion — he’s inescapably unfaithful… The Paris location of 1.3 is unusual — “Claudia” for Claire? […]

Notable that Jesus is mentioned in quite a few of these stories, but almost always as an empty expression, as swearing. In both the “Born Again” stories, a deep cynicism toward the idea that people may change who they are. In the second “Born Again” Clara’s pregnancy results in a “stillborn” — which echoes what happens in the first “Lovers”.

“Eight months” seems the gestation period for Ralph’s old ways to be “reborn.”

In 2.13 Ralph’s rape of Claire in a bathroom, and her incestuous relationship with Ray, are here taken as spurious allegations, elsewhere they are portrayed as fact.

“Success”
Book 1, chapter 2; Book 2, chapter 8

Characters

1.2 Napoleon (black “entertainment consultant”), Claire (his wife), a writer of memoirs made recently famous (unnamed)

2.8 Carson (married man), His also married co-worker with whom he arranges a date (unnamed). [Also mentioned: Sigmund Freud and Meryl Streep]

General Subject/ Plot

1.2: An affair between a memoirist and the wife of an old drug dealer now entertainment professional ends when the woman confides she has myeloma.

2.8: A triste between two married coworkers begins over their lunch break, after one has told the other about a dream he’s read about.

Motifs

1.2 Napoleon, Claire, suit, white shirt, white wine, Chelsea/ Williamsburg, Gitanes, writer/ memoirist, lovers, Los Angeles.

2.8 In Dreams, Meryl Streep, White blouse, business suit, Jesus. Freud (The Interpretation of Dreams),

Notes

In (1.2) the unnamed memoirist, flush with career success, is emotionally callow or made to feel so, and the chapter ends with his career being stalled in L.A.; in (2.8) Carson achieves a dubious romantic success, initiating an affair with an office colleague in spite of their both being married … Can’t quite unpack what is going on in the written-of dream in (2.8). But it seems that, throughout A Strange Commonplace, there are dreams, written of dreams, and here, a dream that is spoken of having been written about.

Are these to be understood as allegories on success (such as, “the ambition to success is shallow and the results of it fleeting and not one hoped and the successful person is not who you’d like him to be”)? In general, what do the chapter headings tell us about the chapters? Is it a more structural than thematic purpose they serve, bringing chapters together which are otherwise not clearly related? They sometimes too seem to draw attention to an aspect of the story that is not the most descriptive or central important.

“In the Bedroom”
Book 1, chapter 1; Book 2, chapter 18

Characters

1.1: wife and mother (unnamed); her unfaithful husband (unnamed); Janet (wife’s cousin); Ralph (whom the husband is staying with.)

2.18 wife and mother (Anna); her unfaithful husband (Jack); their “slow” child (Joey); Jack’s mistress (Jenny); their neighbors (unnamed).

General Subject/ Plot

1.1: Broken marriage. Straying husband, in letter on kitchen table, asks to be taken back, which the wife views with scorn.

2.18: Broken marriage, domestic violence. Overworked wife of straying husband snaps when he’s late for dinner again and leaves mentally ill child at home alone to go to a bar. Husband, who can’t believe this when he gets back, beats and rapes her.

Motifs

1.1 whiskey; Homburg, Fedora; Happy; white silk scarf with blue polka dots; bottle of worcsteshire sauce; Gerritsen Ave/ *.

2.18 Cold supper; whiskey; 7 and 7; Chesterfields; Jesus; green dress; Nassau country, East Flatbush, Canarsie, Chinatown; teapot

Notes

In both a discussion of the husband’s career prospects, in (1.1) going nowhere, in (2.18) may be improving (after having gone nowhere for a while.)… In the bedroom, the wife finds something of her husband’s she once liked and steps on it; in the bedroom, the husband (who hasn’t touched his wife in the bedroom for sometime) rapes her after he’s beaten her (aroused once she’s been degraded)… The first in the bedroom has a family of three with a daughter, the second with a son.

The Second installment is notable for being a continuation of the first ‘Cold Supper’ –these could easily be two parts of the same episode– which is rare for the book. Both the first “in The Bedroom” and the first “cold supper” include the bottle of Worcestershire sauce.

Floruit
Heptarchy
Mercia Rhodopis
Parian Chronicle Moonlight tower
Charition mimebatik, stew, easement
concretion (bowling ball beach pict) ,
Barents, Kara and Laptev seas,,
Bharatiya Janata Party Sangh
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segundo mandato, el rumbo, dos tercios, padecer, ambiental

*
« Je refuse cette nomination, car je ne pense pas que ce soit le rôle d’un gouvernement de décider qui est honorable », a-t-il expliqué, ajoutant que l’Etat « ferait bien de se consacrer à la relance de la croissance en France et en Europe » plutôt que de distribuer ces distinctions. [Monde]

du livre à succès, se consacrer, à la relance “ à 1,5 million d’exemplaires” “très fortes ventes”
*
Aegeus, after whom the Aegean *