Rereading "V."--I

I had forgotten how dense and allusive V. is--it's one thing to remember a novel as being so, another to experience it all over again.

And I'd forgotten how funny and superbly written it is, probably because the last time I read it was when I taught it, and I spent most of the class time trying to explain V.'s layers of meaning. Explaining humor is difficult at best: I remember in my first college English class the professor looking out the window (he rarely looked at us) and laughing over some literary joke only he got the point of. One guy in the front of the room also joined in the laughter, even though he had to admit to ignorance later when we asked him what the hell he was laughing about.

Humor? Pig Bodine asking about Sartre's ideas of authenticity of character.

Well, you had to be there.

As a musical footnote, here's a clip from YouTube of Ornette Coleman, who, according to one critic, is the model for McClintic Sphere (although I don't think his alto sax is ivory).