“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.
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