Topical Guide 811
Mark Dorset
Pleasure, from Memory
At Home with the Glynns, Chapter 10:
My mother […] noticed her parents, my grandparents, Gumma and Guppa, standing a bit apart from the crowd, watching the fire with everyone else, but wearing the queerest smiles, as if something in the fire brought them pleasure.
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 7:
The crowd inside the ballroom called for an encore of “Lake Serenity Serenade” and got it, and during the encore Herb and Lorna made love. It was, compared to what either had tasted so far, a feast. All the senses were invited, and there was no reason this time to leave the mind, the heart, or the imagination out of the fun; there was something for all of them — some rocking rowboat, rocking, rocking, beneath their tentative caresses, balsam scenting the air, moaning saxophones, Lorna leaning over Herb, running her hands over his chest, imagining modeling him in clay, tugging, pushing, kneading at his skin as if it were clay, pushing him backward and pulling his pants down, laughing, the rowboat rocking, rocking, rocking, whooops, rocking, grabbing for the gunwales, ouch, ooh, a splinter, thin sliver in the palm of Lorna’s hand, Herb’s slow, cautious extraction, drawing the sliver out so slowly that the sweet pain made Lorna run her hand between her legs, salty taste of Lorna’s blood, fluttering tickle of Herb’s tongue in Lorna’s palm, Lorna stretching out, her slow undressing, moonlight turning her to ivory, Herb imagining her in ivory, articulated here, here, here, here, wavelets lapping the sides of the boat, distant voices, laughter, a call, a shriek, stars twinkling in the night sky and bouncing in the water, Lorna’s foot dangling in the water, Lorna twisting around and settling onto Herb, wiggling to feel Herb in her, the long curved edges of the gunwales pressed into Herb’s calves, his feet dangling in the water, the wavelets tickling the soles of his feet, and at the moment of his coming the tickling becoming too much to bear, his laughing, laughing, laughing, their collapsing into the boat like fish landed after a struggle, flopping over the seats, bruising themselves on the edges and corners and oarlocks, and laughing, laughing, and subsiding, and lying with their arms around each other, just looking out over the water, the flickering water, silver with moonlight, but now, oddly, gold here and there, and even red, and —
Lorna lifted herself on one elbow and looked back toward the ballroom. It was in flames. They hurried into their clothes and began rowing back, sitting side by side, pulling at the oars, keeping their course by keeping their fire-formed shadows in the boat, and Lorna, who was so giddy with the promise of the future they had tasted that she couldn’t resist her happiness, even though she worried about the fire, turned toward Herb and asked, “You don’t think we did it, do you?”
Allusion, Quotation
At Home with the Glynns, Chapter 10:
“Does it mean any of those things?” Mr. Locke asked. “Does it mean anything?” […] “No,” said Mr. Locke, answering his own question. “It means nothing, nothing at all. The cosmos doesn’t work that way. It sends us no signs. It has no meaning. It sweeps along, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
There are many good reasons to dislike—even despise—Mr. Locke, but I can’t find fault with his philosophy. He seems to take his cues from Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, and he throws in a little Shakespeare, and that’s okay with me.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
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You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.