Thinking About "The Long Goodbye"

"This sturdy belief system [that if one just tries hard enough, things will work out] has a sidecar in which superstition rides."

That's a sentence I like very much even if motorcycles with sidecars seem to be a rarity these days.

In fact, it may be the most memorable single sentence in "The Long Goodbye," a memoir poet Megan O'Rourke wrote about prolonged grief during and in the wake of her mother's death from cancer at age 55. I read the book because I liked a poem O'Rourke wrote that was recently published in The New York Times  Sunday Magazine.  In an earlier post, I wrote about the poem ("Self-Portrait as Myself") because it relates to my novella "Gina/Diane."

A Poem Pertinent to "Gina/Diane"

The other day, I came across a poem in the New York Times Sunday Magazine  entitled "Self-Portrait as Myself," which you can read by clicking on that title.

I found this particularly poignant because the sentiments expressed by the author, Meghan O'Rourke, are pertinent to my novella "Gina/Diane," which can be found in print at The Book Patch or as an e-book at Amazon.

I also like the manner in which the poem promotes additional thoughts.

For instance, one line talks in terms of "casting a lawyer of snow over our losses." This rather vividly brings to mind Gretta's sorrow and Gabriel's sense of inadequacy at the conclusion of James Joyce's story, "The Dead."

Later, the poem talks of "the propeller planes humming past."  One of the joys of sitting on our roof deck in the summer here in Seattle is watching float planes on their way to or from Lake Union. These are mostly De Havilland "Beavers," the last of which was built in 1967. Fortunately, they appear likely to keep flying more or less indefinitely.